Urban Geo Review

1. UNIT VII: Urban GeoUNIT VII: Urban Geo

2. Central places: service centers for local hinterlands
Transportation centers: break-of-bulk functions
Specialized-function cities: dominated by one activity
3 basic types of cities:
metropolitan areametropolitan area: continuously built-up urban area
suburbssuburbs: extensive commuters residential land use

3. primate city: one disproportionately larger city in a
country (Ex: Paris, Mexico City, Lagos)
rank-size rule: inverse relationship between size of a
city & its urban rank
- 2nd
largest city = ½ size of biggest

4. Economic Base Theory
Basic Sector: businesses dependent upon sales
outside the city
Non-basic Sector: jobs dependent upon basic
sector (grocery store, barber, drycleaners,
restaurants)
multiplier effect: increase in basic jobs increases
non-basic jobs…

6. World cities: play a key role in the global economy
(London, New York, Tokyo)
– financial centers
– most have large pops.
Megacities: over 10 million
– over ½ of 20 largest cities today are in developing world
Problems:
internal migration, slums, informal economies, poverty,
crime, child labor, water, sewage

7. EXPLODING AGGLOMERATIONS
2004: World’s top 10 cities
1. Tokyo 33.9m
2. Mexico City 22.1m
3. Seoul 22.0m
4. New York 21.7m
5. Sao Paulo 19.9m
6. Mumbai 19.2m
7. Delhi 18.7m
8. Los Angeles 17.6m
9. Osaka 16.7m
10. Jakarta 16.6m

9. Mexico City

10. Cuautepec- exurb of Mexico City

12. Walter Christaller’s
Central Place Theory
1. nested hexagons
show a hierarchal
ranking of market
areas
hinterland: rural area
outside urban areas

13. 2. range of services: maximum distance consumers travel
* luxury items: longer range
3. Threshold pop.: minimum # of consumers to support a
business

14. Central Place Assumptions:
1. orderly hierarchy
2. places of the same
size equally spaced
3. larger cities farther
apart

15. Classic Urban Land Use Models:
Concentric Zone Model
Sector Model
Multiple Nuclei Model

16. • created by Ernest Burgess (1920s)
• urban land use as concentric rings
• “intensive” CBD in center… “extensive” suburbs on edge

17. Concentric Zone Weaknesses:
• too simple
• developed only for American cities
• assumes public transit
• highways/cars allowed increased mobility

18. Sector Model
• Homer HoytHoyt (1939) stated land use patterns defined
by “sectoral wedges”
• “transportation corridors” impacts land use
• better transport = more expensive land

19. Multiple Nuclei Model
• Harris & Ullman (1945) see cities as multi-nucleated
w/ CBD @ center & smaller satellite CBD’s on edge
• applies to newer, faster-growing cities (Miami, L.A.)

20. Inner City “Ghettoes”
1. became overcrowded, expensive,
crime-ridden by 1940’s
2. “filtering”: expensive older
houses subdivided for low-
income families
3. “White Flight”: process of higher
income whites moving out of city
centers to suburbs
4. low-income public housing

21. Suburbanization
• “decentralization” of city centers
• popularity of automobile
• “sprawl”: residential neighborhoods away
from CBD
edge cities: suburbs with their own CBD
greenbelts: open space for public use in suburbs

22. Public Policy & Suburbs
1. Gov’t policies:
• Highway Acts (1916, 1956)
• FHA 30-year mortgage (1934)
• GI Bill (1944)
* post-WW II “BABY BOOM” = more families

24. Gentrificationc
gentrification: the movement of
middle class people into
deteriorated areas of city centers
– begins in rundown “hoods”
– inner city cheaper than suburbs
Urban “revitalization”/”renewal”:Urban “revitalization”/”renewal”:
– “renewing” rotting downtown
waterfronts

26. European CitiesEuropean Cities
• central cities
• wealthy live in city center
• higher poverty/crime/ethnic enclaves in suburbs
Latin American CitiesLatin American Cities
• fastest urban growth in world
• central plaza
• wealthy live close to major blvd. near CBD
• Poor live in outskirts or “disamenity sector” (lack of facilities)
– “in situ accretion”: transition to slums & squatters

28. African CitiesAfrican Cities
• N. Africa: Islamic architecture
• S. Africa: remnants of apartheid (blacks segregated in
“townships”)
Asian Cities:Asian Cities:
• centered around ports
• open-air bazaar markets

29. Manila, Philippines
Mumbai, India

30.
Johannesburg,
South Africa
Lagos, Nigeria