Urban geog Flashcards
urbanisation definition
concentration of people living in urban areas (Proportion)
urbanism
idea that there are certain urban cultures, attitudes, ways of life seen as urban.
urban growth
physical limits of the urban area getting bigger, as well as population growth.
city
defined by administritive and political boundary
data limitations
UN collects census data, many countries do not conduct, reliability, estimation is used, data projections rather than actual census
problems in defining what is urban
Focus on mega-cities, majority of urban growth is coming from small cities and large towns
problems with urban theory
can be delayed in responding to the dynamism of urban
needs to be adaptable
theorising a physical space or socio/economic/cultural process
evolution of urban theory
Engels (1845)
Booth (1899-99)
Chicago school - 1920’s-40’s,
Park (1925)
Gottman (1961)
Castells (1970’s)
Harvey (1985)
Friedman (1980’s)
Sassen (1990’s)
englels 1845
conditions of the working class in england
Describes both working and living conditions. Demonstrates class divide between different urban dwellers and how that is projected into space.
booth 1889-99
plotted colours in london and classified based on level of poverty. First attempt at social mapping of poverty in the city.
chicago school - 20 -40
Laws of urban ecology to human behaviour. Arguing principles of natural world could be applied -
How would humans adapt to new urban environment
Competition for resources
Natural selection
How will adaptation affect physical space of the city
Spatial determinism
park 1925
competitiveness, city as a mosaic of social worlds, no mixing of different classes (segregation would be normal - would be the way to cope).
gottman 1961
Concentric zones are too formulaic, expanded in different directions - “megalopolis” - very spatial approach, mapping, urban vs not urban.
castells 1970s
conceptualised urban as a spatial unit as a container for the production of labour - collective consumption of the urban unit.
LA School
harvey 1985
how does urban provide a space for capitalism to play out, provide a physical space for wealth accumulation to thrive, city facilitates this in unequal ways.
LA school
freidman 1980s
World city theory - cities are leading world, more dominant than the countries they represent
sassen 1990s
Global cities - not the cities that are dominant, it is the connections, network and flows between these spaces that defines dominance.
what defines a global city
Key global economic player
Dominant service industry
Significant migrant population
Global networks
Strong infrastructure
Stable socio-economic and political system
problems with ‘global city’
much more about networks than the space of a city. Global city overfocused on a handful of cities. Discourse created hierarchies of what is needed to be successful - Johannesburg, “Africa’s global city”, tried to meet criteria, became more than a theory, became a criteria and goal, disrupted trajectories of many cities.
planetary urbanisation
do the boundaries of the urban end?
“The urban is not a unit but a process of transformation unfolding in diverse sites, territories and landscapes” - Brenner
Contemporary city requires large expansion in order to survive - territory of extraction is often bigger than city.
theorising the city
E.g postcolonial/african/asian
Too prescriptive, deterministic, inherent assumption that European cities are superior.
Jenny Robbinsion - all cities are ordinary. Avoids binary.
Theories of development are often reserved for certain cities, modernity vs development, do we need these separate categories.
Most traditional theories are irrelevant because they are based on western experiences. Recognises the complexity and diversity of the city.
In practice it is criticised, all show no substance - how does it provide practical foundation to go forward?
do we need theory
Do we need urban theory? Clear that society is urbanising.
Do we need a meta-urban theory, or several smaller specific.
Is it meaningless to define the world as urban if it covers everything?
Satterthwaite 2007
Few large cities had initial expansion guided by a rational plan
Factors influencing location of cities- water availability, transport routes, government location, healthy climate, defence
Recently they have developed due to multinationals concentration and interest
Over time structures of governance occur, expansion becomes less chaotic and infrastructure and services can improve
Common for lack of access to water taps and sanitation - privatisation of some services has occurred, not provided for poorest
Unregulated physical expansion has social and environmental consequences - segregation of low income groups in the worst located and dangerous areas
Illegal settlements in areas of flooding - mumbai, bangkok. Hillsides - rio, la paz.
‘late urbanisation’ - Fox & Goodfellow 2021
Urbanisation in many nations today is late within global context
The timing of transition to urban has a profound impact on how the transition occurs
Countries which transitioned 100 or more years ago had different technological, demographic, economic, political and ecological conditions
Early urbanisers have influenced conditions of late urbanisation, colonial legacies, political economic, environmental conditions generated and power in global institutions
They argue that those urbanising today are experiencing historically unique conditions - demographic intensity, hyperglobalisation, centripetal state politics and the spectre of environmental catastrophe.
Fox & Goodfellow 2021 - demographic intensity
unprecedented rates of urban population growth (many african countries), without concomitant economic growth
Decline in mortality is the vehicle for urban growth in many late urbanizers
Chinas urban transition was also influenced by this, further accelerated by economic conditions - natural increase in urban areas is now the dominant driver of urban pop growth
Europe experienced a peak urban pop growth of 2% per annum, china and sub-saharan africa 5%
Fox & Goodfellow 2021 - hyperglobalisation
Hyperglobalsation - dramatic increase in scale and velocity of global economic integration - influenced where and how capital is accumulated
Some cases, has contributed to accelerated economic transformations, others - disinvestment, low productivity, and unproductive investment patterns
Early urbanisers- capital often derived from production and commerce
Sub-saharan africa, central state - facilitated private extraction from the economy
Natural resources such as oil and copper - ‘consumption cities’
Fox & Goodfellow 2021 - centripetal states
territorially bounded multi-purpose organisations with highly centralised administrations
Idea that states have a role to play in ‘developing’ their populations
brenner & Schmid 2014
Urban age thesis is a flawed basis on which to conceptualise contemporary world urbanisation patterns
Empirically untenable and theoretically incoherent
Continued lack of agreement on what needs to be measured and at what spatial scale
Basic problem is sociospatial fluidity and relentless dynamism under modern capitalism
Skewed data has had consequences in policy debates regarding urban poverty, public health and greenhouse emissions in GD
segregation definition
seperation or isolation of a portion of a community from the rest
can be social and spatial - single sex/ religous schools, fee paying. - residential, comercial
residential urban segregation
both spatial and social
certain ethnicities, regligous groups, cultural identities
political rationalities, safety, income
segregation as choice or lack of choice
causes of urban segregation
legal - institutional frameworks, SA 1960w, racial identity determines where you can live, work, or be educated
economic - increased land and housing prices, clustering of similar properties in proximity, services linked to property value
social - self segregation, maintaining culture, can be used for exclusion (gated communities)
1920s theory
industrial city - chicago school - park, burgess, wirth, mosaic of worlds that touch but do not interconnect. CBD, well ordered, moving outward, income increases along with moral fibre - western cities
1960s theory 1
neo-liberal city (Alonso, muth, mills, choice to live is an economic trade off between transport costs and optimal living space, economics determines where people live.
1960s theory 2
colonial (pre-industrial) city
Sjoberg 1960
dual city, preferential areas for coloniser
1980s theory
posti indusrial/post fordist cuty
scott 1988
urban marginality - certain areas (formal ind zones) have neglect, economic decline, social eclusion
spatial fragmentation - uneaven urban development (finance and tech hubs in areas)
Soja 1989
concept of spatial inequality
how urban space reflects broader economic and social inequalities, particularly in cities like Los Angeles.
dual cities - one of prosperity and another of marginalization
LA as a postmetropolis - lacks traditional centralised urban core, power and economic acticity are dispersed across different specialised zones
decentalisation contributes to ineuquality
wealthier populations move to edge cities - suburban areas with their own economic centers
planning and architectuire reinforce social divisions - surveillance, policing, and exclusionary design.
SKid row - downtown LA, extreme urban marginality, high concentrations of homelesness
Silicon Beach - high-tech hub
1992 riots - deep seated racial and economic tensions tied to spatial inequalities
Stands vs Nomzamo
Stands - legally designated plots, recognized by municipalities
Nomxamo - informally occupied land, lacks services
suburbanisation
the physical expansion of suburbs
middle class and white
suburbia have a class dimension and often a race element
people who service the suburbs do not live there- exclusionary idea
suburbias development
emergence - 1750-1940 - elites escape urban ills, socially homogenous (white flight), boom of railroad = earier to commute
postwar - 1940-70 - boom in construction and lifestyle - calss and race-based polarisation - gov provided subsidies to aid middle class white families to mive (US)
re-theroising suburbanism
“taxonomy of suburbanisation” Harris, has emerged in defferent ways acroos the world
suburbanisation as a way of life - walks
gentrification
Neighbourhood transformation, economic value of property increases, changing types of people that can and want to live in the area.
Often led by developers and the state, young professionals proximity to the city, rising prices, reversal of white flight.
Foreclosure crisis contributed to increasing vulnerability to gentrification.
overfocus on anglo-american examples
Urban bias theory
Lipton 1977
resource allocation favours cities - govs invest in urban infrastructure etc
- policy decisions are made by urban elites
- artificiallly low food prices hurt farmers
- urban bias creates push factors and pull leading to rapid urbanisation (cities cannot abosrb all- informal housing)
measuring urban poverty
slum population is key proxy
UN 1.1 bn living in slum-like conditions
-dependence on cash based and informal economies
-vulnerable to price increases and shocks
- inadequate access to basic services
health and environment risk
vulnerability to weak governence and violence
defining slum
origings - 1800s criminal trade
1840s bad housing and overcrowding
UN 02 definition - inadequate access to safe water, sanitation and infrastructure, poor structural quality of housing and overcrowding, insecure residential status
Gilbert 2007
slum is pejorative phrase
implies erradication
confuses people with the place
radical lablel leads to radical policy/action
slum theories
mike davis 2006 - surplus humanity, people here arent socially and economically active, draining society
rao 2006 - argues slum has become synonomous with south asian city, lexicon is a territorial and demographic manifestation of urban informality
why does urban informality exist
state failure
formal market failure
innovations of people
permanent or temporary
Caldeira 2020
expansion of fortified enclaves create a new model of spatial segregation
private, enclosed and monitored spaces
fear of violence is main justification
Sao Paulo - visible spatial segregation , periphery of city became unaffordable, gentrification with new democratic gov (1990s), increase in violent crime (police violence) - changes patterns of residence, use of services
de soto 1989, 2000
informality as a revolution from below
entrepreneurial strategy of the poor marginalised by state capitalism who are excluded from formal economic systems
challenges idea informal economies are sign of underdevelopment, developing nations have state-controlled economic systems that favour elites and large businesses
informal economy emerges as a practical solution for the poor, who bypass these barriers to survive and thrive. - grassroots economic movement
Bangalore
indias silicon valley
economic prosperity> urban infrastructure
new airport - planning failures, raod not wide enough, water supply not reached
example of indias urban growth is so dramatic it consistently outstrips all plans for it
Roy 2009
Ghertner 2008
almost all of delhi violates some planning or building law - why are some being denoted illegal and undergoing demolotion - yet some are protected and formalised
Slums as ‘nuisance’ and its residents a second category of citizens
Differentiation is an axis of urban inequality
Innes et al 2007
Planning theorists have used informality as a feature of planning - planning strategies that are neither prescribed or prescribed by and rules, idea connotes casual and spontaneous interactions
depoliticizes the concept of informality by misrecognized systems of deregulation and unmapping as casual and spontaneous
nothing casual or spontaneous about the calculated informality that undergirds the territorial practices of the state - structural power
Deregualted vs unregualted
deregulation = calculated informality, purposive action and planning, withdrawal of regulatory power creates logic of resource allocation and accumulation
