Urbanization: Presence, Growth, and Spatial Outcomes

• Study notes have been generated.

Urbanization

• Refers to the movement of people to towns/cities and the resulting expansion of the rural countryside
• Influences include changes in transportation and communication, population growth, migration, economic development, and government policies

The Presence and Growth of Cities

• Vary due to physical geography and resources
• Site: the actual physical qualities of the place that a city occupies which can influence origin, function, and growth, like coastal plains, valleys, and mountains
• Situation: the relative location of a city (what is it near) which can influence origin, function, and growth, such as being located near shipping routes like Hong Kong and Singapore

Spatial Outcomes of Urbanization

• Increasingly located in countries of the periphery and semi-periphery
• Megacity: a large city with over 10 million people, with examples including Mumbai, São Paulo, Jakarta, Lima, and Shenzhen in LDCs, and Paris in MDCs
• Meta-city: a large city with over 20 million people, with examples including Delhi, Mexico City, Cairo, Beijing, and Mumbai in LDCs, and Tokyo in MDCs

New Land Use Forms

• Created by suburbanization, sprawl, and decentralization
• Suburbanization: the transformation of large areas of rural land to urban uses
• Suburb: a residential area located on the periphery of a city
• Suburban Sprawl: unrestricted suburban growth and development over large areas spreading out from a city in which cars provide the primary source of transportation
• Edge City: a concentration of residential and economic (business, shopping, entertainment) activity located in the suburbs
• Exurb: a residential area beyond the suburbs, often in more rural areas
• Boomburb: a residential and economic urban area that is not the largest city in its metropolitan area, but has a large population (100,000+) and tends to be spread along highways, such as Irvine, CA

Global Cities

• Cities are connected globally by networks and linkages and mediate global processes
• World City: functions as a service center of the world economy driving globalization at the top of the urban hierarchy, such as New York City, London, Tokyo, and Paris
• Network: a system of interconnected people, goods, information, transportation, communication, and finance
• Globalization: the process of increased interconnectedness among countries most notably in the areas of economics, politics, and culture

Explanations for Distribution, Size, and Interaction of Cities

• Urban Hierarchy: settlements ranked by population, number of services, and sphere of influence, such as hamlet, village, town, and city
• Rank-Size Rule: the idea that the population of a city or town will be inversely proportional to its rank in the urban hierarchy; for example, if the largest city in a country contained 1 million citizens, the 2nd largest city would contain 500,000 (1 million/2), and so on
• Primate City: a country's largest city, at least twice as large as the next largest city and more than twice as significant, which usually represents national culture, such as Paris, France, and London, England
• Gravity Model: a measure of the interaction of places used to predict the movement of people

Christaller's Central Place Theory (early 1933)

• Explains the distribution, size, location, and interaction of settlements in an urban system
• Settlements provide a set of goods and services to their hinterland, which is the surrounding market area
• Larger settlements are fewer and farther apart and serve a large market for high-order goods
• Smaller centers serve smaller market areas generally providing low-order goods
• Low-Order Goods: products that are replenished frequently, such as food and other routine household items
• High-Order Goods: specialized items such as cars, furniture, fine jewelry, and household appliances that are bought less often
• Threshold: the minimum number of people needed for a business to prosper
• Range: the maximum distance people will travel to purchase goods and services

Urban Models

• Useful for explaining internal structures of cities
• Include Burgess Concentric Zone Model, Hoyt Sector Model, Harris and Ullman Multiple Nuclei Model, Galactic City Model (Peripheral), Bid Rent Theory Model, Latin American Model, Southeast Asian Model, and Sub-Saharan African Model

Burgess Concentric Zone Model

• Developed by E.W. Burgess (1923)
• Illustrates a spatial model of the American city with five concentric rings around a CBD (Central Business District)
• The second ring is the zone in transition where industry and poorer-quality housing are located, along with new immigrants in small quarters and single individuals in rooming houses
• The third ring is the zone of modest older homes, typically for the working class
• The fourth ring is the zone of better residences where more spacious houses are built for middle-class families -The outer ring, is a commuter zone consisting of people who work in the center and choose to live in the suburbs

Hoyt Sector Model

• Homer Hoyt (1939)
• Illustrates a spatial model of the American city with land-use areas conform to a wedge-shaped pattern focused on the downtown core (CBD)
• Focus is on residential patterns and where the wealthy choose to live
• The city develops in a series of sectors that expand in a wedge from the center
• Industrial and retailing activities develop outward from the CBD
• Once a district with "high-class" housing is established, the most expensive houses are built on the outer edge of that district further from the center
• Middle-class residential sectors develop in proximity to high-rent residential, and low-class residential sectors are located nearest to industrial and transportation zones

Harris and Ullman Multiple Nuclei Model

• Developed by Chauncey Harris and E.L. Ullman (1945)
• Shows the mid-20th century American city consisting of several land-use zones (nodes) arranged around a CBD (Central Business District) that acts as the nucleus
• The city activities revolve in various land-use zones or nodes, such as ports, neighborhood business centers, universities, airports, and parks
• Incompatible land-use activities will not be clustered together

Galactic City Model (Peripheral Model)

• A spatial model where urban areas consist of a central city surrounded by a large suburban area, shopping malls, and office parks

Bid-Rent Theory

• Extension of the von Thünen model that implies that rent is equal to the value of the product minus production and transportation costs
• Illustrates what various land users are prepared and able to pay for access to the center market (CBD)
• The further from the center market (CBD), the lower the cost for a site
• Intensive and extensive farming practices are in part determined by land costs

Latin American City Model

• Griffin-Ford (1980)
• A spatial city model with a prestigious, commercial axis (spine) emanating outward from the CBD and surrounded by a peripheral area containing squatter settlements
• The city structure can be attributed to colonialism, the rapid rise of industrialization, and rapid population increase

Southeast Asian City Model

• McGee (1967)
• Highlights an old colonial port zone as the focal point reflecting a city oriented around exports
• Radiating outward from the port zone are the Western commercial zone and Alien commercial zone

Sub-Saharan African City Model

• de Blij
• A spatial city model that is difficult to formulate due to European colonialism
• The city consists of a colonial CBD, a traditional CBD, and a market zone surrounded by squatter settlements (informal satellite townships)

Economic, Political, Cultural, Social, and Environmental Challenges of Urban Changes

• Housing Discrimination: discrimination in the purchase or rental of housing on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or veteran status
• Red-Lining: discriminatory real estate practice in North America that prevents minority groups from obtaining money to purchase homes or property in predominantly white neighborhoods, as well as discriminatory banking practices in “risky" neighborhoods
• Blockbusting: a real estate technique used to encourage people to sell their property at a very low price by giving the impression that the neighborhood was changing for the worse, which benefits real estate agents and leads to the “white flight" to the suburbs
• Affordable Housing: residential units that are economical for sections of society whose income is below the median household income
• Access to Services: measure of people's ability to pay for services without financial hardship, referring to health services, infrastructure, etc.

Challenges in Urban Areas

• High Crime Rates: Contributing factors include lack of job availability and less access to quality schools
• Environmental Injustice: Disproportionate exposure to communities of color and the poor to pollution, including a lack of access to healthy food and safe neighborhoods
• Disamenity Zone: An area located within the city characterized by slums, the homeless, and control by gangs or drug lords
• Zones of Abandonment: Areas with a lack of jobs and declining land values that cause people and businesses to leave
• Squatter Settlements: Residential areas characterized by extreme poverty with shelters constructed of found materials and little or no access to basic services, existing on land just outside of cities that is neither owned or rented
• Land Tenure: A system regulating the rights to ownership, control, and usage of land

Responses to Economic and Social Challenges in Urban Areas

• Inclusionary Zoning: Planning ordinances that provide affordable housing
• Local Food Movements: Food produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, with a different social structure and supply chain than large-scale supermarkets

Urban Renewal and Gentrification

• Urban Renewal: Redevelopment of areas within an urban area, typically urban neighborhoods in economic decline and can have both positive and negative consequences
• Gentrification: Restoration of deteriorated urban areas by wealthier people who move into them
• New residents renovate, restore housing, and sometimes start businesses
• Negative consequences include displacement of poorer residents and disregard for the needs and rights of vulnerable groups

Positive Consequences from Increased City Productivity

• Positive consequences include new employment opportunities, improved housing and infrastructure, and an increase in visitors/tourism

Functional and Geographic Fragmentation of Governments

• Refers to the way governmental institutions are dispersed between many local agencies including state, county, city and neighborhood levels
• Interaction between local government agencies can be collaborative to provide services or competitive through taxation and/or land use decisions that can be harmful to an entire region

Urban Sustainability

• The idea that a city can meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs in terms of economic, environmental, and social impact
• Challenges include managing suburban sprawl, sanitation needs, climate change, and energy use

Responses to Urban Sustainability Challenges

• Responses to urban sustainability challenges include regional planning efforts, remediation and redevelopment of brownfields, establishment of urban growth boundaries (e.g. greenbelts), and farmland protection policies

Residential Buildings and Patterns of Residential Land-Use

• Low Density Housing: land use pattern meant for a small number of residential homes that include a lot of open space and contain the fewest people per geographic unit
• Medium Density Housing: land use pattern in which residential units include multi-unit housing, such as townhomes as well as single-unit housing
• High Density Housing: land use pattern in which land is occupied by residential units that include multi-unit housing such as high-rise buildings and contain the highest people per geographic unit
• Reflect and Shape the City's Culture, Technological Capabilities, and Cycles of Development
• Location and quality of a city's infrastructure affects economic development and social development

Sustainable Design

• Meeting human development goals while sustaining the natural systems that provide the natural resources upon which the economy and society depend

Initiatives and Zoning Practices

• Zoning: classifying land and identifying the types of activities that are permitted, such as residential, industrial, commercial, and agricultural
• Mixed Land Use: land development that blends a combination of residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, and/or industrial uses
• Walkability: a measure of how friendly an urban area is to walking
• Transportation-Oriented Development: includes a mix of commercial, residential, office and entertainment space centered around or located near public transport; dense, walkable, mixed use development near transit that attracts people to connect communities
• Smart Growth Policies: urban planning that avoids urban sprawl and focuses on long term implications with sustainable design initiatives
• New Urbanism: smart growth policy that creates walk-able, mixed land use neighborhoods with commercial and residential areas
• Greenbelt: an area of natural land on which building is restricted and whose main purpose is to curb the outward expansion of a large urban area, such as London
• Slow Growth Cities: smart growth policies that concentrate growth in walkable urban centers to decrease sprawl

Efforts of Urban Design Initiatives

• Positives: reduction of urban sprawl, improved walkability, improved transportation, improved and diverse housing options, improved livability, promotion of sustainable options
• Criticisms: increased housing costs, de facto segregation, loss of historical character/place character

Qualitative and Quantitative Data

• Used to show causes and effects of change within urban areas
• Quantitative Data: Census and survey data provide information about changes in population composition and size
• Qualitative Data: Field studies and narratives provide information about individual attitudes toward urban change