Forschungsschwerpunkte und Zukunftsaufgaben der Historischen Geographie: Städtische Siedlungen

Abstract

The historical geography of urban settlements is in all its respects equivalent to urban geography but related to the past. The subject of research has to be the “Stadtgefüge (urban pattern, structure) which comprises plan, elevation, population, economy, and transport. The interdependence of form and functions is of importance - special emphasis is laid again on the physiognomic aspect. There are three separate methodical approaches; first, the geo-genetic method considering the relics in the contemporary urban structure; second, the temporal transect or vertical theme (Längsschnitt); third, the cross-section (Querschnitt). Desiderata of research are both: urban studies, which would describe selected towns at certain stages of time (cross-sections), and historico-geographical temporal transects. The latter is to complement the more static cross-sections by exposing the process of development. According to the period of history the author directs the reader's attention from the medieval town towards the town of the early modern times, especially to the ducal cities (Haupt- und Residenzstadte) - the administrative and representation-centres of the territories in the old German Reich -, which allow him to observe the beginning of a process in the course of the 17th and 18th century, a process which led to a considerable transformation of the central European city during industrialization in the 19th century. Lichtenbergers (1977) study of Vienna is methodologically of paradigmatic importance. But most of the other ducal cities reach this stage not in the 18th century as Vienna but in the 19th century due to their smaller size.