ancient cities

especially to the early work of Otto Schlüter and
the German morphogenetic research tradition.
Schlüter’s writings presented a morphological
analysis of settlement and cultural landscapes
(Kulturlandschaft) as the counterpart to geomorphology
in physical geography and supported, at
the same time, the strong tradition of German
landscape research. The urban landscape
(Stadtlandschaft) was one of the major research
topics in German universities in the early twentieth
century. It was primarily a descriptive research
including comprehensive classifications of the
sites, town plans, and building types of German
towns. Using evidence of the size and shape of
plots of land and the layout of streets, this early
morphogenetic research aimed to classify urban
areas according to their phases of growth; even the
historical periods of town planning and sociocultural
ideals were not a vital part of the research.
Besides its presence in German-speaking countries
in Central Europe, the majority of research in
urban morphology has come from Great Britain
and North America. In the English-speaking world,
German émigré M. R. G. Conzen laid the foundations
for urban morphogenetics and the Conzenian
school of thought. Conzen’s major work in the
English language was his Alnwick study (first published
in 1960), in which he introduced a conceptual
and cartographic analysis of the town plan. In
this study, he developed a framework of principles
for urban morphology. Individual plots were the
fundamental units of his town plan analysis, along
with the detailed cartographic analysis connecting
planning documents with field surveys. Conzen’s
significant contribution was the conceptualization
of townscapes and of the way in which urban
forms evolve. This was important for the future
development of urban morphological research in
which morphogenesis refers to the processes that
create and reshape the physical fabric of the city.
Over time, physical qualities of the urban environment
change, not only as new urban fabric is
added but also as existing fabric is modified.
American urban morphology had itself been
characterized by two different perspectives, one
dealing with cultural aspects, especially in rural
settlements, and the other one with socioeconomic
aspects emphasizing the changing patterns of
urban land use. The latter of these perspectives had
a great impact on the research of city structure and
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connected the concentric zone model of Ernest
Burgess (1925), the sector model of Homer Hoyt
(1939), and the multiple-nuclei model of Chauncey
Harris and Edward Ullman (1945) to urban
morphology. Its concern was the socioeconomic
perspective of land-use patterns and not so much
the historicogeographical view of town plan and
building form.
The development of urban morphological studies
has been strongly influenced by Conzen’s tripartite
division of the townscape into town plan,
building forms, and land use. Approaches that
have focused on the dynamics of urban structure
have shown an important link between Conzenian
town plan analysis and cyclical land-use patterns.
In early urban morphological studies the concept
of fringe belt was used to describe the cyclical
movement in the outward extension of the built-up
area. As part of the development of the internal
structure of the city, fringe belts tend to be used
initially for functions requiring large sites and having
little or no need for accessibility to the commercial
core (like public park, sports fields, gardens,
cemeteries, industrial sites, and public utilities). In
many cities, especially in continental Europe, the
physical character of fringe belts can also be a result
of the military defenses where early fortification
zones are now greenbelts surrounding the city.
The fringe belt concept was taken up more
widely in the 1970s. A series of papers by J. W. R.
Whitehand developed some of the implications of
Conzenian principles. In particular, Whitehand
demonstrated the links between building cycles
and the fringe belt concept. He argued that the
initial attempt to develop links between rent theory
and cycles of urban growth was only indirectly
concerned with fringe belts. Concentrating on the
spatial pattern of land uses at the urban fringe, he
focused attention on the broad, heterogeneous
category of institutional land uses that had been
largely ignored by land economists. Whitehand
sees that in urban development, the repeated cycles
of booms and slumps are likely to result in a series
of alternating zones in a city’s structure, characterized
by different proportions of institutions and
housing. Institutions originally located at some
distance from the edge of the built-up area may be
surrounded by new housing areas by the end of
housing boom. Originally these areas have not
been of interest to house builders. After Whitehand