LEVELS OF ANALYSIS IN URBAN GEOGRAPHY
As we have seen, the character of urban environments is the outcome of the interplay of a host of private and public interests operating at a variety of geographical scales. In order to understand the geography of towns and cities, therefore, it is necessary to look both within and beyond the settlement, and to examine the com- plex of factors involved in urban change at all levels of the global-local continuum. Although the factors and processes involved in urban development are not confined to any discrete level of the global local spectrum, the concept of levels of analysis' offers a useful organising frame- work which simplifies the complexity of the real world and illustrates some of the issues of concern to urban geography at different spatial scales. We can identify five main levels of analysis.