Urban and Regional Studies at the Martin Centre: Its Origins, its Present, its Future

In this paper the author traces the origins of the Martin Centre work in urban and regional studies back to the geometrical explorations of grids and buildings by Sir Leslie Martin and Lionel March. That work encouraged the author and his colleagues to look for a deeper understanding in order to forecast how people would use proposed layouts for cities, and thus evaluate them. The sources of understanding came from other disciplines such as economics, engineering, geography, and planning which, combined with the physical understanding of the buildings, towns, and networks, provided the basis for the development of comprehensive models of cities and regions. This understanding is embodied in the operational software of the MEPLAN model which is used extensively in practice. The author concludes by taking stock of what has been achieved and argues for the need to improve the knowledge of the supply aspects in the urban system and to simplify the operations of the model without losing its comprehensiveness.