Contemporary Human Geography

Chapter 13
Urban Patterns

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Chapter 13 Key Issues
13.1 Why are cities challenging to define? Defining Urban Settlements

13.2 Why are cities challenging to define? The Central Business District

13.3 Where are people distributed within a city? Models of Urban Structure

13.4 Where are people distributed within a city? Applying the Models in North America

13.5 How are cities outside North America structured? Structure of European Cities

13.6 How are cities outside North America structured? Urban Structure Models in
Developing Countries

13.7 How are cities outside North America structured? Changing Structure of Mexico City

13.8 How might cities become more sustainable? Sprawl

13.9 How might cities become more sustainable? Urban Transportation

13.10 How might cities become more sustainable? Challenges & Hopes for Cities

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13.1 Defining Urban Settlements (1 of 6)
• Definitions of Urban Settlements in the United States
– A municipality or central city (or simply city) is an urban settlement
that has been legally incorporated into an independent, self-governing
unit.
– A city has locally elected officials, the ability to raise taxes, and
responsibility for providing essential services.
– The city limits are often clearly delineated.

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13.1 Defining Urban Settlements (2 of 6)
• Definitions of Urban Settlements in the United States
– An urban area consists of a central city and its
surrounding built-up suburbs. The U.S. census recognizes
two types of urban areas:
▪ An urbanized area has at least inhabitants.
▪ An urban cluster has between 2,500 and inhabitants.
– As of 2010, there were 486 urbanized areas and 3,087
urban clusters in the United States.
– Approximately 70 percent of the U.S. population lived in an
urbanized area, and another 10 percent lived in an urban
cluster.

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13.1 Defining Urban Settlements (3 of 6)
• Definitions of Urban Settlements in the United States
– A metropolitan statistical area (MSA) includes an
urbanized area; the county within which the central
city is located; and adjacent counties with a high
population density and a large percentage of
residents work in the central city’s county.
– A micropolitan statistical area (  SA) includes an
urbanized area of between 10,000 and 50,000
inhabitants, the county in which it is located, and
adjacent counties tied to the city.

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13.1 Defining Urban Settlements (4 of 6)

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 13.1 Defining Urban Settlements (5 of 6)
• Megalopolis
– A megalopolis is a collection of adjacent or overlapping metropolitan areas that
merge into a continuous urban region.
– Geographer Jean Gottman applied the term Megalopolis (with an upper case
M) specifically to a continuous urban complex in the northeastern United States
that extends from Washington D.C. to Boston (BOSNYWASH).

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13.1 Defining Urban Settlements (6 of 6)
• Combining Metropolitan Areas
– A core-based statistical area (CBSA) is any one metro or micropolitan
statistical area.
– A combined statistical area (CSA) is two or more contiguous CBSAs
tied together by commuting patterns.

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13.2 The Central Business District (1 of 4)
• Downtown is known to geographers by the more precise term central
business district (CBD).
• The CBD is compact—less than 1 percent of the urban land area—but contains
a large percentage of the public, business, and consumer services.
• A CBD’s accessibility produces extreme competition for the limited available
land.

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13.2 The Central Business District (2 of 4)
• The CBD has distinctive features:
– Land uses commonly found elsewhere in the urban
area are rare in the CBD because rents can be
extremely high.
▪ Example: Modern factories require more land than
is common available in CBDs, so they do not
locate downtown.
– The CBD is three-dimensional, with more space used
below and above ground level than elsewhere in the
urban area.

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13.2 The Central Business District (3 of 4)

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 13.2 The Central Business District (4 of 4)
• Services in the CBD
– Public services that typically
located in a CBD include
government offices,
libraries, and museums.
– Business services cluster in
a CBD for accessibility.
– Consumer services that
appeal to nearby office
workers and residents have
expanded in the CBD, but
many other retailers have
closed their downtown
locations (where are they
now? Why?).

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 13.3 Models of Urban Structure (1 of 4)
• Concentric Zone Model
– According to the concentric zone model, created in
1923 by sociologist Ernest , a city grows
outward from a central area in a series of concentric
rings, like the growth rings of a tree.

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 13.3 Models of Urban Structure (2 of 4)
• Sector Model
– According to the sector
model, developed in 1939 by
land economist Homer Hoyt ,
a city develops in a series of
sectors.
– As a city grows, activities
expand outward in a wedge, or
sector, from the centre.
– Once a district with high-class
housing is established, the
most expensive new housing is
built on the outer edge of that
district.

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 13.3 Models of Urban Structure (3 of 4)
• Multiple Nuclei Model
– According to the multiple nuclei model, developed by geographers Chauncey
Harris and Edward Ullman in 1945, a city is a complex structure that
includes more than one center around which activities occur.
– A university node may attract well-educated residents, pizzerias, and
bookstores.

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 13.3 Models of Urban Structure (4 of 4)
• Galactic Model
– According to the galactic model (or peripheral model), developed by Harris in
1960, an urban area consists of a city surrounded by large suburban residential
and service nodes tied together by a beltway or ring road.
– In the galactic model, a node of consumer and business services around the
beltway is called an edge city.

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13.4 Applying the Models in North
America (1 of 4)
• Social Area Analysis
– The study of where people of varying living
standards, ethnic background, and lifestyle live
within an urban area is social area analysis.
– Effective application of the models depends on the
availability of data at the scale of individual
neighborhoods.
– Urban areas in the United States are divided into
census tracts that each contain approximately 5000
residents and correspond, where possible, to
neighborhood boundaries.

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 13.4 Applying the Models in North
America (2 of 4)
• Social Area Analysis: Concentric Zones
– The concentric zone model suggests that a newer house is
much more likely to be in an outer ring as compared to an
older house.

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 13.4 Applying the Models in North
America (3 of 4)
• Social Area Analysis: Sector & Multiple Nuclei
– The sector model suggests a low-income household and a high-income
household are likely living in different sectors of a city.
– The multiple nuclei model indicates that people with the same ethnic or
racial background are likely to live near each other.

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13.4 Applying the Models in North
America (4 of 4)
• Limitations of the Models
– None of the urban structure models taken individually
completely explains why different groups of people
live in distinctive parts of a city.
– Critics point out that the models are too simple and
fail to consider the variety of reasons that lead people
to select particular residential locations.

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 13.5 Structure of European Cities (1 of 5)
• CBDs in Europe
– Europe’s CBDs have a different mix
of land uses than those in North
America, stemming from the medieval
origins of many of Europe’s CBDs.
▪ The CBD of Paris covering 20
square kilometers has about
270,000 residents. A comparable
area around the CBD of Detroit
has 25,000 residents.
– Consumer services: more people live
in Europe’s CBDs in part because
they are attracted to the concentration
of consumer services, such as
cultural activities and animated
nightlife.

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13.5 Structure of European Cities (2 of 5)
• Public services: the most prominent structures in
Europe’s CBDs are often public and semipublic
services, such as churches and former royal palaces,
situated on the most important public squares.
• Many service providers wish to be in the centre of
European cities, but constructing new buildings is
difficult.

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 13.5 Structure of European Cities (3 of 5)
• Concentric Zones in London
– The urban structure
within London can
illustrate similarities and
differences in the
distribution of people
within U.S. and
European cities.
– Unlike U.S. urban areas,
much of the newer
suburban housing is in
high-rise apartments.
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 13.5 Structure of European Cities (4 of 5)
• Sectors & Nodes in London
– Similar to U.S. urban areas, higher-income people cluster in a
sector in the London region.
– In the past, Londoners with higher incomes built homes toward
the west, near royal palaces. Factories were built toward the east.

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 13.5 Structure of European Cities (5 of 5)
• Sectors & Nodes in London
– London has experienced a large increase in immigration from other regions of the
world. London’s ethnic groups have formed nodes in various parts of the city.

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 13.6 Urban Structure Models in
Developing Countries (1 of 4)
• Concentric Zones in Cities of Developing Countries
– The concentric zone model has been applied most frequently to cities in
developing countries.
▪ Example: de Blij’s model of sub-Saharan African cities
– As cities grow rapidly in developing countries, rings are constantly being added
on the periphery.

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13.6 Urban Structure Models in
Developing Countries (2 of 4)
• Informal Settlements
– Much of the housing in the outer rings is in informal
settlements (also known as squatter settlements),
which are residential areas where housing has been
built on land to which the occupants have no legal
claim or where housing has not been built to the city’s
standards for legal buildings.
– Informal settlements offer few services because
neither the city nor the residents can afford them.

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 13.6 Urban Structure Models in
Developing Countries (3 of 4)
• Sectors in Cities of
Developing Countries
– In Latin American
cities, wealthy people
push out from the
centre in a well-
defined elite
residential sector.
– The wealthy are
attracted to the centre
and spine because
services such as
water and electricity
are readily available
and reliable.
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 13.6 Urban Structure Models in
Developing Countries (4 of 4)
• Multiple Nuclei in Cities of Developing Countries
– Southeast Asian cities (Model by T.G. McGee) do not typically have a strong
CBD; instead, the various functions of the C BD are dispersed to several nodes.
– Cities in some developing countries show evidence of the multiple nuclei model
by containing a complex mix of ethnic groups.

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 13.7 Changing Structure of Mexico City (1 of 4)
• Precolonial Mexico City
– Mexico City (then known as Tenochtitlan) was founded by the Aztecs .
– The node of religious life for the Aztecs was the Templo Mayor (Great
Temple).
– Over the next two centuries, the Aztecs conquered the neighboring peoples
and extended their control through much of present-day Mexico.

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13.7 Changing Structure of Mexico City (2 of 4)
• Colonial Mexico City
– The Spanish conquered Tenochtitlan in 1521, and then
constructed a new city on the site.
– The Spanish built Mexico City around a main square, called the
Zocalo, and constructed streets in a grid pattern extending from
the Zocalo.

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 13.7 Changing Structure of Mexico City (3 of 4)
• Postcolonial Mexico City
– At independence, Mexico City was a relatively small city.
– The population has grown rapidly since then, with the population of the urban
area reaching 21 million.
– Rapid population growth has resulted in an expansion of the land area, including
the draining of a lake which allowed the city to expand to the north and east.

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 13.7 Changing Structure of Mexico City (4 of 4)
• Applying the Models of Urban Structure to Mexico City
– The character of Mexico City’s concentric zones differs from that of North
America.
– People with limited incomes live in informal settlements on the outskirts of the
city.
– Mexico City’s elite residential sector is toward the southwest, anchored by the
Paseo de la Reforma.

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13.8 Sprawl (1 of 7)
• A residential or commercial
area situated within an
urban area but outside the
central city is a suburb.
• In 1950, only 20 percent of
Americans lived in suburbs
compared to 40 percent in
cities.
• Today, around percent of
Americans live in suburbs.

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13.8 Sprawl (2 of 7)
• The percentage living in suburbs climbed rapidly after World War
two.
• Suburbs offered varied attractions: a single-family home, private land
surrounding the house, space to park cars, and a greater opportunity
for home ownership.
• Families with children were especially attracted to suburbs.

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 13.8 Sprawl (3 of 7)
• Density Gradient
– Traveling outward from
the center of a city, the
density at which people
lived traditionally
declined. This density
change in an urban area
is called the density
gradient.
– During the second half of
the twentieth century,
density increased on the
periphery through
construction of apartment
and townhouse projects
and diffusion of suburbs
across a larger area.

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 13.8 Sprawl (4 of 7)
• Sprawl
– The term sprawl describes the development of suburbs at relatively low
density and at locations that are not contiguous to the existing built-up
area.
– Sprawl is fostered in the United States by the desire of many families to
own large tracts of land and by private developers who recognize that
land for new housing sites is cheaper if not contiguous to the existing
built-up area.
– New developments are isolated, motorists must drive farther and
consume more fuel; agricultural land is lost.

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 13.8 Sprawl (5 of 7)
• Annexation and
Fragmentation
– Until recently in the United
States, as cities grew,
they expanded by adding
peripheral land. The
process of legally adding
land area to a city is
annexation.
– Local government in the
United States is extremely
fragmented.

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 13.8 Sprawl (6 of 7)
• Smart Growth
– The goal is to produce a
pattern of compact and
contiguous development and
protect rural land for
agriculture, recreation, and
wildlife.
– Legislation and regulations to
limit suburban growth and
preserve farmland is called
smart growth.
– Oregon and Tennessee have
defined growth boundaries
within which new
development must occur.
– The supply of land for the
construction of new housing
is more restricted in Europe.

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 13.8 Sprawl (7 of 7)
• New Urbanism:
o Developed in response to the
predominant residential trend
of twentieth-century
urbanism
o An architectural and planning
ideology that seeks to change
the urban landscape, return
to mixed use zoning and
mixed-income
neighbourhoods
o Focused on building
communities based on
pedestrian movement and
public transportation
rather than private vehicles,
encourage social interaction,
wide variety of housing
styles, driveways/garages in
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the back.
 13.9 Urban Transportation (1 of 4)
• Public Transport
– Historically, people lived in
cities because they had to
be within walking distance of
shops and places of
employment.
– The invention of the railroad
in the nineteenth century
enabled people to live in
suburbs and work in the
central city.
– Rush hour is the four
consecutive 15-minute
periods that have the
heaviest traffic. There has
been a sharp decline of
public transit ridership in the
United States since 1940.

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 13.9 Urban Transportation (2 of 4)

• Public Transport
Around the World
– Greater importance
is placed on public
transport globally
compared to the
United States

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 13.9 Urban Transportation (3 of 4)
• Benefits & Costs of Motor Vehicles
– 280 million of 1.4 billion motor vehicles worldwide are in the United States
– Motor vehicles offer two principal benefits:
▪ Comfort, choice, and flexibility
▪ Perceived cost
– Some U.S. cities have demolished freeways that once sliced through C BDs.

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 13.9 Urban Transportation (4 of 4)
• Transportation Epochs
– Transportation improvements have played a key role in the changing structure of
urban areas. Geographer John Borchert identified five eras of U.S. urban areas
resulting from changing transportation systems.
– Cities have prospered or suffered during the various epochs, depending on their
proximity to important resources and migration patterns.

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13.10 Challenges & Hopes for Cities (1 of 3)
• The City Challenged
– Those remaining in inner-city neighborhoods face a variety of distinctive
social and physical challenges that are very different from those facing
suburban residents.
▪ Examples: job skills, homelessness, family challenges, health &
safety challenges, and inadequate services.

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13.10 Challenges & Hopes for Cities (2 of 3)
• The City Renewed
– The process of converting an inner-city neighborhood from a
predominantly renter-occupied area inhabited by people with modest
incomes to a predominantly owner-occupied area inhabited by people
with relatively high incomes is called gentrification.

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13.10 Challenges & Hopes for Cities (3 of 3)
• Reviving Consumer Services
– Many consumer services have relocated from cities to suburbs
to be near suburban residents.
– Some consumer services are returning to the city for a variety of
reasons.

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Review Summary (1 of 2)
Key Issue 1 Urban settlements are defined in various
ways, including municipalities (or central cities), urban
areas, and metropolitan areas.
Key Issue 2 Four urban structure models help to explain
where different groups of people live in an urban area.
According to the concentric zone model, a city grows
outward in rings. According to the sector model, a city
grows along transportation corridors. According to the
multiple nuclei model, a city grows around several nodes.
The galactic or peripheral model is a variation of the
multiple nuclei model to account for suburban nodes.

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Review Summary (2 of 2)
Key Issue 3 The models of urban structure can also be used to
describe where people and activities are located within urban
areas in Europe and developing countries. As in North America,
high-income people in other regions of the world tend to cluster
in particular sectors of cities. Unlike North America, low-income
people are more likely to locate in the outer ring of cities
elsewhere in the world.
Key Issue 4 Cities have grown rapidly in land area, especially in
North America, where suburban sprawl is common. Most trips in
North America are taken in private motor vehicles. Public
transport is designed to move a lot of people into the C BD in the
morning and back to suburbs in the afternoon.

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