Chapter 10 Cities and Urban Economies

• Relation between urban growth and capitalist development

• Central place theory

• Economic base model

• Housing markets in urban areas

• Gentrification processes & poverty

• The development of global cities

Town Plan in Old

Savannah

Savannah was the cotton capital of theSouth in the early19th Century.

The first steampowered ship tocross the Atlantic went from Savannah to Liverpool in about 1830.

Today the waterfrontis offices andtourist facilities

Urban Division of Labor

• Central Business Districts to urban peripheries

• Residential Location Decisions• Filtering Model of Housing – Fig 10.7 –

alternative mechanisms for price rises• Population Density Gradients• Alternative Patterns of Urban

Development: concentric rings, sectors, and multi-nuclei

Burgess + Harris and Ullman’s Land Use Models

An Example of the Sector Model

Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis: Adams Model

SStage I: Pre Electric Trolley

Stage II: Electric Streetcars

Stage III: Automobile Era

Stage IV: High-speed expressways to distant suburbs

BUT

Not all cities have beenThrough all these phases!

Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis: Erickson’s Model

Location Rents in Urban Areas

Distance from Center

Location

R

ent

Commercial

Industrial

Residential

Agricultural

Filtering Model Of Housing

Regional Housing Price Differences

Current Housing Price Dynamics ?

Q

$S

S

D1

D1

D2

D2

P1

P2

Q1Q2

Typical Population Density Gradients

Rethinking mix ofHousing and commercialActivity in central cities

Urban Growth BoundaryUnder Growth ManagementAct to limit sprawl

Land Rent Complexities due to multiple-nuclei in urban areas

Sprawling Metropolis: Patterns and Problems

• Classic models of urban land use are problematic in the automobile era

• Suburbs fueled by population explosion in cities (immigrants) + filtering of settlement (Tiebout processes)

• The suburban development syndrome: Fig. 10.8 + low mortgage interest rates + federal housing loan guarantees + tax benefits for household ownership + cheap land + low cost transportation + highway subsidies

Consequence: A Shifting Pattern of Settlement

Rise ofEdgeCities

Warf’s Exurban Sprawl

Not all are “vast conurbations with millions of people apiece”

Gentrification

• Gentrification in housing – reversing (to some extent) the suburban flight – related to changing family structure (esp. multiple workers) and to changing employment structure (esp. advanced services)

• Gentrification in buildings – rise of advanced services with a preference for inner city locations – recycled spaces

American City Problems• Some aspects of this section are hard to appreciate here

in the Puget Sound area• Table 10.1 – documenting central city population decline,

Figure 10.12 depicts the downward spiral of resources fueling urban decay

• The rise of inner-city ghettos and strong concentrations of African American families caught in a cycle creating an underclass, marked by low wages, poor housing, poor schools, lack of health care and high crime rates

• The text emphasizes African Americans, but similar situations exist for other groups, including Hispanic, eastern European and Russian, Southeast Asian, African immigrants

• Hurricane Katrina revealed the depth of these problems in New Orleans and the weakness of social programs to help the poor

Fig 10.12Are we in

this slide nownationally

?

Migration Streams 1920’s to 1940’s: What about today?

Poverty Rates in the United States

The Spatial Mismatch Principle

• Skills of many inner city residents do not match up well to inner city job opportunities

• Job opportunities for these people tend to be better in suburbs

• Costs to commute to these jobs are high for poorer people (reverse commuting)

• But barriers in hiring lead to discouraged workers and dropout from the labor force

The Global Cities Argument

• A shift of scale: from the regional to the national and then to the GLOBAL

• Bases of the concept of global cities– Global corporate structures– New York, London, and Tokyo as key centers

of power– The decentralization of production and the

diffusion of corporate control centers– Criteria for Fig. 10.21? Western hemisphere

looks fine to me, but Eastern hemisphere has some problems

Global Cities – Do You Buy this Hierarchy?

The explosion of major urban areas

Chapter 10: Summary Comments

• Cities are a key product of the industrial revolution and the development of capitalist economies

• Trade between city-regions is the basis of the global economy

• People work in cities in spaces that are unequal, and have rewards that are unequal

• Cities dominate the planet’s economy, and are of critical importance in processes of social and economic development