Unit 7

Cities & Urban Land Use

Need to Know

Phase 1

CBD (central business district)

• The “downtown” where businesses (services) have out bid manufacturers and residents.

• It costs more but business have access to a larger market and can benefit from agglomeration

Central-Place Theory (Christaller)

• A theory that explains the number and size of settlements in an urban hierarchy based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas (hexagonal shapes)

• Smaller towns will perform lower-order functions (bread) while large cities will perform higher-order functions (banking)

Edge City

• Cities that popped up around the beltway to serve the suburbs (Initially just basic services but eventually manufacturing and office parks)

• Often leads to lateral commuting (along the beltway) or even counter commuting (from the inner city)

Ex: Burbank & Santa Monica

Galactic City

• Refers to the sprawled out cite where the majority of the people and the jobs lie in the periphery rather than the CBD.

• It includes the urban, suburban & exurban areas

Market Area

• The area where the consumers of an enterprise are located.

• Market areas for low-order goods will be small (low range), high-order markets will be large (large range).

Mega Cities

• Very large cities often with primacy & centrality (though are not necessarily world cities)

• Bangkok, Cairo & Mexico City

Megalopolis

• When large cities join together or overlap (AKA conurbation)

• Ex: Northeast corridor (D.C. to Boston), Great Lakes (Chicago to Pittsburgh) & West Coast (San Francisco to San Diego)

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)

• It includes an urbanized area, its county and any adjacent counties with high interactivity (at least 50% of residents work in urban area)

• Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana MSA

Primate City

• Non rank-size rule country where the largest city is more than twice as large as the second-ranking city (e.g. France & Argentina)

• It often occurs in small countries or those with a short history of urbanization, an export orientation/recent colonial connection or a recent border change.

Rank-Size Rule

• The second largest city is ½ as large as the first and the third largest city is 1/3 as large as the first, and so on (e.g. the US).

• These states do not have a primate city.

Suburbanization

• The movement of people from the inner rings of the city to the less dense, more affluent outer rings.

• It was encouraged by the highway system, which made it possible for commuting.

Sprawl

• The tendency for American cities to grow outward (suburbs and exurbs)

• Urban sprawl has led to the decline of arable land and auto traffic

World City

• Integrated into the world economy as the center of the flow of info & capital

• First tier: NY, London & Tokyo • Second tier: LA, Brussels, Paris, Singapore &

Sao Paulo, etc.• Third tier: Miami, San Francisco, Milan,

Mumbai, Mexico City, etc.

Should Also Know

Phase 1

Centrality

• When the political, economic & cultural functions of the city are disproportionate to their population

• Ex. Bangkok makes up only 12% of the Thai population, but it makes up 75% of its manufacturing

Counterurbanization

• Migration from large metropolitan areas to smaller metropolitan areas (safer, cheaper housing, better schools)

• It often leads to more traffic & a declining tax base for the city)

• More common in the core due to greater communication & transportation infrastructure (N.A. & Europe)

Entrepôt

• A port city that serves as an intermediary or a hub for goods shipped between cities.

• Singapore

Gravity Model

• It is used to predict human movement (migration, commuting or shopping range)

• A service will locate where there is a large number of people (high threshold) and a short distance to travel (range)

Hinterlands

• Urban geography: The area outside of the city that a central place serves in terms of services (its market area)

• Agro geography: the outer rings of Von Thünen's model that produce for the city

Threshold & Range

1) Threshold -- the minimum market (number of people) needed to bring a firm or city selling goods and services into existence and to keep it in business

2) Range -- the average maximum distance people will travel to purchase goods and services

* Used with Christaller’s central-place theory

Urban Growth Rate

• The change in urbanization levels• The periphery is currently experiencing high

urban growth rates, while the core’s growth has stabilized

Urban Hierarchy

1. World Cities (NYC & London)2. Command and Control Centers: regional

centers, HQ of large TNCs (Boston & Phoenix)3. Specialized Producer-Service Centers: city

offers a more narrow array of services (e.g. Detroit’s auto)

4. Dependent Centers: relatively low skilled services & are dependent on the health of the world cities (Las Vegas, Buffalo & San Diego)

Urbanization

1. Increase in the number of people living in the cities– The periphery has the largest urban settlements

(8 of top 10)

2. Increase in the percentage of people living in the cities– The core has the highest percentage of urban

residence

Need to Know

Phase 2

Concentric zone model (Burgess) • CBD: business services• Zone of Transition:

manufacturing & low cost housing

• Zone of Independent Workers’ Homes: modest, working class housing

• Zone of Better Residences: spacious middle class housing

• Commuters’ Zone: spacious suburban housing

Filtering

• The process where a neighborhood’s value decreases, allowing lower income residence to move in and eventually out (invasion & succession).

• Large, formerly expensive houses are subdivided and rented out. The houses are not kept up and eventually abandoned.

Gentrification

• Reverse filtering where higher income people move into lower value neighborhoods (often by young professionals without kids).

• The new money attracts shops & renewal (and displacement of low income residents).

Green Belts

• Government mandated green outer ring of a city that cannot be developed to prevent urban sprawl.

• Common in Europe (e.g. London)

Informal Sector

• Economic activities that are not known about & taxed by the government. Provides a smaller tax base for infrastructure.

• Common in the LDC

Infrastructure

• Fundamental prerequisites for industry & trade (Transportation, communications, labor, financial, etc.)

• Sig: colonial infrastructure focused on extraction and export of raw materials (est. dependency)

Latin American Urban Model

• Spine: high-end offices connect CBD & the mall (zoos, parks, etc)

• Elite sector surrounds the spine

• Middle class sector surrounds the elite sector

• Squatter settlements are in the periphery

Multiple Nuclei Model (Harris & Ullman)

• Multiple nodes emerge that attract different types of people & services

• A university node will attract coffee shops, pizzarias, & young people

• AKA, urban realms model

New Urbanism

• Attempt by urban planners to stop sprawl and return to urban-like living (AKA smart growth).

• A community will include offices, shops & mixes residential communities. It encourages pedestrian traffic.

Peripheral model (Harris)• N.A. cities have sprawled out due to our desire for

homeownership, safe neighborhoods & good schools. Nodes/edge cities emerge in the beltway.

Sector Model (Hoyt)

• Due to transportation or environmental factors, or by chance, different parts of the inner rings will develop unique qualities. As the city builds farther out, the peculiarities will remain.

• Ex: Wealthier housing will be built as an extension of the already wealthy neighborhood, creating a sector that stretches from the original CBD to the outer ring

Sector Model (Hoyt)

Squatter Settlements

• Outer rings of LDC cities made up of informal housing (often without sewage & electricity).

• (AKA Favelas & Barriadas)

Urban Realm Model

• The urban realm refers to the city that has outgrown its reliance on the CBD.

Should also Know

Phase 2

Commuter Zone

• The outer ring or the suburbs. Land is cheaper (for the amount of space). It’s considered safer and the schools are seen as better (except for that well regarded urban school, Hamilton).

• Residents must commute to downtown or laterally for jobs

Density Gradient

• Cities density used to decay from the CBD (inner ring was the most dense, outer ring the least dense)

• Today, most US cities are seeing an increase in density in the outer rings and a decrease in the inner rings.

Female-Headed Household

• Single mom with kids• Female-headed households are often in low

income parts of the city (cannot afford the money & time to commute from the outer ring)

In-filling

• The attempt by urban planners to use up the low density places within the city rather than sprawling outward (convert abandoned factories into lofts)

• An attempt to reverse the problems associated with urban sprawl

Lateral Commuting• Moving along well established periphery (or

commuter zone) rather than commuting to the CBD

Postindustrial city

• Cities of the core that have moved away from manufacturing and towards the high-value service sector

• Often associated with middle class, high levels of education & liberalism

• Ex: San Francisco, Boston & Seattle

Redlining

• The practice by banks of not investing in certain neighborhoods believed to be in decline (no home loans). The practice would promote decline.

• Often the neighborhoods were majority black.

Urban Morphology (or Form)

• Study of how cities are structured.

• Latin American city (right)• Islamic City• European City• North American City:

burgess, sector, multiple nuclei, peripheral, etc.

Zone in Transition

• The ring next to the CBD. It has industrial and residential uses and is often in decline.

• Inner ring of the concentric zone mode.

Additional terms that you may want to look at.

Bid-Rent Theory• Land cost more at the center

because it gives people/businesses access to services/markets.

• So, services outbid manufacturers and residents in the center (CBD).

• Low income people tend to live in/near the “zone of transition” where land is densely populated and close to the jobs.

• Middle & high income people live farther out where land is cheaper & spacious, yet farther from jobs

Colonial City

• Cities established by European states in their colonies (sometimes by building on top of an indigenous city, e.g. Mexico City)

• Cities were designed to be administrative/military cities (Mexico City) or gateway/commercial cities (Sao Paulo)

Early City

• Urban hearths or original cities• Mesopotamia, Egypt, Northern China,

Mesoamerica & Andean America

Economic Base

• Basic Industries: export to consumers outside of the community (important because they bring in money & stimulate more non-basic jobs)

• Non-basic Industries: they serve the community itself (e.g. supermarket); non-basic are also called “ubiquitous industries”

Gateway City

• A settlement which acts as a link between two areas.

• Sao Paulo was a gateway city between Portugal & inner Brazil (in order to extract resources)

High-tech corridors

• Regions where high-tech firms have agglomerated

• Ex: Silicon Valley, Bangalor, India

Medieval Cities

• Cities during the Middle Ages (often surrounded by a wall)

• Usually designed for religion/academics, military fortification or administrative centers

Street Patterns

• East Coast: irregular, following the metes & bounds custom of England

• Southwest: Spanish King mandated that all towns were to be built around a center square & church

• Philadelphia: Penn created township-&-range style regular street patterns (used by most cities)

• Post-WWII: developments adopted a meandering fake metes & bounds pattern (though still regular)

Urban Specialization

• Cities often specialize in different sectors or functions (AKA, splintering urbanism) due to agglomeration

• Ex: Boston & San Jose (computing); Las Vegas, Reno & Atlantic City (recreation); LA, NY, Chicago & San Francisco (business services)