Persistence, Inertia, Adaptation and Life Cycle: Applying Urban Morphological Ideas to Conceptualise Sustainable City-Centre Change

Abstract

Consideration of the speed and scale of change of urban forms has a longhistory in urban morphological thought. Buildings and forms that persistin the urban landscape through inertia or, more positively, deliberatedecisions to retain them create character and – a more recent argument– contribute to sustainability not least in their embedded energy. Thispaper explores issues of the persistence and adaptation of some urbanforms, focusing on the central business district of Birmingham, UK. Muchof this is now protected as a conservation area, and some of its formshave persisted for centuries. Yet there have been periods of rapidchange, and we examine the extent of change following Second WorldWar bomb damage. This allows discussion of the dynamics of change andthe agents and agencies responsible for producing new urban forms or retaining existing ones; and this informs exploration of the potentialcontribution of longevity of form to sustainability. The rapid recycling ofsome structures, after only a couple of decades, may be veryunsustainable – impracticable and unaffordable – in an urban context.