The Naming of Parts: Integrating Urban Difference

Abstract

As with Anomalocaris, urbanism is one label for many phenomena. However, the varied phenomena of urbanism are defined locally yet talked about universally, while local traditions are entitled to their own definitions. What we have is immense variety and a risk that the category will become so malleable that it loses integration or has lost meaning and interpretative value. To integrate a consistent analytic approach to the varied forms of settlement which are included in the category ‘urban’ and allow different but complementary questions to be asked about their variety, we need to recognize them as representatives of different trajectories which can be comprehended in relation to each other within a single frame of reference - the interaction and communication constraints which affect the communities in all settlements.