ABSTRACT
While all cities are alike in many ways, no two cities are exactly the same. The diversity of city histories, environmental and geographic contexts, and the variety of urban forms and conditions within cities offer rich opportunities for study using a comparative approach. The comparative approach itself can take many forms, including comparisons between sites within a city, comparisons between cities, comparisons across time and space, and even between taxonomic groups. This chapter examines the different types of comparative approaches that have been performed to date, provides indications of the types of knowledge that can be generated by each approach, and then concludes with some simple steps to consider when setting up a successful comparative study. Along the way, the chapter also takes a short detour to unpack the concept of gradients, as this is a critical theory that sits behind the comparative approach.
