Urban Patterns Notes
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• Largest Cities in the world are now in LDCs
• Different lifestyle – Rural – know everyone, simple
and calmer
• Urban – know family and work mates, complicated,
stressful
• MSA (CMA) – Metropolitan Statistical Area or
Census Metropolitan Area – Urbanized area of
influence. Toronto has the GTA.
• Metropolitan – smaller urban areas
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Percent of the population living in urban areas is usually higher in MDCs than
in LDCs.
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Cities with 2 million or more people. Most of the largest cities are now in LDCs.
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• The distribution of social characteristics in a census track
may be plotted on a map using GIS. This information
creates an overall picture of how various types of people are
distributed in an area. Groups do tend to segregate based on
income, ethnicity and race.
• GIS experts can map:
• Social class – income, education, occupation
• Age and Martial status
• Gender
• Race and ethnicity – Chinatowns, Little Italy, Greek town
etc.
• What kind of decisions can private or public sectors make
based on information gathered from above
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Growth occurs in rings around the CBD.
• Poor and Industry are located around the CBD
• Workers have to be close to work so they are the next
ring
• Middle class acts as a buffer between rich and poor so
they are next
• Rich can afford to be far away from CBD and commute
to work
• Oldest theory – related to Von Thunen’s model
• Toronto – the ring is interrupted by the lake – but there
is a pattern of ring growth in Toronto
• See diagram next slide
• Concentric Zone Model – 1923 – E.W. Burgess
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Remember the pattern:
• Industry next to CBD, workers next to industry, middle
class acting as a buffer and then the high class .
• You will not have the high class touching the low class
• Transportation is key in this model and growth occurs
outwards along major roads or rail lines
• Also called Corridor growth
• High class will have access to the CBD – eg. Toronto -
Rosedale
• Toronto has corridor growth along some rail lines and
roads like Spadina, Yonge and University
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• Based on Nodal growth – Particular centers begin the
growth
• Each classification has its own node or center
• Relates to modern cities with detached suburb and industry
• Heavy industry has moved out of CBD
• A second CBD is taken into account
• The rest is the same pattern as the other two but remember:
• Concentric – rings, Sector – corridors and Multi-Nuclei –
nodes
• Toronto has nodal growth – Yonge and Sheppard with a
second CBD. We have heavy industry on the outskirts –
Airport, Brampton, Burlington.
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• This model relates more to the areas outside the city.
• An urban area consists of an inner city surrounded by large
suburban residential and business areas tied together by a
beltway or ring road.
• The idea here is that the peripheral areas do not suffer the
problems of inner cities – the poor, deterioration, crime,
congestion BUT the periphery will suffer from the problems
of urban sprawl and segregation (being disconnected from
the rest of the city)
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The central city is surrounded by a ring road, around which are suburban
areas and edge cities, shopping malls, office parks, industrial areas, and
service complexes.
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• These models do not work well in European cities – The
wealthy tend to live in an inner ring next to the center of the
city.
• A Spine (broad avenue) is more prominent in European cities –
eg. The Champs-Elysees in Paris
• The CBD is not necessarily the Geographic center of the city.
• The Geographic center in European cities is usually the
ancient, historical center and the CBD is found outside the
city-center – Eg. Rome, Paris and London – these cities even
have height restrictions (even Washington D.C. has one)
• The suburb really does not exist in Europe
• Single family houses are rare – Condominium living is the
norm.
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• Colonial cites are similar to European cities. Most of these
cities are port cities for the obvious reason of supplying the
mother country.
• These cities have pre-colonial parts (old quarters – cramped
houses and narrow streets) and European parts (colonial
additions – low density, better housing, gardens)
• The Latin American city stresses the Spine. Where the rich
push out from the center. Mexico city is a prime example. See
the next slide.
• Many LDC cities since they cannot handle the growing number
of urban residences develop areas where people build make
shift homes (no electricity, water or sanitation) on land that
does not belong to them – Shanty Towns – Squatter
Settlements.
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• Discuss the following Inner City Problems:
• Filtering
• Redlining
• Urban Renewal
• Public Housing – row housing, town housing
• White Flight/Block Busting
• Social Problems – inner city schools, poverty, homeless,
crime, racial segregation
• Ghettoization
• Annexation
• Gentrification
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A word about Urban Renewal:
1.
Cities identify blighted areas in the inner city
2.
They acquire the properties
3. Relocate the residences
4. Clear the site
5. Build roads and utilities
6. Private Development comes in and builds – homes, schools,
malls and parks
7. Theoretically the residences come back – sometimes it is too
expensive for the original residences
8. Toronto – Regent Park
• Sometimes Urban Renewal leads to Urban Renovation – old
properties are not torn down but converted into lofts, galleries,
restaurants
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• Problems of the Suburbs:
• Importance of the automobile – made suburbs possible -
reshaped the city
• Density Gradient
• Edge Cities
• Urban Sprawl
• Lack of an infrastructure
• Segregation
• Zoning
• Mass (public) vs. Private Transportation – Rush Hour
• Smart Growth/New Urbanism
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 A word about Urban Sprawl
• Low Density
• Leap Frog growth – sometimes Kilometers away
• Fragmentation of political power
• Transportation dominates
• Lack of planning and control of land uses
• Commercial strip development
• Zoning becomes important
• Lack of low income housing – forces poor to go to inner city
• Loss of agricultural land
• Unlimited outward expansion
• Creates conurbation and megalopolises
• What effect will the price of gas have on Urban Sprawl?
• What is going to happen to the big homes in Woodbridge as the population ages?
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New housing in the U.K. is likely to be in planned new towns, while
in the U.S. growth occurs in discontinuous developments.
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Cars
Bus
Bicycle/Scooters
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• Smart Growth – New Urbanism:
• A new form of development to fight the negative effects of Urban
Sprawl.
• Build traditional neighbourhoods, removing the addiction of the
car and creating a sense of community.
• Urban sprawl builds houses first and then everything else –
schools, malls, offices are built afterwards to try and catch-up –
Smart Growth builds everything at once and it is built to interact.
• Schools are built at the center of a residential area connected to the
homes with paths
• Streets are narrow, each home has a porch, grassy medians in the
middle of the street
• Commercial and work places are built into the plan – usually on
the outskirts of the residences
• Housing types are mixed
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• Walking is encouraged – low order goods within reach
• Garages are set to the back of the home or in laneways
• Backyard faces into a park or a common area – Front yard is
the main focus of the house – spend more time in the front
• Main streets will contain major stores and offices
• Parks become the nodes
• In some plans parks, schools and stores are at the center of
the community – this is called a Nodal Design
• MUD – Mixed Land-Use Development
• Please see the next few slides and the teacher may draw an
example on the board.
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Vocabulary List
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Agglomeration
Barriadas
Bid-rent theory
Blockbusting
CBD (central business district)
Census tract
Centrality
Centralization
Central-place theory
Christaller, Walter
City
Cityscapes
Colonial city
Commercialization
Commuter zone
Concentric zone model
Counter urbanization
Decentralization
Deindustrialization
Early cities
Economic base (basic/non basic)
Edge city
Emerging cities
Employment structure
Entrepôt
Ethnic neighborhood
Favela
Female-headed household
Festival landscape
Gateway city
Gender
Gentrification
Ghetto
Globalization
Great cities
High-tech corridors
Hinterland
Hydraulic civilization
Indigenous city
In-filling
Informal sector
Infrastructure
Inner city
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Invasion and succession
Lateral commuting
Medieval cities
Megacities
Megalopolis/conurbation
Metropolitan area
Multiple nuclei model
Multiplier effect
Neighborhood
Office park
Peak land value intersection
Planned communities
Postindustrial city
Postmodern urban landscape
Primate city
Racial steering
Rank-size rule
Redlining
Restrictive covenants
Sector model
Segregation
Settlement form (nucleated,
dispersed, elongated)
Shopping mall
Site/situation
Slum
Social structure
Specialization
Squatter settlement
Street pattern (grid, dendritic;
access, control)
Suburb
Suburbanization
Symbolic landscape
Tenement
Threshold/range
Town
Underclass
Underemployment
Urban growth rate
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Urban function
Urban hearth area
Urban heat island
Urban hierarchy
Urban hydrology
Urban morphology
Urbanization
Urbanized population
World city
Zone in transition
Zoning
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The End
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