ABSTRACT
There is nothing new in our concern for the rural-urban fringe: as Thomas points out, it has always been with us and is, quite obviously, an integral part of any urban system. Morphological studies of cities carried out in the 1920s reflected some early concern for the edge (Burgess, 1968 [1925]; Douglass, 1925), especially in the United States where increased car use and the development of freeways seemed set to obliterate any notion of a definable edge. In post-war Britain, a call for urban containment, delivered eventually in the form of statutory green belts, led to a paradox: an acknowledgement of the importance of fringes, but also a belief that these extraneous areas required relatively little positive planning. The nature of edges – in Britain at least – became assumed, but undefined. Green belt designation gave them a function, and seemed to put paid to any further debate over their future use or development.
