Urban Geography More than half the world’s population now lives in cities. Reminder: Central Place Theory • Services cluster in settlements. • The range of a service varies with the service. • The number of peeps needed to patronize a service is the threshold. • And, each service, and by extension settlement (be it a town or city) has a market area or hinterland. Gravity Model- market area analysis. Where to locate a service. • Predicts that the optimal location for services is directly related to the number of people in an area and the distance they must travel to access the service. • In the graph: 1400 people who live 0 kilometers from the service will frequent while close to zero people at 50 km. • (Remember some services have greater ranges than others) Rank Size Rule • In most developed countries, if settlements are ordered from largest to smallest by population, the country’s nth largest city is 1/n the population of the largest settlement. • Huh? • The 2nd largest city is ½ the size of the biggest city • The 3rd largest city is 1/3 the size of the biggest • The 15th largest city is 1/15 the biggest city That’s fun. Who cares? Well if there is a regular pattern, it means services are pretty evenly distributed to most citizens. Primate Cities • Not all countries follow the rank-size rule. Some have primate cities. A primate city is one in which the largest settlement has more than twice the people of the next biggest settlement. • This means services are clustered in one city and there is not enough wealth to pay for all the necessary services. Folks have to travel long distances to patronize certain services (esp high end consumer and professional services) Rank-size or primate? • Mexico (metro areas) – Mexico City: 20,137,152 – Guadalajara: 4,434,252 – Monterrey: 4,106,054 – Puebla: 2,728,790 – Toluca: 1,936,126 Primate Rank-Size or Primate? • Japan (just municipality): – Tokyo: 8,949,477 – Yokohama: 3,689,603 – Osaka: 2,666,371 – Nagoya: 2,263,907 – Sapporo: 1,914,434 Rank size (ish) Rank size or primate? • USA (2012): – NY, NY: 8,336,697; – LA, CA: 3,857,799; – Chicago: 2,714, 856 – Houston, TX: 2,160,821 – Philly: 1,5,47,607 – Phoenix, AZ: 1,488,750 – San Antonio, TX: 1,382,951 – San Diego, CA: 1,338,348 – Dallas, TX: 1,241,162 – San Jose, CA: 982,765 Rank Size Rank-size or Primate? • United Kingdom: – London: 8,294,058 – Birmingham: 2,293,099 – Manchester: 1,741,961 – Liverpool: 830,112 – Leeds: 750,700 – Sheffield: 551,800 Rank size or Primate? • China: – Shanghai: 27,965,403 – Beijing: 19,785,051 – Tianjin: 10,290,987 – Chengdu: 9,209,393 – Guangzhou: 8,525,000 – Wuhan: 7,297,141 Who the hell knows? Rank-size or primate? • Turkey (2009): – Istanbul: 12,829,960 – Ankara: 4,306,105 – Izmir: 3,276,815 – Bursa: 1,854,285 – Adana: 1,563,545 Primate Rank-size or primate? • Egypt: – Cairo: 7,734,614 – Alexandria: 3,811,516 – Giza: 2,443,203 – Port Said: 538,378 – Suez: 488,125 Eh…rank size at first…primate as it goes on. This has to do with the highly clutered nature of Egypt’s population- they’re all on the Nile or along the coast of the Red Sea. Periodic markets • At the lowest end of the central place hierarchy are periodic markets: temporary gatherings where vendors sell goods & services. • After the market day, they move to another location – Bazaars in some Muslim countries-one day/one city, except Friday (prayer) – Farmer’s markets in developed countries Global Cities • “Global cities” are closely integrated into the world economy and ranked as alpha, beta, or gamma level cities based on the number of MNC headquarters, professional services (lawyers, bankers, financiers), political factors like power, cultural institutions, and major infrastructure projects like airports and hospitals. Distribution of Talent • Talented people (higher education, special skills) tend to cluster in more culturally diverse cities not because of economic prospects. Global cities con’t • Global cities also have more consumer services. – For example, London & New York have more theater productions than almost the rest of their respective countries combined – More luxury & specialty retail stores than could be supported by the local population (larger market area) • For example, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porches, in Hong Kong Business Services in developing countries • Business services in developing countries- offshore financial services (banks). Many states or colonies (esp of UK) offer low taxes and total privacy to account holders, making them attractive tax shelters (Cayman Islands, Switzerland, Cyprus, etc.) • Back-office processing (includes accounting, payroll, clerical activities, call centers). These are the guys in India you talk to when your computer doesn’t work. Lower wages and improvements in communication technology means these functions can be moved to LDC’s. Key: ability to speak English. Why do services cluster in settlements? • 2 Types of Rural Settlements: – Clustered Rural Settlement: agriculturally based community in which families live close together with fields surrounding buildings (hamlet/village) • Common in colonial America New England American clustered – Dispersed rural settlement. Buildings clustered around a central “common.” These colonists came settlement: farmers living in large homogenous groups, so the on individual farms, cluster makes sense. isolated from neighbors. Clustered Rural Settlements • Circular rural settlements: central open space, surrounded by structures Kraal Village, Kenya French “long lots” along St. Lawrence River in • Linear rural Quebec, Canada settlements: fields extend beyond homes in long lines and provide access to road or river Dispersed Rural Settlements • MidAtlantic & Midwest. Colonists came in tiny groups, so settlements were consequently smaller. • In the UK, the dispersed settlements were forcibly consolidated into clustered settlements between 1750 and 1850 in the enclosure movement. This made farming more efficient, but ended up evicting farmers who ended up moving to cities to work in factories. History of urbanization • Agricultural Revolution leads to permanent settlements • Jericho in Jordan & Catal Huyuk in Turkey host about 6,000 peeps 8,000 BC • Large urban areas emerge in Mesopotamia: Ur, Babylon, Sumer, etc. • Urbanity diffuses to Egypt, India, and China OR evolves independently from 3,000-2000 multiple hearths BC • More sophisticated urban settlements in the city states of Troy, Mycenae (Greece), Athens- larger population, market area, more services (like theater) 2500 BC- • Romans launch big time urbanization. Found lots of new cities based on 400’s AD trade- Rome, London, Barcelona, Paris, etc. Rome=1 million peeps? History of Urbanization con’t • Roman Empire falls, major urban centers decline as trade declines 400s AD- • Major urban areas in China & India, several reaching over 1 million peeps 1200’s AD • Medieval lords expand urban areas to bolster their armies. • These new urban dwellers went about reestablishing trade networks based on surpluses from the countryside 1200’s - • Urban areas grew with more sophisticated market squares, large churches, 1500’s palaces, and defensive walls. Churches usually dominate the skyline. • With Industrial Revolution, London became most populous city in the world, 1800’s- then New York, now its Tokyo (32 million in the metro area) Present Urbanization: process in which urban settlements grow • Two patterns: – Increasing percent of people in urban settlements. • Developed countries-3/4 population lives in urban areas. Developing countries – 2/5 live in urban areas. Urbanity reflects a more developed society that has undergone industrialization and shift to tertiary economies. – Increasing number of people in urban settlements. • Raw numbers of urban inhabitats is higher in developing countries- 7 of 10 most populous cities are in LDC’s (Cairo, Delhi, Jakarta, Manila, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Shanghai) Central Business District: CBD • “Downtown;” usually the historic heart of the city & often on the water • Usually the center of the city- most easily accessible point to the rest of the city • Pretty small- about 1% total urban area • Large portion of public, business, and consumer services • Seldom high residential or industrial use Land competition in CBD • Zoning- lots of cities and counties zone land for residential, commercial, or industrial use. This should help keep residential areas free of harmful pollution and traffic. It has side effects: – Business owners must find more expensive commercial land – Difficult to rezone once industry moves on – Causes segregation and high prices in some areas • Bid rent theory- assumes that residential, commercial, and industrial interests will compete for land in the CBD Bid Rent Theory • A confusing-looking way of saying that the closer to the CBD you get, the higher the demand for land, and hence rent is more expensive – For retailing, the rent is highest at the CBD, then commercial, then apartments, then single houses. – Firms and households make decisions based on Central Place & Weber’s Theory on where to locate. Bid-rent, another way A word on population density • It’s relative- population density in suburbs is “low density” when compared with inner city. • High population density: inner cities (Manhattan- 27,345.9/km2; New York- 10650/km2; Hong Kong- 6,380/km2; Mexico City- 6,000/km2; Tokyo-6,000/km2) • Highest population density: Manila, Philippines- 42,857/km2 • Medium population density: suburbs, low rise apartments (Beijing- 1300/km2; Fairfax County, VA: 1,066/km2;