Concepts And Definitions Of World Urban Development

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The world’s population is growing rapidly, how fast is the world’s urban population growing in comparison?

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but the world’s urban population is growing four times as fast.

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What fields provide a holistic framework for understanding cities?

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Geography- and its subfields of environmental, economic, political and cultural geography

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The scale of urbanization is increasing as evidenced by the emergence of ...

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conurbations and megalopolises around the world

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Some countries’ patterns of urbanization are

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following the rank-size rule, while other countries are characterized by urban primacy or dual primacy

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The evolution of cities is best understood as a three stage process:

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preindustrial cities, industrial cities, and postindustrial cities.

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Cities are usually classified by function as

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market centers, transportation centers, or specialized service centers.

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Four classic models have been proposed to explain the spatial organization of land uses within cities:

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concentric zone model, sector model, multiple nuclei model, and inverse concentric zone model.

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Urban management issues revolve around

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population size, growth rate, and geographic distribution; governance and the provision of services; accommodating globalization; and the natural environment, among others.

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If one were to compare a map of the world as it was around the year 1900 with one today two changes would be strikingly apparent:

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1. Proliferation of independent nations and

2. The mushrooming numbers and the sizes of cities.

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The present phenomenon of worldwide urbanization is as dramatic in its revolutionary implications for the history of civilization as were the earlier agricultural and industrial revolutions. what happened in the industrial countries?

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In the industrial countries - the more developed countries - urbanization accompanied and was the consequence of industrialization. Although far from being utopias, cities in those regions brought previously undreamed-of prosperity and longevity to millions.

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Industrial and economic growth combined with rapid urbanization to

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produce a demographic transformation that brought declining population growth and enabled cities to expand space with economic development.

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what happened in the developing countries?

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In the developing countries, or less whatever, urbanization has occurred only partly as the result of industrial and economic growth and in many countries it has occurred primarily as the result of rising expectations of rural people who have flocked to the cities seeking escape from misery (and not often finding it).

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Urban nations tend to be

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more economically developed and more politically powerful. Most nations that are highly urbanized experience high standard of living measurements.

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For those still climbing the urbanization ladder, they tend to

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have the challenge of bringing

rates of urbanization in line with rates of economic growth.

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Urbanism

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is a broad concept that generally refers to all aspects - political, economic, social- of the urban way of life.

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Urbanism is not a process of growth, but rather the end results of urbanization. What does this suggest?

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Suggests in all respects a different way of life from rural living, those who move, their lifestyles and livelihoods change.

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Urbanization is a process involving two phases:

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1 the movement of people from rural to urban places, where they engage in primarily nonrural occupations, and

2 the change in lifestyle that results from leaving the countryside

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Urbanization - the important variables in the first phase are

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1. population density and

2. economic functions.

a place does not become urban until its workforce is divorced from the soil;

trade manufacturing, and service provision dominate the economies of urban places.

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The important variables in the second phase are

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1. social,

2. psychological, and

3. behavioral.

As a population becomes increasingly urban, for instance, family size becomes smaller because the value placed upon children changes.

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Urban place:

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as a place increases in population, it eventually becomes large enough to assume that its economy is no longer strictly to agriculture or to other primary activities.

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City:

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essentially a political designation referring to a large, densely-populated place that is legally incorporated as a municipality.

A settlement of any size may call itself a city, whether large or small.

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Megacity:

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used colloquially rather than formally to designate the very largest urban places, usually conceptualized as an urban core and its peripheral expansion zone.

A city with more than 10 million inhabitants may call itself a megacity

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World cities function

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as the command-and-control centers of the world economy.

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World cities offer

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advanced, knowledge-based producer services (businesses serving businesses), particularly in the fields of accounting, insurance, advertising, law, technical expertise, and the creative arts.

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Global Cities, or The toptier world cities, are defined by

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their financial centrality

There are three: New York, London, Tokyo.

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What other types of world cities are there?

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1. There are also second-tier world cities: Paris, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Chicago, Hong Kong, and Singapore, etc.

2. And world cities considered for their strength from particular megaregions, from particular cultural and economic niches, or because of their influence worldwide within particular religious niches.

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Why are world cities important?

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They have connections with other cities across the world.

All research of globalization and world cities has been going beyond world city and network formations, and to look at the complex process within economic globalization.

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If world cities are indeed at the crossroads of globalization, then we need to consider seriously how we measure intercity relations. What are three ways to do so?

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1. Comparative city connectivity studies: focus on relations between chosen cities as they respond to particular events (i.e. how Singapore, NY, London compared with how their service sectors responded to the 1997 Asian financial crisis). City competitive processes are generally less important than cooperative processes carried out through office networks within the private sector.

2. Elite labor migrations between cities: moving skilled labor around to different world cities is found to be a key globalization strategy for financial firms wanting to embed their businesses into the world-city network. Prime finding is a transnational space of flows is produced as a necessary prerequisite for firms accumulating financial knowledge.

3. Global network connectivity of cities: a world-city network is an amalgam of the office networks of financial and business service firms. This network has three levels:

a. a network level of cities in the world economy,

b. a nodal level of cities as global service centers,

c. and a subnodal level of global service firms that are the prime creators of the network connectivities of the world to be calculated.

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Urban area:

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as cities have expanded, the boundary between urban and rural has become increasingly blurred, especially in industrialized countries where automobile transportation has fostered urban sprawl.

Thus, the urban (or urbanized) area is defined as the built-up area where buildings, roads, and essentially urban land uses predominate, even beyond the political boundaries of cities and towns.

The urban area is basically a city and its suburbs.

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Conurbation:

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As urban areas expand, they engulf smaller cities in the urban expansion zone, turn nearby towns into full fledged cities, sometimes stimulate the development of new cities, and bump into other expanding urban areas.

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Megalopolis:

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urban coalescence of metropolitan areas at the regional scale. That coalescence is channeled along transportation corridors connecting one city with another.

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Metropolis and Metropolitan Area:

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originally meant mother city, now loosely refers to any large city. A metropolitan area includes a central city (or cities) plus all surrounding territory - urban or rural - that is integrated with the urban core (usually measured by commuting patterns).

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Site and Situation:

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site refers to the physical characteristics of the place where the the city originated and evolved. Surface landforms, underlying geology, elevation, water features, coastline configuration, and other aspects of physical geography are considered site characteristics.

Situation, by contrast, refers to the relative location of a city. It connotes a city’s connectedness with other places and the surrounding region. Some cities are centrally located at the junction of trade routes, while others are isolated. A city’s growth and decline is more dependent on situation than site characteristics. Good relative location, or situation, can compensate for a poor site.

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Urban landscapes:

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visible and invisible are manifestations of the thoughts, deeds, and actions of human beings.

They are charged with clues to the economic, cultural, and political values of the people who built them.

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Urban landscapes At the macroscale:

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geographers may look at the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the landscape - city skylines and sprawl.

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Urban landscapesAt the microscale:

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geographers may look at architectural styles, signage, activity patterns near busy intersections, or urban foodways. Interpreting, analyzing and critiquing the landscape is one of the traditional themes of urban geography.

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Capital city:

Hint: capital comes from Latin caput meaning head.

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Capital cities are literally “head cities” or the headquarters of the government functions.

every country has one and some have a few.

Capital sites are seats of political power, centers of decision making, and loci of national sovereignty.

Their landscapes are charged with symbols of solidarity, real or imagined; their museums are the attics of the nation; their locations are symbolic of the central role they play in the national urban system.

In some countries, national capitals share power with provincial capitals.

As a class of cities, they are among the best known in the world.

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Urban gastronomy:

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gastronomical scene of a city is often a significant cultural marker showcasing changes in ethnic composition, shifting taste preferences, and availability of ingredients.

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Preindustrial city:

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referred sometimes as the traditional city identifies a city that was founded and grew before the arrival of industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries and thus typically had quite different characteristics from industrial cities.

Elements of the traditional city are still part of the urban landscapes, particularly in the developing world, even though there are no any pure preindustrial cities in existence.

Remnants of the traditional cities include central markets, pedestrian quarters where the streets are too narrow for cars, walls and gates now serving as visual reminders of the past, and intimidating architecture, (palaces and cathedrals) that preceded industrialization.

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Industrial city:

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has an economy based on the production of manufactured goods, sometimes light industrial products (food, textiles, footwear) and sometimes heavy industry items (motor vehicles, appliances, ships, machinery).

Factories and foundries anchor their urban landscapes.

Although small scale manufacturing characterized even pre-industrial cities, the invention of the steam engine begat ever larger factories and the cities which provided them with workers and services.

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Postindustrial city:

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relatively new type of city emerged particularly in the world’s wealthiest countries.

Economy not tied to a manufacturing base but instead to high employment in the services sector.

Cities that are mainly headquarters for corporations or governmental or intergovernmental organizations are examples, as are those specializing in research and development (r and d), health and medicine, and tourism/recreation. With an increase in the number of people employed in tertiary and quaternary occupations, especially in finance, health, leisure, r and d, education, and telecommunications and in various levels of government, the cities with concentrations of these activities have an economic base in sharp contrast to those cities that originated in industrial economies.

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Primate city:

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type of city defined solely by size and function is the primate city.

Termed in the 1930s to refer to countries having one city that is exceptionally large, economically dominant, and culturally expressive of national identity.

A true primate city is twice as large as the second largest, but the gap is usually larger.

Primacy is more typical of the developed world.

Few instances of dual primacy, where two large cities share the dominant role.

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What does the presence of a primate city suggest?

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an imbalance in development:

progressive core, defined by primate city and its environs, and a lagging periphery on which the primate city may depend for resources and migrant labor.

some see the relationship between the core and periphery as a parasitic one.

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Rank-size rule:

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alternative to primacy.

Concept evolved out of empirical research on the relationships among cities of different population sizes in a country.

The rule states the population of a particular city should be equal to the population of the country’s largest city divided by its rank.

A deviation from this ranking means that the urban system is unbalanced.

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Colonial city:

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although virtually gone from the face of the earth now, the colonial city has had profound impact on urban patterns throughout much of the world, starting around 1500 ad and culminating with the global dominance of european imperial powers in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The colonial city was unique because of its special focus on commercial functions, its peculiar situation requirements, and the odd blend of western urban forms with traditional indigenous values and practices.

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What were the two distinct types of Colonial cities?

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1. the european city was created virtually from scratch on the site where no other significant urban place had existed. This would then lead to in-migration of local peoples drawn by the economic opportunity created under colonial rule.

2. the european city was grafted onto an existing indigenous urban place and then became the dominant growth pole for that city, typically swallowing up or overwhelming in size and importance the original indigenous center.

These were created depending on the age of the European or colonial enclave in relation to the age of the native or indigenous settlement.

Either type of colonial city would eventually give rise to a dual city, consisting of one modern, western, part and another more traditional, indigenous part.

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Socialist city:

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evolved under communist regimes.

Communism was characterized by massive government involvement in the economy, coupled with the absence of private land ownership and free markets.

Communism produced cities that were distinct in form, function, and internal spatial structure.

Although most regimes collapsed in the late 20th century, central planning and the command economy have left a lasting, visible impression on urban landscapes.

Now, most are experiencing rapid change; and a post-socialist city is still emerging.

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Post-socialist city:

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cities evolving under post-socialist regimes are breaking away from the urban plans strictly enforced by communist/socialist governments.

Socialism’s largely compact, comprehensively planned cities were structured internally and regionally to be self-sufficient, but this is changing today as individuals and businesses make their own decisions about where to locate residences and businesses in freer market economies.

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Three growth trends alter the urban form, function, and spatial structures of post-socialist cities; these trends are reforming socioeconomic and political processes in addition to the built environment. what are they?

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1. emerging land markets and commercial real estate spaces transform the urban fabric as new housing, shopping and industrial developments are created within city limits and in suburban or exurban locations.

2. increased automobile and cargo truck ownership causes new kinds of movements in and around cities, especially with congestion resulting from the movement into cities.

3 As suburban growth develops, there is a tendency for previously compact post-socialist cities, often radial or quadrangular in form, to become linear in form, as economic activities occur along arterial routes out of cities into the surrounding countryside.

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In post-socialist cities, redevelopment and growth from city centers to peripheries often occurs chronologically, where the inner city redevelops first, followed by the periphery and suburbia. What does this tell us about post-socialist city growth?

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it's both vertical (upward) and horizontal (outward), as it integrates industrial, commercial, and residential development in news ways in city centers and peripheries.

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New Town:

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phenomenon of the 20th century and refers to a comprehensively planned urban community built from scratch with the intent of becoming as self-contained as possible by encouraging the development of an economic base and a full range of urban services and facilities.

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Why did New Towns come into existence?

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1 to relieve overcrowding in large cities;

2 help to control sprawl;

3 provide optimum living environment;

4 serve as growth poles for the development of 5 peripheral regions;

6 Create or relocate a national or provincial capital.

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What is the idealized form of a New Town and its characteristics?

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Idealized form follows Garden City concept with its emphasis on:

1 manageable population size,

2 pod-like housing tracts,

3 neighborhood service centers,

4 mixed land uses,

5 much green space,

6 pedestrian walkways, and

7 self-contained employment base (akin to premodern villages).

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What happened to New Towns?

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After a century of experimentation found extremely hard to establish and sustain.

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What are the three types of New Towns?

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suburban ring cities,

new capitals,

economic growth poles.

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Green Cities:

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those that are on their way to being environmentally sustainable.

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No city is yet a green city, but many are trying to lessen their environmental impacts. How?

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1. moving away from fossil fuels,

2. lowering emissions of greenhouse gases,

3. reducing consumption,

4. recycling urban wastes,

5. utilizing water conservation technologies,

6. erecting energy efficient buildings,

7. reinvigorating mass transportation systems,

8. encouraging walking and cycling,

9. increasing population densities to reduce sprawl,

10. expanding open space-planting trees and flowers,

11. and cultivating reliance on local food delivery chains.