URBAN
GEOGRAPHY
Ms. Rose Marie Masongsong
G
U E
What is it?
• The study of how people use space in cities.
O
R G
• What is where? How are things arranged in relation to
each other?
B R Cities
A
A P
A city isn’t just a descriptive definition (it’s big with a
lot of people), it’s a functional one.
N H
That is, it’s defined by what it does , not just by what it
is.
Y It’s the center of business and culture in a given area.
G
U E
- Elements
- Suburbs
-Sub-urban
O
R G
- Touch the central city or touch
other suburbs that touch the
B
central city
R -Differing levels of development
– some residential, some
A
A P
commercial, some industrial.
- Exurbs
-Smaller units farther away from
N H the main city
- The city, the suburbs and the
Y exurbs make up the
metropolitan area.
G
U E Where do cities tend to develop? Why there? What
O
R G
factors spur urban development in certain places?
Here are a few:
- Water access
B R - Dry area
A - Easy access to building materials
A P
- Defensive position
- Fuel supply
N H - Food supply
- Travel intersections or bridge points
Y - Sheltered areas
G
U E Land-Use Patterns
How is the land used and for what?
O
R G
1. Residential
- Where people live/dwell – their homes.
B R 2. Industrial
- Where things are made, stored, or shipped
A
A P
- What sort of examples can you think of?
3. Commercial
N H - Private businesses and retail
Ex. Central Business District
Y -The locus of commercial activity in the city
- Expensive real estate
The Earliest Cities
The Earliest Cities
The Earliest Cities
Early cities arose in a number of regions, and are
thought to have developed for reasons of agricultural
productivity and economic scale.
Early cities developed in a number of regions, from
Mesopotamia to Asia to the Americas. The very first cities
were founded in Mesopotamia after the Neolithic
Revolution, around 7500 BCE.
The Earliest Cities
Early cities arose in a number of regions, and
are thought to have developed for reasons of
agricultural productivity and economic scale.
Early cities developed in a number of
regions, from Mesopotamia to Asia to the
Americas. The very first cities were founded in
Mesopotamia after the Neolithic Revolution,
around 7500 BCE.
Mesopotamian cities included Eridu, Uruk,
and Ur. Early cities also arose in the Indus
Valley and ancient China.
The Earliest Cities
Among the early Old World cities, one of
the largest was Mohenjo-daro, located in
the Indus Valley (present-day Pakistan); it
existed from about 2600 BCE, and had a
population of 50,000 or more.
In the ancient Americas, the earliest
cities were built in the Andes and
Mesoamerica, and flourished between the
30th century BCE and the 18th century BCE.
The civilization of the Indus River
at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa
arose at about 2500 BCE and
ended with apparent destruction
about 1500 BCE. It is uncertain
whether this civilization had its
roots in Sumer or Sumer had its
roots in this civilization.
Apparently the Indus civillization
was likely destroyed by the Indo-
European migrants from Iran, the
Mohenjo -Daro and Harappa Aryans.
The Earliest Cities
Ancient cities were notable for their geographical
diversity, as well as their diversity in form and
function. Theories that attempt to explain ancient
urbanism by a single factor, such as;
- economic benefit,
- fail to capture the range of variation documented
by archaeologists.
Excavations at early urban sites show that some
cities were sparsely populated political capitals, others
were trade centers, and still other cities had a primarily
religious focus.
The Earliest Cities
Some cities had large dense populations, whereas
others carried out urban activities in the realms of
politics or religion without having large associated
populations.
Some ancient cities grew to be powerful capital
cities and centers of commerce and industry, situated
at the centers of growing ancient empires.
Examples include Alexandria and Antioch of the
Hellenistic civilization, Carthage, and ancient Rome
and its eastern successor, Constantinople (later
Istanbul).
Hellenistic Civilization
Why did cities form in the first place?
There is insufficient evidence to assert what conditions gave rise to
the first cities, but some theorists have speculated on what they
consider pre-conditions and basic mechanisms that could explain the
rise of cities.
◎Agriculture is believed to be a pre-requisite for cities, which help
preserve surplus production and create economies of scale. The
conventional view holds that cities first formed after the Neolithic
Revolution, with the spread of agriculture.
The advent of farming encouraged hunter-gatherers to abandon
nomadic lifestyles and settle near others who lived by agricultural
production. Agriculture yielded more food, which made denser
human populations possible, thereby supporting city development.
Why did cities form in the first place?
Farming led to dense, settled populations,
and food surpluses that required storage and
could facilitate trade. These conditions seem
to be important prerequisites for city life.
Many theorists hypothesize that agriculture
preceded the development of cities and led to
their growth.
A good environment and strong social
organization are two necessities for the
formation of a successful city.
Why did cities form in the first place?
A good environment includes clean water
and a favorable climate for growing crops and
agriculture.
A strong sense of social organization helps
a newly formed city work together in times of
need, and it allows people to develop various
functions to assist in the future development
of the city (for example, farmer or merchant).
Without these two common features, as well
as advanced agricultural technology, a newly
formed city is not likely to succeed.
Why did cities form in the first place?
Cities may have held other advantages, too.
For example, cities reduced transport costs for goods, people, and
ideas by bringing them all together in one spot. By reducing these
transaction costs, cities contributed to worker productivity.
Finally, cities likely performed the essential function of
providing protection for people and the valuable things they were
beginning to accumulate. Some theorists hypothesize that people
may have come together to form cities as a form of protection
against marauding barbarian armies.
The Earliest Cities
Pre Industrial
Cities
Cities as Political Centers
While ancient cities may have arisen organically as
trading centers, preindustrial cities evolved to become well
defined political units, like today’s states. During the
European Middle Ages, a town was as much a political
entity as a collection of houses.
However, particular political forms varied. In continental
Europe, some cities had their own legislatures. In the Holy
Roman Empire, some cities had no other lord than the
emperor.
Cities as Political Centers
In Italy, medieval communes had a state-like power. In
exceptional cases like Venice, Genoa, or Lübeck, cities
themselves became powerful states, sometimes taking
surrounding areas under their control or establishing
extensive maritime empires.
Similar phenomena existed elsewhere, as in the case of
Sakai, which enjoyed a considerable autonomy in late
medieval Japan.
Cities as Political Centers
For people during the medieval era, cities offered a
newfound freedom from rural obligations.
City residence brought freedom from customary rural
obligations to lord and community (hence the German
saying, “Stadtluft macht frei,” which means “City air
makes you free”).
Often, cities were governed by their own laws, separate
from the rule of lords of the surrounding area.
Trade Routes
Not all cities grew to become major urban centers. Those
that did often benefited from trade routes—in the early
modern era, larger capital cities benefited from new trade
routes and grew even larger.
While the city-states, or poleis, of the Mediterranean and
Baltic Sea languished from the 16th century, Europe’s
larger capitals benefited from the growth of commerce
following the emergence of an Atlantic trade.
Trade Routes
Trade Routes
By the early 19th century, London had become the
largest city in the world with a population of over a
million, while Paris rivaled the well-developed regional
capital cities of Baghdad, Beijing, Istanbul, and Kyoto.
But most towns remained far smaller places—in 1500
only about two dozen places in the world contained more
than 100,000 inhabitants.
The Earliest Cities
Industrial Cities
Industrial Cities
During the industrial era, cities grew
rapidly and became centers of population
and production. The growth of modern
industry from the late 18th century onward
led to massive urbanization and the rise of
new, great cities, first in Europe, and then
in other regions, as new opportunities
brought huge numbers of migrants from
rural communities into urban areas.
Industrial Cities
Rapid growth brought urban problems, and industrial-
era cities were rife with dangers to health and safety.
Rapidly expanding industrial cities could be quite deadly,
and were often full of contaminated water and air, and
communicable diseases.
Living conditions during the Industrial Revolution
varied from the splendor of the homes of the wealthy to the
squalor of the workers.
Industrial Cities
Poor people lived in very small
houses in cramped streets. These
homes often shared toilet facilities, had
open sewers, and were prone to
epidemics exacerbated by persistent
dampness. Disease often spread
through contaminated water supplies.
Industrial Cities
In the 19th century, health conditions improved with better
sanitation, but urban people, especially small children,
continued to die from diseases spreading through the
cramped living conditions.
Tuberculosis (spread in congested dwellings), lung diseases
from mines, cholera from polluted water, and typhoid were
all common. The greatest killer in the cities was tuberculosis
(TB). Archival health records show that as many as 40% of
working class deaths in cities were caused by tuberculosis.
Industrial Cities
The Structure of
Cities
