Footprint : Metropolitan Form - Call for Papers

The fifth issue of Footprint wants to investigate the question of metropolitan form. The necessity to focus on the scale of metropolitan areas is manifest as this is the dominant scale of contemporary global life. The process of urbanisation and the size of urban agglomerations have dramatically increased since the last decades. These dynamics alone demand radically changed thinking about internal spatial organisation and form of urban regions. Yet, scholarly focus at the regional level has shifted away from spatial thinking of overall form towards issues of governance, socio-economic statistics, and global networks. While these approaches provide insight into contemporary conditions, lost in translation is the question of metropolitan form: what are the characteristics of its spatio-physical structures? What are its distinguishable elements? And what are the factors that determine the transformation of form through time? By addressing the question of metropolitan form we try to extrapolate (scale-up) the research notions and methods of ‘urban morphology’ from the ‘urban’ to the ‘regional’ scale.

The form of metropolitan areas is the result of different combinations of such matters as built structures, infrastructure networks as well as non-built areas like parks, fields and ‘natural’ systems. The ‘overall’ form of metropolitan areas is hardly ever designed as a totality: it is rather the result of unplanned and uncoordinated, sequential operations and interventions. Any current metropolitan configuration therefore is the product of past arrangements and has a multi-scalar character.

We welcome contributions from different disciplines (geography, planning, history, architecture, urbanism or landscape design etc.) interested and involved in the study of form or spatial configuration of metropolitan areas. Papers could address topics ranging from comparative studies of metropolitan areas or the dynamics of formation and transformation to studies addressing the interaction of different levels of scale.

The fifth Footprint issue will be published in October 2009. Authors interested in submitting a contribution are requested to submit an abstract of max 500 words to the editors before 20 March 2009. The deadline for full paper submissions is 20 May 2009. After initial review by the editors, suitable papers will be submitted for peer-review. For abstract/paper submissions and all other correspondence, please contact the editors François Claessens and Anne Vernez Moudon, e-mail f.claessens[at]bk.tudelft.nl (replace the [at] with @).