Urban GeographyUrban Geography

An introduction

What is urban geography?What is urban geography?

• It can be the study of where cities are in a country, of how cities and towns relate to each other, or of how people are distributed within a city.

What is urban geography?What is urban geography?• Urban geography is the s

tudy of areas which have a high concentration of buildings, infrastructure and economic activity as well as a high population density.

• It can be considered a part of the larger field of human geography, however, it can often overlap with other fields such as anthropology and physical geography.

As a geographer…As a geographer…• Urban geographers seek to understand why cities are where they are, what function they serve, the hierarchy that exists between them and why they develop with the form that they have.

• Urban geography also involves planning city expansion and improvements while taking into account the human and environmental impacts of the change.

What are our major concerns?What are our major concerns?

• Location

• Space

• Size

• Function

• Structure

• Composition

• problems

Of urban centres

Of urban population

Many urban geographies Many urban geographies • There is no one approach to studying urban spaces

– Analytical approach• Build models and analyze data

– Behavioral• Spatial analysis with a focus on how individuals make spatial

decisions– Marxist

• With their interest in contradictions, the focus here is spatial contradictions

– Humanistic • Urban cultural geography

– Postmodernist• Largely anti-spatial analysis

– Recognize that there is no one way to interpret space

• In this class, we do not have any one way

Sub fields of Urban GeographySub fields of Urban Geography

• Cultural Geography

• Population Geography

• Political Geography

• Economic Geography

• Medical Geography

• Historical Geography

• Social Geography • Anthropology

• Demography

• Political Science

• Urban planning

• Economics

• Medicine and Health

• History

• Sociology

URBAN URBAN GEOGRAPHYGEOGRAPHY

Look out to discover more!