Human Geo 13.2 Questions Flashcards
What info does the US Census Bureau publish when it takes a census?
Every decade the Census is published with info about each tract. It provides the # of various ethnicities, median income, and % of adults who finished high school. The spatial distribution of these social characteristics can be plotted on a map of the community’s census tracts. At the block level, little info is available without violating privacy (too few people).
What would the 3 models suggest in a social area analysis?
- The concentric model suggests that with 2 households of same income and ethnicity, the household in the older house would live in an inner ring and the household in the newer house would be in an outer ring.
- The sector model suggests that a household with a more modest income is unlikely to live in the same sector of a city as that with a higher income.
- The nuclei model suggests that people with the same ethnic or racial background likely live near each other.
What are limitations of the models?
They must be combined to explain why different types of people live in distinctive parts of a city. The models are also too simple and don’t consider the variety of reasons that lead people to live in places, and all models are based on US conditions in the mid-twentieth century, so they aren’t relevant to contemporary urban patterns in the US and beyond.
Why are there differences between the land uses of CBDs in USA and Europe and what are the first 2?
Differences with North America stem from the medieval origins of many of Europe’s CBDs, which display a legacy of low-rise structures and narrow streets, in many cases built several-hundred years ago.
1. Residences: More people live downtown in European cities and outside of North America.
2. Consumer Services: People live there because they’re attracted to clusters of consumer services (nightlife, culture), and CBDs in Europe contain more day-to-day consumer services (groceries, bakeries, etc).
What are the last 2 differences in CBDs between Europe and the US and why are rents high in Europe?
- Public Services: Prominent European CBD structures are often public buildings (churches, palaces), in important public squares. Parks in Europe’s CBDs were often first private gardens for aristocrats.
- Business Services: Europe’s CBDs have professional and financial services, but are less likely to be in skyscrapers (to preserve history).
-Constructing new buildings in the center of European cities is hard, so they renovate older buildings, but that’s expensive, so rents are very high.
How do the 3 models compare between the US and Europe?
- Concentric Zones: In Paris, as with the US, newer housing is in outer rings and older housing is closer to the center. However, much of the newer suburban housing is in high-rise apartments in Paris, not in homes.
- Sectors: As with the US, higher income people cluster in a sector in Paris (in the southwest, a preference which was reinforced in the Industrial Revolution where factories were built to the south, east, and north).
- Multiple Nuclei: Paris urban areas have experienced a large increase in immigration. Most of them reside in Paris suburbs, in contrast to the US.
What did Beijing look like during the Yuan Dynasty?
-Kubla Khan, its founder, build a city called Dadu in 1264, with the Drum Tower at its center. At its hearts was 3 palaces, which houses the imperial family and offices. Residential areas were laid out in a checkerboard pattern divided by wider roads and narrow alleys. 3 markets were placed in the residential areas, with walls surrounding both palaces AND residences.
What did Beijing look like during the Ming Dynasty?
After capturing Dadu in 1368, the Ming dynasty reconstructed it. The imperial palace was demolished and replaced with new structures (the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven). Other temples were added in the 16th century, and the city took on the name Beijing in 1403.
How did European colonial powers leave a heavy mark on many places?
Because they implemented standardized plans for cities (all Latin American cities were built according to the Laws of the Indies in 1573, centered on a church and central plaza, walls around each house, and neighborhoods built around smaller plazas with churches). If they didn’t build a city next to an existing one, they would just demolish the precolonial city (ex. Saigon, Vietnam and Mexico City).
How can the concentric zone model be applied to developing countries?
It is usually applied to cities in LDCs. Harm de Blij’s model of sub-Saharan cities is an example. The inner rings house higher-income people, and are attractive because they’re near business and consumer services. As LDC cities grow rapidly, rings are often being added to account for immigrants (mostly living in informal settlements).
How can the sector model be applied to cities in developing countries?
Ernest Griffin and Larry Ford show that in Latin American cities, the rich push out from the center in an elite residential sector/alley that contains offices, shops, amenities, and readily available water/electricity. Santiago, Chile, is an example. Wealthy and middle-class residents avoid living near sectors of disamenity (noisy, pollution, low-income).
How can the multiple nuclei model be applied to cities in developing countries?
Some LDC cities show evidence of this model by containing a mix of ethnic groups. During apartheid, South Africa’s cities were segregated. T. G. McGee’s model of a Southeast Asian City superimposes on concentric zones several nodes of squatter settlements and “alien” zones (where foreigners live and work). Southeast Asian cities don’t have a strong CBD, and its functions are often dispersed to several nodes.
Describe precolonial Mexico City (founded on a hill by the Aztecs, called Tenochtitlán).
When forced by others to leave the hill, the migrated a few miles south, and then in 1325 to a marshy island in Lake Texcoco. The Great Temple was the node of religious life. 3 causeways with drawbridges linked the city to the mainland and controlled flooding, an aqueduct brought fresh water, there were many canals, & most food/merchandise arrived by boat. As the Aztecs conquered their neighbors and expanded their control, Tenochtitlán grew.
What did colonial mexico city look like?
The Spanish conquered Tenochtitlán in 1521 after a 2-year siege. They destroyed it, dispersed or killed most of the residents, and built a new city on the site (Mexico City). It was built around a main square (the Zócalo) on the site of the Aztec’s sacred precinct on the island Streets were then laid out in a grid pattern from the Zócalo.
What ahs the city of Mexico looked like since independence?
At independence, Mexico city was small. The population grew modestly in the 19th century, and rapidly during the 20th. Millions of people have migrated there in search of work, and rapid population growth has led to Mexico City’s land area expanded. In 1903, most of Lake Texcoco was drained by a big canal/tunnel project, so the city expanded, but the dried up lake is a less desirable residential location with low-income housing.
