Module 44: The Origin and Influences of Urbanization
● city: a relatively large, densely populated settlement
with a much larger population than rural towns and
villages; cities serve as important commercial,
governmental, and cultural hubs for their surrounding
regions
● urban: relating to a city
How and where did cities ● agricultural surplus: crop yields that are sufficient to
originate? feed more people than the farmer and his or her family
● socioeconomic stratification: the structure of society into
distinct socioeconomic classes, including leadership (for
instance, a government or ruling class) that exercise
control over goods and people
● first urban revolution: the agricultural and socioeconomic
innovations that led to the rise of the earliest cities
Agricultural surplus and socioeconomic stratification are two
elements necessary for the development of cities in the first
urban revolution.
● urban hearth areas: regions in which the world’s first
cities evolved
Early cities rose in areas known as urban hearths.
● site: an absolute location of a place on Earth
● situation: the relative location of a place in reference to
its surrounding features, or its regional position with
reference to other places
Site and situation were important in the location of early cities
and urban areas.
Urbanization in Europe diffused through Greek and Roman
Empires.
Urban centers grew independently in Spain, China, and the
Americas.
Which processes ● capitalism: an economic and political system in which a
influence patterns of country’s trade and industry are controlled by private
urbanization? owners for profit rather than owned and run by the state
● communism: an economic and political system in which
all property is publicly owned and managed
Rural to urban migration fuels the growth of cities.
● streetcar suburb: a settlement outside of a city with
streetcar lines; the streetcars take residents into and out
of the city easily
Innovations in transportation shaped and reshaped the layout
and size of cities and their surrounding areas over time.
Innovations in communication systems allowed businesses, and
therefore cities, to grow.
● second urban revolution: the industrial innovations in
mining and manufacturing that led to increased urban
growth
The second urban revolution was the result of industrialization
and innovations in mining and manufacturing.
● redevelopment: a set of activities intended to revitalize
an area that has fallen on hard times
Cities require governing bodies to manage infrastructure and
provide for the needs of the population.
Module 45: Cities Across The World
How can you define ● metropolis: a very large and densely populated city,
contemporary cities particularly, the capitol or major city of a country or a
using quantitative data? region
● urban area: any self governing place in the United States
that contains at least 2500 people
● urbanized area: in the United States, and urban area
with fewer than 50,000 people inhabitants
● metropolitan statistical area: in the United States, a
region with at least one urbanized area as its core
● micropolitan statistical area: in the United States, a
region with one or more urban clusters of at least 10,000
people as its cores
● suburb: a populated area on the outskirts of a city
The definition of a city varies throughout the world.
Often, cities are defined by the size of their population.
Geographers use the data from the Population Reference
Bureau, and the U.S. Census Bureau, and the United Nations,
among other sources.
Different countries use different methods to calculate their
populations, making international comparisons difficult.
What are the spatial ● urbanization rate: the percentage of a nation’s
outcomes of urbanization population living in towns and cities
in the contemporary Patterns of urbanized population reveal that the countries of
world? Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean have
relatively high levels of urbanization, but the nations of Africa
and Asia are less urbanized.
The majority of the world’s largest cities, metacities, and mega
cities are located in the developing world, a major change from
50 years ago.
The rapid increase in urban population in the developing world
has led to severe unemployment and infrastructure issues.
What are some new ● suburbanization: the movement of people from urban
urban land uses and core areas to the surrounding outskirts of a city
challenges they create? ● sprawl: the tendency of cities to grow outward in an
unchecked manner
● automobile cities: cities whose size and shape are
dictated by an almost require individual automobile
ownership
The automobile has contributed to urban sprawl as cities grow
outward in an unchecked manner. Some U.S. suburbs are called
automobile cities due to their reliance on cars.
● decentralize: in an urban context, to move business
operations from core city areas into outlying areas such
as suburbs
● edge city: a concentration of business, shopping, and
entertainment that developed in the suburbs, outside of
a city’s traditional downtown or central business district
Edge cities are concentrations of business, shopping, and
entertainment that developed at major suburban highway
interchanges.
● boomburb (also called boomburg): a place with more
than 100,000 residents that is not a core city in a
metropolitan area; a large suburb with its own
government
Boomburbs are quickly growing incorporated places that have
more than 100,000 residents found principally in a belt
stretching from Texas to the Pacific.
● infill development: the building of new retail, business,
or residential spaces on vacant or underused parcels in
already developed areas
● exurb: a semi rural district located beyond the suburbs
that is often inhabited by welltodo families
Exurbs are located beyond the suburbs in a semirural
unincorporated district inhabited chiefly by welltodo families.
Module 46: Cities and Globalization
What are world cities and ● world city: a city that is a control center of the global
their roles in economy, in which major decisions are made about the
globalization? world’s commercial networks and financial markets (also
called a global city)
World cities such as New York, London, and Tokyo are nodes
that connect other places where international action and
interaction occur.
World cities are often home to significant numbers of high
networth individuals.
● gated community: privately governed and highly secured
residential area within the bounds of a city; often has a
fence or a gate surrounding it
Gated communities reflect the efforts of the wealthy to insulate
and protect themselves.
What are the networks World cities drive globalization through networks and linkages in
and linkages that drive transportation services, communication services, and business
globalization? services.
Module 47: The Size And Distribution Of Cities
What is an urban system? ● urban system: a set of interdependent cities or urban
places connected by network
Economic functions of the urban system are distributed by
networks that link the urban system.
How do the rank-size rule ● urban hierarchy: a ranking of cities, with the largest and
and the primate city rule most powerful cities at the top of the hierarchy
help to explain the urban ● rank-size rule: the population of a settlement is
hierarchy? inversely proportional to its rank in the urban hierarchy
● primate city: a city that is much larger than any other
city in the country and that dominates the country’s
economic, political, and cultural life
A primate city, which is disproportionately larger than all the
other urban places in a country, dominates the country’s
economic, political, and cultural life.
Within an urban hierarchy, the population of a settlement is
inversely proportional to its rank within the hierarchy.
What is the central place ● central place theory: a model, developed by Walter
theory? Christaller, that attempts to understand why cities are
located where they are
● central place: a settlement that makes certain types of
products and services available to consumers
Christaller understood cities as economic centers that
distribute goods and services to people whol will travel a certain
distance to acquire them.
According to Christaller, the shape of the service areas of
central places is a hexagon where a large first-order city
provides high-order goods and fourth-order villages and
hamlets provide lower-order goods.
● threshold: in central place theory, the number of people
required to support businesses
Services in smaller urban places have a lower threshold and
smaller range than services at higher levels.
● range: in central place theory, the distance people will
travel to acquire a good
Advances in technology, communications, and transportation
have made Christaller’s model less applicable in modern times,
although the model still offers useful insights.
What is the gravity ● gravity model: the idea that the closer two places are,
model? the more they will influence each other
As distance increases, interaction descreases.
The mathematics of the gravity model considers both the
distance between two cities and the size of each city
[(p1*
p2)
/d^2].
Module 49: Density, Land Use, and Infastructure
How do patterns of land Factors that drive urban land use are utility and accessibility.
use, population and Early mass transit systems such as electric streetcar (trolley)
housing density, and controlled the development of residential and industrial areas
technological capabilities within cities.
shape metropolitain Socioeconomic patterns developed through differential access
regions? to transportation systems in the expanding city.
● perceived density: the general impression of the
estimated number of people present in a given area
● zoning regulation: laws that dictate how land can be
used
Low-density suburban housing increased the popularity of the
automobile.
What are the recenter ● fiscal squeeze: occurs when city revenues cannot keep
patterns in city up with increasing demands for city services and
infrastructure, economic expenditures on decaying urban infrastructure
base, and housing? The loss of residential population and businesses affect the
financial health of a city and its ability to repair and update
infrastructure.
Change in the economic base from industry to technology allow
cities to attract cities to attract high-income jobs and
high-profile businesses.
In recent decades, socioeconomic groups in metropolitain
areas have tended to cluster in housing types that are specific
to each group.
Module 48: The Internal Structure of Cities
What models and theories ● concentric zone model: a model of a city’s internal
describe the internal organization developed by E.W. Burgess organized in
structure of North five concentric rings that model the arrangement of
American cities? different residential zone radiating outward from a
central business district
The Burgess concentric zone model (1920s) shoes the four
concentric rings surrounding the central business district.
● Hoyt model/sector model: a model of a city’s internal
organization, developed by Homer Hoyt, that focues on
transportation and communication as the drivers of the
city’s layout
The Hoyt sector model (1930s) shows sectors radiating out
from the central business distric as transportation options
expanded.
● multiple-nuclei model: a model of a city’s internal
organization, developed by Chauncy Harris and Edward
Ullman, showing residential district organized around
several nodes (nuclei) rather than one central business
district
The Harris and Ullman multiple-nuclei model shows urban
residential districts organized around several nodes tather thn
on a primary CBD.
● galactic city model/peripheral model: a model of a city’s
internal organization in which the central business
distric remains central, but multiple shopping areas,
office parks, and industrial districts are scattered
throughout the surrounding suburbs and linked by
metropolitain expressway systems
The galactic city or peripheral models (1960s) expand on the
multiple-nuclei model with the decenteralization of the CBD
and increasing businesses and residential areas to
accommodate the rapidly developing suburbs.
Bit-rent theory focus on the utility of a place for specific
groups and its acessibilty to these groups with the assumption
that both accessibility and itility decrease with distance from
the city center.
What models describe the ● Griffin-Ford model: a model of the internal structure of
internal structure of cities the Latin American city developed by Ernst Griffen and
in Latin America, Larry Ford
Southeast Asia, and The Latin American city model (1980s and 1990s) is a
sub-Saharan Africa? combination of concentric zones and radial sectors with a CBD
divide between a traditional market and a more modern sector.
Squatter settlements radiant from the market areas and into
the outer sone of the city.
● gentrification: the displacement of lower-income
residents by high-income residents as an areas or
neighborhood improves
The Southeast Asian city model (1960s) shows the old colonial
port as the focal point with a Western commercial zone and
alien commercial zones radiating outward throuygh a
mixed-used zone. Squatter settlement are mixed with new
suburban zones, indicating a rapidly advancing middle class
pushing poorer people farther outside the city.
African cities are diverse with Islamic cities in the north and
costal East Africa and Western oriented cities in South Africa.
The sub-Sahran Africa model shows three CBDs representing
the colonial, traditional, marketing influences. As with other
non-North American models, there is a rapidly expanding
outer ring of shantytowns due to unchecked in-migration from
rural areas.