A porous urban fabric: the structures and scales of London's peri-urban development from 1880 to 2013

This paper addresses the question of how the fringes of cities develop spatially at both the local scale and in relation to the wider urban area that they are linked to. Through an analysis of Greater London over a period of 150 years the changing structure of the street network of Surbiton and South Norwood on the south-western and south-central (respectively) edge is studied. The period covers their transformation from being relatively independent settlements to forming parts of the urban fabric. The methodology that this study uses combines the latest space syntax analytical techniques with innovative historical data capture to create a highly detailed analysis of the changes that occur in the structure of the built environment. Through the application of these methods, that explicitly allow for the exploration of differing scales of relation within the network of urban space, the study elucidates the competing scales of potential movement and access that structural changes over time afford. In the example case studies the changes to the network of space are observed to act at both the local scale, as the process of urbanisation occurs around pre-existing centres, and also at the scale of the city as macro networks develop on and through the fringes of the city to facilitate connectivity at t he regional and national scale. The relationships between these scales are seen to change through time as the overlap between the network elements that facilitate connectivity at local and global scales diverge. The reasons for this divergence are explored through temporal analysis. The analysis demonstrates that over the period of time that the study considers there have been distinct stages in the spatial development of London’s urban fringe that are tied to the planning regime and urbanisation stage of specific periods. The changes that occur show how in the process of urbanisation, as the city expands to encircle new territories, the spatial relationships of fringe areas of the city changes dramatically as new scales of infrastructure are implemented and thus reconfigures the relational nature of place. This is found to be particularly the case in more recent years.