Urban Settlement Patterns

United States population distribution

The concentration of urban settlements in the United States is a lot
more evenly distributed than in Australia. When the United States
was first colonised by Europeans, the first part of the country to be
heavily urbanised was the eastern coastline – facing Europe. The first
major cities in America were Boston, New Amsterdam (New York
City) and Philadelphia. These were all port cities which shows the
importance of maritime trade at that time.

Due to the large number of new settlers and immigrants, people

started to follow the waterways and rivers inland and began moving westward. There were also large
portions of land allocated to new settlers, and as labour was scarce in the more remote areas there were
plenty of employment opportunities, which then attracted more people.

Agriculture prospered in many regions inland and the movement continued west. Natural resources such
as water, wildlife, oil, gas, and minerals were discovered inland as well, which provided industry and jobs.

Subsequently, there are many large urban areas spread out all over the United States of America, not just
the coastline. A common characteristic of the capital cities in the USA is a major river. For example, Austin,
the capital of Texas, lies on the Colorado River, and the capital of Iowa, Des Moines, lies at the juncture of
the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers.

Comparison to Australia
City River City River
Sydney Brisbane
Melbourne Perth
Adelaide Hobart
Canberra Darwin

Comparing urban settlement patterns of Australia and America

There are many historical factors that are common to both countries. We need to understand these
elements and analyse the reasons for their differences to predict future patterns of development. We
should first recognise that both nations were already settled by indigenous peoples who had been living on
the land in harmony with the environment for long periods of time.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples lived in Australia and tens of millions of Native Americans
lived in the USA. In both locations, the native peoples' lifestyle and sovereignty were not valued by the new
colonists, and were often seen to conflict with the goals of the new settlers.

Currently, similarities exist, such as:

 concentration of population in eastern states and east coast higher levels of coastal settlements
than inland
 significant inland regional centres that service surrounding areas
 lower population density in arid areas

The United States has a much larger population than Australia. Australia's average population density is
close to 2.9 inhabitants per square kilometre compared with 34 inhabitants per square for the United
States. Significantly, a higher proportion of Australians (75 per cent) live on or near the coast.

Internal migrations
Since the 1960s. Americans have migrated to the south and west to a group of states known as the
'Sun Belt' (includes Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico), seeking jobs, a
warmer climate and sometimes a lower cost of living. Hundreds of thousands of retirees have also settled
there. Internal migration is closely related to economic conditions. People will migrate to areas that have
job opportunities.

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The flight to the suburbs
Since the 1950s, there has been a shift in population away from America's inner cities to 'greenfield'
suburban development well beyond the outskirts of the city. As a result, urban areas have deteriorated.
Local governments in the United States are responsible for services such as schooling and policing.
An increasing number of middle-class taxpayers move to the greenfield suburbs, or exurban
regions, local authorities in urban areas are unable to raise sufficient taxes needed to fund such
services. This has resulted in a downward spiral of urban decay. As services decline and decay,
even more people flee.
This movement also has a racial dimension. The term 'white flight' has been used to describe the
large-scale migration from racially mixed inner cities to more racially homogeneous suburban
regions.

USA: Urban Settlement Pattern

North America's cities
Like Australia, the USA is among the most urbanised societies in the world. About 82 per cent of
the population of the United States of America live in urban areas. These areas occupy just 2 per
cent of the country's land surface.
The majority of urbanised residents are suburbanites; inner- city residents make up about 30 per
cent of the urbanised population (that is, about 60 million out of 210 million).
The distribution of urban concentrations in the United States is quite different from that in
Australia. The United States has a significant number of large, inland cities. Other than Canberra,

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Australia has none. The reasons for this have to do with the differences in topography and
climate.

The rise of the US city

At the time of the American Revolution (1775-83), only one person in twenty lived in a place with
a population greater than 2500. Over the course of the nineteenth century, however, the
landscape was transformed by the process of urbanisation.
Compared with Britain (and Australia), the United States has always been less urban.
In contrast to Britain and Europe, the US city system never developed a single, disproportionately
large, dominant city. It developed a more spread-out, or dispersed, network of large cities. Many
of these new cities were a product of the age of rail.
With few exceptions, all the cities west of the Mississippi River were established as the railways
spread to the west. While five of the ten largest cities in the United States had been established
before the coming of the railways, most of the national urban network of cities was built during
the era of rail transportation.
Other factors also played a role in the development of the network of cities. The development of
the mining industry was one of these. Denver, for example, provided important urban services to
its ranching hinterland. This, when combined with mining on the eastern slopes of the Rockies,
explains its rapid growth in the 1870s, even though the area was too dry for non- irrigated
agriculture.

Location of cities
In addition to the age of rail, a range of factors account for the existing pattern of urban
concentration in North America.

Climate and land use

More of the United States is suitable for agriculture than is the case in Australia. While the Great
Plains—which lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains—are classified as
semi-arid prairie grasslands, they are capable of supporting ranching and irrigation-based
agriculture.
The climate is one of extremes. Very cold and harsh winters are followed by very hot and humid
summers. East of the Mississippi River, population densities and rainfall increase. In the south, the
climate is milder, but hot and humid in summer. In the north, winters are harsh. Precipitation is
high enough to support more intensive forms of farming.

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Geography
The existence of navigable waterways, most notably the St Lawrence River, which links the Great
Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mississippi River, allow ocean-going vessels to travel some
distance inland. Cities such as Detroit and Cleveland thrived as a result of their access to the
Atlantic Ocean via the St Lawrence River.

History
The largest concentration of large urban centres is in the north-east of the country—the original
focus of European settlement. This region remains the most densely settled part of the United
States.

Governance
The United States comprises fifty states, each with its own capital city complete with all the
administrative functions associated with government. This approach to government has
contributed to the distribution of relatively large urban centres across the United States.

Changing urban populations

The urban population pattern of the United States is undergoing change. The country's industrial
cities are losing population while the service-based cities are expanding. Figure 6.8.2 shows that
while cities such as New York and Los Angeles are growing, others, including Chicago, Philadelphia
and Baltimore, are declining.

ACTIVITIES
Knowledge and understanding
1. Identify the parts of the United States that have experienced the fastest population growth.
Which have shown the slowest growth?
2. Account for the uneven pattern of growth.
3. State what the distribution of the US population has in common with that of Australia. In what ways
does it differ?
4. Account for the pattern of internal migration in the United States.
5. Describe the relationship between internal migration and economic conditions.
6 Explain how the movement of people in US cities could be described as having a racial dimension.
Geographical skills 7. Study the maps on page 2 and page 4.
Describe the relationship between precipitation and population distribution in the United States. Think of
reasons why this relationship exists.

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Factors influencing urban concentration
A comparison of the development of settlements in Australia and the United States reveals both similarities
and differences in a range of factors, including climate and topography, transportation networks and
perceptions of liveability.

Climate and topography

As mentioned earlier, the spatial distribution of urban areas in Australia tends to be along the coastline,
whereas in the United States the distribution is more even right across the country.

One of the major geographical differences between Australia and the United States is that the central
region of Australia is arid or semi- arid. The dry conditions discourage settlement inland, particularly as
agriculture would be difficult and there are fewer available water resources and rainfall is less dependable.

The coast generally has higher and more reliable rainfall, more fertile land and more immediate access to
transport, especially by sea, of course. In comparison, the United States has a network of rivers running
throughout the country as well as significant lakes, allowing access to fresh water for people and natural
irrigation for agriculture.

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Transportation networks and urban settlements
There are many factors that are important in the selection of a site for a permanent settlement. A very
important one is transportation, especially in regards to bringing goods such as food into the town and
taking any produce of the area out to the markets. Good transport options can make a town thrive and
prosper, while issues with transport can even cause a town to collapse.

Throughout Australia's history, the importance of towns has changed according to the efficiency and
reliability of transport. Similarly, in the United States, the settlement of the eastern coast and then the
slower movement west was influenced by transportation. Settlements were based as close to water as
possible — not just for survival, but also for access to transport. When Australia was first colonised, water
transport was the primary method of moving large quantities of goods around, both from England to the
colonies and inland on rivers. It was slow, but there were very few other options.

As roads began to be built, horses and bullocks pulling loads on carts were also used, but they still did not
compete with water for large haulage. This led to the development and expansion of river ports such as
Echuca on Murray River, which provided a regional depot for the area surrounding it. Goods could be
brought to Echuca for transport the larger cities or taken from Echuca back to the farmhouse.

As advances in overland transport options such as rail opened up in the second half of the twentieth
century, river ports began to decline in importance and size. River transport could not compete with the
speed and cost of rail transport for large amounts of freight.

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The rail system was not restricted to the rivers,
and could take goods to areas that had been
difficult to access.

The development of roads and the invention of

cars and trucks continued to make it easier to
move goods around the country, while the
development of 'road trains' made transport even
more efficient. These trucks, with their massive
engines, are able to pull several loads at once
across the continent. They can carry goods from
place to place, sometimes replacing trains in
carrying freight to ports for movement to international destinations.

Many ports around the country, such as Fremantle and the Port of Melbourne, have been revived by the
increased efficiency of the road transport network in Australia. They are also benefiting from an influx of
new residents, who are 'cashed up' and wanting to live in an historic area. These new residents are
changing the areas from being primarily industrial to having a more diversified economic base that includes
tourism, hospitality and recreation.

Perceptions of liveability
People constantly make judgements about the liveability of places, whether they could see themselves
living in a particular area. Perceptions of the liveability of a place certainly play a part in where urban areas
are concentrated.

Australia has four cities in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2015 top 10 most liveable cities in the world.
Melbourne (1st), Adelaide (equal 5th), Sydney (7th) and Perth (8th) interestingly, the United States' most
liveable city is Honolulu in Hawaii ranked 19th and Washington, DC, ranked 31st. The Economist claims that
North American cities have largely seen declines over the last few years in their liveability rankings.
Reasons given include escalations in crime rates in some locations, coupled with a number of incidences of
religious or politically motivated attacks. These have led to a degree of civil unrest. Major US cities like New
York (ranked the 55th most liveable city) are considered to have 'a wealth of recreational activities', but
suffer from higher levels of crime, congestion and public transport problems 'than would be deemed
comfortable'.

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CASE STUDY: LAS VEGAS
Geography and population

Las Vegas is located in an arid

desert basin surrounded by
mountains. Much or the
landscape is rocky and dusty.
The environment is dominated
by desert-like vegetation and the
area is subject to torrential flash
floods. The heat is an attraction,
especially for tourists from the
colder parts of North America.
With a population of just under two million, Las Vegas is one of the largest inland urban centres of the
United States of America. The city is an internationally renowned tourist destination, famous for its vast
casino-hotel-resort complexes and associated entertainment. The city's main entertainment precinct is
concentrated along a kilometre stretch of South Las Vegas Boulevard known as ‘the Strip’. Las Vegas is also
a major convention centre.
Year Clark County Change (%)
Origins and growth
Las Vegas was founded as a stopover for the pioneers population

traveling to the west, and became a railroad town in the early 1910 3321

twentieth century. In the state of Nevada legalised gambling. 1920 4859 46.30

This led to the development of casinos. Major developments 1930 8532 75.60

occurred in the 1940s, following the influx of scientists and 1940 16414 92.40
staff working on the Manhattan Project—the World War Il 1950 48289 194.20
research project that led to the development of the atomic 1960 127016 163.00
bomb. Las Vegas's growth has always been closely linked to 1970 273288 115.20
infrastructure. 1980 463087 69.50
Completed in the 1930s, the giant Hoover Dam provided Las 1990 741459 60.10
Vegas with the power and water needed to support the city's 2000 11375765 85.50
development. The construction of a highway to Los Angeles 2009 1902834 38.31
provided a link to one of the largest concentrations of people 2013 2028000 6.20
in the United States.
Las Vegas has experienced very rapid population growth since it was founded in 1905 (see table). In the
first decade of the twenty-first century, for example, Las Vegas's population grew by approximately 40 per

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cent. In the 1990s, it grew by more than 85 per cent. Forty-six per cent of the city's population work in
tourism-related jobs.

Tourism
Nearly 40 million people visit Las Vegas each year. Five million of these visitors travel there to attend the
19000 conventions held in the city annually. Sixteen per cent of the city's visitors are international tourists.
The casino and complex in Las Vegas by 1970 resulted in a rapid growth of airline connections and the
development of the convention business. By 2010, McCarran Airport ranked 22nd in the world for
passenger traffic, with 39 757 339 passengers passing through the terminal.
The airport ranked ninth in the world for aircraft movement, with over half a million take-offs and landings
The other advantage of Las Vegas is lots of hotel rooms. Nine of the top ten largest hotels in the world can
be found in Las Vegas. The availability of so many hotel rooms has resulted in the emergence of the
nation's largest convention business.
Gambling
Las Vegas is also a leading centre of gaming. Revenue from gambling now exceeds USS9.2 billion per year.
Las Vegas's initial advantage came from being home to the first large-scale gaming industry. Due to the
increase in gambling around the world, especially in Macau, China, Las Vegas, based firms are now major
suppliers of gambling expertise worldwide.

ACTIVITIES
Knowledge and understanding
1. State why Las Vegas is so well known internationally.
2. Outline the scale of the tourism and convention industry in Las Vegas.
3. Describe the geographical setting of Las Vegas.
4. Draw a timeline outlining the origins and stages of development at Las Vegas.

Geographical skills
5. Using the table provided, construct a line graph illustrating the population growth of Las Vegas from
1910 to 2009. In which decade was growth most rapid?

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