Cities and Regions: Problems and Potentials

The central concern is with the nature of cities and regions and the vagueness that appears to have enveloped each of these terms. Consideration is initially given to the ‘built city’ and how this perspective on the city may be extended in several ways. There follows an examination of the region, with a brief exploration of the classification proposed by Meyer, involving homogeneous, nodal, and policy regions. Attention then turns to two distinctive regional forms (the city-region and the polycentric urban region), each of which has recently become the focus of interest. The two regional forms are examined in terms of spatial structure and interaction patterns, with attention given to particular aspects of economic development. Finally, there is a discussion of the problems of identifying regional forms and the difficulties of interpretation.