Exploring the substantive nature of urban morphology: managing the changing character of cities in China

The value of identifying and improving the distinctiveness of cultural landscapes as a means of reinforcing place identity and supporting economic development has been widely recognised by both academics and professionals. Despite increasing interest in urban design codes for guiding urban change, their practice, in particular of those concerning the management of landscape forms at the city or regional scale, has hitherto achieved limited success. The idea of urban morphological regions has the potential to strengthen practical reasoning for achieving valued results in managing urban landscape changes. In connection with an investigation of Zhengzhou, one of the most economically dynamic cities in central China, this paper explores the conceptual and practical significance of urban morphological regionalisation for establishing theoretically-informed and evidence-based urban design codes.