1. Urban Patterns

2. Central Business Districts (CBD)
Highly accessible

6. Central Business District (CBD)
Highly accessible
CBD Retail services
Retailers with a high threshold/range
Infrequent patrons (designers, boutiques, Apple, theatre)
Department stores
1960s/1970s stores shift to malls
Now attract tourist shoppers (Michigan Ave.)
Retailers serving downtown workers
Why are business services clustered in the CBD
want proximity to other professionals, government offices
accessible to all types of workers (secretary and the CEO)
Consequently, business support services as well.
Retail caters to the tastes of downtown workers
Shoe repair, lunch places, business attire, etc.
expanding

7. Competition for land in the CBD
High land costs leads to what?
Intensive land use
Underground areas
Subways, loading docks, utility lines, pedways
Skyscrapers
Chicago (Home Insurance Building) 1880s
Iron frame and elevators
Give cities distinctive character
“Vertical geography” nature of use changes as you go up
Retailers → professionals → residential

8. Culture and Urban Form Chicago School(s) of Architecture
1st : walls hang on iron frame = skyscrapers
2nd : glass and iron skyscraper, form follows function
aka “the International School”

9. Competition for land in the CBD
Activities excluded from the CBD
Lack of industry in the CBD
Once located near water access and piers
Waterfronts now used for recreation, tourism, retail

10. Competition for land in the CBD
Lack of residents in the CBD
1800s = population centers (mansions, tenements)
20th century = retail wins bid-rent, suburbanization, invasion/succession result in less people living in urban centers
Now: population returning (lofts, empty-nesters, yuppies, hipsters, proximity to nightlife culture, don’t care about schools, etc.)

11. Empty Nesters and Young Professionals

12. CBDs outside North America
Less dominated by commercial considerations.
More public use and higher population
restrictions to maintain character and attract tourists
Older buildings renovated not demolished

13. Culture and Urban Form Chicago School(s) of Architecture
City Beautiful movement
Parks, monuments, orderly street plan (Daniel Burnham)
The National Mall in Washington, DC

15. Culture and Urban Form Chicago School(s) of Architecture
City Beautiful movement
Parks, monuments, orderly street plan (Daniel Burnham)
Beaux Arts style (you don’t need to know all the details but should recognize it)
"noble spaces"—grand entrances/staircases—not utilitarian ones
Arched windows and pedimented doors
Statuary, sculpture, murals, mosaics, and other artwork, all coordinated in theme to assert the identity of the building
Classical details: balustrades, pilasters, garlands
Subtle polychromy
Nice to look at AND creates civic pride and moral virtues

18. Culture and Urban Form Chicago School(s) of Architecture
City Beautiful movement
Postmodern architecture
Wide range of styles, challenges what’s “accepted”
Diverse aesthetics, anything goes, unique forms
More people-friendly = “cloud gate” aka “the bean”