The spatial study of the city, including urban policy; race, poverty, and ethnicity in the city; international differences in urban form and function; historical preservation; the urban housing market; and provision of services and urban economic activity. Pacione (2003) Urb. Geog. 24, 4 writes that ‘it is now difficult, if not impossible, to place analytical boundaries around the city. Even those…who maintain the value of a distinctly urban focus for their studies must integrate their inquiries into broader social processes…The strengths of urban geography lie in its unique spatial perspective and its integrative approach to urban analysis.’

R. Johnston (2000) observes that many of the concerns formerly encapsulated within urban geography are now studied under different banners, but Lees (2002) PHG 26, 1 argues that urban geography has taken on board the interpretative turn, engaging with language, discourse, culture, the immaterial, and so on. Wolch (2007) AAAG 97, 2 argues for ‘an urban geography that is not solely a human urban geography but an urban biogeography, an urban geomorphology, an urban hydrology, and an urban GIScience’.