Aspects of urban form: with particular reference to the Wellington Metropolitan Region

Abstract

It has been my aim in this thesis to build up a picture of urban form around a series of maps and diagrams. Each aspect of form analysed was approached cartographically and throughout the work the text has been derived from the illustrative material. I am aware that in doing this that certain of the complex issues of city planning have been simplified and that in order to touch on some of these issues I have taken a liberal view of what might be considered geography. Urban studies are in their infancy in this country and the reservoir of experience and data is limited: at this stage of research it is difficult not to simplify at some point. I do not, however, think that it is necessary to excuse a liberal interpretation of what geography is. A geographer must constantly be applying his traditional skills to current problems and no geographer mapping the distribution of the major urban concentrations of buildings and people and the transport network that serves them can be unaware of the host of social, economic and aesethetic (particularly the last) considerations out of which the patterns of distribution have grown. Where I have, in this work, been conscious of these factors I have not hesitated to discuss them.