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

Squatter Cities

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

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Modeling the ModernSoutheast Asian City

Modeling the ModernSubsaharan African City

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.