Urban Geography

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• Urban Geography

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Defining Concepts

• A city is a concentrated nonagricultural
  settlement.
• Hinterland
• Region which a city provides services/draws
  resources
• Incorporation
• Process of defining a city territory and
  establishing a gov.
• Primate cities
• Large city with majority of national population
  (i.e. Paris)
• Urbanization
• Process of concentrating population in cities
• Conurbations when cities grow and merge
  together into vast urban areas
• Megalopolis Boston to D.C. route 1

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Urban Geography

• Three important topics
• Functions of cities and economic role in
  organizing territory
• Study of urbanization
• Throughout history
• Different places
• Internal patterns (distribution of housing,
  industry, culture, etc. in a city)

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Urban Functions

• Early functions
• Government centers
• Protection
• Agglomeration division of labor
• Economy sectors
• Primary extracts resources directly from earth
• Secondary transforms raw materials from primary
  sec.
• Tertiary (service sector)

• Economic bases
• Basic sector produces exports
• Non-basic sector services needs of the city
• Multiplier effect - basic jobs multiplies
  non-basic jobs

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Locations of Cities

• Site factors
• Characteristics of location (i.e. defensive
  hilltops, oases, rivers, and locations of
  minerals source)
• Situation factors (cities may arise on an
  unfavorable site due to the situation)
• Building upon exising cities (Mexico City)
• Transportation/trade routes (Deltas or
  Swamplands i.e., New Orleans, Shanghai,
  Calcutta)

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Central Place Theory

• Walter Christaller founder of Theory
• Three requirements
• Hinterlands divide the space completely so that
  every point inside the hinterland is inside the
  hinterland of some market
• Hinterlands are uniform shape and size
• Within each market region distance between
  central place and furthest place must be minimal

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Early Urban Societies

• Holland - 17th century
• Global shipping, banking
• Supported by highly productive agriculture
• Pre-industrial revolution
• Britain
• Occurred during industrialization
• Worlds first model of urbanization
• Terrible hardships Oliver Goldsmiths Rural
  Mirth , Dickens (Slums)
• Agr. Rev. Reduced 3 of workers needed
• Migration to cities by displaced workers
• Labor Intensive high ratio of workers to amount
  of capital invested in machinery
• Domestic Servants (1/3 labor force in 1910)
• Emigration Forced dislocation of criminals to
  Australia and Georgia

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Urban Population Growth

• IN 1800 the 21 European cities w/ populations of
  100,00 or more held about 4.5 million people
• By 1900 there were 147 such places with a total
  pop. Of 40 million, or about 10 percent of the
  total population

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Urbanization Today

• Occurring rapidly w/o concomitant econ.
  development
• Inadequate infrastructure Est. 90 of sewage in
  the developing world pours into streams and
  oceans
• Living conditions mimic 19th century England
• Caused by deteriorating rural conditions
• Concentrates labor forces by 2025 2/3 pop in
  urban areas

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Different from historic British experience

• 1) Increased commercialization and mechanization
  accelerated displacement of workers (gap between
  rich and poor widens)
• 2) Radio TV advertise urban opportunity
• 3) Medicine lower death rates, inc. pop
• 4) Machinery has replaced workers
• 5) Migration opportunities are decreasing
• 6) More interdependent
• 7) Gov. favor urban projects

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Government Policies

• Used to reduce rural to urban migration (Vietnam
  and Cambodia)
• Limit housing and jobs building codes limit
  slums no city services, restrict small businesses
• Improve rural areas US during depression
• Compulsory ruralization

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Vitality of Cities

• Positive aspects of urbanization
• Informal, underground economy particularly in the
  cities of developing countries
• Urban immigrants are assets to growth
• De Sotos study of Peru

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Models of Urban Form

• Four models of internal patterns
• The Nature of Cities Harris and Ullman
• Concentric zone figure 10.13
• CBD tall buildings, lawyers offices near
  courts, jewelry stores cluster
• Less intensive business wholesaling, warehouse
  (nonpolluting)
• Residential land use surrounds urban core
• Transportation modifies it
• Sector high rent expands along new trans
  routes, middle income around high rent, low
  income adjacent to industry and trans 10.5
• Multiple- nuclei figure 10-16 several nodes of
  growth from CBD
• Peripheral Harris 1995 highways disperse
  growth (case study 414 415)

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Social Factors in Residential Clustering

• Congregation when people decide to live with
  people who have a similar ethnic background
• Segregation when people live together because
  of segregation

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Urban Planning

• Planning the ideal city
• Ebenezer Howards - Garden Cities (relocate
  people and cities in countryside and surround
  cities by greenbelts) greatly influenced city
  planning in US and Europe
• Le Corbusiers - Radiant Cities (tall glass
  offices and aprtments faced far apart and
  surounded by green space)
• Proposed to bulldoze historic core of Paris
  (1922)
• 2 main concepts machine made env. standardized
  buildings and green space (city in a park)
• Many people believed his ideas created a half
  century of monotony
• Canberra, Australia radiant city that work b/c it
  allows for walking
• Charter of the International Congress of Modern
  Architecture (CIAM)
• Codified the functions of the modern city

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Culture in Urban Models

• Contrasts to North American models
• Latin America CBDs thrive, reliance on public
  transit, high income pop.live near CBD
• Western Europe new structures are built net to
  indigenous and colonial structures
• Traditional Islamic mosque is at the center
  surrounded by markets and then housing (including
  in the Koran)
• Asian southeast asia reflects western design
  form

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Growth of Suburbs

• U.S. phenomenon due to prosperity after WWII
• 1950 (33 urban, 23 suburbs, 44 rural)
• 2000 (30 urban, 51 suburbs, 19 rural)
• Early suburbs
• Cultural preference for rural living
• Henry Ford
• We shall solve the city problemby leaving the
  city
• Automobile allowed for suburban growth
• Government policies
• FHA loan program guaranteed loans down payments
  shrank to less than 10 (favored construction of
  single new family housed in suburbs not urban
  rehabilitation)
• Tax incentives - homeowners could deduct
  mortgage, interest payments and prop taxes from
  gross taxable income
• Returning veterans fed dollars provided for
  Homes for Heroes

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Society Hill
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Society Hill
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Suburban Infrastructure

• Sprawl unplanned urban sprawl is expensive
• High costs
• Energy
• Commute / transportation
• Leapfrogging infrastructure can not be advanced
  in a regular manor
• Environmental
• Farmland reduction of farmland
• Loss of or pollution of green space

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Social Consequences of Suburbs

• Residential segregation and marketing
• Advertisers target potential customers
  geographically
• 62 lifestyle types Gray Power affluent retirees
  in Sunbelt cities
• Restrictive covenants
• Legal agreements that the land would never be
  sold to people of a designated race or religious
  group
• Made illegal in late 1970s
• Job movement and creation
• Home owners associations - regulate some aspect
  of property
• 20 million homes in U.S. out of the total 106
  million (50 million people)
• Commuting patterns
• Rush hour

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New Patterns

• New urbanism
• Recreate small town America
• Less dependence on cars
• Telecommuting people working at home at
  computer terminals
• 12 million employees in the U.S. work from home
  on computers
• Virtual shopping
• Internet
• U.S. e-commerce in 2003 reached 95 billion
• 13 percent of U.S. travel agencies closed in 2002
• 5 of U.S. shopping on internet in 2002
• Amazon 4 billion in 2002
• Brick and mortar

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Central Cities Decline

• 1970-1995 central cities pop. Fell (22 in
  Philadelphia)
• 2000 central cities housed only 30 U.S. pop.
• 60 of jobs now in suburbs
• Loss of entry level jobs
• Economic decline
• Spatial mismatch
• 1968 John Kain man. Jobs to the suburbs ? poor
  concentrated in center city? less jobs in city
  and more in suburbs ? inner city unemployment
• Income is 70-75 of the suburbs
• Deteriorating housing and neighborhoods
  inner-city neighborhood euphemism for slum

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Central Cities New Growth (21st Century)

• Service sector economy
• Increased white collar jobs
• Finance, IT, bio-tech
• Gentrification restoring select older
  neighborhoods
• Rediscovering urban living
• Yuppies young urban professionals
• Empty nesters older people who move back to
  cities
• Immigrants latinos outnumber Afr. Amer. in 10
  largest U.S. cities
• Network Hypothesis employers seek reliability
  current employee recommendation
• African Americans
• Northern City migration 1.5 mill. 1910 -1945,
  6.5 million 1945-1970
• Decreasing rates of poverty

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Redistribution of Jobs Housing

• Ameliorating Spatial Mismatch
• Urban enterprise zones efforts to
  reindustrialize cities
• Manufacturers receive government subsidies
• Increase blue collar jobs
• Reclaiming Brownfields abandoned industrial
  facilities
• 400,000 across the U.S.
• Cleaned 19,000 acres generated 1.5 billion
  dollars and 570,00 jobs
• Relocate subsidized housing provide poor
  families with suburban homes
• Transportation to suburban jobs
• Avg car cost 7,000 per yer
• Interest Free car loans
• Increasing bus services

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Governing Urban Areas

• Annexation adding suburbs to cities (slowing
  trend)
• Incorporation (figrure 10-44)
• Thwarts efforts to be annexed
• Special district governments legal retaining
  wall aroung municipalitiesp
• Ending subsidies encouraging sprawl
• Tax incentives to stay in cities

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End of Chapter 10