Chapter 11 - Urban Systems and Urban Structures

1
Chapter 11 - Urban Systems and Urban Structures

• The nature of cities in an urbanizing world
  origins, definitions and locations
• The economic base and systems of cities
  functions, hierarchies, and networks
• Inside the city land uses, social areas, and
  patterns of change
• World urban diversity cities in Anglo America,
  Europe, and the developing world
• 11.1, 11.2

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Megacities and Merging Metropolises

• Megacity gt 20 million pop. metropolises - from
  personal choice and government investment
  decision. (11.3, 11.4)
• 4 world pop lives in cities of 10 million or
  more (11.5)
• Merged to Conurbations- multiple centers.The
  major conurbations in N America Megalopolis
  called BosNyWash.
• Megalopolis and other Angle American Conurbations
  (11.6).

3
Settlement Roots

• Most rural people live in village, or hamlet.
  Only W.Europe, Americas (except Mormon Utah and
  Mennonite Manitoba), Australia and New Zealand -
  live apart.
• Cooperative and utopian community - Oneida (NY),
  Amana (IA), and New Harmony (IN)
• Rural settlement forms (11.7, 11.8 and 11.9)
• Trade - tendency for linear clustered houses
  along main streets.

4
Nature of Cities

• Urban units are not single type, structure or
  size, sharing common characteristics - nucleated
  and nonagricultural settlements.
• City/Town - with CBD, (11.10)
• Suburb - functionally specialized segment of a
  larger urban complex. Not self-sufficient.
• Urbanized area - continuous built-up landscape
  defined by building and population densities with
  no reference to political boundaries.
• Metropolitan area - large-scale functional
  entity. Current Federal Definition MSAs
  (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) economically
  integrated urbanized areas in one or more
  contiguous counties. (11.11)

5
Location of Urban Settlement

• Site - absolute location, such as break-of-bulk,
  bayhead, railhead (end of railroad), waterpower
  cities, island, elevated cities,... (1.9, 1.10,
  page 10)
• Situation - relative location - places a
  settlement in relation to the physical and
  cultural characteristics of surrounding areas.
• The site or situation originally gave rise to an
  urban unit may not remain the essential
  ingredient for its growth and development for
  very long. Circular and cumulative causation - a
  successful urban unit may acquire new populations
  and functions attracted by the already exiting
  markets, labor force, and urban facilities.

6
Economic Base

• City support itself or provides services and
  products for its hinterland.
• Basic Sector - export service/products to
  outsides
• Nonbasic sector - support themselves in the city.
• Total economic structure of an urban area
  basicnonbasic
• Functional specialization of urban areas (11.12)
• Ratio tends to grow (basic/nonbasic) to 1/2 in a
  1 million city
• multiplier effect - (11.13)
• The growth of cities may be self-generating
  circular and cumulative -service industry (bank
  and retailing service, public) - add more labor
  needs to nonbasic sector.
• declining trend in NE and Midwest (Fig. 11.14 and
  Table 11.1)

7
Urban Hierarchy

• Ranking of cities based on size and functional
  complexity
• E.g. 12 million in largest city, then the second
  largest city will have 6 million, and third
  largest will have 4 million (1/3 of the largest
  city).. The difference becomes smaller at lower
  levels of the hierarchy.
• This rule doesnt apply to countries with
  dominant city such as France and Mexico.
• Primate City - far more than twice the size the
  second-ranked city - Seoul in Korea and Luanda in
  Angola - express the heritage of their culture or
  colonial imprints. (11.17- primate city
  evolution)
• World Cities (11.18)
• Urban Influence Zones - area outside of a city
  that are still affected by it (Baxter, Algood)

8
Central Place Theory - Walter Christaller

• Assumption - 1) no topographic barriers,
  channelization of traffic and variations in farm
  productivity
• 2) even population distribution pattern
• 3) same purchasing power, tastes and demands
• 4) minimum number of customers
• 5) shortest distance demand
• Results - 1) sales monopoly in each polygon 2) no
  userved areas 3) central place at the center of
  hexagon 4) Largest centers provide enough service
  to the largest area 5) size of market area
  proportional to the number of goods and services
  offered from that place 6) smaller hexagon
  serves smaller area (11.18)

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Christallers Hierarchy of Settlements and
Service AreasTtowns, Ccity,Hhamlet,Vvillage

• Nesting pattern
• each larger complementary regions is centered on
  a higher-order urban place
• Rank-size population

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Conclusions from Hexagon Model

• Ranks of urban places do form an orderly
  hierarchy of central places in spatial balance,
  if one removed, new equilibrium will be formed.
• Same distance apart for the city with same rank
• Larger cities will be spaced farther from each
  other than smaller towns or villages
• applicable to agricultural areas, new balanced
  network will form once a node is removed.
• Supportive evidences found in Europe, N America
  and, North China Plain and Sichuan Basin,
  Midwests square layout confirmed Christallers
  model

11
Network City

• Two or more cities - Partially complementary in
  functions, developing to a networking pattern
• Kyoto (cultural capital), Osaka(commercial/industr
  ial) and Kobe (leading port) joining together to
  compete with Tokyo as a major center of commerce
• Europe - Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague
  the Raqndstad
• No true US network city.