Society and Space: Rural and Urban Typology Notes

Society and Space: Rural and Urban Typology

Introduction to Human Geography

  • Key themes within human geography:

    • Space

    • Place

    • Geography

    • Development

    • Inequality

    • Postcolonialism

  • Subfields of Geography:

    • Political Geographies: Scale, Power, Governance

    • Cultural Geographies: Culture, Race, Affect

    • Environmental Geographies: Nature, Sustainability, Anthropocene

    • Urban and Rural Geographies: Place, Gentrification, Rights

    • Social Geographies: Identity, Difference, Exclusion

    • Economic Geographies: Globalisation, Finance, Capitalism

Key Concepts

  • Place

  • Gentrification

  • Rights

Contents Overview

  • Human settlements (rural and urban) – definitions

  • Space and place

  • Basic types of place: rural

  • Basic types of place: urban

Human Settlements: Definition

  • A human settlement is where a group of people settle in a specific place.

  • A system of settlements includes metropolitan areas, towns, villages, estates, mining camps, and recreation areas.

  • Structural components include industries, transport, storage, housing, community facilities, parks, and recreation (UN-Habitat 1992).

Rural Settlements: Definition

  • Characterized by dispersed settlements focused on agriculture and related activities, located outside major urban areas.

  • Includes any rural population concentration, regardless of size or level of shared facilities (UN-Habitat 1992).

Urbanization: Definition

  • Process where a population concentrates in urban areas, increasing the proportion of people residing in urban areas.

  • Driven by movement from rural to urban areas or by an increase in land area occupied by urban settlements.

  • It's a social, demographic, economic, and physical phenomenon, marked by the concentration and convergence of a country's population into major cities and towns (UN-Habitat 1992).

Urbanized Region: Definition

  • An area that has lost its rural character and has become urbanized (UN-Habitat 1992).

Urban Settlement: Definition

  • Urban settlements transform the natural environment.

  • The process of urbanization and cities exemplify permanent human settlement.

  • Cities contain most of the world's population, despite their growing environmental impact (Rodriguez et al. 2024).

Human Settlement: Space-Turned-Place

  • Human settlement as a physical manifestation of a social unit or community.

  • Reflects the socio-cultural attributes of a society.

  • Dynamic, both externally and internally.

  • Indicates the success and failure of a society.

  • Serves as a basic unit for human geography research.

Space vs. Place

  • Space becomes a place when humans assign meaning to it.

  • Space is an impersonal area; place involves human inputs (cultural, economic, political).

  • A space becomes a place when it is used or lived in.

  • Space and place are not the same.

Sense of Place

  • ‘No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments’ (Stegner, 1992).

Space and Identity

  • Identities are relational and formed through spatial relations.

  • Space serves as a site of negotiation, which can be conflictual (Doreen Massey).

Spatial Engagement & Identity

  • Identities are constituted through spatial engagements and interactions (Massey).

  • Identities are not static but are mutable and ongoing productions, forged in and through spatial relations.

Drivers of Place Formation & Change

  • Geography

  • Climate

  • Economy

  • Technology

  • Politics & Policy

  • Factors/processes

  • Practices

  • Culture

  • Lifestyle choices

  • Change in existing settlements leads to outcomes.

Basic Types of 'Place'

  • Rural

    • Elongated

    • Amorphous

    • Temporary

  • Urban

  • Considerations:

    • Size

    • Form

    • Formation

    • Production/economy

Basic Features of RURAL Places

  • Agriculture-based

  • Low density

  • Higher homogeneity

  • Local networks/ resources

  • Higher use of local material

  • Higher level of social cohesion

Elongated Rural Places

  • Built on high land/valleys along natural water channels.

  • Examples: UK, Brazil, Papua New Guinea.

Amorphous Rural Places

  • Consist of clustered or scattered settlements, often dispersed throughout the terrain.

  • Examples: Thailand, Malawi, UK.

Temporary Settlements

  • Nomadic

  • Refugee camps

  • Examples: Yemen, Tanzania/Kenya, Gypsies, Thailand, Somalia.

Rural Places - Change

  • Rural areas are not immutable.

  • Rural demography & population dynamics are changing.

  • Impact of counter-urbanisation.

  • Agriculture-dominance is diminishing.

  • Agriculture is enmeshed in globalization processes.

  • People’s lifestyle choices are changing.

  • Growing threats of climate change.

Key Model: Attributes of Rural Settlements

  • Nucleation vs. Dispersion

    • Community: Sharing of effort, economizing, enlargement.

    • Individuality: Freedom/status, cash income.

  • Major Goals: Survival, change, stability, wealth accumulation.

  • Economic Base: Agriculture, crafts/industry, fishing, extraction.

  • Forces:

    • Centripetal: Internal regulators.

    • Centrifugal: Colonial regulators.

  • Factors:

    • Access to resources (physical, cultural).

    • Density of population.

    • Physical environment.

    • Food supply.

    • Social factors.

    • Demographic profile.

    • Immigration/emigration.

    • Hazards/disease/war/famine.

    • Advancement.

    • Social frameworks.

  • Elements:

    • Size

    • Locational

    • Population

Urban Places: Definition

  • Urban areas generally have “population above a certain number and/or density threshold, which varies from country to country and over time” (UN Habitat/ DFID, 2002: 8).

  • Urban place is difficult to define with absolute clarity.

UK Definitions of Urban Areas

  • An urban area is usually considered to be relatively built up, with residents regarded as town or city dwellers (National Statistics).

Types of URBAN Places

  • Size: Towns; cities; megacities; world cities; meta-city

  • Form: Concentric; Radial; multinucleated; edge

  • Formation: utopian/rationalist, planned; spontaneous/informal, greenest cities

  • Production/economy: the city of factory; city is the factory

Size of Urban Places

  • Town:

    • Larger than a village but smaller than a city

    • Population: few hundreds to several thousands

  • City:

    • Has a particularly important status, above towns

    • Population: a few thousands to 10 million

  • Megacity:

    • 10 million population

    • May or may not be larger than a city

  • World city:

    • Between 10 and 20 millions

    • Cosmopolitan & multinational corporate economy

    • International financial centres

  • Meta-city:

    • 20 million+ population

    • Includes a series of functionally linked cities/ towns

Metacity Examples

  • North-western Europe

  • The US east coast (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC)

  • China’s Pearl River Delta (Hong Kong)

  • The urban sprawl of Los Angeles

  • Southern California

  • Definition: “…the metacity, or hypercity refers to massive sprawling conurbations of more than 20 million people” (UN 2006, pg. 1)

World City

  • … cities that have become the ‘basing points’ for global capital (Friedmann, 1986, pg.69)

Megacity Growth

  • 1975: 5 megacities

  • 2000: 19 megacities

  • 2020: 35 megacities (Demographia)

  • Definition: “… high-density metropolises of more than 10 million inhabitants” (UN 2006, pg. 1)

Form, Economy, Formation: Historical Context

  • 1800s-1900s: Flourishing of ideas, planning strategies, & explanations for city expansion

  • Factors:

    • Population growth

    • (De)industrialization

    • War (destruction and rebuilding)

    • Colonial expansion (models exported, imported, re-developed, rethought)

Urban FORM

  • Concentric (Burgess model, Hoyt model)

  • Radial

  • Multinucleated

  • Edge

Concentric Zone Model (Burgess Model)

  • Ernest Watson Burgess (1886 – 1966): Canadian-American urban sociologist.

  • First explanation of the distribution of social groups within urban areas; depicts urban land usage in concentric rings.

Hoyt Model

  • Homer Hoyt (1895 - 1984): American economist.

  • Modification of Burgess’ concentric zone model.

  • Allows for an outward progression of growth.

Examples of Urban Forms

  • Concentric city – Auroville, India

    • Experimental township founded in 1968.

    • Aims for universal town with unity, peace, and harmony above all creeds, politics, and nationalities.

  • Radial city – Doha, Qatar; Place de la Nation, Paris, France

    • Streets extend outward from a defined center.

  • Multinucleated city – Los Angeles and Bangor

    • Multiple centers or Multiple centers or nodes instead of a single center.

    • Example: smaller cities merge into a single large city.

    Examples of Urban Forms

    • Edge city – Markham, Ontario; Tysons Corner, Virginia

    • Own, independent nodes developed on city peripheries