ABSTRACT
During the last 20 years urban studies have eschewed the task of creating general i zations capable of linking the morphologies of urban settlements to measures of their socio economic functioning. Disenchantment with the metaphor of cities as spatial mosaics, and with classic location theory, has in large part been attributable to difficulties in measuring and manipulating geographical objects, problems in linking spatial form to social process, and constraints upon integration of diverse data sets with different data structures (Masser and Blakemore, 1 99 1 ) . These conditions are , however, rapidly chang ing. Continued and cumulative developments in geographic information-handling tech nologies and the emergence of rich sources of digital data unavailable hitherto have taken place during the last decade. The changes in the morphology of cities and of settlement distributions have been equally dramatic during this same period, and there is now a sense that we are entering a period of urban change more profound than any since the innovation of the industrial city (Castells , 1 996). Tangible changes in built form caused by the demise of strict retail hierarchies, new movement patterns caused by changes in the labour market, and increased household fission giving rise to new and different demands for housing are all contributing to urban change. This i s making it ever more essential that we understand the detailed interactions between built form and human activity, and their effects upon the structuring of cities and city systems.
