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

Unit Overview

• Cities and suburbs are constantly evolving in layout, function, and size.
• Geographers study why people move into, within, or out of urban areas.

Models of Urban Areas

• Geographers create models to show city distribution and size.
• They identify patterns explaining city growth and interconnections.
• Models analyze city organization with zones for commerce, housing, etc.

Urban Landscapes and Urban Challenges

• Landscapes reflect attitudes and values through built environments.
• Choices like housing density and airport location reveal priorities.
• Concentrated populations offer opportunities and challenges.
• Challenges include industrial decline and sustainability issues (e.g., clean air and water).

Enduring Understandings

• (PSO-6) City presence and growth vary due to physical geography and resources.
• (IMP-6) Population attitudes, values, and power balance are reflected in the built landscape.
• (SPS-6) Urban areas face unique economic, political, cultural, and environmental challenges.

Chapter 15: Origin, Distribution, and Systems of Cities

Topics

• 6.1: Origin and Influences of Urbanization
• 6.2: Cities Across the World
• 6.3: Cities and Globalization
• 6.4: Size and Distribution of Cities

Topic 6.1: The Origin and Influence of Urbanization

• Learning Objective: Explain the processes that initiate and drive urbanization and suburbanization. (PSO-6.A)
• Essential Question: What are the processes that initiate and drive urbanization?
• Ecumene: Permanently inhabited portion of the earth's surface.
• Settlement Classifications:
  • Rural areas: Low population concentrations (farms, villages).
  • Urban areas: High population concentrations (cities).
  • Suburbs: Primarily residential areas near cities.

Factors Driving Urbanization

• Settlement: A place with a permanent human population.
• First agricultural settlements appeared ~12,000 years ago.
• Early settlements were small, with inhabitants farming for subsistence.
• True urban settlements (cities) developed with:
  • Agricultural surplus
  • Social stratification and leadership class (urban elite)
  • Job specialization
• Food surplus enabled larger populations via irrigation, farming, and domestication.
• A ruling class controlled resources and people.
• Job specialization included tool-making, weaponry, art, accounting, religious leadership (service sector).
• Cities became economic centers for services, manufacturing, and trade.

Urbanization

• Process of developing towns and cities; ongoing process.
• Includes causes and effects of city growth.
• Urbanized region: Cities are present.
• Percent urban: Proportion of population in cities/towns vs. rural areas.
• More than 50% of the world's population lives in cities.
• Estimates: 60% by 2030, nearly 70% by 2050.
• Most growth in less-developed countries (LDCs) of periphery and semi-periphery.
• Urbanization can be positive but challenging if unprepared or too rapid.

Influence of Site and Situation on Cities

• Location is critical.
• Site: Characteristics at the immediate location (physical features, climate, labor force, structures).
• Situation: Location relative to surroundings and connectivity (e.g., near a mine, coast, railroad).
• Site and situation influence city function (defense, religion, trade, education, finance, transport, government, manufacturing, etc.). Larger cities often have multiple functions.
• Cities near natural ports (e.g., Boston, NYC) began as trade centers but evolved.

Early City-States

• City-state: Urban center (city) and surrounding territory/agricultural villages.
• Independent political system.
• Villages received services and protection.
• Defense was primary; military leaders became political rulers (kings).
• Urban hearths (areas with defensible sites, river valleys with fertile soils):
  • Tigris-Euphrates Valley (Mesopotamia/Iraq)
  • Nile River Valley/Delta (Egypt)
  • Indus River Valley (Pakistan)
  • Huang-He floodplain (China)
• Other centers: Mesoamerica (Mexico), Andean region (South America).
• Examples: Classical Greece (Athens, Sparta), Medieval Europe, Venice, Italian Renaissance city-states. Monaco, Vatican City, and Singapore are modern examples.
• City-states coalesced into early states/empires (e.g., Babylonian Empire).

Centers for Services

• Specialized skills beyond food production developed.
• City residents depended on farmers; cities supplied services for inhabitants and surrounding regions.
• Cities specialized as:
  • Administrative centers (elite rule)
  • Religious centers (shrines)
  • Defensive strongholds
  • University towns
  • Specialized production centers (resource sites)

Defining Cities

• High population concentration.
• Nucleated/clustered settlement.
• Urban area: Central city + commercial/industrial/residential land + suburbs.

Legal Definition of a City

• Higher-density area within official political boundaries.
• Useful for population counts, taxing, services, law enforcement.
• Large cities often share boundaries with adjacent cities, visible only on maps.

Metropolitan Areas

• Collection of adjacent, economically connected cities with high, continuous population density.
• Large cities are metro areas of legally defined cities; referred to by the largest city's name.
• Example: Denver metro area (Denver, Aurora, Lakewood, etc.).

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)

• U.S. definition: City of ≥50,000 people + county + adjacent counties with high social/economic integration.

Micropolitan Statistical Areas

• Cities of >10,000 inhabitants (but <50,000) + county + integrated surrounding counties.
• City defined as a nodal region (focal point in a matrix of connections).

Morphology

• Physical characteristics (buildings, streets, public spaces, homes).
• Built-up area: High concentration of people/structures.
• Outskirts: Built-up areas give way to open spaces.
• Urban border: End of continuously built-up area; may not match legal city boundaries.

Population Characteristics

• Drawn by jobs/opportunities from rural areas/other regions/countries.
• Social heterogeneity: High variety of people.
• Diversity in culture, sexual orientation, languages, professions, etc.
• Immigration centers: 40%+ foreign-born population in some large cities (e.g., Miami, Toronto, Sydney).
• Urban residents are more accustomed to diversity due to density and anonymity.
• Cities attract individuals with less common traits; more likely to find like-minded people.

Transportation and Communication

• Improvements aided city growth in size/number.
• Urban areas expanded as transport enabled movement from city centers.
• Time-space compression: Transport improvements led to urban growth.
• Internet allowed working from home, increasing distances from city centers.

Borchert's Transportation Model

• Developed by geographer John Borchert.
• Urban growth based on transportation technology.
• Each new technology changed movement of people/goods within and between urban areas.
• Four epochs:
  • Sail-Wagon (1790-1830): Water ports important; poor roads limited long-distance travel.
  • Iron Horse (1830-1870): Steam engines powered boats (river city growth); regional rail networks.
  • Steel Rail (1870-1920): Transcontinental railways; cities emerged along rail lines.
  • Auto-Air-Amenity (1920-1970): Cars spread cities; airport hubs; interconnected cities.
• Could be expanded beyond 1970 (mass transit, biking, walking, jet travel).

Transportation's Impact on Cities

• Earliest: Pedestrian cities (shaped by walking distances).
• Horse-and-buggy era: City size increased.
• Streetcar systems: Further population movement; concentrated growth along rail lines.
• Streetcar suburbs: Communities along rail lines; pinwheel shaped cities.
• Automobile: Population spread out; lower-density suburbs developed; connected to highways.
• Accessibility to road networks helps transport goods/services.
• Major cities require multiple modes of national/international transportation, especially air travel.
• Cities focus on economic development policies to increase connectivity.

Communication Networks

• Historically, cities connected to trade routes received information first.
• Telecommunication technology (telegraph, telephone, cell phones, Internet) benefitted early adopting cities.
• Cities are nodal regions requiring connectivity.
• New communication technologies diffused hierarchically to large cities first.
• Cities lacking communication infrastructure fell behind (e.g., Tokyo, Chicago, London, NYC).
• Advanced communication networks attract corporations/factories/high-tech companies.
• Singapore was ranked as the city with the best communication network (smart city) in 2020.

Population Growth and Migration

• Rural-to-urban migration: Growth of cities.
• Push factors (population growth, cultural tension, environmental strain, lack of opportunities) in agricultural communities.
• Cities promise economic opportunities/cultural freedoms.
• Billions migrated from agricultural regions to urban areas in the past 100 years.
• People attracted to densely populated cities for higher-paying jobs and government services.
• Rapid rural-to-urban migration in periphery/semi-periphery countries.
• Domestic migration within countries (e.g., Brazil: rural north/west to Sao Paulo/Rio).
• Rapid growth creates challenges (substandard housing, overcrowding, stressed infrastructure).
• Slower rural-to-urban migration in core countries.
• Domestic/international migration to cities in the west/south (economic opportunity, cost of living, quality of life).
• Rapid urban population growth: Challenges for communities/governments/residents (e.g., Atlanta, Tampa, Charlotte, Denver, Dallas, Phoenix).

Economic Development and Government Policies

• Cities viewed as engines of growth for a country's economy.
• Economic/political leaders develop policies to guide city growth.
• Cities have different functions/economic emphases (e.g., Midwest US: manufacturing; Florida: retirement/tourism).
• Economic incentives (low-cost loans, lower taxes, cheap land) used to encourage economic development.
• Economic function of a city can change over time (e.g., Pittsburgh attracting high-tech industries).
• Cities compete for companies and jobs.
• National policies impact city growth (e.g., China's New Urbanization Plan).

Review of Key Terms

• ecumene
• rural
• urban
• suburbs
• settlement
• urbanization
• percent urban
• site
• situation
• city-state
• urban hearth
• urban area
• city
• metropolitan area (metro area)
• metropolitan statistical area (MSA)
• micropolitan statistical area
• nodal region
• social heterogeneity
• time-space compression
• Borchert's transportation model
• pedestrian cities
• streetcar suburbs

6.2 Cities Across the World

Essential Question

• What are the processes that initiate and drive urbanization and suburbanization?

Overview

• Urbanization and suburbanization vary across the cultural landscape.
• Post-WWII North America: Changes in transportation, demographics, and the economy dramatically changed cities.
• Periphery and semi-periphery: Rapid population growth affects urban areas.

Suburbanization

• Suburb: A largely residential area adjacent to an urban area.
• Suburbanization: People moving from cities to residential areas on the outskirts.
• Suburbs are connected to the city for jobs and services but are less dense and less ethnically diverse.

Causes of Suburbanization (Post-WWII North America)

• Economic expansion
• Increased purchasing power
• Car-centered lifestyle
• Government construction of highways for commuting
• U.S. Federal Housing Administration provided mortgage loans for suburban moves/single-family housing
• Racial tensions contributed: "White flight" as African Americans migrated North.
• Government investment in suburbs, lack of investment in inner cities
• Industries/jobs left cities, residents followed
• Highways sometimes divided urban communities

Shifting Trends

• Suburbanization is a major effect of urban growth.
• Mid-20th century: Most prominent change in urban areas (developed world/North America)
• 1960s U.S. population: Roughly equal distribution between urban, suburban, and rural
• 2016 U.S. Population: 55% suburban, 31% urban, 14% rural
• Suburbs are now the dominant form of residential living in the United States.

Sprawl

• Economic and residential activities decentralize into the suburbs; cities spread horizontally.
• Sprawl: Rapid expansion of a city's spatial extent
  • Growth of suburbs
  • Lower land costs
  • Lower-density single-family housing
  • Weak planning laws
  • Continuing car culture
• Common in fast-growing areas in the Southeast and West U.S.
• Leap-frog development: Developers building communities beyond the city's periphery
• Atlanta's urban footprint (8,300 sq mi/6 million people) vs Mexico City (580 sq mi/21 million people)

New Forms of Land Use

• New patterns created by the suburbanization process.
  • Boomburbs: Rapidly growing communities over 100,000 (not the largest city in metro area. Examples: Mesa, Arizona; Plano, Texas; Riverside, California
  • Edge Cities: Mini downtowns of hotels, malls, restaurants, and office complexes along transportation routes.
    • Nodes of economic activity developed on the periphery.
    • Tall office buildings, retail shops, few residences, junction of major transportation routes.
  • Counter-Urbanization/Deurbanization: Urban residents leaving cities
  • Exurbs: Prosperous residential districts beyond the suburbs.
    • Due to remote work via technology, affordability, cultural preferences (tranquility, privacy, connections to the urban center).
    • Expansive lots, large single-family homes.
• Suburbanization affects rural areas: increased density, homes/businesses on farmland, new residents from urban backgrounds.
• Reurbanization: Some suburbanites returning to the city.

Megacities and Metacities

• The world's largest cities
• Megacities: Population > 10 million
• Metacities: Emerge in the 21st Century
  • Continuous urban area > 20 million
  • Network of urban areas grown together (interconnected urban systems)
• Urban giants can spread across borders and exert regional/worldwide influence (population size, political/economic/cultural power)
• Tokyo (Japan): First and largest metacity (over 37 million)
• New York City: Tenth largest (just over 20 million)
• Emerging Metacity near Shenzhen, China: Predicted to exceed 120 million by 2050

Megalopolis

• Term dates back to the early 1900s and describes a chain of connected cities.
• Common after 1961: Used by French geographer Jean Gottmann for the Boston to Washington D.C. area
• Bos-Wash Corridor: Includes nearly 50 million residents today
• Conurbation: Uninterrupted urban area made of towns, suburbs, and cities (towns that have mixed into one).
• Cities crossed state boundaries and exceeded the definition of a metropolitan area.
• Cities legally separate but, with suburbs, had become a single region sharing some traits of a single massive city.
• Since then, other cities have combined into megalopolises:
  • San Diego to San Francisco corridor (California/West Coast)
  • Tokyo to Yokohama (Japan)

Urbanization in the Developing World

• Megacities were once found at the centers of large empires or the most powerful countries, recently they have become more common in less-developed countries because of high birth rates and increased rural-to-urban migration.
• Of the 20 largest urban areas in the world in 2020, 15 were in semiperiphery or periphery countries.
• Megacities in relatively poor countries face the same challenges as megacities in wealthy countries but without as many resources to respond too.
• Social problems between ethnic groups, joblessness, lack of infrastructure, inadequate housing, and environmental problems—such as Mexico City's severe air pollution—are common in all megacities.

Key Terms

• suburbanization
• sprawl
• leap-frog development
• boomburbs
• edge cities
• counter-urbanization (deurbanization)
• exurbs
• reurbanization
• megacities
• metacities
• megalopolis
• conurbation

6.3- Cities and Globalization

Essential Question.

• How do cities influence the process of globalization?

Overview

• Cities are becoming increasingly larger and more economically important.
• The influence of cities is important and needs to be a major area of study.
• An analysis of urban systems help understand the concepts of world cities and urban hierarchy.

World Cities

• The world’s largest cities are not always the most influential.
• Cities the exert influence far beyond their national boundaries are world cities.
  • These World Cities are Global Cities.
• New York, London Tokyo, and Paris are all media hubs and financial centers.
  • They all have stock exchanges, banks, and corporate headquarters that give them power.
• Many host headquarters of international organizations (e.g., New York: United Nations).
• World cities are the control centers for the global economy where important decisions about products are made.
• Researchers rank city influence based on the following factors
  • Financial power
  • Innovation
  • Academic resources
  • cultural influence
  • livability
  • connectivity
  • accessibility
  • political influence
• The world’s top cities tend to be located in the most powerful indexes according to the global power city index.

Connectivity and Urban Hierarchy

• Cities at all scales are considered a part of an urban system.
• Having an urban hierachy the cities are then ranked in influence or population size.
• For a city to be influential it must have connectivity and be connected to regional, national, and global networks.
• World Cities operate Globally!
• They posses connectivity to smaller cities
• Nodal Cities are command centers on a regional or national level
  • Because these kinds of cities are influential but do not have the influence of world cities they posses power within a certain radius of the country
  • This is because they may only have some corporate headquarters and many regional offices.
  • Nodal cites become the major entertainment and cultural centers.
• Specialty cities also posses an urban hierarchy because certain functions (Austin-government cities; Las Vegas-Entertainment cities etc…)

Key Terms

• urban hierarchy
• Nodal cities

6.4 The Size and Distribution of Cities

Essential Questions

• What are the different urban populations such as hierarchy and spacing that are useful in explaining the distribution, size and the interaction of cities?

Note

• Today cities range in size from just a few thousand inhabitants to those that have populations of over 21 million (Karachi, Pakistan)
• Often a city exists in an urban system - interdependent set of cities that interact on the national, regional and global scale.

Urban Hierarchy

• Systems of cities have an urban hierarchy or ranking based on influence or population size
• (See Topic 6.3) On the global scale world cities are on the top of the hierarchy
• Megacities and Metacities are on the top of the urban hierarchy when considering population.
• The concepts of rank-size rule and primate city concepts are used to determine the hierarchy within a country’s urban system.

Rank-Size Model

• The rank-size rule is one way in which the size of the city develop. It says that the nth largest city in any region, will be nth the size of the largest city.
  • EX- the rank of the city within the urban city will predict the city.
• Geographers consider this a characteristic of well - developed regions or countries(federal and state).
• Includes cities of all sizes.
  • From high to low, and everything in between.
  • High order are needed to support specialty business as it requires a large population (i.e. - sports teams)
  • Low-income services require a low population and is needed on a daily basis.
• Geographers think that this is an indicator of the ability of the urban system to provide and sustain its population

Primate Model

• If the largest city in an urban system is more than twice as large than the second, it is said to have primacy or be a primate city.
• A primate city is more developed then other in the system, and disproportionately more powerful.
• A Social point for the system, offering a wider range of services than do smaller cities.

Gravity Model

• This gravity model states that larger and closer places will have more inter action that places that are smaller and farther from each other.
  • Worker flow, mail
  • Does to account for political or barriers between interaction

Central Theory.

• Walter Christaller (German 1933) developed the central place theory to explain the distribution of cities of different sizes

• central place A location where people go to receive goods and services. This can be small or large, but it provides all different sizes.

• Smaller villages and towns. Larger cities where one can get high order services.

• Larger cities are also more farther spread apart then Smaller ones.

Market Theory.

• A market area can be defined as a zone of population that will purchase goods or services.

• High value services have larger market zones.

  • Christaller chose a Hinterland because this shape was a compromise between are that where farther from central city.

• Thresholds are the necessary population to exist properly in a certain area (gas station or department store).

• Distance people will travel to obtain goods or services is range. People travel high for high order services, and basic is small.

Key Terms

• Urban System
• Rank Size Rule
• higher-order services
• lower-order services
• primate city
• gravity model
• central place theory
• central place
• market area
• hexagonal hinterlands
• threshold
• range

6.5 The Internal Structure of Cities

Essential Question

• How do various models and theories explain the internal structure of cities?

Overview

• Cities are extremely important centers for the population of the world, but are difficult to plan and understand.

Urban Module.

• Like most Models used by geographers, they are based on real places but they share certain functions to make them more accurate

Various Functions

• Classifying the uses of land and segregating spatially.
• Offering explanation of location

Urban Zones.

• One principle underlying all urban module is function zoning,
  • Portions of an urban area like regions or zones within the city have specific or distinct purpose.
• All areas share 3 Basic zones.
  • The central business district
  • Industrial Commercial
  • Land Residential.

Central Business District.

• A focal point to the urban population.
• Also have key transportation options.
• This uses rent theory and land will have a higher value.
• Space gives it character.

Urban Modules

• Used to describe Urban area in north america. All three models the can

  • Center Zone Model.
  • The sector module
  • The nuclei model.

• These modules were based on the city of Chicago.

  • All modules help make accurate decisions in their locations

Sectorize Models.

• In the 1930’s Economist Homer Hoyt developed the sector module also called Hoyts module.
• The module includes key land use for low Medium and High income housing!

Multiple Nuclei Module.

• Geographer Chauncy Harris, and Edward Ullman developed the Harris and Ullman module Studying change in the module in the 1940’s

Galactic Cities

• Beginning in the 1950’s Suburban growth in the U.S skyrocketed because of the government and highways.

World Structure structure

• Also devolved models to help desribe cities outside of north america, which still share the same basic functions

European Cities.

• Many of today’s cities in Europe grew out of medieval and pre industrial Cities. Meaning they grow slow with planning.

Islamic Cities.

• The spread of islam has shaped many cities, with tall structures like fortresses. Key markets sold luxury for cheap on site.

Latin American

• The Griffin Food module is often used to describe latin american cities. And puts a 2 par CBD at the center of the city!

African Citiies.

• New cities have been made here that include a few districts (colonial vs traditional districts)

Conclusion

• Urban modules are complex and should always be understood in urban setting.

6.6 Density and Land Use

Essential Question

• How do low-, medium-, and high-density housing characteristics represent different patterns of residential land use?

Residential zones vary in density.

• These differences reflect a region's culture, landscape, and lifestyle preferences and social divisions.

Local regulations affect land use.

• Conflicts arise over land use.

• Zoning balances competing desires.

  • Most homeowners want peace and quiet, but factory owners want round-the-clock production, which can be noisy.

• Zoning ordinances

  • Regulations defining how property may be used.
  • Categories:
    • Residential (where people live)
    • Commercial (where people/businesses sell goods and services)
    • Industrial (where businesses make things)

• Urban planning use zoning as a planning tool.

  • A process of promoting growth and controlling land use.

Residential zones.

• An area devoted to people rather than commercial of industrial.
  * Residential zone limits on the zones.
  * Appeals to people of various needs and lifestyles.

• Areas surrounding the C BD are known as Inner city Apartments and town homes dominate.

• More people live outside of the C BD. More than half in the suburbs.

Cycles of Residential zone

• Those places filter from one to another when existing residents love that place.
  * This will become a Ethnic enclave neighborhood and change to another Group and this can change in the landscape and sequent Occupancy.

Conclusion.

• Those cities and municipalities are good at planning for the various types of businesses.

6.7 Infrastructure

Essential Question

• How does a city’s infrastructure relate to local politics, society, and the environment.

Notes

• Critical and key to the running of the city are the infrastructure.

Key points

• Distribution systems for things like and Electricity
• There is a collection of buildings like stations and courts, that cities provide.
  *Transportation is one, but public transportation is complex.
  *It’s hard to decide in busy setting what the benefits each offer.
  *Municipal or government organizations provide help to these infrastructures.

Government functions

*These municipalities are in charge of there sphere to ensure that everything goes safely and with success. This also helps with the budget and that is another point of local governance.

Conclusion

• Infrastructure is key to cities, but need government to help stay in shape and proper use.

6.8 Urban Sustainability

Essential Question

*What are urban design initiatives and practices and what are the effects of those initiatives and practices’.

Notes

*Using the earth’s resources is now considered sustainability .
*Maintaining viability of the cities has become increasingly important to understand and develop.

What happens in the future;

Sustainable cities face problems, all around. And new sustainable concepts are being developed.

Smart Growth Policy’s.

Developed in order to combat the environment being sustainable.
Slow Srawl - policies that create concentrate. Spatial and use the buildings with transportations systems.
Another plan that requires the need to be walkable for the resident.
Many have now adapted the Europe Policy’s .
Similarities- To limit growth . New jersey Rhode Isalnd.

New Planning Systems

A group of develoepers in 1990’s smart new growths.
Like a human use, neglect space . Increase transports
Has succeed in most places. But the problem is people do not want to change, so the problems

Urban Infill.

Is an opposite of leapfrog developments, so it is the building underused lands.
Because infill will use the lands more then the edges of the city, it is considered a growth.

The Oriented Traffic

New transits are making a mass transit. Having riders transport to home is difficult, because that means public transport is the best way.

Conclusion.

To help cities, all should know the important of sustainability

Note.