The Evolving Metropolis: Studies of Community, Neighborhood, and Street Form at the Urban Edge

Abstract

This paper examines the form of the evolving metropolitan fringe by means of comparative case studies of fringe development in the San Francisco Bay area at three scales —the community, the neighborhood, and the street and house lot. The study identifies underlying organizing principles and spatial typologies and analyzes patterns of growth, land use, and street layouts for several periods of suburban development beginning early in the twentieth century and continuing into the 1990s. As the scale of development has grown, there has been a parallel growth of self-contained, single-use developments and an erosion of the public street framework. This shift has serious implications for the character, convenience, and adaptability of new urban environments.