ABSTRACT
Of all the attributes associated with the city, its physical presence exerts a significant influence on us. The form or shape of the city, known as its morphology, can be seen as the tangible outcome of a complex mix of socio-economic forces and the ideas and intentions of groups and individuals acting both from within and outside a city. In his textbook The Study of Urban Geography, first published in 1972, Harold Carter located his chapter considering urban form towards the end of the book, arguing that the reader needs to have engaged with the rest of the subject matter of urban geographical study in order to understand the complexity of urban form. Yet, its consideration at the end, rather than the beginning, of Carter’s book was perhaps also a reflection of the lack of centrality of studies of urban form to mainstream urban geography at the time he was writing. Since then, the examination of urban form has moved more centre stage in urban
geographical research, and urban theory has begun to pay more attention to the ‘materiality’ of the city (Lees 2002; Hubbard 2006). We would therefore contend that consideration of urban form provides an important introductory context for urban geographical study.
