Chapter 10 Cities and Urban
Economies
• Relation between urban growth and
capitalist development
• Central place theory
• Economic base model
• Housing markets in urban areas
• Gentrification processes & poverty
• The development of global cities
Town
Plan
in
Old
Savannah
Savannah was the
cotton capital of the
South in the early
19th Century.
The first steam
powered ship to
cross the Atlantic
went from Savannah
to Liverpool
in about 1830.
Today the waterfront
is offices and
tourist facilities
Urban Division of Labor
• Central Business Districts to urban
peripheries
• Residential Location Decisions
• Filtering Model of Housing – Fig 10.7 –
alternative mechanisms for price rises
• Population Density Gradients
• Alternative Patterns of Urban
Development: concentric rings, sectors,
and multi-nuclei
Burgess + Harris and Ullman’s Land
Use Models
An Example of the Sector Model
Spatial Evolution of the American
Metropolis: Adams Model
Stage I: Pre Electric Trolley
S
Stage II: Electric Streetcars
Stage III: Automobile Era
Stage IV: High-speed
expressways to
distant suburbs
BUT
Not all cities have been
Through all these phases!
Spatial Evolution of the American
Metropolis: Erickson’s Model
Location Rents in Urban Areas
Location Rent
Industrial
Residential
Agricultural
Commercial
Distance from Center
Filtering Model Of Housing
Regional Housing Price Differences
Current Housing Price Dynamics ?
D1
$
S
D2
P1
P2
D1
D2
S
Q2 Q1
Q
Typical Population Density Gradients
Rethinking mix of
Housing and commercial
Activity in central cities
Urban Growth Boundary
Under Growth Management
Act to limit sprawl
Land Rent Complexities due to
multiple-nuclei in urban areas
Sprawling Metropolis: Patterns and
Problems
• Classic models of urban land use are
problematic in the automobile era
• Suburbs fueled by population explosion in
cities (immigrants) + filtering of settlement
(Tiebout processes)
• The suburban development syndrome:
Fig. 10.8 + low mortgage interest rates +
federal housing loan guarantees + tax
benefits for household ownership + cheap
land + low cost transportation + highway
subsidies
Consequence: A Shifting Pattern of
Settlement
Rise of
Edge
Cities
Warf’s Exurban Sprawl
Not all are “vast conurbations with millions of people apiece”
Gentrification
• Gentrification in housing – reversing (to
some extent) the suburban flight – related
to changing family structure (esp. multiple
workers) and to changing employment
structure (esp. advanced services)
• Gentrification in buildings – rise of
advanced services with a preference for
inner city locations – recycled spaces
American City Problems
• Some aspects of this section are hard to appreciate here
in the Puget Sound area
• Table 10.1 – documenting central city population decline,
Figure 10.12 depicts the downward spiral of resources
fueling urban decay
• The rise of inner-city ghettos and strong concentrations
of African American families caught in a cycle creating an
underclass, marked by low wages, poor housing, poor
schools, lack of health care and high crime rates
• The text emphasizes African Americans, but similar
situations exist for other groups, including Hispanic,
eastern European and Russian, Southeast Asian, African
immigrants
• Hurricane Katrina revealed the depth of these problems
in New Orleans and the weakness of social programs to
help the poor
Fig 10.12
Are we in
this
slide now
nationally
?
Migration Streams 1920’s to
1940’s: What about today?
Poverty Rates in the United States
The Spatial Mismatch Principle
• Skills of many inner city residents do not
match up well to inner city job opportunities
• Job opportunities for these people tend to be
better in suburbs
• Costs to commute to these jobs are high for
poorer people (reverse commuting)
• But barriers in hiring lead to discouraged
workers and dropout from the labor force
The Global Cities Argument
• A shift of scale: from the regional to the
national and then to the GLOBAL
• Bases of the concept of global cities
– Global corporate structures
– New York, London, and Tokyo as key centers
of power
– The decentralization of production and the
diffusion of corporate control centers
– Criteria for Fig. 10.21? Western hemisphere
looks fine to me, but Eastern hemisphere has
some problems
Global Cities – Do You Buy this
Hierarchy?
The explosion of major urban areas
Chapter 10: Summary Comments
• Cities are a key product of the industrial
revolution and the development of capitalist
economies
• Trade between city-regions is the basis of the
global economy
• People work in cities in spaces that are
unequal, and have rewards that are unequal
• Cities dominate the planet’s economy, and
are of critical importance in processes of
social and economic development