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Urban. Geography: Topics in Geography, Nua1er 1.National Counc7i1 for Geographic Educat _n.May 6642p.; For related documents, see SO 009 316 and317NCGE Central Office, 115 North Marion StreePark- Illinois 60301 ($1.00)

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MF-S50.83 Plus Postage. EC Not Available from EDPS.*City Flanning; Community Change; CurriculumDevelopment; *Curriculum Research; Essays; GeographicConcepts; *Geography Instruction; Higher Education;High School Curriculum; *Human Geography; SecondaryEducation; Urban Areas; Urban Environment*Urbanizatiun; *Urban Studies

The scope, objectives, and soni Q of the finoinqs ofurban geography are discussed in this paper. Curriculum developmentin urban geography at the high-school level is also brieflydescribed. The first of six articles, "Aspects and Trends of UrbanGeography," explains the urban geographer's interest in iuter:Ial citystructure, interaction of static functions within the city as well aschanging patterns over time, and use of mathematical models of urbancharacteristics. The second article, "Historical and ComparativeUrban Studies," defines cities as centers of exchange and tracesurbanization historically and geographically. The elements ofChristaller's central place theory are explained in the third paper,which includes definitions of cercral place, central goods andservices, and the range or complementary region of a good. "PublicPolicy and the Centra] Business District" (CBD), the fourth article,compares the CHD's assets and deficits and explores the need forpublic policy when growth in outlying areas is sapping its strenyth.The last two articles discuss the urban unit of the High SchoolGeography Project and the need for nrban geography in U.S. high

schools. (AV)

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TOPICS IN GEOGRAPHYNumber 1

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TOPICS IN GEOG1APW(Number 1

URBANGEOGRAPHY

National Council for Geographic EducationIllinois State UniversityNormal, Illinois 61761

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U1 (LI I [lc rt Its it) this hook TI why'. havcrcp/ iit&i 1 olti ilit NI;:y. 1 issuc UI Thc IHurnal Getigraphy. ThcPulnlcw ions (:( Hui- of thc ;`,:ai t)nal Council lor Guographic Educationis graftt ul it) Dr, 1-Icrbcrt II (1ross. Editor ol Tlw.lourrial uJ (;eograPhylin- planning 311(1 ing flits S)C..' UI issiic on "[limn CcogrApliv" and:dsti tor 1),.rit 1 to rcprini from II/is Issue.

Kermit NI. LaidigDircctor l'ill)lJiI iMay, I 961i

4

TABLE OF CONTENT:

'lo Understand Urban Environin TitsArthur and Judith Getis

Aspects and elrends ut Urban (cographvBarry j. Garner

Historical and Comparative Urban _ u

Rhoads Nturphey

Christaller's Cell tral Place 'heoryArthur and Judith C;etis

Public Policy a d the Central Business t

Ronald R. 13ovc e

The Urban Unit of the Fligli S:liool Geography ProjectArthur Getis

9

18

The Need for Urban Geography in Our High Schoolsf. Lewis Robinson 34

To Understand UrbanEnvironments

Arthur and Judith Gttis

At no time in our history has therebeen a more press:ing need to understahdurban environments than today. About70 percent of the popillation ol theUnited States presently byes in urbanareas, as contrasted with only 5S percentat the end of World War II, It has beenpredicted that of the projected 300 mil-lion Anwriefins in the year 2000, ithout SOpercent, or 240 million will live in uthanareas. In other words, our urban popula-tion will nearly double in the next gener-ation. Thk trend in urbanization is notpeculiar to the United States lint is a re-current ph-li0n-J(1nm through(mt theworld.

Many educators are aware of thegrowing importance and comples:ity ofcities, and of the need for cur students tounderstand this new kind of environ-ment. An increasing n amber of articlesand books, teaching units, seminars and

itutes are being devoted to urbaniza-tion and its implications for education.This awareness is well reflected in thediscipline of geography. For example,the steering committee of the HighSchool Geography Project, composed of!nen who are aniong the most respectedprofessional geographers, has decided toincorporate about seven weeks of work

on urban geography into the thir .-weekcourse now being deviloped for use inAmerican secondary schools I hex. pointout that tl e majority of U. S. high sehoolstudents today hve in or adjacent tocities. Teaching units which n worporatesueli an environment thus begin with thefamiliar; the city is an ideal startingplacc from which to lead the student toan understanding of geographic princi-ples and methods of study.

In addition, for the past several yearssonic of the outstanding research in ge-ography has dealt with urban problems.Nearly every issue of each of the profes-sional geography journals has at leastone article on various aspects of urbanareas. One disappointing facet of thisgrowing scholarly interest in urban geo -raphy, however, has been the researchers'inability or lack of interest in communi-cating with teachers at all academic lev-els. Very few elementary and secondaryschool teachers and surprisingly few col-lege instructors have a clear notion ofjust what problems are being attackedby professional urban geographers andwhat they have found.

It is this aspect of the comaiunicationsbreakdown coupled with the growing in-terest in cities that has motivated the ed-

Awritun GE:ris is an associate professor, Department of Geography ar,A. Urban Studies Center,Rutg,crsThe State University, New Brunswick, New Jer'sey. He iti geographer-in7charge ofthe development of the Urban Unit: Intraeity Analysis of the Higil School Geography Projectand coordinator of the New Jersey field trials of the project.

No111( CMS is an instructor, co-adjutant staff, Rutgers. She is the wife of Arthur Getis. Mrs. GetisiS the educational associate on the urban Unit: Intraeity Analysis, High School GeographyProject. Her academic degrees arc from the University of MiAigan and Michigan State Uni-versity.

THE JOURNAL OF GE

6

ol ti Jouroal iJ Gco;,71pIty to pub-arkcl.,,; hich rIwkc ur what it is

that prolussional lii 11.111 L(uJTij)hi(rS .1redoing. A fitrog plow to start vas at theUrban Cem-rapho.: lostunte held at lint-gers University in the ,mnuner of 1905,supported by the :Ns IVA, At this insti-tote scholars from a number or imsitit's and high school teachers from allover the country came together to ex-plore duo field of urban geography. Atthe end of the institute, Professors Ron-ald T1, Boy( e ( Volversity of Washington),Burry I (3arner ( University of Bristol,England), Arthur Getis ( Rutgers-TheState Cmversity), and Ilhoads Nlorphev( University .uf Nlich4in) putt together aseries of papers which seek to show diescope, the objectives, and sonie cif thefindings of urban geography,

The first article, -Aspects and Trendsof Crlian C.cooranliy,- by Prof, B. J. Gar-ner, was written ill an attempt ti) outlinebriefly just what it k that orban geogra-phers presently study. Their interest inthe interaction of activities within imdbetween cities is most evident. The effectof change in patterns of naeraetion is in-creasingly hieing studied. For example,researchers or, questioning how desiresfor soburban land affect land use pat-terns and interaction among functionalelements in cities. 11w iiietliods that theurban geographer employs to answersuch qoestions arc discussed briefly. Asin each of the articles, terms that urbangeogradhers use in their work are itali-cized and explained.

Prof lorphey 'views Luridly thecuinceins of urban gt,iigraphers whenthey study the origin of cities, The factors which enable cities to adneve great-ness arc explowd with refereilce todifferent areas of the svorkl and to

MAy 1966

chii o-mt. tutu periods, Niurphey showshow geographic principles help us to un-derstand tit development in any timeperiod,

'Flue work of W;l'iter Christaller hassin ottlat,d a considerable tunount of dis-cossioa :mmHg urban geographers. Alarge segmeot of present day research inthe city-binlcriand relationships, patternsOf city location, and internal structure ofcities has its roots in Christaller's work,Although much of what Chnstaller saidhas been modified and expanded by re-cent writers, it was thought most ap-propriate to Meiotic an article tellingbriefly of Christaller's famous theory:central place theory. Too often writershave assumed a knowledge of this theoryon die part of the reader, when in fact ithas luvn lacking. Wc have attempted tonut ke clear the basic tenets of this oft-nul mimed work,

Proh.ssor Flonald Boyce, in the nextarticle, shows how a geograplwr*s knowl-(lige can he holpfld in understanding anUnpin:int urban problemthat of thewell-being of the central business dis-trict, Ile demonstrates the practicality ofmho, geographic research by extendinghis understanding to recommend actionfor the .folution of an urban problem,

These four articles arc examples ofmany which could have been written tointroduce interested people to the natureof urban geography and to inform themabout it. We hope that they will give thereader an idea of the scope of the fieldmid also increase interest in urban geog-raph y.

Finally, short statement is includedwhich tells of experimental work in thedevelopment of materials for the studyof urban geography at the high schoollevel.

7

Aspects and Trends of UrbanGeography

Barry

Perhaps the most general, althoughsurely the least satisfactory, definition ofgeography is, "Geography is what geog-raphers do." Accompanying the con-tinuin, trend toward urbanization in theworld, an increasingly large part of con-temporary geographieal literature com-prises studies of various aspects of theurban environment. Geographers aredoing the city. But what are they doingin the city? What problems do theystudy? What are their concepts about thecity? How do they, as distinct from soci-ologists, for example, approach the studyof tirlia l] areas? Can the findings be use-ful in helping to improve the social andeconomic health of cities, which, it hasbeen suggested, represents one of thegravest challenges in the twentieth cen-tury!? This paper will answer some ofthese questionsperhaps not as fully asthey deserve, but as adequately as spacewill allow.

It is often said that geographers arc"Jacks-of-all-trades since they seem tostudy a little of everything, much ofwhich borders on other fields of study.One has only to glance at the table ofcontents of a geography textbook to seehow true this is. In the same way, thesubject matter of urban geography is arich and varied potpourri. Moreover,there are many different approaches tothe geographical study of towns, al-

Gamer

though perhaps two are most common.First, the town can be considered asforming a discrete phenomenon in thegeneral fabric of settlement. Conceptsand generalizations may be formed re-gardMg their distribution, size, function,and growth. Areas served by urbanplaces may be delimited and the spatialinteraction between places may bestudied. Second, the town may bestudied in terms of its layout and build,which express its origin, growth, andfunction. Concepts and generalizationsmay be related to the character and in-tensity of land use within the urban arcaand to the spatial interaction between itsconstituent parts.

Perhaps the best way to understandthe topics studied and the concepts usedin urban geography is to imagine a townand view it through the eyes of an urbangeographer and the studies he might un-dertake there. The first question hemight ask is, "Where is it?" It has a site,the actual ground on which it stands.Why did it grow up here and not some-where else? It also has a location, bothan absolute and, more important, a rela-tive location, a situation with respect toother physical and human things aroundabout it. Today, many of the early sitefactors have ceased to be important.Similarly, relative locations havechanged with improved communications.

ftutiir 1. GARNER is a lecturer in geography at Bristol University, England. He will teach atitgers Uiversity during the 1966-67 school year, The articles and books he has either authored

or co-authored relate to some facet of urban geography. Dr. Garner is the secretary of the Geo-graphical Study Croup on Statistical Techniques.

THE JOURNAL OF CE ARMY

The communica i have enabled dis-tances to be covered more cheaply andin less time than ever hefore and haveresulted in the intensificatinn of interac-tion between places. Site and situationcharacteristics are thus constantly chang-ing through time. The nature of thesechanges, the processes underlying them,and the effects they have on the changingspatial relationships between towns con-stitute ow. set Of prohleins iii urban ge-ography.

The study of the town itself may befrom an aggregative or an elementalviewpoint; that is, the geographer mayconsider de town as a discrete whole, asa collection of elements which distin-guish it from others, or he may payspecific attention to some or all the con-stituent elemcnk within it as separateparts that go to make up the whole. Inboth cases the studies may be cross-sec-tional in that they present the situationat a given poilit in time or flu v may betime-oriented with emphasis on tracingthe evolution of the present pattern. Infact, most studies contain elements ofboth of these approaches.

Most aggregative studies arc con-cerned with form and function. In an-swer to questions about form or shape,concepts from biology, have proved use-ful and various measures of shape havebeen attempted by geographers. In dis-tinguishing towns by the functions theyperform, analysis is usually in terms ofthe dominant activities revealed in cen-sus materials on employment and/or oc-cupations, in terms of the presence or ab-sence of functions difficult to quantify,such as government or tmiversities, andin terms of their roles, for example, asservice centers or ports. The end productof these studies is the formulation of ge-neric ( type) classifications of towns, notonly as ends in themselves, but also as away of ordering information convenient-ly for the purpose of further analysis andinvestigation.

MAy 1968

STUDIES OF INTERNALCITY STRUCTURE

The town itself occupies an area oc ap-preciable size, and activities are sepa-rated from one another within it. It hasan internal stmcnire which can most eas-ily he expressed in terms of thedifferences in character and intensity ofland uses at various loeations. When thegeographer recognizes residential areas,shopping districts, or industrial zones, heis also identifying different functions andforms, all of which give the basis for therecognition of tiniform regionsareaswhich are homogeneous in terms ofspecified characteristicswithin towns.He might sav that it is the description ofthe nature of these urban regions, theirdisposition and their social interde-pendence, that constitutes a geographi-cal analysis ef the internal structure ofthe town.

Residential Land Use

A geographer may veiy well want toconsider only one of the major functionsor land uses within the town in isolationfrom all the others. Many studies are ofthis nature. For example, attention mighthe focused on residential land usc, andquestions pertaining to the patterns andthe principles underlying those patternswould most surely be asked, for there isconsiderable internal variation in resi-dential structure. The older, inner areasof the town are usually ones of high den-sity!, with old and multi-story buildings,whereas the outer and progressivelynewer parts are lower in density. He canview this as a surface of differing intensi-ty and character of use and apply con-cepts of density gradients, decreasingoutward from the core of the town, forpurposes of analysis. Identifying theshapes of these gradients and studyingthe changes in them over time and indifferent-sized urban areas are increas-ingly important research topics.

Business and Commercial Structure

The commercial structure of towns htvi

received much attention in recent inves-tigations. The complex business structureof the town can be disaggregated intovarious component parts, stich as ribbondevelopment along arterials, into clustersor centers of activities of varying sizeand functional composition, and intospecialized concentrations of similartypes of hinction, such as printing ormedical districts A geographer wouldvant to understand these patterns andwould rely in part on the concepts of thethreshold size ( the minimum anionnt ofsupport necessary for a business tovive in the economic landscap(' ) and therange of a goml (which defines the areafrom which this sopport eau bc ob-(ained), for these help determine thespacing of bnsiness activities. lie coulduse concepts of agglomeration of eco-nomic activity and of differences in shop-pirg habik in the analysis of the loca-tion, f tinctional composition, and interac-tion among activities.

Ile would most certainly recognizethat part of the business structure con-sists of a hierarchy of varisized shoppingcentersboth ne'\ er. planned ones andolder, unplanned nncleationsrangingfrom the smallest street COrnt't cluster tothe most complex concentration in thecentral business district, or the cloy,town art_a. Each level or center in the hi-erarchy can be characterized by thenumbers and types of activities it con-tains. The central business district alonefurnishes ample study topics, rangingfrom its delimitation to an analysis of itsinternal structure and the interconnec-tions existing within it. lIc would identi-fy a core, comprising a number of highlyinterrelated functions, and a surroundingframe of loosely connected and liess in-tensive land uses, and trace the connec-tions between them.

Industrial Structure

Differences exist also in the ',awrydistributiIm of industries within andtweet) towns. Sonw industrial types arehighly concentrated in tlw inner, olderparts of the city, while others are locatedin isolation toward the periphery. Clus-ters of similar types occur in some areaswhile others consist of apparently dispar-ate kinds. Indeed, townsi themselves arein many instances characterized by dom-inance of a single kind of industry or by

diversification of types. Jri the analy-natterns of industrial location the

geographer could use concepts of scalereononlieswliich relate quantity ofgoods produced directly to costs of pro-ductionto understand the localizationand grouping of inthistries within thetown. Ile could also use the economicbase concept (the idea that most citiesexist primarily as centers of employmentopp)rtunities) to identify those activitieswhich are basic to the town's existence,in that dice brina money into the townfrom outside by trading with other areas,imici those which arc nonlmsie, or cityserving, in that thoy s(A-vc the pcoplc hy-ing within the area of the town itself, liewould relate tlw town's growth and eco-lannie well-beitig to the basic industrialstructure, since towns cannot exist with-out trade with other areas.

INTERACTION WITHIN THE CITY

We have asserted that activities occu-py different !mations within the city. Forexample, place of residence is separatedby varying distanec,7 from place of workfor most people. Linkages and move-ments between the various parts musttherefore take place. People and goodsmust overcome distance in order to satis-fy their demands, and in so doing theygive rise to a variety of patterns of moye-ment and flows, the most pronouncedone being, of course, the daily cormnut-

1 0 THE UrO7AL GEOQI1A

ing patterns. 'Hu inferac ions arereflected in the Junonnt, direction, time,and character of movements between thevarions functional areas. Consequently,the study of urban transportation has be-come a major topic in urban geography.The town, in fact, comprises a complexsystem of overlapping functional areasLuid of nodes and foci about whichhuman activity is twganized. Concepts ofintervening opportunitrj, of least-effortbehavior resulting in minimizing dis-tances traveled. and the principles itluting trip generation to the characterand intensity of land usc afford partialexplanations of these patterns.

Movement and locality arc intimatelyconnected will) the concept of accessibil-ity. Since activities have different needsfrom the viewpoint of accessibility, andsince some locations are more accessiblethan others to the various parts of theurban all'a and it flinCtiOns, there is

competition for the use of laml. and thiscompetition affects its value. The eco-nomic concepts relating band values todifferences in accessibility are funda-mental to the analysis of the distributionand intensity of land uses within theurban area. Urban land can be repre-sented as a rent surface, which, in gener-al, resembles a contour map of a hill inthat values and reins InV highest in theuore of the town, where accessibility ispresumably greatest, and decrease bydiffering amounts in various directions tothe periphery. Regidarities exist in therelationship between this surface and thedistribntimi of urban functions.

THE DYNAMIC NATURE OF CITIES

So far we have considered the town asstatic. In reality, however, its internalstructure is constantly changing. Newbuildings replace old ones, and land usesarc changed as functions move from onelocation to another or disappear alto-

NIAV 1966

gether. Pattcrns arc in a suite of flux asadjustments are inad.: to changing condi-tions. Centripetal forces of various kindsattract activities to the centers of townswhile centrifugal forces result in decen-tralization and dispersal. At thc sametinie, areas one kind of land use areinvaded hy other uses which eventuallytake over resulting in change in func-tion, in intensity of use, and in form.

An urban geograplwr would thereforebe interested in the processes of residen-tial decentralization, in the expansion ofthe suburbs at the town's periphery. Hewould note that the older iimer areas ofthe town, no longer meeting the require-ments of the original users, decline andare taken over by alien uses. He wouldstudy slums and trace the evolution ofuses at anv given location lw means ofthe concept of 8(1-meta occupence. Hewotild study the changes in businessstrncture as the quality of the market de-teriorates and changes occur in the tech.nology of retailing. 1-ic would note otherchangcsthe growth of out-of-townshopping centers and the associated re-ductions in sales volumes and vacancyrates in the downtown arca, the erner-(rence of commercial bliccht as qreas rundown, and the trend toward industrialdecentralization as older sites with theircongestion, scarcity of land for expan-sion, and high costs become increasinglyless 'table for most kinds of modernindustry. Ile would want to know theeffect of such changes as these on thepatterns of movement within the city. Infact, he is interested in defining the rela-tionships that exist and in identifying theprocesses underlying the changing inter-nal structure of the town.

Towns do not exist only to serve thepeople living within their kw Inds; theyare also intimately connected with theareas surrounding them. Another majorgroup of study topics is thus concerned

1 17

61(1.1 Vci tOWDS and

the areas that miprke their hinterlands.The city has :t sphere of influence, atrade arca, in the same way that :Ino has a field of influence. People go totowns to purchase goods or :Mend agame anti, through its function as a col-

leeting and distrihnting center, the townserves the surrounding area in a variety

svavs The urban geographer wouldwant to know what these relationshipsarcs. lit would delimit the trade area,and analyze its character and size.

Tile extent of trade areas is directlyrelated to the proximity and functionalstrnenire of other settlements. Ilc wouldlook at the size and spacing of towns ill aregion, asking questions abont the de-gree of clustering or dispersal of settle-ment. Ile would find the ideas related tocentral placo theory° useful in under-standing patterns. lie would be con-cerned with the principles underlyingdistributions of towns and the evolutionof patterns of town-spacing over titne.

METHODS OF STUDY

Although Ow foregoing does not cx-haust the concepts associated with urbangeography, a word about methods andtechniques is in order at this juncture.Mitch geographic representation is pure-ly descriptive in character. _The iden-tification of patterns, their description,and the generation of classificationsare the traditional and necessary prereq-uisites for geographical study. However,Mita Of the recent work appears to bemarkedly different from this, although oncloser inspection it will be found that thedifferences arc mainly in the way re-search is undertaken rather than in thekinds of problems studied. Greater em-phasis is being placed on the use ofmathematics as an analytical technique,

See "Chris taller's Ccntrai Place Theory" inthis issue of the journal.

and there is increased concern with thegeneral rather than the specific. The sit!,-

i is changing from an idiographic one,ill wiliehl till" emphasis was on the intereSive stIldy Of individual cases, to the no-mathetie approach, in which there is asearch for general laws and spatial regu-larities.

We are really saying that the subject isbecoming more scientific, with greateremphasis On the explanation and predic-tion of geographic phenomena. For, al-though description may be a logicalstarting point, it is inadequate by itself,since it can only lead to a rearrangementof the facts without adding principlesfrom which to strike ant anew. More-over, once we emphasize explanation, webecome engaged in the search for theo-ries. ft is in this connection that anotherinteresting change has taken place in theappmach to urban geography, namely,the increasing usc that is being niadc ofmodels.

The usual concept of a model is tni.aa miniature; for example, a model rail-read set. This really is an analogue to thereal thing. It is, in fact, not an exact rep-lica lint a likeness, since only the mostsalient features have been represented,N od els are just thatabstractions or sim-plifications of the real world in which theirrelevant material is discarded to laybare the bones of what are considered tobe the simplest and most significant as-pects of the problem under investigation.

Although models can be of variouskinds, those most widely used in urbangeography are mathematical ones, inwhich words are replaced by mathe-matical symbols, and consist of a set ofmathematical assertions from which con-sequences can be derived by logicalmathematical argument. For example, instudying the field of influence of a town,we draw the analogy to the magneticfield. Physicists tell us that if two mag.nets are placed near each other, the

THE Jo_ NAL OF GE0CRAF

12

boundary of their magnetic fields is di-rectly related to their size or strength,and inversely related to the distanceseparating them. b-i the same way, theboundary bet% en the trade areas of

towns amd the interaction between townsis also related to their sizes and to thedistances between them. Translatingthis to symbols, we can express the samething simply as PaPh/D where F, andPb stand for the size of the two towrisand D representS the spacing. Using thisvery simple model, we can estimate theextent of trade area of say place b, orthe amount of interaction expected be-tween towns a and b.

ItIore complicated models have teendeveloped recently to help in the studyof journey-to-work and journey-to-shoppatterns. They have been applied to theanalysis and explanation of the distribu-tion of land uses within the city; for ex-ample, to residential land use and tocommercial structure. Much effort is nowbeing devoted to the development ofmodels which can simulate entire urbanareas to aid in the formulation of plan-ning policies.

But the model gives us an artificial sit-uation which must be compared to thefindings obtained from actual field obser-vation, There is, as a result, a problem ofappraisal. It is in the testing of theoreticalresults derived from the use of a modelthat we find an added departure from

MAY

e traditional way of doing things. Thetraditional way was largely to use "eye-ball" inethods of direct visual compari-sonmethods which are both highly sub-jective and generally inaccurate. In orderto gain greater objectivity and reliability,more and more urban geographers areturning to the use of statistical methodsof testing hypothesis or in evaluating re-sults.

Mathematical methods are also beingused now to describe phenomena (in thedescription of patterns, for example, orin the formulation of classifications) andin the identification and measure of rela-tionships or correlations between phe-nornena. Recent work has thereforetended to become more quantitativewith (a) greater problem orientation, (b)hypothesis testing using mathematics,and (c) emphasis on the building of mod-els as an aid in the formulation of theory.

Once explanation is available, predic-tions may become logical. It is here thaturban geography appears to be able tomake an even greater contribution tourban planning than it bas in the past.Continued search for the understandingof the spatial structure of the city canhelp in making decisions about its future.It is the application of the findings ofgeographical studies to this purpose thatmany urban geographers consider to betheir most worthwhile goal. They arecontributing in a large way to the under-standing of the urban world and theeventual betterment of tbis environmentfor an increasingly urbanized society.

FURTHER READING

Dickinson, Robert E., City and Region:A Geographical Interpretation. London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1964.

Mayer, Harold and Clyde Koir e

Readings in Urban Geography. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1959.

139

His orical and Compa -a iveUrban Studies

Rhoads Murphey

The city is as old as civilization. Thetwo words come from the same root,which originally meant city, suggestingan interrelation which was especiallyclose in the early historical period, hutwhich is still relevant. Civilization is gen-erally egnated with a literate traditionpreserved by organized groups, or soci-eties, living ill pernlancntly fixed clustersrather than in sinall, scattered units.These groups arc also characterized bysome envision of labor or task specializa-tion, which ineludes a variety of secon-dary and tertiary (trading, services, man-ufacturing) ra r than merely primary(agrieuUnre, fishing, hunting, and gather-ing ) activities. Such a description also fitsthe city. I listoricallv the first cities beganto appear with the emergence of a divi-sion of labor. It seems reasonably certainthat this development first took placesomewhere in the h ill country borderingthe Tigris-Euphrates Valley, where thewild ance,tors of wheat and barley werenative, and where, well before the ap-pearance of cities, goats, pigs, dogs, andcattle had been domesticated and per-manent field agriculture had begun toproduce consistent surpluses. Only whenthis stage was reachedi could a division oflabor take place so that sonic 'limbersof the population could engage in non-food-producing activities and still be fedfrom surpluses produced by the remain-ing fanners.

CITIES AS CENTERS OF EXCHANGE

There were obvious advantages inconducting most of these non-agricultur-al functions in a concentrated centeracity where trade goods, raw materials,and food could most conveniently be as-sembled and from which a set of goodsand services could be made available tosurrounding rural areas or to other citiesas trading partners. The first citiesprofited in these ways from economies ofscale (lower costs resulting from size andconcentration of the enterprise) anddemonstrated the universal function ofall cities at every time and placeas cen-ters of exchange. Some aspects of thisfunction, as in nearly all cities now, maynot have been strictly economic, for ex-ample, political administration, religiousand ritual services, or the wider socialand cultural rewards present in a largecommunity, which is also more diversethan a farmers' village. From the time ofits origin the city has been the chief en-gine of economic and institutional growthand change through specialization basedon exchange.

But in order to perform every aspectof its function as a center of_ exchange,the city depended, as it still does, ongood access to and from the areasserved, the city's hinterlantL Any city im-plies and is based on spatial interaction,or relations between places. It cannot

Bnoaos NioncilEy is a profess-n of geography and in the Center for Chinese Studies, Universityof Michig4n. fie was the editor of the Journal of Asian Studies from 1959-65. Dr. Murphey is amember of fhe Colima of the A.iseciation of American Geographers. His articles relate primarilyto aspects of East Asia.

ill 1.4 TILE JOURNAL OF GEM

exist as an isolated unit, but only as itcan receive from outside the city, oftenfrom great distances, the materials andfood which it needs, and can provide inreturn a set of goods and Services to con-sumers in its hinterland. It must there-fore be concerned with maximizingtransferability (the means of movinggoods f rom one point to another at bear-able cost) by building artificial routes ofeasy movement, such as roads, and/orby selecting a site and a situation whichmake -access to and from the city easy.Site refers to the actual ground on whicha city is built, situation to the wider pat-tern of spatial interactions with otherplaces. Situation is thus by definition arelative term rather than an absoluteone. It describes the relation of a givenplace to other places in simple distance,or, more importantly, in cost or effort. Itcan, aud usually does, change over time,especially as accessibility and spatial in-teraction are affected by changes in

transport or transferability.

In this 'broad sense all cities are centralplaces. They are nodes or nuclei of theirrespect ive hinterlands, performing in oneconcentrated and easily accessible ( or

central ) place specialized functions onbehalf of the wider area 'hich theyserve A final essential basis of exchange,the city's universal function, is comple-mentaritythe actual or potential rela-tionship between places which liossessdifferent sets of goods or services andwhich t herefore have a basis for mutuallyprofitable exchange. No two places arealike, and each place tends to have itsown set of comparative adcantages forthe production of different sets of goods.Complementarity results in trade, how-ever, only if transferability between theplaces concerned is great enough toovercome the friction of distance at bear-able cost, and if no intervening opportu-nity lies between them where either po-tential trade partner could satisfy its

M AY 1906

needs with less effort. These are univer-sal conditions for and characte-Astics ofcities in every arca and at every histori-cal period.

EARLY CITIES OF MESOPOTAMIAAND EGYPT

One of the results of historical or com-parative urban studies is their demon-stration of urban universals rather thandifferences. By about 4000 o.c., citybuilding in the Middle East seems tohave spread from its probable earlierhearth in t'.e hill country of Syria, Pales-tine, and Iraq down onto the flood plainof the Tigris-Euphrates, and perbapsequally early to the lower Nile Valley inEgypt. These are both potentially pro-ductive areas where exchange was rela-tively easy and transferability great. TheNile and Tigris-Euphrates are both exot-ic rivers, rising in well-watered high-lands and flowing across a desert toreach the sea. Their annual floodsdeposited highly fertile alluvium, espe-cially in the deltas, and in addition pro-vided semi-automatic irrigation, it waspossible on this basis to produce largeand reliable food surpluses and thus toenable a division of labor as well as tocreate a prosperous hinterland for citiesto serve. But the advantages of bothareas for the growth of large and numer-ous cities for the first time were at leastas importantly derived from the relativeease with which goods could be movedand therefore centers of exchange couldfunction. Both areas were level andlargely or entirely treeless, so that move-ment overland was relatively easy. Thecities which arose, however, made moreimportant use of the rivers themselves aseasy routes of spatial interaction wheretransferability was maximized. City siteswere riparian (on the river banks) andtheir situational advantages meant thatthey could assertible by water transportand at low cost, large and bulky ship-

15 I I

meats of delta-grown grain, dates, andber food commodities, and could also

bring in heavy materials like stone ormetals from great distances in additionto trade goods, Sinee they could use seaas well as river routes. Goods and ser-vices could be distributed from thesecities in the same way. Transport coststend to vary inversely with the capacityof tbe carriers, especially for heavy orbulky goods. For many millennia afterthe first cities anoie and mini the de-velopment of the railway, large citiescould not be maintained except on navi-gable waterways.

The early cities of Mesopotamia andEgypt also depended, as all cities do, oneomplementarity as a basis for exchange.The fundamental complementary rela-tionship is between the city itself and tbenon-urban agricultural or primary-pro-ducing areas in its hinterland. thitin the ancient period the lower Nile aodTigris-Euphrates were devoid of stone,wood, or metal, and these commoditieshad to he imported to the cities, whichWere th us involved in complementaryexchange (finished goods or services inexchange for raw materials) with a vari-ety of places by river and sea routes. Ce-dars came to Egypt by sea from Leba-non, stone in great quantities from quar-ries along the upper Nile, metals andores from many distant sources. In theearly cities of Mesopotamia, even nailsand simple tools were originally madefrom sun.dried or kiln-fired clay until ex-change had been established with distantsources of ores and metals as well aswood and stone. There was thus a rela-tively rapid expansion of a commercialnetwork, or field of spatial interaction,accompanying the rise of the first cities.

URBANIZATION IN ASIA

Connections of this sort were estab-lished with complementary areas as dis-tant as India (to which the Mesopota-

12

mian urban ouidel spread by at least2500 ac.). Cities oi the trains plain, no-tably 1 Ia rappa and Nlohenjo Darn, be-came trade partrwrs tvith Nlesopotiunian

in a mutually profitable exchange.There was little or no exchange lirtweenthese early Indian cities and Egypt, since

nilmn Mesopotamia esented an inter-vening opportunity !-,irnilarly trade andcultural exchange ly.ftween Nlesopotamiaand China was apparently both late andweak, since the Indus cities intervenedspatially and since transferability be-tween Mesopotamia and India was muchgreater by sea routes along the shores ofthe Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Theflood plain of the Yellow River in northChina was probably in historical termsthe third major center of urbanization todevelop (b about 2000 Mc.). It and theIndus plain shared the same set of physi-cal charw2teristies as had earlier favoredthe rise of Mesopotamian and Egyptiancitiesexotic river systems flowing acrossan arid hut level and largely treekssplain where fertile alluvial soils andwater for irrigation were combined withhigh transferability. Within each of theseAsian areas urbanization spread firstalong the major rivers and their tributar-ies and distributaries, as avenues of easyaccess to and from productive agricultur-al areas. Asian urbanization is still heavi-ly water-oriented.

THE TOUBNAL OF GROG 1.1Y

With Ow rise of the first territorial em-pires in Asia, howeer, the dominanturban function becarne increasingly orwof political administration and culturalsynthesis. Trade did, of course, continueto grow in and from urban bases, butmost traditiorml Asian eitics were onlysecondarily involved in trade or manu-facturing in terms (it employment or in-vestment, and were more importantlyconcerned %vitli managing the adminis-trative machinery of large bureauera.-icstates, including government trade mo-nopolies. As with many modem 1.,ol'iticalcapitak, they also played an important

URBANIZATION IN THE WEST

From the beginning of the urban tradi-tion of the West, hmvever, the city waspredominantly a commercial center. Bythe first millennium B. C., the dynamiccenters of urbanization and expandingtrade had for a variety of reasons shifted

Mesopotamia and the Nile into theMediterranean Basin. A small enclosedsea, generally free of storms an I with ahighly indented coastline, the Mediterra-nean was one of the earliest hearths forthe growth of navigation and oceantransport. Transferability within the

cultural and ceremonial r le as centers ofthe literate, intellectual, and artistic tra-

n in each area, and invested a largeshare of urban resources in monumentbuilding for both political and religiousrather than strictly economic goals. Citysites and situations had still, neverthe-less, to maximize access, which is as im-portant for an administrative city dealingin services as for a com:rercial city deal-ing in goods.

MAY 1966

basin was high, once the elementarytechniques of navigation had been mas-tered. ft is to Phoenician, Cretan, Creek,and Roman forms that the principal di-rect roots of modern Western urbaniza-tion extend, rather than to Luxor, Mem-phis, Ur, or Babylon. Tyre, Knossos, Ath-ens, Syracuse (and Borne, to a degree)were centers of trade on a greatly in-creased scale and spatial spread. While itis true that ancient urban Mesopotamia

13

and Egypt show striking similarities tomodem urbanism, confronted many ofthe same problems, and solved (or failedto solve ) them in many of the same ways,the modern parallel with the pre-classicaland classical Mediterranean is closerstill, as part of a continuous Westernurban tradition which stretches at leastfrom Sidon and Carthage to Corinth,Rome, London, New York, and SanFrancisco. The great majority of Westerncities has been and remains dominantlycommercial rather than administrative orsymbolic, although, as in traditional Asia(where the proportions were reversed),most cities have performed both func-tions. The polis, or city-state of classicalGreece, and the colonies which Greeksfounded elsewhere along the Mediterra-nean shores as their trade by sea ex-panded, were primarily commercial cen-ters involved in widely-extended spatialinteraction patterns stretching from theBlack Sea coasts and the Crimea to thePillars of Hercules, where the Mediterra-nean joins the Atlantic. These sorts ofcities, of which the Greek developmentswere prototypes, have been labelled bet-erogeneticinhaenced by and involvedwith a variety of interactions with agreat range of distant and differentplacesas opposed to the orthogeneticcities of the great Asian empires, whichwere proportionately more shaped byand involved in interactions within cut-turally homogeneous hinterlands andwhich functioned as urban pinnacles ofthe several Asian "Great Traditions."

ROMAN CITIES

With the rise of the Roman Empire,the dominantly commercial nature of theCreek polls was overlaid by a new andwider set of administrative functions.The city of Rome, aided by its dual func-tion in both trade and administrationand by its central position within theMediterranean for assembling and dis-tributing food and other goods by sea,

14

was probably the first city in history toreach or approach a population of onemillion. Its size was a reflection of theenormous extent and productivity of thehinterland it served. People and goodswere transported by sea and by an im-pressive network of paved roads, all ofwhich proverbially led to Rome andgreatly augmented transferability andcentrality. Cities founded or expandedby the Romans throughout their empirein Europe, North Africa, and the MiddleEast bore the imperial stamp of centralauthority. Many began as militani campsor garrison towns, grew to provincial orregional capitals, and acquired somecommercial functions as well. They wereusually walled and in most instancescarefully laid out on a gridiron plan,with major avenues leading from each ofthe gates at the four points of the com-pass. In this they resembled the adminis-trative cities of the contemporary Chinese empire as its spatial extent also ex-panded and was marked by the ..:stab-lishment of walled regional centers ofcontrol laid out spatially on a uniformimperial plan.

The collapse of Roman control in theWest was followed by a period of severalcenturies in which both the number andthe size of cities shrank. Roman roadsdegenerated, transferability was every-where lessened by brigandage and civildisorder, and commercial productionwas similarly affected. The basis forurban growth was thus sharply reducedas compared with the period of the PaxBornana, when exchange and transfera-bility were maximized. The city of Romeitself may have shrunk to as few as 5,000inhabitants at its lowest point, a dramat-ic illustration of what happens to a citywhen it loses its hinterland. No politicalor administrative functions remained,and economic functions were reduced tothose of a tiny local exchange center forthe immediate environs of the town.Elsewhere in the former empire urban-

18 0F GEOGIIAMY

was also in retrea N.lany of thecities which survived the Dark Ages didso because they had become the scats ofbishops (cathedral towns) or grew up inthe shelter or even within the walls of thefortified castle of a feudal lord. As inItaly itself, lowland sites of easy accesswhich had attracted cities under the PaxRomatui were often abandoned, andnearly all cities sought the protection ofelevated or defensible sites where acces-sibility was sacrificed for security.

CITIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Venice is the most notable exar,ple ofa city which arose during the chaos fol-lowing the Roman collapse as a protect-ed refugein the marshes near the sea-ward edge of the Po River delta on theAdriaticand was able to combine de-fensibility with high transferability bysea. With the combined advantages of itssite and its situation at the northernmostextension of the Mediterranean, where itcould serve the north European marketand could assemble goods by sea fromthe Levant and the Orient, Venice be-came the biggest city in medieval Eu-rope. Elsewhere in the West exchangewas to a large extent provided by peri-odic fairs, as an adjustment to conditions

transferability and limite,' com-iercial production. Fairs in effect

brought the market to the hinterland ona rotating basis in the same way and forthe same reasons that periodic fairs ormarkets still operate in areas of lowtransferability and restricted commercialproduction, such as large parts of NorthAfrica or rural China.

Toward the close of the Middle Ages,and for a variety of reasons, larger andbetter-ordered political units began togrow, security and transferability beganto increase, roads reappeared, barrierforests were removed, trade began to re-vive, and cities once more increased innumbers and size. The age of the great

MAY 1906

discoveries and the rapid improvementsin shipping and navigation from the 15thcentury on meant a further and enor-mous widening of the limits of spatialinteraction by sea routes which soon en-compased the entire world. This, inci-dentally, meant the decline of Venice,since first its old rival Genoa and thenthe new port cities along the northwestcoast of Europe now stood as a series ofintervening opportunities between Ven-ice and the new sea routes to world mar-.kets, which no longer flowed eastwardthrough the Mediterranean but west-ward and southward in the Atlantic tothe New Workl and to Asia around Afri-ca. The Asian tropics, in particular,offered the basis for a strong comple7mentarity with Europe as producers_ ofspices and a growing variety of othergoods which Europe demanded butcould not produce. For the same reasonsof complementarily and high transfera-bility by sea, a large and proatahle tradein sugar arose with the West Indies.

COMMERCIAL CENTERS AND THECOMING OF THE 'NIDUSTRIAL

REVOLUTION

Booming urban commercial centersgrew in northwest Europe to manage theexpanded volume of trade, with thegreatest advantages accruing to thosecities with the most appropriate situa-tionsports in the Low Countries nearthe mouths of the Rhine which offeredeasy access to the variety of continentalmarkets, and on the other side of theChannel, the city of London, v ell placedat the head of the Thames estuary toserve as a major entrepa't (center of as-sembly and distribution of goods bywater) for the European market as awhole. This same urban modelthe com-mercial city dominated by merchants--spread across the Atlantic and was repro-duced in Boston, New York, Philadel-phia, Baltimore, and other North Ameri-can centers. It later spread to Australia-

1 9 15

New Zealand and to parts of LatinAmerica wh,:re commercial productionof primary .,rads for export becameprominent ano required large urban cen-ters of exchange mid commercial ser-vices, such as Sydney, Melbourne, Bue-nos Aires, or Montevideo, whose ship-ments of grain and meat helped to feedthe mushrooming urban populations ofEurope and North America.

The coming of the industrial revolu-tion reinforced the growth of most of theearlier-established commercial cities, forthey were centers of investment capitaland of cheap access for the assembly ofraw materials and the distribution offinished yods. But there xvas also a newgrowth e manufacturing cities close tosources of the bulky materials which in-dustrialization now required in enor-mous amounts and which thereforemeant greatly increased sensitivity totransport costs. Manchester, Birming-ham, Sheffield, Essen, Dusseldorf, Pitts-burgh, Breslau, Magnitogorsk, Jamshed-pur, Anshan, Yaorata, and other virtuallynew cities arose in association with localdeposits of coal or ore. The spread ofrailways did, however, make a greaterdegree of urban concentration possible.The railroad and other innovations, suchas the steamship, and ultimately thetruck and the pipeline, so heightenedtransferability at low cOSt that even theolder commercial centers, far from rawmaterial sources, could bring in whatmanufacturing required and could alsobring in food to maintain urban popula-tioos of considerable size. One result ofthe rapid increase in the size of oceancarriers was that many of the harborsadequate for an earlier age could nolonger accommodate them. Outports hadto be developed, farther down the riveror estuary on which the city lay, or har-bors had to be artificially deepened orenlarged on the coast. Thus, for example,Le Havre came to serve as the outportfor Paris, Southampton and Gravesend

16

for London, Cuxhaven for Hamburg, andKobe for Osaka.

As one consequence of the expansionof trade and the growth of a worldwidetrade network, exchange between Eu-rope and the Afro-Asian area greatly in-creased. In Asia there had ht the pastbeen few predomiaantly commercialcities, and in particular few coastal ports.The cities of the Great Tradition hadbeen inland centers of administration.European traders and later colonial mer-chants had therefore to establish, or toexpand from small indigenous nuclei, awhole set of new port cities to handle thenew trade and to service the expandingcommercial hinterlands from which theydrew their export goods. From Karachi,Bombay, Madras, Colombo, and Calcut-ta through the major ports of SoutheastAsia to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tientsin,and Yokohama there arose a series ofsimilarly organized cities which were ei-ther founded by Western traders wherenone had existed before or were largelydeveloped by them (in Japan, by whatwere clearly Western methods). Notmerely their coastal sites and their situa-tions, which maximized access by sea,but their physical appearance and theirinstitutions, which were designed to gen-erate and safeguard the accumulatior. ofcommercial capital, the increase of trade,and the security of the private entrepre-neur and his goods, were replicas of theurban models already developed bypost-Renaissance Europe in the mer-chant cities of the modern West. Withthe coming of national independence inthe wake of the second World War,many of these Western-developed colo-nial cities have also become politicalcapitals. In every country of Asia (ifTokyo may be regarded as a city de-velóped on Western lines, if not in West-ern hands), the colonial or semi-colonial(e.g., Bangkok) port became well beforeindependence a strong or even over-whelming primate city, i. e., a city which

2 0

TRE PUMA', OF CE0GRAP

is at least twice as populous as its nearestdomestic rival. In the several :anal! coun-tries of Southeast Asia, in particular, theex-colonial primate city almost monopo-lizes comnwrcial and industrial as well aspolitieal functions for the entire state,and tine; has no rational rivals as a na-tional capital despite its alien origins.Urban development in parts of Africaduring the past century has followedpandkl lines. Colonial port cities werebuilt by Europeans to handle the exportof primary products and became muchlarger than the indigenous inland urbancenters. Similarly, many of these ports,originally colonial, have become primatecities and, with national independence,political capitals.

THE GROWING SIMILARITY OF CITIES

With the creation of a global commer-cial network, the spread of industrializa-tion, and the technological revolution intransport and transferability, cities ev-erywhere are becoming more like oneanother. The urban differences whichonce distinguished various cultural andeconomic areas are lessening. The degree-if urbanization, Or the proportion of thetotal population living in cities, tendsstrongly to vary with the level of corn-nwrcialization of the economy. Hence,for example. Australia, Uruguay, Germa-in% or Japan are much more highly ur-banized than China, India, N1exico, orthe Congo. But all cities are increasinglyinvolved in spatial interaction with eachother and with other parts of the world.This interaction involves what is moreand more the same set of commercialand industrial functions dependent onthe same kinds of techniques and con-fronting the same sorts of problems. The

MAY 1966 21

growing spatial spread of conurbations(city clusters and expanding metropoli-tan areas) is appearing in Asia and Africaand Latin America as in Europe andNorth America. The foreshadowings ofmegdopolis (literally, giant city, a grow-.ing together over a vastly extendedurban arca of xbat were originally wide-ly separated cities) are apparent not onlyin southern England or between Boston,Nlassachusetts, and Richmond, Virginia,but between Tokyo and Osaka-Kobe,along the Hooghly River, and along theRio de la Plata. The growth of the citysince urban-based civilization first de-vekTed some 6000 years ago is still con-tinuing and the city still functions as thecenter of exchange which increasinglyunites all areas of the world.

FURTHER READING

Chi lde, V. G., What Happened in Histo-ry, Bevised edition, Baltimore: PenguinBooks, 1965.

Dickinson, B. E., The \Vest EuropeanCity. London : Rout ledge and Kegan Paul,Ltd., 1951.

N1,!mford, L., The Cit,1 in History. NewYork: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1961,

Murphey, Rhoads, "The City as a Centerof Change: Western Europe and China,"Annals of the Association of AmericanGeographers, 1954, pp. 349-62.

Pirenne, Henri, Medieval Cities. Prineton University Press, 1925.

Ullman, E. L., "The Role of Transportand the Bases for Interaction," in Man'sRole in Changing the Face of the Earth.Ed., W. L. Thomas, Chicago: Universitvof Chicago Press, 1958, pp. 862-80.

17

Chris aller's Centr 1 PlaceTheory

Arthur and Judith Getis

Much presen -dav research in urbangeography has its roots in the work ofWalter Christaller, a German scholarfrom Bavaria.* Tic was attempting tofind the laws which determine the num-ber, size, and distribution of towns. Hewas convinced, he wrote, that just asthere arc economic laws which deter-mine the life of the economy, so are therespecial economic-geographic laws deter-mining the arrangement of towns.

Since 1933, when his book on centralplaces in southern Germany was pub-lished, many writers have praised andcriticized, reformulated and expandedparts of Ghristaller's theory. Today veryfew accept all aspects of his work, hutthey realize that it stimulated some ofthe most advanced se:entific work in ge-ography. The following summary of therudiments of central place theory is in-cluded here in order to acquaint thereader with the meaning of some of theterminology prevalent in urban geogra-phy todaya terminology introducedinto our literature by those dealing withChristaller's work. Hopefully this wi. bea reference when reading about urbangeography.

No attempt is made to summarize allof Christaller's work. The emphasis is onChristaller's marketing principle or k 3

Walter Chris taller, Die zentralen Orte inSiiddeutsehland, trans. C. Baskin (Jena : Gus-tave Fischer, 1933, and Charlottesville Uni-versity of Virginia, Bureau of Population andUrban Rcscari, 1954).

18

network. Other networks were derivedwhich had their foundation in principlesof transportation and administration.

A CENTRAL PLACE

The chief function or characteristic ofa town, Christaller said, is to be the cen-ter of a region. Settlements which areprevalently centers of regions he calledcentral places. In contrast to these aredispersed places, i.e., all those placeswhich are not centers. They might beareally-bound places ( the inhabitants livefrom their agricultural activities), point-iy-bound places ( the inhabitants maketheir living from resources which occurat specific locations, such as mining set-tlements, customs places, and so on), orsettlements which are indifferent withregard to their location ( monastery set-tlements). Christaller was concernedwith the central places only.

Some central places are more impor-tant than otherstheir central functionsextend over regions in which other cen-tral places of less importance exist. Chri-staller devised a means of measuring thecentrality of townstheir relative impor-tance in regard to the surrounding re-gion.

CENTRAL GOODS AND SERVICES

Goods produced at a central place,and the services offered there, are calledcentral goods and services. Dispersedgoods and services, in contrast, are ubiq-uitous; they are offered and produced

THE jouRNAL OF GEOGRAPHY

everywhere, Further, an industry usingraw materials imported from outside thelocal region and shipping its productsout of the local area would not constitutea central service. The goods must be pro-duced for the surrounding region.

THE RANGE OF A GOOD

This is the distance the dispersed Pop-ulation is willing to travel to buy a goodoffered at a central place. The good hasboth an upper and a lower limit to itsrange. The upper limit is the maximumradius of sales beyond which the price ofthe good is too high for it to be sold. Theupper limit may be either an ideal or areal limit.

centralplace A.

for the good to be produced and dis-tributed profitably from the centralplace. This has been called the thresholdkTel of the good. It should he noted thatthere is no fixed distance between thelower and upper limits of a range; some-times the distance between the two issmall, at other times it is great.

Each good will have its own range,due to the fact that the prices of variousgoods !ncrease at different rates with in-creasing distances from the center, andto the fact that different goods havedifferent thresholds. Further, Christallernotes that the range of any one goodmay be different at each central placeand at each point in time,

reallimit

centralplace B

threshold level(lower limit)

FlOtilite 1. The range of a good. say a radio, offered at both A and B. Since the threshold level is less than thereal haft both central places will produce it The real limit, halfway between the two central places, shows theUndo area for radios far each place. Those living beyond the ideal must either do without radios or establisha new central place supplying the good.

Ideal limit: the maximum radius re-sults from the increase of price with dis-tance until consumers will no longer pur-chase the good.

Real limit: the radius is determined bythe proximity of an alternate centerwhich can offer the good at a lower priceat a certain distance from the first center.The lower limit of the range encloses thenumber of consumers necessary to pro-vide the minimum sales volume required

MAY 1966

THE COMPLEMENTARY REGION

This is the area enclosed about a cen-tral place by the range of a good. Chris-taller assumes that the central place hasa monopoly in the supply of the good toits compleme_ntary region by virtue_ ofthe price at which it can offer the good.

Wally, each central place would havea circular tributary (market ) area, withitself at the center. However, either un-

3

19

served I)lac(s wouki exist, if thisthe case, or the eireles %could overlap, inwhich case the condition of monopolywould not be fulfilled. Next to circles,hexagons arc the most efficient figuresboth to scil.-0 an area ( central place's anddistances traveled will be min nnized )and to fill an area completely, as thefigure below indicates. Therefore thecomplementary region of a central placeassumes the form of a hcxagim.

unbounded plain with soil ofpull fertility everywhere and an

uneven distribution of resources,

(2) An even distribution of populationand piirchasing power.

(3 ) A uniform transportation networkit, all directions, so that all cen-tral places of the same typeequally accessible.

IlAroe A it t,entt of Coirirlernen

A. The tins .Thaded.

B. Shaded ar indicate places where the condition of monopoly would not hHexagons completely fill on area, with no overlaP.

Using the terms defined above_ and aset of assumptions and conditions, Chri-staller evolved a system of central places.The assumptions, which are listed below,tell us about the kind of landscape onwhich his system would be erected,

20

(4) A constant range of any one cen-tral good, whatever the centralplace from which it is offered.

Given this landscape, we have to knowwhat the desires of the people arei.e.,

2 4 THE OURNAL OF GE

what constraints will exist on the system.These conditions follow:

(1) A maximum number of demandsfor the goods and services shouldbe satisfied.

(2) The incomes of the people OfFCr -

Ina the goods and services shouldbe maximized,

(4

Distances moctl by consumers topurchase the goods and servicesshould he minimized; i.e.. ,roodsare purchased from the closest

point.

The MIMI central places

should be the minimum possible.

THE SYSTEM OF CENTRAL PLACES:THE ic=--3 NETWORK

Under the assumptions and conclitistated above, Christallefs system of cen-tral places may be derived. Let us as-

,

sume first that there are two centralplaces, called G centers, which offer allof the goods and services, from a good orservice called order 1 with the highestthreshold, to a good or service of order100, with the lowest threshold. Of neces-sity, the two G centers have the largestmarket areas (complementary egions ) ofall central places. The -real" range of thehighest order good demanded, good oforder 1, defines the boundary betweenthe two G centers. Therefore, the twohexagon-shaped complementary regionshave one side in common.

As was noted above, the ra»ges of thegoods decline successively; good of order2 has a smaller range than that of order1. As the ranges decline, larger and larg-er numbers of consumers are left be-tween the two C centers. With somegood, say good of order 30, there areenough "surplus" consumers over andabove the thresholds of the C centers toallow the development of alternate cen-ters These are called B centers.

1(3..RE 3. go _ good 1 is showo by distance s.

B centers supply goods 30,31, . 100

at lower -gices than the G centers in theareas between the threshold ranges ofthose goods from the G centers. B cen-ters are located at the maximum ccononIC distance from the C centersi.e., onthe outermost edges of the areas definedabout G centers by the real range ofgood of order 1. In this way, consumermovements are kept to a minimum, and

a maximum number of demands are satis-

fied from a minimum number of centers.

B centers in turn leave progressivelylarger numbers of surplus demands, and

with some good, say !food of order 50,these arc large enough to permit the exis-

tence of a third rank of centers: K cen-

ters. K centers provide goods 50, 51, . .

00. The existence of four other types of

centers is accounted for in the samemanner.

Besides its definite spatial pattern twothings should be noted about Christal-lees system. First, a very rigid class struc-ture has been described. That is, eachcentral place supplies all the goods and

servicesthe identicalgoods and servicesthat the centers below it provide, plus

some additional ones. It is due to thisfact that Christaller was able to assume

MAY 196621

2 5

that discrete population levels could beassigned to centers of the sume type.Since the popidation of a town dependsupon the number and types of functionsit performs, then colters performingsimilar functions will have similar popu-

Further, since no centers not ofthe same type offer ICIIIltILUl goods and

services, the 1opti1atioti levels will beunique.

Second, the system of central placesand their complementary regions is char-acterized by interdependency. All cen-ters except the smallest have other cen-ters dependent upon them for the supplyof certain goods. Thus, B centers have K

FIGURE 4. The Creation of a B Order Central Pince.

Each G center serves good or service I to its entire complementary region. All gn, are supplied by G centers.

Thredlold of good or service 15. It enclosm areas less than the real limit, however, the area betweet,the thresholds of the three G centers is too small to allow the establishment of new central placesable to supply good or so-vice 15.

Threshold level of good or service 30. It encloses urCao small enough to allow the establishrnenew central place between the G centers.

The real limit oi good or service 30 supplied by fi new order central place, B. B centers supplygoods 30, 31, . n. C centen also supply these goods and serrices, as well as dose of higher order.

26

TEE TOLIRNAL OF CE

0 G central place

0 B central place

K central place

MAY 1966

FTGURE 5. The k 5 network.

2 723

centers and their mplementary re-

gions, and all centers of a lower rankthan K, dependent upon them for thesupply of goods 30, 31, In turn, 13cenU.rs ;Ind their comph,mentary regionsdepend oil G centers for the supply ofgoods 1, 2, 29. Each complementaryregion of a 13 place is served with thosegoods by three G centers, and Christallerassumes that one-third of its thale goesto each. Each G center thus serves itsown rocion for the supply of goods I, 2,

29 as well as one=third of the comple-mentary regions of the six 13 centers. In;ill, a G center serves three total II-typeregions, Tlik is called k :3 network,where k equak the total mmil-ier of com-plementary regions Of next lowest orderserved hy the central place of next high-est order. Likewise, of course, three com-plete K-type regiolis are served \\Aligoods ;30, :31, 49 hy a B center, andso on.

In sniiuiiiarv, the chief contribution ofChrista ller to central place theory is, ofcourse, its 1)asic formulatioi i.specifically, his identification of conceptsrelevant to the location of cities, his logi-cally-derived system of central places,and the conclusions following from it iireto be noted. Further, it should once morehe pointed out that there is much in the

)0k which kis m it been mentionedhere. Chrism Iler recognizes certain de-fk-iencies of his system and qualifies itwhenever he deems I to'cessaiv. In gener-al, be notes that:

The strict mathematicalscheme developed previouslyis imperfect in some respects.It is even incorrect in thisstrictness. The scheme shouldappnAimate reality; thereforewe shoukl study the factorstinder whose influence it un-dergoes change p. 217).

FURTHER READING

Berry, Brian J. L. and Prod, Allen, Can-tral Place lies: A Bibliography ofThcory Applications. RegionalScience Research Institute, Philadelphia,Pa. A supplement through 1964 of cen-tral place studies is also available.

Christaller, Walter, trans. by CarHsleBaskin, Central Places in Southern Ger-many, The Pioneer Work in TheoreticalEconomic Geography. Englewood Cliffs,N.J.; Prentiee-Hall, 1966.

B. "A Theory of Location forcities," kan Journal of Sociology,NEVI, 6,

21 THE JounNAc OF GE PHY

Pubi c Policy and the CentralBusiness District

Ronald B. Boyce

The nature, future place, arK impor-tanee of the crntral business district, orCBD as it is commonly called, is a sub-

et of extreme controversy. Some say it

is no longer necessaryindeed, is an

anachronism. For example, the geogra-pher Edward Ullman said, "If wc wereto apply private enterprise depreciationprinciples to the inner portions of citieswe would write them off, just as machin-ery is scrapped, and throw them away.But where 'ould we thrmy there'

Others claim that the CBD is so vitalan organism in the metropolitan anatomythat any city without a healthy CBD isdead or in danger of dying. They arguethat the CBD should be restored to itsformer and rightful place as the heart ofthe metropolisindeed, should surpassanything it was in the past. CharlesAbrams, a planner, recently claimed that"without the CBD the suburbs cannotexist" because they are not viaolc with.out it. In this light the CBD is lookedupon as an opportunity to build a trulyrepresentative symbol of our urban civil.ization.

These two different conclusions resultlargely from two very diverse percep-tions as to what the city is. The socialscientist, on the one hand, views the cityas a laboratory for analysis, as a phenom-enon which primarily serves and reflectsman's needs and technology. He sees the

city as population clustered tightly to-gether in order to serve better the assem-bly, production, service, and distributionneeds of its inhabitants; he secs it as atightly knit web of spatial, economic,,n id social interconnections. MelvinWIliber, former president of the Ameri.can Institute of Planners, recently statedthat "the history of city growth, in es-sence, is the_ story of man's eager searchfor case of human interaction." Viewedin this light cities, and the CBD, are ex-pected to change and to adjust to man'schanging technology and needs.

This perspective of the city is vastlydifferent from that of those who view thecity as an artifact, or as an ideal expres-sion of our civilization. Thus, the archi-tect-designer is ever proposing utopian,or ideal, urban designs. In this contextthe city must have order, beauty, harmo-ny, and symbolic meaning as an entity.Each structure should complement all

others in a vast symphony of concreteand pattern. The city is viewed as a sin-gle expression with finite boundaries anddiscernible internal sub-units. Urbansprawl is therefore treated as a disease.This philosophy was perhaps best ex-pressed by the late arehitect-city plannerEliel Saarinen, who said, "Just as any liv-ing organism can be healthy only whenthat organism is a product of nature's artin accordance with the basic principlesof nature's architecture, exactly for the

RONALD H. Boyct is an associate professor of geography at the University of Washington. This

article on "Aspects and Trends in Urban Geography" is adapted front a paper given at the

Urban Policy Conference, University of Iowa, September 25-26, 1964, sponsored by the Instituteof Public Affairs and the League of Iowa Municipalities.

MAY 1966

_29

,, (.spirinially, and culturally

only w hen it is developed into IL productof inan's art in acconlance with the basicprinciples of FILM'S architecture.

Almost all concerned are in coin]agreement that tlic (B I) is unsuited topresent needs and, hirthermore, has beenrapidly losing its morayolistic and (1()Tiii-nalit positimi i, the metropolis. This isdemonstrated by the rapid and con-tinuing decline in (:BI) retail sales, bvthe dilapidated 111(1 dis-functional condi-tion of inaf iv dowritmvus, and IA- Owcontinn,d cluNion ;Ind cfcccutralizatioli ofact i% it ies to outlying locations,

This article attempts to do threethings: to look objectively at the majorassets and deficits of the (BI) in tenns ofthe two stated perspectives, to attemptto pose sonic n,asons for the inaliVienIS and trends which are affecting the(13 I), and (o present con( ',05101)1 as tothe public policy wliich I think should beadopted for the ,Anicrican central !nisi-ness district.

ASSETS OF THE CBD

The centr.il business (listriet is an Tilt-

standing atiNCt for at least two reasons:First, it contains it concentration of activ-ities and employment, and it exerts cm-trol over the urban fabric. Second. it hassymbolic, cultural, and historical value,The first asset is one perhaps most appre-ciated hv thc geographer; the second onis most appreciated by the architect-de-signer,

rOnca.nt...tinn activiti,s and(aul)1nynnaa IS dtanOnstrah.d by dn. factthat well over One-half of all employ-ment in most central cities occurs, in, orvery near, the central business district.About (.30 pia-cent of all department storesales, and about 90 percent of all bank-int.' occurs in the ( III) of even the largestmetropolises. 'clic small suh-CBD nodes

26

of \Vail Sheet, I (trect, and Mar-kct Street undoubtedly control thefinances of nnich of the nation. The day-time popldiltion dOWlitoWil Chicago,for example, amounts to almost :300,000personsnum, than the total polmhitionjul (:reater Des Nfoines, Icwa, Such con-

ratilM IS reflected in the value ofland and tlie CBI), whichoften :.imounts to upwards of 15 to 25perccut of the physical value of the en-t (AN% OVer one million dollars an acre11 as recently paid merely lor air rights indowntown C.Ilicago: $10,000 a front footis not ILII linnsuldiv high price for (BI)land Ii our largest cities.

The cultnral an(1 historical vain). ofdOwlikAk IS eipially impressive. It con-tains the great hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, movie houses, and theaters. In ad-dition, it represents the initial beginningsof the city :.ind contains the historicalbuildings and places, It is the arca whichmost people associate with any givencity, ln short, it is the distinctive, attrib-ute of the metropolis. The subdivisionsand industrial parks look much the samefrom city to city, but the clowntoNyndifferent, It is most representative of thediameter and riatun of any given city.Because of this and other reasons, a busi-ness location in the CBD Cal-H(2S With itgreat prestige, By the same token, thevitality of the downtown is often takenay die bellwether of a city's growth bythe casual visitor.

DEFICITS AND PROBLEMS

If the assets of downtowns are unpres-sive, the deficits are even more so andare surely the reason for paying so muchattenthill to the CBD. The majordifficulties or problems of the CBD areprimarily related to its inability to adjust

neW 11PC'ds This inability is mostclearly reflected in the problems of obso-lescence. The buildings of most down-

date back a half centurybefore

3 0 THE J0uHNAL OF GEOGRAPHY

the mou.r caras do their streets andgeneral physical lapuil. As a eonse-qucnce such Aructures and blocks arenot suitable for many of today's spaceneeds.

Om has only to chserve the space nowbeing used by outlying business and in-dustry to note the disparity. Many indus-tries occupy the eque:alent of 10 or 20do .vntown blocks, The new Prudentialoffice building in I louston alone occupiessome 28 acres. Yet many of our largestCBD's contain only about 50 acres. It isnot unusual for a new regional shoppingcent:A. to cover 100 acres.

The general appearance of downtownsis also a sevtsrc handicap. The dilapi-dated and unesthetic appearances arepartly the result of the age of the struc-tures. In oddition, there is a great lack oflandscaping and general architecturalstyle as Y.ell as a void in the physical co-ordination of structures, Most buildingshave been placed with little regard as tohow they would fit into the generalscheme of things. Finally, many down-towns are characterized by a great dealof broken frontage where buildings havebeen torn down and used fia parkinglots, thus making great gaps Su the busi-ness pattern. There has lwen littlethought as to the best arrangement offunctions inside of the central businessdistrict, and consequently many institu-tions such as banks, insurance compa-nies, and the like arc so located that ashopper must walk farther to get be-tween stores than would he necessary ifconscious thought had been given to theorder and arrangement of ftmctions, asin modern shopping centers.

The most talked about problem in thecentral business district is, of course,traffic _and parking, Congestion hasreached huge proportions in many down-town areas. There is a great lack of park-ing space, and many people visiting the

MAY 1966

downtowns have to walk considerabledistances or pay very high parking fees.Although high-rise parking ramps arebeing built, they arc still inadequate toserve the needs in most cities. Mass tran-sit has be, n continually deteriorating inboth service and quality, while the pricehas been increasing, and it is no longernearly' as convenient as formerly. More-over, transit (Joel; not truly serve many ofthe outlying residential territories ade-quately.

Many of the problems in the centralbusiness districts are the wsult of the ex-treme governmental fragmental ion iii

Our metropolise, Central city municipal-ities, which often contain only about halfthe total metropolitan population, aregrca;.ly concerned about their centralbusines.. districts and do, in fact, under-take various reiwwal mid redevelopmentsd wmcs which would not ordinarily beundertaken if the metropolis were tinderone menicipal government. This, ofcourse, creates a tax burden on the popu-lation within the eitv limits. It alsocauses the central city government to be-come gravely' concermd about the &-centralization and new placement offunctions and activities which wouldotherwise be yvelcomed. The deccntrali-zation ot retailing to outlying locations isin many regards a real asset and benefitto the consumer. The problem of thecentral city government is that such relo-cation generally occurs outside of its par-ticular municipal boundaries.

A lack of progressiveness is also evi-dent in most central business districts.This is reflected in decor and general ap-pearances, as outlined previously, as wellas the parking problems, which havebeen referred to. Although many down-towns have now developed various "savedowntown" associations, few of these areof significant valne. Most are concernedwith promotional and superficial schemesrather than with obtaining a solid baseon which to make decisions.

31 27

REASONS FOR CBD CHANGE

llat what are the major reasons forsuch central business district problems?I Al's examita some of the changes whichhave 1,, en occurring in the central citythe !municipality which ciputains the cen-tral business district. A metropolitan areainchales the central city, the county inwhich it is located, unid other st ir-rounding counties which are significantlyassociated Nvith the central city. Metro-politan areas increased in population 26pcc!_vnt ltetween 1950 and It *If), whereasthe central city has barely held its own,populations averaging an incn..ase ofonly one and one-half percent during thistime. Many central cities of huge metro-polises have actually lost population inOw last fiftc44i years. Such populationdecline has had a major impact on thedow-ntown area.

Nforeoyer, such population decline hasnot been offset by increases in nonresi-dential activities, as was formerly thecase. In fact, the population remaininghas become far less affluent than thatwhich preceded it, The zone immediate-ly snrumnding many downtowns is oftencharacterized by shun conditions.

The factors which have caused centralhnsiness district deeline are reflections ofthe new mobility of the population asrepresented by the automobile, the in-creased leisnre time, and the generaltechnological adyancer,ents made inconstruction since World War IL Suchchanges are reflected most c.,early in

wbat is commonly termed suburbaniza-Hon. Subdivisions, planned industrialparks, and planned shopping centershave augmented the population decen-tralization. The great increase in the im-portance of and territory occupied bymunicipal airports during the past dec-ade have, in turn, sparked outlying resi-dential, industrial, and commercial de-velopment. Development of freeways is

exerting tremeu.dnus dem itt hizationpressii-es by providing outer circumfer-ential highways and encouraging peopleto live even fnrther from their places ofsvt k,

As rutonoptihistic elfets have beenltroken, the end result is that the centralbusiness district has continued to be-come more off-center. Until the past dee-

, most cities occupied very small ter-ritories. Today, however, with large sub-div;sions and the generally more gener-ous use of land, the location of the cen-tral business district has become prob-lematical. Although it Is still the focus ofthe major transit routes and even the in-terstate freeway system, distance has be-come a major factor in determiningwhether people will patronize or work inthis center. Generally, as a city grows thecentral business district tends tc becomemore off-center inside of the metropoli-tan complex. As cities continue to ex-pand into new run al territories, the loca-tion problem with regard to CBD's willsurely become of excn greater sig-nificance.

DEVELOPING A PUBLIC POLICYFOR THE CBD

Given thesc few facts, what should oneconclude about the CBD? All signs pointto a continuation of the rapid decline inthe CBD and a continuation of rapidgrowth in most of the other parts of theurban comple:-. If current trends con-tinue, flit CBD will become but one ofthe many nodes of commercial activity inthe metropolis; and perhaps not even thedominant node. It is also clear that thearchitectural thesis that the city is deadwithout a healthy CBD is unjustified. Infact, Los Angeles, the city in search of aCBD, is one of the most rapidly growingin the nation and now is the second larg-est metropolis in the United States andthe sixth largest in the world.

Tn jOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY

'Ills kin: L argiir perhaps ohscuro.!: the eat policy questions, how-over, The first question is not reallywilether the metropolis can effectivelyoper:L.`e withcmt a CBD, but whether itshould or mnst. It cwarly Can. VIC sec-ond q..esticm is whether deliberate inter-vention is necessary in order for the cityto operate effectively, The CAM is trulytied to other nrhan components, pid, iinot operating effectively, can have a del-eterious effect on the ,..utire urban sys-tem.

My eonclusion with ecard to the firstquestion is that, c mditions

and investments in the CBD, rimost

every metropolis shoulO probably con-tinlie to have one, lint not to the presentextent for any given sized city, and sure-ly not an augmented and symbol-ladenCBD as envisaged by many architect-de-signers. Although presently there arc

many functions exclusively limited to theCI3D, I can think of no single function,Or activity, which must of necessity belocated leerc in the future. While theCBD might be the best location, giventhe location of complementary activitiesfor many functions, especially in smallercities, there is no compelling reason whysuch functions should be encouraged andpromoted here, 'The variety, pedestriancontacts, and other generally desirableurban featores can be created in outlyinglocations in perhaps better form than ispossible in remodeling our central busi-ness districts.

My conclusion with regard to the st -

oral question is that the CBD hie; indiJAbecome a drag on the urban system, in-asmuch as it is overbuilt, and requires acatalyst for change which will diminishits prominence. It seems abundantlyclear that without major governmentalintervention the CBD will never againregain its former high position of value,prestige, and general importance in themetropolis.

BlIt if I nic accepts these preniises,what specifk-allv should the k,.! like

ru lhe lutlire? \Vhat specific catalytic ac-tios and piddle policies are neces.,ary iiiorder m achieve this ?

xst the reader think that I am goingthe Gordian Knot, let me hastily

issure v n dint I really do not know theanswer. I can partly describe tlw role ofthe futtire CBD by describing what Ithink should not be the nature of thingsin the future. First, I do not think thatthe city should he looked upon as an arti-fact of mnl ind for the simple reasonthat I think the city is far too importantto be tisd as a monunwnt or a museum.Neither do I think the future CBDshould lie the. captive promotional deviceof special interest territories or groupssuch as the centr,,i city nmnieipality orvarious "save downtown" groups. It is

necessary that goods and services be dis-trilmted throughout the metropolis in awav which hest serves the total metro-politan citizenry, not jnst a selected few.Nfany downtown functions might best bedecentralized as soon as possible so as tohe within closer range of the consumers.Finally, I do not think plans for down-town or the central city should be madeindependent of the Vn tire urban com-plex, and perhaps even the compositeurban interests of the nation. This, insimple terms, means that most city rlan-ning departments which serve merelycentral city governments are obsoletr .

in turn, leads to a major publicpolicy statement: planning should bedone on a super-metropolitan basis. Thisnecessitates metropolitan government orsome such alternative. Despite the manypitfalls and bitter experiences connectedwith attempts at metropolitan govern-ment, this policy must he continued withrenewed energy. Indeed, one mightargue that the metropolitan unit is al-ready far too restrictive a concept for

MAY 196629

todays and especially miorrow's urbanntial patterns,

Second:, die 11,S. G we_nment shonld-tahlish a more comprohensive depart-

ment of' urban affairs than that currentlyenvisaged, so that major and compara-tive research on the city comph x can heundertaken. It is a national disgrace thatthere is probably as much informationavailable on the swamplands of Floridaas 1-,,vai1able on the cities of the UnitedStates. For example, it is not even knownwithin thousands of acres how much landis now, occupied by nrhan residents ill

the United StatesAhoost nothing spe-cific,illy is krown on a comparativehasi:, about the location and esHnt Ofmany majtir components of the metropo-lis. Until more information is available,

and more coni tensive studiffmade, \ye must continue to operately in a vacuum.

FURTHER READING

arert-

Gruen, Victor, Tlie Heart of Our Cities:The (Tqtan Crisis, Diagnosis and Cure.New York; Simon and Schuster, 1964.

1 lorwo Edgar M. and Boyce, B. B,Studies tif I r,e Central Business Districtanti Urban Freeway Development. Seat-tle: University of 1Vayhington Press,1959.

mai, liar -id Tile Changing Eeo_nontic Junction of the Central City. NewYork: Committee for the Economic De-velopment, 1959.

THE ORIGIN OF TOWNS

It is an old so org that citics arc as aliti irOt Vrt the etymological :Anshipcpresscs a depth of troth that is not alwlys luny appnTiatud. Thv rise of civilization hasbeen intimately bound up with the gathering of men to hve in cities because the twophenomena hae a common geographical. basis. From the relations between human so-clones ;old the land upon which they are settivd city and civilization require the emer-gence of eeitain common conditions ithout which neither can exist, Urban communi-ties can be stipported only when the material flared:Mims of life arc such as to ylVidsurplus of food over and ahove the consuming needs of the food-producers, and when themeans are also available to comentrate tios surplus at particular spots. Equally, unless

has reached this stage. the oppol iinities for that accumulation of knowledge. andtransmission of expericnce sshich is civilization remain extremely limited. In the absenceof trollied specialist classes whose business it is to develop and pass on the social tradition,progress con only be slow inn! restricted, and must always be precarious.... The profes-sions mils become rissible vat,h Man working on the land becomes able to grow morefood than Ilk I.uuiOi ntwdS. 'HMS It iS nO mere accident that in human history the inventionof writing and the iippearance iii ultv life aro twin features that date from the fourth millen-nium B.C. Cities ever since have been the dlief repositories of social tradition, the pointsof contact between cultures, and the fountainheads of inspiration.Arthur E, Smailes,

Geograp/in of norms. London: Hutchinson & Co. (Pulf,ishers) Ltd.,

Tity.

34

OURNAL OF GE APHy

The Urban Unit of the HighSchool Geography Project

Arthur Gctis

ie of the most notable trends inAmerican education of Ow last decadehas been the development of curriculumreform projects. Although curriculum re-form started in mathematics and physics,it soon spread to other fields. Chemistry,biology, and earth sciences have reformprojects several Years old; many of themost recent projects are in the hiunani-ties and social sciences. One of theyoungest curriculum reform projects isgeography, represented by tlie HighSchool Geography Project (115GP ) sup-ported bA,' the National Science Founda-tion,

The 11SGP is no\ , in the process of de-veloping materials to be offered, aftersuitable testing, to schools throughoutthe country. The course is planned forthe tenth grade level. Various teachingunits, all centered arm Ind a "settlementtheme," are hying devc inped by special-ists at different universities. Om of thefirst units to be developed, under my di-rection. is that in nrhan geography.

Two important considerations led tothe selection of urban geography as oneof the early units to be written. It waspointed out in the introduction to thisissue that the majority of high school stu-dents today live in or adjacent to cities.A unit which interprets such an environ-ment thus begins with the familiar. Sec-ond, we have seen that for the past sev-eral years sonic of the outstanding re-search in geography has dealt with urbanproblems. Urban geography is an intel-lectually fruitful field, teeming with newideas. To translate these exciting new de-velopments into terms that the high

school student can comprehend is impor-tant, both for the student and for the dis-cipline.

Urban geography, as we know, is abroad ficld. Whatever is to be presentedin a teaching unit of short duration

Jur weeks) necessarily demandscareful selection. After preliminary re-search and informal school trials of mate-rials, it was decided to center the unitaround four subject matter concepts. Inorder of their presentation in the unit,these are as follows:

I. It is possible to determine fav-o.-able locationa characteristicsfor settlements.

IL Cities survive and grow by pro-ducing goods and services andselling thesee to people in otherareas.

The concept of accessibihty is

useful in aceounting for importantaspects of land use patterns incities.

IN'. Local land use planning is neces-sary to create and maintain de-sirable living conditions in urbanareas.

Each of these concepts is treated in asection of the Urban Unit, and mademeaningful by subdivision into a numberof subordinate ideas. For example, Part Iof the unit deals with the location of set-tlements. The first concept stated abovehas been rewritten in the following terms.

1. Some better than othersfor the location of settlements.

y 1966 31

3 5

2. .1Itiat 1-11m:icier [silt k; of favor-able sites are nearness to trans-portation faeililies, nearness to na-tural resources. and conditions coil-thwiN, e healfl, and com-fort.

3. Favorable kieational characteristicschange over time.

The other part s iii titi Unit Clcul withprinciples of ity gym% th, the relationship

,iecessibility I() land use patterns. andthe importance of Luid use planning inalleviating urban problems. Each parthas i tint epts is specifically outlined asthose Anse l'art 1.

id,,1 or concept is presented in anumber if svav,; through a variety of :te-n\ ilies\ consideration of auccs.,ibilityand land use patterns, for example. en-tails the follox ilit4 aeti\ itics: three \\Tit-tell exercises, the Ilse of -at cessihility di-

ii hypollu tical areas. a manipu-lative device called the aceessilnlitv

re,uling of appiopriate sections inthe student text, ',Ind outlines for discus-sions. aeti dies all (leai v.-Rh theielationslap iii accessibilitx to laml usepatterns, hill the\ approach it differently.Certain students (lo \yell ss ith one kindof at tis i Es. others profit more from adifferent aHroacli . rill( purpose is ttt

make it possible for all stutlent.s to arm('at an mulct-standing of the topic, permit-ting each to lataill thc (.nai in Ow \vas.hest suited to him.

'the m, often cises ba,cd otisubject matter lathed() reser, cc] for col-

, students, hot di-x(1411nd in such athat the as eragi. high school stndent

ti ii see hos. they ilhist ate the principleor concept being considered. For exam-ple, the three vritttal exercises abont ac-cessibility and land Hs(' (kalvith tilt' effectof accessibility on laml Sallies, aml popu-lation density gradients,

:12

One manipulative de the accessi-hility lioard, has already been nwn-tioncd. There are three such devices inthe unit. The accessibility board consistsof a 'new (0 molded plastic and munemarbles. It simidates a traffic situationwhere die character ol the transport sys-tem :ind the urban population are sub-ject to eliange, The board furnishes thestudents With an opportunity to decidewhat accessibility is and how it may hemeasured, and to develop hypothesesconcerning the effects of changes in cer-tain variables upon accessibility.

Another device consisk of a large, spe-eially-made map of a city which lias beengiven the name of Portsville. The map isdesigned to receive pieces representingvarious categories of land nse. Studentshum iluait the history of Portsville's de-velopment, ;Ind place pieces on the mapiccording to their ideas of suitable loca-

tions. This procedure fosters an under-standine: of how cities grow both eco-nomically and spatially.

It becomes apparent that in this urbantneography unit the snidelit does not me-morize the facts about a dozen or socities, Instead, filen.' is ti attempt toteach the hindamentals: why cities arefound where they are, how they grow,why they are arranged internally as theyare, and so on. As the foregoing articlesiii Ihis inurnal illustrate, these are someof the basic concerns of urban geogra-phy,

it should be mentioned that the mate-rial In HIC Unit JIM described will be fol-lowed in the 1 ISCP course lw a secondnnit in urban geography, this one dealingwith intercity analysis. The unit is nowbeing developed by Prok.ssors Edward'Finale and Leslie King of Ohio StateUniversity. As presently conceived, theunit be centered around the follow-ing topics;

3 6 Tia: JOURNAL OF GEO A

The functions a .Ntttl(Tiilltt 1ili.fUrIllS

arc related to its Si/i.

Cities interact with Ill it anotherflow of vpmiti, ', ideas, :mid ser-vices among them.

Cities and trade areas are interdepen-dent. The size and importance of a cityarc in part a function of the areal ex-tent, population density, and wealth ofits tra(Ie area.

Urbaniyution has altered the svstttii ofAmerican settlement in a rcvohutiottarvway.

Bud, lid) gehgraphy units of thelISCP course are in the initial st tges of

development and field testing, and williii nu-klified and revised during the com-ing months. What is significant aboutthem 's that they reflect an awareness onthe part of the Q.ographa. profession ofthe growing importance and complexityOf cities, and represent an attempt tolessen the gap between what profession-al geographrs do and what goes on inthe secondarv school classroom.

For fur her information write NicholasHelburn, Director, High School Geogra-phy Projt, University of Colorado,Boulder, Colorado 80301.

GEOGRAPHY AND URBANISM

raptly is concerned with the study of the economic base of cities; Oth inter-

pretation of the relationships between the city as an important form of onas in:cup:wee

of Ow hind :UR] the activities within the eity's hinterland or economically contributory arca

which torus upon the city and which give toie t, urban occupance. It is not possible, foexample, to understand the culla and patterns of industrial and commercial areas withinurban agglomerations without an onderstandioL! of the nature am1 distrihntiort of thoseactor ales that produe- raw materials for the industries, carry the matrials to the factories,tod the products to the markets and the consumers, convert the materials into marketable

proehlt t. 11111 leo the productS tO SecOre economic ;old Social advantages.

Citits exist primarily to provide goods and services for the people who live outiade the

urban boundaries, No city can eNist purely is a :44-sufficient unit; it is a focus or area of

concentration for a variety of activities serving areas beyond the city itself. In return forsneh actiVitics and services, cities receive, directlY or indirectly, sustenance from the

areas which they serve. Tht, eNtent to which :kny given urban activity serves the peopleoutside the urban area is a measure of the relative importance of that activity as an urbanii,

ing force. The economist devises measures of the relative importance of these activities;the geographer stodies them iu association with one ;mother, lie measures and interpretstheir relative importance in the various portions of the the eity serves and the location,

intensity, and dial-Odor- of OcctipinMC Of the land within the city aseli which is used or is

potentially usable for servicing those activities.- I latold NI. Nliti.er and Clyde F. Kohn,

eds., Brkailings tO Urinin Git FelpIli/. (!) I 959 In- the Uniceixity of rhitago.

3 7

NiAY 1966

The Need for UrbanGeography in Our

High Schools*J. Lew

Teachers and school adminktrators arewell aware that our cities are growingrapidly. Every day they face overflowingclassrooms in their schools, and trafficproblems between home and school. Be-cduse more than 70 percent of the peo-ple in Anglo-America live in urban areas,most students who arc taught geographylive in cities. The facts of urban lifeindustrialization, residential sprawl, so-cial problemsare with most people of'European" culture every day. Ceog-raplwrs should be concerned, therefore,about the fact that there is very littleurban geography in our high school text-books, and very few theories or general-izations concerning the geography ofurban living in the total curriculum.

For a long time geography textbooksand teaching have concentrated on theenvironmental characteristics of area tothe neglect of the distributional charac-teristics of people. It is probable thatgood students come out of their sehoolgeography courses with a fair under-standing of regional differences iii thephysical environment of the world. Theyknow, for c.iample, the broad climaticand vegetation regions and probably can

Based un an address, "Problems of Urbinii-e.ation- given to the meeting of the NationalCouncil for Ceogniphic Education in Nov York,Mwernber 1965. Tho author expresses thanksfor the helpful comments of Dr. Walter Hard-wick, university of British Columbia iind JanwsMaxwell, federal Ccographical Branch.

3.1

hinson

visnalize landform differences. But ybatdo they know about people?

One of their main concepts of humangeography is the distribution of agricul-tural regions, and therefore the differ-ences in agricultural occupations fromplace to place throughout the world. Theonly time that most people are intro-duced effectively to high school re-gional analysis is in a discussion of worldg icultural regions. These understand-

ings are worthy goals for a teacher todevelop, since agricultural activitiescover a large area of the effectively-oc-cupied part of the earth's surface. Theyalso relate to a large percentage of theworld's population outside of Europeand Anglo-America. Urbanization is in-

:ing, however, in the non-Europeanworkl, and so is our need to know howthese cities are different from or similarto urs.

DE-EMPHASIZLIENGGATCHyE MAN-LAND

This emphasis on agricultural regions,which sometimes stresses products ratherthan people, is a legacy of our geogra-phy texts of the 1920's and 1930's, andgives a distorted image of present-dayNorth Atlantic society. Since much ofthe "economic geography" of 30 and 40Years ago quite properly dealt with therelationships of Irian and his environmentin a rural setting, we accepted this as amajor theme in geography. Adult teach-erN of 30 years ago probably were raised

TUE JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY

on farms, :111(1 inalonlitedh thev had agenuine interest in the -man-latal- prob-kins of the Dust Bowl, the PioneerFringe, or the Corn 13elt.

One of the reasons hff the decline ofgcogrripliv as -a study iii man-land re-

mships ViIs the recen 01 urban-centered Enropean .SLliIttV. To these1111nm-oriented people ol the past 20years, th theories Of man and his en-vironment became less vital as they con-centrated iii cities where the physicalenvironment was less obvious. Some of

these concepts also fell into disrepute to-gether with the decline in environment-alism, which. in particular, traversed thefields of rural or agricultural geography.Bapid :ulvances ill gricultural technol-ogy, improvements in transportation, andurban man's confidence in his ability toconquer or change his material environ-mentall combined to discount some ofthe tenuons theories concerning man srelationships with his physical environ-ment,

This mu-land" study is declining inimportance in the imiversities, lint thechange is not vet apparent in our highschool texts. The questions hieing askedin universities often involve concepts oftechnology :ind culture when discussingman and environment. There has beenno radical clunge in geographical meth-odokgy. We must simply focus our at-tenHon on different things. We mnst askourselves and our Ancients differentquestions about cities.

This deficiency in the presenta n

of the geographical characteristics ofurban areas and people has not gone un-noticed. The urban unit being preparedunder the auspices of the High School

Project of flit Ass 'tituni of merican(;cographers and some of the papersread at the 1905 meeting of the NationalCouncil for Ceographie Education areevidences ot- this concern. These are im-portant steps in the presentati(m of somcprinciples of urban geography for highschool teacliers,

STUDYING CITIES

Some may argue that the study ofcities is already in our school texts, sincethe index to most geog:-aphy books willlist many of the major cities of the world,

f the continent being studied. Thesemoms are certainly listed, but a

critical reading of the few paragraphsHsi tally devoted to the largest citiesv. Ill show that diev arc seldom even de-serilicdlet :thine discusscd"insofar astheir geography is concerned,

What do we sav about cities? Put inanother WIX, wfutt do we expect ourstudents to learn about them? We locatethe city by placing the dot in the rightplace on an outline map. This is impor-tant but only if its purpose is to train thepupil in location:11 relationship thinking.We want the student to know where theplace is in relation to sonw other fca-ture(s). We list its population and m-ow(' its population increase. If there isa section which explains this populationincrease, it is often in vague terms, suchas the increase in industries or the value

s port activities. However, this doesnot explain ugly the port is important.Seldom do we explain how or why thefunctions or purposes of the city havechanged. In offering weak generaliza-tions we are as guilty as the historyteacher who asks for "three reasons forthe Civil \\Tar" when she knows that

BODINNo/N has r and head of the department of gcsitv of British Columbia .as the first geographer toth'e federal government of Canada. Dr. Robinson 1195 written widely onof Canada and on thy teaching of geography.

MAY 1966

3 9

1.,raphv at the r-. employed full time by

if the geography

35

01,1 I VaV () I 111i 1St ;t1"1"

c(III WIC \ There are many 'ilSOT

IA I IV cities grow. VVe :11"(' still trying IIIlin( I (Mt 1111:It 5(11111 thi 11) are and

ones nre more si.rnificalit thanothers. Are s\ :mare (it the / omplesitvof ow. question \\lien "ye ask for -threereasons for Nc\v York's groSvth in popu-lation?"

Inadequate Information

()lie of the characteris 111(1,,t city

descriptions in our texts is the list of-leading manufactures." Because it has[wen possible to obtain statistics on thenumber of Nvorkers. or the valite ofillistrial production for large cities (often55 1511o115 Isilosving the problems or limita-tions ot these figlircs,. inam. generations

stmleins bavc had to memorize thematinh.ctures of ," or, if

it \vas it scvort, Ow list or ON exportsand inworts. inevitable "lists ofmanufactures- have helped as much atiWIN thing to give geography its reputa-tion among pupils as it boring siihject.(-)ne has to look hard for l'XATIllth'S IX-

lyiws mmilifadering. or de-scriptions of similarities awl differencesin the couthiiiation.s malinfactairing ill-illistries from city to ei Ns-11N- some

partichlar locate iiiia.rtain cities.

Du c attempt to describe or disclissthe distributilm ()I Imictional zones with-ill 1 ItVal)ilit'a distribution01 groups of occupations, .tcti. Ries, in-

land lise.s are juist AS significant to city(15clIcrs as are the soil zones (Ir 1)edrockoutcrops in the countrc. ()it,- studentsknosv that duly is a local "theater sec-tion- or a -used-car rosx," hilt do tiles'Iiiiosv that tlictic patterns are rireated illmost Anglo-American eitics? Sluileritskno\v that -rich kids ceine from certainsections of the to5v11 and poor kids froinother parts," but do thee study the dis-tribution of thcst. sticioloileid or cco-

nowic conditions in die context ol zoi Itor distribution patterns \vithin thecity?

COMPARING CITIES

rodoubledly, one of the factors in-hibiting comparative study of cities inthe United States was the lack Of a com-mon system of land use mapping. If the

Stamlard Land Use Coding Manualpublished in 1 965 by the Urban RenewalAdministration in Washington, D.C., isaccepted bv various urban mappinggroups, then comparison will becomeeasier. In Canada, the federal Ceograph-ical Branch in Ottawa Lsi half through aproject, spoilsorcd by the EmergencyMeasures Organization, of mapping landuse and other features of the largest Ca-nadian cities on the same scale and withsimilar symbols. Such maps are tools fornscarch or comparison, but tlwy alsovill make useful wall maps for the dis-play of certain urban distributions.

Whore do we find the intere-studies of cities whieh bring out thei"geographical personalities," in the SamCWas' that our literary geographers havewritten colorful accounts of the country-side? We give our students numerousstunple studk.s of a characteristic farm,but how often do wt look at the geo-graphical characteristics of a section ofti city? Wc will spend several weeks ofclass time studying the environmentalconditions of the "cotton belt" (whichhardly exists any more!) or the changingdistribution of the wheat belts, but saylittle about geographical patterus in the

etliters of these belts, such as NewOrleans or Nlinneapolis. NVe will preparelists of minerals found in thc Rockies,hot say 1 lothing about the distinctivecharacteristics of mining towns. Howlong will it be before we teach thatcities arc part of a region, and not simplyconsidered as separate entities within aregion?

4 0 THE JOURNAL OE GEOCRAPHY

There are many generalizations aboutcities which are urban geography ratherthan a 'mere collection of facts" aboutcities. What arc some of the characteris-tics of cities Nvhich we would like ourstudents to know?

Site and Origin of Certain Cities

if the course has a historical slant,then it would be well to know the physi-

.

cal geography (site) cotiditions of thatcity' at the time of its settlement, Onemay speculate on tlie locative factorswhich may have Mfluenced the growthof a city, or a group of cities, but oneshould discuss such -determinants" care-fully lwcause the historical evidence mayhe lacking. Urban historians still havemuch to do,

The City Itself

This refers to a citVs internal stnic-tore in terms of present functional zonesand morphology; in other words. therelative importance and purposes of theparts of the city and how they' work to-gether in a complex, operating unit.

The City.Hinterlands

The area(s) served b 2ity lune-timis, and, in turn, the part which thearea around the city plays in its growthare involved here. For example, thiscould be a study of the repeated phe-nomena of residential sill-nu-ban sprawlinto the rural areas, or a study of thedistribution of natural resources whichare transported into the city for process-ing.

The Inter-City

Implied here are the hierarchy of sizeand spacing of towns and cities; thetransport and communication of goods,services, and ideas between cities; andthe "working together" of cities in a na-tion. Urban geographers could list many

NIAY 1906

more subjects for study, The above topicssuggest, however, the types of informa-tion whkh our urban-dwelling studentsshould find more valuable and interest-ing than "leadiiig manufactures."

In defense of textbook writers andteachers, we should recognize that thefault is not entirely theirs. Part of thetrouble is -academie inertia"the lag of10 to 15 years between the time of ac-ademic research in the universities andits appearance as generalizations in highschool textbooks. Urban geography hasreally come into significance in univer-sity geography departments only' in thepast decade. There were some descrip-tive articles on the geography of citiesin the professional literature of the1930's and 40.s. but few had reachedthe stage of illustrating broad principlesor concepts which must characterize a-field of study." Urban geography inthe universities today still does not havethe %vide choice of good text books whichis available for physical or economicgeography.

EXPLORING UNCHARTED AREAS

Academie urban geographers havemade good progress in the past fewyears, but there is nuich to be done.'Where are the comparative studies ofAmerican or Canadian city growth?Whcm do we find the descriptive studiesof the urban patterns of individual citiesor regional groups of cities? flow canwe criticize teachers for not discussingthe relationships of functkmal zones inIlouston, St, bans, Or Vancouver, if wehave not published these studies in ourpuilessional literature? Where arc thestudies of areal variations in types orurban centers? Do Canadian cities differfrom American cities? Do eastern citieslook different from western cities? XVII,'do we talk glibly of "spatial interaction"when we have so few analytical studieswhich demonstrate the connections be-

4 137

tween the city :LI Id its hinterland or be-tween city and city? It is discouraging tothink that the "theory of academie in-ertia" says that 10 or 15 years will passbefore current academic urban researchreaches the high school texts. One hopes,therefore, that geograplw teachers willbypass this line of delay and read abouturban geography in our professional lit-erature and that geographers will writeso that the teachers can understand them.

USING ikA EASUREMENTS

Teachers Wilt, have the task of dis-tilling the prodncts of academic researchand 'flaking them available to the lowerlevels of students and pupils may be dis-turbed by the mathematical directionit) which much of urban geographyseems to he going. The "quantitative

utilizing urban geography generaliza-tions in the high schools. Many of theadvantages of quantifying informationmay become more apparent to the pro-fession AN'hen we have more specific ex-amples which show their practical value.There may be a parallel between thehopeless groping for man-land relation-ship laws and principles of the environ-mentalist days of rural geography, andthe new quantitative developmentalmodels of urban geography. Will thetype of misguided environmentalist lawwhich said that "wheat grows best onthe semi-arid fringes of agriculture" bematched by modern mathematical gyra-tions to prove that "highway-oriented in-dustries locate on highways?"

TEACHING PRINCIPLES

revolution" which is disturbing theG Thy conrses in Anglo-American

geography profession is often led or di- .high schools aro not doing justice torected Iw urban geographers, together their students if they omit teaching thewith those who are "getting on the band

imost mportant part of the environmentwagon" with the purpose of confusuu, m which most of them live the city.us with figures rather tlmn enlightenino Such teaching about urban areas can beus with principles. Measurement has al- Idone in several ways, but, in general, anways been a part of geography, whether nrban area is simply another regionit is the nse of climate statistics or the (smaller, and with more people). Manycalculation of bushels per acre, and ex- of our established methods of teachingactness is to be encouraged. PerImps the reinonal geography can still apply tofuture will show that the young tnathe- these urban regions. Just as we deplorematieal wizards now coining through our the teaclring of regional geographyschool system will demand more ac- which became "a miscellaneous collec-curate measurements from geographers.

n.on of irrelevant facts about a part ofFor the present, there is a problem of the earth's surface," so should we take

proper commnnication between some care to select and organize our informa-types of urban geographers and other tion about cities so that we are teachinggeographers, in addition to the lag in proper principles of urban geography.

2

THE JOURNAL OP GEOGRAPHY