URBANIZATION

Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic) occurred around 10,000 years ago.

People had to practice sedentary agriculture before cities could develop.

Agricultural hearths found in:

Fertile Crescent, Nile river Valley, Indus River (Pakistan), Ganges R. (India) China’s river valleys and Peru

The world’s first great cities developed in these regions.

With cities, people could practice “specialization of labor” since they didn’t have to spend all their time producing food.

Urbanization in Europe grew slowly, but great cities sprang up in Greece and Rome.

After the fall of Rome, Medevial cities grew up Europe with similar characteristics.

Walls for protection

Church in the center of town.

No real “plan” for streets so streets go every direction. These are often still the core of cities

today.

Explosion of urban growth

Cities began to grow due to the number of people coming to cities to work in the factories of the Industrial Revolution.

Chicago grew from a village in 1800 to 1,000,000 people by 1900.

Chicago was a transportation and manufacturing hub.

Urban growth in the USA was tied to the millions of immigrants that poured into the USA in the 1800’s and early 1900’s.

Where did immigrants tend to live? In poor inner city neighborhoods with others like them.

Gateway cities of the USA: New York City San Francisco

Galveston

Entry points for immigrants.

Types of world cities.

The urban structure of European cities is a reverse of what we find in American cities.

The wealthier people live in the downtown areas.

In most cases the urban core is devoid of skyscrapers

Before the age of elevators wealthier people lived on the ground level, the higher up, the poorer.

With elevators, the wealthy moved ‘up.”

Latin American cities (and most colonial cities) integrate their past with the present.

The design and layout of the city was developed hundreds of years ago.

Many of the zones in the city radiate from a central core in a “spine” formation.

Note 4: high income residences3: Industrial district1: commercial business district7: squatter districts

Cities are laid out with the cbd as the”hub.” Travel from one area to another requires moving through the hub.

Latin American cities are often ringed by slums. These are the people from the countryside that came to the city to find work.

LDC cities have a growing population rate due to two factors:

Economic development has made many Asian cities prosperous.

Most are built on the coast and are built for trade with the ports playing an important role in their development.These cities often have special economic zones that provide inexpensive access to markets.

Note how growth extends out from the port.

In only fifty years, Singapore has become a ped, spurred on by their location and export markets.

Because many have only bloomed in the recent past, they are “new” cities with a growing infrastructure.

Islamic cities are found in the Middle East and parts of Indonesia.

The focal point of these cities is a Mosque.

Streets are characterized as narrow and crooked.

African cities are the fastest growing urban regions in the world.

The focus of the city is the colonial core.

Cities show both a colonial cbd and a traditional cbd.

1 2 3 4 5 6

Modeling the North American city1. Central business district (itself broken into theatre, financial, retail, etc.

2. Zone of transition: residential deterioration and encroachment by business. Includes light manufacturing

3. Closely spaced but adequate homes for blue collar workers.

4. Zone of better middle class residences

5. Suburban residences.

Ernest Burgess’s Concentric Zone Model

Depicts a dynamic city in which over time each zone encroaches on the next zone in the ring.

Density gradient

Age increases

“villages” like Fairfield and Cole’s Crossing

Based on the observation that home value increased with distance from the CBD

Homer Hoyt’s Sector Model

1: Central Business District

2: Factories, industry, transition zone

3: Middle class residential

5: High Class Residential

4: Low class residential

As areas developed and grew, the expanded in a “corridor.”

Harris and Ulman – Multiple Nuclei Model

1: Central Business District

2. Light Manufacturing

3. Low Class Residential

4. Middle Class Residential

5. High Class Residential

6. Heavy Manufacturing

7. Outlying Business District

8. Residential Suburb

9. Industrial Suburb

9

Harris and Ulman – Multiple Nuclei Model

1: Central Business District

2. Light Manufacturing

3. Low Class Residential

4. Middle Class Residential

5. High Class Residential

6. Heavy Manufacturing

7. Outlying Business District

8. Residential Suburb

9. Industrial Suburb

9

Periphery or Edge City Model

1: Central Business District

2. Suburban Residential

3. Shopping Mall

4. Industrial district

5. Office Park

6. Service Center

7. Airport Complex

8. Shopping and Employment Center

This model is often called the “tenement of the information age” because they are made up of many high density townhomes and apartments for those who work nearby.

American cities are laid out in generally a similar pattern.

The poor inhabit run down neighborhoods near the downtown area.

Wealthier neighborhoods move away from the city center.

American neighborhoods move to the suburbs with the advent of freeway.

Process of inner city deterioration:

As people with money move further out, they are replaced by those with less income.

This becomes a “zone in transition” in which mixes low income and light manufacturing.

Tenement houses become the norm.

Cities tax revenues drop forcing a cut in city services, further eroding the area.

1. Central business district.

2. Zone in transition

3. Zone of independent workers homes.

4. Zone of better residences

5. Commuter Zone

As the area erodes, more people move out. This creates “zones in transition” from one type of neighborhood to a lower economic level as a rule.

As neighborhoods deteriorate, bankers “redline” areas, refusing loans to people who live in those areas (usually minorities.)

The areas are often called slums, ghettos, barrios.

The decline leads others to leave the city because of the neighborhoods or increasingly higher taxes.

With the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, the cities take another hit.

Unscrupulous realtors begin a process of “block busting,” convincing whites to sell out because blacks were moving into the neighborhood.

Eventually the government gets involved in urban planning, trying to provide affordable housing for the poor.

In many cities, this proves to be a recipe for urban disaster.

Urban sprawl

Today’s American cities still find most of their growth in the suburbs.

While “white flight” drove people in the 60’s and 70’s, today it is driven by “economic flight.”

City Transportation

The growth of cities is tied to the changing modes of transportation.

Then as now, the optimum time people want to spend getting to work is 45 minutes.

John Borchert summarized two centuries of American city growth based on changing modes of transportation.

Summary based on:

Foot transportation

Horse drawn street cars

Steam driven trains

Auto/ air travel

With each innovation, people were able to move further out of the city and stay within that 45 minute window.

Electric trolleys