Urbanization and City Patterns

Chapter 10 and 11

(Note: This covers 2 chapters.)

(I am testing both chapters.)

Urban Center Definitions

• Urbanization: (increase in) the number and percentage of people living un urban settlements. (Urbanized Population)– Driving factors:

• Jobs

• Services

• Convenience/Proximity (distance and access to services)

• Primate City: a large city, dominating the country– Usually more than twice the next largest city

• Often, dominant economic, political and cultural center

• Jobs, services, convenience migration

• These are often megacities, and may dominate regions.

Where have urban areas grown?

• 3% urban in 1800, • now 50%+ and growing

• Change in extent, density, heterogeneity • MDCs:

– Ag. Mfg. Services, – Urbanization is effectively completed.– London, Tokyo, New York City, Los Angeles

• LDCs: – Migration from country in search of jobs, – Local population growth often outstrips job availability.– Delhi, Jakarta, Mexico City, Mumbai (Bombay).

Historical growth: the rise of cities

• Models:– Technical (ex: Thebes-Nile River, Mesopotamia)

• Irrigation: make canals, surplus crops drive pop. growth

– Religious (ex: Aztecs)• Religious activities bring people together.

– Political (ex: London)– Trade (Silk Road cities)– War (every city with a fort, shield wall or barrier:

Paris,)– Multiple factors:

• Technology, religion, politics, war, agriculture, and trade

City Hearths:• Mesoamerica:

– Aztec, Toltec Empires

• Andes– Incan Empire

• Nile Valley– Pharohic Dynasties

• Tigris-Euphrates Rivers:– Mesopotamia

• Huang Ho River Valley:– Han Chinese, many successive dynastic cycles

• Indus Valley

Cities and Religion• Many rulers used religion to maintain power.• Belief systems shaped cities and architecture.

– Cosmomagical (Cosmological) Cities:• Sacred symbolic center, aka Axis Mundi

– Near seat of power and granary» Forbidden City in present Beijing» Imperial Palaces in Kyoto, Nara» Mayan city temples

• Orientation toward the 4 cardinal directions• City layout reflecting cosmologial form

– Sometimes architectural forms, such as solar observatories– Align the world to mirror aspects of heaven or the universe

City Formation

• Spontaneous– Free time specialization– Inventions arts and crafts, trade, storage– Square for trade, wall for defense, temple for

prayer, fort for powerful…

• Learned traits from other city patterns– Good ideas are copied.

• Chang-an Nara, Kyoto, Roman colonies, etc.• Figure 10.7, Map, p. 283

Cities and globalization

• Global cities: global economy control centers.– Ex: London, NY City, Tokyo

• Globalizing cities: are modified by globalizing economies and cultures– Ex: any city not politically isolated from the world.

• Even Timbuktu has had some globalizing influences.– The degree of globalization depends on accessibility and desire.

Urban Ecology: Location

• Trade – Natural trade advantages (site and situation)

• Defense– Natural barriers to attack (site and situation)

• Food Supply– e.g. city states: city + controlled countryside

• hinterland

• Risks– e.g. floods, quakes, hurricanes

Defense advantages

• Site: characteristics of a place– Bluffs, rivers, islands, protected harbors, mesas,

etc.– Local barriers of a city.

• Situation: relative location of locations– Far from enemy, intervening marshes,

mountains, seas, etc.• Barriers (outside the city site) between cities or states• Ex: marshes and distance from Germany and Moscow

Trade: Site and situation

• Trade sites:– Route branches, portages, end of navigable rivers, fords,

river mouths, bays, estuaries, etc.• Trade situations:

– Closer to other cities• Berlin, Paris, London, Milan, etc.

– Along trade routes • Singapore, Detroit, Venice (historical), Los Angeles

– Access to nearby friendly ports • Mexico City, Beijing

– Access to resources or production regions (agriculture/mfg.)• Hong Kong, New Orleans, Chicago

Central Place Theory: Threshold and Range

• Threshold: minimum population required to survive.• Range: maximum distance people travel for a service.

http://teacherweb.ftl.pinecrest.edu/snyderd/APHG/Unit%206/urbannotes_files/image002.jpg

Central Place Theory

• All things being equal, go to closest service.

• Over time, patterns become hexagonal as competition increases.– Ex: Europe (night image)

• In grid patterns, start seeing grid central city patterns, too.– Ex: Midwest

Globalizing City Problems

• Squatter settlements– Insufficient income illegal housing, with poor/no services

• Informal sectors– All cities have them, all economies have them, all countries have them.

• Apartheid (There is a city model for this in the text.)– Isolation of undesired ethnicities in all aspects of life

• Central planned economy cities– Economic inefficiencies are costly, and quality is lower.– They may be as environmentally problematic as hyper-capitalist cities.

(Central planning can miss local problems.)

• Hyper-capitalist cities (e.g. transition from communist)– Business growth can result in illegally appropriated land.– Illegal pollution is a larger problem.– Laws may be less strictly enforced, and can be circumvented.– Not limited to post-communist cities… See Singapore.

Chapter 11: Inside the City

• Look at this as the other half of a single topic.• Differences between cities are also found as

differences within cities.– Patterns often repeat at different scales.

Models of urban structure

1. Concentric Zone: Concentric rings: CBD, transition zone, independent worker houses, better houses, commuter zone.

• Like VonThunen’s concentric ring agricultural model

2. Sector: initial land use patterns expand in wedges from the center. (think of this as being like wedges of different pizzas.)

3. Multiple Nuclei: Initial nuclei form around basic activities, and land uses are attracted to those nuclei of development.

– Nuclei: CBD, harbor, university, airport, park, railroad yards, manufacturing, military bases, etc.

4. Peripheral Model: Ring cities and a ring road (next page)

4. Peripheral Model

• urban area with inner city and suburbs connected by a ring road

• suburbs become edge cities.

• Examples: – Washington DC– Los Angeles CA

• (Add the beltway!)

SJ Map

• Colonial mission• Circles• Sectors• Nuclei• (Google Earth)

Inner cities: distinctive problems

• Deterioration and Blight (housing & services): – Housing ages. – Rent < maintenance skip it. – Rent < bills, etc abandon / raze / sell

• Urban renewal (& public, private, or both types of housing): – Demolition of old housing dislocates people, – High rises can provide poor environments if not careful.

• Renovation ( & gentrification): – Pay for renewal, – gentrification dislocates lower classes, usually affecting

ethnicities.

Land use influences

• Filtering: (a housing use/reuse pattern): Large houses subdivided, age, occupied by successive immigrant waves.

• Red-Lining: (illegal denial of credit): drawing lines on a map to identify areas in which loans will not be given.

• Public housing: units reserved for low income households, who pay reduced rates (e.g. 30% of their income) for rent.

Underclass:

• (inner city text reference, only there?) • peoples trapped in an unending cycle of

economic and social problems. • Why?

Culture of poverty:• Single Parents:

– 2/3 of children by unwed mothers, 90% one parent, inadequate child care, deadbeat dads

• Poor Education:– Lack of motivation, less parental support, school drug use, etc. low

academic success• High Crime Rate:

– drug use, gang violence over drug turf, more visible drug distribution than in suburbs

• Segregation: – (chain migration), separation in poor regions by recent immigrants, lower

classes, some ethnicities• Economics:

– insufficient local taxation poorer services, (schools, parks, transit, refuse, libraries, etc.)

Partial Solutions:

• Renovation (ex: urban renewal projects)– Problems– Benefits

• Annexation– Problems – Benefits– (who wins, who loses?)

Suburbs

• The Great American Dream (days gone by…)• (Alternatively, the Great Escape)

– House– Yard– Garage– Shopping– Close Satellite workplace (Services and Industry)

Edge cities

• Peripheral residences, gas station, & other services develop over time.– Established shopping centers and malls, – Then light manufacturing centers,

• Often developed around nuclei of attraction.• These become edge cities.• Alternate explanation

– (extension of central place theory) – original communities grow with increasing pop. density.

Density gradient

• Change in density with distance• Once high, with CBD and nearby regions

densely populated. • Decay and urban blight suburban flight,

smaller cities farther out

Suburban Segregation

Segregation by income…• Upper & middle class housing, separated, zone no apartments,

min. acreage (more sale profit)• Jobs are often suburban, but the poor workforce is often urban.

Need a transportation match for increased employment.

Suburban Sprawl

• Progressive spread of development over the landscape. (Why?)– Home ownership, lifestyle, Fed. auto subsidies, &

• Costs: – Inefficient costly development, less farmland, less truck

farming, patchwork development, higher utility costs, &.• Effects:

– Increased dependence on transportation. – If inadequate, means, then less travel.

– Lower class isolation.

Transportation

• Loss of rail transit, • partial recovery, • 90% interstate automobile subsidies, • ¼ of land transit and parking, congested• Public transport:

– Cheaper, less polluting, more energy efficient (if there are MANY commuters per bus). Separate rail services avoid delays of rush hour.

– Under-funded in the US compared to the EU.– Arguably cheaper than building more roads.

• Less pollution (tie to resources in previous chapters.)

Government Fragmentation:

• Services in an urban area often cross multiple municipal boundaries, – e.g. transit, water, e-, schools.

• Costs are higher, when handled separately, and confusion abounds. – Some cities cooperate, forming combined governments.– This leads to…

Inter-governmental Cooperation Approaches

• Metropolitan Governments: coordination of service provision– Councils of Government:

• cooperative agency with local government reps, often used for overall planning.

– Federations: • two tiered structure, higher level control over taxation, assessment,

and borrowing, local service responsibility

– Consolidations: • City and county governments work together, sometimes formally

separate, sometimes unified.

– This cooperation also facilitates better growth strategies…

Smart Growth:

• (Planning concept)• Legislation and regulation with limiting suburban sprawl, and

preserving (open space, e.g.) farmland– reduce infrastructure costs,

• Encourages– Compact development, – Infill– possibly greenbelts– limits annexation / development outside the city limits– (other means and outcomes)

Questions?

• (Pause, query, wait…)

(Time permitting) Tie back to:

• Population• Migration• Cultures• Ethnicities• Manufacturing• Services • Language• Site and Situation

Tie back: Migration

• Urban to suburban for quality of life, usually middle to upper middle class.

• Near CBD: If poor transportation or high costs, migrate closer to work, prices permitting

• Chain Migration ethnicity concentrations