THE URBAN FIELD

Abstract

The inherited form of the city no longer corresponds to reality. The spatial structure of contemporary American civilization consists of metropolitan core regions and the intermetropolitan peripheries. The former have achieved very high levels of economic and cultural development at the expense of the latter, leaving the periphery in a decadent state. Current and projected trends in technology and tastes suggest that a new element of spatial order is coming into being—the urban field—which will unify both core and periphery within a single matrix. The implications of the urban field for living patterns and for planning are discussed.