Chapter 13 Study Guide: Urban Geography

Cities in the periphery, Latin America, and Europe

Compared to the private automobile, public transportation offers more energy efficiency.

Public transit is more extensive in Western European cities than in the United States primarily because European governments subsidize public transit.

The U.S. government has encouraged the use of cars in part by building interstate highways.

Urbanization: The process whereby an increasing percentage of people live in an urban area

The Industrial Revolution promoted urbanization.

Of the ten largest urban areas in the world, how many are in More Developed Countries today? 2

The important element of urbanization is an increase in the

•number of people living in urban settlements.

•percentage of people living in urban settlements.

•land area occupied by urban settlements.

The U.S. Census Bureau defines an urban area as a city with a population over 2,500. TQ

The city plus its contiguous built-up suburbs is the urbanized area.

World's largest citiesThe question of determining the world's largest cities does not allow a single, simple answer. It depends on which definitions of "city" and "size" are used, and how those definitions are applied.

The "size" of a city can refer to either its land area or, more typically, its population.

The borders of a city can be defined several ways:

Administrative"City" as strictly defined by a given government (city

proper). Typically based on a municipality or equivalent entity, or sometimes a group of municipalities under a regional government.

Morphological"City" defined as a physically contiguous urban area, without regard to

territorial or other boundaries. The delineation is usually done using some type of urban density, such as population density or density of buildings. Satellite and/or aerial maps may be used. For statistical convenience, such areas are sometimes adjusted to appropriate administrative boundaries, yielding an agglomeration.

The Valley

LAThe East Side

SouthCentralThe

South Bay

OrangeCounty

San Gabriel Valley

The High Desert

Functional"City" as defined by the habits of its demographic population, as

by metropolitan area, labor market area, or similar. Such definitions are usually based on commuting between home and work. Commuter flow thresholds into the core urban area are established by the national census authority, determining which areas are included.

Metropolitan statistical area

(MSA)1. A central city with a

population of at least 50,0002. its county (within which the city is located)

3. Adjacent counties in which at least 15 percent of the residents work in the central city’s county

369 MSAs

The United States Census Bureau has designated the five county region as the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside combined statistical area, with a July 1, 2006 population estimate of 17,776,000.

The United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has defined 125 Combined Statistical Areas (CSAs) for the United States of America. The OMB defines a Combined Statistical Area as an aggregate of adjacent MSAs that are linked by commuting ties. The Combined Statistical Area is the most expansive of the metropolitan area concepts.

• If we are just looking at the population that resides within the political boundaries of a city, the 10 largest cities in the US in 2000 were (with percent change since 1990):1 New York city NY 8,008,278 9.4 2 Los Angeles city CA 3,694,820 6.03 Chicago city IL 2,896,016 4.04 Houston city TX 1,953,631 19.85 Philadelphia city PA 1,517,550 -4.3 Philadelphia city is coextensive with Philadelphia County. 6 Phoenix city AZ 1,321,045 983,403 34.37 San Diego city CA 1,223,400 10.28 Dallas city TX 1,188,580 18.09 San Antonio city TX 1,144,646 22.310 Detroit city MI 951,270 -7.5

The Greater Los Angeles Area, or the Southland, is the agglomeration of urbanized area around the county of Los Angeles. Greater Los Angeles includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the Inland Empire, and the Oxnard–Thousand Oaks–Ventura area. 

•San Diego and Imperial counties, while a part of Southern California, are not included in this agglomeration.

Megalopolis: large metropolitan areas so close together that they form one continuous urban complex

America’s Megapolitan RegionsThese ten megapolitan regions account for almost 70% of the U.S. population in

less than 20% of the land area.

Japan’s “Tokaido Megalopolis,” named for the old Tokaido Road running from Yedo (Tokyo) through Osaka and southwest to Nagasaki, includes some of the country’s largest cities (like Kyoto, the historic capital of the country). The megalopolis contains more than 50 million people and accounts for more than 80 percent of Japan’s total GDP.

Handout

Why do many people living in huge cities feel lonely and isolated?

Higher social heterogeneity in urban settlements means that you may feel lonely and isolated in a crowd.

Why is it argued that people in rural setltements have less freedom?

Socially heterogeneous people: variety of people. Can be unique

How is a teenager’s life in a small Nebraska town different from a teenager living in San Gabriel Valley?

How have distinctions between urban and rural residents been blurred in the developed world?

Living in a large urban area

Positive Negative

Look at map

In 2007 over 50% of the world’s population became urban

• Urbanization in South-East Asia

• Cambodia 16%

• Indonesia39%

• Laos17%

• Malaysia 57%

• Myanmar27%

• Philippines 47%• Thailand

30%

Urbanization in: Europe

Austria 65%Belgium 97%France 74%Germany 86%Luxembourg 88%Netherlands 62%Switzerland 68%

This map shows the annual average growth rate between 2000 and 2005 in the proportion of people in each country living in urban

settlements.

The Urbanization ProcessUrbanization was stimulated by advances in farm productivity that:

(1) provided the extra food to support the increased numbers of townspeople, and

(2) made many farmers and farm laborers redundant, prompting them to migrate to cities.

shock city:fast, unplanned and irregular growth, often with disturbing changes in economic, social, and cultural life.

Shock City: Lagos, Nigeria

China city on steroids videoBeginning good, yuppies then guys carrying stuff up stairs skip girl speaking English go to 25 to show guy living in tiny place

• In the first half of the 20th century, the fastest urban growth took place in the western cities (New York, London, etc.).

• They were magnets for immigration and job opportunities.

• However, later on, more and more undeveloped counties and cities started to double or triple in population as well, despite having less resources and technology to sustain their people.

Rio de Janeiro >

Cities of the Periphery are often Unintended Metropolises

With great amounts of dualism (extremely rich and poor people)

megacity: a city with over 10 million people

A global city, also known as a world city, is a prominent centre of trade, banking, finance, innovation, and markets. Whereas "megacity" refers to any city of enormous size, a global city is one of enormous power or influence. Global cities, have more in common with each other than with other cities in their host nations.

2012

The problems of the cities of the periphery stem from the way in which their demographic growth has outstripped their economic growth.

Peripheral cities problems :

• Lack of Infrastructure (schools, roads, electricity)

• corruption

• shortages of housing

• poor health care

• transportation problems

• Environmental problems (pollution)

• lack of clean water

• poor sanitation

• Fiscal problems

Power goes out so live chickens are sold. Inadequate government services.

• Unemployment and Underemployment

• Informal Economic Activities

• Cycle of poverty

• Crime

Does Global Urbanization Lead Primarily to Undesirable

Consequences?

Why Global Urbanization is harmful (YES):

• Many researchers believe that poverty and health problems are consequences of urbanization.

• Most migrants believe that cities will offer more hope of a job and better health care and educational opportunities for their children.

• Unfortunately, the urban poor in developing countries live in squalor unlike anything they left behind in their rural past.

• Mega-city residents are crowded into unsanitary slums and are subject to serious disease outbreaks.

• They consume unsafe food and water that could subject these people to life-threatening diarrhea and dehydration.

• Horrible air pollution lead to many lung infections and respiratory problems.

• The current problem in urbanization is not that cities of the developing world are growing, but that they are expanding at a rapid pace.

• Urban populations will double in size in the next few decades, while rural populations are barely growing.

• By 2030, more than half of all Asians and Africans will live in urban areas and Latin America and the Caribbean will be 84% urban, a level comparable to the U.S.

Why Global Urbanization is beneficial:Sustainable Urbanization• Massive migration to urban regions in the developing world

provides an opportunity for energy savings (subways, public transit), if planned properly.

• Urbanization involves moving away from rural areas, which are often isolated and do not have an adequate education or political representation.

• The diffusion of ideas is best found in cities around the world.• Governmental costs will be reduced when goods and services

are delivered to those in more densely populated environments.

• Urbanization creates new potentialities for democracy.

• City dwellers have much more in common with each other, and get to interact with each other more often.

• This will start ending racism and prejudice which still resides in most rural areas today.

• Urban dwellers have a convergence of needs and desires that makes them a class with shared interests.

• urbanization presents a great opportunity for the world to achieve international peace and creates new possibilities for democracy and sharing of common interests across national boundaries.

• Urbanization does not always lead to a bad environment, as most environmentalists and progressives believe.