AP Human Geography Unit 6 Exam Review

Cities Across the World

Urban is the built-up city or town & its surrounding environment

Urbanization refers to population shifts from rural to urban areas & people’s adaptation to these changes

Due to expansion of urban areas, known as urban sprawl, many modern challenges have arisen

Suburbs are a largely residential are adjacent to an urban area

Process of suburbanization involves people moving, from cities, to residential area on the outskirts of cities

Four causes leading to the suburbanization of the U.S. after WWII:

• Economic expansion

• Greater purchasing power for families

• Growth of a car-centered lifestyle

• Gov’t’s construction of a vast system of new highways

New forms of land use:

• Boomburbs: rapidly growing, sprawling city of 100,000 or more on the edge of a major metropolitan area

• Edge City: cities that are located at the edge of cities and have economic activity despite their location away from the CBD

  • Large node of office and retail activities on the edge of an urban area

• Counter urbanization: increase in rural populations resulting form the out-migration of city residents

• Exburbs: district outside a city, especially a prosperous area beyond the suburbs

  • Developed in the 1950s when people commuted into the city

Megacities are very large urban centers around the globe that have a population of greater than 10 million people

• World’s largest cities & typically have more than 10 million people

• Influence due to size of population, also their political, economic & cultural power

Metacities are a large cluster of Megacities that have a population of greater than 20 million people

• Connected through transportation systems and infrastructure

• Form one very large economic center

Cities and Globalization

The Size and Distribution of Cities

Problems with the Rank Size Rule

• Some countries have some cities that fit in the rank size rule but other cities populations in the top 10

  • In the U.S.,

    • 1. NYC is largest

    • 2. Los Angeles

    • 3. Chicago

    • 4. Houston

    • 5. Phoenix

    • 6. Philadelphia, etc.

      • In the USA, the top 5 cities fit in the Rank Size Rule, but cities 6-10 do NOT

Largest city in an urban system is more than twice as large as the next largest city makes a primate city

• Usually social, political or economic hub

• U.K. (Developed) & Mexico (Developing) Country follow the primate city model

Gravity Model shows that interaction between locations is proportional to the multiplication of the two populations divided by the distance between them squared (though it is mostly used for migration)

Central Place Theory

Walter Christaller, German geographer, first developed the Central Place Theory

Explaining the reasons behind the distribution patterns, size, & number of cities or towns across the globe

• Serving as the framework for both historical & locational patterns today.

• Explaining the identification of most profitable locations

Threshold is the size of population necessary for any particular services to exist & remain profitable

• Convenience stores & gas station are services that have very low thresholds

• Restaurants, hospitals, high schools & department stores are services that have a higher threshold

Range is the distance people will travel to obtain specific goods & services

• Higher order services people are willing to travel farther

• Lower order or basic services people are less likely willing to travel

  • Fast food or basic needs

Urban Sustainability

New Urbanism is a counter to urban sprawl

• Urban Sprawl is unrestricted growth of housing, commercial developments & roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning

  • Urban Sprawl came about in the automobile era from Detroit, MI

  • Before this era, cities were built in walking-distances & there was less development

  • When the automobile was invented, cities grew "up" & the city itself instead grew "out"

Green Belts are a ring of well-maintained parks circling the Urban City Center also known as a Belt-line

• London England attempted to slow growth

• Includes running & biking paths

• Tends to incorporate many tunnels & small gardens

• Limit or slow down the sprawl of urban areas

• Limit pollution & use of mass transit with paths to take around the city

  • Famous & large green belt is located in the city of Atlanta circling the MLK, Midtown & Downtown Neighborhoods

    • Having nice running & biking paths

    • Crosses through many small farmers markets & Atlanta Botanical Garden

Challenges of Urban Changes

Problems

• Redlining is denying people of certain races/ethnicities loans within particular areas

• Blockbusting is a racially discriminatory practice of pressuring a party to sell a home to families of a minority race or ethnic background

  • Using fear tactics to cause others in the neighborhood to sell their homes at low prices

  • Consequence: Ethnic composition of neighborhoods changed

• Led to White flight or the movement of whites from the city to the suburbs, often as minorities moved in

• Gentrification process of rehabilitating old structures in deteriorated areas rather than demolishing the old structures to make new

  • Changes formerly low‐income areas to middle‐ & high‐income groups

  • Giving an economic boost to the area

  • Raises property values

    • Force out the poorer, often minority groups that settled there during the redlining & blockbusting times

  • Creating tension between long‐time residents & newcomers

    • Sometimes, empty or abandoned areas are demolished to the ground