Transcript How are Cities Organized, and How do they Function?

Key Question:
How are Cities Organized, and
How do they Function?
Urban
Morphology
The layout of a city, its
physical form an
structure.
Berlin, Germany
With wall (above)
And without wall (right)
What does the urban
morphology of the city tell
us about the city?
Functional
Zonation
The division of the city
into certain regions
(zones) for certain
purposes (functions).
Cairo, Egypt
Central city (above)
Housing projects (right)
What does the functional
zonation of the city tell us
about the city?
Zones of the City
• Central business district (CBD)
• Central City (the CBD + older housing zones)
• Suburb (outlying, functionally uniform zone
outside of the central city)
Modeling the North American City
• Concentric zone model (Ernest Burgess)
• Sector model (Homer Hoyt)
• Multiple Nuclei Model
(Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman)
Three Classical Models of Urban Structure
Concentric zone model
• A model with five zones.
– Zone 1
• The central business district (CBD)
• Extension of trolley lines had a lot to do with this
pattern)
- Zone 2
• Characterized by mixed pattern of industrial and
residential land use
• Often includes slums and skid rows, many ethnic
ghettos began here
• Usually called the transition zone
Concentric zone model
• A model with five zones.
– Zone 3
• The “workingmen’s quarters”
• Solid blue-collar, located close to factories of zones 1
and 2
• More stable than the transition zone around the CBD
• Often characterized by ethnic neighborhoods — blocks
of immigrants who broke free from the ghettos
• Spreading outward because of pressure from transition
zone and because blue-collar workers demanded better
housing
Concentric zone model
• A model with five zones.
– Zone 4
• Middle class area of “better housing”
• Established city dwellers, many of whom moved
outward with the first streetcar network
• Commute to work in the CBD
– Zone 5
• Consists of higher-income families clustered together in
older suburbs
Concentric zone model
• Theory represented the American city in a
new stage of development
– Before the 1870s, cities such as New York had
mixed neighborhoods where merchants’ stores
and sweatshop factories were intermingled with
mansions and hovels
– Rich and poor, immigrant and native-born, rubbed
shoulders in the same neighborhoods
Concentric zone model
• In Chicago, Burgess’s home town, the great
fire of 1871 leveled the core
– The result of rebuilding was a more explicit social
patterning
– Chicago became a segregated city with a
concentric pattern
– This was the city Burgess used for his model
– The actual map of the residential area does not
exactly match his simplified concentric zones
Concentric Zone Model
Sector model
• Maintained high-rent districts were
instrumental in shaping land-use structure of
the city
• Because these areas were reinforced by
transportation routes, the pattern of their
development was one of sectors or wedges
Sector model
• As high-rent sectors develop, areas between them are filled in
– Middle-rent areas move directly next to them, drawing on their
prestige
– Low-rent areas fill remaining areas
– Moving away from major routes of travel, rents go from high to low
• There are distinct patterns in today’s cities that echo Hoyt’s
model
• He had the advantage of writing later than Burgess — in the
age of the automobile
Sector Model
Sector model
• Today, major transportation arteries are
generally freeways
– Surrounding areas are often low-rent districts
– Contrary to Hoyt’s theory
– Freeways were imposed on existing urban pattern
– Often built through low-rent areas where land was
cheaper and political opposition was less
Multiple nuclei model
• The CBD was not the sole generator of change
• Rooted their model in four geographic principles
– Certain activities require highly specialized facilities
• Accessible transportation for a factory
• Large areas of open land for a housing tract
– Certain activities cluster because they profit from mutual association
– Certain activities repel each other and will not be found in the same
area
– Certain activities could not make a profit if they paid the high rent of
the most desirable locations
Latin American model
• More complex because of influence of local
cultures on urban development
• Difficult to group cities of the developing
world into one or two comprehensive models
Latin
American
City
(GriffinFord
model)
Latin American model
• In contrast to today’s cities in the U.S., the CBDs of Latin
American cities are vibrant, dynamic, and increasingly
specialized
– A reliance on public transit that serves the central city
– Existence of a large and relatively affluent population closest to CBD
• Inner-city zone of maturity
– Less prestigious collection of traditional colonial
homes and upgraded self-built homes
– Homes occupied by people unable to participate
in the spine/sector
– Area of upward mobility
Latin American model
• Inner-city zone of maturity
– Less prestigious collection of traditional colonial
homes and upgraded self-built homes
– Homes occupied by people unable to participate
in the spine/sector
– Area of upward mobility
Latin American model
• Zone of accretion
– Diverse collection of housing types, sizes, and
quality
– Transition between zone of maturity and next
zone
– Area of ongoing construction and change
– Some neighborhoods have city-provided utilities
– Other blocks must rely on water and butane
delivery trucks for essential services
Latin American model
• Zone of peripheral squatter settlements
– Where most recent migrants are found
– Fringe contrasts with affluent and comfortable
suburbs that ring North American cities
– Houses often built from scavenged materials
– Gives the appearance of a refugee camp
Latin American model
• Zone of peripheral squatter settlements
– Surrounded by landscape bare of vegetation that
was cut for fuel and building materials
– Streets unpaved, open trenches carry wastes,
residents carry water from long distances,
electricity is often “pirated”
– Residents who work have a long commute
– Many are transformed through time into
permanent neighborhoods
Edge Cities
Suburban downtowns,
often located near key
freeway intersections,
often with:
- office complexes
- shopping centers
- hotels
- restaurants
- entertainment
facilities
- sports complexes
Urban Realms Model
Each realm is a separate
economic, social and
political entity that is
linked together to form
a larger metro
framework.
Modeling the Cities of the Global Periphery and
Semiperiphery
• Latin American City (Griffin-Ford model)
• African City (de Blij model)
• Southeast Asian City (McGee model)
Latin
American
City
(GriffinFord
model)
Disamenity sector – very poorest parts of the city
eg. the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The African
City
(de Blij
model)
Southeast
Asian City
(McGee
model)
Employing the concepts defined in this
section of the chapter, draw a model of the
city with which you are most familiar. Label
each section of the city accordingly. After
reading through the models described in this
section, determine which model best
corresponds to the model you drew and
hypothesize why it is so.