This morning I found an electronic-mail message from a fellow who teaches architecture at an American university and a copy of a recent paper of his in which my “pioneering” work dealing with allometric growth of transportation networks is mentioned. My paper was written in the early Seventies, though. Since then, much research has gone into this area. Although I understand the thrust of the paper pretty well, the fine points are well beyond me. In my quick reply to the message, I thus focused on the area the fellow has covered in his research. Namely, he looked into the evolution of street networks in Adriatic and Ionian coastal cities over the last two centuries. Hailing from an old city close to the Albanian coast, he was immediately close to my heart. “The Mediterranean is my sea,” I wrote to him in my reply, “just like yours.” And I wished him all the best in his further research. But the cities his paper is about are still with me a couple of hours later: Augusta, Bari, Budva, Dubrovnik, Durrës, Hvar, Kopar, Kotor, Monfalcone, Ortona, Patras, Rovinj, Split, Taranto, Umag, Venice, Vonitsa, Zadar… Yes, these places are in my bones, and it is a joy to know that I am not alone.

Addendum (December 18, 2015)

So many months later, I wonder why I have not included a bit more information about the fellow in question, as well as about his paper. His name is Ermal Shpuza. At the time of our contact, he was at the Department of Architecture, Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, Georgia, the United States. The title of his paper is “Allometry in the Syntax of Street Networks: Evolution of Adriatic and Ionian Coastal Cities, 1800–2010.” And it appeared in Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, Vol. 41, No. 3, February 2014. There. I certainly wish him all the best with his research and his academic career. Allometry remains close to my heart after more than forty years.