Definitions of the City: Feb 10
Urban Area: Having an area with land use which is irreversibly urban in nature.
- Majority of inhabitants depend on non-agricultural activities.
- Population density of over 400 people/sq. kilo
- Basic level of municipal government.
According to the US Census Bureau: Fully developed area of the city, adjacent build-up areas with a minimum population of 50,000.
Urban Cluster: Density settled territory that has at least 2,500 but fewer than 50,000
Rates of Urbanization:
- 1900: 13% 220M
- 1950: 29% 732M
- 2005: 49% 3.2B
- 2030: 60% 4.9B
- 2050: 66% 6B
93% of all urban growth will be in Africa and South America.
Urban Foot Print: The area affected by the existence of the city [food, water, energy, pollution, transportation systems].
- London: 125 times its surface area
- Vancouver: 200 times its geographical area
Global Foot Print: Draws from everywhere in the world [human, social, economic, etc].
- Decisions made by governments and corporations.
- Urban lifestyles and attitudes.
- Patterns of demand and production.
- Media and communication.
Urbanization: The process through which urban settlements grow and develop. This may proceed at different speeds in different ways.
According to David Harvey: streets, institutions, structures, power structures in which that community lives and by which it organizes itself.
Urbanism: Cultural impact of urban. The culture of a city is often hybrid, fusing a multiplicity of cultural forms, values, and lifestyles.
Counter Urbanism: a demographic and social process whereby people move from urban areas to rural areas.
Pseudo-urbanization: the condition in which a large city has been formed in an area without functional infrastructure to support it.
Suburb: Commonly defined as the residential areas which surround the central area of the urban area of a town or city.
Suburbs commonly characterized by:
- detached single-family homes.
- some suburbs have a degree of political autonomy
- lower population density than inner city areas/neighborhoods.
Commuter town: an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commute out of town to earn their livelihood. Many act as suburbs for nearby metropolis.
Edge City: an American term for a relatively new concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside of a traditional urban area in what had recently been a residential suburb or semi-rural community.
Exerb: describe a ring of prosperous communities beyond the suburbs that are commuter towns for an urban area.
Boomberg: Incorporated places having more than 100,000 residents that are not the largest cities in their metropolitan areas and have maintained double-digit rates of population growth over consecutive censuses.
Delocalization: Uproots activities and relationships from a sense of place, displacing those that might be considered local into a new arrangements that are distant or global [ie, Walmart].
Globalization: the process by which local or regional phenomenon is transformed into global phenomenon with the result that the people of the world are united into a shared set of perceptions or values or participate together in world-wide trends.
Gentrification: movement of affluent people into lower class areas.
- demographic shifts.
- rising level of family income
- decline in proportions of racial minorities.
- decrease in household size.
- rent, real estate, property taxes increase
- results in culture change.
Two models of urbanization discussed:
- Concentric Ring Model [richer people live further out, poorer families move in].
- Hoyt Sector Model
- Multiple Nuclei Model
