Reprinted from
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING
Vol. XXV, No. 5, December 1959
Aerial Photographic Interpretation
and the Human Ecology of the Cut"
NORMAN E. GREEN, /4. Col., USAF
and
ROBERT B. MONIER, Captain, USAF
ABSTRACT: This paper describes photographic interpretation research in the
analysis of residential areas in several cities in the United States. Photographic
interpretation techniques were used io provide accurate data on such items as
residential housing types, numbers and densities, ecological location and dis-
tance, and land use characteristics. From analysis of these dala, further conclu-
sions were drawn as to urban social structure.
(Die Mitteilung schildert Luftbild Interpretation Nachforschung in der
Zergliederung der wohnsitzlichen Gebiete in verschiedenen Staediem der Ver-
einiglen Staaten. Luftbild Interpretation Techniken wurden betrieben, um
genaue Daten auszuliefern an. Einzelheiten wie Gepraege der Wohnsitz Gebiete,
Zahl und. Dichtheit derselben, ekologische Unterbringung und. Entfernung und
Landanwendung Kennzeichen. Von der Zergliederung dieser Daten wurden
weilere Entschluesse gezogen, die staedtische, gesellschaftliche Gefuege betreffen.)
| neve, urban ecologists and
others concerned with intra-city popula-
tion distributions have depended on census
data and certain municipal records to obtain
reliable information for their investigations.
These sources have been quite adequate
where data are available by census tracts,
blocks or similar subareas. In many cases,
however, information required for urban
social analysis is not reported by small spa-
tial units. Also, since it is often found that
such data lack comparability from area to
area, systematic analyses become very diffi-
cult, if not impossible. The purpose of this
paper is to summarize a series of studies
wherein methods were developed for using
aerial photography as a supplementary
source for fulfilling this data requirement in
urban ecological analyses.
As indicated, in the over-all project, the
feld of urban ecology provided the basic
framework within which aerial photography
was used for relating the physical-spatial
structure to the social structure of the city.
However, the social data derived by the pho-
to interpretation method are also quite rele-
vant to many aspects of the fields of urban
sociology, city planning, human geography
and demography, among others. In this re-
spect, these studies represent the first system-
atic attempt to adapt photo interpretation
as a research tool in the social sciences.
Indeed, there are good reasons why aerial
photography should make useful contribu-
tions in urban social analysis as it already has
done in applications to geology, forestry, mili-
tary science and engineering, for example. In
addition to the vast amount of detail in the
air view and in contrast to conventional data
sources, aerial photographic study reveals the
urban area as a total configuration in all its
complexity. Spatial units of the city are seen
in their true relationships to each other and
to the natural environment. Consequently,
urban subareas studied within the context of
surrounding influences and neighboring dis-
tricts assume a realism which can hardly be
interpreted through analyses of statistical
tabulations alone.
The authors' findings confirm these notions
and especially the basic idea that photo inter-
pretation may be used to fill a gap in the
availability of certain categories of spatial
data related to the social structure of the city.
* This paper is part of the 1960 program of Commission VII (Photographic Interpretation) of the
International Society of Photogrammetry, and is submitted by the Commission's Working Group 5,
"Urban and Industrial Structures."
{ For another report by Working Groups see PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING, Vol. XXV, 1, p. 128.
i Part of the work referred to in this summary paper was accomplished under USAF Air Research
and Development Command Project No. 7732.
