Chapter 13 Urban Patterns
Key Issue 1: Why do services cluster downtown? 3 traditional types of services clustered in the CBD - Retailers with a high threshold, such as department stores - Retailers with a high range, like high end jewelers - Retailers serving downtown workers; office supplies, to shoe repair
Business services often put their offices in the CBD for accessibility to people in banking, advertising, journalism, law, etc. In recent years however many of the high threshold and high range businesses have moved to malls in the suburbs
High costs and a shortage of land has led to tall skyscrapers, fewer residents, and little industry in the CBD s of America
CBD s in Europe - often built around cathedrals, or palaces - more low-rise structures instead of skyscrapers - more residents living downtown - many have pedestrian areas where cars are banned making them similar to U.S. malls
Key Issue 2: Where are people distributed within urban areas? Concentric zone model Sector model Multiple nuclei model
Many wealthy Europeans still live in the inner rings of the upper-class sector while poorer people have been pushed out to the suburbs
LDC s: pre colonial = few big cities, small cities usually built around religious core colonial cities = central plaza, wider streets, walled houses w/gardens cities since independence = wealthy in center, millions of poorer on outskirts
Squatter settlements: ( favelas, kampongs, etc.) In 2003 the UN estimated about 175 million people living in squatter settlements - generally lack basic services like water, power, sewer, schools, etc.
Inner-city physical issues: - filtering (subdividing houses) - redlining by banks and lending groups Key Issue 3: Why do inner cities face distinctive challenges?
urban renewal - cities acquire blighted neighborhoods, update them with roads, utilities, etc. and sell them back to private developers public housing low income residents pay 30% of income for rent gentrification middle-class people move into deteriorated inner-city neighborhoods and renovate the housing (how can this be a bad thing?)
Inner-city social issues nearly 1 million Americans sleep in doorways, heated street grates, and in bus and subway stations LDC s are often much worse Kolkata, India has several hundred thousand people who sleep, bathe, eat, etc. on sidewalks and traffic islands
Culture of poverty: U.S. inner-city neighborhoods - ¾ of babies born to unwed mothers - ¾ of children live with only one parent underclass group in society trapped in an unending cycle of economic and social problems suffer from high unemployment, illiteracy, crime, drugs, gangs, etc.
Inner-city economic issues: - eroding tax base (reduce services, raise tax revenues) - housing crisis and recession
Key Issue 4: Why do suburbs face distinctive challenges? urban expansion - annexation - city - central city - urbanized area
study these most likely test questions metropolitan statistical area (MSA) micropolitan statistical area (µsas) look these over briefly less likely to be test questions core based statistical areas (CBSAs) combined statistical areas (CSAs) primary census statistical areas (PCSAs)
Local government fragmentation can complicate issues: - traffic laws - fines - etc. council of government: a cooperative agency consisting of representatives of the various local governments in the region
peripheral model: an urban area consisting of an inner city surrounded by large suburban residential and business areas tied together by a beltway or ring road edge cities: - malls - industry - etc.
density gradient less houses per unit of land farther from city sprawl progressive spread of development many cities are using greenbelts and smart growth plans to control suburban sprawl
Suburban segregation: - social class (housing costs) - land uses (zoning ordinances to separate residential, commercial, manufacturing, etc.)
transportation and suburbanization: more than 95% of all trips within U.S. cities are made by car, compared to fewer than 5% by bus or rail rush hour is the four consecutive 15-minute periods that have the heaviest traffic do we need more or less public transportation?
All photos: Sean Simons