Models of Urban Structure
• Cities exhibit functional structure– Central business district (CBD)– Central city– Suburb
• North American cities?– 3 models
Louis Wirth• Urban Settings Have 3 Characteristics:
1. Large size: Won’t know most people living in a city.
2. High Density: each person has a role essential for the urban system to function smoothly, people compete for survival in limited space.
3. Social Heterogeneity:
-people pursue an unusual profession
-people pursue a different sexual orientation
-people pursue cultural interests
Urban Physical Characteristics
1. Legal Boundary: A city is an urban settlement that has legally been incorporated into an independent, self-governing unit.
2. Continuously Built up Area: An urbanized area is a central city plus its contiguous built-up suburbs, pop exceeds 1000 persons per sq. mile.
3. Functional Area: zone of influence extends beyond legal boundaries and adjacent built-up jurisdictions
METROPOLITAN STATISITICAL AREA (MSA)-
-central city with a pop of 50,000
-county within which the city is located
-adjacent counties with a high pop density and a large % of residents working in the central city.
Smaller urban areas are called MICROPOLITAN STATISTICAL AREA 10,000-50,000
Some MSAs overlap and this is called a megalopolis: BOSWASH CORRIDOR
-southern California -German Ruhr
-southern Great Lakes -Japan’s Tokaido
-Rabdstad in the Netherlands
4. A city has more functional specialization than a town and a larger hinterland and greater centrality.
- a well-defined commercial center
-a central business district
-suburbs (subsidiary urban areas surrounding and connected to the central city.) Many suburbs are residential but some have their own commercial centers or shopping malls.
Concentric Zone Model: A city grows outward from a central area in a series of concentric rings
Use census tracts, 5,000 people in neighborhood boundaries. These tell us where people tend to lives.
• E.W. Burgess
1.non-residential activities
2. Industry & poorer quality housing (immigrants new to the city live here 1st)
3.Stable working class
4.Middle class
Sector Model: Homer Hoyt
A city grows in a series of sectors. Certain areas are more attractive to certain activities, by environmental factors, or by chance. As a city grows, activities expand in sectors out from the CBD. Industrial and retailing are in sectors by good transportation lines.
Multiple Nuclei: C.D. Harris and E.L. Ulman
A city is a complex structure that includes more than one center around which activities revolve.
Some activities are attracted to particular nodes while others avoid them.
Ex: Airport=hotels & warehouses
Ex: University=well-educated residents, book stores and pizza joints.
Modeling the North American City
• Urban realms
• Early post-war period, reduced interaction between the central city and suburban cities
• Outer cities became more self-sufficient
Models of Urban Structure• Outer city growth since 1960s
• By 1973, American suburbs surpassed central cities in total employment
• Outer cities = “edge cities”– Equal partners in city shaping processes
a.Industrial factories and complexes
b.Hotels
c.Amusement parks
d.Malls
Tyson’s Corner
Modeling the ModernLatin American City
• Law of the Indies 1575
• Latin American cities were designed after European cities, explorers came from Portugal and Spain
• Centered on a church and central plaza
Characteristics of Squatter Cities
• Housing materials are collected from available resources: corrugated tin
• Little sanitation• No running water• No Cooking facilities• Illegal hookup to
electricity, if any• No political voice• Lack of social services
Spatial distribution of Squatter Cities
• On the periphery of the cities in LDCs around the world.
• In Europe and Latin America the rich choose to live in the culturally-rich inner city, the opposite is sometimes true in North American cities
Ted Talks on Squatter Citieshttp://www.ted.com/talks/stewart_brand_on_squatter_cities.html http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_neuwirth_on_our_shadow_cities.htm
l
Resources• De Blij, Harm, J. (2007). Human Geography People, Place and Culture. Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc. • Domosh, Mona, Neumann, Roderic, Price, Patricia, & Jordan-Bychkov, 2010. The
Human Mosaic, A Cultural Approach to Human Geography. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
• Fellman, Jerome, D., Getis, Arthur, & Getis, Judith, 2008. Human Geography, Landscapes of Human Activities. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
• Pulsipher, Lydia Mihelic and Alex M. and Pulsipher, 2008. World Regional Geography, Global Patterns, Local Lives. W.H. Freeman and Company New York.
• Rubenstein, James M. (2008). An introduction to human geography The cultural• landscape. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.• Benewick, Robert, & Donald, Stephanie H. (2005). The State of• China Atlas. Berkeley: University of California Press.