Urbanization
Geog100
Genevieve Depelteau
Urbanization is IRREVERSIBLE!!
Urbanization facts
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In 1800, only 2 percent of the world’s
population was urban
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By 2030, it is expected that 60% of the
world population will live in urban
areas.
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70 million people a year
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Almost 180,000 people are added to
the urban population each day. Every
week, addition of a city of more than 1
million residents every week!
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It is estimated that there are almost a
billion poor people in the world, of
this over 750 million live in urban
areas without adequate shelter and
basic services.
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Core/peripheries
Core 65-95% urbanized
Urbanization: definition
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“The process by which towns and cities are formed
and become larger as more and more people begin
living and working in central areas”
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“the quality or state of being urbanized or the
process of becoming urbanized”
WHAT IS THE MAIN role of cities?
Cultural innovation
Political System and decision-making
Center of economic development
The mobilizing function: organizing labour, capital, raw
materials
The generative function: competition and innovation
The transformative capacity: escape the rigidities of
traditional rural society
And what are the similarities between cities
And towns across the globe?
Why are some cities prosperous during a
certain time and not after? And what are the
causes?
Week 1: Urbanization
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Role of cities over time
Factors and reasons for
urbanization
Spatial transformation:
evolution of the urban
system
The economic city: spatial
theories
Week 2: Urban structure
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Logic of space inside a city
Urban forms and logics
behind its organization
Informal versus informal
cities
We can understand a city only if we know something about the reasons
behind its growth !!
Urban origins: Fertile Crescent
1.
2.
3.
4.
What is the relation between the agricultural
revolution and the first urbanization
Agricultural
surplus
Population
growth
Imbalance
between
resources and
population
The social
organization: the
emergence of an
elite (often
building the
physical core of
ancient cities)
Gobekli Tepe: 10th-8th millennium BC (14-15 thousand
years ago) beginning of the world agriculture started here
beginnings of grain cultivation, took
place here
Urban origins: Uruk (50-80,000 people) –
Babylonia 4000 to 3100 BC
Ancient cities already highly populated
e.g. Edo (Tokyo)
180,000 in 1000 BC
The roots of European urban expansion
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Patchwork of feudal
kingdoms
Rurally oriented
Few towns: Ecclesiastic or
university centers,
defensive strongholds,
trade and market,
administrative centers
Will become the nodal
centers of a global
world-system
1400: Emergence of trading cities in Europe still remain now: Paris,
Vienna, Bruges, etc.
Merchant capitalism
15th-17th century: colonial gateway cities
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Mark the appearance of
colonial cities – urban
systems into the world’s
peripheral region
Colonial towns were 1)
military, 2) administrative
centers, or 3) organized to
collect and export products
from mines or plantations
Accra, Rio de Janeiro,
Buenos Aires, Calcutta, New
York, etc.
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E.g. Native American cities
are replaced by Spanish
colonial cities
Industrialization and urbanization
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In 1800 less than 5% of the
world’s population live in
towns and cities
By 1950, 16% of the world’s
population was urban
In England, the urban
population jumped from
17% in 1801 to 72% in
1891
Emergence and importance
of cities in the world
economy
What is the relation between
urbanization and industrialization ??
Urbanization during the
Industrial
Revolution
Factors contributing
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Higher agricultural
productivity
Industrialization: warehouse,
factories
Growing trade around the
world: cereals could be
imported from America
Consumer market
Development of land
transportation: e.g. public
transport
Decrease death rate
Factors facilitating
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Police
Sanitation
Fire department
Public transport
Shock cities: Manchester and Chicago
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An urban place experiencing
infrastructural challenges
related to massive and rapid
urbanization
E.g. Manchester (cotton) in
England
Grew from 15,000 habitants
in 1750 to 70,000 in 1801,
500,000 in 1866
The Industrial City: main
purpose is to fabricate,
assemble, and distribute
manufactured growth
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The opening of the
Manchester Ship Canal in
1894. Ocean-going ships
could now navigate the 58
kilometres to the newly
opened Port of Manchester
Shock cities: Chicago (reading more)
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4,200 in 1873 to 500,000 in
1880, 1,7 million in 1900, and
3.3. million in 1930
The city was founded in the
1830s and grew rapidly from
real estate speculation and the
realization that it had a
commanding position in the
emerging inland transportation
network, controlling access
from the Great Lakes into the
Mississippi River basin.
Hundreds of thousands of hogs
and cattle were shipped to
Chicago for slaughter,
preserving in salt, and
transport to eastern markets.
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New urban phenomenon:
highly segregated areas
1880 and 1890 censuses
showed that more than threequarters of Chicago’s
population was foreign-born
immigrants
Second Part: Interlocking Urban Systems
Def. An interdependent set of urban
settlements within a specified region
Regional –> National –> International
Interdependence
Hierarchical urban system exhibit common
attributes and features in term of space and
size
Cities function as market centers and result in a
hierarchical system of central places
Beginning of land-use: relation between distance and
food price; transportation and price of land
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Johann Heinrich von Thünen
theory in 1826
The Isolated State,
developed the first serious
treatment of spatial
economics and economic
geography, connecting it
with the theory of rent
Rent will be the outcome of
profit you can make at the
market in relation of cost of
production and distance
Central Place Theory
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To explain the observed hierarchy
of central places
1) range: the maximum distance
that consumers will normally
travel to obtain a particular
product or service
2) threshold: the smallest market
area necessary for the goods and
services to be economically viable
Once the threshold is determined,
the market will expand until it
reaches the range
1) Central Place theory: Walter Christaller
(1933)
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Central place theory is a
spatial theory in urban
geography that attempts to
explain the reasons behind
the distribution patterns,
size, and number of cities
and towns around the world
Christaller began to
recognize the economic
relationships between cities
size and shape and people’s
shopping behavior
Central place theory
Low-order goods
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Low order goods are
things that are replenished
.
most frequently
such as
.
food and other
routine
commodities that are
perishable or that can go
bad really first. People use
them often and they do
not need to compare
prices
High-order goods
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A high order good is usually
a high cost good that is only
bought occasionally like cars
Because they require a large
threshold and people do not
purchase them regularly,
many businesses selling
these items cannot survive
in areas where the
population is small.
Therefore, they often locate
in large cities
Central place theory
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Under ideal circumstances:
flat plain, good
transportation.
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humans will always purchase
goods from the closest place
that offers the good, and
whenever demand for a
certain good is high, it will
be offered in close proximity
to the population
Towns and cities tend to be
arranged in clear hierarchies,
with hexagonal-shaped
market areas of different
sizes
Central place theory: results
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The larger the settlements
are in size, the fewer in
number they will be, i.e.
there are many small villages,
but few large cities.
The larger the settlements
grow in size, the greater the
distance between them, i.e.
villages are usually found
close together, while cities
are spaced much further
apart.
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As a settlement increases in
size, the range and number
of its functions will increase .
As a settlement increases in
size, the number of higherorder services will also
increase, i.e. a greater degree
of specialization occurs in
the services
There is a distinctive
relationship between the
population size of cities and
their rank with the overall
hierarchy (rank-size rule)
Canada’s urban system is a excellent
example of such a hierarchy
The central places and the emergence of
World Cities
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17th century: London, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Genoa, Lisbon, Venice
18th century: Paris, Rome, Vienna were added to the list
19th century: Berlin, Chicago, Manchester, New York, St-Petersburg
Today: less with the deployment of imperial power and trade and
more with transnational corporate organization, international
banking, supranational government, etc.
Sites for most of the leading global markets for commodities,
investment capital, foreign exchange, etc.
Sites of clusters of specialized, high-order business services,
property development, law, etc.
Sites of corporate, professional associations and national
headquarters
Sites of leading NGOs
Sites of leading cultural industries
World cities: Today
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Different world cities fulfill different roles within the
world-system
World cities: Today
Megacities
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Very large cities
characterized by a high
degree of centrality within
their national economy
Common in sheer size:
must of them number 10
million or more in
population
Link between megacities is
more important than the
link they each have with
smaller metropolitan areas
within their own country
1950: 2 cities over 10 million, 2009: 21, and
2025:29
Urban growth: What does it mean?
e.g. Baltimore
e.g. Manila
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Since the industrial
revolution, cities
are the engine of
economic
development and
this growth
attracts labor.
Goods are
produced in this
new economic
structure, factories,
headquarters, etc.,
and they support
the growth of city.
Change in the
agricultural
production
releases more
people to the city
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Urban hierarchy –
city – region town
Urban Growth Process: Chicken/egg
principle
Principles of commercial and industrial LOCATION
1.
Accessibility to material inputs (raw materials and energy)
2.
Availability of labor with skills
3.
Processing costs
4.
The pull of the market
5.
The influence of cultural and institutional factors that channel
activities away (e.g. government policies- tax breaks)
6.
The influence of behavioral considerations affecting
individual decision
7.
Other personal reasons
8.
Initial advantage: critical importance of an early start in
economic development
ALL TOGETHER IT CAN BE EXPLAINED BY A FUNCTIONAL
INTERDEPENDENCE
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Economic Interdependence:
Clustering/agglomeration
Agglomeration: advantages
that accrue to individual firms
because of their location
among functionality related
activities. Cumulative process.
e.g. wire-making factory near a
steel mill
External economies: Cost
advantages due to
circumstances and location
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Understanding regional growth
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Backward linkages:
Dependence on supplies
Forward linkages: new firms
take the finished products and
use them as inputs to their own
processing, develop and provide
industries with components,
supplies, specialized services,
assembly, packaging, etc.
Increase population due to
family: demand for services,
which create additional jobs for
non-basic functions
Cumulative Causation
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Metropolitanism:
Some cluster will attain a
position of national
dominance and create the
geographical structure of a
metropolis and hinterland
Buildup advantages
enjoyed by a particular
places as a result of the
development of external
economies, agglomeration
effects and localization
economies
Danger: agglomeration diseconomies
Deindustrialization and
decentralization
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New technologies, new
resources, and new
opportunities alter the
balance of comparative
advantage
New rounds
the areaof
was referred
to as theare initiated
urbanization
Manufacturing
in the places
moreBelt,
suited
Factory Belt, or Steel
to the new
Belt ascircumstances,
opposed to
when those
least suited
the agricultural
are like Midwestern
to suffer states
a spiral of
forming the so-called
deindustrialization
Corn Belt, and Great
E.g. RustPlains
Beltstates
Manufacturing belt turned into rust
belt. Previously it was known as the
industrial heartland of America.
Manufacturing employment decreased
by one half from 1960 and 1990
Factors responsible for deindustrialization
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Rust belt: the transfer of
manufacturing to the Southeast,
increased automation, the
decline of the US steel and coal
industries, globalization and
internationalization
Better transport and
communication networks
Small companies relocate to
smaller metropolitan areas
where land and labor is
cheaper – or overseas
Agglomeration
diseconomies: noise, air
pollution, increased crime, poor
services,
Detroit in 2014
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Detroit use to be the
fourth largest city in the
United States and with the
highest median average
income – in the past 60
year the population has
decreased by 61%
Presently faced with an
estimated 18-20 billion in
debt and unfunded liability
Filed bankruptcy in 2012
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Between December 2000
to 2010 – 48% of
manufacture jobs were
lost
Detroit