Book excerpt: This is Volume II of thirteen in a series on Urban and Regional Sociology. Originally published in 1964. This book, like its predecessor in this series (City Region and Regionalism, 1947), is not about planning. It is concerned with the inherent geographical structure of society upon which planning must be based, and it insists that knowledge of the spatial anatomy of society must precede the treatment of its defects. The study is limited to the countries of the United States and western Europe, though its procedures and generalizations can be extended to other lands.