Urban Land Use(chapter 21)

Six Major Land-Use Groups

1. Residential - Where people live.-Individual homes to apartment buildings

- Typically takes up 40% a cities land

Residential density = # of houses per hectare

-Affects housing prices

I.E. Toronto Home: 2,200 square feet

Listed for 640,000$

Received 36 offers

Sold for: 860,000

2. Transportation – 1/3 (33%) of developed land in most cities is used for roads and highways.

• Mass-transit systems help combat congestion = subway, rail line, bus lane.

• 4 Travel Paths – subway, street car,

and roads and highways – Expressways – largest- capacity, carry huge amounts of

traffic quickly over long distances– Arterial roads – moderate amounts of traffic, shorter distance– Collector roads – move traffic from local roads to arterial

roads– Local roads – small and narrow, take people from home to

arterial or collector roads

• Terminal Facilities – at the end of all travel paths train, bus stations, airports, docks, parking lots

3. Commercial Land Use

- about 5% of city’s land use

- Buying and selling of goods and services (“business”); important for the economy

6 main types:• Local service centres (Mac’s Milk)• Neighbourhood Plazas and Ribbons (supermarket)• Community Shopping Centres (Malls)• Power Centres (big-box stores – Canadian Tire)• Regional Shopping Centres (big malls, department

stores)• The Central Business District (CBD) (“down-town”

financial, retail, entertainment, hotel)

4. Industrial Land Use(6%)

- Factories (processing and manufacturing)

- Warehousing (storage)

- shipping products

Types:

- CBD industries,

- ribbon industries,

- suburban industrial parks

- suburban business parks

5. Institutional and Public Buildings– (10%) schools, hospitals, government offices,

places of worship

6. Open Space and Recreational Land– (7%) open land = vacant, wood lot, cemetery

recreational = parks golf course, arenas

Factors Affecting Land -Use Patterns

• “ Land- use patterns in towns and cities do not develop by chance. They result from decisions made by people about such matters as where to work, what type of home to live in, what kind of local government to have, and how to spend money. Your decisions will affect the way your community looks in the future.”

- text page 264

1. Land value• Land values are generally the highest in the

most accessible areas (ex. CBD) and along major transportation routes

2. Zoning• Laws that control the kind and amount of

development in an area

3. Climate• Winter-city concept – participate in city life all

year long (you don’t even have to step outside)

Urban Expansion

- Rural-urban fringe – area next to an urban where there is a mixture of urban and rural land uses; city expands outwards = loss of productive farm land

- Urban Sprawl – low-density development surrounding a city