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(712) 
town tends to be typical of apartment houses in another part of town, that 
suburban residential areas in Boston, Washington or Memphis will have 
common relationships. 
It becomes evident that statistical data can be related to specific 
functional and structural types. When detailed study is made of a sample area 
a system of keys may be established whereby similar data can be obtained 
quickly by photo study of larger areas and translated into statistical infor- 
mation. 
In papers published in Photogrammetric Engineering in July 1951 and 
July 1952 I outlined some of the research methods involved in the establish- 
ment of urban area keys and I will not dwell upon that aspect of the subject. 
However, let us examine some of the basic concepts of the urban area to 
define the nature of the problems which might be answered from the photo- 
graph once the functional and structural patterns of a city have been delineated. 
These basic urban concepts are presented as a series of statements which 
I trust you will accept, with just a brief explanation, due to lack of time, 
although in all justice many of these require considerable amplification. 
These concepts are as follows: 
1. An urban area is an entity which bears specific relationships to some 
small or large geographic, economic, or political region. Within that area, a 
city is a concentration of population, trade, manufacture, communication, 
culture or administration. The goods produced and services performed as well 
as the shelter which the city provides for its population, all form a structural 
pattern in the aerial photograph which can be studied and compared with 
other urban areas. 
2. Urban areas are ecologically divisible into characteristic types, repre- 
senting adaptation to or development from particular physical features. Cities 
may be port cities, centers of mining or agriculture, beach resorts or many 
others as a result of some feature in the local terrain. 
3. Urban areas represent different stages in cultural and economic 
evolution within a given region. They may have large manufacturing indus- 
tries, well developed modern communication facilities and urban utilities, or 
they may lack many of these modern features. 
4. Urban areas have life cycles and attain different stages of growth. 
There is a constant need to adjust the distribution and supply of essential 
services as the city grows in population and complexity of function. 
5. Urban areas are organic entities composed of different parts which 
perform specific single or multiple functions. We speak freely of business 
districts, residential sections or port, industrial and recreation areas. 
6. Each functional area is further divisible into broad groupings of 
structural types, as for example, areas of apartment houses, row houses, 
bungalows, and so on. 
7. The various structural types have been built according to specific 
demographic and engineering standards which tend to remain constant in city 
after city within a given region. A study of the structural types in the photo- 
graph will in turn indicate the demographic and engineering standards from 
which they stem. To illustrate: post war suburban residential developments in 
city after city in the United States are built to similar standards; they 
generally occupy the same amount of land, have reasonably similar suscepti- 
  
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