David Thomas

Abstract

As a result of the work of urbanists over the last thirty years we nowknow a great deal more than we did about the development, form and functioningof non-traditional towns and cities. We cannot yet say with assurancethat we always understand more, but we do have a clearer impression of thescale of the scholarly problems involved, and we certainly have better descriptiveand analytical tools available for the eventual solution of the problems.But the recent surge of activity in urban geography should not beallowed to disguise the fact that many of the fundamental ideas are net new,and that quite a few were first outlined in the 1920s and 1930s, and for a whilelargely ignored.

David Thomas, Saint David's University College, Lampeter