Unhappy with your grade on the last exam? Try these strategies!
•Come to every lecture. Hearing things different ways helps!
•Read the chapter before lecture. Hearing things twice means you’ll retain information.
•Focus. Stop checking Facebook during lecture.
•Use your smartphone to make flashcards with definitions of key terms.
•Hit your TA up for help during office hours
Urbanization: Key questions
Why is urbanization is one of the most important geographic phenomena in today’s world.
How do changes in the world economy drive urbanization?
How do rapidly growing populations strain city infrastructures?
What effects do inadquate infrastructures and services have on urban populations?
I. What role do cities play in the world?
Mobilize: Organize labor, capital and raw materials to produce goods and drive economies.
Make Decisions: Cities concentrate political and economic institutions and concentrate power, so decisions get made.
I. What role do cities play in the world (cont.)?
Generate innovation: By concentrating people in one space, cities promote collaboration, competition, and the development of new ideas.
Transform populations: The size and anonymity of city life liberates people to participate in new lifestyles and behaviors.
How do we think about cities?
Urban Systems: a group of related cities in a region.
Urban form: the built environment
Urban ecology: the social and demographic composition of neighborhoods
NYC neighborhood
The rise of cities
City life arose in the ancient Middle East---from 3500 BC!
Large scale political organization is key to the rise of cities.
Political elites organize taxation, building, and the control of labor
Erbil, Iraq: The world’s oldest city.6000 years of continuous occupation
European Urbanization
Rome, the seat of empire, is Europe’s first big city.
Other cities emerge in the medieval period: university centers, religious centers, defensive strongholds, administrative centers
Jagiellonian University, Krakow
The Rise of Gateway Cities
Gateway cities link one country or region with others.
Developed in 15th-17th centuries for trade and colonial administration.
Often port cities: Rio de Janeiro, Accra, Buenos Aires.
Industrialization
The industrial revolution created new city spaces in the early 19th c.
Large pools of labor and extensive physical infrastructure (like factories).
The countryside empties and people leave for the city
Cotton mills in Manchester, 1850
Shock Cities
Manchester: 1750: 15,000 1801: 70,000 1911: 2.3 million
Chicago: 1850: 30,000 1880: 500,000 1900: 1.7 million 1930: 3.3 million
Chicago: city of industrial agriculture
Primate Cities
Primate cities: world cities disproportionately larger than second cities
Violate the rank-size rule Nth largest city should
be 1/n the size of largest city
Are “central places” that are functionally dominant
World Cities
*Organize space beyond their own national boundaries
*Originally colonial or imperial cities: Istanbul, London, Genoa, Lisbon
*Today: are key sites of TNC organization, international finance, supranational government, and commodity markets.
(Examples?)
*Benefit from agglomeration effects.
World Cities: Spheres of Influence
Based on international headquarters of TNCs and business services
Peripheral and Semi-peripheral megacities
Population: 10 million and up.
Industrialization in peripheral and semi-peripheral cities leads to high rates of urbanization
Related to demographic transition
Overurbanization
Urban population grows faster than jobs and city services.
Produces urban slums
Lack housing, education, basic sanitation, employment, and emergency services
Kill more than 10 million people per year from disease
Brazilian favela