Urban Geography

Why do people live in cities? A CITY is a combination of people and buildings. Cities generally serve as a center of politics, culture, and economics The term URBAN refers to the buildup of the central city and the regions around. In your notes, brainstorm a list of reasons that people might have started to arrange themselves into cities.

City Hearths Linked to Agricultural Hearths

Five Hearths of Urbanization In each hearth surplus and stratification created conditions necessary for cities Large scale construction Record keeping Divisions of labor Government/leadership Mesopotamia 3500 bce Nile Valley 3200 bce Indus Valley 2200 bce Huang He and Wei Valleys, 1500 bce Mesoamerica, 200 bce

Mesopotamia: Ur and Babylon Diverse architecture Palaces/temples Theocratic Mud walls Very few natural geographic defenses

Nile River Valley Super stratified society Pyramids were government works projects Government structured labor forces Immense amounts of record keeping Geography impacted government and culture

Indus River Valley Harappa and Mohenjo- Daro Cities Intricately planned Grid cityscape Standardized bricks Houses equal in size No palaces No monuments

Huang He and Wei (Yangze) Purposefully planned cities Centered on a vertical structure Walls Temples and palaces Burial sites Oracle bones

Mesoamerica Maya and the Aztec Multistory constructions symbolized status Collective farming projects Theocratic centers Monumental building sites Cities linked long distance trade routes

Diffusion of Urbanization: Greece Greek City-States By 500 BCE, Greeks were highly urbanized Network of more than 500 cities and towns Each city had an acropolis and an agora Cities specialized in different production Organization spread through Hellenization

Diffusion of Urbanization: Rome Roman Cities: system of cities and towns linked by miles of roads and maritime trade systems Sites of Roman cities were trade links Romans replaced the agora and the acropolis with the FORUM Huge levels of wealth disparity Public works programs Urban building projects

Aquaducts= Infrastructure

Roman Trade Connections

The Second Urban Revolution A LARGE SCALE movement of people to cities Labor in manufacturing Huge divisions in labor MADE POSSIBLE 2 nd Revolution improved food production Increased surplus Industrialization Growth of cites around industrial resources

Growth of urban environments was linked to resource deposits.

Second Half of the 20 th century Nature of manufacturing has changed More mechanized, less human Rust belts created out of once thriving industrial districts

Urban Function/Economy Basic sector – Brings money in from other places based on a specialty industry Flint Michigan- Auto Chapel Hill- Education Cuppertio- Apple Nonbasic sector – Shifts money within- responsible for the functioning of the city itself (service sector, e.g. teachers, office clerk, hair dressers, retailers, yard dudes) Economic base = ratio of basic to nonbasic (always larger) workers Multiplier effect – most large cities have a ratio of 1:2 (a new basic industry will create jobs in the nonbasic sector, directly or indirectly)

Functional Specialization Employment structure – # of people employed in basic & nonbasic sectors Functional specialization – Harris (1943); US cities were closely identified w/ certain products As urban centers grow, they lose their functional specialization; rarely occurs today (e.g. Las Vegas – gambling; Vero Beach – retirement)

Major US Metropolitan Areas East: New York – Chicago – D.C. – Philadelphia West: L.A. – San. Fran. – Seattle, Phoenix

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) Used because city boundaries are tough Central city and the immediate interacting counties (commuters, functional region, minimum 50,000) Boundaries often overlap (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) Micropolitan Statistical Area 10,000-50,000 Formal rural area reclassified

Rank-Size Rule A model that ranks cities in a region by size the population of a town is multiplied by its rank, the sum will equal the population of the highest ranked city. In other words, the population of a town ranked n will be 1/nth of the size of the largest city—the fifth town, by rank, will have a population one-fifth of the first. Primate city The leading city of a country Disproportionately larger than the rest Rank/size rule doesn’t work for a country with a primate city usually a progressive core, and a lagging periphery, on which the city depends for labor and other resources

Percent Urban by Region Fig. 13-2b: Over 70% of people in MDCs live in urban areas. Although under half of the people in most of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are urban, Latin America and the Middle East have urban percentages comparable to MDCs.

Human behaviors and Central Place Theory Humans try to purchase goods from the closest place When demand for a good is high, it will be offered close, when it is low availability drops Threshold: minimum number of people needed to sustain an activity Low order goods vs. High order goods

Central Place Theory Walter Christaller: a SPATIAL theory to explain the reasons behind the distribution patterns, size, and number of urban areas around the world He uses economics to explain location 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 Goods and services could be sold in all directions out to a certain distance

Hexogonal Hinterlands

Urban Morphology The layout of a city, its physical form and structure

Urban Morphology in Different Regions European (medieval) Dense, narrow winding streets Ornate church at center (theocratic domination) High walls (feudalism)- modern world cities have jumped the walls Islamic Mosques at center, light surfaces, walls Open air markets, courtyards Dead end streets (limiting foot traffic) Latin American Distinctive sectors of industrial and residential development Grand boulevards Elite residential sectors

Functional Zonation Division of the city into certain regions for different purposes Industrial, food processing, services, entertainment, housing Central Business District (CBD) Central City (the CBD + older housing zones) Suburb (outlying, functionally uniform zone outside of the central city)

Modeling the North American City Concentric zone model (Ernest Burgess) Sector model (Homer Hoyt) Multiple Nuclei Model (Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman)

3 Classical Urban Structure Models

Concentric Zone Model Fig. 13-5: In the concentric zone model, a city grows in a series of rings surrounding the CBD.

Sector Model Fig. 13-6: In the sector model, a city grows in a series of wedges or corridors extending out from the CBD.

Multiple Nuclei Model Fig. 13-7: The multiple nuclei model views a city as a collection of individual centers, around which different people and activities cluster.

Edge Cities Suburban downtowns Located near key freeway Often with Office complexes Shopping centers Hotels Restaurants Entertainment facilities Sports complexes

Suburban Edge City: Focus on Transportation

Each realm is a separate economic, social and political entity that is linked together to forma larger metro framework Related to the concept of suburbanization

Modeling Cities of the Global Periphery and Semiperiphery Latin American City (Griffin-Ford model) African City (de Blij model) Southeast Asian City (McGee model)

Griffin-Ford Model

Mexico City Fig : The Aztec city of Tenochtitlán was built on an island in Lake Texcoco. Today poorer people live on a landfill in the former lakebed, and the elite live to the west.

Disamenity sector-poorest parts of the city Mexico City

Favela in Rio de Janeiro Many poor immigrants live in squatter settlements, or favelas, many of which are on the hillsides around Rio.

De Blij Model

McGee Model

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Fig : In Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), the French demolished the previous city and replaced it with a colonial design with boulevards and public squares.