Changing Cities in a Changing World

1
Chapter 20

• Changing Cities in a Changing World

2
Problems in Urban America

• Large cities, people (low- and moderate-income)
  live in the inner city because majority of them
  have no place to go.
• NYC- 3 million crowded into apartment (5-story
  75-100 yrs-old)- unsanitary, worn out and
  infested by rats and cockroaches., but,
• The sense of neighborhood, social structure, and
  continuity persists.
• Drug abuse, crime, vandalism and other social
  problems, relationship between communities and
  law enforcement officers very tense.

3
NYC Police shooting

• March 16, an unarmed security guard, African
  American was seriously shot.
• March 1, an unarmed African American was shot to
  death.
• Diallo, 22, was killed last February in the
  vestibule of his Bronx apartment building by the
  four white police officers, who opened fire as he
  was reaching for his wallet. Forty-one bullets
  were fired at Diallo. He was hit 19 times.

4
What left in downtown?

• Museums, research libraries, orchestras, leading
  universities (Columbia U, U of Chicago)
  recreational facilities
• Government agencies, hotels..
• Deglomeration - e.g. publishing companies moved
  from NY to Texas, Colorado, Florida

5
Revitalizing the City Center
More Americansingle and DINK people show the
interest
1. Stop the deterioration of the urban core-new
residential construction to lure the suburban
residents- failed.

• 2. Gentrification- the rehabilitation of
  deteriorated and abandoned inner-city housing
  with favorable locations relative to the CBD and
  central city places of employment

High-cost of housing causing more homeless
6
Does commercialization help?

• New waterfront theme built in NY, Baltimore, only
  attracts more tourist and generate business, but
  couldnt keep the permanent residents
• Lack of federal financial support to reverse the
  declining trend.

7
The changing Ethnic Composition of South-central
Los Angeles
8
1992 LA Riots

• Rodney King case- Not-guilt verdict of 4 white
  LAPD officers stirred the racial tension between
  black-white and Korean.
• It was the localized reactions to sweeping
  economic, political, and ethnic changes unfolding
  at regional and even global scales.
• Between 1978 and 1982, over 70,000 job lost in
  south-central LA. In 1990, Latinos and African
  American, and Korean comprise most of the
  residents in this area. They all tried to survive
  in this jobless area.
• James Johnson found that the riots were rooted in
  the growing despair and frustration of different
  ethnic groups competing for a decreasing number
  of jobs in an environment of declining housing
  conditions and scare public resources.

9
Suburban City

• Country life with city comfort and the advance
  of automobile made the suburban life possible.
• Suburbs plan their zones in response to choice
  and demand which express the idealized living
  patterns more accurately than any other urban
  zone.
• J.H. Johnson- Suburban life and landscape are in
  much closer adjustment.
• P.O. Mullers book Contemporary Suburban
  America in 1981 is the earliest and most
  comprehensive geographic analyses of the rapid
  and dramatic changes affecting US cities.

10
Cities and Suburbs

• 1997, The Suburban Transformation of the
  Globalizing American City from Muller showed
  that the World City model
• Census 1990 revealed that 46 of US Pop living in
  suburban, 31 in central cities and 23 in rural
  areas.
• Metropolitan areas - 60 (115 million) in suburbs
  and 78 million in cities, Suburbs grew by 15.2
  in 80s and 6.6 for the cities

11
Atlanta Capital of the New South

• Pepperoni Pizza Pattern as described by Truman
  Hartshorn and Peter Muller.
• Started as a railroad junction, Atlanta is the
  fastest growing metropolitan area in the country
  with more than 3 million residents and extends
  over 20 counties and has the worlds largest
  toll-free telephone dialing area.
• Economic vitality helped mitigate its social
  problems.
• The central city serves as location for govt,
  hotels, entertainment, sports and ceremonies.
  Companies established corporate headquarters in
  edge cities on Atlantas urban perimeter.

12
Atlanta

• With more than 40 foreign consulates, 300
  international flights to 23 countries each day,
  Atlanta became the international city
• Since 1980, Asian population grew 300 ,Hispanic
  population approaches 70,000. Some of the
  attractions
• High museum of Arts
• CNN
• World of Coke
• Six Flags
• Stone Mountain and
• Great foods

13
The Canadian City - Toronto (80 of Ontario pop
live in urban areas)

• Canadas major cities suffer much less from the
  problems plaguing American cities.
• For example, Toronto is much less dispersed than
  an American Cities with same population, more
  middle and high income residents in city and
  result in the better services such as public
  transit and police/fire departments. Downtown is
  still the center of the economic activities. No
  sharp contrasts in wealth that are common in US
  cities.
• The problems in Canadian cities - integration of
  foreign-born residents (Vancouver, Toronto, and
  Montreal)
• Differences to US Cities 1) No competing Urban
  realms
• 2) Stability and cohesion in urban models not
  seen in US cities 3) less suburbanization, 4)
  more use of public transit.

14
The European City

• The historic cores are preserved well in Paris,
  Madrid, Rome, and Lisbon. But, modern and
  historic buildings in London vie for space.

London
Metropolitan Greenbelt (30km wide, open country
scattered small towns)
limits
Urban sprawl and suburbanization
Sub too far to commute and gasoline price is
3-times higher in Europe than in US
Suburbs are clustered villages or towns set in
open countryside
15
European Cities

• Suburbs dont compete with the urban center as
  American suburban cities do

European govt keep the central cities dominance
La Defense project in Paris
Cities remain crowed and clustered good for the
financial health of its CBD
16
Microdistricts in Eastern Europe

• Communist planning tend to neglect cultural and
  historic heritage while attempting to reorganize
  urban life into microdistricts - dominant
  square at the center of the city and wide,
  radiating avenues fronted by ugly apartment
  blocks, so called socialist city
• Prague and Budapest -less affected than Bucharest
  (Romania).
• Former Soviet Union cities showed the communist
  urban mode. No American urban skyline, the 11
  million residents in Moscow live in hundreds of
  microdistricts along avenue radiating from Red
  Square.
• Bucharest

17
Prague - The city of Hundred Spires

• capital of Czech Republic, 49o45N,15o30E
• 1968, Prague Spring
• 1989, new democratic country formed.
• home of Antonin Dvorak and Franz Kafka.
• Tourist attractions - Tyn Church and Old Charles
  Bridge.

18
The Ibero-American City

• Urban pop grew from 41 to 74 from 1950 to 1997.

Griffin and Ford proposed the Latin American City
structure
Concentric zones radial sectors Thriving CBD
Traditional market
Modern high-rise sector
Transitaffluent residents
19
Latin American City Model

• Spine surrounded by the elite residential sector
  - end to Mall- emergence of suburbs from N
  America.
• Maturity - best housing outside the spine sector
  - attracting middle class.
• In-situ accretion - more modest housing
• Peripheral squatter settlements - home to the
  impoverished and unskilled, but they are
  optimistic about finding work and improving their
  living conditions.
• Disamenity sector - barrios or favelas, slum
  areas, homeless.
• Industrial Park - reflects the industrial
  activities in city
• Gentrification zone - where historic buildings
  are preserved.

20
Southeast Asian City

• Kuala Lumpur - capital of Malaysia -
  1483-foot-tall Petronas Tower (photo) (tallest
  buildings in the world) (Sears Tower, 1454ft, 110
  floor) (construction in Shanghai, a 1507 ft.
  Russia Tower- 2100 ft, Millennium Tower in
  Tokyo-2775 ft)

21
Asian Cities

• T.G. McGee proposed a model in The Southeast
  Asian City
• Residential zones similar to the those in
  Griffin-Ford model of Latin American City.
• Similarities(Between G-Fs and
• McGees models
• - hybrid structure of
• sectors and zones
• - An elite residential sector
• - An inner-city zone of mid
• income housing
• - peripheral low-income
• squatter settlement.

22
Cities in Africa -fig20-5
Kano, Kaduna, Zaria
Kinshasa, Nairobi and Harare (inland) Dakar,
Abidjan, Luanda, Maputo (coast)
Traditional cities mostly in Muslim zone
Colonized cities
Western (European American)
Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban
23
The End of Cheap Oil

• Oil reserve - 1020 gbo (gigga-barrels of oil) 25
  gbo/yr consumption, but with 2 increase of
  consumption, it wont last 40 yrs.
• New discoveries - 7 gbo/yr

24
Oil discoveries and Production
1960
2000
Production
Discoveries
1860
2100
data source Scientific American, March 1998