Urban Regions : Ecology and Planning Beyond the City

288 Gathering the pieces

degraded stream networks, and polluted groundwater for wells. Indeed over time

thering road frequently gets increasingly absorbed by a growing metropolitan

area.

In summary, the metro area and urban-region ring category, like the cate-

gories for riverside cities and coastal cities, provides important insight into the

structure, functioning, and potential planning of urban regions. The donut’s

two inner-edge-and-hole indicators are the form of the inner edge of the urban-

region ring, plus the relative size of the metro area and urban-region ring. These

are illustrated as follows:

Large metro area and narrow urban-region ring.Philadelphia, Chicago

Small metro area and wide urban-region ring.Abeche, East London, Erzurum

Compact metro area and wide urban-region ring.Bucharest, Winnipeg

(Canada), Edmonton

Metro area and urban-region ring interlinked by major greenspace coves and

built lobes. Moscow, Stockholm, Brasilia, Santiago, Kuala Lumpur

Diffuse border between metro area and urban-region ring.Atlanta, Milan

(Italy), San Antonio (USA), Washington, San Jose (Costa Rica)

Metro area delimited by protected greenspace of urban-region ring. London,

Portland

Other diverse types of urban regions

Using the same approach and logic as for the preceding three urban-

region categories, the reader can readily learn much about the diverse urban-

region types following. In fact, the patterns that emerge in this whole section on

settings and forms of urban regions are easily gathered together to understand

and creatively plan regions:

Prominent volcano providing aesthetics and recreation (and air pollution).

Naples, Kagoshima, Kayseri (Turkey), San Jose (Costa Rica),

Sapporo, Mexico City

Metro area adjacenttomountainrange.Florence (Italy), Kobe (Japan), Denver

(USA), Santiago, Sapporo, Valencia (Venezuela), Calgary (Canada)

City ringed by mountains.Guatemala City, Grenoble (France), Ulaanbaatar

City on a prominent environmental gradient. Madrid, Nairobi, Jabalpur

(India), Kuala Lumpur

Metro area ringed by a natural vegetation matrix.Iquitos, Tehran, Jodhpur

(India), Abeche

Metro area ringed by a cropland matrix. London, Nantes, Bangkok, Indi-

anapolis (USA)