7
7 Built systems, built areas, and whole regions
whole regions
Following the preceding chapter on nature, food and water, perhaps surprisingly
wenow turn to built areas to learn about natural systems and their human uses
in an urban region. Consider two diplomats attempting to negotiate a treaty.
If wise, each spends considerable time in advance learning about the other’s
perspectives and concerns. With those dual insights, agreement is more likely
and the product should be more solidly constructed. In the present case, we
must understand nature in built areas, and how built systems and built areas
affect their surroundings.
Built systems are basically for the transport of people and goods. Radial high-
ways, ring highways, commuter-rail lines, airports, shipping/ferry ports, and
transportation corridors to ports and airports in urban regions are the emphasis
here. In contrast, built areas are mainly for locating people and their activities
on land. Here we focus on the metropolitan area, satellite cities, towns, certain
small sites, strip development, and adjacent land covers. Evidence of regional
planning is also highlighted.
Several attributes relate to whole urban regions. Those presented include the
context of the metropolitan area, border lengths of various built-area types,
other major political/administrative units in the region, and the effect of other
major cities surrounding an urban region.
Interactions of an urban region with other regions, especially the surround-
ing regions, are usually quite significant. Effects may cover essentially the whole
urban region, the metro area or city, a particular land-cover type, or specific sites
or types of sites. This subject is explored in more depth in Chapter11.
Because the intermixing and arrangement of built areas and greenspaces is so
important for natural systems and their uses, we begin this chapter by exploring