1. Models of Urban Structure
Cities exhibit functional structure
Central business district (CBD)
Central city
Suburb
North American cities?
3 models

2. Louis Wirth Urban Settings Have 3 Characteristics:
1. Large size: Won’t know most people living in a city.
2. High Density: each person has a role essential for the urban system to function smoothly, people compete for survival in limited space.
3. Social Heterogeneity:
-people pursue an unusual profession
-people pursue a different sexual orientation
-people pursue cultural interests

3. Urban Physical Characteristics
Legal Boundary: A city is an urban settlement that has legally been incorporated into an independent, self-governing unit.
2. Continuously Built up Area: An urbanized area is a central city plus its contiguous built-up suburbs, pop exceeds 1000 persons per sq. mile.

4. 3. Functional Area: zone of influence extends beyond legal boundaries and adjacent built-up jurisdictions
METROPOLITAN STATISITICAL AREA (MSA)-
-central city with a pop of 50,000
-county within which the city is located
-adjacent counties with a high pop density and a large % of residents working in the central city.
Smaller urban areas are called MICROPOLITAN STATISTICAL AREA 10,000-50,000
Some MSAs overlap and this is called a megalopolis: BOSWASH CORRIDOR
-southern California German Ruhr
-southern Great Lakes Japan’s Tokaido
-Rabdstad in the Netherlands

5. 4. A city has more functional specialization than a town and a larger hinterland and greater centrality. - a well-defined commercial center -a central business district -suburbs (subsidiary urban areas surrounding and connected to the central city.) Many suburbs are residential but some have their own commercial centers or shopping malls.

6. non-residential activities
Concentric Zone Model: A city grows outward from a central area in a series of concentric rings Use census tracts, 5,000 people in neighborhood boundaries. These tell us where people tend to lives.
E.W. Burgess
non-residential activities
Industry & poorer quality housing (immigrants new to the city live here 1st)
Stable working class
Middle class

7. Sector Model: Homer Hoyt
A city grows in a series of sectors. Certain areas are more attractive to certain activities, by environmental factors, or by chance. As a city grows, activities expand in sectors out from the CBD. Industrial and retailing are in sectors by good transportation lines.

8. Multiple Nuclei: C.D. Harris and E.L. Ulman
A city is a complex structure that includes more than one center around which activities revolve. Some activities are attracted to particular nodes while others avoid them. Ex: Airport=hotels & warehouses Ex: University=well-educated residents, book stores and pizza joints.

9. Modeling the North American City
Urban realms
Early post-war period, reduced interaction between the central city and suburban cities
Outer cities became more self-sufficient

10. Models of Urban Structure
Outer city growth since 1960s
By 1973, American suburbs surpassed central cities in total employment
Outer cities = “edge cities”
Equal partners in city shaping processes
Industrial factories and complexes
Hotels
Amusement parks
Malls
Tyson’s Corner

11. Modeling the Modern Latin American City
Law of the Indies 1575
Latin American cities were designed after European cities, explorers came from Portugal and Spain
Centered on a church and central plaza

12. Squatter Cities

13. Characteristics of Squatter Cities
Housing materials are collected from available resources: corrugated tin
Little sanitation
No running water
No Cooking facilities
Illegal hookup to electricity, if any
No political voice
Lack of social services

14. Spatial distribution of Squatter Cities
On the periphery of the cities in LDCs around the world.
In Europe and Latin America the rich choose to live in the culturally-rich inner city, the opposite is sometimes true in North American cities

15. Ted Talks on Squatter Cities

16. Modeling the Modern Southeast Asian City

17. Modeling the Modern Subsaharan African City

18. Resources
De Blij, Harm, J. (2007). Human Geography People, Place and Culture. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Domosh, Mona, Neumann, Roderic, Price, Patricia, & Jordan-Bychkov, The Human Mosaic, A Cultural Approach to Human Geography. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
Fellman, Jerome, D., Getis, Arthur, & Getis, Judith, Human Geography, Landscapes of Human Activities. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Pulsipher, Lydia Mihelic and Alex M. and Pulsipher, World Regional Geography, Global Patterns, Local Lives. W.H. Freeman and Company New York  
Rubenstein, James M. (2008). An introduction to human geography The cultural
landscape. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Benewick, Robert, & Donald, Stephanie H. (2005). The State of
China Atlas. Berkeley: University of California Press.