ABSTRACT
In 1957, the economist Colin Clark published a paper, which was rightly destined to become a classic in the urban literature: it was called ‘Transport: Maker and Breaker of Cities’. He argued that — that least since the first industrial revolution, two hundred years ago — ago growth of cities had been shaped by the development of their transport facilities. But these in turn were dependent on the evolution of transport technologies. For each successive development of the technology, there was a corresponding kind of city. However, the relationship was more complex than that: it was a mutual one, in which the transport system shaped the growth of the city, but on the other hand the previous growth of the city shaped and in particular constrained the transport alternatives that were available. So the pattern of activities and land uses in the city, and the transport system, existed in some kind of symbiotic relationship. But these, Clark argued, could get out of step. In fact, over the past 150 years cities worldwide have experienced four successive crises of transport technology and urban form, of which the fourth is still in progress.
