ABSTRACT
For many, the notion of “quantifying urban form” will sound oxymoronic. Urban form conjures visual images of cities, experiences, feelings, memories of place, thoughts and intellectual constructs anchored in the realm of the arts and the humanities. The quantification of urban form seems farfetched, drawing from the distinct world of the accountant or perhaps the scientist. Consider, however, Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov’s (1899-1977) advice: “A writer should have the precision of a poet, and the imagination of a scientist.” This turns the world of thinking upside down, seemingly assigning the power of mastering quantity to the poet, and that of quality to the scientist. It challenges the preconceptions that the (qualitative) words used by the poet are imaginative, and that the (quantitative) formulas of the scientist are precise. It also permeates the boundaries established by those who think precision is only found in numbers and, conversely, imagination is expressed only with words.
