Chapter 13: Urban Patterns

The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography

Central Business Districts (CBD)• Highly accessible

Central Business Districts (CBD)• Highly accessible

• CBD Retail services • Retailers with a high threshold

– Department stores– 1960s/1970s shift to malls

• Retailers with a high range– Infrequent patrons– also shift to malls– Now attract tourist shoppers

• Retailers serving downtown workers– small specialty shops– Business services in the CBD

» Proximity to other professionals, government offices– Accessible to all types of workers– expanding

CBD of Charlotte,

NC

Competition for land in the CBD

• High land costs• Ex.: most expensive real estate in the world = Tokyo

– Intensive land use• Underground areas

– Subways, loading docks, utility lines, pedways

• Skyscrapers– Chicago (Home Insurance Building) 1880s

» Iron frame and elevators» Give cities distinctive character

– “Vertical geography” nature of use changes as you go up» Retailers → professionals → residential

Competition for land in the CBD– Activities excluded from the CBD

• Lack of industry in the CBD– Once located near water access and piers

» Waterfronts now used for recreation, tourism, retail– Now → modern factories require large, one-story parcels of land

• Lack of residents in the CBD– once population centers (mansions, tenements)– Push and pull factors involved– Population returning (lofts, empty-nesters, proximity to nightlife

culture, don’t care about schools, etc.)

– CBDs outside North America• Less dominated by commercial considerations.

– More public use and higher population– restrictions to maintain character → tourism– Older buildings renovated

Where Are People Distributed in Urban Areas?

• Models of urban structure– Are used to explain where people/services are

distributed within metropolitan areas– Three original models, all developed in one city– Chicago

• Concentric zone model• Sector model• Multiple nuclei model

Concentric Zone Model

Burgess’ Concentric Zone Model (1923)• CBD• Zone of transition

– Industry, poor quality housing, subdivided larger homes

– Immigrants• Zone of working class homes

– Modest, stable– Multi-dwelling (two-flats, etc.)

• Zone of middle class homes– Single family, yards, garages– today’s bungalow belt

• Commuter zone– Upper/upper middle-class class– Today’s suburbs

Bid-rent Theory

Sector Model

Figure 13-5

Hoyt’s Sector Model (1939)

• Sectors not rings develop– Certain sectors are more/less

attractive• Pattern builds on itself• Therefore sectors radiating from

center are created

– Industry follows transportation routes

– Lower class housing gravitates towards industrial sector

Multiple Nuclei Model

Harris/Ullman’s Multiple Nuclei Model (1945)

• Cities develop more than one center around which activities develop

• Certain land use activities are compatible or incompatible together.– Airports ↔ warehouses– Heavy Industry ≠ high class housing

• Draw Chgo on board using all three models.

Peripheral/Galactic Model

• Chauncy Harris adds ring highway (development of a “periphery”) to multiple nuclei model

• newer idea, car dependent, urban sprawl • Decentralization of the CBD • (development of the periphery) • Edge cities surrounding the central city

Urban Realms Model

• Growth of suburbs– Autos and ring highways– New transportation

corridors– Suburbs now more

independent of CBD

• Suburban downtowns develop

• Los Angeles, Atlanta• Edge cities

Where Are People Distributedin Urban Areas?

• Geographic application of the models– Social area analysis

• Models can be used to show where different social groups live in the cities

• use census tracts

– Criticism of the models• Models may be too simple• Models may be outdated (between WWI and WWII)

Applying the models outside North America

• European cities– In past, social segregation was vertical

• Poor in basements/attics

– Wealthy • live in inner city (different than US)• follow sector radiating from center (like Hoyt model)

– Poor• Clustered on outskirts (high-rise apts. = “projects”)• Avoids urban sprawl• They don’t scare tourists

Income Distribution in the Paris Region

Griffin-Ford Latin American Cities

• wealthy push from center in an elite residential sector– “spine” develops to service

needs of wealthy – Often along boulevard

• Zone of maturity– Middle-class, well-kept

• Zone of in situ accretion– Lower working class– Moving up or down

• Squatter settlements– Outside highway ring

• perifico

– Ciudades perdades, favelas

Other non-Western urban models

• SE Asian Model– McGee (1967)

• Port is focus– Semi-periphery serving core

• CBD split into sep. clusters– Govt. zone– Western commercial zone– Alien commercial zone

• Dominated by Chinese

• Larger middle-class on outskirts

Other non-Western urban models• Africa

– Fastest growing cities– Difficult to model

• 3 CBDs– Old colonial

• Vertical development

– informal/periodic• Open air

– Transitional• Curbside single story

• Encircled by ethnic or mixed neighborhoods• Mining and manufacturing sector• Squatter settlements

Inner Cities Face Distinctive Challenges– Most significant = deteriorating housing

• Filtering = subdividing mansions into small apts.– Successive waves fo immigrants

• Redlining = refuse to loan money in certain areas– Illegal but difficult to enforce

– Urban renewal• Govt. removes blight → to developers/public agencies• Public housing

– Gentrification • Middle-class renovate inner city housing

– Vintage housing, proximity to work/cultural activities– Especially single or couples without children = don’t care about schools

• Alters ethnic patterns

Ethnic/Class Change in Chicago• CBD pop. growing• Gentrification

– North lakefront• Spreads north and west

– South Loop– West Loop– Maxwell St./Pilsen

• Resembles 3rd world pattern?

Why Do Inner Cities Face Distinctive Challenges?

• Inner-city social issues– The underclass

• An unending cycle of social and economic issues• Homelessness

– Culture of poverty

Why Do Inner Cities Face Distinctive Challenges?

• Inner-city economic issues– Eroding tax base

• Cities can either reduce services or raise taxes

– Impact of the recession• Housing market collapse

Intraregional migration in the United States

• Migration from “city” to suburban areas– “suburbanization”

• post WWII = spend, spend, spend = consumerism– Great Depression & WWII

» increased savings but rationing– returning veterans = housing shortage = govt. programs

» FHA = lower down payment, longer mortgages» GI Bill = low interest loans, education costs

• Automobiles– become ‘necessity’, highways built

• Baby Boom = space needed to raise children

Suburbanization

Push Factors

• urban decay– redlining, etc.– 1960s riots– bad schools

• The “other”– new immigrants, – African-Americans

• school desegregation

• busing

• urban political machines

Pull factors

• suburban lifestyle– space (yards, green)– good schools– low crime– “American dream”

• or is it “homogeneity”?

Push Factors

Pull Factors

Intraregional Migration in the United States

Figure 3-21

Why Do Suburbs Face Distinctive Challenges?

• Urban expansion– Annexation– Defining urban settlements

• The city• Urbanized areas• Metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs)

– Metropolitan divisions– Micropolitan statistical areas

Annexation in Chicago

Figure 13-19

City, Urbanized Area, and MSA of St. Louis

Figure 13-20

Why Do Suburbs Face Distinctive Challenges?

• Urban expansion– Local government fragmentation

• Council of government• Consolidations of city and county governments• Federations

– Overlapping metropolitan areas

Why Do Suburbs Face Distinctive Challenges?

• Peripheral model– Edge cities– Density gradient– Cost of suburban sprawl

• Suburban segregation– Residential segregation– Suburbanization of businesses

Density Gradient

Figure 13-23

Suburban Stress

Figure 13-25

Why Do Suburbs Face Distinctive Challenges?

• Transportation and suburbanization– Motor vehicles

• More than 95 percent of all trips = made by car

– Public transit• Advantages of public transit

– Transit travelers take up less space– Cheaper, less pollutant, and more energy efficient than an automobile– Suited to rapidly transport large number of people to small area

• Public transit in the United States– Used primarily for rush-hour commuting in and out of CBD– Small cities-minimal use– Most Americans prefer to commute by automobile

Subway and Tram Lines in Brussels, Belgium

Figure 13-28

The End.

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