Urban Patterns
Warm-Up
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
List 3 distinct problems of cities
1.
2.
3.
List 3 distinct problems in the suburbs:
1.
2.
3.
• Urbanization – The process whereby an
increasing percentage of people live in an
urban area
Basic Elements of Urbanization:
Increase in the number ofand percentage of
people living in urban settlements.
Increase in the land area occupied by urban
settlements.
• The Industrial Revolution promoted
urbanization.
• Of the ten largest urban areas in the world,
two are in More Developed Countries today
• The change to LDCs dominating the list does
not stem from improved development. People
are migrating from the countryside even
though jobs are not available and they have a
high natural increase rate.
• According to Louis Wirth, urban areas are
more likely than rural areas to have
larger size (don’t know everyone).
higher density (specialization).
more heterogeneity (more tolerant of
diversity).
Higher social heterogeneity in urban settlements
means that you may feel lonely and isolated in
a crowd (surrounded by people who don’t
care about them).
• Urbanized area- The city plus its contiguous
built-up suburbs
• Metropolitan Statistical Area- definition of a
city that covers the largest land area, created
by the Census, based on counties
• Megalopolis refers to adjacent, overlapping
Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Best example:
Boston to Washington “Boswash corridor”one continuous urban complex
Three Models of Urbanization
1. Concentric Zone Model
• Created in 1923 by E.W. Burgess
• States that a city grows outward from a
central area in a series of RINGS. Same order
of rings in each city although size varies.
Concentric Zone Model
• Zone 1:CBD (nonresidential activities)
• Zone 2: Zone of Transition (Industry and Low Quality Housing)
• Zone 3: Zone of Independent Workers’ Homes (stable workingclass families)
• Zone 4: Zone of Better Residences (Newer, more spacious homes
for middle class families)
• Zone 5: Commuter’s Zone (people who choose to live far out- not
part of the city limits)
Sector Model
2. Sector Model
*Homer Hoyt created it in 1939
*A city develops in a series of sectors, NOT
RINGS
Development begins in certain areas of the
city for various reasons. Then as a city grows it
expands outward in a WEDGE or SECTOR from
the center
Sector Model
Sector 1: CBD
Sector 2: Transportation and Industry
Sector 3: Low-class residential
Sector 4: Middle-class residential
Sector 5: High-class residential
Multiple Nuclei Model
3. Multiple Nuclei Model
*Created by Harris and Ullman in 1945
*Believes that cities are complex and include
more than one center. A city consists of a
collection of nodes around which certain
types of people or activities cluster, while
incompatible activities will avoid clustering in
the same location.
Multiple Nuclei Model
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1. CBD
2. Light Manufacturing
3 Low-class residential
4. Middle-class residential
5. High-class residential
6. Heavy manufacturing
7. Outlying Business District
8. Residential Suburb
9. Industrial Suburb
Critics of the Models
• Too simple
• They Fail to consider the variety of reasons
that lead people to select residential locations
• All based on conditions in cities between WWI
and WWII
• However, if you combine the models it does
help to explain where different types of
people live in a city
Cities around the World
• Europe: Like the U.S. the wealthy cluster along
a sector extending out from the CBD
• Europe: Unlike the U.S. wealthy Europeans still
live in the inner-cities (upper-class sector)
• Europe: Today, low income people are less
likely to live in inner-cities and now live on the
outskirts of European cities
LCDS
• Latin America: People with high incomes
cluster in the center of the city for greater
access to services
• THIS IS A LOT LIKE EUROPE… hmmm. Many
LDC countries have cities set up like European
cities due to colonization by European
Countries.
Squatter Settlements- LDCs
• Poor immigrants to urban areas camp on the
land in primitive shelters
Problems in Inner Cities
• Filtering- The process of change in the use of a
house, from single-family owner occupancy to
renting to low-income people to
eventualabandonment
• redlining- A process by which banks designate an
area within which they refuse to lend money for
improvements
• blockbusting- A process by which real estate
agents convince white owners to sell their houses
Public Housing is low-income government-owned
housing
BIGGEST VOCAB WORD OF THE
CHAPTER!!!!!!
*****Gentrification- A process of converting a
neighborhood from low-income to middleclass******
• The zone in transition in U.S. cities typically
contains:
-warehouses
-gentrified buildings
-public housing
• According to U.S. law, when a family is forced by a
city to relocate moving expenses and rent
increases are paid by the government.
•
Things you may already know..
• In U.S. cities, the underclass is clustered in
inner-city neighborhoods.
• The underclass is characterized in part by high
rates of drug addiction.
• U.S. central cities face fiscal problems and
many times reduce services
• Compared to whites, African Americans in U.S.
cities are more likely to be
Suburbs
• Peripheral Model- Shows an urban area to be
the inner city tied together with suburbs and
businesses by a beltway
• Edge Cities- nodes around the beltway that
have office parks, shopping malls, etc.
• Density Gradient- number of houses per unit
of land diminishes as distance from the center
city increases.
Problems with Suburbs
• URBAN SPRAWL- progressive spread of
development over the landscape in a noncontinuous manner. Opposite is SMART
GROWTH- laws to limit urban sprawl and
preserve farmland (no new highways until areas
are filled in)
• RUSH HOUR- four consecutive 15-minute periods
that have the heaviest traffic
• TOO MANY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS makes it
difficult to solve problems
• Public Transportation in general has a downward
trend while RAPID TRANSIT is on the rise