Urban
Geographies
aps.stamen.com
Objectives
• Describe urbanization and major patterns associated
with it.
• Review Central Place Theory in relation to cities.
• Discuss urban and suburban development challenges
in US.
• Contrast problems in US with problems in LDCs.
Urbanization
• Process of concentrating people in urban places
• The process of growing urban areas
• Can be measured two ways:
• Level of urbanization - % of people living in urban areas in a
particular region
• Rate of urban growth – the annual % increase in an urban
population
World
Percentage urban (%)
1950-2050
Source: Population
Division of the
Department of Economic
and Social Affairs of the
United Nations
Secretariat, World
Population Prospects:
The 2008 Revision and
World Urbanization
Prospects: The 2009
Revision,
http://esa.un.org/wup200
9/unup/,
Year
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2009
2010
2015
2020
2025
2030
2035
2040
2045
2050
Percentage urban
28.8
30.9
33.0
34.9
36.1
37.2
38.9
40.8
42.6
44.5
46.4
48.6
50.1
50.5
52.4
54.4
56.6
59.0
61.4
63.9
66.3
68.7
Percentage urban and urban agglomerations
by size class
How Urban are Countries?
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World
Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision.
New York 2012
Urbanization Facts from the
World Bank
• 3.5 billion people live in cities.
• 21 megacities –population >10 million
• 60% of all people will live in cities in developing
countries by 2030—and 70% by 2050 according to
our book.
(In 1800 only 2% did, and in 1950, only 30% did)
• Roughly 180,000 people move into cities each day.
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/06/
urbanisation/html/urbanisation.stm
http://matthartzell.blogspot.com/2013/09/infogeographic-comparingurban.html?view=sidebar
http://matthartzell.blogspot.com/2013/09/infogeographic-comparingurban.html?view=sidebar
Questions
• Why does urbanization happen?
Megacities in
1950, 2007, and
2025 Projection
Central Place Theory
• Walter Christaller—worked on these ideas in the
1930s.
Suggests “market forces account for the distribution of
central places in an area, and that the optimal spatial
arrangement of central places creates hexagonally
shaped trade areas.”
Explains an urban hierarchy based on threshold, range,
and market area/hinterland.
Central Place Theory
• Range – distance someone will travel for a good or
service.
• High range services
• Threshold – minimum # of people required to
support the business.
• High threshold services
• Market area – places from which customers are
attracted.
Breakfast Burritos.
Central Place Theory
Assumptions
1. Landscape is flat and uniform.
2. Population is evenly distributed with similar
purchasing capacity.
3. People will be rational! They will go to the closest
place to get the things they need.
Central Place Theory
Hierarchy of Urban
Settlements
• Settlements follow a regular pattern
• Smallest settlements have the fewest services/goods,
larger settlements have more diversity and
specialization of services/goods.
• Rank-size rule: The nth city is 1/nth the size of the
largest city
Other Urban Structures
• Urban primacy
• Primate cities – have populations two or more times the
size of the second largest city.
• Uneven growth
Rio de Janeiro
Ekosystem.org; orangesmile.com
Mexico City
Mexico.vg
One Classification of World Cities
Hinterworld—the global market area served by a world city
Urban Ecology and Social Area
Analysis
Urban ecology: the social / demographic composition
of city districts and neighborhoods.
Thinking about where people live and why is called
a social area analysis.
• http://spatialjustice.org
Why Do Cities Look the
Way They Do?
• Centralization – processes/forces that draw people and
businesses downtown.
• Agglomeration – occurs in different types of places—clustering
of similar business/activities.
• Functional zonation – the division of a city in to areas that are
similar in usage.
• Filtering – gradual transitioning of neighborhoods from
high/middle income neighborhoods to low income.
Why Do Cities Look the
Way they Do?
• Decentralization
• Suburbanization – relocates businesses, services, and people
to the burbs.
• Sprawl– rate of land urbanization exceeds rate of population
growth.
Population change maps
Suburbanization
• A flattened population
density gradient as people
move out of the city
center.
Photo by David Shankbone
Urban Expansion: Annexation of
land to city jurisdictions. More and
more places end up organizing their
own jurisdiction.
• Used to see a density
gradient where density
decreased with increasing
distance from the city
center.
• Possible because of the
highway systems and
because so many people
own cars.
What Kinds of Problems Are
Associated with Inner Cities in
MDCs?
• Remember redlining, white flight, and blockbusting?
• Seattle Map – Home Owners Loan Corporation
• Helped influence change in the city structure by
tending to approve loans in suburban areas.
http://salt.unc.edu/T-RACES/mosaic.html
Urban Redevelopment
• Process of redeveloping part of a city
• Government can take over “blighted” properties
(Federal Housing Act 1949)
•Eminent Domain
•Housing Projects
• Gentrification – redevelopment/restoration of
properties by affluent peoples.
• Problems?
• Gentrifying Harlem
Urbanization in LDCs
• 8/10 most populous cities in developing areas: Buenos Aires,
Delhi, Dhaka, Kolkata, Mexico City, Mumbai, Sao Paulo,
Shanghai
• Increasing rates of migration for work bring people to the city –
how to accommodate all these people?
• Squatter settlements
• People occupy land don’t own or rent
• Eventually build permanent structures
• http://esa.un.org/unup/Maps/maps_overview.htm
• Informal sector
• Microfinancing – India Grapples with Pitfalls of
Microfinancing
Squatter Settlements on the Skyline
Pearl River Delta Settlements – Largest Megacity
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8278315/China-to-create-largest-mega-city-in-the-world-with-42-million-people.html
Urban Planning
• Field focused on improving the physical and social
characteristics of towns & cities through space
management.
• Involved in zoning decisions
• Switch from decisions to zone activities into separate
areas with mixed-use development.
• New urbanism
• Tries to improve environmental sustainability,
affordable housing opportunities, and development of
urban communities.
High Point in Seattle
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/green_affordable_walkable_beau.html
High Point
http://www.p4sc.org/articles/all/principles-we-can-live-obama-administration-promises-support-sustainable-development
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/green_affordable_walkable_beau.html
http://www.greenecocommunities.com/Washington/High-point-green-community.html
Review
•
Terms to know in addition to the ones below: central places, hinterlands, functional complexity, central
city, central business district, urbanized area, metropolitan area, megalopolis, megacities
•
What is urbanization? What regional trends describe urbanization? What factors influence these trends?
•
What parts of the world are seeing the most growth in megacities?
•
What does central place theory suggest and how do range, threshold, market area/hinterland relate?
•
What does the rank-size rule say? What are primate cities? How is the distribution of services different?
•
What are centralization, decentralization, agglomeration, filtering, fiscal squeeze, and functional zoning?
•
What is suburbanization? How did redlining, white flight, and blockbusting influence the arrangement of
urban spaces?
•
What are some methods involved in urban redevelopment? Problems associated with these strategies?
•
What are squatter settlements? How do they change over time?
•
What is urban planning and new urbanism?