Chapter 11 Urban Systems and Urban Structures
11.1 An Urbanizing World
- Merging Urban Regions
* When separate major urban complexes expand along the superior transportation facilities connecting them
* They create extensive urban regions or conurbations
* Conurbations
* Extended urban area, typically consisting of several towns merging with the suburbs of one or more cities
11.2 Settlement Roots
- Major cities of today had humble origins in the simple cluster of dwellings that was the starting point for human settlements everywhere
- Rural settlements in developing countries are often expressions of subsistence economic systems
- When settlements are not self-contained
* Become part of a system of towns and cities engaged in urban activities and exchange
11.3 Origins and Evolution of Cities
- Cities and civilization are inseparable
- 8,000 years ago, cities originated in the early culture hearths that first developed sedentary agriculture.
- Centers of cultural, economic, religious, and political life are among humanity’s greatest achievements
- Earliest cities depended on the creation of agricultural surpluses
- The Nature of Cities
* Whether ancient or modern, all cities must have an economic base
* All urban settlements exist for the efficient performance of functions required by the society that creates them
* The totality of people and urban functions constitute distinctive cultural landscapes - The Location of Urban Settlements
* Urban centers are functionally connected to other cities and to rural areas
* Cities exist not only to provide services for themselves, but for others outside of it
* In order to add new functions as demanded by the larger economy, the city must be efficiently located - Transportation Epochs
* Break-of-bulk and head-of-navigation sites demonstrate the importance of transportation to the location of urban settlements
* When a new transportation system emerges, it changes the optimal locations for urban growth
* Chicago emerged as hubs of regional railroads that collected and distributed resources from the vast interior of the continent - The Economic Base
* Cities depend on close relationships with their hinterlands
* They provided the market where rural produce could be exchanged for the goods produced
* they constitute the basic sector of the city’s total economic structure
* the basic sector makes up the economic base of the community and is essential for
* health of the local economy - Increase in total population is equal to the added workers plus their dependents
11.4 The Functions of Cities
- Modern city functions
* Manufacturing
* Retailing
* Wholesaling
* Transportation
* Public administration
* Housing cultural and educational institutions
* The housing of their own citizens - Cities as Central Places
* Central places are nodes for the distribution of economic goods and services to surrounding non urban populations
* Small cities provide a range of goods and services that suffice for most everyday needs
* Central place theory
* A pattern of interdependent small, medium, and larger towns that could together provide the goods and services needed by dispersed rural populations
* People would have to travel only short distances for low order items
11.5 Systems of Cities
- The Urban Hierarchy
* The most effective way to recognize how systems of cities are organized is to consider the urban hierarchy
* Urban hierarchy
* A ranking of cities based on their size and functional complexity
* The hierarchy is like a pyramid
* A few large and complex cities are at the top and many smaller, simpler ones are at the bottom
* Separate centers interact with the areas around them, but because cities of the same level provide roughly the same services - World Cities
* Top of national systems of cities are a relatively few places that may be called world cities
* Large urban centers are command and control points for the global economy
* London and New York were the world’s two largest cities in 1950 - Rank-Size and Primacy
* Considering city systems on a global scale, urban geographers also inquire about the organization of city systems within regions or countries
* The city size hierarchy is summarized by the rank-size rule
* The nth largest city of a national system of cities will be 1/n the size of the largest city - Network Cities
* History of urban growth includes episodes of intense competition between cities,
* A new kind of urban spatial pattern, the network city, has begun to appear as nearby cities work together
* Network city
* Evolves when two or more previously independent cities with potentially complementary functions develop high-speed transportation corridors and communications infrastructure to facilitate cooperation
11.6 Inside the City
- Defining the City Today
* Urban settlements come in different sizes, shapes, and types
* Their common characteristic is that they are nucleated, nonagricultural settlements
* End of the size scale, urban areas are hamlets or small towns with at most a single short main street of shops
* Beginning of the size scale are complex multifunctional metropolitan areas or megacities
* Towns
* Smaller in size and have less functional complexity than cities, but they still have a nuclear business concentration
* Suburbs
* A subsidiary area, a functionally specialized segment of a larger urban complex
* Central city
* The principal core of a larger urban area, separately incorporated and ringed by its dependent suburbs
* Urbanized area
* A continuously built-up landscape defined by building and population densities, with no reference to political boundaries
* Metropolitan area
* A large-scale functional entity, perhaps containing several urbanized areas, discontinuously built up but nonetheless operating as an integrated economic whole - Classic Patterns of Urban Land Use
* The Central Business District
* The radiating mass transit lines focused on downtown gave it the highest accessibility within the growing urban complex
* Building lots within the emerging central business district (CBD) could command the highest rental and purchase prices
* The intersection where the major mass transit lines converged was called the peak land value intersection
* Outside the CBD
* Industry controlled land next to essential cargo routes
* Lower-order commercial centers developed at the outlying intersections of the mass transit network
* Light industries, and high-density apartment structures could afford and benefit from location along high-volume transit routes
* Least accessible locations within the city were left for the least-competitive bidders
* Automobile-Based Patterns
* In the 1940s, automotive transportation became dominant in the movement of people
* Goods and streetcar systems lost riders and were often converted to bus systems
* Highway systems were extended outward after World War II
* As wealthy and middle class families moved away from the city center, the zones shifted outward
* Regional Differences
* Only the oldest parts of eastern cities such as Old Quebec and Boston’s Beacon Hill still display remnants of the walking city
* The density and design of the newer cities have been influenced primarily or exclusively by the automobile and motor truck, not by mass transit and railroads
* Models of Urban Form
* Mental maps
* Help us summarize and make sense of the diverse places we’ve experienced in large cities
* Concentric zone model
* Developed by University of Chicago sociologists
* Explain the structuring of U.S. cities, specifically ethnically diverse, mass transit–based cities like Chicago in the 1920s
* Each type of land use and each residential group tends to move outward into the next outer zone as the city matures and expands
* The common starting point of the early models is the distinctive CBD found in every older central city
* Peripheral model (galaxy model)
* The major changes in urban form that have taken place since World War II, especially the suburbanization of what were once central city functions
11.7 Social Areas of Cities
- Early models of U.S. cities are evident in the observed social segregation within urban areas
- Social Status
* Social status of an individual or a family is determined by income, education, occupation, and home value
* May differ due to cultures
* Social status divisions are often perpetuated by political boundaries between separate municipalities or school districts nowadays - Family Status
* Singles, young professionals without children, and older people whose children have left home live close to the city center
* Arrangement that emerges is a set of concentric circles divided according to family status - Ethnicity
* Ethnicity is a more important factor in residential location than social or family status
* Some ethnic groups, cultural segregation is both sought and vigorously defended
* Certain ethnic or racial groups, especially African Americans, have had segregation forced on them
* This occurs through housing discrimination or real estate agents who “steer” people of certain racial and ethnic groups into neighborhoods that the agents think are appropriate - Institutional Controls
* They have strongly influenced the land-use arrangements and growth patterns of most U.S. cities
* Have been designed to assure an orderly pattern of urban development
* Are based on broad applications of the police powers of municipalities to ensure public health, safety, and well-being
* Nonmarket controls on land use are designed to minimize incompatibilities
- Suburbanization and Edge Cities
* Two most prominent patterns of change were metropolitan growth and, within metropolitan areas, suburbanization
* When developers were converting open land to urban uses at the rate of 80 hectares (200 acres) an hour Suburban expansion reached its maximum
* Edge cities now exist in all regions of the urbanized United States - Central City Decline
* The dominance of the CBD was based on its being the focus of urban mass-transit
* Redistribution of population caused by suburbanization resulted in both spatial and political segregation of social groups
* These newer “automobile” metropolises placed few restrictions on physical expansion - Central City Renewal and Gentrification
* Central cities hit their low point in the 1970s when New York City went bankrupt
* Pundits proclaimed the end of cities as the latest digital communications technologies would eliminate the need for face-to-face interaction
* Some of the new office workers chose to live in central city neighborhoods that offer residential revival called gentrification
* By purchasing and renovating houses in struggling neighborhoods, immigrants have helped revitalize many inner-city neighborhoods
11.9 World Urban Diversity
- The West European City
* Western European cities are unique historically and culturally share certain common features
* Residential streets of the older sections tend to be narrow, and front, side, or rear yards or gardens are rare
* European cities also enjoy a long historical tradition - Eastern European Cities
* Russia and the former European republics of the Soviet Union, once part of the communist world, make up a separate urban class
* Post-communist cities share many of the traditions and practices of West European cities
* The planned city of the communist era is compact, with relatively high building and population densities - Rapidly Growing Cities of the Developing World
* Fastest-growing cities and the fastest-growing urban populations are found in the developing world
* Influences of the Past
* Cities in developing countries' legacies and purposes influence their urban forms
* The product of colonialism, established as ports or outposts of administration and exploitation
* Urban structure is a product not just of the time when a city was founded, or who the founders were, but also of the role it plays in its own cultural setting - Urban Primacy and Rapid Growth
* The population of many developing countries is disproportionately concentrated in their national and regional capitals
* Squatter Settlements
* Most developing-world cities are ringed by vast, high-density squatter settlements
* A substantial proportion of the population of most developing world cities is crowded into squatter settlements built by their inhabitants
* Latin American City Model
* At the center is the:
* Traditional market area
* Key government and religious buildings
* Modern CBD
* Outward from the center is a commercial spine that features high-status establishments and terminates at a suburban mall
* Squatter settlements are found at the urban periphery and in disamenity zones
* Near dumps
* In flood-prone areas
* steep slopes
* Planned Cities
* Some national capitals have been removed from their earlier primate city sites and relocated outside the core regions of their countries
* Other relocations have been planned or announced for example:
* South Korea’s primary government administrative agencies 150 kilometers (93 miles) to the southeast of Seoul
* A number of developing countries have also created or are currently building some new cities
* This is because they want to draw population away from overgrown metropolises