ABSTRACT
Landforms are important to designers because they often place substantial limitations on the location, intensity, and character of urban development. Mankind also makes significant impacts on landforms through actions such as draining lakes and marsh areas, flooding lowland areas, massive grading operations, and diverting rivers. Landforms are usually the result of the interactions of various natural physical processes with the surface of the earth. While it is true that any terrain can be made buildable for urban development, the economic cost of doing so in some areas may make it prohibitively expensive, to say nothing of the environmental costs. Many city planners acknowledge that the forms of most cities are strongly influenced by economic considerations. At the same time, they also acknowledge that economic considerations are often strongly influenced by the character of local landforms. The location of rail lines, like the location of canals, has to observe the restrictions imposed by local landforms.
