Transcript Urban Geography

Urban Geography
Shenzhen changed from a fishing village to a major metropolitan
area in just 25 years. 25 years ago, all of this land was duck ponds
and rice paddies.
When and why did people start living
in cities?
• Urban morphology: the layout of a city, its
physical form and structure
▫ Ex: Areas of low development in divided Berlin
Formation of Cities
• Agricultural Surplus
– Less Farmers needed
• Social stratification
– Creation of leadership class
• First Urban Revolution
▫ An independent invention
 Occurred independently in Mesoamerica, Nile
Valley, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, and Huang He
River Valley
 It is debated as to whether the Nile Valley is actually
a hearth
First Urban Revolution
• Mesopotamia 3500 BCE
▫ Social Inequality in housing
▫ Priest-king class controlled the harvests through
taxes.
▫ City surrounded by a mud wall.
▫ Temples were the most noticeable buildings.
First Urban Revolution
• Nile River Valley 3200 BCE
▫ There were no walls around cities in
the Nile River Valley.
▫ The people who controlled the
irrigation systems had the power.
▫ The whole region was controlled by
one power.
▫ It was debated as to whether the Nile
River valley was actually a hearth.
First Urban Revolution
• Indus River Valley 2200
BCE
▫ The cities seem very well
planned.
▫ All of the houses are the
same size.
▫ All the houses had access to
the same infrastructure.
First Urban Revolution
• Huang He River Valley 1500 BCE
▫ Infrastructure for the elite and leadership classes
were inside an inner wall.
▫ This inner wall was built around a vertical
structure in the center of the city.
First Urban Revolution
• Mesoamerica 200 BCE
▫ Cities were centers of religion.
▫ The urban elite built religious buildings.
▫ Rulers were god-kings.
Greek vs. Roman Cities
Greek cities
• Every Greek city has an acropolis, where the largest
building was; it was usually religious
• Greek cities had large squares for social centers.
• Housing in Greek cities was poor, along with
sanitation and health conditions.
• Cities were built with slave labor.
Greek vs. Roman Cities
Roman cities
• Romans has an extensive transportation network.
• Adopted the Greeks’ grid pattern for planning cities
• Expanded on the Greek idea of the acropolis, and created
the Forum.
• In both Greek and Roman cities, infrastructure was built
with slave labor.
Second Urban Revolution
• Only happened after the second agricultural
revolution.
▫ Agricultural practices improved
 Seed drill
 Hybrid Seeds
 Improved livestock breeding practices
• Industrialization caused an increase in the number of
people moving to cities.
• These sudden change in population necessitated
changes in infrastructure.
• The Second Urban Revolution started in Great Britain.
Where are cities located and why?
• Site and situation help explain why certain
cities were planned and why cities thrive or fail
• A trade area or hinterland is an adjacent
region within which a city’s influence is
dominant (customers from smaller towns and
villages come to shop, conduct business)
• Three key components arose in the studies in
urban geography: population, trade area, and
distance
• Trade areas and population combine to form a
hierarchy of urban places, following a pattern
commonly called the rank size rule
• The rank-size rule holds that in a model of
urban hierarchy the population of a city or town
will be inversely proportional to its rank in the
hierarchy
• For example:
- largest city = 12 million
-2nd largest = 6 million
-3rd largest = 4 million
-4th largest = 3 million
• Does not apply in all countries, especially ones
with supremely dominant cities (primate city)
such as Paris (France) and Mexico City (Mexico)
Central Place Theory
• 1933 Walter Christaller’s Central Place
Theory is a model to predict how and where
central places in the urban hierarchy (hamlets,
villages, towns, cities) should be functionally and
spatial distributed with respect to one another
• Assumed:
-surface is flat with no physical barriers
-soil fertility is the same everywhere
-population and purchasing power are evenly
distributed
-region has uniform transportation network
-from any given place, a good or service could be
sold in all directions out to a certain distance
• Central place: any point or place in the urban
hierarchy, such as a town or city, having a
certain economic reach or hinterland
• the largest central place provides the greatest
number of functions to most of the region
• Range: is the maximum distance that people
are willing to travel to purchase a product or
partake in a service
• Threshold: the minimum number of customers
needed to keep a business in existence
• Hinterland: the market area surrounding an
urban center, which the urban center serves
Hexagonal Hinterlands
• hexagonal regions as the shape of each trade area
• Urban Hierarchy:
• City: large, densely
populated areas
• Towns: may consist of 50
to a few thousand people
• Villages: larger than
hamlets and offer more
services. May have grocery
store
• Hamlets: may include
only a few dozen people
and offer very limited
services, may have a gas
station
Central Places Today
• When Christaller made his spatial model, the
world was much simpler and much less
populated, many factors make it less relevant
today
• In the Sunbelt phenomenon- the movement
of millions of Americans from northern and
northeastern States to the South and Southwest
• existing cities would respond by increasing
production of technological goods and services,
increasing economic reach
• Atlanta, Dallas and Phoenix became increasing
more important economically
How are cities organized, and how do they function?
• Each model of the city is a study of functional
zonation: the division of the city into certain regions
or zones (e.g. residential or industrial) for certain
purposes or functions (e.g. housing or manufacturing)
• zone: area of a city with a relatively uniform land use
(e.g. an industrial zone, residential zone) is typically
proceeded by a descriptor that conveys purpose
Zones of the City
• the central business district (CBD): the downtown
heart of a central city, the CBD is marked by high land
values, a concentration of business and commerce, and
the clustering of the tallest buildings
• central city: the urban area that is not suburban,
generally the older or original city that is surrounded by
newer suburbs
• suburb: an outlying, functionally uniform part of an
urban area, and is often (but not always) adjacent to the
central city
• Suburbanization: movement of upper and middle
class people from the urban core areas to the
surrounding outskirts to escape pollution as well as
deteriorating social conditions( perceived and actual) In
north America, the process began in the early 19th
century and became a mass phenomenon by the second
half of the 20th cent
• Concentric zone model (Burgess) : a
structural model of the American central city that
suggest the existence of five concentric land-use
rings arranged around a common center
• (Zone 1) At the center CBD
• (zone 2) zone of transition is characterized by
residential deterioration and encroachment by
business and light manufacturing
• (Zone 3) is a ring of closely spaced but adequate
homes occupied by blue collar labor force
• (Zone 4) consists of middle class residences
• (Zone 5) is the suburban ring, commuters zone
• late 1930s Homer Hoyt published his…
• sector model: places the CBD in the middle
with wedge shaped sectors radiating outwards
from the center along transportation corridors
• focused on residential patterns explaining
where the wealthy in a city chose to live
• argued that the city grows outward from the
center, so a low rent area could extend all the
way from the CBD to the city’s outer edge
• the 1940s Chuancy
Harris and Edward
Ullman proposed
multiple-nuclei
model: it recognizes
that the CBD is losing its
dominant position as the
single nucleus of the
urban area
• Cities have numerous
centers of business and
cultural activity
Edge Cities
• Suburban downtowns, often located near key
freeway intersections, often with:
-office complexes
-shopping centers
-hotels
-restaurants
-entertainment facilities
-sports complexes
Urban realm: a spatial generalization of the large,
late 20th century city in the U.S. It is shown to be
widely dispersed, multicentered metropolis
consisting of increasingly independent zones or
realms, each focused on it own suburban
downtown; the only exception is the shrunken
central realm, which is focused on the CBD
• Each realm is
a separate
economic,
social and
political entity
that is linked
together to
form a larger
metro
framework.
Modeling the Cities of the Global
Periphery and Semiperiphery
• “colonial” cities as urban areas where European
transplants dominated the form of the city,
laying it out with Western styles
• “indigenous” cities remained remote from
globalizing influences and various forms of
Western society
• These cities have been swept into the process of
globalization today and have been transformed
• Griffin-Ford model: a model of the Latin
American city showing a blend of traditional
elements of Latin American culture with the forces
of globalization that are reshaping the urban scene,
combining radial sectors and concentric zones
• The CBD is divided into the traditional market and
the more modern high rise sector
• Emanating outward from the urban core along the
city’s most prestigious axis is the commercial spine,
surrounded by the elite residential sector
• Disamenity sector: the very poorest part of the
cities that in extreme cases are not even connected
to regular city services and are controlled by gangs
and drug lords
• Industrial park,
reflecting
ongoing
concentration of
economic activity
The African City (de Blij)
• The central city often consists of three CBDs:
• a remnant of the colonial CBD
• an informal and sometimes periodic market
zone
• a traditional business center with single-story
buildings
• Manufacturing and mining operations are found
near ethnic neighborhoods
• Ringed by satellite townships that are squatter
settlements
Southeast Asian City
• In 1967, urban geographer T.G. McGee
developed the McGee model: shows similar
land use patterns among the medium sized cities
of Southeast Asia
• The focal point of the city is its old colonial port
zone combined with the largely commercial
district that surrounds it
• No formal CBD, rather McGee found the
elements of the CBD present as separate clusters
• Elite residential sector, an inner city zone of
middle income housing, and peripheral lowincome squatter settlements
How do people make cities?
Transportation and Infrastructure
• Cities reflect social and cultural preferences.
• In poorer cities, there is usually no evidence of a
middle class.
• Shantytowns: unplanned developments of crude
dwellings and shelters made mostly of scrap.
• Zoning laws ensure that space is used in
culturally and environmentally acceptable ways.
Segregating Space
• Redlining: A process where business refused to
offer loans to neighborhoods or areas of cities
that they considered to be risky.
• Blockbusting: A process where realtors would
convince white residents to sell houses by telling
them that the neighborhood was declining
because African-American residents were
moving in.
Revival of Cities
• Commercialization: Changing the city area to
make it more attractive to tourists and residents.
• Gentrification: When individuals buy and revamp
old houses, raising the value of the neighborhood
as well as changing it.
• McMansions: Large houses in suburbs that often
will up the entire lot.
Urban Sprawl
• The unrestricted growth of housing, commercial
developments, and roads over large expanses of
land.
• Cities are growing “out” rather than “up”.
• Leads to the destruction of farmland and old
industrial sites.
Henderson, Nevada
Gated Communities
• Fenced-in neighborhoods with controlled access
gates.
• Came about to create spaces of safety in the
urban landscape.
• In poorer countries, gated communities provide
extra comfort for the wealthy.
What role do cities play in Globalization?
• World Cities: function at the global scale,
beyond the reach of the state borders, functioning
as the service centers of the world economy.
World Cities
• Alpha: cities in the first order
• Beta: next order of cities, San Francisco,
Sydney, Toronto, Brussels, Madrid, Sao Paulo
• Gamma: third order, Amsterdam, Boston,
Jakarta, Prague
Primate City
• A country’s largest – ranking atop the urban
hierarchy- most expressive of the national
culture and usually (but not always) that capital
city
• London, UK
• Spaces of consumption: areas of a city, the
main purpose of which is to encourage people to
consume goods and service; driven primarily by
global media industry
• Times Square, New York City
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