AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION 
and 
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 
  
  
  
| COMMISSION vit Gt) 
Norman E. Green 
Lt. Col., USAF | Appendix to the INT. ARCHIVES OF 
| PHOTOGRAMMETRY Vol. XIL:4, 1956 
The Problem and Rationale 
  
Considering the rapid development of applications of aerial 
photographic interpretation in many varied fields, there is reason to 
assume that further exploitation of this relatively new medium of 
study will contribute to knowledge in the social sciences. In particu- 
lar, there are indications that aerial photography offers a unique 
methodological approach to the analysis of urban social systems. 
Research efforts in this direction would be well justified in view of 
the realities of contemporary world urbanization and the paucity of 
systematic data required for a scientific understanding of urban social 
phenomena. 
The purpose of this paper is to describe the rationale, procedures 
and findings of studies exploring the problem of applying photographic 
interpretation in urban sociology.l Within this context, several in- 
terrelated concepts are considered, These concepts, referring to the 
spatial organization, social ecology and demographic characteristics 
of the city, represent central interests of the sociologist. In com- 
bination, they constitute a framework for studying the social structure 
of the city. The present problem concerns the extent to which urban 
social structural analysis may be faciliated by photographic interpre- 
tation, 
To a considerable degree, the answer to the problem hinges upon 
identification and definition of a variety of socio-physical relation- 
ships within the urban agglomeration. Photo interpretation data in 
themselves are not "social data”, However, they are pertinent to social 
research needs in so far as such "physical data" have meaningful socio- 
logical correlates. This socio-physical nexus provides the underlying 
rationale for accepting the feasibility of applying photographic in- 
terpretation to problems of urban sociology. Such relationships, further- 
more, are assumed to exist in varying forms in urban organization cross- 
culturally. 
  
l. For the most part, this paper was developed from the writerts 
doctoral dissertation in the Department of Sociology, University of 
North Carolina, 1955, entitled, "Aerial Photography in the Analysis 
of Urban Structures, Ecological and Social", In recent months some 
attention has been given to this same problem by P, H. Chombart de Lauwe 
and his colleagues at the Centre d'Etudes Sociologiques in Paris. Sum- 
maries of this work are published in the two excellent volumes (1952) 
on Paris Et L'Agglomération Parisienne,