Urban Geography
-Christina Garcia-
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Urban Morphology And Site/Situation
Morphology is the form of a city. Most cities vary in shape. But they all include an urban population, a center, a perimeter, and an internal transportation network. An urban population is a population composed of individuals who were not engaged in agriculture, yet they had to be fed and housed. A center is the organizing principle of the city and reflects the vital concerns of the population. A perimeter is the manner by which a city is separated from the country. Finally, an internal transportation network is a framework that allows people and goods to move around.
Site is the physical character of a place. Some examples of site characteristics are climate, topography, soil, water sources, vegetation, and elevation. Site has to do with land value because certain functions need certain terrain. An example is that factories need flat land, while most people prefer to live in hilly areas.
Situation is the location of a place relative to other places. Internal situation refers to the relative location between different parts of a city. This also has to do with land value. How accessible the workplaces, stores, and factories are is important to a city and its land value.
Morphology Of Tenochtitlan
Urban Definitions
There are different sized places on the urban hierarchy. The smallest one is a hamlet which usually only has a few dozen people. It has limited services and clustered housing. The next one is a village. It offers more services. Instead of a general store like in a hamlet, there may be more stores specializing in the sale of food, clothing, furniture, and other small items. Towns are the next largest. They are considered urban areas with a defined boundary but are smaller than cities in terms of population and area. They usually have everything you need without having to go to the cities. Cities are large, densely populated areas that may include tens of thousands of people. They also have a well-defined CBD and suburbs may have commercial centers or shopping malls. A metropolis is larger than a city. It has a large population, large land area, central city, and its suburbs. The last one is a megalopolis. It's the largest in urban hierarchy. A megalopolis is sometimes refered to as a massive urban "blob" of overlapping, integrated metropolitan areas whose distinctive boundaries are increasingly difficult to find.
CBD stands for central business district. It's the central area of the city. Services that are clustered in the CBD of a city are retail stores and office activities. Most of the time skyscrapers are a big part of the CBD.
CBD (In Red)
Models
The Burgess Concentric Zone Model is also known as the centric zone model. It consists of the CBD, the transitional zone, the low class residential, the medium class residential, and the high class residential. It's continuously changing as inner rings grow larger. Poorer inhabitants drive the wealthier residents away from the center of the city.
The Hoyt Sector Model consists of the same sections as the centric model, but they are shaped as wedges instead of rings. Once a district is established for industry, other industries will develop around it, creating the wedge. Likewise, a district where wealthy people live will attract other wealthy people.
The Multiple Nuclei Model consists of a CBD, wholesale manifacturing, low class residential, medium class residential, high class residential, heavy manifacturing, an outlying business district, residential suburbs, and industrial suburbs. This model was developed by C. D. Harris and E. L. Ullman. It stated that large cities develop by spreading from several places of growth, not just one.
The Urban Realms Model is used to describe the spatial components of the modern metropolis. Each realm is a separate economic, social, and political entity that is linked together to form the larger metropolitan framework. It was developed by Dr. T. Hartshorn and Dr. P. Muller and is made up of a central city surrounded by edge cities.
The Latin American Model consists of a commercial section, markets, industries, a zone of maturity, a zone of in situ accretion, a zone of peripheral squatter settlements, disamenity, an elite residential sector, gentrification, and middle class residential. These cities are experiencing one of the fastest urban growth rates. Cities are growing due to a flow of migrants looking for jobs. Squatter settlements and shanty towns are in places such as Rio de Janeiro where there is extreme poverty, child gangs, and drug trade.
The Southeast Asian Model consists of squatter areas, suburbs, alien commercial zones, western commercial zones, government zones, high class residential, middle class residential, a market gardening zone, and a new industrial estate. For the most part, they are located on coasts and have been built for trade, with ports that play an important economic role. Much of their growth is due to the trading.
The African City Model consists of the colonial CBD, the traditional CBD, a market zone, ethnic neighborhoods, mining and manifacturing zones, and informal satellite townships. These cities are the fastest growing urban areas in the world today. The economic conditions in most of Africa force people to migrate to urban areas to look for work. A strong colonial imprint is still visible in the structures and functions of African cities.
Burgess Concentric Zone Model
Hoyt Sector Model
Multiple Nuclei Model
Urban Realms Model
Latin American Model
Southeast Asian Model
African City Model
Urban Terms
White flight is a term used when working and middle class white people move away from racial-minority suburbs to white suburbs and exurbs. This is commonly associated with the 1970s which was an era of high racial tension. When Africans started moving into cities for work, the white people didn't want to live near them so they moved out of those neighborhoods.
Sprawl occurs when the development of new housing sites was at a relatively low density at locations that are not contiguous to the existing built-up area. Before the automobile era, cities were built in walking-distances, so there was less development. Then, when the automobile was invented, cities spread causing them to "sprawl" out.
Bedroom communities are communities where many commuters live. Many people live in a small city, but work in a different city that's nearby. That small city is referred to as a bedroom community because they only go there to sleep.
Zoning is dividing an area into zones or sections reserved for different purposes such as residence, business, manufacturing, etc. It's a method of land use planning. Most planned cities are heavily zoned for a uniform design and appearance.
NIMBY stands for "not in my backyard." It's used to describe opposition by residents to a proposal for a new development close to them. Examples are tall buildings, wind turbines, landfills, incinerators, power plants, prisons, mobile telephone network masts, and transportation improvements like new roads, passenger railways, or highways.
Revitalization is the process of reviving a city. It's occurring in some urban areas that are experiencing inner city decay. It usually involves the construction of new shopping districts, entertainment venues, and cultural attractions to entice young urban professionals back into the cities where nightlife and culture are more accessible.
Gentrification is the trend of middle and upper-income Americans moving into city centers and rehabilitating much of the architecture. But they also replace low-income populations and changing the social character of certain neighborhoods. It also occurs when the housing stock of a neighborhood is improved, usually through the introduction of high-priced, more luxurious housing.
An anchor is a major business that will always be there and draws people and small shops into that area. Usually it's a large, well-known retail operation located in a shopping center or Internet mall and serves as an attracting force for consumers to the CBD.
White Flight
NIMBY Objects
Gentrification
Anchor Store
New Urbanism
New urbanism is a counter to urban sprawl. The development, urban revitalization, and suburban reforms of a city create walkable neighborhoods with a diversity of housing and jobs. New urbanists want to create neighborhoods that promote a sense of community. A general new urbanist community is designed with one central shopping center clustered around by neighborhoods. Some examples of cities that have created a new urbanism type of place are Seaside in Florida, West Laguna in California, Kentlands in Maryland, and Celebration in Florida.
New Urbanism
