lecture 23 Rural urban geography

Learning outcomes 

be familiar with types of rural space

be familiar with types of urban space

Three core concepts:

Place, Gentrification- dependence, Rights

 Humans are a social being

A human settlement

»is a physical identity of a social unit, or community
- how do we like to express ourselves?

»bears the socio-cultural hallmarks of a society
- how do we design our buildings?

»Is dynamic, both externally and internally

»tells the success and failure of a society
- human beings are evolving
- nuclear family insteadd of big families

»is the basic unit of human geography research!

 .

1. Rural – basic

- Common forms
- Elongated-linear
- Amorphous
- Floating/temporary
- Spaces in settlements 

- agriculture-based 
- low density 
- higher homogeneity
- natural networks/resources
- higher use of local materiak
- higher level social cohesion 

coastal livelihoods depend on fishing 

Built on high land/valleys
along natural levees of rivers
or water channels

Examples 

UK countryside

Brazil- Amazon bank

Papua new guinea 

 Consists of clustered or scattered settlements, often dispersed throughout the terrain

Thailand 
Malawi 
UK 

dminant culture- how people wanna live

Nomads- Yemen

Refugee- Somalia

Gypsies- Thailand- big communities

individual houses- careful and deliberate use of spaces

tropical climate- traditionally there are three huts- one being central kitchen, and in the middle there is a common space where people do lots of work.

cold climate- central quarter in the individual house- living area one room- the climate can have an influence in how the built form is designed.

•Rural demography & population dynamics are changing - older/newer generation •Impact of counter-urbanisation - go back to rural •Agriculture-dominance is diminishing •People’s lifestyle choices are changing •Growing threats of climate change •Population dynamics are changing

•Rural demography & population dynamics are changing - older/newer generation •Impact of counter-urbanisation - go back to rural •Population dynamics are changing •Growing threats of climate change •Agriculture-dominance is diminishing •People’s lifestyle choices are changing

»Size:Towns; cities; megacities; world cities

»Differential spaces within cities:Central Business District ; suburb; urban fringe 

»Form:Concentric; Radial; multinucleated; edge

»Formation:Planned; spontaneous/informal

»Spatial-functional:consumption city; employment city; workforce city; built city

»Sustainability: Eco-city; glocal city; just city; sustainable city

Difficult to define with absolute clarity

In general, urban areas have “population above a certain number and/or density threshold, which varies from country to country and over time” (UN Habitat/ DFID, 2002: 8)

However, since demographic data are collected for administrative units, an urban area “may exclude a large portion of population closely linked to the urban economy but may include people who live in villages or on farms and are primarily agriculturist” (pp. 8)

 - culturee 'other' define themselves by what they are not- exclude others

An urban area is usually considered to be an area that is relatively built up and its residents are usually regarded as being town or city dwellers. Urban areas do not adhere to administrative boundaries (National Statistics)

Uk defines a specific area separate to national administrative boundaries 

Importance is given to people how do they feel as town or city dwellers?

    Meta-city 
- »20 million+ population
»Includes a series of functionally linked cities/ towns

World city -  
»Cosmopolitan & multinational corporate economy
»Concentration and intensity of producer services
»International financial centres Megacity
- »10 million population
»May or may not be larger than a city

City  
 »Has a particularly important status, above towns
»Population: afew thousands to 10 million

  Town
 - »Larger than a village but smaller than a city
Population: few hundreds to several thousands

Examples include: 

• North-western Europe
• The US east coast (encompassing Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC)
• China’s Pearl River Delta (that includes Hong Kong)
• The urban sprawl of Los Angeles
• Southern California 

Meta-city  could be one city and then several smaller cities- inc - so theese are the five different hierarchy you can know to explain cities and towns or urban in general

London, New York 

world cities attract global interest 

Tokyo 

Kolkata, India (1/20)

Urban Area: 14.6 million people
Population density: 12,200 people per square kilometer

Megacity: 10 million population, may or may not be larger than a city

population increases beyong 10 million - megacity - important distinction the physical thing may or may not be bigger

Manhattan - the plan of these two types, bigger spaces, bigger buildings downtown vs residential areas. Typical way we design the suburb 

CBD: New York - Manhattan 

Typical suburb 

Concentric - characterise city - central- fringe

Multinucleated

Radial

Edge- development hindered physical barriers 

Concentric city

 deliberately designed to make it concentrated at the centre- centre is temple- important symbol defining society's belief

bring in green spaces - development 

Deliberately planned lots of boulevards 

Evidence another circle over there, one part of this. 

Life cycle of an edge city- starts expanding major road work
s - then it is haltered by sea and another side hill area

This sort of city design the formation  can have different ways can be a utopian ide. Looking for the perfect city to create, we benefitted from this utopian city from influential designers which brought the garden city movement. This work is ambiotionary bringing in different spaces, hierarchy of spaces and road networks - mixing with garden city. 

A society/settlemet can be engineered in a way that meets our needs in a logical and efficient way- maximise the use of the space, and make it a clean healthy area to live. 

This movement came at the back of the industrial era when cities were quite polluted, unhealthy.
- came as a movement to try and sort it out

• Ebenezer Howard (1989): Garden City Movement
• Logical/efficient use of space
• Clean, healthy places to live

Examples of garden city

54 new garden cities to be built across UK

people have their backyard quite  lot of open spaces- utopian idea.

As well as the utopian idea,  we had  rationallist thinking about  how the city can be developed. 

Le Corbusier – Ville Radieuse (1927)

•Egalitarian, efficient, healthy, easy to maintain, logical…but

Tried to put a geometric border into city- idea was efficient,  easy to maintain

but designing this society does not always happen and this particular city was never built in the same way as it was planned. 

Cape town, South Africa

Deliberate attempt to produce these cities. 

But Cape Town is an example of a formal city which is met with a vast area of unplanned development- the wealthy population are living by the side of unplanned developments. 

• Areas of poor housing
• Very high density (over 750 persons/hectare)
• high room occupancy (3 or more adults)
• poor sewerage & drainage
• inadequate water supply
• irregular or no refuse collection
• little or no paved roads
• Insufficient or no street lighting
• little or no access to gas supply

In  Dhaka and Delhi approx 30% of people are slum dwellers 

- Delhi, India
-  Dhaka, Bangladesh 

But what is happening in the global south is problematic - areas of multiple deprivation

understand city as space-  we become part of the economic life of the city

Workforce city
 »Area from which a given majority (e.g. ≥ 50%) of the built city workforce requirement is drawn
- area that gives a city its workforce

Employment city  
»Area of commuting employment to the built city + local employment which this generates

Consumption city 
»Area where 50% or more consumption is drawn from the built city

Built city 
»(Near) continuous built-up area
»Area within which 65% or more employment is located 
- centre

Hypothetical relationship between built, consumption, employment and workforce city

.

»Even only judged on safety, there is no absolute just city

»However, cities in India, USA, Sweden, Philippines and Canada appear to be most safe 

Masdar, Abu Dhabi

World’s first ‘zero carbon zero waste’ city

Designer: Norman Foster 

»Today’s lecture has introduced a typology of urban and rural settlements at different scale and contexts

»Emphasis has been to help you characterise the physical attributes of rural & urban spaces

»Next week the emphasis shifts to the changing nature of urban form in contemporary developed western world.    

ambition to introduce different types of language used to explain cities - this is a foundation for urban and rural geographies. so far we have been looking into the physical attributres and slowly starting to understand the urban/rural are  coming to a different direction.

Urban- how to become sustainable
Rural - is slowly becoming occupied by some of the things that do not characterise to be rural. 

Britain over 80% population live in urban areas

UN suggested 60% world's population will be living in cities by year 2030. 

Films and novels give insight into urban life or representations of it

'gated communities' safe, socially selective high security residential environments where mostly upper class white residents can turn their backs on the growing social and economc provlems of the ethnically diverse central cities and retreat behind walls. 
exclusion, boundary

Chicago's black belt de-industrialisation replaced manufacturing sector jobs with tertiary. The manufacturing job losses affected black males who disproportionateyl worked in the sector and had lower education levels- did not equip them for the new jobs in busines services & high security.

black people in inner city have less access to employment and mobility problems less likely to access employment or get to new jobs in a country where public transport poor.

predominantly black inner cities of the north-eastern USA, large-scale de-industrialisation associated with massive increase unemployment & poverty. These problems found to a lesser extent in some British and European inner-city areas.

collapse of inner-city manufacturing jobs, particularly for males and the growth of servicesector jobs, linked to the out-migration of jobs to the white suburbs, have generated major social problems.

The social & behavioural problems found in inner-city black areas are very real, but they should be seen as the consequence of de-industrialisation and discrimination rather than innate social characteristics. They represent a response to a changed set of economic and social conditions. 

Economic decline of older, industrial cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow has been paralleled by the rise of small nummber of major world or global cities.

These cities, Paris, Tokyo, New York, London have all experienced massive deindustrialisation  but they have also seen the rapid expansion of business and financial services such as banking, legal services & management consultancy as well as creative industries such as advertising, film & video, music and design.  DIVERSIFICATION 

the creative & cultural industries are becoming increasingly important in global cities- both in terms of production & attracting visitors - new markets emerging. 

Toronto & Vancouver - growth of a new professional, managerial, technical & creative middle class highly paid & educated. The rise of this group with its cultural interests & housing mrkets been resposible for the growth of gentrification in post-industrial  inner cities.

traditional central & inner-city high status residential areas are expensive and in short supply.  New middle class have sought out new living opportunities in the inner city, aided by developers and estate agents who have seen the prospects for profitable transformations of these areas.

The new middle class have sought out new living opportunities in the inner city, aided by developers and estate agents who have seen the prospects for profitablle transformations of these areas.

New York and London been a trend towards conversion of older industrial buildings into spacious if expensive city centre apartments.  In New York, this was first concentrated in the SoHo areas of downtwn Manhattan. 

London - Manhattan Loft Corporation saw their potential & their proximity to the City + initated the process of conversion of old industral & warehouse buildings into luxury residential apartments.

As the area increaed in desirability aided by marketing and promotion as a fashionable place to live- prices have soared as they did in SoHo in the 1970s.

Clerkenwell lofts have become home to bankers, lawyers & highly paid creative workers + the process has spread rapdily in recent years into Shoreditch. 

The conversion of old industrial & office buildings into luxury apartments had been one of the defining characteristics of changing urban form in recent years. 

The conversion of old industrial & office buildings into luxury apartments had been one of the defining characteristics of changing urban form in recent years.

SUMMARY

In addition to the rise of edge cities and ex-urban development & inner-city decline, there has been widespread growth in middle classes in the central and inner areas of some major cities where economic change in the structure of employment has created new jobs in the creative industries & financial services.

Many of the workers in these new growing industries have chosen to live in the central cities, leading to the growth of gentrification & 'loft living.' This latter trend has been associated with the conversion of industrial building to residential uses. 

areas, such as, SoHo in New York and Clerkenwell in London have become fashionable residential areas for the new wealthy professional middle classes.

Inequalities have grown very sharply in recent years aided by the rapid rise in earnings and bonuses in financial and legal services. 

Estimated- for properties over £2million, 70% of buys are from overseas.

London August 2011 riots highlight that level of inequality. 
riots and looting mostly concentrates in poorer inner city areas e.g. Hackney

High proportion of those appearing in court- many from ethnic minorities- had low levels of education and high levels unemployment.

Political disagreements motives of riots 
Right arguing opportunistic looting of consumer goods
Left points to economic and social deprivation.

Thus,  riots can be seen as an expression of growing inequality.

Contemporary cities are changing in complex and contradictory ways.

inner-city urban decline and central city urban regeneration and gentrification causes modern wastern cities which are frequently chracterised by growin inequality both between rich and poor, and between different ethnic groups. 

in some cities this is accompanied by growing social segregation between those with greater resources and choice and those with limited resources and limited choice.

While some changes result of a degree of choice and preference for different lifestyles & env
others are often unwilling victimes of economic and social processes largely outside their influence and control.

While some people may be living in a postmodern urban lifestyle playground others have to live in a post-industrial wasteland