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Chapter 9
Key Question:
Cities
City a conglomeration of people and buildings clustered together to serve as a center of politics, culture, and economics.
Urban:
The buildup of the central city and the suburban realm the city and the surrounding environs connected to the city.
Shenzhen, China
The Modern Process of Urbanization a rural area can become urbanized quite quickly in the modern world
Shenzhen, China
Shenzhen changed from a fishing village to a major metropolitan area in just 25 years. 25 years ago, all of this land was duck ponds and rice paddies.
Agricultural Villages
Before urbanization, people often clustered in agricultural villages a relatively small, egalitarian village, where most of the population was involved in agriculture. About 10,000 years ago, people began living in agricultural villages
1.
2.
an agricultural surplus
social stratification (a leadership class)
In each of these hearths, an agricultural surplus and social stratification created the conditions necessary for cities to form and be maintained.
Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were two of the first cities of the Indus River Valley. - intricately planned - houses equal in size - no palaces - no monuments
Terracotta Warriors guarding the tomb of the Chinese Emperor Qin Xi Huang
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Between 300 and 900 CE, Altun Ha, Belize served as a thriving trade and distribution center for the Caribbean merchant canoe traffic.
Diffusion of Urbanization
The Greek Cities by 500 BCE, Greeks were highly urbanized.
Network of more than 500 cities and towns On the mainland and on islands Each city had an acropolis and an agora
Athens, Greece
the agora
the acropolis
Diffusion of Urbanization
The Roman Cities a system of cities and small towns, linked together with hundreds of miles of roads and sea routes.
Sites of Roman cities were typically for trade A Roman citys Forum combined the acropolis and agora into one space. Roman cities had extreme wealth and extreme poverty (between 1/3 and 2/3s of empires population was enslaved)
Roman Empire
During the mercantile era, the cities that thrived were embellished by wealthy merchant families, who built ornate mansions, patronized the arts, participated in city governments, and supported the reconstruction of city centers.
Genoa, Italy
Nature of manufacturing changed and locations changed, too. Many factories have been abandoned, creating rust belts out of once-thriving industrial districts.
Duisburg, Germany
Archaeologists have found that the houses in Indus River cities, such as Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, were a uniform size: each house had access to a sewer system, and palaces were absent from the cultural landscape. Derive a theory as to why these conditions were present in these cities that had both a leadership class and a surplus of agricultural goods.
Key Question:
Situation
* relative location of a city * a citys place in the region and the world around it.
Trade area
Trade area an adjacent region
within which a citys influence is dominant.
Rank-Size Rule:
in a model urban hierarchy, the population of the city or town will be inversely proportional to its rank in the hierarchy. For example: largest city = 12 million 2nd largest = 6 million 3rd largest = 4 million 4th largest = 3 million
Primate City
The leading city of a country. The city is disproportionately larger than the rest of the cities in the country.
For example:
- the rank-size rule does not work for a country with a primate city
Hexagonal Hinterlands
C = city T = town V = village H = hamlet
Sketch a map of your city or town and the cities or towns nearby. Make a list of goods and services available in each of these towns. Do the ideas about central places presented in this section of the chapter apply to your region?
Key Question:
Urban Morphology
The layout of a city, its physical form an structure.
Berlin, Germany
With wall (above) And without wall (right)
What does the urban morphology of the city tell us about the city?
Functional Zonation
The division of the city into certain regions (zones) for certain purposes (functions).
Cairo, Egypt
Central city (above) Housing projects (right)
What does the functional zonation of the city tell us about the city?
Edge Cities
Suburban downtowns, often located near key freeway intersections, often with: - office complexes - shopping centers - hotels - restaurants - entertainment facilities - sports complexes
Employing the concepts defined in this section of the chapter, draw a model of the city with which you are most familiar. Label each section of the city accordingly. After reading through the models described in this section, determine which model best corresponds to the model you drew and hypothesize why it is so.
Key Question:
Powerful social and cultural forces shape the character of a city and create the cultural landscape of the city.
Commercialization city governments transform a central city to attract residents and tourists. The newly commercialized downtowns often are a stark contrast to the rest of the central city.
Tear-downs houses that new owners buy with the intention of tearing it down to build a much larger home.
McMansions large homes, often built to the outer limits of the lot. They are called McMansions because of their super size and their similar look.
Hinsdale, Illinois (25% of houses have been torn down in last 20 years).
Urban Sprawl
Unrestricted growth of housing, commercial developments, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning.
Henderson, Nevada
New Urbanism
Development, urban revitalization, and suburban reforms that create walkable neighborhoods with a diversity of housing and jobs.
some are concerned over privatization of public spaces some are concerned that they do nothing to bread down the social conditions that create social ills of the cities some believe they work against urban sprawl
Celebration, Florida
Celebration, Florida
Gated Communities
Who are gated communities for?
Ethnic Neighborhoods
European City
eg. Muslim neighborhoods in Paris
Mumbai, India
Using the city you sketched in the last Thinking Geographically question, consider the concepts and processes introduced in this section of the chapter and explain how people and institutions created this city and the model you sketched.
Key Question:
World Cities
Cities that function at the global scale, beyond the reach of the state borders, functioning as the service centers of the world economy.
Spaces of Consumption
The transformation of the city into an entertainment district, where major corporations encourage the consumption of their goods and services. For example: Berlin, Germany New York City
Thinking through the challenges to the state presented in Chapter 8, predict whether and under what circumstances world cities could replace states as the basic and most powerful form of political organization in the world.