This master’s thesis is structured around 3 tracks. The first track is a local history about the small is-land of Mors, located in the Limfjord, Jutland. The case is Morsø Jernstøberi, an iron foundry that rapidly expanded and shaped the small town of Nykøbing Mors during the Danish era of industri-alisation. Demographic and geographic information from the censuses of 1901, 1911 and 1921 regarding the employees of the iron foundry is being compiled and analysed in a database and then analysed using the GIS-tool ArcGIS Pro. The GIS-analysis shows the employee’s patterns of set-tlement, in this period where the town more than doubled in size. Incorporating zone-theory from the Chicago School, which were instrumental in developing a sociology of urban expansion, social segregation, and patterns of settlement, brings a new understanding of Nykøbing M to the table. The GIS-analysis shows that the settlement patterns adhere to the axial-theory, i.e., settlement is tied to the main roads. The axial-theory may be key to understanding city development during the industrial period in Denmark, as another and larger city, Odense, develops in a similar pattern. Thus, transportation and accessibility seem to have been important even in a town as small as Ny-købing M. Furthermore, new sociological theories about zones of belonging are integrated to un-derstand how different areas’ demographic development shapes the residents’ sense of belonging.
The second track is a discussion on how integrating historical research in town development with urban sociology is key to gain a better understanding, of why towns have developed as they have. The use of GIS-analysis integrates the history of towns into the spatial turn. GIS was the crucial tool to gain the above-mentioned insights. The last track in this master’s thesis is a discus-sion on how this new integration of methods and theory can influence, how local museums and municipalities designate and administer areas of cultural significance. These areas are called “Kulturmiljøer” or cultural environments. Today, the areas are mostly designated by their archi-tectural values, which the zone-analysis proves problematic, since distinctly different zones are mixed together both in terms of the Chicago School zones and the zones of belonging. This thesis claims that for an area to be designated as a working-class neighbourhood, or any kind of neigh-bourhood, it is paramount to actually study who lived there. This prevents normative and stereo-typical understandings of the town, which is often implicitly described as adhering to The Sector Theory. This further qualifies the cultural environment as a place that has relevance for people, not just architects. The analysis of Nykøbing M proves as a method for doing that research.