A Catholic Approach to Organizing What Urban Designers Should Know

Abstract

Urban design is a professional, primarily prescriptivefield that relates only sporadically and selectively to substantive inquiry and theory. This article introduces an organizingframeworkfor substantive research that is readily available but not commonly associated with the field. This research is deemed essential to guide urban design practice. The "catholic" nature of the framework-it draws from a variety of disciplines, including history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, geography, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, and covers a broad range of methodological approaches-serves to outline an epistemological map for urban design.