Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes

Central Place Theory

Proposes that all market areas are centered around a central settlement that provides exchange and services.

Walter Christaller

German theorist who developed a hierarchy of settlements based on market areas in the 1920s.

Threshold and Range

Threshold is the minimum population needed to support a business, while range is the maximum distance people will travel for a service.

Agglomeration

Occurs when similar businesses cluster together, often due to shared resources or labor.

Urban Origins

Cities can originate from access to resources (resource nodes) or transportation hubs (transport nodes).

Settlement Patterns

Include clustered rural settlements, dispersed rural settlements, circular settlements, and linear settlements.

Site and Situation

Site refers to the physical characteristics of a place, while situation is its relationship with other locations.

Concentric Zone Model

Represents urban structure with rings from the CBD, including the CBD, industrial zone, inner city housing, suburbs, and exurbs.

Sector Model

Depicts urban structure with wedges from the CBD, showing industrial and residential sectors radiating out from the core.

Multiple-nuclei Model

Represents urban structure with multiple centers, showing how suburbanization influences business locations.

Galactic City Model

Represents a decentralized city with dispersed business districts, reflecting the shift to service-based economies.

Latin American City Model

Shows urban layout with a commercial spine, elite housing zones, and squatter settlements on the periphery.

Southeast Asian City Model

Features a port-centric layout with upper-class housing near the center and squatter settlements on the outskirts.

Sub-Saharan African City Model

Includes traditional CBD, market zone, colonial CBD, and mining/manufacturing zones, reflecting urban development history.

International Urban Diversity

Highlights the varied urban forms and structures across cities worldwide, with Western European cities being more compact.

Micro districts

Zones of uniform housing near job sites in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union with Soviet era central planning.

Suburbanization

Dominated by detached single-family homes in the American landscape, with middle-class, upper-class, and lower-class neighborhoods.

Home Mortgage Finance

Federal programs post-World War II that increased homeownership through regulated interest rates and prefabricated housing.

Service Relocation in Suburbs

Small service providers moving to suburban areas due to suburban home construction boom.

Suburban Sprawl

Expansion of housing, transportation, and commercial development to undeveloped land on urban periphery.

Counterurbanization

Movement from inner-city or suburban areas to rural areas to escape urban negatives.

Edge Cities

Suburban CBDs with specific characteristics like office and retail space, located at transportation nodes.

Megacities

Metropolitan areas with over 10 million people, like Mexico City and Mumbai.

World City

Global centers for finance, trade, and commerce ranked in levels of importance.

Primate Cities

Largest city in a country with at least twice the population of the next largest city.

Urban Society

Concepts like segregation, redlining, and gentrification shaping urban social dynamics.

Urban Economies

Gentrification, economic growth, and sustainability influencing urban development and growth.

Urban Transportation

Traffic congestion, air pollution, and benefits of mass transit in urban areas.

New Downtown Housing

Environmentally beneficial housing developments in city centers, including brownfield remediation and mixed-use buildings.