The concept of the morphological region: developments and prospects

Abstract

Over recent decades, the historico-geographical approach has been established as one of the main morphological frameworks to describe, explain, and prescribe the physical form of cities and to understand how this form is continuously shaped by different agents and processes over time. Within this approach the concept of morphological region – and the method of morphological regionalization – stands as one of the most important in recognizing the historico-geographical structure of the urban landscape. While the relevance of the concept has been demonstrated in a number of applications in different geographical and cultural settings, this paper identifies and addresses some major challenges that the concept has been facing. In particular, it argues for a stronger linkage between each regionalization and the historico-geographical body of knowledge, for clearer usage of language and terminology in each application to facilitate the shared construction of a more robust method, and for a more explicit and systematic definition of procedural options and steps.