ABSTRACT
Jean Gottmann was an early practitioner of city-region relational study and interpretation. He was explicit in identifying freshly and creatively relationalities of space, time, history, political geography and organizations, and resulting patterns of human behavior. For example, in elaborating on the white-collar revolution and the white-collar workers of the US northeastern megalopolis, he wrote, “their main work consists in relations with other people in the office or outside it, rather than in the operation of machines or the handling of materials” (Gottmann 1961: 627). He used metaphor effectively to convey the nuances and subtleties of these complex and new relational concepts. A selection of such relational concepts and metaphors is listed below.
