Alan J. Strachan

Abstract

Throughout history cities have been surrounded by a zone of varyingdimensions within which the intensity of urbanisation tends to decrease withdistance out from the city, while rural land-uses correspondingly increase.Apart possibly from the medieval period, when the city wall acted as anartificial restraint, city growth has progressed unhindered within the limitationsimposed by such factors as physical features, transport potential andbuilding technology, to name but a few. In Great Britain this element of freedom was effectively ended with the passing of the Town and CountryPlanning Act, in 1947. Under this Act all local authorities were to preparea Development Plan of the area under their ccntrol; this work was to bea two-part document, comprising a volume of maps and one of text, that wouldoutline the actual and proposed use to which every parcel of land would beput. In this way it was hoped to rationalise land use in order to make themost efficient use of the limited land resources of the United Kingdom. In anattempt to evaluate the effects of twenty years of planning control a studywas made of the social and economic interaction that has developed betweenEdinburgh and the surrounding rural area.

Alan J. Strachan, University of Leicester