Urban Patterns
Chapter 13
Urbanization

Def.- the process by which the pop. of
cities grows

Made up of 2 factors
1. An increase in the # of people living in cities
2. An increase in the % of people living in cities

2 factors occur for diff. reasons and have
diff. global distributions
continued
In 1800, only 3% of World pop. lived in
cities and Beijing was the only city with
more than 1 million
 Today ½ of pop. lives in cities and more
than 400 cities have at least 1 million
people

Increasing Percentage of People in
Cities
3% in 1800
 6% in 1850
 14% in 1900
 30% in 1950
 47% in 2000
 2008 urban % surpassed rural for first time
in human history

continued
In MDCs, ¾ live in cities
 In LDCs, 2/5 live in cities

 Exception
is in Latin America—closely
resembles pattern of MDCs

Higher % in MDCs due to industrial
revolution in 19th Century and growth of
service industries in the 20th
continued
In MDCs the need for fewer farm workers
has pushed people to cities to find work
 Lure of factory jobs and now service jobs
has pulled them into urban areas

 Led
to increase in % of people living in urban
areas and a decrease in % of people living in
rural areas—Duh!
Continued

Process of urbanization in MDCs began
around 1800 and has pretty much ended
The % living in urban area can’t increase much
more
 People who wanted to do it already have

 MDCs
are considered fully urbanized
continued

In LDCs the % has risen rapidly in recent
years
 People
come looking for manufacturing or
service jobs due to declining farming
opportunities

Urban jobs are not assured in LDCs to those who
migrate—stage 2 Demographic transition model—
very high population growth
10 largest cities in the World
According to your text
BuenosAires,
Aires,Argentina
Argentina
Buenos
Delhi, India
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Jakarta, Indonesia
Kolkata, India
Mexico City, Mexico
Mumbai, India
New York City, United States
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Tokyo, Japan
Increasing # of People in Cities

8 of 10 largest cities are in LDCs
 NY

and Tokyo are the only exceptions
In 1900, 6 would have been in Europe and
three in the US
continued

Rapid growth of cities in LDCs not
because of industrialization or an
improved level of development
½
comes from migration for countryside for
job opportunities that may not even exist
 ½ comes from high natural increase rates

In African cities, natural increase accounts for 3/4
Defining Urban Settlements
Not an easy thing today
 Top ten lists vary depending on the
publication because of differing definitions
of the word urban
 2 important factors in distinguishing
between urban and rural—social factors
and physical factors

Social Differences Between Urban
and Rural

Louis Wirth 1930s

Different way of life for urban dwellers
 Defined city as a permanent settlement with
3 characteristics
1.
2.
3.
Large size
High pop. density
Socially heterogeneous people
Large size
People know only a small % of pop.
 People have specific roles and most
people you do know is according to those
roles


Ex. I’m your teacher
 Leads
to a different set of social relationships
High Density

Leads to specialization
 Each
person in urban area has a specified
role that allows the complex urban structure to
function smoothly

Leads to competition of limited resources
for survival
Social Heterogeneity
Larger the settlement, the greater the
variety of people
 More freedom to pursue “different” things

Unusual jobs, homosexuality, cultural interests
 More accepted in large urban areas


Despite freedom, many feel lonely or
isolated in urban settlements
 Surrounded
by indifferent people
Wirth Definition Today
Really only applies to LDCs
 Everyone in MDCs lives urban lifestyles

 Urban
jobs, cars, telephones, TV are available
to all in MDCs
Physical Definitions of Urban
Settlements


Used to be easy—cities were walled
Today there are 3 ways to physically
define an urban settlement
By legal boundary
2. As a continuously built-up area
3. As a functional area
1.
Legal Definition of a City

City- an urban settlement that has been legally
incorporated into an independent, self-governing
unit
 Has
locally elected officials, ability to raise taxes, and
provides certain services to residents
 Boundaries of city are the limit to the local gov.
authority
 In the US, a city surrounded by suburbs is often
called a central city
Urbanized Area

In the US, the central city and surrounding
suburbs are called an urbanized area
Pop. Density must exceed 1000 per sq. mile
 70% of US residents live in an urbanized area
 30% in central cities and 40% in suburbs

 Difficult
to work with this definition, because
few statistics are available for them
Metropolitan Statistical Area

Used because it more fully reflects the
influence of an urban settlement beyond
its legal boundaries


Watching TV stations, reading newspapers,
supporting sports teams, etc.
Created by US Census Bureau to
measure functional area of a city
continued

1.
2.
3.
Metropolitan Statistical areas include the
following:
An urbanized area with pop. of at least 50,000
The county within which the city is located
Adjacent counties with high pop. Density and a
large % of residents working in the central
city’s county
continued
362 MSAs in the US in 2003—83% of pop.
 MSAs are not perfect analysis tools

 Also
include extensive land area that isn’t
urban
continued
Micropolitan statistical area- an
urbanized area of b/w 10,000 and 50,000
residents, the county in which it is found,
and adjacent counties tied to the city
 560 in 2003—10% of pop

 Mostly
in area of South and West that used to
be rural
Overlapping Metropolitan Areas

Sometimes MSAs overlap
 A county
in between might send large # of
residents to work in both areas

In the NE US, MSAs are so close together
they now form one continuous urban
complex
 Called

Megalopolis– Boston to DC
Some call Boswash or Bosnywash
continued

Other continuous urban complex exist as
well
 Between
Chicago and Milwaukee to
Pittsburgh
 Los Angeles to Tijuana
Three Models of Urban Structure


Created to help explain where different
types of people tend to live in an urban
area
All three were created using Chicago as
the model
Concentric Zone Model
2. Sector Model
3. Multiple Nuclei Model
1.
Concentric Zone Model


Created 1923– Sociologist E. W.
Burgess
Def.- a model of the internal structure of
cities in which social groups are spatially
arranged in a series of rings
continued

1.
5 zones
CBD – central business district

2.
Innermost ring- concentration of non-residential
activities
Zone in Transition



Industry and poorer-quality housing
Often subdivided apartment houses
Often filled by immigrants
continued
3.
Zone of Working Class Homes

4.
Zone of Middle Class Homes

5.
Modest older houses occupied by stable families
Newer and more spacious homes
Commuter’s Zone

Area of people who don’t live in city where they
work
Concentric Zone Model- Burgess
Sector Model



Created in 1939 by economist Homer Hoyt
Def. – a model of internal structure of cities in
which social groups are arranged around a
series of sectors, or wedges, radiating out from
the CBD
Certain areas of cities are more attractive for
various activities
 Due
to chance or environmental factors originally
continued


As city grows, activities spread outward in
wedges/sectors from the center
Once a high rent housing district is established,
the more expensive new housing grows on the
outer edge of that sector


Best housing found in a corridor extending from downtown to
outer edge of city
Industrial and retail activities develop in other
sectors—usually along good transportation lines
Sector Model - Hoyt
Multiple Nuclei Model


Created in 1945 by geographers C. D. Harris
and E. L. Ullman
Def.- a model of internal structure of cities in
which social groups are arranged around a
collection of nodes of activities
 Cities
are complex and include more than one center
around which activities revolve

Ex. Ports, neighborhood business centers, universities,
airports, parks
continued

Some activities are attracted to particular
nodes, whereas others try to avoid them
 Bookstores
and pizza joints tend to cluster
around Universities
 Hotels and warehouses around airports
 High-class housing rarely in same
neighborhood as manufacturing
Multiple Nuclei Model
Harris and Ullman
Geographic Applications of the
Models
Help understand where people w/ diff.
social char. tend to live in an urban area
 Explain why certain people tend to live in
particular places
 Effective use of models relies on data at
neighborhood levels

continued
In the US, the data comes form the census
 Census tracts- an area delineated by the
US Census Bureau for which statistics are
published; in urbanized areas they roughly
correspond to neighborhoods

Contain about 5000 people
 Includes info. on things such as number of
nonwhites, median family income, and % of adults
with high school diploma

continued

Spatial distribution of this data can be plotted on
a map
 Called


social area analysis
Separately, none of the models can completely
explain why diff. types of people live in
distinctive parts of a city
Critics say models are too simple and are too old
to represent contemporary urban life
continued

When combined they help geographers
explain where different types of people live
in a city
 People
tend to reside in certain locations
depending on their particular personal
characteristics

Most people prefer to live near others with similar
characteristics
Use of Models Outside of North
America
Models don’t work as well elsewhere
 Social groups in other countries may have
diff. reasons for selecting their particular
neighborhoods

European Cities

Like the US, wealthier people in Europe
cluster along a sector extending out from
the CBD
 In
contrast to US, wealthy Europeans live in
the inner rings of the upper-class sector—not
just in the suburbs

Provides access to regions best shops,
restaurants, and cultural facilities
continued

Wealthy Europeans live in townhouses
and apartments—no private yards

Rely on parks for open space
 Many
purchase abandoned farm buildings in
rural settlements for weekend homes away
from the city
continued


Low-income people usually live in large high-rise
apartments in the suburbs today
Used to live in inner cities with the wealthy before the
invention of electricity

Vertical social segregation



Poor lived in basements and upper floors, while wealthy lived on
main levels
Today the poor have long commutes by public
transportation
Suburbs are centers fro crime, violence, and drug
dealing
continued

European Gov.’s encourage high-density
suburbs to avoid the sprawl that has
occurred in America
Less Developed Countries
Poor also concentrated in suburbs,
wealthy closer to city center
 Similarity to Europe is not coincidental

 Colonization
continued

1.
2.
3.
Most cities in LDCs have had three
stages of development
Pre colonization
Colonial Period
Since Independence
Pre-colonial Cities


Few cities existed in Latin America, Africa, and
Asia before European colonization
Cities were often laid out surrounding a religious
core
 Ex. Mosque
 Center would
also include a bazaar and wealthy
homes
 Narrow winding streets would lead to lower status
neighborhoods far from the core—recent immigrants
would live on the edge
continued
Commercial activities were arranged in a
concentric and hierarchical pattern
 The more important the activity the closer
it would be to the religious center
 Read about the Aztecs and Tenochtitlan
on page 443

Colonial Cities

Europeans expanded existing cities to provide
services such as administration, military
command, international trade, and housing for
Europeans
 Sometimes
existing city was demolished (Saigon/Ho
Chi Minh City was built after demolishing the old city)
 Sometimes the new city was built next to the old, as in
the case of New Delhi
continued
European cities generally had wider
streets and public squares, larger houses
surrounded by gardens, and much lower
density
 Colonial cities had standard plans

 The
Laws of the Indies—Spanish plan that
outlined how cities would be built in Latin
America
Cities Since Independence

Cities have become the focal points of change
since independence
 Millions

have migrated in search of work
In Latin American cities wealthy people live in a
well-defined elite sector that pushes out from the
center
 Has
services such as water, electricity and access to
restaurants, theaters, parks, and zoos
Squatter Settlements


LDCs are unable to house the rapidly growing #
of poor who migrate to cities
Squatter settlements- an area within a city in a
LDC in which people illegally establish
residences on land they do not own or rent and
erect homemade structures
 Called
India
many things- often barrios in LA, bustees in
continued

UN estimated that 175 million people worldwide
lived in squatter settlements in 2003
 AN

INCREASE OF 75 MILLION SINCE 2000
Have few services, water comes from a truck or
central well, no schools, paved roads,
telephones or sewers
 Electricity
might be stolen from the nearest power line
 No bus service or cars—resident must walk to work if
employed

33% in Sao Paulo, 85% in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Inner-City Physical Problems
Major problem is poor condition of the
housing- most built prior to 1940
 Can be demolished and rebuilt or
rehabilitated

Process of Deterioration


As # of low income residents increase in cities,
the territory they occupy expands
Filtering- a process of change in the use of a
house, from single family owner occupancy to
abandonment
 Once
wealthy dwellings have been subdivided for
lower income residents
 Once the maintenance costs of the home, become
more expensive than the rent collected the houses
are often abandoned
continued


When the homes are abandoned, the schools
and shops associated with the neighborhoods
close with the declining population
Redlining- a process by which banks draw lines
on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase
or improve property within the boundaries
 makes

it diff. to fix-up deteriorating homes
Highly illegal for banks, but difficult for gov. to enforce
Urban Renewal

Def.- program in which cities identify
blighted inner-city neighborhoods, acquire
the properties from private owners,
relocate the residents and businesses,
clear the site, build new roads and utilities,
and turn the land over to private
developers
continued

Substandard housing demolished and
replaced with public housing
Housing owned by the gov; rented low-income
residents in the US, rent set as 30% of residents’
income
 Built by federal gov, and managed by local gov.

 Less
than 2% of all homes in US, but a high
% of housing in inner-city neighborhoods
continued

Most of the “projects” built in the 1950s
and 1960s were high-rise apartment
buildings
 Now
considered terrible environments for kids
 Broken elevator, drug use and dealing, and
crime are major problems

Some argue that high-rises put too many lowincome residents into a high density environment
continued

Many high rise projects have been torn
down in recent years
 Newer
public-housing projects consists of 2 or
3 story apartment buildings or row houses
 Some cities spread projects throughout the
city to avoid heavy concentrations of lowincome residents
continued

US gov. no longer supports public housing
#
of units diminished by 1 million b/w 1980 and 2000,
while # of households who need it has increased by 2
million

Many blame urban renewal for reducing the
supply
 Often
called “negro removal” in 1960s because most
of those displaced were African American
Renovated Housing

An alternative to demolishing deteriorated
housing is to renovate them
 These
homes usually attract middle-class people
 Gentrification- a process of converting an urban
neighborhood from a predominately low-income
renter-occupied area to a predominately middle-class
owner-occupied area


Attracted by ornate architectural details of older homes or to
proximity of downtown
Appeals to those with no children—not concerned about
quality of schools
continued

Gentrification is altering ethnic patterns in
some cities
 Ex.

Chicago
White pop. Is increasing in inner-city
neighborhoods
Inner-City Social Problems

Besides gentrified neighborhoods innercities are increasingly home to a
permanent underclass
A group in society prevented from participating in
the material benefits of a more developed society
because of a variety of social and economic
characteristics
 High rates of unemployment, alcoholism, drug
addiction, illiteracy, juvenile delinquency, and crime

continued
Neighborhoods lack adequate police and
fire protection, shops, and hospitals
 Residents lack technical skills necessary
for most jobs

 Less

than half complete high school
High paying jobs don’t exist for uneducated
anymore

And low status jobs are increasingly in the suburbs
continued

Many of the underclass are homeless
 Estimated
1 million in the US on any given
night
Perhaps 3 million throughout course of a year
 1/3 are mentally ill
 ¼ children

Culture of Poverty

2/3 of babies in inner-cities are born to
unwed mothers
 Mothers
must choose to work for income or
stay home to care for child

Drug usage is high in inner cities
 Leads

to an increase in crime
Drug $ or drug related
Inner-city Economic Problems

Residents require public services but can
pay very little of the taxes required to run
them
 Cities
often have to reduce services like
libraries, public-transit routes, less frequent
trash pick-up, etc.
 Other alternative is to raise tax revenues

Tends to drive out wealthier residents and
industries
Annexation
Def.- the process of legally adding land
area to a city
 Peripheral residents no longer want to be
annexed

 Would
rather organize their own services than
pay city taxes
The Peripheral Model

Almost 90% of people prefer suburban life
 Single
family homes, private land, parking spaces are
all seen as perks
 Families with children esp. like suburbs

North American urban areas follow the
peripheral model
 Says
that urban areas consist of an inner city
surrounded by large suburban residential and
business areas tied together by a beltway
continued

Peripheral areas lack many of the problems
facing inner-city neighborhoods
 But

causes the problems of sprawl and segregation
Edge cities- a large node of office and retail
activities on the edge of an urban area
 Originated
to service those living in suburbs but
evolved into specialized nodes of their own
Density Gradient

Def.- the changes in density in an urban
area from the center to the periphery
#
of house per unit of land diminishes the
further from the city center you travel
Changes in Density Gradient

1.
2.
Two changes have affected the density
gradient in recent years
# of people living in city center has
decreased-causing a gap in the center
An increase in density of the suburbs as
apartment complexes have increasingly
been built
Cost of Suburban Sprawl

Sprawl- the progressive spread of
development over the landscape
 Developers
seek cheap land to build new
housing developments

Land is often not contiguous with the existing builtup area
 Sprawl
also spurred by desire some families
to won large amounts of land
continued

Sprawl is expensive
 Roads
and utilities have to be extended into new
housing areas—covered by taxes
 Wastes land—some farmland may be lost


Many European countries try to fight sprawl
Greenbelts- a ring of land maintained as parks,
agriculture, or other types of open space to limit
sprawl of an urban area
Read pages 454 - 460

Information will be on your test about
public transportation and local government
fragmentation