PhD FCSLA MCIP
Professor | Director, The Urban Lab

Grant #11 Sandalack, Beverly

“Continuity of History and Form: the Canadian Prairie Town”

Canadian Prairie towns were a historic response to regional processes, and were originally similar in form and function. However, the shift in transportation emphasis from rail to highway, along with other changes in technology, economy and culture, and in planning and design practice, produced morphological changes and new typologies. This often corresponded to a loss of historical continuity and identity, and to a decline in quality of urban form, particularly in the public realm.

The intent of this PhD research was to develop and test a methodology for town analysis, planning and design, using the modern Canadian Prairie town as a case study example, which builds on existing techniques and incorporates an understanding of morphological, historical, social and cultural processes of the town as a whole. The methodology brings forward into the Canadian context theories and methods of urban morphology, and synthesises them in a new way with other analytical methods.

Here is a web link to a journal article that came out of the research. Prairie Forum article (fall 2002) http://www.cprc.ca/text/abs27-2.pdf