Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global …Geography11.pdf · Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context, 5e ... physical attributes. ... Dualism is the juxtaposition

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Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context, 5eChapter 11: City Spaces: Urban Structure

Paul L. Knox & Sallie A. MarstonPowerPoint Author: Keith M. Bell

OverviewThis chapter continues the study of urban geography begun in Chapter 10. Whereas the previous chapter focused on the historical roots, growth, and globalization of cities, this chapter focuses on the structure and design of contemporary cities in both the core and periphery, on architecture and urban design, and on the problems facing urbanized areas.Cities have many different zones and areas in which different kinds of activities take place. Larger cities, especially those in the United States, are also characterized by cultural diversity, often reflected in a geographical patchwork of different ethnic communities. American cities also differ from, for example, European cities, in many other ways as well—a fact that accounts for the appeal of European cities to many American tourists. City landscapes are also symbolic, and this attribute has been recognized in the design and architecture of cities. Many cities have attempted to create idealized images of themselves through particular styles of architecture, such as Beaux Arts or Modern. Finally, cities also face a variety of problems—most of which are familiar to any city-dweller. These include declining revenues, pockets of poverty, unemployment, pollution, and traffic gridlock. Cities on the periphery face these as well as other problems, including rapid growth and environmental destruction.

Chapter Objectives

• The objectives of this chapter are to:– Examine urban structure and land use– Investigate urban form and design– Survey urban trends and problems

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Chapter Outline• Urban Land Use and Spatial Organization (p. 424)

– Accessibility– Congregation and segregation

• Traditional Patterns of Urban Structure (p. 425)– North American cities– Problems of North American cities– European cities– Islamic cities– Problems of cities in the periphery

• New Patterns: The Polycentric Metropolis (p. 449)– Edge cities– Sprawl– Packaged landscapes– Gentrification and elite enclaves

• Conclusion (p. 452)

Geography Matters

• 11.1 Visualizing Geography—Shock City: Dubai, United Arab Emirates (p. 440)– Excessive growth and affluence has made

Dubai a shock city• 11.2 Window on the World—Life in a

Mega-Slum (p. 446)– The experiences of a women living in poverty

City Spaces:Urban Structure

The internal structure of cities is shaped heavily by competition for territory and location.

Social patterns in cities are heavily influenced by territoriality.

The typical North American city is structured around a central business district (CBD), followed by many

other urban manifestations of growth.

North American cities have experienced high rates of in-migration, forming concentric zones of ethnicity,

demography, and social status.

Problems in postindustrial core region cities are felt most in the central city as it restructures its economy.

Peripheral city problems stem from the way in which their demographic growth has outstripped their

economic growth.

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Congregation: Minority Groups• Congregation is the territorial and residential clustering of specific groups

or subgroups of people.• Several specific advantages of congregation exist for minority groups:

– Congregation provides a means of cultural preservation. It allows religious and cultural practices to be maintained and strengthens group identity through daily involvement in particular routines and ways of life.

– Congregation helps minimize conflict and provides defense against “outsiders”.– Congregation provides a place where mutual support can be established

through minority institutions, businesses, social networks, and welfare organizations.

– Congregation helps establish a power base in relations to the host society.

Segregation• The combined result of

congregation and discrimination is segregation, the spatial separation of specific subgroups within a wider population.– Enclaves: tendencies toward

congregation and discrimination are long-standing; internal cohesion and identity

– Ghettos: more a product of discrimination than congregation

– Colonies: a product of congregation, discrimination, or both; persistence over time depends on the continuing arrival of new minority-group members

Accessibility and Land Use• Utility is a function of

accessibility.• An isotropic surface is a

hypothetical, uniform plane: flat, and with no variations in its physical attributes.

• Accessibility decreases steadily with distance from the city center.

• Utility decreases, but at different rates for different land users.

• The result is a tendency toward concentric zones of different mixes of land use.

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North American Cities

Urban structure varies considerably because of the influence of history, culture, and the different roles that cities have played within the world-system.

Chinatown: Los AngelesInvasion and succession is a process of neighborhood change whereby one social or ethnic group succeeds another in a residential area. The displaced group invades other areas. Such neighborhoods (e.g., Little Italys, Little Koreas, and Little Havanas) can be thought of as ecological niches within the overall metropolis.

North American Cities: Vancouver, British ColumbiaThe hub of North American cities is called the central business district (CBD) and has shops, offices, libraries, museums, and government buildings. The CBD typically is surrounded by a zone of mixed land uses.

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Infrastructure ProblemsThe collapsed freeway bridge on I-35W just outside of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, killed 13 people and injured 144. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials released a report saying at least $140 billion was needed to repair or replace up to one-quarter of the nation’s bridges.

Poverty AreasConcentrations of poverty are found not only in decaying inner-city areas but also in newer public housing projects and in first- and second-tier suburbs that have filtered down the housing scale, as in this example in the District of Columbia.

Poverty and Neighborhood DecayThe New Homeless Foreclosures

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, and the Urban Institute, estimate that about 3.5 million people, 1.35 million of them children, are likely to experience homelessness in any given year.

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European Cities• Several distinctive

features:– Plazas and squares– Plazas, central squares, and

marketplaces– History: scars of war

• Cologne, Germany

– Symbolism: statues, memorials, cathedrals, and more

– Low skylines– Lively downtowns– Neighborhood stability– Municipal socialism

European Cities: Vigevano, Italy

The Piazzia Ducale is a product of early Renaissance town planning. The piazza now provides an important social space for the citizens of the town.

Urban Design and Planning: Sabbioneta, ItalyDramatic advances in military ordnance brought a surge of planned redevelopment that featured impressive fortifications. Inside new walls, cities were recast according to a new aesthetic of grand design—fancy palaces and geometrical plans, streetscapes, and gardens.

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Architecture: Modern Movement

The Modern Movement was based on the idea that buildings and cities should be designed and run like machines. Equally important to the Modernists was that urban design should not simply reflect dominant social and cultural values. Rather, these designs should help create a new moral and social order.

Islamic Cities: The SuqThe suq, a covered bazaar or open street market, is one of the most important distinguishing features of a traditional Islamic city. The suqconsists of small stalls, clustered by product type, located in numerous passageways.

Islamic Cities: Kalaa Sghira, TunisiaThe traditional Islamic city is a compact mass of residences with walled courtyards—a cellular urban structure within which it is possible to maintain a high degree of privacy.

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The Informal EconomyRio de Janeiro: garbage pickers

Lagos: irregular sprawl

In many peripheral cities, more than one-third of the population is engaged in the informal sector where underemployment is estimated to range from 30–50 percent of the employed workforce. Dualism is the juxtaposition in geographic space of the formal and informal sectors of the economy.

Shock City: Dubai, U.A.E.Burj Dubai Tower Burj Al Arab Hotel

The Jumeirah PalmDubai’s “shock city” status derives as much from its spectacular affluence as its phenomenal rate of growth from what had hitherto been an impoverished setting. The Jumeirah Palm is one of two artificial islands extending from the Dubai City waterfront. The recent real estate bust has led some to call this development “The Eighth Blunder of the World.”

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Shock City: Dubai, U.A.E.Ski Dubai

Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is climatically a true desert, yet Dubai’s environment has been converted to a lush, 18-hole championship golf course (outside) and a five-run ski complex (inside). This change has been bought with petro-dollar wealth. UAE is an OPEC member.

Dubai’s SkylineDubai’s population of 1.3 million is dominated by immigrants from Asiaand the Middle East, who account for over 70 percent of the city’s residents. The construction boom is sustained by more than 500,000 low-skilled, poorly-paid South Asian migrant workers who live in substandard conditions, with few rights.

Luxury Economy vs. Informal Activities

Dubai: duty-free shoppingAsia: foodstuffs and handicrafts

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Transport and Infrastructure Problems

Colombia: sewage problems Africa: water-supply problems

The World Bank estimates that around 65 percent of urban residents world-wide in LDCs have access to adequate, potable water; 40 percent sewers.

The Twentieth-Century MetropolisConsisting of a central city, a ring of suburbs, and a series of far-flung urban realms; studded with edge cities (nodal concentrations of office and retail space) and “edgeless cities” of suburban and exurban office parks and shopping malls.

The New Metropolis• The New Metropolis is an encompassing term for the

evolving stereotypical urbanized regions.• These vary in character and include:

– “Edge cities,” decentralized clusters of retailing and office development along transportation axes

– Newer business centers in a prestigous residential quarter– Outermost complexes of back-office and research and

development operations– Specialized subcenters, usually for education,

entertainment and sports

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The New Metropolis

The largest metropolitan regions are now “megapolitan,” with coalescing metropolitan areas merging into disjointed and decentralized urban landscapes with varying-sized urban centers, subcenters, and satellites and unexpected justapositions.

End of Chapter 11

Discussion Topics and Lecture Themes

• What activities and structures are typically found in a city’s Central Business District (CBD)? Why are these activities and structures located in the CBD? What kinds of activities and structures are typically found in Edge Cities? How do CBDs and Edge Cities differ?– The CBD is the principal hub of shops and offices, together with

some of the major institutional land uses such as the city hall,libraries, and museums. Normally the CBD has the densest concentration of shops and offices and contains the tallest buildings. The CBD is also a center of transportation connections, and thus usually contains the main rail and bus stations as well as the major hotels. Edge cities are nodal concentrations of shopping and office space that are situated onthe outer fringes of metropolitan areas, typically near major highway intersections.

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• What are the patterns of congregation in the local community? Do different groups tend to cluster in particular areas? Why is this so?

– Information on the congregation of some groups may be obtained from the U.S. Census (see their web page at http://www.census.gov/). The congregation of other groups, such as those defined on the basis of sexual orientation or lifestyle, may be more difficult to determine from public records but students may have a better idea of these congregations based on their own knowledge of the community.


• What are the main characteristics of European cities? What are some of the differences between western and eastern European cities? What accounts for these differences?

– Most European cities are far older than their American counterparts, and developed before the invention of the automobile. Many were based around earlier fortifications or were ecclesiastical centers. Pages 432–435 in the textbook lists a number of distinguishing factors for European cities. Eastern European cities experienced 44 years of socialism and central planning, resulting in the construction of huge public housing estates and industrial zones.


• How do European Cities differ from the cities of North America? What accounts for these differences?

– See the notes to Question #3, above.


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• Can urban landscapes be symbolic? American cities such as New York and San Francisco have many symbolic structures, such as the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge. How do these structures symbolize these cities? Does your own community have any symbolic structures?

– The structures noted above, the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge, are only two examples of the many symbolic structures in urban landscapes. These structures come to symbolize the entire city—for example, a film or television show need only focus on the structure for a few seconds for the viewers to identify the location of the story. These symbolic structures are further perpetuated in tourist souvenirs, and in many other ways.


• What is the concept of feng shui (pronounced “fung-shway”)? How has the application of this concept influenced the design of Asian architecture and landscape planning?

– Feng shui, or geomancy, is an ancient Chinese concept of design. It is based on Taoist ideas of the natural order of the universe, suggesting that the placement of structures be in harmony with cosmic energy and forces. It can be applied at the macro level, such as in laying out cities, or at the micro level, such as in the interior design of rooms.


• What are some of the problems faced by cities in the periphery? How are these problems similar to and different from the problems of core cities? How can these problems be solved?

– Peripheral cities face numerous problems, often fueled by their rapid growth. Problems include overcrowding and shortages of housing, crime, poor health care and sanitation, transportation (traffic jams, accidents, pollution), provision of fresh and clean water, removal of sewage, and other environmental problems. Some core cities face these problems as well, though usually to a lesser degree. Declining industrial cities that have not made the transition to a postindustrial economy are especially prone to problems of decaying infrastructure, while rapidly growing postindustrial cities face housing shortages and heavy reliance on automobile transportation. See pages 438–448 in the textbook for further information.


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• What urban problems are most characteristic of the local community? How did these problems arise, and what is being done about them?

– Information on local urban problems may be obtained from municipal planning offices, or from citizen groups organized to address one or several urban problems. Local histories may also shed some light on the origins of contemporary problems.


• What decay in urban infrastructure is visible in the local community? What actions have or could be taken to address it?

– This question lends itself to field study. Have the students look around the area and report on infrastructural decay. The municipal government may be a source of information about infrastructural decay as well as measures being taken to address it. See pp. 429–431 in the textbook for some information on the problems of urban decay.


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Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global …Geography11.pdf · Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context, 5e ... physical attributes. ... Dualism is the juxtaposition