AP Human Geography: Urbanization

• This unit covers cities and urban land-use patterns and processes.
• Topics include urbanization, the rise of world cities, urban land-use patterns, social issues in cities, and urban sustainability challenges.
• This unit will be assessed more than any other unit on the AP Human Geography Exam

Origin and Influences of Urbanization

• A city is a large, densely populated settlement serving as a commercial, governmental, and cultural hub
• "Urban" relates to a city
• Urbanization is the movement of people from rural areas to cities

Origin and Function of Cities

• Dense population concentration in small areas where residents work in nonagricultural activities defines cities today
• Early settlements were agricultural villages in fertile river valleys, allowing people to stay in one place to farm
• These villages rarely had more than 200 people, all involved in food production
• Agricultural villages grew into cities as populations increased

Agricultural Surplus

• Crop yields that can feed more people than just the farmer and their family
• New farming methods made agriculture more productive
• This surplus was essential for creating cities, allowing some villagers to pursue other occupations

Socioeconomic Stratification

• Society's structure into socioeconomic classes, including ruling leadership
• Villages' economic transactions became more complicated as they grew
• Early governments evolved to manage complex relationships and enforce rules.
• A surplus of food and organized distribution, along with agriculture and socioeconomic innovations, led to the rise of the earliest cities, called the First Urban Revolution

Major Urban Hearth Areas

• First cities appeared in Mesopotamia, the Nile River valley, the Indus River valley, the Yellow River valley of China, Mesoamerica, the Andean highlands and coastal areas of Peru, and West Africa
• Mesopotamian cities were small, and rarely exceeded 30,000 residents

Site and Situation

• Site is the absolute location of a place, covering the physical features
• Situation refers to the relative location, surrounding features, human activities, or regional position, changing through time

Diffusion of Urbanization

• Cities are now found worldwide though originated in a few hearth areas
• City life diffused in two ways: spontaneously in different places or through empires and societies via trade, voyages, or conquest
• Conquest significantly diffused cities throughout Europe historically
• The Greek Empire and the Roman Empire were two well-known powerful empires that spurred the diffusion of cities
• Greeks expanded by spreading cities throughout the Mediterranean region
• The Roman Empire ultimately conquered and replaced ancient Greece and diffused city life farther into Europe, including areas that had not previously experienced urbanization
• Infrastructure, like Roman-era features, like aqueducts and a structured system of roads and highways, extended throughout the Roman Empire
• As the Roman Empire declined, so did urban life throughout much of Europe
• Spanish cities flourished in later years thanks to the North African Moorish rule in Iberia, and China developed around sacred sites
• American cities, prior to Spanish Colonization in the fifteenth century, served not only religious but also control centers
• For example, Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, had over 200,000 inhabitants by 1521

Affecting Urbanization

• Urban growth comes from migration from rural areas and from natural population increase
• Urbanization occurred alongside industrialization and capitalism
• Migration from countryside to city, because of the pull factors of jobs and lifestyle, resulted in the growths of Chicago, Tokyo, and Mumbai
• After 1978 when the Chinese government lifted migration restrictions, many Chinese abandoned rural poverty.
• The country is expected to be 70% urban by 2025. China will have over 240 cities with over 1 million people
• The United Nations predicts that major future worldwide urban growth will consist of migration in Africa and Asia

Transportation and Communication

• Mass-produced automobiles exponentially increased personal mobility, freeing people from the limitations of geography
• The telegraph, developed by Samuel Morse in 1844, enabled faster delivery of information than mail system
• Oceans and rugged terrain were no longer large impediments due to the communication diffusion innovations
• critical to growth in businesses and further development of cities

Economic Development

• Industrial innovations in mining and manufacturing led to the second urban revolution that increased growth
• One transformation involved urban land as a source of income. Proximity to the city center added economic value to the land
• Residential regions were segregated by economic class and a spatial divide of work from home took place in emerging capitalist cities
• As industrialization progressed, a downtown defined by economic activity emerged and evolved downtown specialized districts
• Government policies regulated many aspects of the city, such as transport to housing.
• Redevelopment, another goal, became a key goal of government policies, helping re-attract residents to empty parts of the town through business.

Cities Across the World

• Module learns how contemporary cities are defined, spatial outcomes, and the land uses

Definitions of Contemporary Cities

• A metropolis is a very large and densely populated city, a major city of a country
• An urban area is any that contains at least 2,500 people (US)
• An urbanized area- US urban area with 50,000+ppl
• Urban cluster- US with fewer than 50,000ppl inhabitants
• Metropolitan statistical area- region with at least one urbanized area
• Micropolitan statistical area- region with one or more urban clusters of 10,000

Variation in population definitions around the world

–Definitions differ across countries. China categorizes according to population

• United States distinguishes between urbanized areas and urban clusters

Cities, towns and suburbs

• Towns are settlements, that are smaller and complex than cities that are still self-sufficent
• a suburb is a populated area on the outskirts of a city, mostly residential with own government often referred to as "bedroom communities,"
• MSA are composed of a central county plus adjacent economically integrated counties measured by commuting volumes

World Urbanization Patterns

Just over half of the human population of beings, estimated that 68% will live, in cities by 2050

• UN estimates that the World bank says is, that cities grow by a combined total of 3 million population a week
• The urban population in the developing world is growing rapidly, expected to double by 2030 across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa

Metacities and Megacities

• Metacities are large with a regional populace over 20 Million, and Megacities those with a regionalpopulation over 10 Million

Suburbanization, Sprawl and Decentralization

• The process of decentralization, urban sprawl, and suburbanization led to new land
• Suburbanization started 19th century, with commuting in mind and then the 20th booming
• 1950s car ownership made housing location further possible away from CBD- resulting pattern know as sprawl
• The tendency of urban areas to grow outward in an unchecked manner –As suburbs grew, corporations began to decentralize shifting their operations closer to workforce. A "branch offices" began growing to suburb areas. Edge cities develop

Edge Cities

Concentration of business, shopping and entertainment that developed in the suburbs, outside city

• Over 5 million space ft
• Over 600,000 square ft of retail area
• Population increases every morning and decrease evening,
• The location is meant for business, entertaining and recation
• Doesnt seem like an established city

Boomburbs

–Boomburbs must have a kept 10% population, or more, in recent decades

• Infill development led to their creation (mixed use areas that are created), and added walkable town centers

Exurbs

• Exurbs is a district that are beyond the suburbs. It is also inhabited to well-to-do families –Usually farmlands, mountains or beaches and are more speared out making it hard to use things in the city
• In comms and technology, it easy for a company to operation with employees in different areas for locations (the development of exurbs)

Cities and Globalzation

• World City centers for economic, power, colonization, as industrialized cities grew, decision became power making

• Housing is a important role for multinational, international, service providers-such banks

• Influential cities have characteristics: Accessibility, hipness, cultural diversities, talent, attract, devotion to enviorment and quality

• Global cosmopolitan increase, those whom not identify with wealth

• The world cities not always considered world , population is

• Suburbs are not gated community with high secure which reflects the effects wealthy to insulate and protect themselves

• Gated communities reflect the efforts by them whom are wealthy, whom they are protecting themselves and who they insulate

Connections & World Cities

• Globalization pushes cities, to make service easier, communication & transfer
• Business services make the connection between international companies (world health organization)

The Size and Distribution of cities

• The ranking of cities, with the cities the most powerful at top ( is what urban hierarchy is) –Rank size can be in urban, population is with how many in is town
• The size of the settlement • Doesnt follow many, dominant primatic laws

Cities

When 1 city that is much larger, than any other, that is in, then cities in economic, , that political cultoral •The city becomes too small for large area •With little for development to be completed –They can't be completed

Central Theory

• Central place theory is a model that understands, is in
• Center place makes products and services easy available  to consumers –Model is to explain, is in, the how central are in-hierarchical-system