Low Density Urbanism context and significance
Since the 1960s a modern trajectory towards extensive, low-density industrial urbanism with sprawling, scattered suburbs has been formally recognised and given various names such as "megalopolis" and "desakota".
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The dispersed settlement pattern of these industrial cities has conventionally been regarded as a unique derivative of industrialisation and mechanized transport.
By contrast, agrarian-based cities, prior to the 19th century CE, have generally been presumed to be densely inhabited, compact settlements. However, this set of premises is not valid. The agrarian-based world also contained dispersed, low-density urbanism.
On the grandest scale these include the vast urban complex of Greater Angkor. which at its peak in the 12th century covered approx. 1000 sq km, Anuradhapura and Pollonaruwa in Sri Lanka and the famous Classic Maya cities of lowland Central America. The Maya only used pedestrian and riverine transport so the conventional transport innovation explanation for dispersed urbanism in industrial societies is at best partial. The presence of sprawling suburbs in these agrarian cities suggests that the old models of industrial and agrarian urbanism are both incomplete and potentially problematic. This has some implications for our understanding of the diverse histories, form and outcomes of settlement growth trajectories.
Roland Fletcher is Professor of Theoretical and World Archaeology at the University of Sydney and the Director of the Greater Angkor Project. He has published the important work The Limits of Settlement Growth, and is continuing his research on the
history and spatial dynamics of settlement patterns.