Urban Geography Concepts (Khan Academy)

o Symbolic Interactions Theory: Cities are places where people have different ways of looking at life. Strong cultural values, people have strong cultural values and people have different interactions and perspectives of urban life.  Why people move to urban areas? o Began during Industrial Rev...

o Symbolic Interactions Theory: Cities are places where people have different ways of looking at life. Strong cultural values, people have strong cultural values and people have different interactions and perspectives of urban life.  Why people move to urban areas? o Began during Industrial Revolution, losing jobs on farms due to machines/technology in industrialization. People had to move to cities to find work/housing = urban areas grew. o Improved utilities (power, water, transit) and building. o Today: more job opportunities, and more options/services for education/healthcare/etc. o Today there is an increasing population so people need to move to cities to find places to work/live because there isn't enough land for everyone to farm. o Pros of a city: wide variety of culture, anonymity in a big city o Cons: **Crowding** can occur in cities. Too little space/too many people. \[Some cities can have high density and not feel crowded\] § Less sense of belonging in a city when compared to a town, so we join groups to form communities (yoga, sports bar, dance club) o Individuals fall into categories based on what connections they are looking for in a city and what communities they form. § **Cosmopolites**: drawn to city due to cultural benefits and convenience.  **Ex**. Students, artists, entertainment, and intellectuals § **Singles**: Looking for jobs, partners, entertainment § **Deprived/Trapped**: Can't afford to leave city.  Ex: unemployed, elderly, homeless, poor (Just make enough to get by but not enough to collect money to leave the city). § **Ethnic Villages:** Native culture brought here when the people who live here immigrate. They settle together with people of similar backgrounds and create a community that looks like their home.  Ex. Chinatown/Little Italy. § Sometimes, communities are planned into design of an urban area.  Urban villages are designed so the residence who live there can work, reside, and recreate in the same area  Promote biking/walking because things are so close.  Facilitate community interactions because people are walking, living, working near each other.  **Suburbanization** is movement away from cities to get a larger home (American dream), but commute for work can be long and harder to get quick medical help. However, suburbs form their own economic centres and become independent to cities they border. Ex. Silicon Valley created on outskirts of San Jose by tech-companies. o Often, no planning of suburbs (don't turn out as well as they could have and there becomes an "urban sprawl" like in Atlanta 282 o **Urban Decline:** As people move out of city centers, city can fall into disrepair. Buildings abandoned, unemployment/crime rises. Population of city declines.  **Exurbs**: Beyond suburbs, prosperous areas outside the city where people live and commute to city to work, like suburbs. o **Ex**: Rochester outside Detroit, Michigan and Woodlands near Houston, Texas  **Urban renewal** -- revamping old parts of cities to become better. But can lead to **gentrification**, which means when redone they target a wealthier community which increases property value. People there before are pushed out because they can't afford property anymore and it leads to great inequality in cities.  **Rural rebound** -- people getting sick of cities and moving back out to rural areas. People who can afford to leave the city and looking for simpler/slower life. Happens close relatively near to urban centers so residences have convenience of a big city. o Often people move to scenic rural areas  Recap: Movement of people from rural areas to urban. Effects people who live in cities and how cities develop. People seek new ways to find community and enjoy freedom/benefits of city life and face difficulties/dangers. Urban development spread outwards from economic centers and form new economic centers and merge with nearby cities to form massive urban areas linked geographically, economically, and socially.  A **slum** is a heavily populated urban informal settlement characterized by substandard housing and squalor.\[1\] While slums differ in size and other characteristics from country to country, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water,  **Ghettoes** are defined as areas where specific racial, ethnic, or religious minorities are concentrated, usually due to social or economic inequities. Population Dynamics  Looks at how population of a country/region/world changes - factors that increase/decrease a population to create a total growth rate.  3 factors contribute to total **growth rate**: fertility, migration, mortality o **Fertility** is natural ability of human beings to have babies, which add to the population. **Fecundity** is the potential reproductive capacity of a female. o **Migration** is number of people moving permanently (to live, work, and eventually die) into/out of countries. Doesn't change total people on planet but does change \# of people living in a region/country. § When going on vacation does not equal migration. o **Mortality** is death, decreases population.  To measure the above three factors, we use rates (\# of people who are born, people who move in/out of a different country, and \# of people who die in a certain period of time). Usually measure birth, migration, and death rates over a years' worth of population change because enough time where an obvious change is visible but not too much time where we miss trends in how the population changes. Measure rates over **1** **year**, and per **1000** people so rates are comparable and easy to understand. \[Ex: 18.9 283 births/yr per 1000 ppl is easier to grasp than 134M births/yr worldwide...easier to compare country birth rates when scaled. Mali = 700K/yr doesn't seem like a lot but the rate is 46 births/1k people which is twice the world average\]  What affects population changes/growth rate: \[Fertility, migration, mortality\]. Migration does not affect population growth of the world, but effects that of a country. o Increase: **Births** and **immigration.** § **Immigration:** movement of a person into a country. \#ppl moving in/1000 § **Birth rate:** Births/1000 people per yr. Can also look at births in terms of **fertility rate**- \# number of births a woman is expected to give birth to in her child bearing years. On avg women in US gives birth to 2.1 children in her life**.**  \>2 = increase in population  = 2, no increase/decrease in population.  \