Chapter 13 Study Guide: Urban

Geography

Cities in the periphery, Latin

America, and Europe

Compared to the private automobile, public

transportation offers more energy efficiency.

Public transit is more extensive in Western European

cities than in the United States primarily because

European governments subsidize public transit.

The U.S. government has encouraged the use of cars

in part by building interstate highways.

Urbanization: The process whereby

an increasing percentage of people

live in an urban area

The Industrial Revolution

promoted urbanization.

Of the ten largest urban areas in the

world, how many are in More

Developed Countries today? 2

The important element of urbanization is an increase

in the

• number of people living in urban settlements.

• percentage of people living in urban settlements.

• land area occupied by urban settlements.

The U.S. Census

Bureau defines an

urban area as a city

with a population

over 2,500. TQ

The city plus its contiguous built-up

suburbs is the urbanized area.

World's largest cities The question of determining the world's largest

cities does not allow a single, simple answer.

It depends on which definitions of "city" and "size"

are used, and how those definitions are applied.

The "size" of a city can refer to either its land

area or, more typically, its population.

The borders of a city can be defined several ways:

Administrative "City" as strictly defined by a given government (city

proper). Typically based on a municipality or

equivalent entity, or sometimes a group of

municipalities under a regional government.

Morphological "City" defined as a physically contiguous urban area, without regard to

territorial or other boundaries. The delineation is usually done using

some type of urban density, such as population density or density

of buildings. Satellite and/or aerial maps may be used. For statistical

convenience, such areas are sometimes adjusted to appropriate

administrative boundaries, yielding an agglomeration.

The Valley

LA The East Side

South

Central The

South

Bay

Orange

County

San Gabriel Valley

The High Desert

Functional

"City" as defined by the habits of

its demographic population, as

by metropolitan area, labor market area, or

similar. Such definitions are usually based

on commuting between home and work.

Commuter flow thresholds into the core urban

area are established by the

national census authority, determining which

areas are included.

Metropolitan

statistical area

(MSA)

1. A central city with a

population of at least

50,000

2. its county (within

which the city is

located)

3. Adjacent

counties in

which at least 15

percent of the

residents work in

the central city’s

county

369 MSAs

The United States Census Bureau has

designated the five county region as the Los

Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside combined

statistical area, with a July 1, 2006

population estimate of 17,776,000.

The United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has

defined 125 Combined Statistical Areas (CSAs) for the United States

of America. The OMB defines a Combined Statistical Area as an

aggregate of adjacent MSAs that are linked by commuting ties. The

Combined Statistical Area is the most expansive of the metropolitan

area concepts.

• If we are just looking at the population that resides within the political boundaries of a city, the 10 largest cities in the US in 2000 were (with percent change since 1990): 1 New York city NY 8,008,278 9.4 2 Los Angeles city CA 3,694,820 6.0 3 Chicago city IL 2,896,016 4.0 4 Houston city TX 1,953,631 19.8 5 Philadelphia city PA 1,517,550 -4.3 Philadelphia city is coextensive with Philadelphia County. 6 Phoenix city AZ 1,321,045 983,403 34.3 7 San Diego city CA 1,223,400 10.2 8 Dallas city TX 1,188,580 18.0 9 San Antonio city TX 1,144,646 22.3 10 Detroit city MI 951,270 -7.5

The Greater Los

Angeles Area, or

the Southland, is the

agglomeration of ur

banized area around

the county of Los

Angeles. Greater

Los Angeles

includes the Los

Angeles

metropolitan

area, the Inland

Empire, and

the Oxnard–

Thousand Oaks–

Ventura area.

• San

Diego and Imperial counties,

while a part of Southern

California, are not included in

this agglomeration.

Megalopolis: large metropolitan areas so close

together that they form one continuous

urban complex

America’s Megapolitan Regions

These ten megapolitan regions account for almost 70% of the U.S. population in less than 20% of the land area.

Japan’s “Tokaido Megalopolis,” named for the old Tokaido Road running from Yedo (Tokyo) through Osaka and southwest to Nagasaki, includes some of the country’s largest cities (like Kyoto, the historic capital of the country). The megalopolis contains more than 50 million people and accounts for more than 80 percent of Japan’s total GDP.

Handout

Why do many people living in

huge cities feel lonely and

isolated?

Higher social heterogeneity in

urban settlements means that you

may feel lonely and isolated in a

crowd.

Why is it argued that

people in rural setltements

have less freedom?

Socially heterogeneous people: variety

of people. Can be unique

How is a teenager’s life in a

small Nebraska town

different from a teenager

living in San Gabriel Valley?

How have distinctions between

urban and rural residents been

blurred in the developed world?

Living in a large urban area

Positive Negative

Look at map

In 2007 over 50% of the world’s population

became urban

• Urbanization in South-East Asia

• Cambodia 16%

• Indonesia 39%

• Laos 17%

• Malaysia 57%

• Myanmar 27%

• Philippines 47%

• Thailand 30%

Urbanization in: Europe

Austria 65%

Belgium 97%

France 74%

Germany 86%

Luxembourg 88%

Netherlands 62%

Switzerland 68%

This map shows the annual average growth rate between 2000 and 2005 in the proportion of people in each country living in urban settlements.

The Urbanization Process

Urbanization was stimulated by advances in farm

productivity that:

(1) provided the extra food to support the increased numbers of townspeople, and

(2) made many farmers and farm laborers redundant, prompting them to migrate to cities.

shock city: fast, unplanned and irregular growth, often

with disturbing changes in economic, social,

and cultural life.

Shock City: Lagos, Nigeria

China city on steroids video

Beginning good, yuppies then

guys carrying stuff up stairs skip

girl speaking English go to 25 to

show guy living in tiny place

• In the first half of the 20th century, the

fastest urban growth took place in the

western cities (New York, London, etc.).

• They were magnets for immigration and

job opportunities.

• However, later on, more and more

undeveloped counties and cities started to

double or triple in population as well,

despite having less resources and

technology to sustain their people.

Rio de Janeiro >

Cities of the

Periphery are often

Unintended

Metropolises

With great amounts of dualism (extremely rich and

poor people)

megacity: a city with over 10 million people

A global city, also known as a world

city, is a prominent centre

of trade, banking, finance, innovation,

and markets. Whereas "megacity"

refers to any city of enormous size, a

global city is one of enormous power or

influence. Global cities, have more in

common with each other than with

other cities in their host nations.

2012

The problems of the cities of the periphery stem

from the way in which their demographic growth

has outstripped their economic growth.

Peripheral cities problems :

• Lack of Infrastructure (schools, roads,

electricity)

• corruption

• shortages of housing

• poor health care

• transportation problems

• Environmental problems

(pollution)

• lack of clean water

• poor sanitation

• Fiscal problems

Power goes out so

live chickens are

sold. Inadequate

government

services.

• Unemployment and Underemployment

• Informal Economic Activities

• Cycle of poverty

• Crime

Does Global Urbanization Lead

Primarily to Undesirable

Consequences?

Why Global Urbanization is harmful (YES):

• Many researchers believe that poverty and

health problems are consequences of

urbanization.

• Most migrants believe that cities will offer

more hope of a job and better health care and

educational opportunities for their children.

• Unfortunately, the urban poor in developing

countries live in squalor unlike anything they

left behind in their rural past.

• Mega-city residents are crowded into

unsanitary slums and are subject to

serious disease outbreaks.

• They consume unsafe food and water

that could subject these people to life-

threatening diarrhea and dehydration.

• Horrible air pollution lead to many

lung infections and respiratory

problems.

• The current problem in urbanization is not that cities of the developing world are growing, but that they are expanding at a rapid pace.

• Urban populations will double in size in the next few decades, while rural populations are barely growing.

• By 2030, more than half of all Asians and Africans will live in urban areas and Latin America and the Caribbean will be 84% urban, a level comparable to the U.S.

Why Global Urbanization is beneficial:

Sustainable Urbanization

• Massive migration to urban regions in the developing world provides an opportunity for energy savings (subways, public transit), if planned properly.

• Urbanization involves moving away from rural areas, which are often isolated and do not have an adequate education or political representation.

• The diffusion of ideas is best found in cities around the world.

• Governmental costs will be reduced when goods and services are delivered to those in more densely populated environments.

• Urbanization creates new potentialities for democracy.

• City dwellers have much more in common with each other, and get to interact with each other more often.

• This will start ending racism and prejudice which still resides in most rural areas today.

• Urban dwellers have a convergence of needs and desires that makes them a class with shared interests.

• urbanization presents a great

opportunity for the world to

achieve international peace and

creates new possibilities for

democracy and sharing of common

interests across national

boundaries.

• Urbanization does not always lead

to a bad environment, as most

environmentalists and progressives

believe.