ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to develop a simple taxonomy of urban forms, including the main block types. This helps to define the basic block types that are in common use, and hints at variants or hybrid forms that have emerged, or might yet emerge. The book focuses on a kind of urban block known to designers and urban morphologists as the ‘perimeter block’: a type that has dominated urban development for millennia. The perimeter block has a long but chequered history: it has fallen in and out of favour over time for a variety of reasons. But there are many and varied forms the perimeter block can take, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and the perimeter block itself is neither a reliable indicator of urban quality nor is it appropriate to every urban or suburban condition.
