Geography Human & Physical World

Chapter 4: The Human World Lesson 5: Urban Geography

Urban geography is a branch of human geography concerned with cities and the people who live in them. An urban
geographer analyzes patterns of settlement and growth in urban areas and evaluates the impact of cities on people
and the environment.  

The Nature of Cities  

How does a city’s function influence its structure? 

The Industrial Revolution ushered in a new age of urbanization in the world’s history. As the focus shifted from
agricultural production to industrial production, people began moving to cities in large numbers. As more people
moved to cities, the physical size of cities also began to grow. This spreading of urban areas onto undeveloped land
near cities is called urban sprawl. Currently, the world’s urban population is growing at a much faster rate than that
of the rural population. Over half of the world’s people now live in cities, and this proportion is highest in the
developed regions of the world. Eighty-two percent of Americans now live in urban areas, and more than two-thirds
of the people of Europe, Russia, Japan, and Australia do as well. This growth is due to connectivity, the directness
of routes and communication linking pairs of places.

The Function of Cities 

Only recently have people gathered in the densely populated and highly structured settlements we call cities. The
first cities were established about 5,000 years ago, but it has only been in the last 200 years—with the expansion of
industrialization, economic growth, and global population at exponential rates—that cities have grown significantly
in size and number. At the start of the twentieth century, only about one person in ten lived in a city. Today, the
proportion of urban and rural dwellers is approximately equal. By 2025, it is expected that nearly two-thirds of the
world’s population will live in urban areas.
All cities serve a variety of functions. For example, manufacturing, retail,
and service centers are often located in urban areas. These functions are
the economic base of a city, generating employment and wealth. The
larger a city is, the more numerous and highly specialized its functions are
likely to be. Smaller cities and towns have fewer functions, which tend to
be of a more general nature. In the field of health care, for example, clinics
are found in a wide range of places, but specialized teaching hospitals
tend to be located only in larger cities.
Cities also tend to be centers of culture and creativity. Artists, musicians,
architects, philosophers, scientists, and writers gravitate toward cities
where there are patrons, communities of other artists, universities, clients,
and a skilled workforce. Today’s urban centers of culture have changed
over time, mostly based on their economic or political strength with the
outside world.
There are several reasons cities can support a variety of functions. The
large population of a city means there are plenty of workers available to support a variety of industries. The large
population also means there is a large market of consumers to sustain the demand for specialized functions. From a
functional perspective, infrastructure facilitates the production of goods and services, and also the distribution of
finished products to markets. In addition, it provides basic social services such as schools and hospitals. Roads
provide adequate transportation, and safe buildings provide secure housing.
Urban areas have both advantages and challenges. The diversity of peoples and activities encourages innovation
and creativity, but overcrowding, crime, poverty, social conflict, and pollution can become challenges. An urban
area differs from country to country, but each is considered a metropolitan area—a region that includes a central
city and its surrounding suburbs.
The Structure of Cities 
Urban structure is the arrangement of land use in urban areas. Sociologists, economists, and geographers have
developed several models explaining where different types of people and businesses tend to exist within the urban
setting. Urban structure can also refer to the urban spatial structure, which concerns the arrangement of public and
private space in cities and the degree of connectivity and accessibility.
The  concentric zone model was the first to explain the distribution of social groups within urban areas. Based on a
single city, Chicago, it was created by sociologist Ernest Burgess in 1924. According to this model, a city grows

outward from a central point in a series of rings. A second theory of urban structure was proposed in 1939 by
economist Homer Hoyt. The sector model proposed that a city develops in sectors instead of rings. Certain areas of
a city are more attractive for various activities, whether by chance or geographic and environmental reasons. As the
city grows and these activities flourish and expand outward, they do so in a wedge shape and become a sector of
the city.
Geographers C. D. Harris and E. L. Ullman developed the multiple nuclei model in 1945. According to this model, a
city contains more than one center around which activities revolve. Some activities are attracted to particular nodes
while others try to avoid them. For example, a university node may attract well educated residents, pizzerias, and
bookstores, whereas an airport may attract hotels and warehouses. Other businesses may also form clusters for
automobile repair, tire stores, or arts districts. Incompatible activities will avoid clustering in the same area, thus
explaining why heavy industry and high-income housing rarely exist together in the same neighborhood.

Patterns of Urbanization 
What influences the location and growth of cities? 

Factors that led to the early growth of cities are still influential today. The growth of American cities, for example,
began in the late 1700s. This growth was directly related to certain influential factors. Some of the same factors that
led to such growth hundreds of years ago are the very same factors influencing the further growth, development,
and urbanization of cities today. People will go where there are navigable water sources, such as river crossings and
fertile deltas. In addition, if the area is mountainous it could provide protection from enemies. People have
populated areas throughout history with these same reasons in mind. The basics of survival are food and water
sources and security from enemies.
In addition to factors that promote population, there are factors that can shrink population in a region. For example,
if an industry is no longer needed, the city’s population will move on in order to seek a livelihood. Ghost towns are a
prime example of this. The railroads provided the transportation for prospectors and entrepreneurs to get to these
thriving areas. Consequently, during the gold rush in California, the towns were booming. When the mines were
depleted, there was no longer any reason for these towns to exist and the people moved on.
The central place theory is a spatial theory in urban geography that attempts to explain the reasons behind the
distribution patterns, size, and number of cities and towns around the world. It attempts to illustrate how settlements
locate in relation to one another, the amount of market area a central place can control, and why some central
places function as hamlets, villages, towns, or cities. It also attempts to provide a framework by which those areas
can be studied both for historical reasons and for the locational patterns of areas today.
A world city is a city generally considered to play an important role in the global economic system. World cities
possess such features as having international diverse cultures, an active influence on and interaction in world affairs,
a large population, a major international airport, and an advanced transportation system. The world city concept
comes from geography and urban
studies. It can be seen as a type
of “point of entry” for studying the
changes that come from
globalization.
One important world city that has
resulted from the geography of its
location is İstanbul. It straddles a
strait, thus placing it on vital land
and sea trade routes. In addition,
it can easily defend itself against
enemy factions because of its
water location. Farming is good
because of its fertile soil, and
consequently İstanbul has been
under attack and conquered many times. Its desirable location is the very thing that has made it vulnerable.
New trends in cities have emerged, including the development of suburban business districts and major diversified
centers, to name just two. Typically, suburbia refers to an outlying community around a city. These communities are
business districts in their own right. The name that is now most commonly used to describe these terms is “edge
cities.”
These new suburban cities have sprung up all over and are home to glistening office towers and huge retail
complexes. They are always located close to major highways. “Boomers” are the most common type of edge cities,
having developed around a shopping mall or highway interchange such as Pasadena, California. On the suburban
fringe of Phoenix, Arizona, Sun City is a “greenfield”—a new, master-planned city built on undeveloped land. In
contrast, “uptown” edge cities are historic activity centers built over an older city or town, such as the Rosslyn-
Ballston Corridor in Virginia.

Challenges of Urban Growth 

What problems do urban areas face? 

The urbanization process refers to much more than simple population growth. It involves changes in the economic,
social, and political structures of a region. Rapid urban growth is responsible for many environmental and social
changes, and its effects are strongly related to issues of pollution and economics. These changes are not always
positive. The rapid growth of cities strains their capacity to provide services such as energy, education, health care,
transportation, sanitation, and physical security.
The more developed countries experienced urbanization during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries along with
the Industrial Revolution. During this time, urbanization resulted from and contributed to industrialization. New job
opportunities in the cities motivated people to migrate from rural areas to cities. At the same time, migrants provided
cheap, plentiful labor for the emerging factories. Today, the circumstances are rather different in less developed
countries. People are forced out of rural areas because of insufficient land on which to grow subsistence crops.
Meanwhile, there are not enough jobs to accommodate the many migrants looking for employment, creating a large
surplus labor force. This influx keeps wages low and can lead to poverty in many urban areas. Foreign investment
companies from more developed countries see such situations as attractive. By employing these workers they can
produce goods for far less.
Modern cities all over the world face many of the same problems: poor housing, homelessness, pollution, and social
problems such as addiction, crime, and gang violence. People often live in old houses or other structures without
electricity or sanitation. Some live on the streets with little access to adequate food or shelter. In addition, cars and
industries pollute city air and water. Unemployment continues to grow. Larger multiethnic cities continue to face
conflicts between different cultural groups.
One of the major effects of rapid urban growth is urban sprawl—scattered development that increases traffic, saps
local resources, and destroys open space. Urban sprawl is responsible for changes in the physical environment and
can also diminish the local character of the community. Small local businesses find it difficult to compete with larger
stores and restaurants. Some cities are trying to be proactive and establish measures aimed at fighting urban sprawl
by limiting construction and using innovative land-use planning techniques or community cooperation. One new
form of land use is called “smart growth” or “New Urbanism,” in which cities plan the communities’ growth in a
strategic way for livable and walkable neighborhoods.