Urban Trends and Change
U.S.
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Semi-Periphery
Periphery
Business-service Cities in the United States
“Basic” functions serve people beyond city
Concentric Zone Model (1923)
Chicago CBD
Gold Coast downtown for North Side; Loop for South Side
Immigrant workers’
housing, early 1900s
Industrial zones
Older residential
G.I. Bill
homes
Suburbanization (Commuters’ zone)
Takes tax base, life out of cities;
Use space inefficiently, pave over land
Sector Model (1939)
Sectors (not rings)
attractive for certain activities;
Spread along rail lines
Multiple Nuclei Model (1949)
More than one center;
Organized in nodes;
Attracted or repulsed by activities
Peripheral Model (contemporary)
Edge cities (CBDs on Metro fringe)
Eau Claire
Sprawl
Outlying lands
become more
expensive,
easier to buy out
Loss of
farmland,
green space
Dying downtowns
Commercial district
moving outward
Some communities
trying to recover
Proposal to tax
suburban workers
In cities
Inner City decay
“Redlining” of “bad risk” areas
by lenders (bank loan denials,
high insurance) prevents recovery
(flip side of suburbanization)
Predatory lending
“Subprime” loans targeting vulnerable poor
with high interest rates, hidden fees
Gentrification
High income
young people
take over inner
city
For character of
old buildings and
central location
Low-income
people drive out
by high rents
Homelessness
Rose in 1970s in
U.S. (1-2 mil.),
Europe
Result of
gentrification,
budget cutbacks
Many homeless
are women and
children
Homelessness
In front of
San Francisco
City Hall
Homelessness
UN Plaza,
San Francisco
Urban fortification:
Spikes on office
window ledges
“Informal Economy” in Core
Activities “off the books”:
Street vending, recycling,
etc. keeps people alive
Growth of
Milwaukee
Streetcar lines
connect neighborhoods
to downtown
Stimulate
commercial nodes
Segregation
(ethnic/racial
spatial separation)
Result of housing
discrimination,
“white flight”
to suburbs
Minority need for
social/cultural
mutual support
Segregation or
Cultural Autonomy?
San Francisco Chinatown
Suburbs
• U.S.
– Counterurbanization of wealthy
– More than half live in suburbs today
– Will grow with “telecommuting”
• Europe
– Industrial workers
– Immigrants
• Periphery/Semi-Periphery
– Rural poor migrants
– Shantytowns, Squatter settlements
Western
European City
Western
European
“Squatters”
Eastern
European City
Budapest,
Hungary
Semi-Periphery City
São Paulo, Brazil “overurbanization”
Lima,
Peru
Mexico City, Mexico
Rio de
Janeiro,
Brazil
Favela colony
(Brazil)
Shantytown
Lack of basic services, infrastructure
Squatter settlement
Influx of rural migrants
(new “shock cities”)
Informal Economy in Periphery
Activities “off the books”:
Street vending, recycling, etc. keeps people alive
Squatter settlements
in Periphery
Pollution/
unhealthy conditions
Evictions
Some improving with
“self-help” projects