ABSTRACT
The urban field views an enlargement of the space for urban living that extends far beyond the boundaries of existing metropolitan areas–defined primarily in terms of commuting to a central city of "metropolitan" size–into the open landscape of the periphery. This change to a larger scale of urban life is already underway, encouraged by changes in technology, economics, and preferred social behaviour. Eventually the urban field may even come to be acknowledged as a community of shared interests, although these interests may be more strongly oriented to specific functions than to area. The urban field of the future, however, will be a far less focused region than today's metropolitan area. The present dominance of the metropolitan core will become attenuated as economic activities are decentralized to smaller cities within the field or into the open country, but because proximity will continue to account for a good deal of local interaction, the urban field will be a coherent region.
