Intro to Urban Geography

1What do you see?What do you see?

Agenda:

• Umm…Awesome stuff about cities – Videos– Blurbs – Etc.

• Not so awesome stuff about urban models but super important…

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• Dubai – 3 minute Video• The Places We Live – Interactive• Train running through marketplace• Little Boxes – Placelessness• Best and Worst Commutes• Growth of NYC - news • Chicago's Urban Footprint through time - Scroll to

second image• 10 most segregated cities

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• How Shanty Towns Rise Up

• NYC Before the City – Start at 3 minutes

• Article – What It’s Like to Be In Hell.

• Henry Horner Homes

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Urban Functions

• Early functions– Government centers– Protection– Agglomeration

• Economy sectors– Primary– Secondary– Tertiary

• Economic bases– Basic sector

– Non-basic sector

– Multiplier effect

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Locations of Cities

• Site factors– Characteristics of location

• Situation factors– Other cities

– Transportation/trade routes

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Models of Urban Form

• Four models of internal patterns– Concentric zone– Sector – Multiple-nuclei– Peripheral

• Social factors• Government • Environmental concerns

Concentric Zone Model

Concentric Zone Model – 1923 – E.W. Burgess

• First model to explain the distribution of different social groups within urban areas

• Model suggests that a city grows outward from a central area in a series of concentric rings.– CBD: innermost ring where nonresidential activities occur– A Zone in Transition: area eventually consumed by CBD– Zone of Working-Class Homes: modest, older houses– Zone of Better Residence: newer, larger houses for middle-class

families– Commuter Zone: beyond the continuous built-up

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CBD

Sector Model

Sector Model – 1939 – Homer Hoyt

•Model that posits a city develops in a series of sectors, not rings.

•As a city grows, activities expand outward in a wedge, or sector, from the center.

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Multiple Nuclei Model

Multiple Nuclei Model – 1945 – Harris and Ullman

•Model posits that a city is a complex structure that includes more than one center around which activities revolve.

•Examples•Ports•Universities•Airports•Parks

•Concentric – rings, •Sector – corridors •Multi-Nuclei – nodes

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Peripheral Model

Peripheral Model - Harris

• This model relates more to the areas outside the city.

• An urban area consists of an inner city surrounded by large suburban residential and business areas tied together by a beltway or ring road.

• The idea here is that the peripheral areas do not suffer the problems of inner cities – the poor, deterioration, crime, congestion BUT the periphery will suffer from the problems of urban sprawl and segregation (being disconnected from the rest of the city)

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Latin American Model – 1980 –

Griffin and Ford

In many Latin American cities, the wealthy live in the inner city and in a sector extending along a commercial spine.

• Geographic Applications of the Models– Examples

• Concentric Zone Model– Families in newer houses tend to live in an outer ring– Families in older houses tend to live in an inner ring

• Sector Model– Given two families who own their homes, the family with the

higher income will not live in the same sector as the family with a lower income.

• Nuclei Model– People with same ethnic background are likely to live near each

other.

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