In a contribution to urban morphological studies, the authors demonstrate how typological and morphological research can be used as a design strategy for the repair of a medium-sized American inner city, Oakland, California. Early typological and morphological research explained how socio-economic processes govern the production of cities and changes to the urban fabric over time. The approach is rooted in the work of M.R.G. Conzen from the early 1900s in Berlin, at a time when he and other geographers tested a morphological approach to the study of urban settlements. Architects and urban designers, chiefly in Italy, have been influenced by this approach and have used 'typomorphological' studies. In much of the literature on urban morphology the city is analysed as a product of history, as traces of the past are inescapably ingrained in the dynamics of urban environments. This article traces the history of Oakland from its beginnings in the 1850s. Morphological studies, combined with research on urban form, are used to describe potential future conditions of the inner city where overlapping and interlocking uses could make for liveable, potentially safe urban places. This approach is not new. Jane Jacobs wrote about urban vitality as early as 1961, but there is still no comprehensive text that explicitly introduces the design practitioner to the growing data on urban form and urban form making that have been generated by research in typology and morphology. Gaps in knowledge about density, centrality, mix of uses, urban ecology, city culture and the all encompassing term, urbanity, are admitted; a reminder is given of the issues urban designers are expected to address in the context of repairing cities, and that much data still needs to be compiled. The subject matter is complex; there might never be a state of completion, but that conclusion should not prevent urban designers from conducting more research on the subject of urban form.
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