URBAN GEOGRAPHY
Chapter 9
When and Why Did People Start
Living in Cities?
• City: A conglomeration of people and buildings
clustered together to serve as a center of politics,
culture, and economics
• Urban: The buildup of the city and surrounding
environs connected to the city (central city and
suburbs)
• Urbanization: Movement of people from rural to
urban areas—can happen very quickly in the
modern world
Urban Population
Origins of Urbanization
• Agricultural villages
– Began about 10,000 years ago
– Relatively small, egalitarian villages, where
most of the population was involved in
agriculture
• The first urban revolution: Enabling components
1. An agricultural surplus
2. Social stratification (leadership class)
Hearths of Urbanization
Hearths of Urbanization
• Mesopotamia, 3500 BCE
• Nile River Valley, 3200 BCE
• Indus River Valley, 2200 BCE
• Huang He and Wei River Valleys, 1500 BCE
• Mesoamerica, 200 BCE
Indus River Valley
Harappa and MohenjoDaro
• Intricately planned
• Houses equal in size
• No palaces
• No monuments
Huang He and Wei River Valleys
Purposefully planned
cities
• Centered on a
north-south axis
• Inner wall built
around center
• Temples and
palaces for the
leadership class
Terracotta warriors guarding the tomb of
the Chinese Emperor Qin Xi Huang
Mesoamerica
Mayan and Aztec cities: Theocratic centers where
rulers were deemed to have divine authority and
were god-kings
Diffusion of Urbanization
• Greek cities (by 500 BCE)
– Greeks highly urbanized
– Network of more than 500 cities and towns on the
mainland and on islands
– Acropolis (buildings on a height of land) and an
agora (open public space) in each city
• Roman cities
– A system of cities and small towns, linked together
by hundreds of miles of roads and sea routes
– Sites of Roman cities typically for trade
– Forum a combination of the acropolis and agora into
one space
– Extreme wealth and extreme poverty
Parthenon, Greece
Coliseum, Rome
Nimes Aqueduct, France
Acropolis, Rome
Parthenon, Greece
Lincoln Memorial, DC
Diffusion of Urbanization
• Greek cities (by 500 BCE)
– Greeks highly urbanized
– Network of more than 500 cities and towns on the
mainland and on islands
– Acropolis (buildings on a height of land) and an
agora (open public space) in each city
• Roman cities
– A system of cities and small towns, linked together
by hundreds of miles of roads and sea routes
– Sites of Roman cities typically for trade
– Forum a combination of the acropolis and agora into
one space
– Extreme wealth and extreme poverty
Roman Empire
Urban Growth after Greece and Rome
• Europe
– Middle Ages (500–1300)
– Little urban growth, even decline
• Asia
– Centers along the Silk Road
– Urban growth in Korea, Japan
• West Africa
• The Americas
Cities in the Age of Exploration
• Early Eurasian centers
– Crescent-shaped zone from England to Japan
– Most cities sited in continental interiors
• Maritime exploration
– Change in situation to favor coastal locations
– Continued importance under colonialism
– Wealth for mercantile cities of Europe
– European model for cities in colonies
The Second Urban Revolution
• A large-scale movement of people to cities to work in
manufacturing, made possible by
1. Second agricultural revolution that improved food
production and created a larger surplus
2. Industrialization, which encouraged growth of
cities near industrial resources
• Favored places
– Had undergone the second agricultural revolution
– Possessed industrial resources
– Possessed capital from mercantilism and
colonialism
Industrialization in Europe
Where Are Cities Located, and
Why?
Site
• Absolute location
• Static location,
often chosen for
trade, defense, or
religion
Situation
• Relative location
• A city’s place in the
region and the
world around it
• Trade area: An
adjacent region
within which a city’s
influence is
dominant
Trade Areas
Rank-Size Rule
• Characteristic of a model urban hierarchy
• The population of the city or town is inversely
proportional to its rank in the hierarchy
For example:
largest city = 12 million
2nd largest = 6 million
3rd largest = 4 million
4th largest = 3 million
• Primate city: The leading city of a country,
disproportionately larger than the rest of the cities
Central Place Theory
• Developed by Walter Christaller
• Predicts how and where central places in the
urban hierarchy (hamlets, villages, towns, and
cities) are functionally and spatially distributed
• Assumes that
–
–
–
–
–
Surface is flat with no physical barriers
Soil fertility is the same everywhere
Population and purchasing power are evenly distributed
Region has uniform transportation network
From any given place, a good or service could be sold in
all directions out to a certain distance
Hexagonal Hinterlands
C = city
T = town
V = village
H = hamlet
How Are Cities Organized, and
How Do They Function?
• Urban morphology: The layout of a city, its physical
form and structure
• Functional zonation: The division of the city into
certain regions (zones) for certain functions
(purposes)
Zones of the City
• Zones
– Central business district (CBD)
– Central City (the CBD + older housing zones)
– Suburb (outlying, functionally uniform zone
outside of the central city)
• Modeling the North American city
– Concentric zone model (Ernest Burgess)
– Sector model (Homer Hoyt)
– Multiple-nuclei model (Chauncy Harris and
Edward Ullman)
Classical Models of Urban Structure
Edge Cities
Suburban downtowns,
often located near key
freeway intersections,
including
• Office complexes
• Shopping centers
• Hotels
• Restaurants
• Entertainment
facilities
• Sports complexes
Urban Realms Model
Each realm a
separate
economic, social,
and political entity
that is linked
together to form a
larger metropolitan
framework
Cities of the Periphery and SemiPeriphery: Latin America
• Griffin-Ford model
• Blend of Latin American
traditions with
globalization
• Disamenity sectors
– Not connected to city
services
– May be controlled by
gangs and drug lords
• Industrial park
• Gentrification area
Cities of the Periphery and SemiPeriphery: Subsaharan Africa
• De Blij model
• Low levels of
urbanization but
rapid growth rates
• European colonial
imprint
Cities of the Periphery and SemiPeriphery: Southeast Asia
• McGee model
• Colonial port and
surrounding
commercial zone as
focal point
How Do People Make Cities?
• Role of powerful social and cultural forces
• Periphery and semi-periphery
– Sharp contrast between rich and poor
– Often lack zoning laws or enforcement of zoning laws
Luanda, Angola
Tokyo, Japan
Making Cities in the Global Core
• Redlining: Financial institutions refusing to lend
money in certain neighborhoods
• Blockbusting : Realtors purposefully selling a
home at a low price to an African American and
then soliciting white residents to sell their homes
at low prices, to generate “white flight”
Making Cities in the Global Core
• Gentrification: Individuals buying and
rehabilitating houses, raising the housing value in
the neighborhood
• Commercialization: City government transforming
a central city to attract residents and tourists,
often in stark contrast to the rest of the central
city
• Tear-downs: Houses that new owners buy with the
intention of tearing them down to build much
larger homes
• McMansions: Large homes, often built to the outer
limits of the lot
Urban Sprawl
Unrestricted growth
of housing,
commercial
developments, and
roads over large
expanses of land,
with little concern for
urban planning
New Urbanism
• Development, urban revitalization, and suburban
reforms that create walkable neighborhoods with a
diversity of housing and jobs
• Concerns
– Privatization of public spaces
– Failure to address conditions that create social
ills of cities
– Countering urban sprawl
Gated Communities
• Neighborhoods with controlled gate (access) for
people and vehicles
• Private security
• Rapid diffusion to Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin
America
• Security for wealthy in poor countries
• Use for low-income communities in core countries
Ethnic Neighborhoods
• European cities: Neighborhoods of migrants
• Cities of the periphery and semi-periphery
What Role
Do Cities Play in Globalization?
• Function of world cities beyond state boundaries
• World cities as nodes in globalization
• Primate cities with concentration of development,
interconnectedness
• Primate cities in former colonies
World Cities