ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

LECTURE 9: URBANIZATION PROCESSES

Important to our discussion of urbanization is your ability to distinguish between the following processes;

1. Urbanization or centralization - the process of clustering
2. Suburbanization or decentralization - the process of sprawl into the periphery, the area we call the Rural-Urban Fringe.
3. Rejuvenation or Gentrification - this is the process of rebuilding decaying inner cities which occur as a result of suburbanization.

Geographers discuss urbanization as a process of migration (see lecture 4).  We use the concepts of push-pull factors to discuss any movement.  This way we can easily discriminate the causes of urban problems (pull factors to a city or suburb or push factors from the rural area or inner city) and propose appropriate solutions.  This is the basis for what we call Urban Planning, a dominant field in geography.  As we go through the description of each urban process, try to identify possible push and pull factors that stimulate such movement. 

A. CENTRALIZATION: 
Historically, and in other cultures, the city was valued as a place of culture, learning and development.  Americans since the 1960s have moved away from cities, taking refuge in the suburbs.  This may be a function of our dislike of cities having relocated from dirty, polluted, industrial cities in Europe and elsewhere, or this could also be a function of our American love for personal space, freedom and the importance we place upon private property. 

Historically, cities are indicators of economic development. They exist in rich agricultural areas, where abundant agricultural yields enable the specialization of labor (secondary, tertiary, quanternary and quniary).  The first cities in the world were established along fertile river valleys, such as Mahanjo Daro (est. 6500 BC) in the Indus Valley, Alexandria and Cairo in the Nile Valley, and Baghdad along the Tigris and Euphrates River Valleys.  These cities were small by current urban standards (approx. 125,000), but had technologies that many of our smaller cities today may lack, such as sanitation and irrigation facilities. 

According to Lewis Mumford, America's Guru of Urbanization, settlement first occurred in regions having one of the following characteristics;
    1. economic surplus
    2. a religious or sacred meaning - Mecca, Jerusalem, Rome...
    3. protection from invading forces - Paris (an island in the Seine River), Athens (an acropolis site, high on a hill), or even Manhattan (an island off the coast).

Further, once cities began to grow in size, Mumford argues that a strong, central government (most likely a king) was necessary to organize this entity.  Cities then reflect political power and economic status.  If you examined a list of the largest cities in the world in 1950, the most developed, cultured cities would be at the top; London, Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo, New York....
Cities became a symbol of economic development.  Their populations were engaged in specialized activities, such activities earned high incomes and required advanced education.  This lead to greater market demand, and higher order goods (Luxury items, such as Jaguars, Lotus...) that cannot be found in the less developed peripheries. 

Pulls to urban environments include: art, entertainment, education, diversity, consumption, status, jobs....

This type of centralization is illustrated in models of Latin American cities (figure 6.7, p. 288). An example this is Sao Paulo, which houses roughly two-thirds of Brazil's total population.   Geographers examine city models to locate important spatial patterns.  We examine two key elements:

Urban morphology - the buildings, and their uses.   For example, which buildings are at the center of the city? which are the tallest? What activities do they house?  This will show us what the people of this city value.   For example, if you look at most European cities, in the center of each city is the Cathedral, demonstrating the primary value of the city at its time of creation, and reflecting current values today (if they weren't religious, these buildings would be dismantled or used for another purpose).

Secondly, geographers examine the Functional Zonation of cities.  This includes transport networks and how they are organized (such as grid systems, or star patterns). 

These two elements can be illustrated in a graph or model of the city and allow us to see dominant urban processes.  For example, if you examine the Latin American city model, in the center is located the Central Business District (CBD) just as in most American cities.  But unlike American cities, surrounding the commercial district is the Zona Rosa or Zone of Elite Residential Housing.  These people place high value on living near the action, a walkable distance from cultural activities.  Further from the CBD, less status is placed upon these residential areas; the zone of maturity (older homes), the Zone of Accretion (squatter regions that have been incorporated into the city), and lastly, the Zone of Peripheral Settlement, where squatters housing or "lean-to's" are set up.  As you travel away from the CBD, one's access to transportation, sanitation and electricity are reduced.  In such cities, status declines as you travel away from the city center.  This is almost the exact opposite of American  city models.

B.DECENTRALIZATION
Personal mobility is highly valued in most developed societies.  And the mode of transport preferred or built by a society can determine that societies urban structure.   One geographer, Peter Muller wrote an article regarding the impact of transportation modes upon American cities.  In this article, Muller describes stages of urban evolution in American cities which reflect changing modes of transport.

Stage One: Walking/Horsecar Era (up to 1860s).  During this time the elite had access to the horse car which could travel about 8 miles per hour.    He begins with Burgess's concentric ring model (see page 286, figure 6.6).  What the concentric ring model illustrates is that Americans have preferred to live outside of the city since our industrialization began.  Since industries were loud and dirty, most Americans commuted to work on a daily basis.   According to Muller, the average travel time which was acceptable to most Americans was (and remains) 30-45 minutes each direction.  Therefore, status was associated with one's ability to get AWAY from the industrial CBD, the poor using their own feet as transport found housing close to the CBD. 

Stage Two: Electric Streetcar Era (1860-1920s).  This era is important to urban geographers because this type of transport provided inexpensive access to all inhabitants, and allowed for a more egalitarian form of settlement; all had access to leave the CBD.  During this time, the city structure became star-shaped, see inset map2.5 (top).  Due to the cost of building such infrastructure, the city built a network which created the most efficient use of space and also created a system which was the Least Cost to Consumer (recall chapter 4 and lecture 7).  Some cities which experienced large growth at this time, such as Chicago reflect this star pattern.   Concentric rings still surround the CBD, but transport lines direct growth along trolley corridors.  In Chicago, you can see tremendous ethnic clusters occur along such corridors.  Italian, Polish, Czech communities live in a sector;  the poorest still closest to the CBD, while those who have "made it" have moved out to the suburbs.  Elite during this time could still travel further than the working class.  They could leave their horse car at the rail terminal and travel further into the countryside to avoid the new congestion.  Does anyone see a similar pattern today?

Stage 3: Recreational Auto Era (1920 -1945) During this era the city experiences greater decentralization due to the movement of the wealthy (those who can afford a daily commute) into the periphery. Development occurs along transport lines, yet can reflect more of a concentric ring model than a sectoral model (with only a few transport corridors).   Housing in Portola Valley, Alpine Valley and suburbs such as Daly City and Atherton are good examples of wealthy commuting patterns during this time.  Families, such as the Folgers, invested the time to commute to a lush, green countryside estate.

Stage 4: Residential Auto Era also called the Freeway Era (1945 - ).   This era is characterized by the increase of autos as the personal mode of transport for the average American. Similar to the change in access experienced between Stage one and Stage two above, improvements in Highways and access roads enable the average American family to migrate to the suburbs.  Pull factors to these Bedroom Districts (individuals still work in the city and must commute) include; better schools, less crowding, clean air, cheaper single family homes, less cultural diversity, etc. Push factors from the city include almost the exact opposite of the pull factors; expensive housing, pollution, overcrowded schools, crime, homelessness, etc.  The movement to the suburbs also allowed for ethnic clustering and appeared to be the best place to raise a family.  The commute time still remained between 30-45 minutes each way (until you reach the 70s and 80s) thanks to the speed that a car could travel with freeway development. 

This sprawl effected the city structure as the inner city slowly began to decay.   Services, retail stores, etc realized that their market (middle class) had left and relocated near market demand.  This is easily demonstrated with the Multiple Nuclei Model (inset 2.5-bottom).  New centers of attraction; malls, hospitals, Lucky/Longs centers, gas stations, all located near the suburbs to capture the spending habits of commuters.  The tax base of single family homes also followed commuters providing quality education, police and  fire services in the suburbs, but reducing the taxes available for such services in the inner city.  

During the 1970s and 1980s, industries also began to relocate to the suburbs to locate healthy, young workers and cheap land for warehouse space. This further destroys the inner city, and creates what we call "edge cities".   Edge cities are different from bedroom districts due to the fact that they provide jobs to the suburbs. This reduces the commute to the central city and has actually stimulated "lateral commuting", where employees commute from one suburb to another suburb.  This is easily observable in Silicon Valley, as high tech industries began to develop in the suburbs due to cheaper location costs, and the typical commute today is from Mountain View to Sunnyvale or from Milpitas.

Stage 5: (my idea) High Tech Era (1990 -) This era is designed to stimulate your thoughts upon the effect that ISDN lines and working online may have upon our suburban sprawl.  Now that many people do not have to physically migrate to work daily, what will our cities begin to look like?  It would be nice if there were less pollution from commuting or more diverse transport (least cost to consumers) on the West Coast, but in reality, this will simply allow for greater decentralization.   While I lived in Mountain View, I knew many people who lived in the Foothills (Jamestown, Pinecrest, etc) who actually worked in Sunnyvale.  Since they only had to be at work a couple days a month, they could stand overcoming a greater distance.

C. REJUVENATION:
This is the process of rejuvenating the inner cities which have decayed through decentralization.  Often this problem seems too difficult to tackle.  In the most recent Newsweek, the very last page is a position paper critiquing Al Gore's attempt to stop suburban sprawl.  President Clinton mentioned the creation of "Smart Cities", a concept in your text, to combat the undesirable impacts which sprawl is having upon our communities (gangs, graffiti, pollution, destruction of agricultural land...).  This would require more planned development and recognition of the processes which create urban decay and suburbanization.  Rejuvenation attempts to pull the market back to the city (malls, retail space), increase the urban tax base (downtown yuppie housing), and provide job opportunities (industrial business parks). 

The importance of these three processes are to identify the relationships between transport, agricultural patterns, and human settlement patterns (urbanization, suburbanization and rejuvenation).  All of these processes are interrelated.   Markets and transportation affect our settlement patterns.  They also affect our agricultural patterns.  Seeing the correlations between chapters 4 through 7 is central to your answer to any essay question.