Models of Urban Structure
• Cities exhibit functional structure
– Central business district (CBD)
– Central city
– Suburb
• North American cities?
– 3 models
Louis Wirth
• Urban Settings Have 3 Characteristics:
1. Large size: Won’t know most people living in a
city.
2. High Density: each person has a role essential
for the urban system to function smoothly,
people compete for survival in limited space.
3. Social Heterogeneity:
-people pursue an unusual profession
-people pursue a different sexual orientation
-people pursue cultural interests
Urban Physical Characteristics
1. Legal Boundary: A city is an urban settlement
that has legally been incorporated into an
independent, self-governing unit.
2. Continuously Built up Area: An urbanized area
is a central city plus its contiguous built-up
suburbs, pop exceeds 1000 persons per sq.
mile.
3. Functional Area: zone of influence extends beyond legal boundaries
and adjacent built-up jurisdictions
METROPOLITAN STATISITICAL AREA (MSA)-central city with a pop of 50,000
-county within which the city is located
-adjacent counties with a high pop density and a large % of residents
working in the central city.
Smaller urban areas are called MICROPOLITAN STATISTICAL AREA
10,000-50,000
Some MSAs overlap and this is called a megalopolis: BOSWASH
CORRIDOR
-southern California
-German Ruhr
-southern Great Lakes
-Japan’s Tokaido
-Rabdstad in the Netherlands
4. A city has more functional specialization than a town and
a larger hinterland and greater centrality.
- a well-defined commercial center
-a central business district
-suburbs (subsidiary urban areas surrounding and
connected to the central city.) Many suburbs are residential
but some have their own commercial centers or shopping
malls.
Concentric Zone Model: A city grows outward from a central area in a
series of concentric rings
Use census tracts, 5,000 people in neighborhood boundaries. These
tell us where people tend to lives.
• E.W. Burgess
1. non-residential
activities
2. Industry & poorer
quality housing
(immigrants new to the
city live here 1st)
3. Stable working class
4. Middle class
Sector Model: Homer Hoyt
A city grows in a series
of sectors. Certain
areas are more
attractive to certain
activities, by
environmental factors,
or by chance. As a
city grows, activities
expand in sectors out
from the CBD.
Industrial and retailing
are in sectors by good
transportation lines.
Multiple Nuclei: C.D. Harris and E.L. Ulman
A city is a complex structure
that includes more than
one center around which
activities revolve.
Some activities are attracted
to particular nodes while
others avoid them.
Ex: Airport=hotels &
warehouses
Ex: University=well-educated
residents, book stores and
pizza joints.
Modeling the North American City
• Urban realms
• Early post-war period, reduced
interaction between the central city and
suburban cities
• Outer cities became more self-sufficient
Models of Urban Structure
• Outer city growth since 1960s
• By 1973, American suburbs surpassed
central cities in total employment
• Outer cities = “edge cities”
– Equal partners in city shaping processes
a. Industrial factories and complexes
b. Hotels
c. Amusement parks
d. Malls
Tyson’s Corner
Modeling the Modern
Latin American City
• Law of the Indies
1575
• Latin American cities
were designed after
European cities,
explorers came from
Portugal and Spain
• Centered on a church
and central plaza
Squatter Cities
Characteristics of Squatter
Cities
• Housing materials are
collected from available
resources: corrugated tin
• Little sanitation
• No running water
• No Cooking facilities
• Illegal hookup to
electricity, if any
• No political voice
• Lack of social services
Spatial distribution of Squatter
Cities
• On the periphery of
the cities in LDCs
around the world.
• In Europe and Latin
America the rich
choose to live in the
culturally-rich inner
city, the opposite is
sometimes true in
North American cities
Ted Talks on Squatter Cities
http://www.ted.com/talks/stewart_brand_on_squatter_cities.htm
l
http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_neuwirth_on_our_shadow_citie
s.html
Modeling the Modern
Southeast Asian City
Modeling the Modern
Subsaharan African City
Resources
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
De Blij, Harm, J. (2007). Human Geography People, Place and Culture. Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Domosh, Mona, Neumann, Roderic, Price, Patricia, & Jordan-Bychkov, 2010. The
Human Mosaic, A Cultural Approach to Human Geography. New York: W.H.
Freeman and Company.
Fellman, Jerome, D., Getis, Arthur, & Getis, Judith, 2008. Human Geography,
Landscapes of Human Activities. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Pulsipher, Lydia Mihelic and Alex M. and Pulsipher, 2008. World Regional
Geography, Global Patterns, Local Lives. W.H. Freeman and Company New
York.
Rubenstein, James M. (2008). An introduction to human geography The cultural
landscape. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Benewick, Robert, & Donald, Stephanie H. (2005). The State of
China Atlas. Berkeley: University of California Press.