Ho fornito 4 domande. aiutami a rispondere. - Ragazzi accademici (2023)

Ho fornito 4 domande. aiutami a rispondere.

Ho fornito 4 domande. aiutami a rispondere.
Explain (i) new gendered spaces that have developed in response to the changing roles of women living in cities, and (ii) the urban spaces of older people. In your answer, briefly discuss how these spaces may be viewed as dimensions of the sociospatial dialectic. Answers: This approach draws from explanations of the historical development of society. Specifically, it is argued that differing gender roles developed due to the changing nature of economic production. Thus, in the nineteenth century era of early industrial capitalism, men were wage-earners outside the home, while women were allocated domestic and supportive roles inside the home. As a result, there was a clear separation of home and work with women economically dependent on men. In the twentieth century, the advent of theservice societyresulted in extensive female employment, although mainly in supportive roles. by 2009, almost 63% of Canadian adult females participated in the labor force compared to approximately 42% during the mid-1970s (Yeates, 1998, 411; Statistics Canada, 2010). While male and female wage differentials have declined over time, a significantwage gapstill persists. This theoretical approach attempts to explain whylabor inequalitiespersist. It is argued thatclass controlrelates to the fact that men largely control the income, with women thus economically dependent upon men. In other words, men are considered to be in privileged positions and wish to retain their power. Consequently, social status is reproduced in different ways for men and women (Pratt and Hanson, 1988). For instance, thefamily-based class positionof women (based on their husband’s occupation) may not coincide with their class position in relation to their ownpaid-employment status. Also, women’s experiences of social status are highly variable through time as a result of the impact of childbearing roles on their participation in the paid labor force. In recent years, more women have assumed more traditionally male job positions thereby creatinggender conflict, with women challenging male domination. Gender conflict may be resolved through the emergence of thesymmetrical family, with both women’s work (e.g., housekeeping) and men’s work (i.e., generating wage income) undertaken by both partners in the household. In the industrial city, the distinctive roles assumed by women were typically undertaken in spaces based on domestic settings. For instance, poorer women living in central city locations often obtained money to supplement family income by taking on additional surrogate family functions (e.g., house cleaning, childcare, the provision of houseroom and household services for lodgers, etc.) in either their own or other people’s domestic settings. The domestic settings of middle-income women were more typically suburban. By the late nineteenth century, a bourgeois social construction of suburban life was common to both males and females. Specifically, this social construction incorporated the clear separation of home from work, social distancing, espousal of the nuclear family, male economic dominance, and female domestic subordination, with the home treated as a feminine domain. Socially constructed middle-class suburban life was further reinforced by the construction of appropriately designed homes and the advancement of the female ideal of domesticity by the print media. Throughout much of the twentieth century, suburban settings ensured not only the social reproduction of the middle class, but also of gender roles comprised of male breadwinners and female homemakers occupying spaces largely confined to the home residence. In addition to increased female participation in the labor force since World War II, other important changes that have impacted on the roles of women likewise reflect shifts insocial attitudesin North America. In particular, the percentage of households comprised of married couples with their own children have decreased, while the proportions ofsingle-female-parent householdsandsingle childless womenhave both increased in association with accelerated rates of divorce. In turn, these changes have resulted in the restructuring of the lifeworlds of women, with distinctive new spaces in both the inner city and suburbia. Three important examples are provided below. Inner City Spaces: The Feminization of PovertyIn general, poverty is greater among women than men. Thefeminization of povertyis attributable to low wage rates, lack of employment security, shortage of affordable day care, lack of adequate pensions, and inadequate support costs following separation and divorce.Inner cities, with their low-cost rental housing, include disproportionately high percentages of poor women, especially single-female-parent households. The lifeworlds of this segment of women in some inner cities may be further restricted by threats ofphysical violence. In fact, they are very often unable or unwilling to walk alone in their home neighbourhoods.The header image for Week 19 (see introductory page) clearly discloses the heavy concentration of single-female-parent households in Winnipeg’s inner city. This spatial bias is consistent with the patterns described in Murdie’s model of residential structure, with households characterized bylow family status(including single-female-parent households) occupying the innermost concentric zones of the city (Week 15).See also the spatial distribution of Winnipeg’s senior households in 2006 (Figure 16.3) and the related audio file. Suburban Spaces: The Spatial Entrapment of WomenTogether with women in the inner city who usually have limited access to automobiles, many lower-income suburban women may be viewed asspatially entrapped. This is because they place a high priority on gaining paid employment close to their residence so that they may continue to assume their household responsibilities. Conversely, business activities (particularly back-office and customer service activities) can take advantage ofcheap local pools of suburban female laborby locating in decentralized nucleations and edge cities. Suburban Spaces: New Materialistic LifestylesIncreasing numbers ofhigh-income two-worker suburban households without children(DINKS) are enjoying the more opulent forms ofnew materialistic lifestyledescribed in Week 17. As a result, both the male and female members of these households are creating distinctive new urban spaces based on customized and personalized consumption patterns. Thus, the important dimensions of their lifeworlds not only include their respective workplaces and commuter trips, but alsospaces of recreation, entertainment, and leisure. Somewhat paradoxically, the latterspaces may be spaces of work (exploitation)for relatively poor women who depend on service-intensive employment. Identify and explain the main factors governing future urban development around the world. In relation to North American urban areas, discuss (i) the changes in metropolitan form that are most likely to take place in the future, and (ii) the changes that are necessary to ensure sustainable urban development. Answers: The following five sets of change factors have implications for urban futures. Economic Change:The most important economic change relates to the ongoing globalization of the world economy. The increasing interdependence of world cities will further consolidate their role as basing points for capital and corporate control centres, thus constituting apolycentred global urban network. The network of other metropolitan areas that assume the role ofinformational citieswill likely develop further as routine informational functions become increasingly standardized and specialized. The most rapid growth among specialized informational cities is likely to take place in those that are alsoinnovative milieu(i.e., inventive powerhouses with concentrations of Research and Development activity). Conversely, traditional North American manufacturing regions may experiencedeindustrializationas transnational corporations increasingly shift productive capacity and jobs to less developed countries. Demographic Change:The main demographic growth factor in North American cities is likely to beimmigration, with increasing numbers of newcomers living in older suburban areas. Increasingly, more immigrants will be required meet the labor needs of both Canada and the United States as the Baby Boom generation reaches old age while the young adult population is relatively modest in size. Social Change:Continued social polarization within world cities is likely. An important outcome of thesplintering urbanismassociated with informational cities is the further fragmentation of lifestyle groupings (e.g., “green” lifestyles, lifestyles of “conspicuous frugality”, gay lifestyles, etc.) both within and between cities. Cultural Change:There is increasing evidence of a “global culture”, with cities becoming increasingly homogenized and standardized in appearance in response to a “promotional culture” or “Disneyfication.” Political Change:The problems associated with political fragmentation of metropolitan areas (see Week 22) are likely to continue. However, in response to the increasing global interdependence of cities, we are witnessing the emergence ofmunicipal foreign policy: the direct involvement of local governments in international relations (usually with overseas localities) and international affairs (with national governments home and abroad). Pages 60-64 of Simmons and McCann (2006) article included in the Readings Package provide useful projections of Canada’s urban system in the future. While only a 20% increase in the total Canadian population is projected over the period 2001-2026, Table 3.8 in the article forecasts an almost 31% increase in the nation’s nine largest metropolitan regions (i.e., contiguous urban areas that share facilities, services, and workplaces) in the nation’s urban system. The highest percentages are recorded by the Georgia Basin – Vancouver/Victoria (54%), Toronto region (43%), Ottawa-Gatineau (34%), and Alberta Corridor – Edmonton-Calgary (28%). These metropolitan regions should continue to benefit frompostindustrial growth(with particular emphasis on producer services), and represent major magnets for capital and future immigration. As a result, the population of the Toronto region is projected to approach almost 10 million people by 2026, while in the same year the Georgia Basin’s population is forecast to exceed 4.1 million people. Each of the other five regions is projected to register positive percentage growth, although note that the value for the Montreal region is only 4%. In fact, by 2026 the population of the Georgia Basin is projected to exceed that of the Montreal region. Figure 24.1 portrays the location of the current macro-urban regions of North America. Of these regions, the largest isBOSNYWASHextending from north of Boston to south of Washington DC, with an estimated population of 55 million in 2006 (US Bureau of the Census, 2010). In general, the populations of these regions (which include world cities and major informational cities) are projected by the US Bureau of the Census to continue growing in the next few decades, withCaliforniaandFloridaregistering the most rapid population percentage increases. One possible exception to this trend may be the American segment ofLower Great Lakes Region(extending from Milwaukee to Syracuse) with a population of 40 million people in 2000. Here, recent population increases have been modest partly as a result of the deindustrialization that has occurred in many cities located in the old Manufacturing Belt and this trend is likely to continue. Overall, applications of leading information, communications, and biosynthetic technologies to industrial and service activities may generate wider regional variations in growth rates thus far experienced in the United States. Also, a number of “emerging”macro-urban regionsare currently developing and include: The Salt Lake City region The Denver-Colorado-Springs Pueblo Corridor The Arizona Sun Corridor (includes Phoenix and Tucson) The Interstate 70 Corridor in Kansas, Missouri and Illinois (includes Kansas City and St. Louis) In most North American cities, it is highly likely thatdecentralizationprocesses will continue into the foreseeable future with further development of outer suburbs, edge cities, stealth cities, exurban corridors, office parks, and urban realms. The scale of these developments is already sufficiently extensive to justify the use of terms such as the “galactic metropolis” or “extended metropolitan region” to describe contemporary North American urbanization. Conversely, there are factors that are likely to encourage the counter-tendency ofcentralizationin at least some North American cities where sufficient investment is targeted to CBDs and inner cities in order to allow the development of new patterns of land use (e.g., brownfield redevelopment and continued gentrification) and employment opportunities. Certainly, the outcomes of the interplay of the forces of decentralization and centralization already raise questions concerning the efficacy of classical urban land use models that view internal structures in terms of relatively simple concentric zones or sectoral patterns. In fact, the built environment of theinnermost metropolitan ringsis likely to become increasinglyrestlessdue to increasing physical deterioration and obsolescence, the impact of redevelopment programs, and significantly reduced population densities. On the other hand, the highest population densities may eventually be registered in theFordist automobile suburbs. In future, it is unlikely that there will be significant amelioration of the urban social problems (e.g., poverty) that we examined in Week 21, while problems offiscal stressare likely to hamper improvements in municipal service provision and the renewal of obsolete infrastructure. On the other hand, possible political change encompassing agreen urbanismmovement could produce the changes necessary to ensure thesustainability of metropolitan areas. These changes include the provision of improved public transport facilities, increased production and use of renewable energy, more tree-planting in and around cities, restrictions on automobile use, reduced commuter times through a better spatial balance of jobs and homes, and the decongesting of inner cities. However, it must be acknowledged that the realization of the objectives of programs of sustainable urban development in North America will require dramatic shifts in the attitudes of the vast majority of urban dwellers who remain heavily dependent on automobile travel. Explain the major “eras of urban expansion” in the world between 500 B.C. and 1900 A.D. For each of these eras, (i) discuss the main factors that impacted on urban growth, and (ii) provide examples of cities that assumed particular importance. Answer: Name of Era Time Period 1. Imperial Cities 500 BC – 500 AD 2. Dark Ages 500 AD – 1000 AD 3. European Medieval (Revival) 1000 AD – 1300 AD 4. Renaissance and Baroque 1300 AD – 1750 AD 5. Industrial Revolution 1750 AD – 1900 AD Imperial Cities (500 BC – 500 AD) Although urbanization spread outward from the regions of origin, it was characterized by uneven development over both time and space. Toward the conclusion of the first millennium BC, “…the growth of large stable empires finally allowed for the development of truly huge cities of perhaps a million or more” (Kaplan et al., 2004, p. 38). Over time, cities became larger because: they gained a large hinterland from which they extracted surplus grain (i.e., thesurplus product); agricultural technology improved thus resulting in greater surpluses; improvements in transportation occurred; and they had their ownurban productive dynamicbased on religious, political, and trading functions. Two notable examples of the ancient city systems with typically gridiron street patterns are: Greek Citieswhich were largely the consequence of the spread of city-building ideas from the Fertile Crescent to the Mediterranean as early as 800 BC. Greek city-states were typically governed by collective group power. This administrative structure appears to have reduced land use divisions between elite and non-elite groups within cities. At the centre of the city was theacropolis(temple area or high city), below which were theagora(common meeting places and market areas). Greek cities were relatively small, although Athens probably had a population as large as 150,000. Roman Citieswere created throughout the Roman Empire both to project Roman power and facilitate trading. It has been estimated that the Roman Empire contained as many as 1,200 cities controlled by Rome. Roman cities usually contained a centralforumsurrounded by a main temple, public baths and theatres, with a large amphitheatre for recreational pursuits located in the outskirts of the community. However, Roman cities differed from their Greek counterparts in that their internal structures reflected the Roman class system. For example, housing was divided between elite single-family units (known asdomus), and three- to six-story tenements (known asinsulae) where most of the population lived. The city of Rome (see Figure 3.1) contained at least as many as 1 million people by 300 AD and had seven walls which extended 11.5 miles in circumference. The Dark Ages (500 AD – 1000 AD) During the Dark Ages, Western Europe experienced approximately five centuries ofdeurbanizatonassociated with a decline in urbanization. However, urban life did flourish in other regions of the world including parts of the Middle East (e.g., Mecca and Medina), and parts of North Africa (e.g., Cairo) and sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Timbuktu and Kano). Although feudalism hampered the development of European cities, some did assume importance as ecclesiastical or university centres (e.g., Canterbury, England), defensive strongholds (e.g., the hilltop town of Foligno, central Italy), and administrative hubs (e.g., Magdeburg, Germany). European Medieval Revival (1000 AD – 1300 AD) The main impetus for the urban revival during this period was the weakening of feudalism together and the advent ofcapitalisminvolving merchants, craftsmen, manufacturers, and artisans. Much of this activity was concentrated in trading cities which relied on surpluses accruing from buying and selling within extensive commercial hinterlands. While the number cities began to expand, only a few had populations exceeding 50,000, with most of these (e.g., Constantinople, Seville) attached to empires. While medieval towns were often heavily fortified with walls and castles, their internal structure was typically developed organically around an open square for markets with major public buildings and places of worship located in close proximity. The focus of activity was still tied up with ports and waterways. Around the North Sea and Baltic coasts, a trading association of approximately 200 towns formed theHanseatic League. The Renaissance and Baroque Period (1300 AD – 1750 AD) During this period, world urbanization was stimulated and reshaped by the Protestant Reformation, the scientific revolution of the Renaissance, and overseas colonization.Gateway cities(e.g., Rio de Janeiro and Calcutta) were established around the world for the purpose of collecting and exporting raw materials to Europe. These colonial trading activities mainly benefited European port cities along the North Sea and the Atlantic – for instance, London had grown to a population of 500,000 by 1700. The European cities during this period (particularly the Baroque which commenced in the sixteenth century) aesthetically improved in appearance due to various forms of urban beautification associated with new forms of art, architecture, and planning (e.g., the use of sculpture in public places and the embellishment of monumental buildings). The Industrial Revolution (1750 AD – 1900 AD) Audio Title Living Conditions in Nineteenth Century Industrial Cities Download transcript file here Rapid levels of urbanization were made possible by the Industrial Revolution which commenced in Europe (most notably England) during the late eighteenth century. The Industrial Revolution involved a set of complementary processes including: changes in the power supply (associated with the steam engine), technical improvements in machinery (e.g., the invention of the mechanical power loom), introduction of mass production and the factory system (involving the coordination of the activities of large numbers of workers), lower death rates (due to improved medical technology), large-scale maritime trade (which was enhanced by colonialism); and increases in agricultural productivity. These changes resulted in a new economy that required a large urban workforce to support the production and exchange of urban goods. In England, the urban population increased from 20% in 1800 to 60% per cent in 1890, with Manchester representing theshock cityof European urbanization. The internal spatial arrangements of industrial cities were characterized by massive disparities in living conditions, with the emergence of extensive areas of slums that accommodated factory workers near to their places of employment. In the nineteenth century, large-scale industrialization and urbanization spread throughout much of North America. 4.Describe and explain the reshaping of the spatial form of the North American city that has occurred since 1973. In your answer, comment on the impact of economic restructuring, globalization, and new digital communications on the “new metropolitan form” that has evolved during this period. Answer: This short period witnessed the onset of periods ofrecession and instabilityin the United States, which have continued to the present time. The economy was characterized by soaring oil prices,stagflation(falling demand and rising inflation), relative declines in manufacturing accompanied by the rapid growth of the service sector (i.e., thepostindustrial economy), rising unemployment, relative declines in household purchasing power, and the advent of government deregulation. The global dominance of U.S. corporations declined with the rise in the economic strength of Southeast Asia and the European Union, and the development of a highly integrated world financial market. The accelerated decline of the Manufacturing Belt during this period has been characterized asdeindustrialization. As a result, organized Fordist mass production/consumption was increasingly replaced by flexible production systems to exploit specific market segments and/or market niches. Permissive orenabling technologies(such as automated manufacturing, computer-based just-in-time inventory control systems, and circulation technologies) have facilitated the restructuring of the U.S. economy in terms of relationships between corporate capital, labor, and the state. The greater locational and organizational flexibility associated with these technologies has enabled larger corporations to take advantage of spatial variations in (i) the costs of land and labor, and (ii) local rates of taxation. As a result of these changes: The oldManufacturing Corenow appears to be contracting toward the more diversified economies of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The most rapid growth has taken place in what were formerly peripheralmetropolitan areas extending in a southerly band from California to the Carolinas. Theinformationalmode of development with an emphasis on high-tech communications, professional and business services is replacing the industrial mode of development. Thus, many of the larger (e.g., Boston) and rapidly growing midsized (e.g., Raleigh-Durham) U.S. metropolitan areas have been characterized as informational (orpostindustrial)cities which act as foci for information flows. Go to Table 4.1 in the textbook. Some North American cities have become so closely integrated within the global economic system that they are known asworld cities, a term originally proposed by Patrick Geddes. The world cities identified in Table 4.1 of the textbook represent an update of Friedmann’s (1986) classification of world cities (see Table 8.1 of the instructional content). As you will see, Friedman originally cross-classified 30 cities into (a) 11 primary cities versus 19 secondary cities, and (b) 18 cities in “core countries” versus 12 cities in “semi-periphery cities”. In Friedmann’s classification, two of the core countries are the USA (3 primary cities, 4 secondary cities) and Canada (1 secondary city). World cities share the following characteristics: Aninternal structurebased on economic activities, division of labor, etc., that is the product of supranational forces which may not be congruent with national forces such as national social policies. Serve asbasing pointsfor the pricing of capital (e.g., interest rates), and the ways in which production and distribution are organized. Are major sites for the concentration ofcapitalandin-migrants(seeking employment in a dynamic economic environment. Are places of intensesocial and class-spatial polarization. Social polarization is particularly acute where the social costs (e.g., for health or education) may exceed the fiscal capabilities of the local tax base. Table 4.1 in the textbook identifies 40 top-level world cities that are organized into a four-tier hierarchy. The two highest-class (Alpha ++) cities are London and New York. These cities are prioritized on the basis of (a) the importance of their financial markets, (b) domination of the respective continent in which each is located, and (c) involvement in the organization and management of global financial and production systems. Possible world cities of the future include Philadelphia, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Dallas, and Vancouver. Clicke here for more information about world cities Table 8.1 World Cities: Friedmann’s Classification Core Countries Semi-Periphery Countries Primary Cities Secondary Cities Primary Cities Secondary Cities Brussels London Sao Paulo Johannesburg Milian Paris Singapore Buenos Aires Vienna Rotterdam Rio de Janeiro Madrid Frankfurt Caracas Zurich Toronto Mexico City New York Taipei Chicago Miami Manila Los Angeles Houston Bangkok San Francisco Seoul Tokyo Sydney Since the early 1970s, globalization, the influence of new digital telecommunications, and neo-Fordist modes of production have left their collective imprint on urban form. Collectively, these advances have resulted in the fragmentation of the social, economic and material fabric of urban areas, while intensifying social and economic inequalities within cities. This process has been termedsplintering urbanism. Figure 4.25 in the textbook is a cartogram summarizing the main features of thepolycentricorgalactic metropolisof the present era. In this figure you will see that a major organizational component of the fragmented multi-nodal structure of the neo-Fordist metropolis is theedge city(see also the header image for Week 18). In addition to edge cities,boomburbsrepresent key components of the polycentric metropolis. Boomburbs are fast-growing suburban jusrisdictions with populations exceeding 100,000. They are typically located along interstate beltways that ring large metropolitan areas especially in the Southwest of the United States (e.g., Mesa, Arizona, outside Phoenix). Functionally, boomburbs are similar to edge cities with housing, retailing, entertainment, and office elements. Unlike edge cities, however, boomburbs lack a dense business core. In recent years, employment has become increasingly dispersed throughout entire urban regions. This process has been referred to as scatteration (Coffey and Shearmur, 2006). Accordingly, the termedgeless cityappropriately describes widely scattered office developments, often consisting of single buildings at very low densities. Concurrently, the development ofurban realms(i.e., large economic subregions linked by urban freeways across approximately 100 miles) in the largest polycentric metropolises has produced landscapes that are not suburban in conventional terms. Nevertheless, edge cities continue to play an important role as foci of higher-order services and office activities in North American metropolitan areas. Note:the Bunting et al. (2007) article in the Readings Package provides an in-depth examination of the factors that have contributed to the development of dispersed styles of urban form in mid-size North American cities, with particular reference to CMA of Kitchener, Ontario. Contemporary levels of urbanization in many European countries are comparable with North America. The urban systems of Canada, the United States, and Europe may be described by thecore-periphery model. In the European context, the core is formed by the coalescence of megalopolitan regions in parts of Western Europe. Of particular note is the Rhine-Ruhr megapolitan region of Germany and Ranstad megapolitan region of the Netherlands.The European core contains at least eight world cities including London, one of the world’s three dominant world cities. The core cities economically, politically, and technologically dominate the cities located in the periphery. However, in recent years improvedtransportation linkageshave served to facilitate the integration of the entire European urban system. Furthermore, the increasing importance of cities in thesemi-peripherysuch as Budapest, Warsaw, and Prague suggests that the centre of gravity of the present core may gradually shift eastward in the future.
Ho fornito 4 domande. aiutami a rispondere.
ARCTIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN SOUTHERN OCEAN ATLANTIC OCEAN ATLANTICOCEAN Caribbean Sea Gulf of Mexico Labrador Sea Beaufort Sea Chukchi Sea Bering Sea Baffin Bay Hudson Bay Gulf of Alaska 160° 140° 120° 100° 80° 60° 40°20° 160° 140° 120° 100° 80° 60° 40° 80° 60° 40° 20° 20° 40° 60° 80° 0° Antarctic Circle Tropic of Capricorn Equator Tropic of Cancer CANADA UNITED STATES BRAZIL MEXICO VENEZUELA COLOMBIA PERU BOLIVIA PARAGUAY URUGUAY CHILEARGENTINA KIRIBATI SENEGAL SIERRA LEONE GUINEA-BISSAU GAMBIA CAPE VERDE ICELAND TONGA SAMOA ECUADOR SURINAME GUYANA (FR.) (FR.) (N.Z.) (U.S.) (U.S.) (U.S.) (N.Z.) (N.Z.) (U.K.) (U.K.)(U.K.) (PORT.) (DEN.) (SP.)(MOR.) (FR.) (FR.) (U.K.) (ECUADOR) American Samoa French Polynesia Niue Tokelau Cook Islands Wallis and Futuna Pitcairn IslandsGalápagos Islands Falkland IslandsAzores Canary Islands Hawaii BermudaSt. Pierre and Miquelon South Georgia WesternSahara Greenland (KalaallitNunaat) Alaska French Guiana NORTH AMERICA SOUTH AMERICA ANTARCTICA See Caribbean Inset ATLANTIC OCEAN Caribbean Sea Gulf of Mexico 90° Tropic of Cancer 20° 10° 20° 10° 90° 70° 60° MEXICO UNITED STATES VENEZUELA COLOMBIA GUATEMALA EL SALVADOR BELIZE HONDURAS NICARAGUA BAHAMAS CUBA JAMAICA HAITI DOMINICAN REPUBLIC COSTA RICA PA NA M A GUYANA ST. LUCIA DOMINICA ST. KITTS & NEVIS ANTIGUA & BARBUDA BARBADOS TRINIDAD & TOBAGO GRENADA ST. VINCENT & THE GRENADINES (U.S.) (U.K.) (U.K.) (FR.) (FR.) (NETH.) (NETH.) (U.S.) (NETH.) (U.K.) (U.K.) (U.K.) Puerto Rico Turks & Caicos Islands Cayman Islands Martinique Guadelupe Bonaire Curaçao Virgin Islands Aruba Anguilla British Virgin Islands Montserrat 20–39 0–19 Percentage Urban (2010) Over 80 60–79 40–59 World Urbanization 02,000 Kilometers 0 1,000 1,000 2,000 Miles ARCTIC OCEAN SOUTHERN OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN INDIAN OCEAN Black Sea Barents Sea East Siberian Sea BeringSea Sea of Okhotsk Seaof Japan East China Sea PhilippineSea CoralSea Tasman Sea South China Sea Norwegian Sea ArabianSea Bay of Bengal North Sea AralSea Lake Baikal Caspian Sea Mediterranean Sea Red Sea ° 0° 20° 40° 60° 80° 100° 120° 140° 160° 20° 0° 20° 40° 60° 80° 100° 120° 140° 160° Arctic Circle 80° 60° 40° 20° 20° 40° 60° 80° 0° Antarctic Circle Equator Tropic of Cancer Prime Meridian AUSTRALIA IRAN IRAQ KAZAKHSTAN SAUDI ARABIA PAKISTAN AFGHANISTAN MOROCCO ALGERIA LIBYA EGYPT SUDAN SOUTH SUDAN CHAD NIGER MALI MAURITANIA NIGERIA DEM. REP.OF THE CONGO MADAGASCAR ETHIOPIA ZAMBIA SOMALIA KENYA TANZANIA NAMIBIA ANGOLA SOUTH AFRICA ZIMBABWE MOZAMBIQUE INDIA RUSSIA MONGOLIA CHINA JA PA N TAIWAN PHILIPPINES MALAYSIA TIMOR-LESTE PALAU FIJI VA N UAT U TUVALU SOLOMON ISLANDS NAURU KIRIBATI FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIAMARSHALL ISLANDS BRUNEI SINGAPORE CAMBODIA VIETNAM SOUTH KOREA THAILAND NORTH KOREA LAOS MYANMAR (BURMA) BANGLADESH BHUTAN NEPAL SRI LANKA MALDIVES SEYCHELLES MAURITIUS SWAZILAND LESOTHO BURUNDI UGANDA BOTSWANA COMOROS AL REP. OFTHE CONGO GABON BURKINA FASO GUINEA CAMEROON MALAWI RWANDA CENTRAL AFRICAN REP. BENIN GHANA TOGO EQUATORIAL GUINEA SAO TOME & PRINCIPE CÔTE D’IVOIRE LIBERIA NE U ERITREA YEMEN OMAN TAJIKISTAN KYRGYZSTAN TURKMENISTAN UZBEKISTAN AZERBAIJAN DJIBOUTI ARMENIA GEORGIA BAHRAINU.A.E. KUWAIT JORDAN SYRIA ISRAEL LEBANON TUNISIA PAPUA NEW GUINEA INDONESIA NORWAY SWEDEN FINLAND NEW ZEALAND TURKEY Q ATA R (U.K.) (FR.) (FR.) (AUSTRL.) (U.S.) (U.S.) (U.S.) (FR.) (AUSTRL.) (AUSTRL.) (NOR.) (DEN.) R.) (FR.) St. Helena Svalbard Faroe Islands Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Kerguelen Is. Réunion Mayotte New Caledonia Norfolk Island Guam Northern Mariana Is. Wake Islandrn ra EUROPE AFRICA ASIA ANTARCTICA AUSTRALIASee Europe Inset Black Sea North Sea Mediterranean Sea Baltic Sea TURKEY MOROCCO TUNISIA UNITED KINGDOM IRELAND NORWAY SWEDEN ALGERIA FINLAND GERMANY POLAND BELGIUM NETHERLANDSDENMARK FRANCE SLOVAKIA SLOVENIAAUSTRIACZECH REPUBLIC LUXEMBOURG LIECHTENSTEIN SWITZERLAND PORTUGAL SPAIN ITALY ANDORRA ROMANIA MACEDONIA CROATIA MONTENEGRO SERBIA HUNGARY BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA KOSOVO BELARUS UKRAINE MOLDOVA ESTONIALATVIA LITHUANIA GREECE BULGARIA ALBANIA MALTA RUSSIA RUSSIA CYPRUS ATLANTIC OCEAN MONACO SAN MARINO VATICANCITY 0° 10° 10° 40° 50° 60° 20° 30° 20° Urbanization AN INTRODUCTION TO URBAN GEOGRAPHY Third Edition This page intentionally left blank Urbanization AN INTRODUCTION TO URBAN GEOGRAPHY Third Edition Paul L. Knox University Distinguished Professor and Senior Fellow for International Advancement College of Architecture & Urban Studies, Virginia Tech Linda McCarthy Associate Professor, Department of Geography University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montrẽal Toronto Delhi Mexico City São Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo Geography Editor: Christian Botting Marketing Manager: Maureen McLaughlin Project Editor: Anton Yakovlev Assistant Editor: Kristen Sanchez Editorial Assistant: Bethany Sexton Marketing Assistant: Nicola Houston Managing Editor, Production: Gina M. Cheselka Project Manager, Production: Edward Thomas Senior Technical Art Specialist: Connie Long Art Studio/Illustrations: Spatial Graphics/Kevin Lear Photo Manager, Research and Permissions: Maya Melenchuk Photo Researcher: Caroline Commins Text Permissions Project Manager: Beth Wollar Text Permissions: Warren Drabek Cover Design: Richard Whittaker, Seventeenth Street Studios Composition and Full Service: PreMediaGlobal/Jenna Gray Copyeditor: Gregory Teague Proofreader: Sara Gregg Manufacturing Buyer: Maura Zaldivar Front Cover Photo Credit: Photo of Shinjuku neighborhood, Tokyo. © 2011 PhotoLibrary.com Rear Cover Photo Credit: Dancing in Harajuku neighborhood, Tokyo. © Alamy. Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate page beginning on p. 441. Copyright © 2012, 2005, 1994 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. To obtain permission(s) to use material from this work, please submit a written request to Pearson Education, Inc., Permissions Department, 1900 E. Lake Ave., Glenview, IL 60025. For information regarding permissions, call (847) 486-2635. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial caps or all caps. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Knox, Paul L. Urbanization : an introduction to urban geography / Paul L. Knox, Linda McCarthy. —3rd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-321-73643-7 1. Urban geography. 2. Urbanization. I. McCarthy, Linda (Linda Mary) II. Title. GF125.K56 2012 307.76—dc22 2011030227 12345678910— EB—15 14 13 12 11 ISBN 10: 0-321-73643-5 www.pearsonhighered.com ISBN 13: 978-0-321-73643-7 CONTENTS Preface xi About the Authors xiii Part 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 1 URBANIZATION AND URBAN GEOGRAPHY 3 Learning Outcomes 3 Chapter Preview 3 The Study of Urban Geography 4 ◼ Urban View 1.1: The Art of Taking Back a Neighborhood: The Heidelberg Project 4 Space, Territoriality, Distance, and Place 5 Approaches to Urban Geography 6 ◼ Urban View 1.2: Census Definitions 8 Urbanization: Processes and Outcomes 9 Economic Change 9 Demographic Change 11 ◼ Urban View 1.3: Globalization and Cities 12 Political Change 12 Cultural Change 13 Technological Change 13 Environmental Change 14 Social Change 14 The Plan of the Book 14 FOLLOW UP: Key Terms 15 • Review Activities 15 Part 2 Foundations and History of Urbanization 17 Chapter 2 THE ORIGINS AND GROWTH OF CITIES AND URBAN LIFE 19 Learning Outcomes 19 Chapter Preview 19 The Definition of a City 20 ◼ Urban View 2.1: Bernal Diaz Del Castillo’s Description of Tenochtitlán in 1519 20 Preconditions for Urbanization 22 Theories of Urban Origins 22 Agricultural Surplus 22 Hydrological Factors 22 Population Pressures 22 Trading Requirements 22 Defense Needs 23 Religious Causes 23 A More Comprehensive Explanation 23 Urban Origins 23 Mesopotamia 23 Egypt 24 The Indus Valley 24 Northern China 24 The Andes and Mesoamerica 24 Internal Structure of the Earliest Cities 25 ◼ Urban View 2.2: Internal Structure of the Earliest Cities 25 Urban Expansion from the Regions of Urban Origin 27 ◼ Urban View 2.3: The Silk Road: Long-Distance Trade and Urban Expansion 28 The Roots of European Urban Expansion 29 Greek Cities 29 Roman Cities 30 Dark Ages 31 Urban Revival in Europe during the Medieval Period 33 ◼ Urban View 2.4: Hanseatic League Cities 38 Urban Expansion and Consolidation during the Renaissance and Baroque Periods 39 Urbanization and the Industrial Revolution 40 ◼ Urban View 2.5: Manchester: Shock City of European Industrialization 41 ◼ Urban View 2.6: Residential Segregation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Glasgow, Scotland 44 F OLLOW UP: Key Terms 44 • Review Activities 44 Chapter 3 FOUNDATIONS: THE U.S. URBAN SYSTEM AND ITS CITIES 47 Learning Outcomes 47 Chapter Preview 47 ◼ Urban View 3.1: Frontier Urbanization and Some Problems of Daily Life 48 Frontier Urbanization 48 The Mercantile Period (1790–1840) 50 ◼ Urban View 3.2: Vance’s Mercantile Model 51 Inside the Mercantile City 51 THE PEDESTRIAN CITY 53 M ODELS OF THE M ERCANTILE CITY 53 Early Industrial Expansion and Regional Realignment (1840–1875) 53 Some Principles of Urban Growth 55 Interpreting and Analyzing the Urban Hierarchy and the Central Place System 55 THE RANK -SIZE RULE 55 C ENTRAL PLACE THEORY 57 B EYOND CONSUMER HINTERLANDS 58 v vi Contents Suburban Production and Consumption Spaces 95 Central City Land Use 95 Demographic and Social Change in Cities 96 ◼ Urban View 4.2: The Canadian Urban System 97 T HE BABY BOOMERS AND URBAN CULTURE 98 A GING POPULATIONS 98 T HE BURDEN OF YOUTH 98 T HE NEW IMMIGRANTS 98 ◼ Urban View 4.3: Boomerang Generation: Y Us? 99 Economic crisis, Restructuring, and New Metropolitan Form (1973–Present) 99 Economic Crisis and Urban Distress (1973–1983) 99 ◼ Urban View 4.4: Contemporary European Urbanization 100 Economic Restructuring and New Metropolitan Form (1983–Present) 102 ◼ Urban View 4.5: Australian Cities 103 World Cities 104 Globalization and Urban Change 106 ◼ Urban View 4.6: Japanese Cities: Tokyo and the Tokaido Megapolitan Region 107 The Polycentric Metropolis 107 The End of “Suburbia” 110 ◼ Urban View 4.7: From Boomburbs to Bustburbs? 111 F OLLOW UP: Key Terms 112 • Review Activities 113 Part 3 Urbanization and the Less Developed Countries 115 Chapter 5 URBANIZATION IN THE LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES 117 Learning Outcomes 117 Chapter Preview 117 ◼ Urban View 5.1: The Dream of a Better Life as a Garment Girl in Dhaka 118 Urbanization Trends and Projections: The Less Developed Countries in Global Context 118 Factors Promoting Urban Growth 122 ◼ Urban View 5.2: Fleeing the Countryside for Life in the City in Africa 123 Theories of Urbanization and Economic Development 123 Modernization Theories: The Developmental Approach 123 Urban Bias and Underdevelopment 125 ◼ Urban View 5.3: A Model of Peripheral Urbanization 127 New Models from the Less Developed Countries: Opportunities for Development 127 A Historical Perspective on Colonial Urbanization 127 Inside the Early Industrial City 58 Urbanization and the Public Interest 58 ◼ Urban View 3.3: Immigrant Housing Conditions 59 Instruments of Change: Horsecars and Railroads 60 HORSECARS 60 R AILROADS 61 The Organization of Industry (1875–1920) 62 The Industrial City 62 ECONOMIC SPECIALIZATION AND THE REORGANIZATION OF URBAN SPACE 63 F RAMING THE CITY : N ETWORKED INFRASTRUCTURES 65 T HE EMERGENCE OF LAND USE ZONING LAWS 66 T HE SUBURBAN EXPLOSION : STREETCAR SUBURBS 67 R APID TRANSIT 68 M ASS TRANSPORT AND REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT 69 Inside the Industrial City 69 CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICTS 70 D EPARTMENT STORES AND SHOPPING DISTRICTS 70 D OWNTOWN OFFICE DISTRICTS 70 W AREHOUSE ZONES 71 C ITY HALLS AND CIVIC PRIDE 71 T HE SPATIAL ORGANIZATION OF CBD S 71 L AND VALUES AND URBAN LAND USE 72 S ECTORS AND ZONES 73 F ILTERING AND VACANCY CHAINS 74 Fordism, the Automobile, Suburban Infill, and the Great Depression (1920–1945) 74 A Critical Turn for Urbanization: The Depression and Macroeconomic Management 75 The Rise of Suburbia 76 Fordism 76 Paving the Way for Suburbanization 77 PARKWAYS 77 T HE DECLINE OF M ASS TRANSIT 78 Patterns of Suburban Growth 78 AUTOMOBILE SUBURBS 78 P LANNED SUBURBS 79 S UBURBANIZATION AND FEDERAL POLICY 82 S UBURBANIZATION OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 83 N EW PATTERNS OF LAND USE 83 F OLLOW UP: Key Terms 84 • Review Activities 84 Chapter 4 URBAN SYSTEMS AND CITIES IN TRANSITION 87 Learning Outcomes 87 Chapter Preview 87 ◼ Urban View 4.1: Fast Food and Religion in the Exhaust of a Drive-in Culture 88 Regional Decentralization and Metropolitan Sprawl (1945–1973) 88 Metropolitan Sprawl 90 The Fordist Suburb 91 Contents vii Urban Problems 169 Poverty 169 ◼ Urban View 7.2: Defying Gender Stereotypes: Las Cholitas in Bolivia 172 Inadequate Housing 172 Lack of Urban Services 174 ◼ Urban View 7.3: A Terrible Human Toll: HIV/AIDS in Sub- Saharan African Cities 176 Transportation Problems 177 ◼ Urban View 7.4: How Rationing Can Backfire: The “Day Without a Car” Regulation in Mexico City 178 Environmental Degradation 179 Responses to the Problems of Urbanization 180 Sustainable Urban Development 180 The “Globalization Paradox” and Recent Changes in Urban Governance 181 ◼ Urban View 7.5: Urban Social Movements and the Role of Women: Mahila Milan in Mumbai, India 183 F OLLOW UP: Key Terms 184 • Review Activities 184 Part 4 Processes of Urban Change 187 Chapter 8 THE URBAN DEVELOPMENT PROCESS 189 Learning Outcomes 189 Chapter Preview 189 ◼ Urban View 8.1: Two Sides of the Housing Crisis: Skateboarding and Foreclosure 190 Property, Location, Rent, and Investment 190 ◼ Urban View 8.2: Global Financial Meltdown, Local Disinvestment 192 Patterns of Investment in Land and Property 194 Property as a Financial Asset 194 The Structures of Building Provision 194 City Makers 194 LANDOWNERS 195 S PECULATORS 196 D EVELOPERS 196 B UILDERS 198 C ONSUMERS 199 R EALTORS , FINANCIERS , O THER PROFESSIONAL F ACILITATORS 199 G OVERNMENT AGENCIES 199 Market Responses of the Development Industry 200 ◼ Urban View 8.3: Urban Development is Less and Less a Local Activity 200 N EW PRODUCTS 201 F OLLOW UP: Key Terms 204 • Review Activities 204 Indigenous Urbanization at the Eve of the European Encounters 127 Colonial Urbanization 129 Mercantile Colonialism 132 Industrial Colonialism 132 Late Colonialism 133 Early Independence 133 Neocolonialism and the New International Division of Labor 134 Globalization and Neoliberalism 135 Overurbanization 135 Overurbanization and Megacities 135 Widespread Overurbanization 135 ◼ Urban View 5.4: The Harsh Realities of Life in a Megacity 136 F OLLOW UP: Key Terms 137 • Review Activities 137 Chapter 6 URBAN FORM AND LAND USE IN THE LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES 139 Learning Outcomes 139 Chapter Preview 139 ◼ Urban View 6.1: Life in a Haiti Tent City 141 Patterns of Urban form and Land Use 141 Latin American Cities 141 African Cities 145 Islamic Cities 148 ◼ Urban View 6.2: Fighting Racial Discrimination in South African Cities with Soccer? 149 ◼ Urban View 6.3: Towering Ambition in Persian Gulf Cities and the Global Economic Downturn 153 South Asian Cities 154 ◼ Urban View 6.4: A Day in the Life of a Call Center Worker in India 156 Southeast Asian Cities 157 ◼ Urban View 6.5: Shanghai, a World City and ”Dragon Head” of China’s Economy 159 East Asian Cities 159 ◼ Urban View 6.6: Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Development in the Pearl River Delta, the World’s Largest Extended Metropolitan Region 163 F OLLOW UP: Key Terms 165 • Review Activities 165 Chapter 7 URBAN PROBLEMS AND RESPONSES IN THE LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES 167 Learning Outcomes 167 Chapter Preview 167 ◼ Urban View 7.1: Narrowing the Digital Divide in Africa: Skipping Landlines for Cell Phones 168 viii Contents Municipal Socialism and the Rise of Machine Politics (1840–1875) 236 Boosterism and the Politics of Reform (1875–1920) 237 THE PROGRESSIVE ERA 237 A NNEXATION 238 Egalitarian Liberalism and Metropolitan Fragmentation (1920–1945) 239 THE NEW DEAL 241 Cities as Growth Machines and Service Providers (1945–1973) 241 BLACK POWER AND BLACK POLITICS 243 ◼ Urban View 10.2: Milwaukee Demolishes the “Freeway to Nowhere” 243 T HE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SPATIAL EQUITY 244 Entrepreneurial Politics and Neoliberalism (1973–Present) 245 ◼ Urban View 10.3: Tax Increment Financing (TIF) 246 Fiscal Crisis 247 ◼ Urban View 10.4: The Fiscal Squeeze and U.S. Central Cities 248 Fiscal Retrenchment and Neoliberalism 249 The Privatized City 250 PRIVATOPIA 251 NIMBYism, Smart Growth, and the Geopolitics of Suburbia 251 ZONING STRUGGLES 252 “S MART ” G ROWTH 252 Civic Entrepreneurialism and the Politics of Image 253 STRATEGIES FOR URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 254 T HE POLITICS OF PACKAGING 256 Perspectives on Governance, Politics, and Urban Change 257 The Structure of Local Power 257 The Role of the Local State 259 Patterns of Local Conflict 259 FOLLOW UP: Key Terms 260 • Review Activities 260 Chapter 11 URBAN POLICY AND PLANNING 263 Learning Outcomes 263 Chapter Preview 263 The Roots of Urban Policy and Planning 264 ◼ Urban View 11.1: Competition at all Costs: Civic Entrepreneurialism Taken Too Far? 264 Themes and Perspectives 265 The Beginning: Philanthropy and Reform 265 Early European Traditions 266 EBENEZER HOWARD AND GARDEN CITIES 266 P ATRICK GEDDES AND SCIENTIFIC PLANNING 267 Chapter 9 HOW NEIGHBORHOODS CHANGE 207 Learning Outcomes 207 Chapter Preview 207 ◼ Urban View 9.1: Staying Put Despite the Spiral of Neighborhood Decline: A Mad Hatter? 208 Neighborhood Change 209 Redevelopment and Reinvestment 209 ◼ Urban View 9.2: The Household Life Cycle 210 Neighborhood Life Cycles 211 Housing Markets 211 Urbanization and the Tenure Transformation 212 ◼ Urban View 9.3: Cabrini-Green: A Cherished Home in a Place That was a Symbol of Everything Wrong with Public Housing 214 Public Housing 214 ◼ Urban View 9.4: Public and Private Housing in European Cities 217 Residential Mobility and Neighborhood Change 218 Movers, Stayers, and Neighborhood Change 218 The Impact of New Arrivals to the City 219 Intraurban Moves 219 ◼ Urban View 9.5: Neighborhood Stability in West European Cities 219 Reasons for Moving 220 Understanding Household Behavior: The Decision to Move 221 Understanding Household Behavior: The Search for Alternative Places to Live 222 Housing Market Gatekeepers, Bias, and Discrimination 223 Real Estate Agents as Social Gatekeepers 223 Mortgage Finance Managers as Social Gatekeepers 225 Insurance Agents as Social Gatekeepers 226 ◼ Urban View 9.6: Hoxton’s Serial Transformations 227 Putting it all Together: The Example of Gentrification 228 FOLLOW UP: Key Terms 231 • Review Activities 231 Chapter 10 THE POLITICS OF CHANGE: URBANIZATION AND URBAN GOVERNANCE 233 Learning Outcomes 233 Chapter Preview 233 ◼ Urban View 10.1: The Disneyfication of Times Square 234 The History of Urban Governance 235 Laissez-faire and Economic Liberalism (1790–1840) 235 Contents ix The Foundations of Residential Segregation 295 Social Status 295 Household Type 297 ◼ Urban View 12.2: The Social Construction of Race 297 Ethnicity 298 Lifestyle 301 ◼ Urban View 12.3: Social Exclusion and Migrant Workers in European Cities 303 Interpretations of Residential Ecology 304 The Chicago School: Human Ecology 304 CRITICISMS OF HUMAN ECOLOGY 306 F ACTORIAL ECOLOGY 306 ◼ Urban View 12.4: Residential and Economic Structure in European Cities 307 Recent Changes to the Foundations of Residential Segregation 307 New Divisions of Labor, New Household Types, and New Lifestyles 309 NEW ROLES FOR W OMEN 310 ◼ Urban View 12.5: The Ethnoburb—A New Suburban Ethnic Settlement 311 N EW PATTERNS OF HOUSEHOLD FORMATION 312 I NCREASED M ATERIALISM AND NEW LIFESTYLES 313 ◼ Urban View 12.6: “Inconspicuous Consumption?” 315 Social Polarization and Spatial Segregation 316 The New Residential Mosaic: “Lifestyle” Communities 318 ◼ Urban View 12.7: GIS Marketing Applications Help Starbucks to Brew up Better Locational Analyses 319 F OLLOW UP: Key Terms 321 • Review Activities 321 Chapter 13 THE CITY AS TEXT: ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN 323 Learning Outcomes 323 Chapter Preview 323 ◼ Urban View 13.1: Disney’s Celebration: Designing the Happiest Place on Earth? 324 Architecture and the Dynamics of Urban Change 325 Architecture and Exchange Value 325 Architecture and the Circulation of Capital 325 Architecture and Legitimation 326 MEANING AND SYMBOLISM 326 Architecture versus “Mere Building” 326 The Style of Production/The Production of Style 326 Arcadian Classicism and the “Middle Landscape” 327 PUBLIC PARKS 328 Beaux Arts and the City Beautiful 328 United States: Jacob Riis and the Tenement Commissions 269 Progressive Era Reforms 269 SETTLEMENT HOUSES 270 T HE PARK M OVEMENT 271 T HE CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT 272 The City Practical 273 The New Deal 273 Policy and Planning for Renewal and Growth (1945–1973) 274 Europe: Planning For Renewal 274 ◼ Urban View 11.2: The Visible Legacy of Urban Policy and Planning in European Cities 276 The United States: Planning for Growth 277 The Courts and Urban Policy in the United States 277 SCHOOL DESEGREGATION 277 R ESTRICTIVE COVENANTS 277 C IVIL RIGHTS 278 Federal Policy Initiatives 278 Evangelical Bureaucrats 279 Neoliberal Policy and Planning 280 THE PROPERTY RIGHTS M OVEMENT 280 Planning as Dealmaking 280 ◼ Urban View 11.3: Kelo v. City of New London Eminent Domain Lawsuit 281 ◼ Urban View 11.4: Urban Regeneration in London’s Docklands 281 M IXED -USE DEVELOPMENTS AND CLUSTER ZONING 283 ◼ Urban View 11.5: Competitive Regionalism 283 Planning for Healthy and Livable Cities 284 Sustainability and Green Urbanism 284 ◼ Urban View 11.6: Cities Take Environmental Sustainability Efforts into Their Own Hands 285 ◼ Urban View 11.7: Sustainable Metropolitan Planning Efforts in the United States 286 Metropolitan Governance and Planning 286 FOLLOW UP: Key Terms 288 • Review Activities 288 Part 5 People and Places 289 Chapter 12 THE RESIDENTIAL KALEIDOSCOPE 291 Learning Outcomes 291 Chapter Preview 291 ◼ Urban View 12.1: The French Ghetto Beat of a Muslim Rapper 293 Social Interaction and Residential Segregation 293 Territoriality 294 x Contents Discrimination by Design: Domestic Architecture and Gender Differences 369 FOLLOW UP: Key Terms 369 • Review Activities 369 Chapter 15 PROBLEMS OF URBANIZATION 371 Learning Outcomes 371 Chapter Preview 371 ◼ Urban View 15.1: Homeless Students Struggle to Keep Up 372 Problem? What Problem? 372 From Haunts of Vice to Gang Wastelands—and Back 373 Problems of the Early Industrial City 373 Problems of the Industrial City 374 Problems of the Post-War City (1945–73) 376 Problems of the Neoliberal City 376 Poverty 377 The Cycle of Poverty 378 ◼ Urban View 15.2: Poverty, Stress, and Civil Disorder in U.S. Cities 380 P OVERTY IN U.S. M ETROPOLITAN AREAS 381 D UAL CITIES ? 382 Criminal Violence 385 ◼ Urban View 15.3: High School Student Drug Abuse 387 Spatial Patterns 387 ◼ Urban View 15.4: Russian Mafia Crime and Corruption—Not Just in Russian Cities Anymore 389 The Effects of Crime on Urbanization and Urban Life 389 ◼ Urban View 15.5: Terrorism and Cities 391 Homelessness 392 The Causes of Homelessness 394 Infrastructure and Environmental Problems 397 Water Supply Problems 398 ◼ Urban View 15.6: Brownfield Redevelopment 400 Air Pollution 400 ◼ Urban View 15.7: High-Speed Rail in Europe 402 Infrastructure Crisis 402 ◼ Urban View 15.8: London’s Traffic Congestion Charge 406 Persistent Future Problems 407 FOLLOW UP: Key Terms 409 • Review Activities 409 Notes 411 Glossary 427 Credits 441 Index 446 The American Way: Skyscrapers 329 Modernism: Architecture as Social Redemption 330 ARTS AND CRAFTS AND ART NOUVEAU 331 T HE EARLY M ODERNISTS 331 T HE BAUHAUS AND THE M ODERN M OVEMENT 332 L E CORBUSIER 333 A N AMERICAN RESPONSE 335 T HE CRITIQUE OF M ODERNISM 336 The Postmodern Interlude 338 NEW URBANISM 339 H ISTORIC PRESERVATION 340 Design for Dystopia 341 FORTRESS L.A. 341 “Starchitects,” “Starchitecture,” and World Cities 342 FOLLOW UP: Key Terms 345 • Review Activities 345 Chapter 14 URBANIZATION, URBAN LIFE, AND URBAN SPACES 347 Learning Outcomes 347 Chapter Preview 347 ◼ Urban View 14.1: The Writing on the Wall for Territoriality? Taggers Respect Community Mural Painted in “Neutral” Colors 348 Social Life in Cities 348 Theoretical Interpretations of Urban Life 349 The “Moral Order” of City Life 349 ◼ Urban View 14.2: “Sex and the City”: Prostitution 350 A NOMIE AND DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 351 L IBERATING ASPECTS OF URBAN LIFE 352 Urbanism as a Way of Life 352 The Public and Private Worlds of City Life 353 Changing Metropolitan Form and New Forms of Urbanism 354 URBAN VILLAGES 354 ◼ Urban View 14.3: Homosexuality and the City 355 S UBURBAN COMMUNALITY , “H ABITUS ,” AND CONTEMPORARY L IFESTYLES 357 Community and Territory 358 COGNITION , P ERCEPTION , AND M ENTAL M APS OF THE CITY 358 A PPRAISIVE IMAGES 360 Lifeworlds and the “Structuration” of Social Life 361 ◼ Urban View 14.4: Disability and the City 362 Time-Space Routines 363 ◼ Urban View 14.5: Structuration: Time and Space in People’s Everyday Life 364 Gendered Spaces 365 The Creation of Women’s Spaces 365 Changing Roles, Changing Spaces 367 interplay of science and technology with economic and social change, reveal important dimensions of race and gender, raise important issues of social inequality, and point to important lessons for governance and policy. Most of all, of course, it can help us to understand, analyze, and interpret the landscapes, economies, and communities of cities and metropolitan areas around the world. NEW TO THE THIRD EDITION The third edition of Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography represents a thorough revision based on a number of substantive changes. • This edition has been shortened considerably, from 18 to 15 chapters. The organization of the book has been fundamentally reworked to improve the structure and flow of the material. The 15 chapters in this new edition are arranged into different sections where they fit seamlessly together: Section I, Introduction; SectionII, Foundations and History of Urbanization; SectionIII, Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries; Section IV, Processes of Urban Change; and Section V, People and Places. • The content of some chapters has been substantially reorganized. Chapters 3 and 5 from the previous edition (The Foundations of the American Urban System; The Foundations of Urban Form and Land Use) are now combined into one chapter on the processes and out- comes in the evolution of the U.S. urban system up to 1945. Chapters 4 and 6 from the previous edition (Urban Systems in Transition; Changing Metropolitan Form) are also now combined to cover the urban processes and out- comes since 1945 in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan. Chapter 18, “Urban Futures,” from the previous edition has been removed and instead partly incorporated into other chapters. • There is new material, with more non-U.S. examples, about important urban issues such as the global financial meltdown and its impact on urban residents, including discussion of foreclosures and homeless students, as well as the aftermath for the people in cities hit by the massive earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. • There are many new “Urban View” essays that capture not only the vitality, experiences, and achievements of ordinary people in cities, but also address the problems that they struggle to overcome every day. This edition includes 29 new essays. • New or expanded chapter topics include globalization, neoliberalism, overurbanization and megacities, “starchi- tecture” and world cities, the U.S. Hope VI and the Choice Neighborhood programs, gentrification, gender discrimi-nation, environmental problems including brownfields and greyfields, sustainable urban development, smart growth, and green urbanism. Towns and cities are in constant flux. They are hives of human activity and crucibles of social, cultural, and political change, where there is always something happening. At times, people and circumstances accelerate the restlessness of urban change, with the result that the function, form, and appearance of cities are transformed. Such was the case over a hundred years ago, when a combination of economic, social, and technological changes were turning cities in Europe and the United States inside out and upside down, forging, in the process, the physi- cal, economic, and political framework for the evolution of the “modern” city. We are currently living through another phase of trans- formation, this time involving global processes of economic, cultural, and political change. Within the cities of countries like the United States, the classic mosaic of central city neighbor- hoods has become blurred as cleavages among people based on income, race, and family status have been fragmented by new lifestyle and cultural preferences. The long-standing distinction between central cities and suburbs has become less and less straightforward as economic reorganization has brought about a selective recentralization of some commercial and residential land uses in tandem with a selective decentralization of much commerce and industry. Outlying centers big enough to be called “edge cities” and “boomburbs” have appeared, as if from nowhere. Meanwhile, cities in less developed countries have grown at unprecedented rates, with distinctive processes of urbanization creating new patterns of land use and posing new sets of prob- lems for urban residents. A pressing problem today for the people in many less developed countries is a process of over-urbanization in which cities are growing more rapidly than the jobs and housing that they can sustain. There has been a “quartering” of cities into spatially partitioned, compartmen- talized residential enclaves. Luxury homes and apartment complexes correspond with an often dynamic formal sector of the economy that offers well-paid jobs and opportunities for some people; these contrast sharply with the slums and squatter settlements of people working in the informal sector—in jobs not regulated by the state—who are disadvantaged by a lack of formal education and training and the often rigid divisions of labor shaped by gender, race, and ethnicity. URBAN GEOGRAPHY Urban geography allows us to address these trends, to relate them to our own individual lives and concerns, and to spec- ulate on how they play a role in other fields of study such as economics, history, sociology, and planning. The study of urban geography can help us better understand the market- place and appreciate the interdependencies involved in local, national, and international economic development. It can provide us with an appreciation of history and the relation- ships among art, economics, and society. It can illuminate the PREFACE xi xii Preface In this way, we can appreciate the logic of particular theories and their relevance to particular circumstances. In writing this book, we have aimed at providing a coherent and comprehen- sive introduction to urban geography that offers a historical and process-oriented approach with a U.S. focus that also provides a global context and comparative international perspectives. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are grateful to many individuals for their help in form- ing and testing our ideas. Our gratitude is wide and deep, and we take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Brian Berry, University of Texas at Dallas; Martin Cadwallader, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Bill Clark, University of California, Los Angeles; Ron Johnston, University of Bristol; Peter Taylor, Loughborough University; Anne Bonds and Judith Kenny at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and at the University of Minnesota, Helga Leitner, and Roger Miller who is missed terribly. We would like to acknowledge the content and accuracy reviewers and the contributors of content to this edition: Kevin Archer, University of South Florida; Piper Gaubatz, University of Massachusetts; Dennis Grammenos, Northeastern Illinois University; Donald Lyons, University of North Texas; Nina Martin, University of North Carolina; Sara Metcalf, State University of New York: Buffalo; Lawrence F. Mitchell, Northern Kentucky University; Murray Rice, University of North Texas; Derek Shanahan, Millersville University. We have also been fortunate in being able to call on the talents and energies of Jonathan Burkham in searching for material, and Jenna Gray at PreMediaGlobal and Ed Thomas at Pearson in preparing the book for publication. Caroline Commins has meticulously researched the photographs for the book. Anton Yakovlev at Pearson provided a constant source of advice, enthusiasm, encouragement, and support. Paul L. Knox Linda McCarthy • Also new to this edition are Learning Outcomes at the beginning of each chapter, which list key knowledge that students should have acquired after reading the chapter. • The content of end-of-chapter Follow Up Activities (with new subsections titled “Key Terms” and “Review Activities”) has been completely revised for each chapter to reflect the updated material in the book. • The third edition of the book also incorporates a comprehensive updating of all the data, as well as many of the maps, photographs, and illustrations, in addition to the glossary. • A second color has been added throughout the text, enhancing the readability and the pedagogical value of the maps and other art. • Finally, the new premium website for Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography , found at www.mygeoscienceplace.com, now includes self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth ™ tours, key resources and suggested further readings, related helpful websites, “In the News” RSS feeds, and addi-tional references and resources. OBJECTIVES AND APPROACH In this book we attempt to capture the changes in the nature and outcomes of urbanization processes for people, as well as the development of new ways of thinking about urban geogra- phy. A dynamic approach to the study of urban geography is the most distinctive feature of the book: unraveling the inter- locking processes of urbanization to present a vivid and mean- ingful explanation of constantly changing urban geographies and urban life. An important advantage of such an approach is that it provides a framework capable of capturing recent changes while addressing much of the “traditional” subject matter of urban geography. The dynamic approach also allows for the integration of theory with fact. In this book, key concepts and theories are presented in relation to prior events and ideas. Linda McCarthy received her PhD in Geography from the University of Minnesota, USA, and her BA from University College, Dublin. She is an Associate Professor in the Depart ment of Geography and the Urban Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. She is also a certified planner. Her teaching centers on cities and globalization. Her research focuses on urban and regional economic development and planning in the United States, Europe, and China. Her recent academic journal articles have been on regional cooperation instead of wasteful competition for corporate investment; government subsidies for automobile plants; environmental justice and brownfield redevelopment; and the globalization of the economy. Linda is the co-author of another book, The Geography of the World Economy (Hodder), with Paul Knox and John Agnew. Paul Knox received his PhD in Geography from the University of Sheffield, England. After teaching in the United Kingdom for several years, he moved to the United States to take a position as professor of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech. His teaching centers on urban and regional development, with an emphasis on comparative study. He serves on the editorial board of several scientific journals and is the author or co- author of numerous books, including Small Town Sustainability (Birkhauser), Metroburbia USA (Rutgers University Press), Cities and Design (Routledge), and The Geography of the World Economy (Hodder) as well as Pearson’s Human Geography and World Regions in Global Context: Places and Regions in Global Context . In 2008 he received the Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Association of American Geographers. He is currently a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, where he also serves as Senior Fellow for International Advancement. ABOUT THE AUTHORS xiii This page intentionally left blank 1 Introduction 1 PART T his book introduces urban geography by focusing on the processes and outcomes of urbanization that are so important for the people who live in cities. Cities are products of many forces. They are engines of economic development and centers of cultural innovation, social transformation, and politi- cal change. At the same time, urban areas vary in everything from employment opportunities for job seekers to patterns of land use in neighborhoods, racial composition in metropolitan regions, and social behavior in urban society. Given the considerable range of issues that urban geography encompasses, we need to try to develop a consistency in our approach. Understanding theories about cities and the way they change—rather than simply listing their various attributes—will help to ensure that we maintain a consistency and will give us greater insight into the way cities work. Although we will sometimes need to look closely at specific people and events, our goal is to focus on understanding how to read the economic, social, and political “blueprints” that give shape and character to various kinds of cities and urban life. By “generalizing” in this way, we will have a more immediate and richer understanding of each new aspect of urbanization that we encounter. Urbanization and Urban Geography 1 Chapter LEARNING OUTCOMES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Assess how and why the concepts of space, territoriality, distance, and place influence everyone in cities. ■ Describe why several approaches to urban geography have arisen, and how it is possible to gain urban insights from each. ■ Explain how urban geographies result from long-term changes involving the interrelated dynamics of economic, demographic, political, cultural, technological, environmental, and social change. ■ Compare and contrast the broad phases in the nature of capitalism and their importance for cities in the United States since the 1700s. ■ Understand the ways in which the rapidly increasing interdependence of the world-system has impacted cities and the people living in them. Cities are hives of human activity and crucibles of social, cultural, and political change, where there is always something happening. Urban geography can help us to understand, analyze, and interpret urban landscapes such as in this photo- graph of Woodruff Park and the people enjoying a wonderful view of the downtown skyline of Atlanta, Georgia. CHAPTER PREVIEW The fundamental task of the student of urban geography is to make sense of the ways that towns and cities have changed and are changing, with particular reference to the differences both between urban places and within them. As a student, you will understandably find yourself asking some fundamental questions. What exactly is urban geography, and how does it relate to other aspects of geography and to other social science subjects? What is involved in urbanization, and what outcomes of urbanization that affect people are important in studying urban geography? This first chapter answers those questions and introduces some of the organizing principles and concepts that recur throughout the book. First, we address the question of urban geography as a subject for academic study, emphasizing the impor- tance of concepts of space, territoriality, distance, and place that influence everyone in cities. We then review the various approaches that have been taken to the study of cities from a geographical perspective. We will see that 3 4 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography THE STUDY OF URBAN GEOGRAPHY Like other aspects of human geography, urban geography is concerned with “local variability within a general context.” 1 This means that it is concerned with understanding both the distinctiveness of individual places (at the scale of towns and cities or particular neighborhoods) and the regularities within and between urban areas in terms of the spatial rela- tionships between people and their environment (see Urban View 1.1 entitled “The Art of Taking Back a Neighborhood: The Heidelberg Project”). We should immediately note that environment here includes not only the natural physical environment but also the built environment (everything from homes, factories, offices, and schools to roads and bridges), the economic environment (economic institutions, the structure they are all encompassed by the overall framework for study that is adopted in this book: a framework that allows us to deal with various aspects of urban geography in terms of their relationship to urbanization as a process. The second half of the chapter addresses this question of urbanization as a process. Here we see how urban geographies and urban change associated with every aspect of people’s lives are the result (and sometimes the cause) of long-term changes in economic development and in the interrelated dynamics of technological, demographic, political, social, cultural, and environmental change. Because these changes are being framed increasingly at the global scale, our framework for studying urban geography also views urbanization from a global perspective involving people and cities from all over the world. Finally, we look ahead to the contents and organization of the rest of the book. URBAN VIEW 1.1 The Art of Taking Back a Neighborhood: The Heidelberg Project 2 Multicolored polka dots decorating one house, a boat filled with stuffed toy animals nearby, and a vacant lot with rows of car hoods painted with faces (Figure 1.1). The Dotty Wotty House, Noah’s Ark, and Faces in the Hood are just some of the guerrilla art installations on Heidelberg Street in Detroit by Tyree Guyton, a trained artist, whose philosophy is: I believe that my job as an artist is to help people to see! I wanted to use my talents to bring about positive change in my community . . . I use art as a catalyst for social change. I chose to start right here in my own neighbor- hood and yet I realized that the first change had to start with me. Changing my mind and seeing with my eye of understanding helped to eradicate my fears and limita- tions. Social change must start with self and then you can change the entire world around you.And you cannot help notice the change immediately as you arrive at Heidelberg Street, having passed city block after city block with as many vacant lots as houses, uncut grass and invading weeds, and trash littering the crumbling sidewalks. For the urban geographer, this is an unforgettable example of “local variability within a general context.” The distinctiveness of the Heidelberg Project reflects the kind of local variability that is possible in a particular city despite the general context of urban decline due to regularly repeated stories of deindustrialization, suburbanization, and poverty in Rustbelt cities like Detroit. What started with decorating Tyree Guyton’s grandfather’s house with polka dots 25 years ago has become the nonprofit Heidelberg Project, which attracts 275,000 visitors of all ages each year. But it has not only changed former crack houses and abandoned homes into art that explodes with bright paint and discarded items, it has also helped keep the street free of trash and crime, create a strong sense of community, and provide educational opportunities for neighborhood children to experience the transformative potential of art. The Heidelberg Project’s social importance was recognized with a 2004 Places Award by the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA): Clearly this work is not only about what you see. It’s about the dialogue it engenders ... The Heidelberg Project offers an alternative vision to young children in one of America’s most blighted urban areas; it broadens community aware- ness of the power of art; and it brings a new sense of important social realities to the consciousness of visitors. FIGURE 1.1 An abandoned house is covered with discarded toy stuffed animals to become art as part of the Heidelberg Project in Detroit that has also helped to keep this street free of trash and crime, create a strong sense of community, and provide educational opportunities for neighborhood children to experience the transformative potential of art. Chapter 1 • Urbanization and Urban Geography 5 and organization of economic life, and so on), and the social environment (including norms of behavior, social attitudes, and cultural and political values that shape interpersonal relations among people). For urban geographers some of the most important ques- tions therefore include the following: What attributes make cities and neighborhoods distinctive? How did these distinctive identities evolve? Are there significant regularities in the spatial arrangement of towns and cities across a country or region of the world? Are there significant regularities in the spatial organiza- tion of land use within cities and in the spatial patterns of people in neighborhoods by social status, household type, or race? The urban geographer will also need to know about the causes of any regularities that do exist. How, for example, do people choose where to live and what are the constraints on their choices? How do people’s areas of residence affect their behavior? What groups, if any, can manipulate the spatial organization of towns and cities? And who profits from such manipulation? In posing these questions, urban geographers have learned that the answers are ultimately to be found in the wider context of economic, social, and political life. Cities must be viewed as part of the economies and societies that maintain them. The study of cities cannot be undertaken in isolation from the study of history, economic development, sociocultural change, or the increasing interdependence of places within the world economy. A proper understanding of cities requires an interdisciplinary approach. The traditional focus of geography—the interrelationships between people and their physical and social environments—requires geographers to draw on the work of researchers in those related disciplines. Accordingly, the chapters you are about to read will be peppered with references to the work of economists, sociologists, political scientists, historians, city planners, and even artists. Space, Territoriality, Distance, and Place Urban geography is a coherent and distinctive framework of study through the central themes of space, territoriality, distance, and place. For the geographer, space is not simply a medium in which economic, social, political, and histori- cal processes are expressed. It is also a factor that influences patterns of urban development and the nature of the relation- ships between different social groups within cities. From this perspective, cities are simultaneously the products and the shapers of economic, social, and political change. Partitioning space through the establishment of legal boundaries is also important because it affects the dynamics of cities in several ways. For example, the establishment of municipal boundaries restricts a city’s capacity to raise revenue to its own territory, while electoral boundaries affect where people vote and the outcome of local elections and politics. Territoriality is the tendency for particular groups within society—ethnic groups, gangs, gated communities—to attempt to establish some form of control, dominance, or exclusivity within a localized area. Group territoriality depends primar- ily on the logic of using space as a focus and symbol of group membership and identity as a means of regulating social inter- action. It is important for the geographer because it is often the basis for individual and group behavior that creates distinctive spatial settings within cities. Thes e spatial settings in turn mold the attitudes and behavior of the people living in cities. Distance is important for several reasons. It affects the behavior of both producers and consumers of all goods and services. It influences patterns of social interaction and the shape and extent of social networks. Variations in people’s physical accessibility to opportunities and to amenities such as jobs, schools, stores, parks, and hospitals are important in determining the local quality of life. Finally, place is important because of the geographer’s traditional and fundamental concern with areal differen- tiation and the distinctiveness of regions and localities. The distinctiveness of particular metropolitan regions, cities, districts, and neighborhoods is central to the analytical heart of urban geography: mapping variability, identifying regu- larities in spatial patterns, and establishing the linkages that constitute functional regions and subareas. In addition, the sense of place (Figure 1.2) that people associate with certain FIGURE 1.2 A wall mural. A distinctive mural in a Hispanic neighborhood in Milwaukee, WI, near Cesar Chavez Drive and across from the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center that provides health care, health education, and social services to low-income residents in the neighborhood. Community art such as this provides a remarkably clear expression of the sense of place and territoriality that are fundamental to the spatial organization of people in cities. 6 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Finally, changes in cities themselves and in the nature of urbanization have also contributed to the evolution of approaches to urban geography. As we have become aware of changes in cities and have looked more closely at those changes, new topics for study have emerged. A good example is the increased interest that geographers have taken in com- munity well-being after the cuts to many public services in richer countries like the United States that have hit some poorer and older people very hard over the past couple of decades. An equally striking, more recent example is the interest by geographers in the link between local housing markets and international finance after the financial meltdown of 2008–09 and the personal misfortunes of families losing their homes due to foreclosure. The details of the evolution of urban geography as an academic subject are beyond the scope of this book. It is important, however, to establish a few central points about that evolution. Several decades ago, work in urban geography (or “settlement geography,” as it was more commonly known) saw towns and cities as adaptations to natural physical cir- cumstances. Attributes of urban settlements were interpreted as responses to local sites, regional resources, and the opportu- nities and constraints surrounding them. So, for example, the growth of Pittsburgh as a steel town can be interpreted spatially, from this perspective, in terms of the availability of local sources of coal, iron ore, limestone, and water, along with proximity to large markets for iron and steel products that benefited local busi nesspeople and workers. Another body of work within this spatial description approach that dominated the early development of the subject was focused on the “morphology” of towns and cities—their physical form, their plan, and their various townscapes and “functional areas” (that is, districts with a distinctive mixture of interrelated land uses). Keeping with the example of Pittsburgh, cities and localities is important, because it can influence their decisions: where to live, where to locate an office or a factory, whether to hire someone from a particular place, or whether to walk alone through a certain part of town, for example. Approaches to Urban Geography Urban geography has evolved to encompass a variety of approaches to its subject matter. This is the result of a more general intellectual evolution of ideas in the social sciences. For example, a widespread “quantitative revolution” has occurred both in urban geography and in the social sciences as a whole. Two developments spurred this revolution. Large quantities of reliable socioeconomic data about cities and city neighborhoods became available from sources such as the censuses of population and housing in many countries. At the same time, tools to analyze and shape this information were becoming widely available in the wake of new digital technolo- gies and geographic information systems (GIS). Modern analyti- cal and modeling techniques have made a decisive contribution to the social sciences. They have allowed the urban geographer to see farther, with more clarity, and have provided the means by which to judge theories about urbanization. Like other fields, urban geography has also been influenced by changing social values. As each society’s comprehension of urban problems has grown, attitudes toward research in urban geogra- phy have become more flexible. Much of the research undertaken today in urban geography has relevance far beyond the ivory towers of academia and involves a more active engagement with the needs and concerns of local communities, private companies, and government. Urban geographers are likely to be consulted on issues that range, for example, from optimal political redistricting (redrawing the boundaries of local voting districts) to the evalu- ation of government policies aimed at enhancing local economic development in distressed central city neighborhoods. FIGURE 1.3 An urban geographer looking at this neighborhood of young families with children would want to discover what it has in common with similar neighborhoods in other cities and what makes it distinctive from them. Chapter 1 • Urbanization and Urban Geography 7 people’s feelings about steelworkers’ neighborhoods affect their decisions about where to live in Pittsburgh? Like the behavioral approach, though, the humanistic approach has been criticized for not paying enough attention to the constraints on people’s decision making and behavior. As a result, another approach, generally referred to as the structuralist approach , gained momentum within urban geography. This approach is cast, in contrast to the behavioral and humanistic approaches, at the scale of macroeconomic, macrosocial, and macropolitical changes. It focuses on the implications of such changes for urbanization and on the opportunities and constraints they present for the behavior and decision making of different groups of people. At its broadest level, this approach draws on a combination of macroeconomic theory, social theory, and the theories and concepts of politi- cal science, and includes the political economy approach. For example, a political economy approach to Pittsburgh’s urban geography would certainly want to relate the patterns of growth and decline of both steel mills and their associated blue-collar neighborhoods to the broader structure of, among other things, access to capital by businesses for investment in industry, the availability of skilled labor, the framework of government policies affecting industrial and residential development, and deindustrialization associated with corporate restructuring within the global economy. The structuralist analyses of the structure of social inequality paved the way for explicitly incorporating the experience of women into urban geography. The feminist approach deals with the inequalities between men and women, and the way in which unequal gender relations are reflected in the spatial structure of cities. For Pittsburgh, the feminist approach might be interested in examining changing gender roles as the urban labor force has restructured following the closing of the steel mills, such as the trend for some women in two-earner house- holds to be overrepresented in certain fast-growing part-time occupations. The structure-agency approach was an attempt to unite the structuralist approach’s concern with macrolevel social, economic, and political structures with the humanistic approach’s emphasis on human agency. Structuration theory sees society’s social structures as created and recreated by the social practices of human agents, whose actions are themselves constrained by these social structures. As a result, it is impossible to predict the exact outcome of the interactions between social structure and human agency. Despite the elegance of this theo- rization, empirical investigation has proved difficult because it is not easy to analyze the continuous and complex interrelation- ships between structure and agency. A study of Pittsburgh might involve questions about how the gentrification of some central city neighborhoods is the result of an intricate set of interactions between human agents, including landowners, mortgage lend- ers, planners, and realtors; institutions such as the city govern- ment; and social structures involving planning regulations such as land use zoning and building codes. Finally, the influence of literary theory has led to the emergence of poststructuralist approaches , including the post- modern approach . The postmodern approach strongly opposes these studies would likely have emphasized the influence of the city’s hilly topography on the layout of its streets and neigh- borhoods, and perhaps shown how urban growth and land use were “fixed” by the limited amounts of flat land (along the Monongahela River) that the captains of industry at the time saw as suitable for large ironworks. Gradually, scientific principles influenced attitudes toward knowledge, and both settlement and morphology studies fell out of favor. In their place there emerged a spatial analysis approach based on the philosophy and methodology of positivism that had been developed in the natural sciences. This philosophy was founded on the principle of verification of facts and relation- ships through accepted scientific methods. The rise of positivism affected all of geography and most of the social sciences, and the “quantitative revolution” reinforced it. Its practitioners came to redefine urban geography as the science of urban spatial orga- nization and spatial relationships, and, as a science, it focused on the construction of testable models and hypotheses. One example of the many possible positivistic approaches to aspects of Pittsburgh’s urban geography would be an attempt to quantify the relationship between neighborhood social status and prox- imity to steel mills. The hypothesis might be that neighborhood social status tends to increase steadily with distance from a steel mill. If this were demonstrated with verifiable evidence, the next step might be to begin to develop a theory by replicating the study in other industrial cities. This more abstract approach has contributed a great deal to our understanding of cities, and it continues to be a mainstay of urban studies. But sometimes its abstractions and overdepen- dence on statistical data can seem flat and lifeless in the face of the urban realities of people’s lives to which they are applied. The abstractions tend to leave unanswered many of the impor- tant questions concerning underlying processes and meanings . So, although it might be useful to be able to use census tract data to establish and quantify a tendency for neighborhood social status to increase with distance from an industrial plant, we are left without any sense of how the relationship came about: Who made what decisions, and why, in the process of establishing the relationship? How might any exceptions to the overall relationship be explained? In response to such questions, a behavioral approach emerged. This approach focuses on the study of individual people’s activities and decision making in urban environments. Although the behavioral approach continued to use a positivist methodology, explanatory concepts and analytical techniques were also derived from social psychology and some key ideas came from social philosophy, with its insights into human needs and impulses. The behavioral approach’s relative neglect of the impor- tance of cultural context for understanding people’s actions and the meanings attached to those actions led to the emer- gence of the humanistic approach . The behavioral approach’s positivist methodology was replaced by methods, such as ethnography and participant observation, that attempted to answer questions that capture people’s subjective experiences. For Pittsburgh, what kind of meaning does the presence of a steel mill carry for different individuals within the city? How do 8 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography the city (that may not reflect reality) that, in turn, are designed to influence the views and decisions of potential investors and residents. For the most part, all these approaches can be regarded as potentially complementary. Although it is neither possible nor desirable to merge them into some kind of all-encompassing model or theory of urbanization, it is possible to gain insights from each. To that extent, all these approaches are represented in this book (with classic examples pointed out). This does not mean, however, that the reader will be faced with sudden or unexpected shifts. The material in this book is organized to emphasize urban geography as the outcome of urbanization as a process. the idea that any general theories can explain cities and the people who live in them. Instead, it accepts the shifting and unstable nature of the world and concentrates on questions of who defines meaning, how this meaning is defined, and to what end. It is concerned with understanding the power of symbol- ism, images, and representation as expressed in language, com- munication, and the urban landscape. Again, using the example of Pittsburgh, a postmodern approach would likely examine the city government’s attempts to “reinvent” the city within the global economy as it restructures away from steel and toward jobs in the high-tech and services industries. This approach would draw attention to the city government’s use of language and communication to deliberately construct certain images of URBAN VIEW 1.2 Census Definitions Just what is meant by an “urban” settlement varies a good deal from one country to another. For the Bureau of the Census in the United States, the term urban applies to the territory, people, and housing units located within urbanized areas and urban clusters. 3 • An urbanized area (UA) is a densely settled area (whether or not the territory is legally incorporated as a city) with at least 50,000 people and a density of at least 1,000 people per square mile at the urban core and at least 500 people per square mile in the surrounding territory. • An urban cluster (UC) consists of an urban core with a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile and at least 500 people per square mile in the surrounding territory that together encompass a population of at least 2,500 people, but fewer than 50,000 people. Because such definitions of urbanized depend on administra- tive boundaries, they do not capture the concentrations of people that live in a number of contiguous jurisdictions that form one continuous metropolitan sprawl. The U.S. Bureau of the Census began to use standardized definitions of metropolitan areas in the 1950 census under the designation of standard metropoli- tan area (SMA). The term was changed to standard metropolitan statistical area (SMSA) by the 1960 census and to metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in 1983. Within urban areas, detailed census information is available by census tracts, block groups, and census blocks : • Census tracts. These geographical subareas have bound- aries that were drawn with the objective of delineating small populations that are relatively uniform in terms of their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. They vary a good deal in territorial extent and population size, although tracts within metropolitan areas contain between 1,000 and 8,000 people. As metropolitan America has grown, so has the number of census tracts recognized by the Census Bureau. The boundaries of many longer- established census tracts have remained the same over several decades, making it possible to use census data to analyze neighborhood change in certain areas. Elsewhere, however, modifications to tract boundaries and the addition of new tracts make intercensal comparison difficult. • Block groups. Every census tract is divided into as many as 9 block groups, each of which contains an average of 10 census blocks. A block group consists of all blocks whose numbers begin with the same digit in a census tract. Block groups generally contain between 300 and 3,000 people. Block groups are important because they are the smallest geographical area for which detailed data are tabulated. • Census blocks. Census blocks generally correspond to the physical configuration of city blocks and are bounded by streets or other prominent physical features. They are the smallest statistical unit for which census data are available, although the range of data is not detailed, being limited to basic population and housing characteristics. In preparing the 1990 census, the U.S. Bureau of the Census developed an electronic database called the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) system. TIGER files contain address ranges, latitude and lon- gitude coordinates, and the location of roads, railways, rivers, and other physical features. They can be linked with small- area census data to form the basis of sophisticated Geographic Information System (GIS) applications that offer a great deal of potential for research in urban geography. GIS—organized col- lections of computer hardware, software, and geographic data that are designed to capture, store, update, manipulate, and map geographically referenced information—has grown rapidly to become an important method of urban geographic analysis. GIS technology allows an enormous range of urban problems to be analyzed. For instance, it can be used to identify the most efficient evacuation routes for people from all or part of a city in the event of a terrorist attack, to monitor the spread of infec- tious diseases within and between cities, to analyze the impact of proposed changes in the boundaries of legislative districts, to identify potential customers in the vicinity of a new business, and to provide a basis for urban and regional planning. The changing realities of urbanization present a continual challenge to the census in delineating geographic units that reflect actual patterns of urban and metropolitan change. So census tabulations include data not only for MSAs but also metropolitan areas (MAs), for primary metropolitan statisti- cal areas (PMSAs), consolidated metropolitan statistical areas (CMSAs) and core based statistical areas (CBSAs), each designed to provide a standardized framework for comparisons and analy- sis at different spatial scales. Chapter 1 • Urbanization and Urban Geography 9 change is itself to some extent interdependent with some of the others. This complexity can be confusing! We will eliminate much potential confusion with concepts and examples intro- duced in this chapter. Bear in mind, though, that Figure 1.4 presents a very broad framework that covers the entire subject matter of urban geography. The farther you get into the book, therefore, the more meaningful Figure 1.4 will become. The economic, demographic, political, cultural, social, technologi- cal, and environmental processes and relationships implied in the diagram will be elaborated, and the urban outcomes that affect people will be detailed. It is recommended, therefore, that you refer to Figure 1.4 from time to time, putting each new set of material into overall perspective. Economic Change At the heart of the dynamics that drive and shape urbanization are economic changes. The sequence and rhythm of economic change will be a recurring theme as we trace and retrace the imprint of urbanization. It is the evolution of capitalism itself that has structured this imprint that affects everyone living in cities. Figure 1.5 summarizes the main features of this evolu- tion. In the United States, there have been several broad phases in the nature of capitalism, and we are now in the early stages of a significantly different phase, framed in the context of globalization. The earliest phase, lasting from the late eighteenth century until the end of the nineteenth, was a phase of competitive cap- italism , the heyday of free enterprise and laissez-faire economic development, with the political economy of the country char- acterized by classical liberalism: competition between small family businesses and with few constraints or controls imposed by governments or public authorities. In the earlier years of this phase, the dynamism of the entire system rested on the profitability of agriculture and, increasingly, manufacture and URBANIZATION: PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES Figure 1.4 provides a useful outline of urbanization as a process. It is clear from the diagram that urbanization involves much more than a mere increase in the number of people living and working in cities and metropolitan regions. It is driven by a series of interrelated processes of change—economic, demographic, political, cultural, technological, environmen- tal, and social. It is also modified by locally and historically contingent factors such as topography and natural resources or an “accident” of birth that resulted in Henry Ford being born in Dearborn, Michigan, that ultimately resulted in the Ford Motor Company being headquartered in Detroit and not somewhere else in the United States. It is true that the overall result of urbanization has been a tendency for more and more people to live and work in ever-larger cities and metropolitan regions (although, as we will see, this is not a necessary condi- tion of urbanization). At the same time, urbanization results in some important changes in the character and dynamics of the urban system (the complete set of urban areas region- ally, nationally, or even internationally), and within cities and metropolitan regions, it causes changes in patterns of land use, in social ecology (the social and demographic composition of neighborhoods), in the built environment, and in the nature of urbanism (the forms of social interaction and ways of life that develop in urban settings). Certain groups of people might view some of these outcomes as problems. Government policies, legal changes, city planning, and urban management might eventually address those problems, often resulting in changes (sometimes unanticipated) that in turn affect the dynamics that drive the overall urbanization process. As suggested by Figure 1.4, the relationships among these processes are complex. Urbanization is not only influenced by the direct effects of these dynamics, but it also experiences “feedback” effects. Meanwhile, almost every aspect of urban FIGURE 1.4 A framework for the study of urban geography: urbanization as a process. URBANIZATION PROCESSES ECONOMIC CHANGE DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE POLITICAL CHANGE CULTURAL CHANGE SOCIAL CHANGE TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE LOCALLY & HISTORICALLY CONTINGENT FACTORS URBAN SYSTEMS LAND USE BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND TOWNSCAPE SOCIAL ECOLOGY URBANISM OUTCOMES SOCIALLY- DEFINED PROBLEMS POLITICAL CONFLICT POLICY RESPONSES; PLANNING 10 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography after Henry Ford, the car manufacturer who was a pioneer of the principle of mass production, based on assembly line techniques and “scientific” management (known as Taylorism), together with mass consumption, based on higher wages for workers and sophisticated advertising techniques targeted at consumers. The success of Fordism was associated with the devel- opment of a rather tense but nevertheless workable relation- ship between business interests and the labor unions, whose new strength was in itself another important element of “organization.” Meanwhile, the role of government had also expanded—partly to regulate the unwanted side effects of free-enterprise capitalism and partly to mediate the relation- ship between organized business and organized labor. After the Great Depression of 1929–1934, government’s role expanded dramatically to include responsibility for full employment, the management of the national economy, and the organization of various dimensions of the social well-being of people. The market failures that had triggered the Depression undermined the legitimacy of classical, laissez-faire liberalism and led to its eclipse by an egalitarian liberalism that relied on government to manage economic development and soften the unwanted “machinofacture” (industrial production that was based less on handicraft and direct labor power than on mechanization, automation, and intensively used skilled labor). After the Civil War, the extensive railroad system and a strengthened federal system helped to create an economy that was truly national in scale. The most successful family businesses grew bigger and began to take over their competi- tors. Business became more organized as corporations set out to serve regional or national consumer markets rather than local ones. Labor markets became more organized as wage norms spread, and government began to be more organized as the need for regulation in public affairs became increasingly apparent. By the turn of the twentieth century, these trends had reached the point where the nature of capitalist enterprise had changed significantly. It could now be characterized as organized capitalism —a label that came to be increasingly appropriate with the evolution of the economy over the next 75 years or so. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the system’s dynamism (that is, the basis of profitability) shifted away from industrial manufacture and machinofacture as a new labor process took hold. This process was Fordism, named FIGURE 1.5 The long-term view. A summary of some of the major features of economic change and urban development in the United States. Water power Steam engines Cotton textiles Iron works Coal-powered steam engine Steel Railways Machine tools World shipping Internal combustion engine Oil and plastics Electrical engineering Aerospace Radio Telecommunications Microelectronics Digital telecommunications Biotechnology Informatics Canal building First railway boom Second railway boomStreetcar boom First automobile boom Motorways and airports Broadband and satellite systems Laissez-faire Economic Liberalism Municipal Socialism and Machine Politics Boosterism and the Politics of ReformCities as Growth MachinesMetropolitan Fragmentation and Progrowth Coalitions Re-modernization of Institutions, Entrepreneurialism, Neoliberalism Negligible (liberalism) Increasing: regulator Strong (direct): manager/regulator Strong (indirect): partner/facilitator Decreasing: broker (neoliberalism) (egalitarian liberalism) Mercantile urban systems (regional) Organization of industry (national frameworks) Metropolitan spatial decentralization World Cities and international networks Pedestrian City Transitional CityIndustrial City Cities of sectors and zones Suburban infillMetropolises of central cities surrounded by urban realms Megapolitan regions Organized Advanced Competitive Managed (Keynesianism) Globalized Technology systems Major phases of capitalism Infrastructure development Urban governance and politics Role of central government Urban systems Metropolitan form First Modernity Second Modernity Chapter 1 • Urbanization and Urban Geography 11 of the 1980s dismantled much of the Keynesian welfare state, deregulated industry, ushered in an era of public-private co- operation in place-making and economic development, and rekindled libertarian ideas about the primacy of private prop- erty rights. Urban planning has morphed into public-private cooperation, while state and local governments increasingly behave like businesses in their attempts to attract economic development and balance the books. In attempts to recap- ture some control over the global scale of the new economic logic and its social, cultural, and environmental implications, national governments have become increasingly collaborative, supranational entities have emerged, many institutions have extended their focus from a national to an international frame of reference, and many local and regional organizations have become involved in cross-border collaborative networks of one sort or another. For some observers, this points to nothing less than the onset of a second major phase of modernization in which the structures and institutions of nineteenth- and twentieth- century modernization are both deconstructed and recon- structed (Figure 1.5). Whereas urban development during the first modernity was framed by competitiveness within closed geographic systems (national states) that were competing with one another, urban development at the onset of this second modernity is subject to competitiveness at the global scale. The significance of this historical evolution for urbaniza- tion, urban geography, and cities and the people living in them is fundamental. Each new phase of capitalism saw changes in what was produced, how it was produced, and where it was produced. These changes called for new kinds of cities, while existing cities had to be modified. At the same time, of course, cities themselves played important roles in the transformation of capitalist enterprise. As centers of innovation, cities and towns have traditionally functioned as engines of economic growth that provide opportunities for new forms of livelihood and improved prosperity. But despite producing the bulk of national wealth, cities are also locations of exploitation and unemployment. Within a global economy in particular, the costs and benefits of globalization are unevenly distributed among the people that live in cities. The challenge for cities in the global economy of the twenty-first century is to function not only as engines of economic growth but also as agents of change for greater social justice and urban sustainability. Demographic Change One of the most important sub sets of interdependence suggested in Figure 1.4 is that between demographic change and urban- ization. Cities are, in a fundamental way, the product of their people. Put another way, the size, composition, and rate of change of urban populations significantly shape the character of urbanization. Yet the condition of cities themselves can in turn influence those characteristics. Crowded and degraded slums, for example, can lead to higher death rates; cities with good amenities tend to attract particularly large numbers of migrants; and border towns and big cities with international ports and airports tend to attract a disproportionate share of side effects of free-market capitalism for those people most adversely impacted. This top-down approach to economic management, with a commitment to low unemployment, is often referred to as Keynesianism, after the British economist John Maynard Keynes. After World War II, another important transformation in the nature of capitalist economies became evident. Developed countries like the United States and Canada experienced a shift away from industrial production and toward services, particu- larly sophisticated business and financial services, as the basis for profitability. It is denoted in Figure 1.5 as an evolution from organized capitalism to advanced capitalism . This shift began to transform occupational structures for workers, sparking deindustrialization—a decline in manufacturing jobs but not in manufacturing production. Broadly speaking, the key dynamic of urbanization during the two centuries spanning the 1770s and the 1970s was inter- urban competition for jobs and investment, with the unwanted side effects of uneven development being cushioned increas- ingly by local, regional, and national government intervention. This long evolution of the capitalist economy saw the emer- gence of institutions that mutually confirmed and supported one another in an overall process of modernization: the nation- state, the Fordist company, the nuclear family, the system of industrial relations, the welfare state, and the formal institutions of science and technology. But from the mid-1970s on, cities in the United States, along with others around the world, were caught up in a very different dynamic. The increasing globalization of the economy allowed huge transnational corporations to outmaneuver the national scope of both governments and labor unions by moving routine production and assembly operations to lower-cost, less devel- oped parts of the world as part of a new international division of labor (NIDL) . This contributed to a profound destabilization of the relationship between business, labor, and government in developed countries like the United States. Meanwhile, Fordism began to be a victim of its own success, with mass markets for many products becoming saturated. As it became increasingly difficult to extract profits from mass production and mass con- sumption, many enterprises sought profitability through serving specialized market niches. Instead of standardization in produc- tion, specialization required variability and, above all, flexible production systems . There was a rapid decline of the old base of manufacturing industries and the onset of a “new economy” based on digital technologies and featuring advanced business services, cultural products industries, and knowledge-based industries, all framed within the context of a new international division of labor and international finance. The internationalization of economic geo graphy weakened the leverage of both big government and big labor, destabilizing the organized capitalism of the mid- twentieth century and allowing a fundamental intensification of the economic and spatial logic of capital—especially big capi- tal. Much of this was directly at odds with the top-down man- aged capitalism and planned modernization of the previous two centuries, tipping the U.S. space-economy into a significant new phase dominated by neoliberalism: a selective return to the free- market ideas of classical liberalism. The Reagan administration 12 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 1.3 Globalization and Cities The urbanization processes that produce the urban outcomes shown in Figure 1.4 operate at different spatial scales. The rapidly increasing interdependence of the world-system means that the economic and social well-being of cities and the people living in them depends increasingly on complex interactions that are framed at a global scale. Globalization has had profound effects on cities and systems of cities because of the close interaction between global and local forces—a process that has been called glocalization or the global-local nexus . The process and its out- comes involve uneven development both within and among cities. Globalization has led, for example, to the emergence of so-called world cities —command centers such as New York, London, and Tokyo that are key players in the new concentrated financial system. Although globalization is a complicated and controversial topic, we can identify a number of interrelated dimensions— economic, cultural, and political—associated with its processes and urban outcomes. Economic globalization reflects the fact that, although urban, regional, and national circumstances remain very important, what happens in any given city and how it affects, for example, workers or shoppers, is broadly deter- mined by its role in systems of production, trade, and consump- tion that have become global in scope. The term globalization is usually associated with the growing importance of transna- tional corporations operating across a number of countries. The activities of these companies, in the spheres of both production and marketing, are increasingly integrated at a global scale in a new international division of labor. Products are made by work- ers in multiple locations from components manufactured by workers in other places to take advantage of the full range of geographical variations in costs. With a global assembly system, labor-intensive work can be done where labor is cheap, raw materials can be pr ocessed near their source of supply, and final assembly can be done close to major urban markets. Cultural globalization is associated with the development of a broader global culture. This is a controversial idea, but it essentially involves the widespread diffusion of Western values of materialism. Globalization can be seen in the popularity of Hollywood films or the spread of the hamburger. Indeed, Ritzer 4 coined the term “McDonaldization” to denote the ways in which processes of mass consumption are eroding cultural differences among people around the world. It is argued that globalization involves the homogenization of culture—the development of cultural interrelatedness of people throughout the world. New telecommunications systems—especially within urban areas— that allow rapid transmission of information and images to peo- ple’s homes and electronic devices have facilitated this process. But there has been resistance by some people to these global forces through the assertion of local cultural identities, including various popular social movements seeking greater autonomy at the level of regions and cities. Political globalization has been associated with the reduced power of national governments to shape their own destinies. In large measure this has been bound up with the globalization of financial markets so that money can now flow rapidly across national boundaries. In addition, because transnational corpora- tions can switch investment from one country to another, public bodies, including city governments, have little choice but to adopt incentive strategies to compete in attracting and keeping internationally mobile companies and their investment in an effort to promote jobs and economic prosperity for workers and residents. Altogether, these various dimensions of globalization present an enormous challenge to the effectiveness and appropriateness of the economic, political, social, and cultural structures and institutions that had evolved over the two centuries beginning with the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s. Globalization has brought hybridity and cosmopolitan- ism to the national cultures and social systems of people in many parts of the world. As a result, many social and cultural structures and norms have been subject to change or obsoles- cence, while new, transnational, social and cultural phenomena have emerged. Similarly, globalization has intensified trans- national economic and political interdependence, prompting the reform of many economic and political institutions and the emergence of new supranational institutions and networks. For many observers, it all amounts to the onset of a second modernity, a distinctive break from the national frameworks of urban and economic development to a globalizing framework with an entirely new set of possibilities and competitive oppor- tunities; and, of course, the attendant conflicts and contradic- tions of a new world order. immigrants. Meanwhile, urban economic well-being often mediates the relationships between demographic change and urbanization. So, for example, both birth rates and migration rates depend a great deal on people’s perceptions and expecta- tions of economic opportunities. Political Change The broad ideological swings and shifts that occur from time to time are an important aspect of the influence of political change on urbanization. One well-known example is the reform move- ment that emerged in the United States in the 1870s and 1880s in response to a variety of social problems. As we will see in Chapter 10, the reform movement had an important and lasting influence on urban affairs. A very different and more recent example is that of the political shift at the national and inter- national level before the beginning of the “War on Terrorism”: the end of the Cold War, which had a marked effect on the economies and workers in some Sunbelt cities that had been heavily dependent on defense-related industries (see p. 88). In this last example we see again the mediating role of economic change. Indeed, politics has become intimately related to economic development. Economic issues are important to people and almost always appear in local elec- tions, while both the need for local services and the ability to pay for them by people living in cities are functions of local Chapter 1 • Urbanization and Urban Geography 13 interrelationships. As we will see (p. 96), demographic change is also important, the “baby boom” generation having been the innovators and “carriers” of successive aspects of cultural change from the counterculture of the 1960s to the yuppie materialism of the 1980s and the “suburban bling” of the pri- vate master-planned developments of the 2000s. Technological Change At the broadest level, and in parallel with the overall evolution of capitalism, we should recognize that the economy has been carried along by a succession of technology systems that have been fundamental to the changing conditions that producers have had to confront. These are indicated in Figure 1.5 in terms of the clusters of energy sources, transportation technologies, and key industries that characterized each system: • Early mechanization based on waterpower and steam engines; the development of cotton textiles, pottery, and iron working; and the development of river sys- tems, canals, and turnpike roads for the assembly of raw materials and the distribution of finished products for sale to consumers. • The development of coal-powered steam engines, steel products, railroads, world shipping, and machine tools that affected workers everywhere. • The development of the internal combustion engine, oil and plastics, electrical and heavy engineering, cars, aircraft, radio, and telecommunications whose legacy continues for people in cities today. • The exploitation of nuclear power, the development of lim- ited access highways, durable consumer goods industries, aerospace industries, electronics, and petrochemicals were a further breakthrough affecting people in cities. economic prosperity. As suggested by the direction of the arrows in Figure 1.4, urbanization also directly affects political change in some ways. One example is the way that coalitions of urban voters shaped the basis of modern party politics at the national level during the 1930s and 1940s in the United States (p. 239). Another is the electoral significance of suburban voters who have more recently formed an important foundation of support for the Republican Party. Urbanization also affects political change indirectly through people’s perceptions of the problems associated with various dimensions of urban change, because their perceptions inform and frame many of the issues that are contested in the political arena. Cultural Change We can find parallel examples of the interdependence of urbanization and cultural change. The broad cultural shift of the “postmodernity” (p. 338) of the 1980s, for example, brought, among other things, a renewed interest in the past that has engaged many people and found expression in urban form through historic preservation and the recycling of architectural styles. Meanwhile, urbanization has contrib- uted to cultural dynamics through the youth subcultures— distinguished by features such as clothing, slang, music, and vehicles, including skateboards—that have flourished in cer- tain urban settings. Other aspects of the interdependence between urbanization and culture involve still further pro- cesses of change. The materialism of mainstream American culture, for example, has affected urbanization through home ownership trends and patterns of residential develop- ment, but it has depended on processes of economic change that have been associated with workers’ wages not keeping pace and rising personal debt (see p. 318). It is not only (or always) economic change that is important in mediating such FIGURE 1.6 People disembarking the ferry at Coronado Island, with the skyline of San Diego, California, in the background. The economic and demographic profile of San Diego has been influenced by its military bases, climate, scenery, recreational opportunities, and proximity to the Mexican border. 14 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography achievement, occupational composition, and, ultimately, urban residential patterns. Black and Hispanic suburbanization, for example, is largely attributable to such changes. Urbanization can also induce social change. The physical and socioeconomic attributes of urban settings, for example, foster certain behav- ioral changes, such as the social isolation and withdrawal that seems to be generated among the “lonely crowd” of central city districts (p. 352). The most important changes in American society, for example, have been changes in social status that have been driven by occupational changes resulting from the structural transformation of the economy: the growth of the middle-income workers that accompanied the emergence of organized capitalism and their subsequent decline with the shift toward advanced capitalism (Figure 1.5). THE PLAN OF THE BOOK A rapid sequence of examples such as these can do no more than illustrate the scope and diversity of the interrelationships that surround the central dynamic between urbanization and economic and other change. Urbanization is clearly a multi- dimensional phenomenon, driven by multiple, interdepen- dent processes. In subsequent chapters we will see how these processes produce both regularity and distinctiveness in the geography of cities and urban life. We will present concepts and theories in relation to the overall context of urban change: Such an approach allows us to integrate theory with fact, to appreciate the logic of particular theories, and to understand their relevance to particular circumstances. We begin with a section of the book on the foundations and history of urbanization. In Chapter 2 we offer an overview of the growth of cities and urban life from their earliest origins some 5,500 years ago, which allows us to discuss some of the concepts and theories related to processes and outcomes of urban system change as they affect urban dwellers over the long historical term. We continue in Chapter 3 with a survey of the founda- tions of the U.S. urban system, which lets us consider some of the concepts and theories related to more recent processes and outcomes of urban-system change and the consequences of economic restructuring for patterns of urban growth and decline that affect everyone in these cities. Chapter 4 provides a parallel review of more recent changes that have occurred in patterns of urbanization and the form and spatial organiza- tion of urban systems in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and Japan. Here we trace the evolution of urban form and the associated activities of people from the beginnings of land use specialization, through the emergence of distinctive sectors and zones that came with industrialization, to the metropolitan sprawl of the automobile era and contem- porary development. In the next section of the book we turn our attention to urbanization in less developed countries. In Chapter 5 we consider some of the historic and contemporary changes in social, cultural, economic, political, technological, and environ- mental processes—including colonialism, industrialization, rural-to-urban migration , and overurbanization —affecting cities and the people who live in them in less developed • The most recent (and still incomplete) technology system, which is based on microelectronics, digital telecommu- nications, robotics, biotechnology, fine chemicals, and information systems, that is affecting every aspect of urban life. These technology systems gave shape and direction not only to the evolving national economy but also to the pace and character of urbanization and urban life . They have been imprinted, layer by layer, on American cities and the people living in them. There are many other, more specific examples of the interdependence of urbanization and technological change, although it is often difficult to disentangle cause and effect. Many technological changes, although not strictly causing—or being caused by—changes in urbanization, have been impor- tant preconditions for change: the streetcars that facilitated the first widespread suburbanization of urban residents in the United States, for example (p. 67). To take a very different example, the broader web of interdependence among technol- ogy, culture, economics, demographics, and so on implied by Figure 1.4 is well illustrated by the impact of new birth control technology (the contraceptive pill) in the mid-1960s. Not only did this technology help put an end to the baby boom, it also helped change attitudes toward sex, marriage, and female participation in the labor force—simultaneously affecting several dimensions of urban life. Environmental Change The complexity of the interactions between urbanization and environmental change creates problems of local through global proportions. The area of Earth’s surface needed to absorb the waste products of the people who live in a large city is likely to exceed that city’s boundaries—the ecological footprint— although this can depend on the fuels used for heating, energy generation, and manufacturing; the amount of motorized traffic; the technologies used for disposing of solid and liquid wastes; and local climatic conditions. Most large cities cannot assimilate their waste products, and by burning them they contribute to pollution. The role of people in cities in produc- ing greenhouse gas emissions from increased car use and coal- fired power plants has global climate change implications. At the local scale, cities involve changes in land use and land cover that can produce a diversity of environmental problems. In the United States, Europe, and Russia, for example, countless brownfields —abandoned or underused traditional manufac- turing facilities with actual or potential contamination—are a legacy of a weakly regulated early industrialization process that now complicates redevelopment efforts in many central cities. Social Change Still following Figure 1.4, we move now to some brief illustra- tions of the interdependence between urbanization and social change. Here we can cite the changes that have occurred over the past 30 years in terms of people’s behavior toward racial minorities—changes that have carried over to affect educational Chapter 1 • Urbanization and Urban Geography 15 urbanization for people and of modifying or managing some of the processes that contribute to urban change. At this point we come to the final section of the book in which people and places capture our attention. Chapter 12 deals with the overall patterns of residential differentiation of people in U.S. and European cities, including a discussion of the reasons for residential segregation and an examination of how changes in urbanization have affected patterns of urban social segregation. We get much closer to the detail of urban form in Chapter 13, which shows how the architecture and design of cities can be “read” in relation to the broader sweep of urban- ization processes. We will see how the city’s built environment is like a “text” that mirrors the successive phases of economic development, technological systems, social and cultural change, and so on, that have been inscribed into the overall metropoli- tan forms described in Chapters 3 and 4. The geographer’s traditional concerns with space and territoriality are pursued in Chapter 14, where we see how our daily lives shape—and are shaped by—the larger structures of urban social life and how the nature of urban spaces conditions various aspects of social organization and disorganization. This discussion leads conveniently to a review of some of the major problems of urbanization that affect people in more affluent countries like the United States (Chapter 15): slums and poor neighborhoods; criminal violence; homelessness; and infrastructure and envi- ronmental problems. countries. Chapter 6 discusses the outcomes of these processes for urban dwellers by examining the various patterns of urban form and land use in Latin American, African, Islamic, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian cities. The discussion in Chapters 5 and 6 leads conveniently to a review of some of the major problems of urbanization for people in less devel- oped countries (Chapter 7): poverty, inadequate housing, lack of urban services, transportation problems, and environmen- tal degradation. In the next section of the book we turn out attention to the processes of urban change. Chapter 8 provides an understanding of urban development as a market-oriented process of investment and production by people, focusing on the behavior of “city makers” such as speculators, developers, builders, investors, and financial managers. A closer look at the dynamics of people’s housing options and neighborhood change is provided by Chapter 9. Here we focus on the nature and operation of housing markets, on households’ behavior in selecting homes, and on the rhythm of neighborhood life cycles. Managing the problems for people associated with neighborhood change and housing mar- kets is, of course, a task of urban governance, and in Chapter 10 we trace the evolution of urban governance and the changing emphases of urban politics in relation to the sequence and pat- terns of urbanization established in earlier chapters. Chapter 11 focuses on the evolution of urban planning (a particular type of policy making) as a way of coping with the outcomes of At the end of each chapter there will be some ideas for following-up on the topics and ideas covered in that chapter. It would be a good idea, though, to follow up on the material FOLLOW UP neoliberalism (p. 11) new international division of labor (p. 11) organized capitalism and Fordism (p. 10) second modernity (p. 11) territoriality (p. 15) uneven development (p. 12) urban system (p. 9) urbanism (p. 9) advanced capitalism and flexible production systems (p. 11) competitive capitalism (p. 9) deindustrialization (p. 7) egalitarian liberalism (p. 10) first modernity (p. 11) globalization and globalized capitalism (p. 9) managed capitalism (Keynesianism) (p. 11) 2. Begin an electronic portfolio of your own work that builds on your reading. An e-portfolio can be compiled in many ways; yours should reflect your own reactions to the material in the book and your own urban interests, experi- ences of cities, and impressions of city life. It is a good idea to compile the e-portfolio in such a way that you can easily add new material. If you do not have 1. Consider the statement (p. 5) that “cities are simultane- ously the products and the shapers of economic, social, and political change” and review the discussion of such changes (pp. 5–6). Can you identify examples that illus- trate how cities are both the products and the shapers of change? Can you think of any additional examples that affect young people in particular? Review Activities Key Terms in this chapter and to begin to prepare for the subject matter of the rest of the book. 16 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography e-portfolio software, word-processing programs will let you integrate images, sound, online links to YouTube and other Web sites, and other multimedia in a fairly seamless manner. Another possibility would be to build your e-portfolio using some sort of Web publishing tool, with the ultimate goal of displaying your work on a Web site. You could also consider creating your e-portfolio using Microsoft PowerPoint or some other presentation software. The content of the e-portfolio should consist of three elements (although they do not necessarily have to be kept separate): a) A summary of the most important aspects of the material in each chapter, together with a record of the questions that the material raises for you. Note how the material is related to the overall framework provided by Figure 1.4 and how it is related to topics and ideas covered elsewhere in the book. Note any issues that you think need further clarification and record people’s ideas and opinions that you believe are particularly provocative or challenging. b) Online, library, and other material that illustrates or explains the issues you have identified in item (a) above. This material might include maps, photos, mp3 music, or videos related to the key sources and sug- gested readings at the end of each chapter that are available from your library or on the Web, such as newspaper or magazine articles, reports from govern- ment or research institution Web sites, documentaries and mockumentaries on YouTube, and so on. c) Additional material that reflects your own interests and reactions to the themes and ideas that you have encountered. This material might take the form of prose commentary, short essays, poetry (your own or others’), quotations or short extracts, drawings, photographs, brief video animations, short sound recordings, or data in the form of maps, charts, or graphs that you can digitize and include in your e-portfolio. Subsequent follow-up sections will contain specific suggestions on what you can do to make your e-portfolio an interesting project. 3. Get in the mood—watch a movie! There are many movies, documentaries, and mockumentaries with “urban” themes that you can download, rent, or borrow. A great documentary is Julien Temple’s 2010 BBC production called “A Requiem to Detroit?” that uses contemporary music and images to tell the story of urban decline in the Motor City—as described by the BBC: “a vivid evocation of an apocalyptic vision: a slow-motion Katrina that has had many more victims.” Log in to www.mygeoscienceplace.com for self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth TM tours, key resources and suggested readings, related websites,“In the News“ RSS feeds, and additional references and resources to enhance your study of urbanization and urban geography. 17 Foundations and History of Urbanization 2 PART A fascinating aspect of urban geography involves trying to understand the processes that led to the development and growth of individual cities and systems of cities. Because urban areas are the result of a long evolution, we need to develop a historical perspective. We can see history’s powerful legacy in the surviving fragments that document the sequence associated with the people and events that helped produce today’s towns and cities. As Ildefons Cerdà, a nineteenth-century Spanish town planner, put it: “Our cities are like historical monuments to which every generation, every century, every civilization has contributed a stone.” Since the evolution of the first cities about 5,500 years ago, changes in social, cultural, economic, political, technological, and environmental processes—including long-distance trade, overseas colonization, and industrialization—have helped fuel urban growth and change. These changes are visible in the internal structure and in the land uses of people in cities and in the development of regional, continental, and, later, global urban systems, as well as world cities. The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 2 Chapter LEARNING OUTCOMES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Explain what makes a place “urban.” ■ Describe the possible explanations for the emergence of urban economies and societies. ■ Describe how and why Europe developed a city-based economy after the Dark Ages. ■ Outline and explain the impact of the Industrial Revolution on towns and cities in Europe and North America. 19 Because cities are the result of a long evolution, urban geographers need to develop a historical perspective. We can see history’s powerful legacy in the surviving fragments that document the sequence associated with the people and events that helped produce any city, such as Rome, Italy. The white marble Arch of Septimus Severus in the Roman Forum was built in 203 C.E. to commemorate this emperor’s victories in Parthia (present day Iran). CHAPTER PREVIEW This chapter follows the evolution of cities from their earliest origins about 5,500 years ago through the Industrial Revolution that began in the English Midlands in the mid-1700s. During this long span of urban development and redevelopment, changes in social, cultural, economic, political, technological, and environmental processes— including merchant capitalism, overseas colonization, and industrialization—helped drive urban growth and change. The impacts of these changes can be seen in the internal structure and patterns of land use of people in cities, and in the development of regional, continental, and later global urban systems, as well as world cities. The term urban system refers to the complete set of urban settlements of different sizes that exists within a given territory. Territorial limits set the bounds of an urban system, though only a global scale can be justified as defining a true system in the sense that it captures all the functional relationships among cities. Conventionally, however, urban systems are studied at the scale of regions or countries. With cities and urban life being such relatively recent features in the long span of human existence, we need to consider first the environmental, demographic, and other preconditions needed before cities could even begin to emerge. We then review the various theories of urban origins that together offer the reasons for why cities actually 20 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Wheatley’s definition of urbanism captures the remarkable social and political changes surrounding the emergence of cities that resulted in a particular set of functionally integrated institutions which were first devised . . . to mediate the transformation of relatively egalitarian, ascriptive, kin-structured groups into socially stratified, politically organized, territorially based societies. 1 Sjoberg’s definition highlights important physical and economic attributes that define a city:It is a community of substantial size and population density that shelters a variety of nonagricultural special- ists, including a literate elite. 2 V. Gordon Childe 3 attempted to characterize the distinctive features of cities with a list of distinguishing features of urban civilization: • Size . Settlements were significantly larger in population size than anything that had existed previously. • Structure of the population . Occupational specialization— with the transition from the old agricultural order—meant that the employment of full-time administrators and craftspersons was possible. Consequently, residence rather than kinship became the qualification for citizenship. Inevitably, the rule of the priest-kings, who guaranteed peace and order, involved social stratification. • Public capital . The emergence of public capital allowed monumental public buildings to be erected and full-time artists to be supported. • Records and the exact sciences . The need to keep records promoted the beginnings of a written script and math- ematics, both of which became intimately bound up with urban civilization. • Trade . By no means an urban innovation, a network of trade routes has become a hallmark of urbanization. originated. The earliest towns an d cities were developed indepen- dently in regions of the world where people were transitioning to agricultural food production. Five regions provide the earliest evidence for urbanization and urban civilization: Mesopotamia; Egypt; the Indus Valley; northern China; and the Andes and Mesoamerica. A look at the internal structure of these cities— street patterns, religious precincts, different neighborhoods, and so on—reveals a great deal about their evolution and the political, economic, and social changes that went on in them. Urbanization spread out from the five regions of urban origin so that by about 1000 c.e. successive generations of city-based empires—including those of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium—had emerged in Southwest Asia, China, and parts of Europe. But urban expansion was a precarious and uneven process. For example, although urbanization contin- ued in other parts of the world, the Dark Ages that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire in Western Europe was a time of stagnation and decline in economic and city life. Not until the eleventh century did the regional specializations and long- distance trading patterns emerge that provided the foundations for a new phase of urbanization based on merchant capitalism. Colonization and the expansion of trade around the world eventually allowed Europeans to shape the world’s economies and urban societies. The Industrial Revolution later generated new kinds of cities—and many of them. Together, European colonization and the Industrial Revolution created unprecedented concentrations of people in cities that were connected in networks and hierarchies of interdependence around the world. THE DEFINITION OF A CITY Although most people recognize a city when they see one, no single definition can apply to all cities across space or even to the same city through time. Certainly a description of Mexico City today by a local resident would be very different to Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s description of Tenochtitlán during the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs (see Urban View 2.1 entitled “Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s Description of Tenochtitlán in1519”). URBAN VIEW 2.1 Bernal Diaz Del Castillo’s Description of Tenochtitlán in 1519 In the middle of Lake Texcoco, Tenochtitlán was the island capital of the Aztecs (just north of modern-day Mexico City). At an estimated 200,000 people, it was one of the largest cities in the world at the time, and larger than most European cities except Paris and Constantinople. Bernal Diaz del Castillo was a conquistador who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico by the Spanish. 4 The reason Montezuma initially welcomed the Spanish into Tenochtitlán may have been that he thought that Hernán Cortés was the fair-skinned god Quetzalcoatl whose return was predicted by Aztec prophecy. Diaz served as a swords man under Cortés and described their entry into Tenochtitlán on November 8, 1519: As we neared the vicinity of Tenochtitlán, we saw many towns and villages built on artificial islands in the lakes. We were amazed and said that it was like the enchant- ments they tell of in Spanish legend, on account of the great towers and temples and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were a dream. Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 21 URBAN VIEW 2.1 Bernal Diaz Del Castillo’s Description of Tenochtitlán in 1519 ( continued) We entered Tenochtitlán along a wide causeway that was crowded with people who came out of the city to see us; and the towers and temples were full of people, as well as the canoes from all parts of the lake (Figure 2.1). It was not surprising, because they had never before seen horses or men like us. When Cortés was told that the Great Montezuma was approaching, he dismounted from his horse, and they paid great reverence to one another. We were offered accommodation in some large houses that had belonged to Montezuma’s father and given a sumptuous dinner. That night our orders were to be much on the alert, both the cavalry and all of us soldiers. So this was our lucky and daring entry into the great city of Tenochtitlán! The next day we climbed to the top of the great temple. From there we saw the three causeways that led into the city and the aquaduct that supplied the city with fresh water (Fig. 2.1). On the great lake we saw a multitude of canoes, some coming with supplies of food, and others returning loaded with cargos of merchandise from the marketplace. There were crowds of people in the marketplace, some buying and others selling, so that the murmur and hum of their voices and the words that they used could be heard from a great distance. Some of the soldiers among us who had been in many parts of the world, in Constantinople, and all over Italy, including Rome, said that they had never before seen so large a marketplace that was so full of people, and so well organized and regulated. Each kind of merchandise was sold in a different part of the market. There were dealers in gold, silver, and precious stones, feathers, and embroidered goods. There were slaves for sale, both men and women, tied to long poles, with col- lars around their necks so that they could not escape. There were traders who sold great pieces of cloth and twisted thread, and others selling ropes or sandals or pottery or cacao. Yet others sold sweet cooked root vegetables. In another part of the market there were the skins of lions and tigers, otters and jackals, deer and mountain cats, some tanned and others not. One part of the market was full of people selling vegetables, fruits, and herbs, and meat, fowl, and fish, as well as honey and nut paste. But why do I waste so many words in recounting what they sell in that great market?—for I will never finish if I tell it all in detail. Eyewitness accounts like this and the archaeological evidence are all that remain of Tenochtitlán. Cortés returned two years later and laid siege to the city. He cut off the causeways and destroyed the aqueduct to prevent food and water from getting to the inhabitants. By the end of the eight month siege, the city had been almost completely destroyed by cannon shot and fires, and many of the Aztec people had died from smallpox, a new disease brought from Europe. FIGURE 2.1 The Spanish conquest in 1519 of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán (just north of modern-day Mexico City) showing the three causeways into the city and the great temple. 22 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography a greater degree of occupational specialization in nonagricul- tural activities, such as people working in crafts, engineering, and administration, that could be organized effectively only in an urban setting. This interpretation has been criticized as simplistic—an agricultural surplus alone may not have been enough to trigger all the societal and other changes necessary to produce cities. Some experts disagree on the cause-and-effect relationship and believe that fundamental changes in social organization would have been required before an agricultural surplus could be produced. Hydrological Factors Karl August Wittfogel 7 pointed out that many early cities emerged in areas of agriculture that often depended on irriga- tion and the control of the regular spring floods. He contended that elaborate irrigation projects demanded that people adopt new divisions of labor , cooperation on a large scale, and the intensification of cultivation. These changes would stimulate urban development by promoting occupational specializa- tion, a centralized social organization, and population growth based on the production of an agricultural surplus. Again, this interpretation has been criticized by those who believe that major changes in social organization would have been necessary, if not before, then at least in tandem with, the develop- ment of major irrigation projects. Other experts have questioned whether a complex social organizational structure was even necessary in order for people to undertake large-scale irrigation. Still others have pointed out that not all early cities, including some in Mesoamerica, depended on massive irrigation schemes. Population Pressures Ester Boserup 8 believed that increasing population densities and/ or a growing scarcity of wild food sources from hunting and gathering—that previously had provided adequate levels of subsis- tence for people from a relatively low workload—brought on the transition to agricultural food production and urban life. Again, the relationship is unclear in terms of whether food production and urban life caused—or were the result of—increased popula- tion densities. In certain cases demographic growth pressures may have disturbed the balance between population and resources and forced some people to move to areas with more marginal environmental conditions for agriculture. This scenario could have promoted early breakthroughs in agricultural technologies and practices or the establishment of nonagricultural activities, such as trade, defense, or religion, that would have supported the establishment of further urban settlements. Trading Requirements Some experts, observing how countless urban centers had evolved around marketplaces, have interpreted the emergence of cities primarily as a function of long-distance trade. 9 Participation in large-scale trading networks would call for a system to administer the formal exchange of goods that in turn would promote the development of centralized structures of Childe used the term urban civilization because civilization and cities historically have gone hand in hand—the Latin word civitas (cities) is the word from which civilization is derived. From the beginning, cities have been crucibles of innovation that have produced some of the most incredible breakthroughs in human achievement. Ancient Sumer (in southern Iraq) is called the Cradle of Civilization because of the countless inventions of the people in the earliest cities there. The legacies of these early urban innovators continued throughout subsequent civilizations and are seen in contemporary cities—in the use of writing, mathematics, the wheel, and recording time in multiples of 60. PRECONDITIONS FOR URBANIZATION The preconditions necessary for cities to emerge came about with the transition of people from mobile food collection— hunting, gathering, and fishing—to sedentary food production based on agriculture. The increased volume and reliability of an agricultural food supply allowed higher numbers and densities of people to live permanently in one place. This population increase promoted the proliferation of agricultural villages. The villages had to be located in regions where the environ- mental conditions—climate, water supply, topography, natural resources, and soil conditions—were favorable for agriculture. Early breakthroughs in technology and in farming practices— innovations in river and water management, crop and animal strains, and food transportation and storage techniques— were needed to support improvements in food production. Increasingly complex social organizational structures were required to handle the growing population and exchange of agricultural and other products among the village communities. THEORIES OF URBAN ORIGINS Although it would have been difficult for cities and urban life to emerge in the absence of certain basic environmental, demographic, social, and other preconditions, there are various explanations for why cities originated. Although no one theory provides a full account, each allows insights into the role of different factors in promoting early urbanization. Agricultural Surplus Archaeologists, including V. Gordon Childe 5 and Sir Leonard Woolley, 6 argued for the importance of an agricultural surplus. Once early farmers could each produce more food than was needed to feed their own families, they could support a grow- ing sedentary population. The need to administer the agricul- tural surplus called for the more centralized structures of social organization found in cities. New, stratified social structures and institutions were needed to assign rights over resources, exact tributes and impose taxes, deal with the ownership of property, and administer the formal exchange of goods. Elite groups stimulated urban development because they used their wealth to build palaces, arenas, and monuments as displays of their power and status. This building construction demanded Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 23 A More Comprehensive Explanation More recently, the consensus has been that our understand- ing of the origin of cities and urban life should be based on a combination of these separate yet interrelated explanatory factors. As Wheatley put it: It is doubtful if a single autonomous, causative factor will ever be identified in the nexus of social, economic, and political transformations which resulted in the emergence of urban forms. 15 Understanding both the complexity of the many changing processes and the interactions among them are more important than identifying the cause-and-effect relationship for any one explanatory factor. The desire for this kind of comprehensive understanding reflects a growing conceptualization that the origin of cities represented a gradual transformation involving incremental change affecting people over time rather than an abrupt urban revolution. URBAN ORIGINS The earliest towns and cities developed independently in regions of the world where people had transitioned to agricultural food production. Five regions provide the earliest evidence for urban- ization and urban civilization (Figure 2.2). Over time, the regions of urban origin produced successive generations of urbanized world empires. Mesopotamia Mesopotamia (the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), in the area of modern Iraq, provides the earliest evidence for urbanization—from about 3500 b.c.e. This was the eastern social organization. Increasing occupational specialization by people and growing economic competitiveness by cities would encourage more urban development. What remains unclear is the extent to which trade was the cause or the consequence of urban development. Defense Needs Some theorists, including Max Weber, 10 have contended that cities originated because of the need for people to gather together for protection inside the safety of military defenses. Wittfogel 11 pointed out that a comprehensive system of defense was needed to protect valuable irrigation systems from attack. But despite widespread evidence of walls and other fortifica- tions, not all early cities had defenses. As Wheatley acknowl- edged, although not necessarily being the initial reason for the evolution of cities, “warfare may often have made a significant contribution to the intensification of urban development by inducing a concentration of settlement for purposes of defense and by stimulating craft specialization.” 12 Religious Causes The presence of temples and other religious structures reflects the importance of religion in the lives of the people living in the earliest cities. Sjoberg 13 suggested that the control of altar offerings by the religious elite conferred economic and political power that allowed this group of people to influence the social changes that helped initiate urban development. Wheatley 14 maintained that a pervasive institutional structure like religion would have been needed to reinforce for people the changes in social organization that were associated with the economic, technological, and military transformations involved in early urban growth. PACIFIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN ATLANTIC OCEAN INDIANOCEAN ATLANTIC OCEAN Fertile Crescent 1 2 34 5 Regions of urban origin Earliest known agricultural communities FIGURE 2.2 The regions of urban origin (in heavy outline) and the earliest known agricultural communities (shaded areas): (1) Mesopotamia, (2) Egypt, (3) Indus Valley, (4) Northern China, and (5) Andes and Mesoamerica. 24 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography (Zhengzhou) and An’yang, the capital by 1384 b.c.e., were supported by irrigated agriculture. There is evidence of social stratification and occupational specialization, including a heredi- tary leader as well as a warrior elite with absolute control over the agricultural peasants. The Andes and Mesoamerica The oldest known center of urban civilization in the Americas is a group of 18 settlements in the Central Andes situated on a dry desert terrace overlooking the green valley of the Supe river in present-day Peru. The sacred city of Caral-Supe was the principal settlement, and it has been dated to 3000 b.c.e. In contrast, the earliest urban settlements in Mesoamerica date to only about 500 b.c.e. (Figure 2.2). The Zapotec civilization was based on small-scale irrigated farming and was centered on Monte Albán in Mexico. This city was surrounded by a wall and contained pyramids and temples. The later city of Teotihuacán, near modern Mexico City, was larger and at its height—between about 300 and 700 c.e.—contained about 200,000 people. Mayan cities such as Tikal and Uaxactun date from about 100 b.c.e. The Mayan cities were located in lowland areas of modern Mexico, including the Yucatan peninsula, as well as in Guatemala and Belize. Some reached populations as large as 50,000. These settlements were the centers of small states that united occasionally into loose confederations. 17 A supreme ruler and an urban elite, including religious and military groups, administered the settlements. Some of the breakthroughs in tech- nology and farming practices in the other regions of urban origin are not found in Mesoamerica. The agriculture here was based on maize (corn) cultivation that did not require metal agricultural implements, domesticated animals to pull plows, or extensive irrigation systems. Mayan civilization reached its peak between part of the so-called Fertile Crescent (Figure 2.2). The signifi- cant growth in size of some of the agricultural villages on the rich alluvial soils of the river floodplains formed the basis for the large, relatively autonomous, and often-rival city-states of the Sumerian Empire from about 3000 b.c.e. They included Ur, in southern Iraq, the capital from about 2300 to 2180 b.c.e., as well as Eridu, Uruk, and Erbil (ancient Arbela). These fortified city- states contained tens of thousands of people, social stratification, with religious, political, and military classes, innovative technolo- gies, including massive irrigation projects, and extensive trade connections. By 1885 b.c.e., the Sumerian city-states had been taken over by the Babylonians and then the Neo-Babylonians, who governed the region from their capital city, Babylon. Egypt The Fertile Crescent stretched in an arc as far west as Egypt, which became a unified state from about 3100 b.c.e. (Figure 2.2). Large irrigation projects were built to control the Nile’s waters for agricultural and other uses. Despite the importance of early urbanization in the Nile Valley, only limited archaeological evidence of the first towns and the people who lived in them has survived. 16 Internal peace in Egypt meant that there was no need for people to occupy the same site continuously to justify mas- sive investments in a city’s defensive fortifications. Given this potential for urban mobility, the lifespan of the largest city, the capital, was relatively short. Each pharaoh was free to locate a new capital at any site he selected for his tomb. After his death the city was usually abandoned to the priests. The main surviving struc- tures are the stone tombs and temples that were the primary focus of construction. Few of the other buildings—public, commer- cial, and residential—survive, having been constructed of more perishable materials, such as sun-dried brick and timber. Without a tradition of long-term building and rebuilding, Egyptian cities did not generate the rich evidence of urban development and redevelopment characteristic of the tells of Mesopotamia (see Figure 2.3). Nevertheless, between 2000 and 1400 b.c.e., urbanization continued with the founding of capital cities like Thebes, Akhetaten (Tell el-Amarna), and Tanis. The Indus Valley As in Mesopotamia, but later, by about 2500 b.c.e., the Indus Valley in modern Pakistan contained relatively large urban communities that were supported on the fertile alluvial soils and extensive irrigation systems of the river plains. This region had a single ruler and two capital cities: Harappa in the north, after which the civilization was named, and Mohenjo-Daro in the south (Figure 2.2). A network of trade extended as far as the Sumerian Empire in Mesopotamia. Much about Harappan civilization, including its origin, is unknown, partly because the Indus Valley script that the people used has not been deciphered. Northern China The Shang dynasty developed in the fertile plains of the Huang He (Yellow River) by about 1800 b.c.e. (Figure 2.2). As in the Fertile Crescent and Indus Valley, Shang cities, such as Chengchow FIGURE 2.3 Erbil (ancient Arbela) in northeast Iraq is located atop a tell, a mound, visible as a hill rising high above the surrounding plain—representing the remains of generations of sun-dried mud-brick buildings—that reflects millennia of human occupation in one place involving new structures being built upon the collapsed rubble of demolished ones. The 100-foot high Erbil tell is believed to represent perhaps 6,000 years of continuous occupation. Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 25 indicate the presence of significant central control from an early stage. But an unplanned street layout does not mean the absence of a central authority. In Mesopotamia, for example, the street patterns were not planned but reflected the organic street layouts that survived as the early agricultural villages grew into towns; the archaeological evidence of massive walls and irrigation systems, however, indicates central planning of defense and water management (see Urban View 2.2 entitled “Internal Structure of the Earliest Cities,” which fits within the spatial description approach described in Chapter 1). A city’s internal structure is never static, being the product of development and redevelopment by people over time. Cities that were founded with a strong hand of planning can contain later sections of organic growth, as in some cities of Roman origin, such as London, where later unplanned urban about 300 and 900 c.e.; by the time of the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century, it had been in decline for several centuries because of droughts, warfare, and population pressures. INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE EARLIEST CITIES A common approach to examining the internal structure of cities is to identify whether the layout of an urban area was largely unplanned or deliberately planned by one or a number of people. This categorization distinguishes between cities that evolved in an unplanned— organic growth—process and those that were laid out in a predetermined way based on some planned approach, such as a gridiron street pattern. The planned layout of streets and transportation arteries may URBAN VIEW 2.2 Internal Structure of the Earliest Cities Mesopotamia Sir Leonard Woolley’s excavations at Ur in the 1920s and early 1930s revealed the organic growth pattern characteristic of the Mesopotamian city-states (Figure 2.4). Woolley described Ur in about 1700 B.C.E. : • The walled city contained about 35,000 people. The mud- brick wall was about 25-feet high and at least 77-feet thick. It was oval shaped and about three-quarters of a mile long by half-a-mile wide. The Euphrates River ran along the wall in the west, a navigable canal along the north and east, and harbors were in the north and west. Near the center were the palaces and residences of the royal offi- cials. Social differentiation was less orderly in other sections of the city. Woolley’s description of an excavated middle- income neighborhood illustrates how income and climate were reflected in the size and design of the housing, while the unplanned nature of the streets provided a measure of privacy and defense: The unpaved streets are narrow and winding, sometimes mere blind alleys leading to houses hid- den away in the middle of a great block of haphaz- ard buildings; large houses and small are jumbled together, a few of them flat-roofed tenements one storey high, most of them of two storeys . . . The basic plan was of a house built round a central court- yard ... that gave light and air to the house. 18 • A religious area measuring about 270 by 190 yards, surrounded by a huge mud-brick wall, was located in the northwest of the walled city. A 68-foot high terraced tower (ziggurat) containing the shrine of Nannar, the Moon god, the owner of the city-state, would have been visible for miles. This religious and administrative core— reserved for the priests and royal household—had a great courtyard surrounded by temples, a court of law, tax offices, and storage buildings for religious offerings. • The outer city or suburbs comprised the remainder of the city-state. The houses and farms there contained an estimated 200,000 people. FIGURE 2.4 A residential section of Ur to the southeast of the religious area in about 1700 B.C.E. Note how the narrow and winding streets and the irregular size and shape of the lots reflect an unplanned—organic growth—process of urban development in Mesopotamia. Egypt Towns, and even capital cities, in Egypt remained small because most people were agricultural workers who lived on the land. The cities contained the markets and the residents who worked (continued) 26 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 2.2 Internal Structure of the Earliest Cities ( continued) in retail, craft, government, and religious activities. With civil war and armed invasions rare, urban settlements in Egypt had little need for defensive walls or fortifications. The capital was the home of the pharaoh and the royal court. Akhetaten ( modern Tell el-Amarna), built about 1400 B.C.E., is representative of capital cities in Egypt. This city ran for about 5 miles along the east bank of the Nile and was about a half mile to a mile wide. Social stratification is reflected in the city’s layout: • A walled temple and palace at the center, with other temples, government offices, military barracks, and storage buildings nearby. • Areas of slum housing throughout the city. • Northern and southern suburbs. • A workmen’s village based on a gridiron plan to the east of the city. The roughly rectangular city blocks were laid out when the city was founded, with infilling left to the residents. The wealthiest residents took the best lots that fronted onto the two main streets that ran parallel to the river. The typical middle-income house was built in the center of a walled enclosure and had a porch and central living room. The Indus Valley Although not the first to use a gridiron plan, the Harappan cities likely were the first planned towns because they are believed to be the first system of cities that used the same town planning approach (Figure 2.5). Despite being located hundreds of miles apart, cities like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro shared similarities in their basic internal structure. Each covered at least a square mile in area and contained about 35,000 people. An imposing walled citadel built on a mud-brick platform was located to the west of each city. In contrast to the religious area of Mesopotamian cities, this citadel did not contain a dominant religious building like a ziggurat. The citadel contained some structures that might have had a ritual use (such as the bath at Mohenjo-Daro), as well as buildings used for administrative purposes (including offices and grain storage buildings). The citadel’s western location would have allowed urban residents to see the rooftop civic and ceremonial gatherings silhouetted dramatically against the backdrop of the setting sun. 19 The main east-west streets led to the citadel. The houses varied from small one-story one-roomed buildings to larger two-story houses with central courtyards. The workmen’s quarters contained rows of identical two-roomed houses. Northern China The archaeological evidence is relatively limited, but excavations at the capital city of An’yang have revealed thick walls of beaten earth surrounding the city. At the center was a walled palace. The nearby houses of the wealthy were wooden and built on raised platforms of beaten earth. Poorer residents lived in pit-dwellings. The city’s layout was probably planned because all the buildings that were excavated were oriented toward the north. The Andes and Mesoamerica The most imposing buildings in Mayan cities were the religious and other ceremonial structures, such as the tall pyramids that were planned around broad plazas. The temples and the palaces and residences of the ruler and the military and religious elite were laid out at the center of the city. Nearby were the homes of the wealthy citizens. Farther out were low-density areas of simple thatched wooden huts that housed the majority of the people who worked in agriculture or crafts. FIGURE 2.5 Part of the town plan of Mohenjo-Daro. Note how the use of a gridiron plan in Mohenjo-Daro (as in Harappa and other Indus Valley cities) reflects a planned approach in which fairly wide and straight main streets intercept cross streets at right angles to form large city blocks that contained a number of houses. Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 27 invaders in about 1750 b.c.e.—to reestablish itself. Hindu cities were founded, and from the end of the fourth century b.c.e., the Maurya Empire built cities across India and laid the foundations for urban life throughout southeast Asia. The Arab invasions of the eighth century c.e. began the period of Muslim rule in India; cities like Lahore were established, and Delhi became an important administrative and cultural center. In China the Chou dynasty succeeded the Shang dynasty in 1122 b.c.e. and over the next nine centuries spread urban- ization from the Huang He region to the east and south of Chang Jiang (Yangtze River). Between the third century b.c.e. and the third century c.e., the Ch’in and later Han dynasties helped spread urbanization throughout East Asia, including along the Silk Road (see the Urban View 2.3 entitled “The Silk Road: Long-Distance Trade and Urban Expansion”). The next major period of urbanization in China came at the time of the Mongol invasions with the establishment of cities as part of a new Mongol empire. Urbanization came later to Korea and Japan through Chinese influence. In Japan urbanization began with the founding of Osaka in 400 c.e., followed by a succession of royal capitals in the seventh and eighth centuries. This culminated by the ninth century with Kyoto, whose status as capital for almost a millen- nium led to its growth to an unprecedented size for cities of the time. Following a period of decline, there was a resurgence of urbanization in the late fourteenth century with the establish- ment of “castle towns,” including some, like Edo (Tokyo), that would become huge urban centers. In Mesoamerica, the Maya and neighboring groups, including the Zapotecs and, later, Aztecs to the north and west, as well as the Incas farther south, continued to build cities. As we will see later in this chapter (and in Chapter 5), aggressive European colonization, beginning with the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century, brought drastic changes to these urban civilizations. growth during the medieval period obliterated the gridiron street pattern of the former Roman core. Similarly, cities that evolved with an organic growth pattern can have later planned sections, as in Vienna where the planned redevelopment of the area of the former wall in the late nineteenth century contrasts with the organic growth of the earlier medieval street pattern. URBAN EXPANSION FROM THE REGIONS OF URBAN ORIGIN The spread of urbanization outward from the regions of urban origin involved uneven development —over time and within and between different parts of the world (Figure 2.6). 20 There was a progression of growth, expansion, and succession of early urban empires that was gradual and incremental. The spread of urbanization was a precarious process in which many civiliza- tions lapsed into ruralism before being revived or recolonized. The Persians helped spread cities from Mesopotamia to Central Asia. To the north, the Assyrians established a system of cities that extended west from their capital city, Assur, to Syria and Asia Minor (the Asian part of Turkey, also called Anatolia). By about 1700 b.c.e., other groups, including the Hittites, had displaced the Assyrians and established their own cities. Farther west, by 1600 b.c.e., Mycenaeans had founded urban settle- ments, including the legendary cities of Mycenae and Thebes in modern-day Greece. The small “Canaanite” city-states that grew up in what is now Israel and Syria by 2000 b.c.e., such as Tyre, Beirut, Jericho, Gaza, and Damascus, were taken over by the Egyptians and Hittites. After 1200 b.c.e., with the collapse of Egyptian and Hittite control, the Israelites founded small urban centers that grew into large cities such as Jerusalem. To the west, the Phoenicians helped spread urbanization by sea as far as Spain. Farther east in what became modern India and Pakistan, it took a thousand years for urban life—dislodged by the Aryan Hindu cities to 13th century City introduced into Europe by Greeks and Romans 400 B.C. – A.D. 400 Europeans diffuse city through colonialism16th–19th centuries Chinese disperse cities 200 B.C. – A.D. 400 Russians introduce cities 16th–20thcenturies Islamic city spread 8th–18th centuries FIGURE 2.6 Urban expansion in conjunction with the expansion of selected empires. 28 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 2.3 The Silk Road: Long-Distance Trade and Urban Expansion The Silk Road evolved out of trade routes that developed initially along the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia in the west and later in the area of the Ch’in dynasty in the east. The Silk Road is an excellent example of how long-distance trade fueled urban expansion and produced an extensive system of cities along a route that eventually connected China with Europe between about 500 B.C.E. and 1500 C.E. (Figure 2.7). The overland portion started in the east from the ancient Chinese capital of Changan (modern Xi’an), a bustling center of trade and industry. This collection and distribution node served the surrounding region, from which goods were assembled and some processed before being exported westward along the Silk Road. Leaving Changan, the route followed the Great Wall of China until it forked around the Takla Makan Desert before crossing the Pamir Mountains and continuing on through Afghanistan and Iran to reach the Mediterranean, where the goods continued on to Europe by ship. The caravans could be enormous, with as many as 1,000 camels carrying up to 500 pounds of goods each. In addition to silk, which initially appeared so extraordinary to Europeans, green and white jade, blue lapis lazuli, ceramics, gunpowder, iron, spices, fruit, and flowers went west toward Europe, while gold, silver, amber, ivory, cotton, and wool headed east. Perhaps as important as trade was the exchange of ideas about new technologies, scientific skills, language, art, and religion—not least, writing, printing, and papermaking—among the people along these routes. The need for safe overnight campsites for the caravans and their valuable cargos led to the growth of cities that offered security and trade opportunities for people traveling along the route. Caravan cities that grew to considerable size, like Samarkand, now in eastern Uzbekistan, and Kashgar (Kashi) at the foot of the Pamir Mountains in extreme western China, were heavily fortified. People came to the regular markets that were held in these cities, especially near the city gates serving the Silk Road. Flourishing trade along the route also generated rich profits that helped support entire empires and urban civilizations. By about 100 B.C.E. , the Roman Empire in the west, the Han dynasty in the east, and the Parthian Empire in Persia (modern Iran) in between were all benefiting from the commercial activity of people that crisscrossed the Silk Road. With Europe’s emergence from the Dark Ages, steady population growth and limited amounts of usable land helped trigger the transition from feudalism to merchant capitalism. With time, the Europeans’ growing technological superiority on the seas allowed them to increasingly dominate world trade. European naval discoveries opened up new trade opportunities, including a sea route to India around Africa that bypassed southwest Asia and ultimately contributed to the demise of ancient trade networks like the Silk Road. The political and military situation in countries like Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan would make any attempt at crossing Central Asia along the 5,000 miles of the Silk Road an incredibly difficult, if not impossible, journey today. Besides, most of the Silk Road is gone. Only some surviving remnants attest to the importance of this ancient trade network of caravan routes that were studded with towns and cities like strings of pearls extending across the inhospitable deserts and mountain ranges of Central Asia. FIGURE 2.7 Children looking at a map of the Silk Road during a visit to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. This ancient trade network of caravan routes that extended across Central Asia from as early as 500 B.C.E. until about 1500 C.E., is an excellent example of how long-distance trade fueled urban expansion and produced a extensive system of cities that connected the four major regions containing the great empires at the time: Europe, Southwest Asia, India, and China. Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 29 THE ROOTS OF EUROPEAN URBAN EXPANSION Greek Cities The Greeks originally came into the Aegean Sea region from the north. They built upon the city-building ideas that had spread into the Mediterranean from the Fertile Crescent. By 800 b.c.e., the Greeks had founded cities such as Athens, Sparta, and Corinth. The importance for the Greeks of religion, commerce, administration, and defense were reflected in the layout of their city-states. At the center was the high city—the “acropolis”— the defensive stronghold that contained temples, government offices, and storehouses. Below the high city (“sub-urbs” in Latin), were the “agora” for the markets and political gatherings, more government and religious buildings, military quarters, and residential neighborhoods, all surrounded by a defensive wall. Athens and the older mainland cities had an organic growth pattern characteristic of unplanned Mesopotamian urban devel- opment. The street systems of later Greek city-states were based on a gridiron pattern, usually on a north-south axis, regardless of site conditions (Figure 2.8). The Greeks located many of the earliest cities along coastlines, reflecting the importance of long-distance sea trade for this urban civilization. Population growth combined with limited cultivable land on the mainland drove overseas colonization and the establishment of a Greek system of cities. Bands of colonists and their families established new indepen- dent city-states that stretched from the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea, around the Adriatic Sea, and along the Mediterranean as far west as modern Spain (Figure 2.9). Urban growth and expansion outward from the regions of urban origin were fueled by critical innovations, especially in technology and economic organization, allied with changes in social organization. Demographic changes—including the deaths of many people in epidemics and wars—were a factor. Adequate numbers of workers were needed to maintain the social and economic infrastructures that supported urbaniza- tion. This proved critical in the Indus Valley in about 1750 b.c.e., where population decline allowed the Aryan invaders to bring the Harappan urban civilization to an abrupt end. Changes in the balance between people and their resource base could help fuel urban growth or promote decline. Ultimately, self-propelled urban growth is limited by the size of a society’s resource base. The maintenance of irrigation systems, for example, combined with the necessity for increasing productivity to sustain a growing population, could put incredible pressures on the agricultural workforce. After a while, investments could be neglected, armies reduced in size, and an empire’s strength and cohesion fatally undermined. This kind of sequence may have been behind the eventual collapse of the Sumerian Empire and may have contributed to the abandonment of many Mayan cities hundreds of years before the Spanish conquest. One response to a limited resource base—territorial expansion and colonization—often reinforced and extended the urbanization process. The need for increasing numbers of control centers and improved transportation networks to support colonization and long-distance trade tended to produce a hierarchical urban system. In this way the expansion of the Greek and Roman empires laid the foundations for an urban system in Western Europe. FIGURE 2.8 General plan of a typical Greek city-state—Priene (in modern-day Turkey). Note how the use of the gridiron plan reflects a planned approach. Acropolis Theater Agora City wall Stadium Main gate into city Temples Gymnasium 0 30 Meters 30 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography inhabitants, while most urban settlements had only a few thousand people. Roman Cities The expanding Roman Empire displaced Greek civilization during the second and first centuries b.c.e. By the second century c.e., the Romans had established towns across southern Europe and laid the foundation for the Western European urban system (Figure 2.10). Roman cities were similar in certain respects to their Greek predecessors (Figure 2.11). They were based on the grid system, contained a central “forum” for markets and political gatherings, were encircled by a defensive wall, were deliber- ately established in newly colonized territories, were part of an extensive system of long-distance trade, and remained fairly small. Although the population of Rome likely reached the one million mark by 100 c.e., large Roman towns usually contained only about 15,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, while most places had no more than 2,000 to 5,000 people. An important difference between Greek and Roman cities was that Roman cities were not independent. They functioned within a well-organized empire centered on Rome and were designed along hierarchical lines, reflecting the Roman rigid class system. Another difference was the greater concentration of Roman cities in inland locations, reflecting The Greeks developed new forms of government whose influence is reflected in subsequent democratic and participa- tory modes of urban governance throughout the world. Partly as a product of enlightened Greek culture, political authority came to reside in an assembly of—albeit male—citizens who elected a city leadership. Although Greek civic life continued to be conducted within a religious context, the laws and political decisions were no longer presented as unchallenge- able divine commands, as they had been in Mesopotamia and Egypt. 21 After the rest of Greece lost its independence to the Macedonians in 338 b.c.e., overseas colonization became more centrally organized and based on a “mass production of cities” that extended eastward toward Central Asia: Alexander the Great and his Successors founded on geopolitically important sites and built up as strategic strongholds, a whole network of towns and cities, which evolved into centres spreading Greek culture and civiliza- tion, over the greatest part of the then known world. It was one of the greatest ‘colonial’ town planning and building actions which was ever accomplished in history. 22 But Greek cities remained quite small by today’s standards. Although Athens probably reached a population of about 150,000, many of the larger cities ranged from 10,000 to 15,000 FIGURE 2.9 Greek city-states in the Mediterranean. Note how the earliest Greek cities were located along coastlines, reflecting the importance of long-distance sea trade for this urban civilization. M ed iterran ean S ea Black Sea ATLANTIC OCEAN EUROPE ASIA AFRICA 0 200 400 Kilometers 0 200 400 Miles Greek colonies (750-550 B.C.E.) Chief areas of Greek influence Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 31 FIGURE 2.10 Cities of the Roman Empire about 200 C.E. The Romans established a well-integrated urban system and transportation network that laid the foundation for the Western European urban system. 0 250 500 Kilometers 0 250 500 Miles their predominant function as control centers. Many modern European cities can trace their origins to the Roman period, including London, Brussels, Paris, Cologne, Vienna, Sofia, and Belgrade. The Romans achieved impressive feats of civil engineering. The most important towns were directly connected to one another and to Rome by a magnificent system of roads that facilitated strategic military and trading communications. The underground sewer and surface water supply infrastructures in Roman cities contributed to impressive health improvements that set the standard for later cities. In Rome public latrines served the majority of people. The system of elevated aqueducts and fresh- water reservoirs that brought water for drinking and bathing into the city ran for over 300 miles and carried 60 million cubic feet of water per day. 23 The Romans used cities as a mechanism to impose their authority and legal system throughout their vast empire. They understood that any attempts to hold newly acquired territories by military force could invite guerrilla warfare that would distract the army from its task of maintaining and extending the empire’s borders; it could also hurt the development of commerce. Native tribes, therefore, had to be brought into the empire on advantageous terms—by equating Romanization with urbanization. Tribal centers were redeveloped as Roman towns of varying political status. Other towns were also established for economic and political reasons and populated by ex-soldiers and settlers from Rome and other older towns. At the time of the fall of Rome in the fifth century c.e., the Romans had established a well-integrated urban system and transportation network that stretched from England in the northwest to Babylon in the east. By as early as the second century c.e., however, the empire’s population had already begun to decline, causing labor shortages, abandoned fields, and depopulated towns and allowing the incursions of “barbarian” tribes from the Germanic lands of east-central Europe that helped topple the empire. Dark Ages The Dark Ages in Western Europe was a period of stagnation and decline in city life after the collapse of the Roman Empire until about 1000 c.e. Of course, urban life continued to flourish in other parts of the world, including the city building associated with the “explosion of Islam” 24 beginning in the latter half of 32 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography politically unstable situation made long-distance trade virtually impossible, cutting off the lifeblood of cities, and creating isolated, crumbling, and depopulated urban centers. Most of the urban places that survived were ecclesiastical or university centers, defensive strongholds, or administra- tive hubs. • Ecclesiastical or university centers: Some Roman towns continued to be occupied because of the church practice of designating certain urban centers as bishoprics—the seats of bishops—and building a cathedral within the old Roman walls. Other towns survived because of their importance as educational and subsequently university centers. Examples include St. Andrews in Scotland; Canterbury and Cambridge in England; Rheims and Chartres in France; Liège in Belgium; Bremen in Germany; Trondheim in Norway; and Lund in Sweden (Figure 2.12). • Defensive strongholds: The constant threat of attack spurred the construction of castles and other fortifications in cities in general and in some parts of Eastern Europe that had previously been underrepresented by urban development. Examples include the hilltop towns of the 7th century c.e. In the following centuries, existing towns like Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, and Damascus experienced a dramatic rebirth, while new cities were founded, including Teheran in Iran; Basra, Mosul, and Karbala in Iraq; and Cairo and Tangiers in North Africa; and farther south in sub-Saharan Africa, cities in the west, such as Timbuctoo (Timbuktu) in modern Mali and Kano in Nigeria; as well as cities in the east, such as Mombasa in Kenya. Urban life flourished in parts of Europe where long- distance trade continued, as in those cities under Muslim influence, including Cordova, Granada, and Seville in Spain, or in cities under Byzantine control, most notably Byzantium (Constantinople, later Istanbul) in modern Turkey. By the end of the fourth century, as Rome was falling into decline, Constantine had moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople. As the capital of the Byzantine Empire between about 360–650 c.e., with its strategic location for trade between Europe and Asia, this city grew to become the largest in the world at the time, with about half a million people. In the rest of Europe the Germanic invaders and, later, Viking raiders from the north took advantage of the vacuum created by the Roman Empire’s collapse. This FIGURE 2.11 General plan of a typical Roman city—Calleva (Silchester in England). Note how the use of the gridiron plan reflects a planned approach. Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 33 Mainz, and Magdeburg in Germany; Winchester in England; and Toulouse in France (Figure 2.14). Feudalism curtailed the development of European cities because its highly structured and self-contained nature favored the self-sufficient country manor as the basic building block of settlement. Feudalism was a rigid, mostly rural form of economic and social organization based on the communal chiefdoms of the Germanic tribes who had invaded the disintegrating Roman Empire. Each feudal estate was more or less self-sufficient in the production of food, and each kingdom or principality was more or less self-sufficient in the provision of raw materials needed to craft simple products. Yet in spite of this unlikely beginning, an elaborate urban system evolved whose largest centers eventually grew into what would become the nodal centers of a global world-system. Urban Revival in Europe during the Medieval Period Beginning in the eleventh century, the feudal system weakened and began to collapse in the face of successive demographic, economic, and political crises. The fundamental cause of these crises was steady population growth in conjunction with only modest technological improvements and limited amounts of cultivable land. To bolster their incomes and raise armies against each other, the feudal nobility began to levy increas- ingly higher taxes. As a result, the peasants, most of whom were serfs (descended from slaves and not free) or tenants (whose freedom to move, marry, leave property to their heirs, buy goods, or sell their labor was very much constrained by public law), were forced to sell more of their produce for cash on the market. This fostered a more extensive money economy central Italy such as Foligno, San Gimignano, and Urbino (Figure 2.13). • Administrative hubs: Administrative centers for the upper tiers of the feudal hierarchy included Cologne, FIGURE 2.12 St. Andrews, Scotland, an important ecclesiastic center. The cathedral was built in the twelfth century, the castle (an episcopal residence), about 1200. The university was founded in 1410. FIGURE 2.13 San Gimignano, Italy, on a classic hilltop defense site, was originally settled by the Etruscans in the third century B.C.E. The town was named for Gimignano, the bishop of Modena and future saint, who saved the town from barbarian pillaging in the tenth century. It grew prosperous because of the nearby Francigena Way, a busy trade and pilgrim route, and became a city-republic in 1199. Rival families built the towers during the eleventh and thirteenth centuries as symbols of their wealth and status—the higher and more imposing the better. Fifteen of the original 72 medieval towers survive. 34 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography include London and York in England and Regensburg in Germany (Figure 2.15). • Burgs were fortified military bases that evolved into towns as they acquired commercial functions. Examples include Oxford and Nottingham in England and Magdeburg in Germany (Figure 2.16). • Towns that evolved from village settlements through organic growth . Examples in England include Wycombe in Buckinghamshire and Wickham in Hampshire (Figure 2.17). and the beginnings of a pattern of trade in basic agricultural produce and craft manufactures. Some long-distance trade even began in luxury goods, such as spices, furs, silks, fruit, and wine. This trade caused towns to begin to grow in size and vitality. Medieval towns can be classified into five categories on the basis of their origin. 25 • Towns of Roman origin survived during the Dark Ages or were reestablished after being deserted. Examples FIGURE 2.14 Cologne, Germany, a medieval administrative hub. When this woodcut was made in the late 1400s, Cologne had a population of less than 25,000 but was already an important administrative, commercial, and manufacturing center, with an important cathedral and a university that was already more than 100 years old. FIGURE 2.15 This aerial view of Chichester in West Sussex, England, shows the legacy of its Roman origin: the main north-south and east-west streets and a later defensive wall that replaced the original Roman one. Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 35 this regard, bastide towns were part of a deliberate and fairly widespread policy of town plantation that coin- cided with an unprecedented boom in urban growth in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as increased trade across northern Europe marked the transition from feudalism to merchant capitalism. As planned towns, most were laid out with a gridiron street plan. The main inducement to attract settlers was the grant of a house plot within the town and farming land nearby. Examples include Ludlow and Kingston upon Hull in • Bastides were planned new towns in France, England, and Wales. The initial motive for establishing these towns was usually strategic, but their sponsors also saw them as an investment that could yield income. Bastide towns were typically laid out around a castle and protected by heavily fortified walls. The towns provided essential services for their military garrisons and helped stabilize the surrounding countryside, but they also provided a source of income for their spon- sors through market tolls, rents, and court fines. In FIGURE 2.16 An aerial view of Wallingford in Oxfordshire, England, a Medieval burg whose origin was a fortified military base that evolved into a town as it acquired commercial functions. The market place was located just west of the intersection of the two main streets (at the center in the photo). The castle (in the lower right of the photo) is located beside the Thames where William the Conqueror crossed this river. FIGURE 2.17 This aerial photo of Warkworth in Northumberland, England, gives an idea of how a medieval town that was evolving organically from a village settlement might have looked. The linear plan reflects how this village grew up along a winding roadway within the defensive protection of a meander along the Cloquet river. The legacy of the importance of the church and castle in the lives of the people in this village during medieval times is reflected today in the fact that they are still the most imposing structures, towering over all nearby buildings. 36 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography im Breisgau in Germany and Berne in Switzerland (Figure 2.19). All medieval towns shared common features of internal structure. At the center was an open square for markets, sur- rounded in larger cities by the cathedral or church, the town hall, the guildhalls, the palaces, and the houses of prominent citi- zens. Close to the center were streets or districts that specialized England; Caernarvon in Wales; and Aigues-Mortes and Carcassone in France (Figure 2.18). • Planted towns included other planned new towns throughout Europe, with or without a predetermined layout. Most were founded on a roadside or river- side location for commercial purposes to take advan- tage of the general reestablishment of long-distance trade. Examples include Offenburg and Freiburg FIGURE 2.18 Aigues-Mortes, France, a medieval bastide. This aerial view shows the gridiron street pattern inside the rectilinear walls of the town and the surrounding fields and vineyards. FIGURE 2.19 Berne, Switzerland, a medieval planted town. This aerial view shows the gridiron street pattern of the original town that formed the nucleus of the contemporary city and how the layout reflects the influence on urban form of its location on a riverbend in the Aare. Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 37 butchers within. They bought the privilege of self- government, substituting a money economy for one based on land . . . . Towns recruited manpower by offering freedom to any serf who would live within their walls for a year and a day. 27 Beginning with commercial networks established by the merchants of Venice, Pisa, Genoa, and Florence (in northern Italy) and the trading partners of the Hanseatic League, a federation of city-states around the North Sea and Baltic coasts (see the Urban View 2.4 entitled “Hanseatic League Cities”), a trading system of immense complexity soon spanned Europe from Bergen to Athens and from Lisbon to Vienna. Long-distance trade became firmly reestablished, but it was based more on bulky staples such as grain, wine, salt, wool, cloth, and metals rather than on the luxury goods of the pioneer merchants. The increased volume of trade fostered a great deal of urban development as the merchants began to settle at locations to take advantage of the major trade routes that crisscrossed Europe and as local economies everywhere came to focus on market exchange. At the close of the medieval period in the late thirteenth century, Europe had about 3,000 cities containing some 4.2 million people, representing between about 15 to 20 percent of the total population. Most of these urban centers were small—with fewer than 2,000 people. Paris was the dominant European city, with a population of about 275,000. Besides Constantinople and Cordoba, only Milan, Genoa, Venice, Florence, and Bruges had more than 50,000 people. This then was the Europe that stood poised to extend its grasp to a global scale. in particular functions, such as banking or the production and sale of items like furniture or metalwork. The organic growth towns could have streets and alleys that were unplanned and quite narrow. The city defenses became probably the most important determinant of urban form. Urban development had to take place in stages, each of which was normally preceded by the construction of a new wall. 26 With urban growth concentrated inside the city wall, population density was high, and the constrained space caused different socioeconomic groups to be stratified vertically within the same building. For example, a merchant’s or crafts person’s shop would be on the main floor, and because there were no elevators, the family’s living quarters would be above on the next floor, the apprentice quarters would be above, with the servants up the stairs in the attic (Figure 2.20). To maximize street frontage, residential and commercial buildings were often aligned with their narrow or gable end fronting onto the main streets. The emerging regional specializations and trading patterns provided the foundations for a new phase of urbanization based on merchant capitalism . The key people in this system were the merchants who supplied the capital required to reestablish a vibrant system of long-distance trade—hence the label merchant capitalism . The merchants made the towns. They needed walls and wall builders, warehouses and guards, artisans to manufacture their trade goods, caskmakers, cart builders, smiths, shipwrights and sailors, soldiers and muleteers. They needed farmers and herdsmen out- side the walls to feed them; and bakers, brewers and FIGURE 2.20 A view of a narrow, now pedestrianized, street in Canterbury in England. Note how the “vertical” social stratification within the buildings is reflected in the size and ornateness of the windows on each floor. 38 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 2.4 Hanseatic League Cities With its roots dating back to the twelfth century, the Hanseatic League was a trading association of independent German city-states around the North Sea and Baltic coasts. A trading arrangement initially between Hamburg and Lübeck provided a cooperative model for the merchants in other German cities. It involved an alliance between these two northern German towns that were located on either side of the Danish peninsula, Hamburg in the west and Lübeck in the east. Lübeck had access to the Baltic herring spawning grounds. Fish, which could be eaten on Fridays when meat could not, made up a high percentage of the Christian European diet at the time. Without refrigeration or canning, shipping this perishable product needed salt for salting, which was easily accessible to Hamburg from the nearby salt mines at Kiel. The merchants in Lübeck and Hamburg opened a trade route along the canal that was constructed between them and named for the source of the salt, Kiel. Although not approaching the level and extent of economic and political cooperation among the countries of today’s European Union, the Hanseatic League became the first great cooperative effort that united cities across a region of Europe into an economic association. These city-states entered into commercial agreements to promote trade through special privi- leges for members and to protect themselves against pirates and robber barons. Over time, more cities joined in pursuit of the trade security and increased opportunities that member- ship provided. Conversely, the League engaged in negotiation, bribes, blockades, embargoes, and even war against port cities that were hostile to the organization and wanted to break its monopoly. At its height, as many as 200 towns participated in this association that extended from Amsterdam to Reval (Tallinn) in Estonia and from Stockholm on Sweden’s Baltic Sea coast to important inland port cities along rivers, such as Lübeck, Hamburg, Köln (Cologne), and Magdeburg. Their foreign trading outposts, or counting houses, the forerunners of today’s stock exchanges, extended the influence of this powerful trading association to Bergen on Norway’s North Sea coast, Visby on the island of Gotland, London, Bruges in Flanders (Belgium), and Novgorod in Russia (Figure 2.21). Merchant capitalism and long-distance trade fueled urban expansion and the development of this system of trading cities, some of which, like London, later grew to global dominance. The trading association controlled the shipping of fish, salt, grain, timber, amber, fur, flax, and honey from Russia and the Baltic coast to the west, and cloth and manufactured goods from Flanders and England to the east. The Hanseatic League had its own financial and legal systems, as well as strong traditions of civic and individual rights. By the early sixteenth century, the Hanseatic League had begun to disintegrate—a casualty of factors that weakened its power, such as rivalry and internal struggles among League members, the new trade opportunities opened up by the dis- coveries of Columbus and da Gama, declining Baltic fish stocks, the social and political insecurities of the Reformation, the growing strength of trade competitors like the Dutch and later the English, and the encroachment into its trade routes by the Ottoman Empire. The difficulties of long-distance trade during the Thirty Years War (1618–48) further weakened the League and led to its demise. Interestingly, although the Hanseatic League met for the last time in 1669, it was never officially dissolved. It lives on in the names of German cities like “Hansestadt Lübeck” and “Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg.” Even today, Hamburg BRITAIN Bergen FRANCE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE RUSSIA Novgorod POLAND NORWAY KINGDOM OF SWEDEN Teutonic Knights DENMARK English Channel North Sea Baltic Sea The Hanseatic League Towns of the Hanseatic LeagueForeign depots FIGURE 2.21 Hanseatic League cities. The towns of the Hanseatic League and their foreign trading depots. (continued) Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 39 URBAN VIEW 2.4 Hanseatic League Cities (continued) and Bremen are individual city-states within Germany. The League’s legacy can been seen in the widespread use of German merchant and administrative terminology and in standardized sea travel and trade regulations, a first for the League. The League’s strong architectural legacy is also visible in the “stepped gable” design in the Hanseatic League towns as a way to make the buildings appear taller and show off their wealth (Figure 2.22). FIGURE 2.22 The facades of buildings in Brugge (Bruges), Belgium, with the characteristic stepped gables of Hanseatic League cities. Note how, in order to maximize street frontage, residential and commercial buildings were aligned with their narrow or gable end fronting onto the main streets. Urban Expansion and Consolidation during the Renaissance and Baroque Periods Between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, fundamental changes transformed not just the cities and urban systems of Europe but also the entire world economy. The Protestant Reformation and the scientific revolution of the Renaissance (from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries) stimulated economic and social reorganization. While the Church and religious doctrine had been dominant in people’s lives during medieval times, the glorification of human reason and achieve- ment was foremost for people during the Renaissance. The scale and sophistication of merchant capitalism increased. Aggressive overseas colonization allowed Europeans to shape the world’s economies and societies. Spanish and Portuguese colonists were the first to connect other parts of the world into the European urban system. Beginning in 1520, it took just 60 years for these colonial powers to establish the basis of a Latin American urban system. The Spanish colonists founded their cities in the western parts of Latin America by rebuilding at the sites of conquered indigenous centers like Oaxaca and Mexico City in Mexico, Cuzco in Peru, and Quito in Ecuador or in regions of dense indigenous population, as in Puebla and Guadalajara in Mexico and Lima in Peru. These colonial cities were established primarily as administrative and military centers from which the Spanish Crown could occupy and exploit the New World. In contrast, the cities of the Portuguese colonists farther east, such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, were more commercial in nature. Although also motivated by exploitation, the Portuguese colonists located their colonial towns in the best places commercially for collecting and exporting the products of their mines and plantations. A major aspect of this urbanization and expansion of trade was the establishment of gateway cities around the world to act as links between one country or region and others. These control centers commanded entrance to, and exit from, t heir 40 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography expression brought about greater use of sculpture in public places, other forms of urban beautification, such as fountains, and the embellishment of monumental buildings that reached a peak with the Baroque period that began in the late sixteenth century. Merchant capitalism generated great wealth for the nobility of the various monarchies and countries, and their burgeoning spending power was used to build opulent palaces in many cities. City walls were built with more complex and costly designs during the Renaissance, such as star shaped, allowing the use of greater firepower against an attacking army (Figure 2.23). URBANIZATION AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Large-scale manufacturing began in the English Midlands in the mid-1700s. The Industrial Revolution was a powerful impetus for urban growth because it brought fundamental changes in how and where goods—from textiles to machine tools—were produced. Previously, individual rural workers, like spinners and weavers, had carried out the different stages of the production process by hand in their own cottages. Now for the first time, all the stages of production were mechanized and combined under one roof—in factory buildings. Initially, access to a water source that could produce power for the machinery dictated the factories’ locations. In previously rural areas, urban settlements grew up around the new factories as the early industrialists provided housing to attract workers whose long working hours forced them to live nearby. Industrialization and cities grew hand in hand (Figure 2.24). The Industrial Revolution generated new kinds of cities—and many of them. Industrial economies needed what cities had to offer: the physical infrastructure of factories, warehouses, stores, and offices; the transportation networks; the large labor pools; and the consumer markets. In turn, industrialization particu lar country or region (for North America, see the Urban View 3.2 entitled “Vance’s Mercantile Model” in Chapter 3). The Europeans founded or enlarged thousands of towns in other parts of the world as they extended their trading networks and established their colonies. The great majority were ports protected by fortifications and European naval power. Beginning as colonial trading posts and administrative centers, some grew rapidly as gateways for colonial expansion into the continental interiors. European settlers came in through these cities, and produce from the continental interiors went out. Rio de Janeiro grew on the basis of gold mining; São Paulo on coffee; Buenos Aires on mutton, wool, and cereals; Kolkata (Calcutta) on jute, cotton, and textiles; Accra (in Ghana) on cocoa; and so on. These products in turn fueled urban growth in Europe. In terms of location, the exploitation of the New World gave a decisive advantage to the port cities along the North Sea and the Atlantic Coast. By 1700 London had grown to 500,000 people, while Lisbon and Amsterdam had each reached about 175,000. The cities of continental and Mediterranean Europe grew at a more modest rate. Between 1400 and 1700 Venice grew only from 110,000 to 140,000 people; Milan’s population did not grow at all. More integrated national urban systems evolved along with the centralization of political power and the formation of national states that characterized the Renaissance period. Best exemplified by the capital cities of Paris and Madrid, their central location nationally facilitated the process of political consolidation, which, in turn, gave both cities a further impetus for growth as they acquired important administrative functions. Regional capitals and seats of county government emerged to fill out the evolving national urban systems. The overall appearance and internal structure of cities in Europe changed during the Renaissance with the introduction of new forms of art, architecture, and urban planning. Especially in the capital cities, the flourishing of artistic and architectural FIGURE 2.23 Sabbioneta, Italy, was built by Vespasiano Gonzaga in the mid-sixteenth century as an ideal town, with a central piazza, a ducal palace, churches, garden palace, theater, and residences all encompassed within a star-shaped plan, bounded by thick walls bearing the Gonzaga family crest. Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 41 changed the appearance, internal structure, and functioning of cities. Whole districts of factory buildings grew up with their grimy smokestacks, deafening machinery, and general hustle- and-bustle of industrial activity (see the Urban View 2.5 entitled “Manchester: Shock City of European Industrialization”). With industrial inputs and products transported mainly by trains, new tracks, stations, and rail traffic began to play a significant role in these cities, as did the new public transportation systems of trolleys and subways. The industrial period also heralded the development of the central business district (CBD) with its office buildings and corporate headquarters for the new companies. Large tracts of worker housing were built. This row housing, typical of English cities, was often cramped and poorly constructed. Rural development and urban growth were intimately connected in the industrialized regions of Europe and North America (Figure 2.26). Agricultural productivity benefited from the mechanization and the innovative techniques that had been developed in cities. The higher productivity released rural dwellers to work in the growing manufacturing sector in the towns and cities, at the same time providing the additional food to support a growing urban population. This process, rein- forced by the agricultural tools, machinery, fertilizer, and other products made in the cities, allowed even greater increases in 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Population in Billions Total Population Urban Population 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 2010 FIGURE 2.24 World urban population growth over time. Note the tremendous explosion in the number of people living in towns and cities that was triggered by the Industrial Revolution. URBAN VIEW 2.5 Manchester: Shock City of European Industrialization Manchester was the shock city of European industrialization in the nineteenth century. It grew from a small town of 15,000 people in 1750 to a city of 70,000 in 1801, a metropolis of 500,000 in 1861, and a world city of 2.3 million by 1911. A shock city is seen at the time as the embodiment of surprising and disturbing changes in economic, social, and cultural life. Manchester was an archetypal form of an entirely new kind of city—the industrial city —whose fundamental reason for existence was not its military, political, ecclesiastical, or trading functions, as in earlier generations of cities. Instead, Manchester ex isted to assemble raw materials and to fabricate, assemble, and distribute manufactured goods. The city had to cope with record rates of growth and associ- ated unprecedented economic, social, and political problems for many of its residents (Figure 2.25). Manchester was also FIGURE 2.25 Manchester, the shock city of European industrialization. (continued) 42 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 2.5 Manchester: Shock City of European Industrialization ( continued) a world city , in which a disproportionate share of the world’s most important business—economic, political, and cultural— is conducted. At the top of a global urban system, such cities experience growth largely as a result of their role as key nodes in the world economy. Friedrich Engels surveyed the dreadful living conditions of the working poor in the shock city of Manchester in 1844: One walks along a very rough path on the river bank, in between clothes-posts and washing lines to reach a chaotic group of little, one-storied, one-roomed cabins. Most of them have earth floors, and working, living and sleeping all take place in one room. In such a hole, barely six feet long and five feet wide, I saw two beds—and what beds and bedding!—which filled the room, except for the fireplace and the doorstep. Several of these huts, as far as I could see, were completely empty, although the door was open and the inhabitants were leaning against the door posts. In front of the doors filth and garbage abounded. I could not see the pavement, but from time to time, I felt it was there because my feet scraped it. This whole collection of cattle sheds for human beings was surrounded on two sides by houses and a factory and on a third side by a river ... All along the Irk [river] slums of this type abound. 28 Johann Kohl, who traveled through the English Midlands in the 1840s, captured how the profound changes associated with industrialization played out in the working lives of the countless factory workers in Manchester: It was a cold, damp, foggy morning in December, that I took my leave of Manchester. I rose earlier than usual; it was just at the hour when, from all quarters of the busy town, the manufacturing labourers crowded the streets as they hurried to their work. I opened the window and looked out. The numberless lamps burning in the streets, sent a dull, sickly, melancholy light through the thick yellow mist. At a distance I saw huge factories, which, at first wrapt in total darkness, were brilliantly illuminated from top to bottom in a few minutes, when the hour of work began. As neither cart nor van yet traversed the streets, and there was little other noise abroad, the clapping of wooden shoes upon the crowded pavement, resounded strangely in the empty streets. In long rows on every side, and in every direction, hurried forward thousands of men, women, and children. They spoke not a word, but huddling up their frozen hands in their cotton clothes, they hastened on, clap, clap, along the pavement, to their dreary and monotonous occupation. Gradually the crowd grew thinner and thinner, and the clapping died away. When hundreds of clocks struck out the hour of six, the streets were again silent and deserted, and the giant factories had swallowed the busy population. All at once, almost in a moment, arose on every side a low, rushing, and surging sound, like the sighing of wind among trees. It was the chorus raised by hundreds of thousands of wheels and shuttles, large and small, and by the panting and rushing from hundreds of thousands of steam-engines. 29 agricultural productivity. This kind of urbanization is a special case of cumulative causation , where particular places enjoy a spiral buildup of advantages due to the development of external economies, agglomeration economies, and localization economies . As industrialization spread across Europe, the pace of urbanization increased (Figure 2.27). The higher wages and greater opportunities for people in the cities attracted a massive influx of rural workers. Declining death rates associated with the Demographic Transition in Europe contributed to the rapid urban population growth. This growth in population in turn provided a huge increase in the labor supply during the nineteenth century, further boosting the rate of urbanization not only in Europe but also in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, as emigration spread industrialization and urbanization to the frontiers of the world-system . With time, however, the breakthrough technology of coal- fired steam power freed industry to locate in existing population centers or close to resources, like coal mines. Industrialists no longer had to attract workers to their factories. There was also an overabundance of workers due to fewer farm work- ers being needed because of increased agricultural productiv- ity and the large number of small landholders left landless by the consolidation of smaller farms into larger, more efficient ones. Improvements in technology caused overproduction, Improved tools, machinery Migration of surplus rural labor Increased food supply Industrialization Colonization of prime land Improved farming techniques Increased agricultural productivity Urbanization FIGURE 2.26 The urbanization-industrialization process. Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 43 the slums were appalling (see the Urban View 2.6 entitled “Residential Segregation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Glasgow, Scotland”). Public sanitation and water systems were poor or nonexistent. Outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid were common. while international competition increased as industrialization spread from England to the European mainland and beyond. Prices dropped, producers cut costs, and wages fell. Long hours for little pay made it a struggle for workers to pay for housing, which led to overcrowding. Living conditions of people in Paris London MilanBerlin Manchester RUHR SILESIA BOHEMIA DONBAS CATALONIA ATLANTIC OCEAN North Sea Baltic Sea Mediterranean Sea 1870 1914 1850 0 150 300 Kilometers 0 150 300 Miles Principal industrial regions Golden Triangle Direction of spread FIGURE 2.27 The spread of industrialization and industrial cities in Europe. European industrialization began with the emergence of small industrial regions in several parts of Britain, where early industrialization drew on local mineral resources, water powe r, and early industrial technologies. As new rounds of industrial and transportation technologies emerged, industrialization spread to regio ns with favorable locational attributes (access to raw materials and energy sources, good communications, and large labor markets). The “Golden Triangle” is Europe’s economic core region that centers on the area between London, Paris, and Berlin, and includes the early i ndustrial regions of southeastern England, northeastern France, and the Ruhr district of Germany. 44 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography the case for merchant capitalism, the industrialization of Europe and North America depended on the exploitation of other regions. As we will see in Chapters 5, 6, and 7, the international division of labor that inevitably resulted from this relationship had a significant impact on the patterns and processes of urbanization that affected people outside Europe and North America. In the next chapter we turn our attention to the foundations of the North American urban system. By the nineteenth century, urbanization had become an important dimension of the world-system in its own right. In 1800 less than 5 percent of the world’s 980 million people lived in towns and cities. By 1850, 16 percent of the world’s population was urban, and there were more than 900 cities of 100,000 or more around the world. The Industrial Revolution and European colonization had created unprecedented concentrations of people in cities that were connected in networks and hierarchies of interdependence. As was URBAN VIEW 2.6 Residential Segregation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Glasgow, Scotland As the Industrial Revolution progressed, so too did residential segregation. Michael Pacione provides a stark description of living conditions in the tenement slum areas of central Glasgow by the middle of the nineteenth century: The westward migration of the wealthy from the old town not only introduced socio-spatial polarisation into what had been in the eighteenth century a heterogeneous urban structure, but freed land and housing for other uses. Those parts of the old city abandoned by the elite were colonised by a working-class population that was burgeoning in response to the new industries’ demand for labour. Residences previously occupied by a single wealthy family were ‘made down’ to accommodate large numbers of the poor in grossly crowded conditions . . . . In 1861 two-thirds of Glasgow’s population of 394,864 lived in houses with only one or two rooms, and of these 60 per cent shared a room with at least four others. Overcrowding was intensi- fied by property speculators building on any available open space to produce ‘backjams’ and ‘backlands’ tenements, which were either added to existing buildings or erected in the erstwhile gardens of the formerly wealthy burgher residences. By the mid-nineteenth century the old city was a congeries of poor-quality housing. One shelter visited [in 1858] in a dark ravine of a close housed a husband, wife and two children and comprised a ‘sort of hole in the wall’ measuring six shoe lengths in breadth, between eight and nine in length from the bed to the fireplace, and of a height which made it difficult to stand upright. Densities of 1,000 persons per acre were commonplace. 30 FOLLOW UP Hanseatic League (p. 37) Industrial Revolution (p. 19) merchant capitalism (p. 37) Mesopotamia (p. 23) organic growth (p. 25) shock city (p. 41) Silk Road (p. 28) Key Terms central business district (CBD) (p. 41) city-state (p. 24) colonial cities (p. 39) Dark Ages (p. 20) Demographic Transition (p. 42) Fertile Crescent (p. 24) gateway cities (p. 39) gridiron street pattern (p. 25) specialization, organized religion, bureaucratic govern- ment, and international trade. 2. “A common approach to examining the internal structure of cities is to identify whether the layout of an urban area was largely unplanned or planned” (p. 25). Go online and search for a map of an ancient or contemporary city from a region of the world that particularly interests you. While being aware that all cities are subject to change over time, study the layout of the streets, transportation routes, and other features of your 1. Do a search of YouTube to find the first episode in the six-part Legacy: The Origins of Civilization series that was written and hosted by historian Michael Wood and produced by Maryland Public Television and Central Independent Television, UK (1991). This episode, Iraq: The Cradle of Civilization , provides an excellent account of the beginning of urban civilization in southern Iraq more than 5,000 years ago. It illustrates some of the important changes associated with the shift to urban life such as occupational Review Activities Chapter 2 • The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life 45 city’s internal layout to try to determine if the city was largely planned or unplanned, or whether over time different parts appeared to have been planned while others were unplanned. Think about what kinds of political, economic, social, tech-nological, and environmental processes may have influenced the layout of your city. Then search some more to find out about the history of urban planning for your city that can shed light on what you have concluded from your analysis of the map. 3. Chicago was the shock city of North American industrial- ization. Do some research online or in the library to find out why. How important was this city’s location? Then find some information about the tremendous changes that were associated with Chicago’s industrial growth—in population growth, modes of transportation, and the kinds of raw materials that were brought in for the city’s milling, meatpacking, tanning, and woodworking industries. 4. Work on your e-portfolio. Look for additional materials that can help you flesh out what you have learned in this chapter. Go online and research some examples of Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, or medieval towns to find out how and why they were established and whether they have survived and why or why not. Think about how you can make the aspects of urbaniza- tion described in this chapter meaningful to you personally. Find some contemporary accounts of life in cities at different points during the extensive span of time covered in this chapter. Think about how very different life was for different urban residents in earlier centuries compared to your life today. Log in to www.mygeoscienceplace.com for self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth TM tours, key resources and suggested readings, related websites,“In the News” RSS feeds, and additional references and resources to enhance your study of the origins and growth of cities and urban life. 3 Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities I n the United States urbanization has evolved in step with economic and societal changes. Towns and cities have played a central role in the economy since the seventeenth century, when Europeans established their first outposts of settlement on North American soil. Urban areas have been crucial in a rapid transition from a dependent, preindustrial society and economy to a globalized form of capitalism where cities function as nodes in a world economic system. During each major phase of this evolution, people developed new resources, technologies, and business organizations and cities were changed to accommodate the new economic order. In some cities these changes occurred sequentially and the outcomes were superimposed one on the other. In others the new economic systems were not always profitable or appropriate. As a result, the impact of each phase of change was felt in different ways and to different degrees by people in different cities. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify several distinctive periods in the evolution of the urban system, each reflecting changes in the rhythm of the economic, social, governance, technology and infrastructure systems discussed in Chapter 1. Chapter In the 1920s the commercial development of the internal combustion engine unleashed social, economic, and political forces that changed the physical shape of urban areas. Just when downtown areas had established their unrivaled domi- nance and internal functional specialization, a new logic of transportation and location associated with cars and trucks led to the decentralization of many of their retailing, wholesaling, manufacturing, and office functions. This left CBDs like the one in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, shown here in 1935, more specialized and less dominant. 47 CHAPTER PREVIEW This chapter follows the evolution of the U.S. urban system through five distinctive periods that together estab- lished the foundations for the contemporary urban system. As we will see, this set of urban settlements is both the product of , and a continuing framework for, processes of economic, technological, demographic, political, and social change. Each successive phase of urbanization brought new patterns of settlement, new kinds of towns and cities, and new patterns of trade and migration of people between towns and cities. Each change also brought new challenges for understanding the underlying processes of change. As we follow the development of the urban system, therefore, we will also follow the emergence of key ideas, concepts, and theories about urbanization. We begin with the earliest period of urban development, the frontier urbanization around which the U.S.economy was organized until independence. The second distinctive period (1790–1840) was one of mer- chant trading, or mercantilism, during which there emerged a more extensive system of central places, or local LEARNING OUTCOMES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Recognize the existence of broad phases in the historical development of the U.S. urban system, and how these phases relate to ongoing process of economic, technological, demographic, political, and social change. ■ Appraise how gateway cities, entrepôts, and hinterlands played complementary roles in the frontier urbanization phase of U.S. urban development. ■ Understand the basic principles of urban growth and change that have shaped the U.S. urban system. ■ Assess the role of streetcar and railroad development in changing the geography of land use within the city. ■ Describe the impacts of economic reorganization and demographic change on the urban system in the early 20th century. 48 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography marketing and service centers. The third period (1840–1875) was characterized by an expansion and realignment of the urban system in response to early industrialization, the mechanization of agriculture, and immigration. With these changes in mind, we will discuss some of the key principles underpinning urban growth, urban systems, and the spatial pattern of central places. With the fourth distinctive period, industrialization (1875–1920), we will see the effects of principles of indus- trial location on the development and adaptation of the urban system. We will also notice how and why urban-industrial development is inherently uneven and unstable—part of a constantly changing landscape of investment, disinvestment, and reinvestment by people. The fifth period corresponds with the emergence of Fordism and mass-produced cars, trucks, and airplanes (1920–1945), which significantly changed the spatial organi- zation of the urban system. This was also a period that saw some important changes in corporate organization by busi- nesspeople and a severe economic depression. We will see how these developments affected the fundamental organization of the U.S. political economy and, therefore, the very foundations of urban development and urban life. FRONTIER URBANIZATION Although there were many small urban settlements in North America before the sixteenth century (Figure 3.1), the first large towns and cities were those that Europeans established as outposts of their economies. Spanish colonialism was the first to leave its imprint. Guided by the Laws of the Indies (dating from 1583), Spanish settlers in Florida and the Southwest planted towns that were laid out with a rectangular grid of streets surrounding a large central plaza. The earliest of these planned communities was La Villa Real de Santa Fe (Santa Fe, New Mexico), founded in 1610 as the administra- tive center for New Spain’s northernmost frontier. Over the Life for people during the period of frontier urbanization came with some social problems that we might recognize today. 1 As in urban centers elsewhere, a good water source was vital for the colonists, but not necessarily for drinking! Breweries were some of the earliest buildings to be constructed. The colonists usually drank water as a last resort; they preferred beer (and so drunkenness was a serious problem). Water was largely reserved for domestic uses and for putting out fires. In fact, the Massachusetts laws of 1638 and 1646 that forbid smoking “out of dores” or near Boston’s Town House were dictated less by Puritan intolerance and more by the fact that “fires have bene often occasioned by taking tobacco.” 2 Sanitary regulations in 1652 in Boston required that all gar- bage be buried and included a fine for anyone who threw “any intralls of beast or fowles or stinkeing thing, in any hie way or dich or Common.” 3 In Newport, the problem of privies and sew- age disposal made the streets very unpleasant, “as several Privy houses sett against ye Streets” emptied into the streets where passersby were always in danger of “Spoiling & Damnifying” their clothes. 4 A police force was soon needed to protect the community against disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, and criminal activities by some inhabitants. The titles and functions of the earliest police officers were, not surprisingly, European in origin, and included the (English) constable in Boston. His range of duties could be seen from a typical Massachusetts law of 1646: Evry cunstable . . . hath, by virtue of his office, full powr to make, signe, & put forth pursuits, or hues & cries, after murthrers, manslayrs, peace breakrs, theeves, robbers, burglarers, where no ma[gis]strate is at hand; also to apphend without warrant such as are ovr taken with drinke, swearing, breaking ye Saboth, lying, vagrant psons, night walkers, or any other yt shall break o[u]r laws; . . . also to make search for all such psons ... in all houses licensed to sell either beare or wine, or in any othr suspected or disordered places, & those to apphend, & keepe in safe custody ... 5 In the performance of their duties, some people ignored the authority of the constables. In 1643, when Job Tyler was summoned to court by the constable, “he sd he car’d not a fart [or] turd for all their warrants.” 6 Both men and women broke the law. In 1672 the Court convicted Gillian Knight of “Enticing Danll Herring to her house & there Embracing him pick’t his pocket and Stole Seven Shillings from him.” 7 That same year, the Widow Alice Thomas was convicted of running a brothel by giving “frequent secret and unseasonable Entertainment in her house to Lewd Lascivious & notorious persons of both Sexes, giving them opportunity to commit carnall wickedness.” 8 URBAN VIEW 3.1 Frontier Urbanization and Some Problems of Daily Life FIGURE 3.1 Tyuonyl Anasazi Pueblo in Frijoles Canyon, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico. Tree-ring analyses date con- struction of this settlement of community houses and central plaza within a stone oval-shaped enclosure to between 1383 and 1466 C.E. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 49 from the Dutch, renamed it New York, established it as the capital of the New York colony, and set about developing the best natural harbor on the entire Atlantic seaboard into a major port. Charles Town (later Charleston) was estab- lished as the capital of the Carolinas in 1680, and William Penn established Philadelphia as the capital of Pennsylvania in 1682 (Figure 3.2). The embryonic urban system operated as a string of gateway cities : control points for the (1) assembly of staple commodities for export, (2) distribution of imported manufac- tured goods, and (3) civil administration of the new territories. For some time each gateway port operated quite independently, having more linkages with European cities than with each other. As colonization extended, a hierarchy of settlements began to develop. Places with better resources and accessibility became larger and acquired a broader range of services. Meanwhile, the need to rationalize transatlantic shipping schedules prompted the development of a network of coastal shipping between the largest ports. As a result, a few cities—Boston (Figure 3.3), Charleston, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia—were able to establish themselves as major entrepôts: intermediary centers of trade and transshipment. As these entrepôts grew, they came to dominate larger and larger hinterlands (market areas) in which smaller settlements emerged as local market towns. In time these market towns became inland gateways that acted as bulking points and provided an array of services for the frontier farmers. By the time of the Revolution in 1775, the most notable were Hartford, Middletown, and Norwich (Connecticut), Albany (New York), Lancaster (Pennsylvania), and Richmond (Virginia). As the 13 colonies merged into an American union, the largest city was New York, with about 25,000 inhabitants. Philadelphia was almost as large, with about 24,000; Boston was next biggest, with about 16,000; and Baltimore, Charleston, and Newport all had between 10,000 and 12,000 inhabitants. The inland gateway cities were all relatively small, none exceeding 10,000 people. next 150 years or more, Spanish settlers founded a series of “pueblos” (centers of commerce and administration), “missions” (centers for religious conversion), and “presidios” (military outposts), all of which, as they grew, acquired a mixture of commercial, administrative, religious, and mili- tary functions. Among the settlements founded by Spanish colonists were Saint Augustine, San Antonio, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. Not long after the founding of Santa Fe, Dutch settlers sailed into the Hudson estuary and established a fur trading post they called New Amsterdam. The French were less interested in colonization than in opportunities for trade, but as they foraged through the Great Lakes and along the Mississippi River system they established trading posts that slowly grew into small towns. These included Québec, Montréal, Detroit, St. Louis, and New Orleans. It was English colonization, however, that established the most vigorous roots of the U.S. urban system. In Virginia, the Jamestown colony, founded in 1607, began the cultiva- tion of tobacco for export to Europe and established the first representative government on the continent. Nearby Williamsburg, established in 1663 as a stockaded refuge from Native Americans, became the capital of the Virginia colony in 1699 after fire destroyed much of Jamestown. Although profitable, tobacco cultivation was labor intensive. In 1619 the first Africans were brought to Virginia to work on the tobacco plantations. By 1807, when Britain banned its subjects from participating in the slave trade, 600,000 to 650,000 Africans had been forcibly transported to North America. In New England, Boston, founded in 1630 as a “City upon a Hill” in a celebration of spirituality, soon became a prosperous center of trade and commerce. Newport, on Rhode Island, was founded by a group of religious dissenters in 1639 as a haven for the persecuted, but, with the best natural harbor in southern New England, it too developed into a trading port. In 1664 the British took New Amsterdam FIGURE 3.2 Plan of Philadelphia, 1683, laid out with primary north-south and east-west streets intersecting at a central town square containing public structures such as government buildings and churches, with grid blocks delineated by secondary streets and fo ur minor squares. The preplanned layout facilitated settlement by allowing colonists to select a parcel for their new home before leavin g Europe. 50 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography of the Great Lakes and the Hudson, Ohio, and Mississippi river systems with networks of canals. As a result, two east-west corridors of trade merged. The first stretched from New York up the Hudson and the Erie Canal (opened in 1825) to the east- ern Great Lakes, where Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee emerged as important wholesaling centers. THE MERCANTILE PERIOD (1790–1840) Although only 1 in 20 people lived in towns or cities, city-based newspapers, lawyers, and merchants greatly influenced the Constitution that was framed in Philadelphia in May 1787. The result was a Constitution that favored city-based manufacture and trade— and therefore stimulated city growth —by preventing the fragmentation of the economy were states allowed to set their own import taxes, coin their own money, or issue their own bills of credit. The political independence gained by the colonies as a result of the Constitution stimulated the develop- ment of the urban system in other ways: • It became practical—and necessary—for economic links to be established between towns and cities whose main linkages under the colonial system had been with European ports. • It meant that a much greater proportion of investment was financed by U.S. capital, with the result that fewer profits “leaked” back to the European urban system. • It required a proliferation of government functions, from county courthouses and town halls to state capitals and, of course, the development of the District of Columbia, chosen in 1790 as the permanent seat of federal government. • It was associated with westward expansion (following the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and the addition of Texas and the territories acquired from Mexico in 1846) which required frontier towns like Santa Fe that subsequently matured into local service centers. The most striking growth occurred in gateway cities—New Orleans (Figure 3.4), St. Louis, and other river ports—that were located at strategic points along rivers that linked the new west- ern territories with the larger cities of the Atlantic seaboard. East Coast merchants, however, were not content to miss out on the lucrative trade. Their response was to tap the waterways FIGURE 3.3 Boston in 1770. Boston was important during the early development of the U.S. urban system because of its role as an entrepôt, an intermediary center of trade and transshipment between colonial America and cities in northwestern Europe. FIGURE 3.4 The most striking urban growth during the Mercantile period took place in river ports. New Orleans grew very rapidly because of its situation as a gateway to the entire Mississippi system. This view is from about 1862. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 51 By 1840 the U.S. urban system had become independent and was on the way to becoming integrated. New York had grown to 391,114 and had increased its lead over Philadelphia (93,665) by a significant margin. Meanwhile, Baltimore and New Orleans topped 100,000 and Boston had grown to more than 93,000. A few regional centers such as Cincinnati and Albany had populations between 25,000 and 50,000, while larger centers such as Louisville and Richmond stood at about 20,000 (roughly the size of Washington, D.C.). Most towns had populations of 15,000 or less; Chicago had fewer than 5,000 people. Inside the Mercantile City Just as we can consider the urban system as both the result of and the framework for processes of economic, demographic, social and other changes, so too can we view the spatial form and organization of cities themselves. Changing patterns of urban form and land use must, like the changing urban system, be understood in relation to the rhythms of the economy and society. The evolution of urban form stems not only from the history of economic development, migration, and immigration but also from the interaction of economic and demographic growth phases with changes in social structure and lifestyles, innovations in building materials and construction techniques, advances in urban transportation, and changes in the legal framework of land ownership, land use law, and land use policy. The second stretched across the mountains from Philadelphia and Baltimore to Pittsburgh and the Ohio Valley, where Cincinnati and Louisville became important inland gateways. As the urban system expanded and trade between cities increased, particular cities and regions were able to specialize according to their comparative advantage (the economic activity, given local conditions, that could be undertaken most efficiently, compared to other places). Cincinnati, for example, specialized in hog processing, earning the nickname “Porkopolis.” Manufacturing began to contribute to the growth of the leading eastern ports, while some towns in the more heavily populated and intensively developed northeast— Albany, Lowell, Newark, Poughkeepsie, Providence, Springfield, and Wilmington—became the cradle of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. Immigration provided an important source for peopling both the frontier and the growing ports and inland gateways. By the American Revolution (1775–1783), the colonial population had reached about 2.5 million, of which more than 500,000 were African-American slaves, 250,000 were Scots-Irish, and 200,000 were German. Meanwhile, an increasingly important impetus to urban growth was improved agricultural productivity. Urbanization was fueled by advances in farm productivity that (1) provided the food to support the increased numbers of townspeople and (2) released agricultural workers who moved to towns and cities, swelling the numbers of producers and consumers. URBAN VIEW 3.2 Vance’s Mercantile Model One model of the development of the North American urban system is the mercantile model by urban geographer James Vance, Jr. According to Vance, external (European) influences and long-distance trade were particularly important in estab- lishing the geometry of the North American urban hierarchy through five distinctive stages (Figure 3.5). 1. Exploration . Voyages of exploration to North America by entrepreneurs from Europe in search of economic opportunities. 2. Harvesting natural resources . Colonists establish settle- ments in order to exploit natural resources such as the codfish of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and timber and beaver pelts from New England. 3. Emergence of agricultural production and coastal gateway cities. The colonists’ permanent settlements and farms become associated with the development of an embryonic urban system geared to exporting agricultural staples such as grain, salted meat, indigo (blue dye), tobacco, and cotton to Europe, and importing manufactured goods and luxury items from Europe. Gateway cities along the coast (Vance’s “points of attachment”) become the focus of the emergent system (Figure 3.5). 4. Establishment of inland gateway cities. Settlement spreads f arther inland due to continued demand for agricultural exports and increased colonization. This requires the development of long-distance routes and inland gateway cities that serve as “depots of staple collection” at strategic locations along these routes (Figure 3.5). This stage corresponds to the “frontier urbanization” described on p. 48, with entrepôts and inland gateway cities functioning as wholesale collection centers for agricultural products intended for export to Europe. 5. Domestic market and urban system infilling . The domestic market grows large and affluent enough to sustain the growth of domestic manufacturing. The gateway ports, entrepôts, and inland gateways attract much of this economic activity because of their established populations and good accessibility. Meanwhile, colonists spread out from the long-distance routes and establish agricultural settlements that begin to support subregional systems of market towns (p. 57). But the established ports, entrepôts, and inland gateways, with much larger markets and better distribution networks, are the places that can offer the most exclusive and expensive goods and services. So long-distance trade, rather than local markets, establish the spatial pattern of the cities, like New York, Boston, and Chicago, that come to function as the leading centers of the maturing urban system. (continued) 52 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 3.2 Vance’s Mercantile Model ( continued) Initial search phase of mercantilliam Periodic staple production Testing of Productivity and Harvest of Natural Storage Economic information Search for knowledge Ships with producers plus their staple production Fishermen and other producers Fish Timber Furs Point of Attachment Planning of settlers who produce staples and consume manufactures of the home country Introduction of internal trade and manufacture in the colony The Mercantile Model Based on Exogenic Forces Introducing Basic Structure The Central-place Model Based on “Agriculturalism” with Endogenic Sorting-and-Ordering to Begin with Rapid growth of Home Manufacture to Supply Colony and Growing Metropolitan Population Depot of StapleCollection Mercantile Model with Domination by Internal Trade (That is with Emergence of Central-Place Model Infilling) Central-place Model with a Mercantile Model Overlay (That is the Accentuation of Importance of Cities with the Best Developed External Ties) Entrepôts of Wholesaling FIGURE 3.5 Vance’s model of mercantile settlement. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 53 • a number of occupationally distinctive but socially mixed districts. • a residual population of the very poor living in the back alleys and on the fringes of the city. • everything at a human scale: a walking city in which home and work were tightly connected by the organiza- tion of work into patriarchal and familial groupings. These features, common to preindustrial cities around much of the world, could be found in cities of the early nineteenth century: Charleston, S. C., for example (the sixth-largest city in the United States until 1830). 11 Beyond these broad parallels, however, the truth is that U.S. cities exhibited all kinds of exceptions to any set of generalizations. They were young, still shaped by local, idiosyncratic, and contin-gent factors. They were growing rapidly and had no time to “shake down” into the classic preindustrial patterns of the cities of medieval Europe and feudal Asia. And before they could, they were overtaken by the revolutionary forces of industrialization. EARLY INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION AND REGIONAL REALIGNMENT (1840–1875) The transition from a trading economy to a mature agricul- tural and embryonic industrial one took place during the 1840s for several reasons. One reason was the arrival of indus- trial technology and methods of industrial and commercial organization from the hearth of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Another was accelerating improvements in agri- cultural productivity and the ability to colonize formerly marginal land as a result of mechanization that had begun in the mercantile period. With less labor needed on farms, rural-to-urban migration fueled the urbanization process. At the same time, higher levels of agricultural production were able to feed the growing numbers of immigrants who were also fueling urban growth and providing the labor needed in new factories (Figure 3.7). Within each phase of urban development, many consider innovations in transport systems to have been the single most significant determinant of urban form and land use. Transport systems controlled the density and areal extent of urban develop- ment and gave expression to the pent-up energies of successive phases of economic and social change. The Pedestrian City In the mercantile city, the character of economic development and the lack of fast inexpensive forms of transportation gave rise to very compact cities with distinctive patterns of land use. People walked, and most goods were moved by hand cart or horse cart. The result was a loose intermingling of activities. Because most towns and cities of any size were seaports or river ports, the hub of economic activity was the waterfront, dominated by merchants’ offices, workshops, warehouses, and wharves. Clustered nearby were hotels, churches, retail stores, and public buildings, together with the homes of prominent fam- ilies. Housing for artisans, storekeepers, and laborers edged into vacant spaces and extended to the edge of town, where commercial activities that needed extra space (such as textile mills), large quantities of stream water (breweries for example), or were particularly noxious (like slaughterhouses and tanneries) located. There was little separation between home and workplace. Factory owners often built their homes next to their facto- ries; artisans and storekeepers lived above or behind their workshop or store; laborers and service workers lived off alleyways and in lofts; servants lived in the upper floors of their masters’ houses; and, in Southern cities, slaves lived in compounds behind the main house. As cities increased in population and density, enclaves of specialization began to emerge around clusters of workshops and factories and around concentrations of ethnic groups. Boston’s North End, for example, became a distinctive Irish quarter in the early nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the mercantile city was so compact that short distances separated poor from rich and artisan from laborer, and no enclave was large enough to be thought of as a separate specialized district. Models of the Mercantile City Bearing some resem blance to the pedestrian city , the best-known and most influen- tial model is Sjoberg’s preindustrial city 9in which the social pyramid—a large group of outcasts and laborers, a smaller group of artisans, and an even smaller elite group—is reflected in the city’s spatial pattern (Figure 3.6). This generalization has been questioned by James Vance, Jr., 10 who gives greater emphasis to the mosaic of occupational subdistricts and downplays the extent of a fringe of low-income laborers, placing them instead as lodgers scattered within these various subdistricts. What is important, however, is not so much these details as the over- all structure. Both Sjoberg and Vance describe preindustrial cities as having • a central core dominated socially by the residences of an elite group. Elite Lower class Outcasts Domesticservants Ethnic or occupational districts Class Pyramid Residential Patterns FIGURE 3.6 The relationship between class structure and place of residence in the preindustrial city (after Sjoberg). 54 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish immigrants, and spreading to southern and eastern Europe—involving Italians and Jews, as well as Slavs from the Austro-Hungarian Empire—during the 1880s and 1890s. Because many of the new industrial technologies had specific locational requirements (proximity to large quantities of raw materials, for example, or accessibility to a variety of dif ferent suppliers or markets), this phase of urbanization brought the emergence of some new towns and cities and the rapid growth of previously very small settlements. There were four categories of newcomers: 1. Power sites that attracted industries that consumed significant quantities of energy. Before the widespread use of coal-fired steam technology and, later, electricity, the power of falling or running water was important. This led to the appearance of a series of industrial towns along the Fall Line in New England and the eastern margins of the Appalachians, such as Allentown and Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. 2. Mining towns that sprang up to provide the coal and ores needed by the industrial economy, such as Appalachian coalfield towns like Norton, Virginia. 3. Transportation centers that emerged at strategic locations made accessible by the canal and railroad network, such as Roanoke, Virginia, a typical example of a railroad town. 4. Heavy manufacturing towns whose dependence on large volumes of raw materials tied them to the source areas of those inputs. Pittsburgh, already an important river port and wholesaling center, would become the steel- town thanks to its location near coalfields and deposits of iron ore. The development of steam-powered riverboats and the railroad network were central to the evolution of the new industrial economy and urban system. Ports and lakeside cities such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Nashville pros- pered because they were able to operate as interfaces between established trading routes and the budding railroad system. Beginning in 1840, a great influx of immigrants began to arrive from Europe (Figure 3.8). Severe famines in Ireland in the 1830s and 1840s, combined with a British “laissez faire” policy and the rationalization of agriculture from small farms to larger estates, fueled mass migration. By 1850, the economic and social changes associated with rapid industrialization and the mechanization of agriculture had prompted an even greater exodus of people from the German states, France, and Belgium, extending to Scandinavia by the late 1870s and sparking waves FIGURE 3.7 New arrivals. Crowding the deck on arrival in New York harbor, these immigrants were processed on Ellis Island before going on to find jobs in the fast-growing cities. 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1900 Immigrants (in thousands) 1890 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 1,800 2,000 FIGURE 3.8 Immigration to the United States. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 55 as their owners used their capital and accumulated prof- its to invest in factories and machinery. • Traditions and skills of entrepreneurship, investment, and lending that adapted easily to industrial development. • The largest pools of labor. • The largest and most affluent markets. These observations are related to fundamental principles inherent to the process of urban-industrial development. The principle of initial advantage is itself a special case of the operation of external economies : cost advantages that accrue to individual companies because of their locational setting. External economies can be derived from the availability of a pool of labor with appropriate skills, accessibility to good specialized business services, or the quality of the physical infrastructure of roads, harbors, and utilities—any advantage, in fact, that stems from the collective rather than exclusive use of any of the factors necessary for profitable activity. Urban settings then provide companies with opportunities for external economies. In this context, external economies are often referred to as agglomeration economies or urbanization economies . Where external economies are limited to compa- nies in a particular industry, they are known as localization economies . Examples include sharing a pool of labor with special skills (such as shipwrights, precision instrument makers), supporting specialized technical schools, collaborating to develop a research institute or marketing organization, and drawing on specialized subcontrac tors, suppliers, distribution agents, and legal counsel. These localization economies go a long way in explaining the tendency for cities to maintain economic specializations: the attractiveness of Pittsburgh for the iron and steel industry, of Akron to manufacturers of rubber products, and of Dayton to makers of fabricated metal and machinery, for example. Interpreting and Analyzing the Urban Hierarchy and the Central Place System What was emerging was an urban system that had much in common, in terms of the size and spatial patterning of towns and cities, with urban systems in many other countries. Of special importance to social scientists is that certain regularities emerged that cried out for explanation. Among the regularities in the mercantile and early industrial expansion periods were consistent relationships between (1) cities’ rank in the urban system and their actual population—the so-called rank-size rule, and (2) the size and spacing of towns and cities—the basis of central place theory. The Rank-Size Rule The relationship between cities’ size and their rank within an urban system is expressed in a simple for- mula, known as the rank-size rule: 12 Pi P 1 R i where P i is the population of city i, R i is the rank of city i by population size, and P 1 is the population of the largest city in Within a few years of work on the first railroad (the Baltimore and Ohio, in 1828), rail networks were developed around all the established ports on the inland waterways that reached into the agricultural lands of the interior plains. Initially, therefore, the railroads were complementary to the waterways as long- haul carriers of general freight. In 1869 the railroad network reached the Pacific, when, at Promontory, Utah, the Union Pacific railroad (built west from Omaha) met the Central Pacific railroad (built east from Sacramento). By 1875 intense competition between railroad companies began to open up the western prairies as far as Minneapolis-St. Paul and Kansas City and had extended the urban system to a continental scale. The significance for economic development—and therefore for urbanization— was enormous. The railroad allowed a loose-knit collection of regional economies to develop into a national one in which American enterprise could fully exploit the commercial advan- tages and economies of scale of a huge market and apparently unlimited resource base. Meanwhile, the development of the railroads realigned the spatial organization of the urban system (Figure 3.9). The westward penetration of railroad lines allowed large quanti- ties of corn and wheat to be moved directly eastward, rather than being shipped by water via St. Louis and New Orleans. As a result, these cities, along with smaller, intermediate ports, experienced slowed rates of growth and relied increasingly on regional trade and service functions. In contrast, cities along the two major east–west wholesaling alignments (New York– Buffalo–Detroit–Chicago–Milwaukee and Philadelphia– Pittsburgh–Cincinnati–Louisville) benefited from both the extra trade and reduced freight prices that resulted from fierce competition between the railroads and water transportation. Their growth helped lay the foundations of what would become the Manufacturing Belt. This chronology points us to another important gener- alization about the development of urban systems: Most early industrial growth, and therefore most urban growth during early industrialization, occurred in the largest existing towns and cities . By 1875 the urban system had expanded to the point where more than 15 cities, with their adjacent counties, each accounted for more than 100,000 people. New York, with 1.3 million, was at the top of the urban hierarchy, followed by five cities with populations in the range of 350,000 to 450,000: Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. Cities with between 100,000 and 150,000 included Athens (Georgia), Boston, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Manchester (New Hampshire), New Orleans, Providence, Rochester, and Syracuse. Some Principles of Urban Growth The reasons for the concentration of growth in the largest existing towns and cities stem from the principle of initial advantage based on: • The craft industries and wholesaling and transportation activities that provided the basis for industrial enterprises 56 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography NEBR.N.D. S.D. KANS.OKLA.TERR. UNORG. TERR. ARIZONA TERRITORY NEW MEXICO TERRITORY UTAH TERRITORY COLO. NEVADA WASH. IDAHO MONT. WYO. OREGON CALIF. MINN. IOWA MO. ARK. LA. TEXAS ALA. MISS. GA. FLA. WIS. MICH. ILL. OHIO MAINE VT. N.Y. PA. W.VA. VA.N.C. S.C. KY. TENN. N.H. MASS. R.I. CONN. DEL. MD. N.J. IND. ATLANTIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN Completed by 1890 Railroad System B NEBRASKA TERRITORY UNORGANIZED TERRITORY KANSAS TERRITORY UNORGANIZEDTERRITORY NEW MEXICO TERRITORY UTAH TERRITORY WASHINGTON TERRITORY OREGON CALIFORNIA MINN. IOWA MO. ARK. LA. TEXAS ALA. MISS. GA. FLA. WIS. MICH. ILL. OHIO MAINE VT. N.Y. PA. VA. N.C.S.C. KY. TENN. N.H. MASS. R.I. CONN. DEL. MD. N.J. IND. ATLANTIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN Completed by 1860 Railroad System A FIGURE 3.9 (A) The U.S. railroad system in 1860 with over 30,000 miles of track, much of it short lines. (B) The U.S. railroad system in 1 890. The railroads had expanded rapidly in the 1880s, when more than 70,000 miles of track were added. By 1890, the total network was 16 3,597 miles. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 57 Central Place Theory The significance of trade and marketing also introduced certain regularities in the size and spatial patterning of towns and cities within the urban system. In part, this regularity was a result of transportation technology: Settlements evolved to match the distances that could be cov- ered by river, canal, or turnpike (toll road) in a day’s travel. In addition, the role of towns and cities as local service centers— central places—brought a new logic that helped shape the spacing of towns and cities by size. Smaller settlements, offering a limited range of services for their residents and the residents of nearby areas, were quite numerous and located at relatively short, fairly consistent distances from one another. Large cities were fewer and farther between but offered a greater variety of services, catering to residents from many surrounding areas. In between were intermediate-sized central places serving intermediate-sized markets with middling packages of services. It was not until much later that these patterns were considered in terms of underlying principles and idealized outcomes. The seminal work by Walter Christaller, a German geographer, identified striking regularities in the size and spacing of settlements in southern Germany. 14 For the sake of clarity and simplicity of argument, Christaller first assumed a uniform landscape, uninterrupted by rivers, roads, or canals: Accessibility is assumed to be a direct function of distance, in any direction. From this starting point, the foundations of central place theory depend on elementary principles concerning the “range” and “threshold” of goods and services. The range of a particular product or service is the maxi- mum distance that consumers will generally travel to obtain it. “High-order” goods and services such as specialized equip- ment, professional sports events, and specialist medical care (relatively costly and required infrequently) might have a range of a hundred miles or more, whereas “low-order” goods and the urban system. So if the largest city has a population of 1 mil- lion, the fifth-largest city should have a population of 200,000, the hundredth-ranked city should have a population of 10,000. Plotting this relationship on a graph with a logarithmic scale for population sizes would produce a straight line, reflecting a log-linear relationship. The rank-size distribution of the U.S. urban system plotted for several points in time in Figure 3.10 shows that the system as a whole has conformed fairly consistently to the rank-size rule. This conformity to the rule, however, does not necessarily mean that individual cities have maintained their relative position along each curve. The growth of some cities (such as San Diego) has sent them from the lower end of the hierarchy to the top, while other cities (like Savannah) have declined, at least in relative terms, so that they have fallen down the hierarchy. It is the overall relationship between cities’ size and their rank within the urban system that stays fairly constant . In some urban systems (though not in the United States), the disproportionate size of the largest city distorts the log- linear character of the rank-size distribution. In the United Kingdom, London is about seven times the size of Birmingham, the second-largest city, while in Ireland, Dublin is more than four times the size of the second-largest city, Cork. Such cases led to the “law” of the primate city: “A country’s leading city is always disproportionately large and exceptionally expressive of national capacity and feeling.” 13 But for every case of primacy there is an urban system where the largest city approximates to the rank-size rule. The search for explanations of primacy has focused on levels of economic development and the size of a country’s inhabited area, but neither factor stands up to empirical testing. More likely, primacy is a good example of the contingency noted in Figure 1.4, with each case arising from a particular combination of circumstances. 10,000,000 1,000,000 100,00010,000 1,000 Cumulative number of cities 10 100 1,000 10,000 1 Population Size 1790 1840 1900 1940 2000 FIGURE 3.10 The rank-size distribution of U.S. towns and cities. 58 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Another shortcoming of central place theory is that it pro- vides only a static model of settlement patterns—unresponsive to changes in population densities, consumer spending power, or transportation technologies—and paints a picture of an urban system “that somehow springs into existence fully formed, with no historical antecedents.” 15 Inside the Early Industrial City Probably the most fundamental change to emerge to the form and spatial organization of cities was the intense com- petition that developed for the best and most accessible sites for the factories and the warehouses, shops, and offices that depended on them. Meanwhile, industrialization generated three new social groups: an industrial business elite, white- collar managers and office workers to run the businesses, and blue-collar factory workers to operate the machinery. It was not long before these groups were in fierce competition for the best and most accessible sites for housing. Social status, newly ascribed in terms of money, became synonymous with ability to pay rent, so that a person’s address came to acquire unprecedented importance. Ultimately, these changes would turn the city inside out, with specialized industrial and commercial uses claiming most of the central area, the rich exchanging their congested and polluted central locations for the peripheral location of the poor, and occupational clustering giving way to residential differen- tiation by income. 16 But it took businesses, households, and landowners time to sort themselves out into these new patterns. What is more, they had to do so in an unregulated environment and within a legal framework in which land ownership was treated as a civil liberty rather than as an economic or social resource. Most of all, growth had to be accommodated with- out any major technological advances in transportation. For a whole generation cities were brimming with new arrivals and jammed with new factories, warehouses, and institutions, with no adequate means of transportation that might have helped to rationalize the organization of space (Figure 3.12). Meanwhile, crucial precedents were being set in terms of land law and the land development process. Urbanization and the Public Interest The early colonists from England had a strong desire to avoid the rigidity and inequality of feudal land laws. They found a continent with almost unlimited possibilities for land owner- ship (Native Americans notwithstanding), and established a simple approach to land law that was based on individuals’ civil liberties. Any person would be able to own land and in return would be obliged to pay taxes. There were to be no constraints on who might buy the land, inherit it, or for what purpose it might be used. The Northwest Ordinances of 1784–1787 and the federal Constitution ratified and codified these principles, adding (through the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments) the principle that no government agency should seize any private property except under due process of law (eminent domain) and then only for legitimate public purpose and with just compensation. services such as grocery stores and gas stations (perishable or required in relatively large amounts at frequent intervals) will have a much shorter range. It follows that the maximum area served by a particular service from a particular central place will be a market area, or hinterland, whose radius is equal to the range of the service. The threshold of demand of a product or service is the minimum market size of potential customers in a hinterland required to make it profitable to offer that product or service. High-order services such as hospitals have thresholds in the tens of thousands; low-order services such as grocery stores have thresholds of just 200–300 people. From these principles we can hypothesize an urban system in which the smallest settlements, all offering similar packages of low-order goods and services—such as a pizza joint or coffee shop—are arrayed evenly across the landscape. Higher- order central places will, logically, offer all of the lower-order goods and services, and it is assumed that consumers will use the nearest central place that offers the goods or services they require. As a result, a nested hierarchy of central places can be constructed, shown schematically in Figure 3.11, with marked discontinuities in the population size and packages of services offered at each level of the hierarchy. Beyond Consumer Hinterlands One of the main short- comings of central place theory is that, by focusing on central place functions, it fails to address other important influences on thesize and spacing of cities—manufacturing, for example, and the long-distance trading functions (such as wholesaling) that are essential to the development of most urban functions, whether they stem from the agricultural, industrial, or service sector of the economy. Many central place functions, even by the mid-nineteenth century, depended on a long chain of pro- duction and exchange that involved numerous steps, from har- vesting or mining through processing, packaging, shipment, and storage to retail distribution. The products offered for sale in Albany, Buffalo, and Cleveland, for example, would have originated from all corners of the United States, from many parts of Europe, and from a few other parts of the world. City Town Village Hamlet FIGURE 3.11 Schematic diagram of a central place system. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 59 FIGURE 3.12 The early industrial city: Boston. This photograph shows Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall in the heart of the city, where industrial, retail, wholesale, commercial, and residential land uses were crammed together. URBAN VIEW 3.3 Immigrant Housing Conditions 17 By the second half of the nineteenth century, many immigrants who had flooded into larger cities were living in horrific condi- tions. The term slum conveys the interrelationships among the environmental limitations, spatial isolation, and social problems of the largely immigrant populations (Figure 3.13). A survey of housing in Manhattan in 1867 by the Metropolitan Board of Health inspected over 18,000 buildings that housed more than three families. Many were tenements—the former homes of indi- vidual wealthy families that had been partitioned into cheap multi- family units for immigrants. More than half were in bad condition, and in one-third of these tenements neglect was the main reason. Overcrowded rooms, subdivided buildings, congested lots, and inadequate facilities were all common strategies used by landlords to keep rents low without reducing the return on a property. Reports on the condition of housing for the poor reg- ularly mentioned how buildings were sublet to an agent for a fixed return. The agent would then obtain the maximum return by neglecting repairs and services and demanding the highest possible rent. For their part, this arrangement allowed absentee owners to shirk direct responsibility for their property or tenants. In 1870 the newly formed Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor concluded in its first annual report that: low-paid laborers are not earning sufficient wages to justify their living in [improved] tenement houses ... and, as there are no intermediate houses between these and the lowest class of houses ... the laborers of this class are practically compelled to crowd into the miserable refuges in which they now congregate. In fact, so far as we have been able to ascertain, there are no places within the settled portions of the city of Boston where the low-paid toiler can find a house of decency and comfort. FIGURE 3.13 Back alley in New York City in the late 1800s. By the second half of the nineteenth century, many of the immigrants who had flooded into larger cities were living in horrific housing conditions. Many buildings were tenements—the former homes of wealthy single families that had been partitioned into cheap multifamily units for recent immigrants. 60 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Instruments of Change: Horsecars and Railroads The appearance of all kinds of industrial land uses, together with the arrival of thousands of immigrants, and the emergence of what they saw as a massive and threatening proletariat, soon gave the upper socioeconomic groups a strong motivation for moving permanently as far away from them as possible. (The wealthy had already been sending their families to the countryside for the uncomfortable and epidemic-prone summer months.) Similarly, the intensifying stresses and conflicts of city life repelled many of the new class of affluent white-collar workers. There was, therefore, strong demand for the first forms of public transport to provide an opportunity to escape. A few families, wealthy enough to afford private carriages or hire hackney carriages, had moved to exclusive exurban settings at the first signs of industrial squalor. But it was not possible for others to join them until the development of horse-drawn omnibus and horsecar systems, and short-haul passenger railroad routes. Horsecars The first horse-drawn omnibus service was established by Abraham Brower in New York in 1829, picking up and setting down passengers along the length of Broadway for a flat fare of 12 cents. By the 1840s there were several hun- dred omnibuses in New York, and transportation compa- nies had also appeared in Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, John Mason had established the first light rail system drawn by horses in lower Manhattan in 1832. In 1854 Paris became the first European city with a horsecar system, by which time they had become widespread in the United States (Figure 3.14), allowing people to commute up to three or four miles to downtown workplaces within a reasonable time Even so, treating land ownership as a civil liberty has had some profound consequences for the nature of urban develop- ment. When public lands came to be disposed of in the nine- teenth century, much of the country was delivered up to the control of private speculators: Those who had private capital, or who were bankers or agents for Eastern money, had an enormous advantage. Such men could purchase a whole valley, a promising townsite, whatever they wished. They could then sell part of it cheaply to settlers and retain large tracts and await the substantial price rise that would follow in the wake of the development of adjacent land. 18 The influence of speculators was reinforced by their role as moneylenders to pioneers, who were often able to pay cash for their land, but did not have enough for capital improvements like buildings. As a result, the lending of money gave specula- tors strong local control over land owned by others. A further consequence was the manipulation by speculators of the loca- tions of key investments, both public and private. The concen- tration of land ownership and influence over land use decisions in the hands of speculators “settled a vast class of conservative interest across the nation: It installed men who saw the duty of government to be the defense of private property in every town in North America.” 19 The onset of industrialization began to reveal some of the disadvantages of enshrining property rights as a civil liberty. With no controls over land use and little regulation of the sale of land, urban development became a free-for-all. Although individual freedoms were protected, cities provided less stable settings for businesses, less convenient settings for their resi- dents, and less healthy settings for everyone. 20 These consider- ations eventually led to the acceptance of land use zoning laws and city planning. FIGURE 3.14 A mule-drawn “horsecar” photographed in Washington, Georgia, in 1905. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 61 • The mainline tracks ran in swathes that radiated from the city center. Where they passed through stretches of broad flat land, they attracted stockyards, factories, and warehouses and repelled all but the lowest grade of housing. In this way, pronounced linear industrial belts were established. Because of the amount of fixed capital tied up in them, these industrial belts served as fixed elements around which the future development of cities had to take place. • Elsewhere, the shadow of the railroad condemned smaller tracts of land to permanent dereliction or blight. Between junctions and crisscrossing rail lines were junkyards and abandoned lots, while under the viaducts that were often needed to carry the tracks into the heart of cities were an assortment of makeshift and unsavory activities. Even where the tracks passed through residential neighborhoods, the railroad brought its polarizing influ- ence, regrouping the social geography of cities around the “right” and “wrong” sides of the tracks. • The railroad companies’ greatest influence on land use, however, was in their promotion of commuter traffic. Railroad company owners recognized the potential demand among more affluent middle-income house- holds for a means of escaping the increasingly degraded central city environment that the railroads themselves had helped create. The speed of steam trains meant that commuter stations and residential subdivisions could be established in the countryside beyond the city, creating beads of exurban development along the approaches to the bigger cities. Boston was the first U.S. city around which such a pattern developed, but New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago soon fol- lowed (in the 1850s) and, by the 1860s, the pattern had spread to most other large cities. Considerable numbers of people were involved. About 20 percent of Boston’s business classes traveled to work by train in 1848 from exurbs located between 12 and 15 miles from the city center. Ten years later 40 trains were running each day between downtown Philadelphia and the exurb of Germantown, and a similar number of trains were carrying the 5,000 or so commuters into Chicago from Evanston. 22 But the critical feature of the railroad exurbs was not their size so much as their exclusivity. Their cost—10 to 15 cents for a one-way ticket—made them accessible at first only to successful merchants, industrialists, doctors, lawyers, and other newly rich people. Like the omnibus and the horsecar, therefore, the rail- roads siphoned off from the city the affluent and educated, depositing them in narrow concentrations of development that extended only a comfortable stroll from the station or stop. Because commuters had to walk to the station, lot sizes in rail- road suburbs tended to be fairly modest (8,000–10,000 square feet), allowing for a sufficient number of dwellings to make the station or stop profitable. All this, of course, had a profound effect on the rhythm and pattern of urban life. The railroads allowed for the rapid (30 to 45 minutes). The cost of travel, however, meant that only limited numbers of better-off families could afford to move to the horsecar suburbs that developers built at the edge of the pedestrian city at the terminus stops of the radial horsecar and omnibus routes. Ordinary wage earners received little more than a dollar a day; most round-trip fares were between 15 and 25 cents. Railroads Although the railroads were principally devel- oped for transport between cities, and had a major influence on the development of the urban system, they also had some striking effects on the structure and organization of land use within cities. • They provided the catalyst for the reorganization of land uses in city centers. The railroad companies needed large, flat tracts of land at or near the city center to accommodate passenger stations and the necessary infrastructure: locomotive sheds, shunt- ing yards, and, often, goods-handling facilities. They also had the economic (and political) power to secure these sites. • Once developed, the railroad facilities had the effect of realigning the pattern of city center land uses, laying the foundation for modern CBDs (central business districts ). Because of the funneling of large numbers of people through the railway stations, nearby loca- tions became prime sites for hotels, restaurants, and larger stores. And, because of the arrival and departure of bulk goods (usually from a different part of the ter- minus), nearby locations became prime sites for ware- houses and the offices and storehouses of wholesale distributors. • At about the same time, a critical new building tech- nology was introduced: iron girders with curtain walls. Together with passenger elevators (another innovation of the 1850s) this new technology facilitated the begin- nings of high-rise construction (Chapter 13). The result was the location within the embryonic CBD of those few land users who could afford the costs of such technology: hotels and office buildings for insurance companies and publishing houses, for example. • Within the central parts of cities the railroad infra- structure brought a radical change to the physical environment as odd-shaped fragments of land and inconsequential streets were left between the rail lines and freight yards. The railroad companies defined the character and projected the limits of cities. “Every mistake in urban design that could be made was made by the new railroad engineers, for whom the movement of trains was more important than the human objects they achieved by that movement.” 21The consequences of treating land narrowly in terms of the rights of individual owners (as opposed to broader notions of collective good or environmental quality) were being inscribed into the structure of cities. 62 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography The overall effect of these demographic changes was the fueling of the growth of existing cities, the infilling of settled areas, and the colonization of the few remaining frontier regions. The emergence of small towns that accompanied the commercialization of agriculture in the West, the exploitation of major mineral deposits (copper in Montana, lead and zinc in Missouri, and iron ore around Lake Superior), and the escalating demand for coal helped to more than double the number of urban places between 1870 and 1920. At the top of the hierarchy, New York and its adjacent counties in 1920 had 4.75 million residents. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh each had about 1.5 million, while the next tier of cities, with populations around 500,000, now included several cities from the West (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle), Southwest (Dallas), and Midwest (Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Louis) as well as from the Northeast (Baltimore, Cincinnati, Providence). The most important feature, however, was the way in which the logic of industrial location influenced patterns of urban growth and development. Primed by the initial advantage of investment in manufacturing, urban-industrial development became a self-propelling growth process, a spiral of growth known as cumulative causation (Figure 3.15). By 1920 the Manufacturing Belt had become a national economic heartland (Figure 3.16), its larger cities blossoming into great metropolitan centers and its smaller cities providing the settings for highly specialized and very profitable manufacturing industries. In overall terms, the consolidation of the Manufacturing Belt was the result of the operation of the principles of initial advantage and cumulative causation at a regional scale . With its large markets, well-developed transport networks, and access to excellent coal reserves, it was ideally placed to take advantage of the upsurge in demand for consumer goods, the increased efficiency made possible by the telegraph system, the postal services, and the rationalization of the banking system, and the reduced energy costs brought about by the advent of coal- burning thermoelectric generating stations. The effects were: 1. Local specialization became geared to national rather than local markets . Brewers in Milwaukee and St. Louis, for example, were able to take advantage of the integrated railroad system and innovations such as refrigerated rail cars and mechanized production techniques. 2. This specialization provided the basis for increased commodity flows between the towns and cities of the Manufacturing Belt, binding the region more tightly together . The region’s financial and commercial linkages and technical expertise made it particularly attractive to new industrial activities with national markets; this in turn stifled the chances of cities in other regions to achieve comparable levels of industrialization. The Industrial City It is no exaggeration to describe the changes of the indus- trial period as revolutionary. Not only did cities begin to grow dramatically in population and territorial extent distribution of highly perishable foodstuffs—milk, vegetables, fish, and meat—and so facilitated marked improvements in the diet of city dwellers. This also led to the beginning of the standardization of diet and patterns of consumption gener- ally. In the same way, the bulk transport of building mate- rials began to introduce a certain sameness to city buildings across broad regions. The railways’ need for organization and punctuality led to the standardization of time. In Britain, Manchester’s municipal council decided in 1847 to adjust its clocks to London time; by 1852, every city had done the same, and clocks with standard time became prominent in every railway station. THE ORGANIZATION OF INDUSTRY (1875–1920) As organized capitalism gathered momentum and transport and communications networks became more efficient, the urban system became increasingly consolidated, with more pronounced patterns of economic specialization and greater integration between different parts. On the railroads the innovation of steel rails to replace iron ones made it possible to carry heavier loads at higher speeds (which encouraged the concentration of industry in larger cities) and provided the opportunity to standardize the railroad gauge through- out the country (which encouraged trade and specialization among cities). At the same time, the railroad system extended dramatically. The total length of railroad tracks increased from 30,000 miles in 1860 to 160,000 miles in 1890, allowing towns such as Birmingham, Jacksonville, Memphis, and Houston to emerge as central places with regional status and the revival of colonial towns such as Savannah and Charleston. Across the Great Plains, the railroad company executives, in collabo- ration with grain elevator companies and lumber dealers, literally dictated the pattern and design of lower-order central places. Desperate for traffic, they deliberately encouraged the urbanization of the West through propaganda that extolled the virtues of territory that earlier had been marked on maps as “The Great American Desert.” This period also saw some important demographic changes. Falling death rates (from better diets, improvements in sanitation and public health, and the introduction of scientific medicine) generated a steady natural increase in population. Meanwhile, from 1890 to 1910 over 12 million immigrants arrived, accounting for about one-third of the country’s growth. It was not long, however, before pressure from labor unions (concerned about the effects of immigration on wages and unemployment) and from nationalistic groups such as the American Protective Association and the Daughters of the American Revolution (concerned about the impact of immigra- tion on American values and societ y) led to restrictive legislation. The 1921 Immigration Act set a ceiling of 250,000 immigrants a year, with quotas for each country of origin, based on the existing composition of the white population. In 1924 another Immigration Act reduced the ceiling to 150,000 immigrants a year. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 63 Location of New Industry A “Forward” Linkages “Backward” Linkages Local Growth of Firms Supplying Components and Services to Industry A Local Growth of Firms Using Outputs andProducts ofIndustry A Local Growth of Ancillary Industries (repair, maintenance, recycling, etc.) Local Growth of Construction Industry and Enterprises Providing Retailing, Personal Services, etc. Expansion of Local Tax Base and Tax Yield Provision of Better Infrastructure for Social and Cultural Development (parks, galleries, etc.) Provision of Better Infrastructure for Industrial Development (roads, utilities, education, etc.) More Efficient Setting for Industry Better Local Quality of Life Increase in Specialized Economic Interaction, Research and Development, Innovation Growth of a Pool of Skilled Labor FIGURE 3.15 The self-propelling process of urban-industrial growth. (Figure 3.17), they experienced unprecedented specialization and differentiation among land uses. More sophisticated util- ity, transportation, and communications technologies brought the logic of economies of scale, agglomeration economies, and the division of labor . As a result, the organization of the econ- omy, of society, and of urban space was radically transformed. Economic Specialization and the Reorganization of Urban Space The pressures of increased population densities, eco- nomic specialization, competition for space, and the increas- ing scale of economic activities meant that urban land use became highly specialized. Users of land became spatially segregated by their ability to pay for the most attractive loca- tions–whether for industry, business, or homes. As economic growth brought in more industry, businesses, and people, both the extent and intensity of different land uses increased, bring- ing acute competition and conflict over land. FIGURE 3.16 The Manufacturing Belt, 1919. Pittsburgh Cincinnati St. Louis Cleveland Rochester Buffalo Boston Toronto Baltimore Milwaukee Indianapolis Detroit Akron New York Philadelphia Chicago CANADA UNITED STATES Manufacturinng belt extent in 1919 64 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography boilers, to cool hot surfaces, make chemical solutions and dyes, and, above all, dump waste. Around the factories, speculators built housing for fac- tory workers. This was a departure from early industrializa- tion, when factory owners built a good deal of housing for their Factories were the linchpin of the new land use system, taking first pick of available sites and dominating every aspect of spa- tial organization. For many of the pillars of industrialization— textiles, chemicals, iron, and steel—the best locations were near the waterfront, where they could secure the water to supply steam Baltimore Washington, DC Baltimore Washington, DC Baltimore Washington, DC Baltimore Washington, DC Baltimore Washington, DC 1930 1960 1900 1990 2025 urban land use high probability new urban growth moderate probability new urban growth low probability new urban growth Chesapeake Bay FIGURE 3.17 The growth of the built-up area of the Washington to Baltimore region. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 65 changes, in turn, brought unprecedented possibilities for entrepreneurs to accumulate wealth, introduced the consump- tion of all kinds of new products, and financed the creation of a modern infrastructure of roads, tunnels, bridges, sewers, and street lighting. So the networks of water, sewage, gas, electricity, telegraph, telephone, and streetcar and subway lines were fundamental to processes of urban change. As cities struggled to grow and to adapt to new industries, new institutions, and new ways of life, they also continuously made and remade their infrastructure and built environment, applying the logic of modernization and industrialization to urbanization itself. How this played out was in part a function of new technologies, the financial capability to provide them, and highly uneven power struggles and social and political biases. In the process, the whole culture of cities was transformed. One aspect of this was the sense of progress and optimism. Cities themselves became “electropolises,” and new streets, bridges, telephone networks, gasworks, and streetcar systems became emblematic of the sense of progressive modernization. Lighting was just one of a series of radical changes to urban life. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, gas lighting had created a new urban nightlife as well as a means for secur- ing greater law and order. By the end of the nineteenth cen- tury, electrically lit shopping arcades had become the “dream spaces” of the modern city, icons of progress and cultural transformation. A second aspect of this transformation was that cities them- selves came to be regarded as complex “machines” that could be rationally organized as a single system. Engineers and reform- ers drew on this notion in campaigning for improved networks of infrastructure to bring order, rationality, and sanitation to the troubled and apparently chaotic industrial metropolis. One of the most influential early precedents was set in Paris by Napoleon III, who presided over a comprehensive program of urban redevelopment and monumental urban design. The work was carried out by Baron Georges Haussmann between 1853 and 1870 who demolished large sections of medieval Paris workers. With large-scale industrialization in larger urban settings, workers were expected to find market-rate housing. The result was a generalized housing market : 23 the creation of a mass market in rental housing, disconnected from any direct linkage between employment and tenancy. The quality of housing was dictated by the wages of the workers, who found themselves the least competitive of all land users. Because most workers were also unable to afford trans- portation on a regular basis, the developers of workers’ hous- ing were left with little choice: the construction of cramped and spartan dwellings in the leftover spaces between the factories, dumps, and railroads. In a competitive market, builders and developers had to minimize costs and prices. This they achieved by using pattern-book standardization linked to economies of scale and by keeping lot sizes to a minimum. This resulted in the proliferation of pinched land divisions, narrow alleyways, solid blocks without parks or playgrounds, and narrow, inflexible street patterns (Figures 3.18, 3.19). Between the first-pick of the factories and the last-pick of workers’ housing, the reorganization of urban land uses involved the simultaneous operation of two tendencies: outward ( centrifugal ) and inward ( centripetal) movement. Affluent professional and white-collar households, together with high-end retail services, were drawn to suburban and exurban locations, creating outward forces in the reorganization of land use. Most factories, warehouses, offices, hotels, and specialty retail activi- ties, in contrast, were drawn to specialized, centrally located sites, creating inward forces. Framing the City: Networked Infrastructures The oppor- tunities for urban development were dramatically expanded with the emergence of new technologies: gaslight, electrification, steel-frame skyscraper construction, and elevators. These FIGURE 3.18 A New York alleyway (“Bandit’s Roost”), photographed by Jacob Riis in 1888. FIGURE 3.19 Wash day in New York’s tenement district. 66 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography before some groups mobilized against the land users they perceived as threats, hazards, or nuisances. Their objective was the legal exclusion of particular land uses from certain parts of the city. The outcome was land use zoning, a regulatory mechanism that would become a key instrument in consoli- dating the specialization and segregation characteristic of land use in U.S. cities. Land use zoning had its roots in discrimination. In San Francisco discrimination against the Chinese was focused on the laundries that by the 1880s had spread well beyond Chinatown into the other ethnic neighborhoods, where they operated as social centers for the many Chinese domestic servants who were scattered around town. The white population, regarding the laundries has havens for “undesirables,” sought to close more than 300 of them in 1886 by declaring them nuisances and fire hazards. But in the federal courts the case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins struck down the statute because of the way it gave arbitrary power of racial discrimination to a board of supervisors. After this decision, the city of Modesto promptly came up with a simple ploy to satisfy the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment: the division of the city into two zones, one excluding laundries and another permitting them. Similar nuisance-zone statutes, directed variously against laundries, brothels, pool halls, dance halls, livery stables, and slaughterhouses, were quickly adopted in other cities. Los Angeles was zoned into three districts: residence-only, industry- only, and residential uses with a limited range of industries. With the principle established, the prototype land use zon- ing ordinance was written in New York. The catalyst this time to make way for broad tree-lined avenues (Figure 3.20), with numerous public open spaces and monuments. He made the city not only more efficient (wide boulevards meant better traf- fic flow) and a better place to live (parks and gardens allowed more fresh air and sunlight in a crowded city and were held to be a “civilizing” influence), but also safer from revolutionary politics (wide boulevards were hard to barricade and facilitated troop movement and cannon fire; monuments and statues helped to instill a sense of pride and identity). Haussmann’s approach heralded a technocratically minded, comprehensive approach to urban governance and planning that quickly spread through Europe, notably to Berlin, London, and Vienna. In the newer cities of the U.S. Midwest and West, rectilinear grids of streets became the norm for organizing networks of streets and utilities, making for an unprecedented openness of urban form. Streets in industrial metropolises everywhere, previously used only for local access, informal economic activities, and social life, were now seen as part of the circulatory system of a functioning metropolitan “machine.” Their size and layout were standardized; they were paved, regulated, and managed. Their construction also pro- vided for the introduction of a subterranean system of water and sewage pipes that helped to “deodorize” and sanitize the city (Figure 3.21). The Emergence of Land Use Zoning Laws Not surprisingly, this dramatic reorganization of urban space created some serious conflicts and tensions—problems that were all the more acute in the United States because of the civil liberties enshrined in private land ownership. It did not take long FIGURE 3.20 Haussmannization in Paris, 1853–70. The comprehensive program of urban redevelopment and monumental urban design involved demolishing large sections of medieval Paris to make way for numerous public open spaces and monuments, with broad, tree-lined avenues, such as the boulevards leading to the Arc de Triomphe. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 67 tension surrounding urban growth and spatial reorganization. Later, the ancestry of zoning began to tell, and it became a major means of discrimination against social groups perceived for one reason or another as undesirable. From the start, however, land use zoning was unable to cope with the fundamental tension generated by the growth of industrial cities: the unease of the increasingly numerous and more affluent middle-income groups cooped up with the fac- tories, railroads, warehouses, and “huddled masses” of “ordi- nary” people. Suddenly, in 1888, this tension was relieved by the introduction of a simple but radically effective innovation in urban transportation: the electric streetcar, or trolley. The Suburban Explosion: Streetcar Suburbs Drawing on the experience of numerous attempts to solve the urban transportation system—including electrified trolley systems in Cleveland and Baltimore, and, in particular, the Siemens system developed in Germany—Frank Sprague perfected an electrically driven version of the horsecar, powered by over- head cables, that opened for business in Richmond, Virginia, in the spring of 1888. The innovation was adopted the following year by Henry Whitney, who had established in Boston an integrated horsecar system that covered the entire city. By electrifying the system, Whitney could extend the radial lines, because streetcars could travel much faster than horsecars. In Boston the total length of track in 1887 had been just over 200 miles; by 1904 it was almost 450 miles. Within five years of Sprague’s success at Richmond, more than 200 cities had adopted his system. By 1902 there were 22,000 miles of streetcar tracks in U.S. cities. By making it feasible to travel up to 10 miles from the downtown area in 30 minutes or so, the streetcar greatly increased the territory available for residential development and opened the way for the growth of streetcar suburbs. So much land became accessible at once that the price of land was kept was discrimination against Jewish garment manufacturers, who had begun to encroach on the territory of Fifth Avenue luxury stores from their base on the Lower East Side. Fearing that increased traffic and the presence of thousands of low- wage workers would deter wealthy customers, the Fifth Avenue Association mobilized a coalition of regulatory interest groups that sponsored zoning ordinances. These ordinances were designed to stabilize the broad pattern of land uses by encour- aging specialization and uniformity at the micro scale. The New York zoning ordinance, drafted by lawyer Edward Bassett and passed in 1916, was based on the premise that restrictions on land use are constitutional because they enable city governments to carry out their duties of protecting the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of their citizens . This philosophy, clearly, was a significant modification of the sanctity of land ownership as a civil right, though it did not by any means signal a retreat. The law itself was spelled out in a map where all private land was assigned a particular functional category for future land uses (it did not attempt, however, to weed out existing nonconforming uses). These categories were then listed in detail, including any restrictions such as the height, number of floors, and general characteristics of buildings, the overall density of population, and the minimum amount of public open space. Existing land users and speculators alike appreciated the advantages of such an approach. For existing land users, the law brought security from the threat of intrusive new activities. For speculators, the law brought a welcome degree of stability and predictability to the business of land development. No longer would the developer of middle-income housing have to worry about tumbling prices resulting from the establishment of a noisy saloon on an adjacent lot. So compelling were these advantages that within 10 years of the enactment of the New York law more than 500 other cities had adopted similar ordinances. The main effect (which did not fully take hold until after 1920) was to stabilize patterns of land use and to defuse much of the FIGURE 3.21 Workmen repairing a sewer under Fleet Street in London. The sewers carried 87 million gallons of water daily in 1854. 68 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography 2. The ease and cheapness of travel on streetcars led sub- urban housewives to use them on shopping trips outside rush hours, helping to sustain a specialized, high-order shopping area in the downtown. 3. The development of cross-town and circumferential streetcar lines created a series of junctions and inter- changes around which grew small nuclei of commercial development. This signaled the beginning of the end of the monocentric city structure with a single focal point. 4. Larger nodes of development emerged around the termi- nus stops of the radial streetcar routes. To counter the lack of commuters on weekends and holidays, streetcar companies promoted the idea of outings to amusement parks, beaches, picnic grounds, and even cemeteries. These sites were often located near streetcar terminus stops (partly as a result of sponsorship by the business interests involved with streetcar development), and they soon attracted a variety of ancillary services such as restaurants and convenience stores. 5. The streetcar facilitated the growth of suburban settle- ments and satellite townships that were too small to sustain an economic base of their own until they acquired a streetcar system. The growing pool of local workers and customers made it possible to develop an industrial base and attract substantial clusters of shops and offices. In this way the streetcar sowed the seeds for the subsequent evolution of a metropolitan form of urbanization. Rapid Transit In a few larger cities the congestion created by streetcars converging on the downtown prompted the develop- ment of electrified rail systems that were separated from streets— on elevated tracks or in tunnels (Figure 3.23). These rapid transit systems could travel faster than streetcars while carrying more passengers, and their effect was to stretch the fingers of urban down, ensuring inexpensive suburban lots. Affordable land, combined with the cheaper operating costs per passenger- mile of the streetcar (because of their large carrying capacity and efficiency of electric power), ensured that developers of streetcar suburbs instantly found a market in the solid middle- income groups, and there was a rush of speculative suburban sprawl as developers and streetcar operators worked together (Figure 3.22). Around the fringes of Chicago, for example, some 80,000 new residential lots were recorded between 1890 and 1920 (though many of these lots were not built on for some time). As well as enabling the growth of suburbanization, the streetcar influenced urban form in other ways: 1. The sudden departure of thousands of middle-income households gave much-needed scope for the reassign- ment of space to nonresidential uses in the downtown. FIGURE 3.22 A streetcar in the Richmond district of San Francisco in 1909. In this new “streetcar suburb” the intersection of streetcar lines shown here had already attracted a large commercial building containing offices and stores. FIGURE 3.23 New York’s elevated railway at Coenties Slip in the early 1800s. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 69 a founder of the Southern Pacific railroad, developed the Pacific Electric Interurban Transit Company in the Los Angeles area. He bought the land along his routes and laid out suburban devel- opments, at the same time avoiding competitors’ land holdings unless he was made a partner. Among Huntington’s partners was Harry Chandler, the largest developer in Los Angeles. Chandler bought 47,500 acres in the San Fernando Valley, an area about the size of the city of Baltimore, and the Pacific Electric extended their lines into the valley. A $25-million water project, paid for by the city of Los Angeles, supplied the development with water after a vigorous campaign, led by Chandler’s father-in-law, Harrington Grey Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times. Later Chandler bought the 270,000-acre (almost as large as the City of Los Angeles) Tejon Ranch in Los Angeles and Kern counties, land that is still controlled by Chandler interests. For half a century, until about 1920, public transportation inexorably influenced the form and growth of cities. Transit lines consisted of the arteries along which people moved and real estate development occurred. Transit stops became the nodes of commerce and entertainment, and the radial lines converged at a hub of the metropolitan area. Residential neighborhoods grew up along the transit lines and small commercial districts were developed wherever lines intersected or branched. Inside the Industrial City To people at the time, the changes brought about by industrialization were shocking. Never before had there been such visible growth, such intensive building and rebuilding, such new arrangements and rearrangements of urban form and function. As we look back, we can recognize that these changes established the physical template for the development of the modern city. Three dimensions are particularly important: the growth of CBDs, the assignment of locations according to principles of rent, and the emergence of distinctive patterns of residential segregation. development farther into the countryside, reinforcing and extending the radial form of the city. Underground lines were pioneered in London, where the Metropolitan subway line was opened in 1863 and the Inner Circle line was completed in 1884, linking up the main above- ground railway stations (Figure 3.24). In the United States, Henry Whitney once again led the way, opening 1.6 miles of subway underneath Tremont Street in Boston in 1897. His suc- cess (over 50 million passengers in the first year) prompted the development of the New York subway system, which opened in 1904. The start-up costs of subway systems were extraordi- nary, however. Whitney’s line cost nearly $150,000 for every 100 yards of track. Apart from a combined elevated and subway system in Philadelphia that opened in 1908, there were no more subway projects in the United States until the 1940s, when one opened in Chicago. Instead, elevated electric railways— the “els”—were the preferred solution in Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Kansas City, New York, and Philadelphia, where they were installed around the turn of the twentieth century. Mass Transport and Real Estate Development There was a very close relationship between the evolution of mass transport- ation systems and suburban real estate development. In some cities the same company undertook transit lines and real estate development, as in the streetcar suburb of Shaker Heights in Cleveland. Transit lines often preceded land development, and in many cases the transit service was expected to lose money initially. But substantial increases in land value, because of access to transit lines, would more than make up for the early investment. The link between transit and real estate development was particularly strong in West Coast suburban developments. In northern California, F. M. Smith bought and consolidated the trolley lines in San Francisco’s East Bay and purchased 13,000 acres of land for development in the Oakland and Berkeley areas in the 1900s. In southern California, Henry Huntington, FIGURE 3.24 The world’s first underground railway, in London: Baker Street Station, Metropolitan Railway, 1863. 70 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography industrialization had to offer. The classic location was a corner site at a busy intersection, but the basic requirement was being near railroad stations and, crucially, the downtown stops and transfer points of streetcar lines. Other stores were by no means located at random within the shopping zone of the CBD. Stores that were so specialized that they were one-of-a-kind could afford to let customers come to them. They could locate almost anywhere within the shopping area, or even just beyond it, finding a cheaper site and paying little attention to their neighbors. Most stores, though, had to consider the microdetails of location. Then, as now, a significant part of consumer behavior was comparison shopping: Some people, “born to shop,” seem to enjoy it for its own sake. But an equally important part of consumer behavior is based on minimizing effort. It makes sense, therefore, for particular types of specialized stores and services to cluster together: men’s outfitters, for example (Figure 3.26). In addition, shopkeepers had to be sensitive to the functional relationships between their businesses and others. It made sense for stores selling shoes or women’s fashions to locate near department stores to catch the “overspill” of shoppers. Exclusive, high-fashion stores, in contrast, need to cluster together but, equally, be away from the throng of shoppers near department stores. New York’s Fifth Avenue, without a subway or elevated train in the 1920s, is a good example of how relative inaccessibility allowed exclusivity. Downtown Office Districts In the largest cities the lim- ited distance that shoppers would walk created a series of “pedestrian zones” that constituted specialized retail subar- eas. Similarly, large cities could support specialized clusters of high-order services such as banks, law offices, or medical facilities. The office district was usually beside the shopping district because it, too, had a functional dependence on the focus of transportation at routes that brought office workers on commuter trains and streetcars, and out-of-town business visitors by long-distance trains. The office workers—then still predominantly male—were described by Richard Yates in his novel Revolutionary Road : How small and neat and comically serious the other men looked, with their grey-flecked crew cuts and their button-down collars and their brisk little hurrying feet! There were endless desperate swarms of them, hurrying through the stations and the streets, and an hour from now they would all be still. The waiting midtown office buildings would swallow them up and contain them, so that to stand in one tower looking out across the canyon to another would be to inspect a great silent insectarium displaying hundreds of tiny pink men in white shirts, for- ever shifting papers and frowning into telephones, acting out their passionate little dumb show under the supreme indifference of the rolling spring clouds. 24 It was the office district that gave the CBD its most promi- nent landmarks, with taller and taller buildings. The earliest, biggest office buildings were purpose-built for insurance companies and publishing houses. In addition to their need Central Business Districts By now it was the CBD that gave visual expression to the growth and dynamics of the city. The CBD became a symbol of progress, modernity, and affluence, especially after technological advances in steel-frame construction, elevators and telephones made skyscrapers possible (Chapter 13). The status of a city could be read from the size and degree of differentiation of its CBD. The CBD became the hub of economic, social, political, and cultural life in cities, and the organization of functions within the CBD set the framework for the next several decades of downtown development. Department Stores and Shopping Districts The location of railroad stations and the converging of transit lines had shaped the early development of CBDs, and retailing activi- ties dominated the land uses within CBDs. More specialized, higher-order, and exclusive retailers could generate suffi- cient profits to pay more for property or rent than any other potential user of downtown space. Because most shoppers were reluctant (as they are today) to walk far, the location decisions of downtown retailers were limited. The result was a distinct and compact shopping area: a zone perhaps 300 yards in radius, in which retailing was practically the only activity at street level. Anchoring this zone, at the very center, were grand, multistory department stores : Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and Lord and Taylor’s in New York; Jordan March and Filene’s in Boston; Woodward and Lothrop’s in Washington, D.C.; Wanamaker’s and Strawbridge and Clothier’s in Philadelphia; Carson Pirie Scott and Marshall Field’s in Chicago; I. Magnin’s in San Francisco; Bullock’s in Los Angeles (Figure 3.25). These stores were landmarks, and they needed to be: Only in prominent locations at the center of things was the concen- tration of potential customers great enough to ensure enough daily business to carry the enormous overheads required to stock and display in proper style and quantity the best that FIGURE 3.25 Strawbridge and Clothier’s department store, Philadelphia, in the early 1900s. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 71 convenient for the offices of city officials to be centrally located: convenient both for them and their constituents, given that the CBD was the single most accessible place in the city. But the main reason for a CBD location was not acces- sibility or efficiency but symbolism. City governments, with new powers and responsibilities, needed to be identified with the hub of things. Their image was the city’s image. A simi- lar logic dictated that city halls and associated civic buildings be the equals or betters of the department stores and office buildings that were the landmarks of the commercial districts (Figure 3.27). In addition, the civic pride invested in city halls dictated that they be more imposing and more splendid than those of rival cities, with landscaped malls, parks, and statues to show them off to the best advantage. The result was another distinc- tive pedestrian zone, dominated by the city hall itself and con- taining the main library, central post office, and courthouse, museum, assembly hall, opera house, and art gallery that made up the distinctive grouping of civic amenities. In between were the offices of lawyers and vocational schools and colleges, together with the premises of others who traded on the stream of workers and visitors frequenting the area: lunch counters, bars, tobacco and newsstands. The Spatial Organization of CBDs From these observa- tions we can put together a number of generalizations about the organization of land use within the CBD. The overall spatial structure tends to be dominated by a high-density core that contains the retail, office, entertainment, and civic zones and a lower-density frame that contains zones of ware- housing, educational facilities, hotels, medical services, and for communication among large numbers of employees, these organizations found skyscrapers a valuable way to advertise. But with the emergence of the CBD as the organizational hub of a larger and increasingly complex array of urban functions, it did not take speculators long to realize the value of central office space to small companies. Speculatively built office blocks provided an “address” for smaller office functions, which could also share in the opulence of marbled lobbies and concierge services that these settings provided. Warehouse Zones In the early industrial city wholesaling and retailing had gone hand in hand within the CBD—to the extent, in some instances, of occupying the same building. The scale of operations in the industrial city meant that this could no longer continue. Wholesalers increasingly had to supply not only downtown merchants but also merchants in outlying suburbs and satellite towns. At the same time, they needed to be near the railroad freight yards for the carloads of goods being shipped in, and to the handling yards of express shipping com- panies like American Express and Wells Fargo that had sprung up to put together carloads of smaller quantities of outgoing goods. The result was a distinctive warehouse zone, located on the edge of the CBD next to the freight yards. Two very differ- ent kinds of wholesaling tended to remain in the CBD itself, however: (1) low-volume, high-value goods such as jewelry and (2) high-volume, perishable produce such as vegetables and meat, each sold separately from central locations accessible to restaurant chefs and the owners of small food stores. City Halls and Civic Pride Another feature in the growth of CBDs was the city hall and its associated functions. It was FIGURE 3.26 The early CBD. This stretch of Kearny Street (just off Market Street, the main commercial thoroughfare) in San Francisco shows the early expression (in 1894) of clustering and functional interdependence. Along these two blocks were several men’s ta ilors and outfitters, together with a haberdasher and shirtmaker, a store selling men’s furnishings and shirts, a hatter, a watch store, a cigar store, and a men’s club. It would be nice to think that the florist at the corner of Kearny and Bush was part of the functional groupi ng, providing the finishing touch for a gentleman’s shopping trip. 72 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography city. In 1903 the economist Robert Hurd made the point in a much-quoted statement: Since value depends on economic rent, and rent on location, and location on convenience, and convenience on nearness, we may eliminate the intermediate steps and say that value depends on nearness. 26 Hurd’s reference to economic rent (sometimes referred to as ground rent or “location rent”) requires elaboration, because the concept has become fundamental to attempts to theorize patterns of land use (see also the discussion of rent in Chapter 8). To begin with, ground rent does not correspond to the popu- lar usage of “rent” (more properly called “contract rent”). Ground rent is the surplus paid (to land owners, in this instance) above the minimum necessary to use the land at all. It is often defined, in practice, as the total revenue generated by a particular activity on a particular parcel of land, less the total production and trans- portation costs associated with that same parcel of land. (Not all activities are run on business lines, however. Households, along with public agencies, do not evaluate their success in terms of profits but in terms of satisfaction, disposable income, efficiency, or some other basis. The term utility is, therefore, often used in place of revenue.) It follows that ground rent reflects the utility of a mixture of specialized shops (antiquarian bookstores, for example) and services (such as acupuncturists and picture framers) that have neither the functional linkages nor the potential profitability to justify locations within the core (Figure 3.28). Nevertheless, constant changes in the relative fortunes of different kinds of activities, changes in the transportation infra- structure, and the inevitable aging and obsolescence of build- ings, make the CBD very dynamic. The core tends to expand toward the higher-status, newer elements in the frame, creating a zone of assimilation , and to move away from lower-status, older elements, creating a zone of discard, which often forms a niche for another kind of economic specialization: vice and X-rated businesses. The frame itself overlaps with older struc- tures and residential districts in a zone in transition ripe for conversion to CBD uses. Land Values and Urban Land Use The spatial organiza- tion of the CBD points to the importance of accessibility and relative location in understanding patterns of land values and land use. In New York in the mid-1920s the peak land values were $22,000 per foot of street frontage on Broadway; only half a mile away land values were less than $3,000 per foot. 25 Comparable gradients could be found in every large FIGURE 3.27 Philadelphia City Hall: civic pride symbolized in bricks and mortar. Inter- city Inter- city Inter-city * Intra-city Intra-city Intra- city Intra- city Intra- city Intra- city Primary goods flow Secondary goods flow Including warehousing CBD core CBD frame NATURAL BARRIERS INDUSTRY HEAVY RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS PARKING Light manufacturing Multi- family resi- dence Special service (e.g., medical) Auto sales and service* Whole- saling with stocks* Trans- portation terminals* Inter- city FIGURE 3.28 The core–frame concept of the CBD. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 73 • The highest rents were found in a single sector that often extended out continuously from the CBD. • Intermediate rents, associated with middle-income neighborhoods, were commonly found in sectors on either side of the high-rent, high-status sector. • Low rents, associated with working class and low-income housing, were usually found on the side of the city oppo- site the high-rent sector. • Over time, the high-rent sectors tended to: • grow outward along major transportation routes; • extend along ridges of high ground, free from the risk of flooding and with panoramic views; and • be drawn toward the homes of community leaders. Putting these generalizations together, Hoyt came up with a generalized model of urban land use (Figure 3.30). The main point about this model is the relative location of the different sectors. Hoyt argued that corridors of industry and warehous- ing will tend to be surrounded on both sides by sectors of work- ing-class housing, while middle-income housing will tend to a particular site for a particular activity. So it is likely that for each site there will be one activity that generates the highest possible economic rent: the highest and best use. Land use should, there- fore, respond to land values in a predictable fashion. Activities that can derive the greatest utility from a given site should out- bid all other activities for that site. Each type of land user can be thought of as having a distinctive bid-rent curve that reflects the prices that each is prepared to pay for sites at different distances from the CBD (Figure 3.29). 27 Sectors and zones In practice, land use in industrial cities did conform to certain general patterns. The classic study was done by Homer Hoyt, 28 who made a comparative analysis of patterns of rental values in 142 U.S. cities from 1878 to 1928 on behalf of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) . Hoyt developed a sector model of urban land use that was based on generalizations derived from his study: • Rent, and therefore socioeconomic status, varied within cities primarily by radial sectors. Commercial CBD Distance Distance Bid-rent or utility CBD Bid-rent or utility CommercialResidential Residential Residential Light manufacturing Outlying manufacturing and distribution centers Outlying commercial centers Light manufacturing Manufacturing and distribution FIGURE 3.29 Bid-rent curves and the zonal urban structure suggested by the basic trade-off model of urban land use in a (a) single-centered city and (b) multi-centered metropolitan area. 74 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography answer was housing obsolescence . For the affluent, several kinds of obsolescence can trigger a desire for new housing. Functional obsolescence might result from advances in kitchen technology or new luxury features such as home theaters. Obsolescence of form might result from trends in family size and organization, such as the trend away from large families that make large, free- standing mansions outmoded. Locational obsolescence might result from land use changes in the immediate neighborhood that are seen as intrusive: increased levels of residential devel- opment, the arrival of mass transit, or the appearance of stores. Finally, style obsolescence might result from shifts in architec- tural conventions, something to which many of the most affluent (especially the newly affluent) are especially sensitive. Hoyt’s interpretation of urban land use has been very influential in pointing to the importance of the social dimensions of spatial organization. In addition, the concept of filtering has provided a useful starting point for the analysis of neighborhood change. As we will see, however (Chapter 9), urban housing mar- kets are much more complex than Hoyt allowed. In any case, the scale, form, and dynamics of cities were about to be revised yet again by a new round of economic and technological change. FORDISM, THE AUTOMOBILE, SUBURBAN INFILL, AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION (1920–1945) The mass production of the internal combustion engine with the introduction of Fordism brought decisive changes to the balance of forces that had governed economic and urban development before World War I (Figure 3.31). Cars began to compete with transit systems, initiating a phase of suburban infill. The availability of tractors enabled farmers to work larger acreages with fewer farm hands, initiating a revolution in farm size and stimulating the urbanization process by releasing rural workers. Particularly significant in the 1920s was the migra- tion of blacks from the rural South to northern industrial cities. Following the “Great Migration” of 1916–1918 that saw blacks induced to northern industrial cities because of labor shortages during World War I, this new wave of migration was in response to a number of factors: the mechanization of southern agricul- ture, discrimination and organized violence against blacks in the South, and labor shortages in northern cities caused by reduced levels of immigration after the immigration acts of 1921 and 1924. The result was a decisive restructuring of the country’s social geography that included the creation of first-generation black ghettos in northern cities. Cars and trucks, meanwhile, enabled rural residents to travel farther to market or to shop (or to rely on mail-order deliveries), leading to the stagnation or decline of many small towns. Another consequence of the transition from steam to internal combustion was the relative decline of coal and railroad centers and, conversely, the rapid growth of oilfield cities like Oklahoma City and Bakersfield. At the top of the urban hierarchy, air passenger transport reinforced the centralization of business management functions in a few key cities, while the development of highway networks induced the development of hundreds of satellite cities and dormitory towns, act as a buffer between the industrial/working-class half of the city and the city’s main sector of elite neighborhoods. The key to the dynamics that produced these patterns was, for Hoyt, the behavior of affluent households. Once the CBD had been established and corridors of industrial development laid out, affluent households will always have first pick of the most desirable sites: away from industry and the congestion of the CBD and on high ground free from flooding risk. With urban growth, the high-status area expands along the best transportation lines, in response to, first, a desire among the most affluent to combine accessibility with suburban living and, second, a desire among the almost-as-affluent to acquire the social cachet of living in the same neighborhood as the rich and famous. The result was a generational shift in the residence of upper-middle-income households. Every new generation of affluent households would build or buy at the edge of the city: as far as possible from less-fortunate households and within sight of the countryside. Middle-income housing, meanwhile, would be established in surrounding sectors by speculative developers, who recognize the desirability of “good” addresses among prospective customers. Filtering and Vacancy Chains The most critical part of this overall dynamic is a mechanism of neighborhood development and change implied by Hoyt’s model. The basis of this mecha- nism is the chain of residential moves initiated by the construc- tion of new homes for the affluent: the filtering of households up the housing scale and the consequent filtering of houses down the social scale. As a new home is custom built for a fam- ily at the top of the socioeconomic ladder, the home they leave might be purchased by a family of slightly lower socioeconomic standing, whose old home, in turn, might be purchased by a third family of still lesser means, and so on, creating a vacancy chain that may go on until the last vacancy is a broken-down old place that nobody wants. Hoyt recognized that, for the filtering mechanism of growth and change to work, there have to be some special reasons to lead the most affluent to new construction: Why, in other words, should they leave well-built, well-situated homes? Hoyt’s 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 4 4 5 FIGURE 3.30 Hoyt’s model of urban structure. 1–CBD; 2–wholesaling and light manufacturing; 3–lower-income residential; 4–middle-income residential; 5–upper-income residential. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 75 that the selling price of a bushel of wheat fell from more than $1.80 in 1920 to less than 50 cents in 1930. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 sought to protect U.S. agriculture from cheap imports but succeeded only in contributing to a recession in world trade. Industrial and financial markets, meanwhile, had become unstable as a result of stock market speculation and complex corporate takeovers. Fearful of inflation, the Hoover administration placed tight restrictions on credit, which further dampened demand for industrial products. The result was that the unemployment rate rose from around 3 percent in 1929 to more than 25 percent by 1933 (Figure 3.32). The unevenness of urban-industrial growth in previous years was mirrored in the pattern of decline, so that the intensity of the Depression was greatest in cities that had come to specialize in manufactured goods. The rate of unemployment in some specialized manufacturing towns, for example, exceeded 60 percent; in large, heavily industrialized cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh the unemployment rate in the spring of 1933 was about 50 percent; while in large but more economically diversified cities such as Philadelphia and Seattle it was between 20 and 30 percent. Meanwhile, rural-to-urban migration came to a temporary halt, slowing urban population growth dramatically. The fundamental economic problem of the 1930s was the downswing, in which deflationary depression saw a collapse of both foreign and domestic markets. The subsequent situ- ation, where surplus labor, productive capacity, and capital existed side by side, was an acute overaccumulation crisis. Too much capital had been generated, in aggregate, relative to the opportunities for its profitable investment. Viewed from a slightly different angle, the same circumstances can reinforcing the process of regional decentralization in which the entire structure of U.S. cities would be reorganized. The increased levels of economic integration and more sophisticated corporate organization also had implications for patterns of urban development. As competition to main- tain profit levels intensified, strong companies began to buy out their competitors—the process of horizontal economic integration . The chances of new companies being successful were then reduced. Meanwhile, larger companies captured further profits through the processes of vertical economic integration (taking over companies that provide their inputs or purchase their outputs, or both) and diagonal economic integration (buying highly profitable companies whose activi- ties are unrelated). Because of a flurry of mergers in the 1920s, just 1 percent of all companies accounted for nearly half of the country’s productive capacity. The long-term significance of this would be that the fortunes of many cities would no longer rest on the decisions of owners with local ties . A Critical Turn for Urbanization: The Depression and Macroeconomic Management Before the effects of this shift could be registered, the economy had moved into a downward slide and in October 1929 the stock market collapsed. Problems of imbalance between demand and supply were unprecedented in their intensity, and every sec- tor of the economy was involved in the recession. Economic historians differ in their explanation, but they generally agree that the basic reason was an abnormal sensitivity within the economy. 29 Agriculture had become a victim of its own suc- cess, mechanization having boosted productivity so much FIGURE 3.31 The Model T assembly line in Ford’s Highland Park plant. Ford’s revolutionary approach to industrial production, together with the revolutionary effects of the car itself, were to have far-reaching implications for urbanization. 76 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography the first real experiments in city and regional planning but also introduced a general expansion of government involvement in urban development. At the same time, involving itself in macroeconomic management led to the government mediating a social pact between organized labor and big business: a more structured approach to the labor process and wage bargaining that was geared to productivity, with workers’ welfare guaran- teed by Social Security. This approach heralded the zenith of organized capitalism (Figure 1.5). We will see in Chapter 10 that the government has come to play a major role in influencing the dynamics of urban development; and in Chapter 11 we will review the effects of government-sponsored planning and policy making on patterns of urban development. The Rise of Suburbia In the 1920s the commercial development of the internal combustion engine unleashed social, economic, and political forces that have given physical shape to the evolving contemporary metropolis. Cars, trucks, and airplanes—along with electricity and telephones—helped to recast the imprint of urbanization, producing sprawling, multinodal metropolitan settings with complex patterns of land use. Just when downtown areas had established their unrivaled dominance and internal functional specialization, a new logic of transportation and location led to the decentralization of many of their retailing, wholesaling, manufacturing, and office functions, leaving the CBDs more specialized and less dominant. And just as the suburbs radiating out along transit lines had redrawn the social map, a new form of suburbanization materialized, bringing much lower densities, greater social segregation, and a greater variety of suburban land uses. Meanwhile, the cars that triggered these new developments also undermined the old mass transit and pedestrian circulation systems on which the land use patterns and functional organiza- tion of the industrial city had been based. All these changes, in turn, brought new challenges to understanding the development of urban form and land use: new concepts and theories, modified ideas, and alternative models. U.S. cities were the pioneers and exemplars of automobile- based suburbanization. According to the records, there were 4 motor vehicles in use in the United States in 1894, 16 in 1896, 8,000 in 1900, almost 470,000 in 1910, over 9 million in 1920, and nearly 27 million in 1930 (Figure 3.33). This first spurt of growth in car production and ownership corresponds to the period when cars were being substituted for horse-drawn and electric-powered transport. The rate of growth decreased in the 1930s and 1940s as the process of substitution was completed, reinforced by the dampening effects of the Great Depression and World War II. Fordism During this time, Henry Ford’s vision of mass production, coupled with mass consumption, was achieved in the auto industry—a precursor of Fordism that characterized entire economies later. Ford’s vision was made possible by a com- bination of lower prices and higher wages and was paid for be interpreted as underconsumption : insufficient demand by consumers in relation to the capacity of the economic system. Overaccumulation-underconsumption had occurred before, but never on such a scale as during the Depression. In previ- ous episodes the problem had been resolved by “switching” investment into fixed capital (for production, such as machinery, or for consumption, such as housing and refrigerators) within what is sometimes called the secondary circuit of the economy’s circuits of capital investment . In periods of overaccumula- tion, investment in some of these fixed assets—particularly those involving real estate—becomes relatively attractive. As this investment takes place, the problem of overaccumulation- underconsumption is alleviated. In the early 1930s, however, the secondary circuit could not absorb the surplus capital. The crisis led to the emergence of an increased level of government intervention in the economy , using taxes to (1) channel capital into the tertiary circuit (investment in science and technology and in “social overhead” such as education and welfare programs; the former to maintain the economy’s productivity and the latter to maintain a productive workforce) and (2) manipulate consumer demand in order to manage the economy. Public expenditures were increasingly used to stimulate demand or, through public employment, to absorb surplus labor. This approach to macroeconomic management is known as Keynesianism (after the British economist, John Maynard Keynes). One of the most important long-term consequences of the Great Depression, therefore, was that the ideology of free enterprise, which had been the unchallenged basis for eco- nomic and urban development up to the 1930s, was severely shaken. Although President Hoover had felt morally obliged not to intervene in the “natural” workings of the business sys- tem, many voters favored government intervention to provide relief, reform, and recovery, electing Franklin Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932 on a platform that was a precursor of Keynesian economic management. The progressive interven- tionism embodied in his New Deal programs not only brought FIGURE 3.32 Unemployed workers lining up for jobs at a dockyard in the 1930s. The unprecedented severity of the Great Depression led to a much greater involvement by the federal government in macroeconomic management and in urban and regional policy. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 77 3 million miles of roads had acquired smooth hardtop surfaces. Parking space, however, remained a problem (Figure 3.34). Parkways Some of the most imaginative and progressive initiatives were taken around New York City, guided by mas- ter planner Robert Moses. Moses developed the idea of the parkway as a limited-access recreational highway. The germ of the idea had been in Frederick Law Olmsted’s design for New York’s Central Park in 1858, and the first full-scale park- way was William K. Vanderbilt’s Long Island Motor Parkway, begun in 1906. Moses saw that parkways had great appeal in the age of the automobile and could improve environmental qual- ity in existing built-up areas by replacing blighted areas with sinuous, airy green corridors. by higher productivity squeezed from economies of scale, assembly-line production, and “scientific” management ( Taylorism ). One result was that the price of cars fell significantly , making car ownership possible for a widening segment of society and drawing more people into the infill suburbs between the streetcar corridors and railroad exurbs. The Model T, w hich in 1909 sold for $950 (equivalent to 22 months pay for the average worker), cost less than $300 (less than three months pay) in 1925, when Ford’s factories were producing 9,000 cars each working day: one every 10 seconds. Paving the Way for Suburbanization Cars, however, are of little use without good roads, and coali- tions of special interests emerged to support the building and improvement of roads. The first push for good roads came in the 1890s, from bicyclists, the Post Office, and farmers’ Granges— associations that wanted to promote better access to markets. This was consolidated a decade later when the car, oil, rubber, and construction industries were joined by the Good Roads Association, a confederation of urban merchants and industri- alists who believed that better highways would improve busi- ness. 30 Their campaigns resulted in the 1916 Federal Aid Roads Act, which required every state, as a condition of federal aid, to establish a state highway department to plan, build, and main- tain highways between cities. A second act in 1921 provided additional funds to integrate the long-distance road network. By the 1930s federal funds were being designated for road construction and improvement within cities. For some time before that, though, local coalitions had persuaded local govern- ments to step up their road-building and road-improvement programs. State governments began to levy a gasoline tax to pay for road-building—the first was Oregon’s gasoline tax of one cent per gallon in 1919. Street improvement and highway con- struction were already the second largest item (after education) in local government budgets. Chicago, for example, improved more than 100 miles of streets between 1915 and 1930 at a cost of over $1 million per mile. 31 By 1940 about half of the country’s FIGURE 3.33 Motor vehicle registrations. Vehicle registrations (millions) 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 200 1910 1900 1920 1930 1940 1950 Year 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Automobiles Trucks and Buses FIGURE 3.34 With the emergence of mass ownership of cars, many cities faced a new pressure on land use in industrial and commercial districts: space for parking lots. This example is from Montreal in the late 1930s. 78 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography But a major factor in the demise of streetcar systems was their fixed routes could not cope with changing metropolitan form and patterns of land use. Buses were able to go around congestion that stopped the trolley in its tracks, and they were able to reach new residential subdivisions and peripheral work- places on hard-surfaced streets whose costs were borne not by the transit companies but by everyone (through federal, state, and local taxes). Patterns of Suburban Growth The early investment in cars, roads, and suburban infill is widely credited with rescuing the U.S. economy from a period of stagnation, and igniting the boom of the Roaring Twenties. The place where the boom took off was the suburbs. In the 1920s, for the first time, suburbs grew faster than central cities—much faster. While central cities grew by 19 percent, adding 5 mil- lion new residents, the suburbs grew by 39 percent, adding over 4 million people. Automobile Suburbs At first, new automobile suburbs appeared as simple additions to existing, transit-dependent suburban corridors, and they functioned that way, depending on the central city for employment and shopping. But because developers no longer had to consider the constraints imposed by people having to walk to transit stops, the form of suburban development was very different from the start. By the stan- dards of the time, building lots were much larger (even though the houses were no bigger and often less substantial), resulting in much lower densities. Many developers got rid of sidewalks altogether, partly to save money and partly to emphasize the exclusivity of the neighborhoods. In some cases grid layouts gave way to curvilinear street patterns that minimized the number of junctions and were thought to lend a distinctive and upscale appearance to the neighborhood. In every city these infill suburbs survive as a distinctive element of urban form: what are now considered to be relatively high-density suburbs with relatively small houses and few neighborhood amenities (Figure 3.35). Most have now filtered down the social scale to become working-class suburbs. But just as these new suburbs were beginning to expand, their form was influenced by the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark case on land use zoning law: Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co . (1926). It ruled in favor of the municipality’s right to prevent a property owner from using land for purposes other than for which it had been zoned. The Court established the power of local governments to “abate a nuisance,” defined very broadly to include anything affecting the general welfare of a residential area. As a result, zoning quickly was used to exclude not only undesirable land uses from residential areas but also (by establishing large minimum lot or dwelling sizes) undesirable people. The consequences for suburban development were far-reaching. Growing suburban areas rushed to become incorporated as municipalities so that they could control the pace and nature of growth. Speculative developers, reassured by the stability that these zoning maps gave the Beginning with the Bronx River Parkway (1906–1923), Moses supervised the construction of over 100 miles of four- lane, limited-access, and lavishly landscaped parkways that ran through Westchester County to the north and through Long Island to the east, giving New York car owners access to beaches that were much less crowded than those served by subway and streetcar. During the 1920s and 1930s many other cities added stretches of parkway and built bridges and tun- nels that brought cars to previously inaccessible and undevel- oped tracts, including Chicago’s Wacker Drive north of the Loop (the CBD) and the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The Decline of Mass Transit The success of what the boost- ers called “automobility” was directly responsible for a down- ward spiral in the fortunes of transit systems. New automobile suburbs lured commuters away from the high-density corridors near transit stops. They also captured the attention of develop- ers, ending the marriage of convenience in which development companies had subsidized transit companies. As shops, offices, wholesaling, and industry moved out to the automobile sub- urbs to take advantage of growing markets and cheaper land, the transit systems, still rigidly focused on the downtown, were unable to serve the consequent crosstown and intersuburban commuting flows and lost further ground. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of car owners substituted Sunday drives for weekend streetcar outings. The transit companies’ loss of revenue forced reduced maintenance, aban- doning of less-profitable routes, cutbacks in weekday services, and increased fares—all of which pushed many more commuters to turn to the car. More vehicular traffic in the streets, in turn, slowed streetcars, increasing their operating costs and prompt- ing still larger numbers of passengers to abandon the trolleys in favor of commuting by car. By the 1920s about 30 percent of the people entering the CBDs of older, more congested cities did so by car; in newer cities west of the Mississippi, the proportion was nearer 60 percent. It has also been suggested that auto–oil–rubber corporate interests conspired to hasten the demise of transit systems: The way it worked was that General Motors, Firestone Tire and Standard Oil of California and some other big companies, depending on the location of the target, would arrange financing for an outfit called National City Lines, which cozied up to city councils and city com- missioners and bought up transit systems like LA’s. Then they would junk or sell the electric cars and pry up the rails for scrap and beautiful modern buses would be sub- stituted, buses made by General Motors and running on Firestone Tires and burning Standard’s gas. 32 During the 1930s General Motors created a holding company through which it and other auto-related companies channeled funds to buy up streetcar systems in 45 U.S. cities. 33 In the late 1960s GM was convicted in a Chicago federal court of conspir- ing to destroy electric transit and to convert trolley systems to diesel buses, whose production GM monopolized. The corpo- rate executives each received a $1 fine. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 79 In the mid-1920s there were several attempts to plan com- munities that were based on “automobility.” The best-known of these are Palos Verdes Estates (Los Angeles); Shaker Heights (Cleveland); the Country Club District (Kansas City); and two “master suburbs” in Florida: Coral Gables and Boca Raton. Although each had its own innovations, they were all built by land market, were emboldened to lay out larger and larger subdivisions, copying, as far as possible, Fordist techniques of mass production for mass consumption. The overall pattern of urban development, no longer tied to the star-shaped corridors of transit lines, reverted to a more symmetrical shape (Figure 3.36). In these new suburbs lot sizes were larger and densities were lower. The average size of a building lot rose from about 3,000 square feet in street- car suburbs to about 5,000 square feet in automobile suburbs; residential densities fell from about 20,000 people per square mile in streetcar suburbs to about 10,000 per square mile in automobile suburbs. Planned Suburbs Decentralization on this scale brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges. The chief oppor tunities were to establish new patterns of development that incorporated retail, commercial, industrial, and recreational land uses in addition to housing. The chief challenges were to avoid unnecessary traffic congestion and preserve environmental qual- ity. Although most suburban infill was totally unplanned and entirely without any conscious recognition of these challenges and opportunities beyond the immediate implications for profit- ability, there were several critical experiments and innovations that were to become models for later phases of urbanization. In fact, the first experiments in creating planned subur- ban settings were those that had been designed for the upper- middle-income families that developers had earlier sought to bring to outlying railroad stations and streetcar termini before the onset of the automobile suburbs. Among the best known are Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey (1853); Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia (1854); Lake Forest, Illinois (1856); and Forest Hills Gardens, New York (1909). They were precursors for the idea of secluded, affluent neighborhoods that were self- contained at least in terms of lower-order services; but they were compact, and their layout and design were unsuited to the car. FIGURE 3.35 Infill suburbs survive as a distinctive element of urban form in every U.S. city. These relatively high-density suburbs have relatively small houses and few neighborhood amenities. Most, like this one in New Jersey, have filtered down the social scale to become working-class suburbs. 2 6 Boomburbs 3 5 4 1890 1920 1945 1972 1990 Streetcar Lines Highways Freeways TRANSPORT ERA = URBAN SPREAD 1 Walking/Horsecar Era, to 1890 2 Electric Streetcar Era, 1890-1920 3 Recreational Automobile Era, 1920-1945 4 Freeway Era, 1945-1972 5 Edge City, 1973-present 6 Boomburbs, 1985-present 1 FIGURE 3.36 Transportation innovations and changing urban and metropolitan form. 80 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography trees were preserved wherever possible, and houses were set back from the street, with driveways and garages. All sales were subject to racially restrictive deed covenants, and all purchasers were required to join the homeowners’ association, the purpose of which was to ensure lawn care and to supervise the general upkeep and tidiness of streets and open spaces. It was a com- mercial success from the start and, despite the obvious prob- lematic elitism of the venture, it attracted critical acclaim from builders, developers, and planners who came from across the United States to view the shape of the future. In 1923 a small group of intellectuals founded the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) . Among them were Lewis Mumford and several architects and plan ners—including Clarence Stein and Henry Wright. Although RPAA members were mostly interested in big-picture, long-term scenarios for urbanization and regional development, they did manage, through Alexander Bing—a New York real estate developer and founding member—to create two planned communities. The first, Sunnyside Gardens (built between 1924 and 1928), was an undeveloped central city site in Queens only five miles from Manhattan. Here, Clarence Stein and Henry Wright designed big traffic-free superblocks that allowed vast interior garden spaces. The second was Radburn (started in 1928), 15 miles from Manhattan in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where Stein and Wright were able to release the Sunnyside superblock principle from the rigid grid of the central city. Traffic was channeled through a hierarchy of roads, so that most residential areas could be kept virtually free of traffic. Pedestrians and cyclists were given their own paths that crossed traffic arteries under rustic bridges; housing was clustered cozily around irregular- shaped open spaces (Figure 3.38). The RPAA had hoped to private developers for profit, with an upper-middle-class mar- ket in mind. They were characterized by very low densities (for the time) of about three dwellings per acre, high-quality landscaping, recreational facilities (golf courses, in particular), public gardens, and plazas, in addition to shopping ameni- ties, and deed covenants aimed at preserving the character and appearance of the entire community. The Country Club District was perhaps the most influ- ential of these. It was the creation of developer Jesse Clyde Nichols, who later founded the Urban Land Institute, an independent research organization concerned with urban land use and development from the developers’ point of view. Nichols had been impressed by the Garden City movement in Europe and the City Beautiful movement in the United States (Chapter 11), and was determined to put together a project large enough to sustain a self-contained community. Nichols was concerned with profitability, however, so from the start set out to create a setting that would appeal to the most lucra- tive section of the residential market: the top end. It took him 14 years to acquire the land, before embarking, in 1922, on constructing 6,000 homes and 160 apartment buildings that eventually housed over 35,000 residents. The centerpiece was Country Club Plaza (Figure 3.37), the world’s first automobile-based shopping center. It featured waterfalls, fountains, and expensive landscaping, with exten- sive parking lots behind ornamental brick walls. Nichols care- fully controlled the composition of businesses through leasing policies that brought upscale retail stores to the first floor of the development, and lawyers, physicians, and accountants to the offices on the second floor. Similarly, the residential sections of the Country Club District were carefully landscaped and controlled. Densities were kept low, streets were curvilinear, FIGURE 3.37 Country Club Plaza, Kansas City. Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 81 FIGURE 3.38 Part of the proposed plan for Radburn, N.J. In an effort to promote “community” and minimize the intrusive effects of cars, houses face onto common walkways; streets give access to the rear of the houses. 82 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography (a labor-intensive industry), Roosevelt created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). This initiative was a critical part of the shift to Keynesian macroeconomic management (p. 76) and led to the develop- ment of so-called Keynesian suburbs . The FHA was given responsibility for stimulating construction by the private sector, and it chose to do so by stabilizing the mortgage market and facilitating sound home financing on reasonable terms. The FHA achieved this goal not by lending money but by insuring mortgage loans made by private institutions for home con- struction or purchase. The insurance gave banks and savings and loan associations the confidence to disburse more mort- gages and to charge one or two percent less in interest than before, which stimulated demand for home ownership. FHA guarantees also stimulated demand with terms that required smaller down payments and extended repayment periods (which meant lower monthly repayments). The FHA estab- lished and enforced minimum standards for housing financed by its guaranteed loans, which helped eliminate shoddy suburban construction. At the time, many saw federal support for home owner- ship as a means of defending the property system. By giving as many people as possible a stake in the system and financ- ing their stake through long-term loans, conservatives argued, greater social and political stability would be achieved. The widespread debt represented by mortgage repayments would commit home “owners” to oppose any changes to the social and economic structure of society that might endanger the value of their property or make it more difficult for them to pay off their loan. The immediate effect was to reignite suburban growth. Whereas housing starts had fallen to fewer than 100,000 in 1933, the number of new homes started in 1937 was 332,000, and in 1941, 619,000 (Figure 3.39). New Deal administrators saw a further opportunity: to plan suburban development, draw in a socially mixed group of residents, but Radburn’s attractiveness quickly ensured that it became a commuter suburb for upper-middle-class families; realtors then took it upon themselves to keep out Jews and blacks to maintain property prices. 34 Nevertheless, Radburn, like the Country Club District, became an influential landmark in the history of urban design. Suburbanization and Federal Policy Suburbanization, like other forms of economic and urban development, came to a shuddering halt with the Great Depression. Between 1928 and 1933 residential construction activity fell by 95 percent. In the same period a million households lost their homes through foreclosure. By the spring of 1933 half of all home mortgages were technically in default, and every day saw a thousand new foreclosures. 35 The Hoover administration responded by creating a credit reserve for mortgage lenders (the Federal Home Loan Bank Act of 1932) and a fund for making loans to nonprofit corporations formed to build or upgrade housing for low-income families (the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932). Neither initiative was framed effectively, however. If they had any value at all, it was as precedents that acknowledged the need for the federal government to play a role in protecting home ownership and housing quality. The Roosevelt administration built on these precedents in ways that not only helped revive the expansion of auto- mobile suburbs but also had lasting impacts on the nature of urbanization in the United States. The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), created in 1933, helped stop the slide by refinancing tens of thousands of mortgages that were in danger of foreclosure and by establishing low- interest mortgages that allowed former owners to recover homes lost through foreclosure. The following year, in an attempt to reduce unemployment by stimulating construction FIGURE 3.39 New private housing starts. 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0 1910 1900 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Housing starts (thousands) Year Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 83 doing business in congested industrial districts and corridors, where rents were high. In addition, the advent of electric power made multistory factories (designed to maximize the efficiency of steam-powered machinery) obsolete. Using new assembly-line techniques made possible by electric power demanded a horizontal layout of industrial space, and this required unprec-edented amounts of land. Trucks enabled factories to move out to cheaper, peripheral land, while cars and buses enabled their workers to get to them. By the late 1930s almost no new factories were opening in traditional central factory districts, while many of the older factories were closed as their owners invested in newer, more efficient plants in the suburbs. So began the first round of cen- tral city deindustrialization and restructuring. Factory districts, starved of investment and with some buildings 50 years old or older, became shabby and semiderelict. Nearby working-class housing of similar vintage degenerated into slums, their prob- lems suddenly intensified by the Great Depression. And on the edge of the central city the first-tier streetcar suburbs, having been made both socially and functionally obsolete by the car, began to tumble down the social ladder, blurring the estab- lished order of the city. Within the CBD, the civic and entertainment zones were the least affected (though decentralization did attract away some “fringe” activities such as speakeasies, gambling dens, and brothels to roadhouses along the urban fringe). The decentral- ization of offices and shops caused CBD office and retail zones to become more specialized, catering increasingly to the upper end of the market. Department stores, in contrast, sought to maintain their magnetism by diversifying: The department store became a zoo (Bloomingdale’s and Wanamaker’s in New York had enormous pet stores), botanical garden (floral shops), restaurant (lavish restaurants bigger than any other in the cities), barber shop, butcher shop, museum (gift and art shops), post office, and beauty parlor. 36 Hedging their bets, some department store companies opened new branches in the CBD frame (p. 72), where they could offer free customer parking. Sears and Montgomery Ward, in Chicago and New York, were the first to adopt this strategy, and other stores in virtually every city soon followed. Because driving was seen as a male preserve, however, these new stores carried a limited range of items, dominated by household goods, automotive accessories, and building sup- plies. Downtown stores, in turn, came to emphasize women’s fashions, cosmetics, haberdashery, and millinery. New Patterns of Land Use It was in response to this spatial reorganization that Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman devised a model that attempted to describe the out- comes in terms of the spatial organization of land uses. 37 This multiple-nuclei model is a schematic representation of the relative locations of major categories of land use (Figure 3.40), based on the decentralization of commercial and industrial nodes beyond the CBD. Harris and Ullman argued that new, automobile-based suburban nodes of commercial and industrial activity were not arranged in any drawing people from central cities to make room there for slum clearance and redevelopment. In 1935 Roosevelt cre- ated the Resettlement Administration with these objectives, appointing Rexford Guy Tugwell as its head. Drawing on the design of Radburn, Tugwell envisaged some 3,000 greenbelt cities that would contain government-sponsored low-cost housing. Funds were allocated for only eight, however, and Congress, under strong pressure from the private development industry, whittled this number down to five. Two of the five were blocked by local legal action. The remaining three were built: Greendale, southwest of Milwaukee; Greenhills, near Cincinnati; and Greenbelt, just north of Washington, D.C. But in 1938 the Resettlement Administration was abolished and after World War II all three were sold off to nonprofit corpo- rations, to be swallowed up in the continuing sprawl of auto- mobile suburbs. Suburbanization of Commerce and Industry The decentralization of commerce and industry was slower than the decentralization of households initially. The number of trucks and buses did not really begin to increase significantly until after World War II (Figure 3.33). But once a substantial and highly mobile population was in the suburbs, the logic of commercial and industrial location changed decisively. Suburbanites represented a large and very affluent market for everything from convenience items to expensive clothes and furniture. At the same time, they were a highly qualified workforce. Retailing was one of the first commercial activities to decentralize to the new automobile suburbs. There were few attempts to replicate the success of Country Club Plaza, partly because of the huge investment required. Instead, automobile- related retailing took the form of a hierarchy of retail settings, each with a distinctive range of services and each with a dif- ferent market area. The car, in short, enabled a sort of central place system to develop within central places. Some office development decentralized to outlying busi- ness centers and along principal business thoroughfares. Car travel made these locations attractive to all sorts of business services and smaller corporate offices. Meanwhile, smaller offices for professionals such as physicians, dentists, and attor- neys serving local populations, decentralized to neighborhood business streets. During the 1920s and 1930s there were also shifts in wholesaling . Distributors whose market was dominated by in-town buyers were increasingly tempted to move to loca- tions with cheaper rents. These locations had to be reasonably close to the traditional railroad freight yard warehouse dis- trict because of their reliance on rail cars for incoming goods. For some (such as department store warehouses), however, trucking made it feasible to relocate to the cheapest sites at the edge of the city. It was the decentralization of industry, however, that was the most significant change brought about by trucking. By the 1920s there were strong but pent-up pressures for indus- trial decentralization. One pressure was the increasing cost of 84 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography mercantile model (Vance) (p. 51) multiple-nuclei model (Harris and Ullman) (p. 83) pedestrian city (p. 53) primate city and primacy (p. 57) rank-size rule (p. 55) sector model (Hoyt) (p. 73) streetcar suburbs (p. 67) 1926 Euclid v. Ambler (p. 78) central places (p. 47) comparative advantage (p. 51) incorporated (p. 78) initial advantage (p. 55) Keynesian suburbs (p. 82) land use zoning (p. 66) Manufacturing Belt (p. 55) Key Terms FOLLOW UP Review Activities 1. Think about how you can make the aspects of urbanization described in this chapter meaningful to you personally. If you live in the United States, perhaps your great- grandparents or great-great-grandparents were among the earlier waves of immigrants who contributed to urban growth. Where did they arrive, what did they do, and what cities did they and their descendants live in? Do you have family members you can ask? You might even be able to add sound recordings of people or city life to your e-portfolio. 2. Go online to find the zoning ordinances and land use zoning maps for where you live or for a city that interests you. What conclusions can you draw about the planners’ objectives? Which of the models and concepts discussed in this chapter are most useful in understanding the patterns of land use shown in the maps? 3. When you have time, read a classic novel that is evocative of urban life during part of the period covered in this chapter. There are hundreds to choose from, including McTeague, by predictable fashion, except in relation to surrounding land uses. They might develop around a transit stop or highway intersection; but if they were office and retailing centers they would attract middle-income residential development, whereas if they were industrial centers they would attract working-class residential development. Underpinning the overall pattern was a fundamental set of functional relationships, given expression as a result of the mobility allowed by cars and trucks and by the locational flexibility allowed by telephones and electricity. Fundamental to these relationships were the mutual attractiveness of certain groups of activities and the tendency for some land uses to be repelled by others. The result is an irregular-shaped patchwork of land uses across which there is a loose functional order. Looking back, we can see that Harris and Ullman were remarkably prescient: The multiple-nuclei city was the embryo form of uniquely U.S. manifestations of contem porary urbanization—metropolitan sprawl with new “production space” and “edge cities.” FIGURE 3.40 The multiple-nuclei model of urban form. 1 2 3 34 5 6 7 8 9 3 Chapter 3 • Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and Its Cities 85 Frank Norris (New York: Fawcett, 1960) and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , by Betty Smith (Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1943). 4. Work on your e-portfolio. Research an example of a power- site town, mining town, transportation town, or heavy manufacturing town (p. 54). Find out how and why it became established and what happened to it during the twentieth cen- tury. Because the topics covered in this chapter are focused on local-scale, historical events, you might wish to look for supplementary materials in old newspaper accounts. Copies of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century newspa- pers might not be available online but are often available on microfilm in libraries. You can include that material in your e-portfolio with your own observations about how the story is related to themes in the text (or to your own perspective). Log in to www.mygeoscienceplace.com for self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth TM tours, key resources and suggested readings, related websites,“In the News” RSS feeds, and additional references and resources to enhance your study of the foundations of the U.S. urban system and its cities. LEARNING OUTCOMES 87 Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 4 B y the end of World War II, the economies and workers in industrialized countries like the United States had begun to enter a substantially different phase in terms of what they produced and how and where they produced it. This phase is sometimes referred to as advanced capitalism. Fundamental to this change was a decrease in the proportion of the workforce involved in manufacturing and a marked increase in service- related jobs. The prosperity associated with this phase of economic development, meanwhile, allowed increasing numbers of people to spend a larger proportion of their incomes on consumer services such as shopping and eating out. From the mid-1970s, however, the internationalization of economic activities had destabilized the “organized” basis of national economies and allowed an intensification of the economic and spatial logic of capital—especially big capital—and with it a significant reorganization of urban systems and a recasting of the political economy of cities within a global context. After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Explain the reasons for the sprawling form of metropolitan areas. ■ Describe the key characteristics of post-World War II suburbia. ■ Evaluate the impact of demographic and socio-cultural changes on patterns of urbanization. ■ Discuss the mutually reinforcing problems related to the deindustrialization that characterized the U.S. from the 1970s onward. ■ Identify and explain the main ways in which the global reach of information and communications technologies are influencing patterns of urbanization. Chapter Cities such as Seattle, Washington, whose corporate headquarters include Amazon.com, have been recast as the result of the needs of “new economy” industries and the capabilities of new technologies. As the birthplace and headquarters of Starbucks, Seattle’s shift to advanced capitalism has been associated with increasing numbers of people spending a larger proportion of their incomes on consumer services such as eating out and shopping. CHAPTER PREVIEW This chapter deals with the changes that have occurred to the United States and other industrialized urban systems in Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and Japan as a result of the transition to an advanced form of capitalism that has now become increasingly globalized in its scope (Figure 1.5). As in Chapter 3, we trace urban-system change in the United States in terms of periods of urbanization that have been distinctive in their patterns of urban growth and their patterns of interaction between cities. The first period, spanning 1945–1973, corresponded with postwar economic recovery and growth. We will see how the principles and processes of urban change identified in Chapter 3 resulted in new outcomes as they operated through the new industries and technologies of advanced capitalism. We will also see how 88 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography the overall prosperity of the period was directly reflected in the form of cities through extensive suburbanization; and how suburbanization, combined with the decline of old manufac- turing enterprises, affected central city land use. The second period, between 1973 and the present, began with a phase of economic crisis and reorganization. This was reflected within the urban system in terms of differential economic stress as city governments, companies, and workers tried to adapt to both global competition and structural economic change. A rapid decline of the old base of manufacturing industries was followed by the onset of a “new economy” based on digital technologies and featuring advanced business services, cultural products industries, and knowledge-based industries, all framed within the context of an international division of labor, international finance, and the ascendance of neoliberal politics and policy. We will see how this has resulted in a functional reorganization of the hierar- chy of U.S. cities, how it has come to be reflected in variations in the quality of life, and how it has influenced—and been influenced by—recent demographic and social changes. Meanwhile, cities themselves have been recast as the result of the needs of “new economy” industries, the capabilities of new technologies, and an increasing socioeconomic polarization of metropolitan popula- tions. We will see how these trends have resulted in the end of tra- ditional “suburbia” and the emergence of privatized, fragmented, and disjointed settings in polycentric metropolitan regions. REGIONAL DECENTRALIZATION AND METROPOLITAN SPRAWL (1945–1973) As in previous periods of development in the United States, between 1945 and 1973, changes in transport and communi- cations technologies strongly influenced the outcomes of the structural economic change to advanced capitalism. In this first phase the most significant developments in this respect at the scale of the U.S. urban system were the construction of the interstate highway system (Figure 4.1) and the growth of a network of regional and subregional airports capable of handling large passenger jets (Figure 4.2). The overall effects of changes in employment and transportation on the structure of the urban system can be summarized in terms of two apparently contradictory (but in fact interrelated) outcomes: regional decentralization and metropolitan consolidation . Increased accessibility, combined with the attractions of cheaper land, lower taxes, lower energy costs, local boosterism, and cheaper and less-militant labor, allowed cities in the South and West to grow rapidly. The metropolitan areas of the “Sunbelt” were particu- larly attractive to labor-intensive manufacturing and to the high-growth, high-tech sectors of electronics, aerospace, and petrochemicals. These industries could establish themselves in Sunbelt cities and have the cities and their infrastructure URBAN VIEW 4.1 Fast Food and Religion in the Exhaust of a Drive-in Culture 1 In the unprecedented prosperity in the United States in the decades following World War II, color TVs, electric blenders, and automatic garbage disposals became basic household commodities in every new suburban home. But the ultimate symbol of success was the family car. It did not take long before answering the question, “What do you drive?” came to define how people saw themselves, and how others saw them, based on the cost, make, model, and age of their car. Business owners took note of ballooning car ownership and offered all kinds of drive-in opportunities for customers, including drive-in motels, drive-in banks, and drive-in movie theaters. The first drive-in restaurant was The Pig Stand in Dallas, opened in 1921 and named after the Pig Sandwich, the popular Tennessee barbeque pork sandwich served there. Texan Jesse G. Kirby came up with the idea, having observed that: “People with cars are so lazy they don’t want to get out of them to eat!” The Pig Stand offered curb service from young boys who soon were nicknamed “carhops” because they ran up to approaching cars and hopped onto the running board and started taking orders before the cars even came to a complete stop. The tips they made were their entire wages, so they wasted no time taking orders and hurrying off to collect and return with the food. Before the “golden arches” there was the silhouette of a husky pig at the more than 100 Pig Stands that soon opened, which led to many imitators right up to the present day. A legacy of the Pig Stand is that 30 percent of people in the United States now eat at least one meal in their car each week. The drive-in church, in contrast, did not spread as widely or become a staple of U.S. consumer society like fast food. But drive-in religion was popular for a time: In early 1955 in suburban Garden Grove, California, the Reverend Robert Schuller, a member of the Reformed Church in America, began his ministry on a shoestring. With no sanctuary and virtually no money, he rented the Orange Drive-In movie theater on Sunday mornings and delivered his sermons while standing on top of the concession stand. The parishioners listened through speakers available at each parking space. What began as a necessity became a virtue when Schuller began attracting communicants who were more comfortable and receptive in their vehicles than in a pew. Word of the experiment—‘Worship as you are . . . In the family car’—spread, the congregation grew, and in 1956 Schuller constructed a modest edifice for indoor services and administrative needs. But the Drive-in Church, as it was then called, continued to offer religious inspiration for automobile-bound parishioners, and in succeeding sanctuaries facilities were always included for those who did not want a ‘walk-in’ church. By 1969, he had six thou- sand members in his church, and architect Richard Neutra had designed a huge, star-shaped ‘Tower of Power,’ situat- ed appropriately on twenty-two acres just past Disneyland on the Santa Ana Freeway. It looked like and was called ‘a shopping center for Jesus Christ . . . By 1984, Schuller’s Garden Grove Community Church claimed to be the largest walk-in, drive-in church in the world.’ 2 Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 89 conform to them, rather than the other way around. Meanwhile, it seemed that the benefits of initial advantage and cumulative causation in the Manufacturing Belt were now outweighed by the effects of agglomeration diseconomies (the increasing costs of now-inefficient infrastructure, and the relatively low productivity of dated machinery). The outcome was a decentralization of jobs and people within the urban system, away from the Manufacturing Belt “core” toward metropolitan centers in the South and West “periphery.” But the reorganization of U.S. business that led to the regional decentralization of the economy also made for a certain amount of metropolitan consolidation. Two key economic functions—headquarters offices and research and development (R&D) laboratories—tended to become increasingly localized in larger metropolitan areas. This localization was mainly in response to (1) corporate reorganization following mergers and acquisitions and (2) the differential growth and changing pattern of economic specialization within the urban system. The pattern of control centers —cities with a high proportion of corporate headquarters—changed to reflect the growth of cities like Atlanta, Houston (Figure 4.3), and Los Angeles as regional business centers and the relative decline of Manufacturing Belt cities like Cincinnati, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. At the same time, there was a consolidation of corporate headquarters locations in New York and Chicago. By 1970 about 25 percent of the 500 largest industrial corporations had their headquarters in New York, as did the same proportion of the 300 largest corporations in banking, insurance, retailing, transportation, and utilities. The map of Fortune 500 corporate headquarters reflects the continuing dominance of New York and Chicago as corporate control centers (Figure 4.4). Such domi- nance reflects “a process of cumulative and mutual reinforcement between relatively accessible locations and relatively effective entrepreneurship.” 3 In other words, New York and Chicago were FIGURE 4.1 The growth of the interstate highway system. 40° 35° 40° 45° 35° 30° 30° 25° 95° 90° 85° ATLANTIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN Completed by 1960 Completed 1961–1970 Completed 1971–Date Federal Interstate Highway System FIGURE 4.2 Air passenger traffic in 2009. 20.0–42.0 15.0–19.9 10.0–14.9 5.0–9.9 3.0–4.9 Total Enplaned Passengers (millions) LAX = 5 DFW = 3DEN = 4 ORD = 2 ATL = 1 90 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography able to consolidate their importance as economic control points because of their reserves of people’s entrepreneurial talent, the array of support services that they could offer, and their national and regional accessibility through the interstate highway and commercial airline networks. Meanwhile, localization is evident in the growing number and percentage of corporate headquarters in larger growth centers outside New York and Chicago—most notably the Sunbelt cities of Houston and Atlanta—that offered strong locational and entrepreneurial assets (Figure 4.4). R&D facilities, another high-income, high-growth economic activity, had traditionally been dispersed, their locational pattern tied to that of parent industries. With the emergence of huge conglomerate companies under advanced capitalism, R&D activities became much more critical to corporate success. The increasingly high stakes involved made it vital to avoid market saturation, and companies could do that only by developing new products and improving old ones through R&D. Much long-range corporate R&D gravitated to central laboratories in headquarters complexes, where inter- action among their brightest employees could be fostered. In companies where independent divisions produced different product lines, however, R&D laboratories tended to be located in separate divisional laboratories. Both arrangements led to a consolidation of R&D activity in larger metropolitan areas. The most striking development (though not as important in terms of numbers of jobs) was the localization of some R&D activ- ity in a few “innovation centers”—places with strong univer- sity research facilities, a strong federal scientific presence, and a range of cultural and recreational amenities of the kind that made them attractive to highly qualified scientific workers. The best-known examples are Silicon Valley between Palo Alto and Santa Clara, California; the Route 128 area around Boston; and the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. Metropolitan Sprawl After 1945 a second surge of growth in car ownership occurred in the United States. From just under 26 million in 1945, the number of cars on the roads jumped to more than 52 million in 1955 and just over 97 million by 1972 (Figure 3.33). During the same time, the rate of surfacing of unsurfaced roads matched this growth almost exactly, while the number of people per car fell from five to two. Advances in automotive engineering in the 1930s had brought about a dramatic improvement in power-to-weight ratios, and the average top speed of low- priced cars had also increased—from less than 50 miles an hour in the 1920s to more than 80 miles an hour in the 1950s. The result was a dramatic spurt in suburban growth, so that the 1950s became the decade of the greatest-ever growth in suburban population. While central cities in the United States grew by 6 million people (11.6 percent), suburban counties added 19 million people (45.9 percent). In almost every metropolitan area the ring of suburban counties grew much faster than the central city (or cities). Population statistics did not always reflect this growth, however, because of the tremendous FIGURE 4.4 The location of Fortune 500 corporate headquarters in 2010. The size of the dot is proportional to the number of corporate headquarters in each city. 40 or more 20–39 10–19 5–9 1–4 Number of corporations Fortune 500 rank is listed after the corporate name for the top 10 ranked corporations Wal-Mart=1 Exxon Mobil=2 AT&T=7 Chevron=3 General Electric=4 Bank of America=5 ConocoPhillips=6 Ford Motor=8 J.P. MorganChase=9 Hewlett-Packard=10 FIGURE 4.3 The reorganization of U.S. business following World War II that led to the regional decentral- ization of the economy also made for a certain amount of metropolitan consolidation that promoted the growth of regional business centers like Houston. Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 91 amount of annexation by central cities in the South and West. Corpus Christi, Dallas, Houston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, San Diego, and San Jose each annexed over 100 square miles of territory from surrounding counties during the 1950s and 1960s, and captured the demographic growth of the suburbs. Following Peter Hall, 4 we can recognize four preconditions for the emergence of this unprecedented suburban sprawl. 1. The principle of land use zoning, established in the Euclid v. Ambler case in 1926 (p. 78). This allowed uniform residential tracts with stable property values. 2. The backlog of demand for housing from the Depression and war years, combined with the postwar baby boom. During the war there had been a moratorium on new construction, so that by 1945 there was a backlog of between three and four million dwellings. After the war, the 16 million men and women who had been in the armed services resumed domestic life, which led to a sudden increase in the rate of household formation and in birth rates. 3. The cheap, long-term home financing that the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) had initiated during the New Deal. In 1944 the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (the “ GI Bill ”) created the Veterans Administration, one of the major goals of which was to facilitate home owner- ship for returning veterans. It did this through a program of mortgage insurance along the lines of the FHA, whose own lending powers were massively increased by the 1949 Housing Act. 4. New and improved roads. The Federal Aid Highway Act (1956) authorized 41,000 miles of limited-access highway to be built, at more than $1 million per mile, with 90 per- cent of the funding coming from a Highway Trust Fund, established through excise taxes on vehicles, gasoline, and tires. Every major city was to be linked into the system, while the city’s internal traffic was to be restructured— often according to a hub-and-spoke model, the outer rim of the “wheel” being a ring road, or interstate “beltway” (Figures 4.5, 4.6), that made outlying locations more accessible, particularly where there were intersections with major radial “spokes.” These preconditions for sprawl encouraged developers to leapfrog ahead of the suburban edge, and build large shopping malls at highly accessible sites along new freeway corridors, and cleverly use these shopping meccas as marketing tools for vast new residential communities. Industrial parks were attracted to the new highway and freeway corridors, catering to light industry and distribution/warehouse operations, while offices were attracted to prestigious, highly visible sites in landscaped, campuslike settings near freeway intersections. The Fordist Suburb The period immediately following World War II was characterized by a spectacular increase in housing construction (Figure 3.39). From a low point of just over 90,000 housing starts in 1933 and a prewar average of about 350,000 starts per FIGURE 4.5 Circumferential beltways like this one around Washington, D.C. (I-495) were important in establishing the framework for metropolitan sprawl in the 1960s and 1970s. FIGURE 4.6 The “hub-and-spoke” layout of interstate highways in Indianapolis. CBD 74 74 74 70 70 65 65 69 465 465 465 865 92 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography year, construction jumped to almost two million by 1950 and averaged more than 1.5 million until the recent global financial meltdown and housing crisis (Chapter 8). Between 1945 and 1973 the FHA helped nearly 11 million households to own houses, and the overall level of home ownership increased from around 45 percent to nearly 65 percent. Nearly all of this growth was accomplished without any kind of overall planning or metropolitan management, which sowed the seeds of a number of problems and conflicts that we will examine in later chapters. The only consistent element of planning came from devel- opers and their chief goal, of course—profitability. The strategy of most developers was based on Fordism: mass production for mass consumption. This strategy required pursuing economies of scale, standardizing products, and perfecting prefabrication technology. The developers’ equivalent to Henry Ford’s assem- bly line was balloon-frame construction (Figure 4.7). Instead of heavy beams and corner posts held together by mortise and tenon joints, balloon framing used standardized, machine-cut 2″ 4″ studs nailed together by inexpensive, machine-cut nails. By spreading the stress over a large number of light boards, the balloon frame had strength and stability far beyond its insubstantial appearance. Using standardized components and requiring only semiskilled workers, balloon framing was around 40 percent less expensive than traditional methods. The most popular form of house for the new suburbs was a single-story structure with a low-slung roof, large windows, and a carport or garage. The influential Ladies Home Journal had popularized this type of bungalow dwelling from as early as the turn of the century. Standardized by developers in the United States in the 1920s, the bungalow had been designed originally by British engineers for the tropical climate of colonial Bengal. It was low and well-ventilated and opened out to the garden. It could be grand or modest; using balloon framing, it was the design that made it possible for working class families to have a “dream” home (Figure 4.8). Taking advantage of pattern-book bungalow designs and balloon-framing techniques, developers began to encircle every city of any significance with huge, sprawling subdivisions. The first and one of the largest was Lakewood, built by the Lakewood Park Company to accommodate more than 100,000 people on 16 square miles of former sugar beet fields south of Los Angeles (Figure 4.9). Without doubt the most famous was the original Levittown on Long Island, begun in 1948 by Abraham Levitt and his sons William and Alfred. They were the first large-scale developers to deploy the assembly-line approach in residential develop- ment. Combined with innovative materials, new tools, stan- dardized designs, low prices (the original Levittown Cape Cod FIGURE 4.7 Balloon framing. This inexpensive and efficient system of construction helped to revolutionize the residential construction industry. FIGURE 4.8 Developers heavily marketed suburbia as the setting for the “American dream” of private home ownership. Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 93 design sold for $100 down and $57 per month) and, finally, slick marketing, this approach unrolled more than 17,000 homes onto the suburban fringe by 1951 (Figure 4.10). This was morpho- genesis on a heroic scale. It marked the end of urban develop- ment as a process dominated by fine-grained accretion and infill and the beginning of a process dominated by the mass produc- tion of coarse chunks of suburban and exurban development. This urban development coincided with a dramatic postwar increase in prosperity and the consequent rise of consumerism. Between 1948 and 1973 the economy grew at unprecedented rates. The gross national income (GNI) increased fivefold, median income more than doubled (in constant dollars), and home ownership rose by 50 percent. Historian Lizabeth Cohen has traced the development of a “consumers’ republic” in the United States in this era: a society based on mass consumption of cars, houses, and manufactured household goods, all cel- ebrated by the new medium of television. This was the era of the “Sitcom Suburb,” a democratic utopia of ranch and split- level homes. Thanks to Euclid v. Ambler, Sitcom Suburbs were founded on local government zoning regulations that prohib- ited apartments, duplexes, small houses, or small lots as well as stores and offices. Federal intervention also contributed significantly to the creation of standardized suburban settings dominated by detached single-family homes occupied by white families. The Federal Housing Administration was clearly biased from its inception toward single-family detached and owner-occupied housing. To assist local governments with planning for single- family detached homes, the FHA recommended standardized subdivision design practices that became a template for suburban subdivisions nationwide when Congress passed the landmark Section 701 planning grant program as part of the 1954 Federal Housing Act. Within a decade or two of the end of World War II, many people in the United States had developed a distinctive way of life and a new social and spatial order known as suburbia. As industrial cities declined, Sunbelt cities and suburbia displaced them as the cradles of national personality. The new centrality of the suburbs to people’s identity was reinforced during the Cold War as the United States showcased its democratic utopia of suburban lifestyles and consumer culture by way of contrast with the Soviet Union’s regimented lifestyles and modest levels of living. As Robert Beauregard has observed: Awash in consumer goods, enjoying nearly full employ- ment, and blessed with high wages, the daily life of the “average” American became a model for people around the globe. Suburban life anchored a standard of living commensurate with the nation’s status as the leader of the “free world” and established the country’s economy and form of government as the best hope for affluence, democracy, and world peace. 5 Suburbia not only became the place where the American Dream could be realized but also the crucible for what FIGURE 4.9 Lakewood, California, an enormous project of 17,150 homes. Work began in February 1950; by the end of the year, families were moving in at the rate of 25 each day. FIGURE 4.10 Levittown, Long Island. Formerly potato fields, the site was developed in 1947 to house 45,000 people. 94 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography commentator David Brooks calls a “Paradise Spell” of relentless individual aspiration and restless consumption. Designed for car travel, suburbia was characterized by all kinds of drive-in and drive-through services: drive-through banks and fast-food outlets, drive-up windows to drop off and pick up laundry, drive-in theaters, motels, gas stations, and minimarts. The suburban shops and shopping centers of the 1950s and 1960s not only represented distinctive new elements of urban form in their own right, but also brought with them acres and acres of parking space that imposed an unrelieved sterility to the suburban landscape. To accommo- date this parking space, buildings had to be set back so far from the road that signs became larger and more outlandish in an attempt to catch the motorist’s eye. The result is the classic strip (Figure 4.11). There were a few exceptions to Fordist suburban develop- ment, and their successes in designing automobile-oriented environments without unwanted, unaesthetic side effects were to become influential examples for a generation of developers. In the Chicago area, communities such as Park Forest, Elk Grove, and Oak Brook were distinctive for having extremely generous green space within an otherwise standard 1950s landscape of curvilinear streets, cul-de-sacs, and shopping centers. In the Washington, D.C., area, developers returned to the greenbelt cities model, refining it to suit upper-middle- class markets of the 1960s in their plans for Columbia (Maryland) and Reston (Virginia) (Figure 4.12). Both were organized into “villages” of 10,000 to 15,000 people, and each had a town center, recreational facilities, and schools. Meadows and woods separated the villages from one another and from a system of open space corridors containing pedestrian and bicycle paths. FIGURE 4.11 “Hamburger Row.” This example is along U.S. Highway 412 in Springdale, a town north of Fayetteville in northeast Arkansas. The classic strip in Norman, Oklahoma, was described by Grady Clay in his book Close Up: How to Read the American City (New York: Praeger, 1974). FIGURE 4.12 Part of one of the residential “villages” in Reston, a privately developed new town in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., that became a model for many of the exclusive “master-planned” communities built around the fringes of every large metropolitan area during the 1980s and 1990s. Meanwhile, in California there emerged a rather different recipe, featuring recreational amenities such as country clubs, golf courses, parks, ballfields, boating lakes, swimming pools, and equestrian areas scattered among vast developments. Each phase of these developments was planned as a “ neighborhood” with its own school and commercial center, along with a package of amenities. Together, the neighborhoods constituted a complex of subdivisions with a distinctive, recreation- oriented environment. Examples include Irvine (carved out of the Irvine Ranch), Valencia (on the site of the Newhall Ranch), and Mission Viejo (on the O’Neill Ranch). Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 95 Suburban Production and Consumption Spaces Continuing the logic of decentralization that began during the prewar infill era, freeways, bigger and faster trucks, and larger factories and warehouses needed the larger and less expensive parcels that only suburban land could accommodate. Although heavy industry was usually tied to older outlying industrial satellites with access to rail sidings, most industry had become “footloose,” able to set up wherever local governments could be persuaded to zone land for industry. Corridors of land along major highways quickly became one common setting for foot- loose industries; the area around the junction of major high- ways became another; industrial parks built by developers a third (Figure 4.13); and the area around airports a fourth. Geographer Allen Scott has described the production space of the metropolis as a mosaic of these settings, each element in the mosaic composed of particular kinds and mixtures of industrial land use: factories of different sorts, warehousing, and related offices, with retailing and services catering to the industrial workers. 6 The largest clusters of industry are further character- ized by a network of linkages among plants that bind many of the land users together in an industrial complex, such as the aerospace and electronics complex in Orange County, outside Los Angeles. Along with decentralized population and industry came retailing and office functions. Freeways encouraged the devel- opment of a catalytic new element: integrated shopping centers. Freeways provided the accessibility necessary to support large new department stores that could anchor shopping malls with a variety of specialized, higher-order retail stores. By 1957 some 2,000 shopping centers were scattered around U.S. metropolitan areas. This figure grew from 8,240 by 1965 to 12,170 by 1970 (and over 22,000 by 1980). Branches of major department stores anchored the largest of these, filled out with branches of chain stores catering to the middle classes and rounded off with small independent stores or franchises catering to the needs and tastes of residents in the surrounding area. By the mid-1980s about 55percent of all retail sales (excluding motor vehicles and gaso- line) were accounted for by shopping centers. 7 Central City Land Use The other side of all this suburbanization was the relative decline of central cities and the further reorganization of central business districts (CBDs). Not only was manufactur- ing being decentralized, the whole structure of the economy was shifting away from the older industries that had tradi- tionally been located in central areas. Between 1953 and 1970 New York City lost 206,000 manufacturing jobs, Philadelphia lost 102,000, St. Louis lost 61,000, Boston lost 30,000, and Baltimore lost 25,000. Similar losses were recorded in central cities around the country, along with losses in retailing and wholesaling (New York and Phi ladelphia each lost 26,000 retailing and wholesaling jobs, for example, while Boston lost 21,000, St. Louis lost 14,000, and Baltimore lost 5,000). These losses were often more than balanced by gains in white-collar service jobs, but because white-collar workers tended to prefer living in the suburbs and commuting to work rather than living in one of the aging central city neighborhoods, the population of central cities began to thin out. This shift in the employment base and population density of central cities resulted in some radical changes in land use and urban form. Old factories and warehouses were abandoned or demolished; railroad tracks and freight yards were torn up; and slum housing was cleared. Meanwhile, new office blocks were built. But the construction often did not take place on the site of demolished or abandoned areas. The locational requirements of white-collar services were different from those of traditional industries. Office blocks crowded into the CBD in skyscrapers, leaving industrial districts in a sorry state of deterioration. Slum clearance and abandoned housing (Figure 4.14) added to the empty and desolate appearance of large sections of central cities. Two other factors added to the sense of devastation in cen- tral cities. Freeway systems, as they penetrated central cities in fulfillment of the hub-and-spoke designs of highway engineers, required 200- to 300-foot rights-of-way that took the line of least (commercial) resistance, carving through low-income neigh- borhoods and blighting open spaces, parks, and river margins (Figure 4.15). Then, at the end of the 1960s, riots and civil disorder (see Chapter 15) literally laid waste to large sections of some central cities. The result was that it became common for people to talk and write about U.S. cities as “doughnut cities”— empty holes surrounded by a ring of suburbanization. Like all such characterizations, the doughnut city idea was a gross exaggeration, capturing only the most dramatic and symptomatic element of change. A great deal of the fabric of central cities was relatively unaltered during the 1950s and 1960s, while CBDs, though suffering a decline in their relative importance, continued as major hubs of retail and commer- cial activity. There were, nevertheless, some significant adjust- ments. In the CBD frame nearest to higher-status suburbs, upscale apartment houses and hotels began to replace large old mansions, drawing with them the zone of assimilation of the CBD core (p. 72). As the CBD crept slowly in this direction, soin the zone of discard older hotels degenerated into rooming houses, and stores changed hands. Military surplus stores, pawnshops, and wig stores replaced small tailors and clothiers; FIGURE 4.13 An industrial park in a suburb of Paris, France. 96 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography FIGURE 4.14 Central city dereliction, as evidenced by this abandoned apartment building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, can introduce a contagious “blight” to surrounding areas, making investors reluctant to redevelop, and even leading to disinvestment by both the private and the public sector. FIGURE 4.15 The intrusive effects of interstate highways on downtown areas are clearly evident in this photograph of Miami, Florida. stores selling cheap novelties, fire-damaged goods, and pop records replaced housewares and dry goods stores. In more general terms, the form of the city that evolved after World War II can be seen as an extension and outgrowth of the industrial city, with a CBD that has been penetrated by industrial as well as international elements; central city districts that are subject to urban renewal (Chapter 10) and gentrification (Chapter 9); and an extended metropolitan fringe containing new production space and emerging “outer city” nodes of development. Demographic and Social Change in Cities Parallel with all these economic, land use, and other changes, some important demographic and social changes were under way, with some important consequences for the pattern of urbanization. One of the most striking de- mographic events has been the maturing of the so-called Baby Boom generation. The boom had its origins in mark- edly increased birth rates after 1945, when Americans and Europeans were—literally—catching up with one another during the relative stability of the immediate postwar period. Later, the Baby Boom was sustained by the affluence of the 1950s and early 1960s, which encouraged people to marry younger, have children earlier, and have larger families. The boom ended rather abruptly in 1964, as the availability of the contraceptive pill made birth control and family plan- ning much more effective. The economic recession of the 1970s, followed by the increasingly materialistic culture of the 1980s and 1990s, resulted in delayed marriages, deferred childbearing, and smaller family sizes. The Baby Boom was over; those born later became the “Baby Bust” generation. Many Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 97 cities, particularly in northwestern Europe, began to register almost zero rates of natural population increase (see Urban View 4.4 entitled “Contemporary European Urbanization”). Meanwhile, the availability of cheap and efficient contra- ceptives played an important role in the radical changes that took place in social attitudes in the mid to late 1960s. As attitudes toward sexual behavior changed, so too did people’s attitudes to divorce and the family, and with these changes in attitudes there soon followed changes in patterns of household formation that were to have direct effects on patterns of demand for housing space and all kinds of urban services, from schools to hospices. URBAN VIEW 4.2 The Canadian Urban System In case the Olympic Games had not attracted enough attention, The Economist Intelligence Unit’s list of the most livable cities in the world in 2010 ranked Vancouver number 1 out of 140 cities (Figure 4.16). This ranking scored each city based on five categories: stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. The top ten ranked cities included three Canadian, three Australian, and four European cities, in ranked order: Vancouver, Vienna, Melbourne, Toronto, Perth, Calgary, Helsinki, Geneva, Sydney, and Zurich. Pittsburgh, in 29th place, was ranked the most livable U.S. city, which says a lot about how far it has come since its heavy manufacturing days. The highest ranked cities tended to be mid-sized, with low population densities, in developed countries. These kinds of cities allow the people living in them to enjoy cultural and recreational attractions without the higher crime levels and greater infrastructure problems of larger cities like London or New York, which were ranked 51st and 56th respectively. The Canadian urban system was initially shaped by external demand for staple commodities like fur and lumber for export to France and Great Britain, as described in Vance’s mercantile model (in Chapter 3). Subsequently, the urban system—with major cities, such as Toronto and Montréal along its southerly industrial corridor, Canada’s so-called Main Street—grew based on industrialization and the country’s rich resource base. 8 Today, most Canadians still live within 200 miles of the U.S. border. The 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement reinforced the southern concentration of cities despite the Canadian government’s efforts to achieve a more balanced distribution of industry throughout its territory. For example, national government efforts failed to expand car assembly beyond the southern Ontario car production cluster that includes Windsor and Waterloo. 9 More recently, deindustrial- ization in general, and the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in particular, have involved significant outsourcing of industrial activities to Mexico and, with increasing globalization, farther afield to countries like China. In many cities, the decline in traditional manufacturing has been offset partly by the growth in services, especially business services like management and marketing. 10 This may be expected to concentrate economic growth in Canada’s largest cities, augmented by population growth through immigrants, the major, and soon, only, factor driving population growth in Canada. In fact, large cities like Toronto are known for their multiculturalism and well-established ethnic communities and neighborhoods. 11 FIGURE 4.16 Vancouver, Canada, ranked number 1 out of 140 cities in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s list of the most livable cities in the world in 2010. The residents of highly-ranked cities like Vancouver enjoy wonderful cultural and recreational amenities wit hout the higher crime levels and greater infrastructure problems of larger cities like New York or London. 98 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography The Baby Boomers and Urban Culture At the center of these social changes were the early cohorts of the Baby Boom generation, people born in the late 1940s who had reached college age in the mid-1960s. Their formative experiences had taken place in the context of the postwar economic boom, and now, as young adults, they were presented with the new free- doms of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. This freedom, in turn, helped to set in motion a widespread rebellion against the apparent complacency and rigidity of what J. K. Galbraith called “The Affluent Society” 12—a rebellion that was given added focus by civil rights issues and dissent over U.S. involvement in Vietnam in the late 1960s. The result was an urban countercul- ture movement with radical political agendas and a strong col- lectivist approach to the pursuit of freedom and self-realization. In the 1970s in the United States, these cohorts found themselves on the labor market and in housing markets, where their large numbers caused unprecedented competition. Wages stood still while house prices soared. Meanwhile, new patterns of household formation associated with changed social attitudes—more single-adult households, smaller families, and more female-headed families—produced more households and so even more competition for housing space. At the same time, these new patterns of household formation, coupled with greater numbers of women entering the labor force (another product of the revolutionary social changes of the 1960s) and an intensifying economic recession, led to even greater competition in labor markets. Between 1973 and 1983 alone, the real median income of all U.S. households headed by someone under 35 fell by nearly 11 percent. One of the first casualties was the progressive, collective radicalism of the late 1960s. Liberalism gave way to neoliberalism; a survival mentality eclipsed exploration and liberation; and philosophies of self-realization came to be directed inward, fostering a more selfish, narcissistic, and materialistic culture: the “Paradise Spell” of hedonistic and competitive consumption described by David Brooks. The urban outcomes of this shift will echo through the pages of much of the rest of this book. What was most important in terms of the complexion of the overall urban system was that Baby Boomers, like previous generations who had lived through periods of economic restructuring, began voting with their feet, and moving out of cities where the economic prospects were least attractive. The strongest “magnets” for adult Baby Boomers in the United States were Sunbelt cities with expansive high-tech and defense-oriented economies, while all ten of the chief “losers” were cities in the old Manufacturing Belt. Aging Populations Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the 76 million Baby Boomers who were born in the United States have reached their late 40s to mid-60s—the generally more stable, lower-migration, middle-aged, prime earning years—and are fast approaching retirement. Thanks mainly to significant improvements in both private and public pension programs (improvements achieved during the prosperity of the 1960s) the retirement years of elderly populations in Western countries are relatively affluent compared with those of their predecessors. Until the recent global financial meltdown and housing crisis, the financial security enjoyed by many (but by no means all) of the elderly, combined with windfall gains for home owners resulting from house price inflation, enabled large numbers of them to relocate to “places of reward and repose,” where an unprecedented kind of urbanization, fueled by elderly immigration, produced some cities (Flagstaff, Arizona, Naples, Florida, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for example) where a large part of the popula- tion is of retirement age, with all kinds of ramifications for local economic development, politics, and quality of life. The Burden of Youth The Baby Bust generation, born between 1965 and 1980, has also been a significant influence on patterns of urbanization and urban culture. Also called Generation X, the cultural label placed on them is “slackers” because some of the most famous, such as Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana, were associated with grunge music and the anti-establishment attitude it stood for. Those people born between 1981 and 1995 called Generation Y (Millennials, Echo Boomers, i-Generation, or NetGeneration) may be even less hard-working and more money-hungry than Generation X or the baby boomers. 13 The Urban Dictionary Web site recently added the term “Slackoisie” (pronounced slack-wah-zee), defined as “narcissistic young professionals who often com- plain about work, are critical of long hours, and have an exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement.” Yet Generation X and Generation Y will be the ones that have to “mop up” after the flood of Baby Boomers moves up the career ladder toward retirement. The sheer size of the baby boom cohort (along with the relatively high salaries and benefits in line with their seniority) will affect the burden of taxes, health care, and other benefit costs that fall to Generations X and Y, as well as affecting their career prospects and job mobility. The New Immigrants Another demographic trend with important implications for patterns of U.S. urbanization has been the increasing number of immigrants (the global financial meltdown notwithstanding). Initially, one of the main reasons for the increase was the abolition in 1965 of the ceiling and quota systems that had been introduced by the immigration acts of the 1920s (p. 62). Even without taking into account illegal immigrants (estimated at about 11 million by the Department of Homeland Security), immigration accounted for nearly one-third of the population growth within the urban system for the past few decades. In marked contrast to earlier waves of immigration, the dominant nationalities among the arrivals since the 1970s have been from Latin America and Asia rather than Europe. In 2009, 40 percent of the 1,130,818 immigrants who were granted legal permanent resident status were from Latin America, and a further 36 percent were from Asia (including Russia). Only 9 percent were from Europe. At the same time, many of the descendants of the earlier generations of immigrants who had come from Europe were moving out of the cores of older metropolitan areas as they established themselves in U.S. society. As a result, the ethnic composition of cities has changed. Cambodian, Colombian, Cuban, Dominican, Haitian, Jamaican, Korean, and Vietnamese neighborhoods are now elements of the social mosaic of many Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 99 URBAN VIEW 4.3 Boomerang Generation: Y Us? In a world that is run by media, the issue of unemploy- ment in college graduates was addressed in an episode of Greek on ABC Family that aired on January 31, 2011. In season 4, episode 5, entitled “Home Coming and Going,” Asleigh Howard, the sorority girl and recent graduate of the fictional CRU, struggles to face the harsh reality of leaving the comfortable bubble of college and entering into the working world . . . Best friend and fellow sorority sister, Casey Cartwright, urges Ashleigh to think of what’s best for her right now and settle for any paying job. But Ashleigh is not yet ready to give up the dream of a career . . . We are a generation that has been told all our lives that we can do whatever we want when we grow up, as long as we work hard and study harder . . . So we go to college, work hard, and now have nothing to show for it . . . This painfully true insight is what is forcing so many Millennials to give up their dreams, move back home with their parents, and settle for any job with a paycheck. 14 After World War II, young people left the army, started jobs and families, and created the Baby Boom generation. Now many young people who graduate from college are unsuccessful in their attempt to start a career in a tough job market, and saddled with high student loan and credit card debt, are forced to move back into their parents’ homes, creating the Boomerang generation. In 2010, the Pew Research Center reported that 37 percent of 18 to 29 year olds were either unemployed or out of the labor force. 15 College seniors who graduated from college in 2009 carried an average student loan debt of $24,000. 16 It should come as no great surprise then when a survey by the AFL-CIO finds that one in three young workers (those younger than 35) were living at home with their parents. 17 U.S. cities, replacing or supplementing the older ethnic residen- tial concentrations of past waves of immigrants. There are some significant differences, however, in the destinations of these new immigrants. New York has traditionally been the most powerful single magnet, the metropolitan area being the place of residence of the largest number of legal permanent resident immigrants each year. Other important magnets now include metropolitan areas on the West Coast, Southwest, and Southeast—places that historically attracted relatively few immigrants. The impact of recent immigra- tion, measured in terms of immigrant arrivals as a percentage of the total population, is now greatest in Los Angeles and Miami, while New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Boston are the only traditional destinations among the ten metropolitan areas with the highest rates of immigration (the others being San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta). In short, recent streams of immigra- tion are highly differentiated and have enormous impacts. This is a topic we will discuss in more detail in Chapter 12. ECONOMIC CRISIS, RESTRUCTURING, AND NEW METROPOLITAN FORM (1973–PRESENT) Economic Crisis and Urban Distress (1973–1983) The period of postwar economic prosperity came to an abrupt end at the beginning of the 1970s in the United States and Western Europe. In October 1973 an Arab-Israeli war led Arab countries to impose an embargo on shipments of oil to the United States and other Western countries, and, soon afterward, OPEC quadrupled oil prices. The subsequent shock to the economic system reinforced a number of long-term structural economic problems, with the result that the U.S. economy was plunged into an episode of stagflation (falling demand and rising inflation). During the 1960s productivity in U.S. manufacturing had averaged between 2 and 3 percent growth each year. By the late 1970s productivity had fallen to less than 1 percent annual growth. At the end of the 1970s the average U.S. family had only 7 percent more real purchasing power than a decade before. Between 1970 and 1983 the average weekly wages of U.S. work- ers fell, in real terms, from $375 to $365. Between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, the average weekly wages for production workers continued to fall, in real terms. Unemployment, having remained steady at around 4.5 percent until the early 1970s, reached 8.5 percent in 1974 and a peak of almost 10 percent in 1982. In 1971 the U.S. economy recorded its first trade deficit of the twentieth century; since then it has only twice shown a positive balance of trade with the rest of the world, in 1973 and 1975. By 1983 the United States had slipped below Switzerland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, and Finland in the international league table of per capita gross domestic product (GDP ). The fourfold rise in oil prices in 1973 as a result of the OPEC cartel is widely believed to have been responsible for initiating this downturn. The truth, however, is that the sudden rise in energy prices only brought to a head a series of longer-term trends that were already working against the U.S. economy. Falling demand and rising inflation (stagflation) were aggravated by both the increasing penetration of Japanese and European companies into American markets and increased competition from newly industrializing economies or NIEs (such as Taiwan, Mexico, Hong Kong, and South Korea) with significantly lower labor costs. At the same time, there was a shift to new technology systems . As with previous periods of transformation, many of the new industries, based on new technologies and exploiting new resources, needed new settings. Cities that had been the chief settings for “old” industries, meanwhile, experienced the brunt of economic and social dislocation . The result was a period of economic crisis that reverberated around the urban system while corporate America attempted to come to grips with the new situation. Within a decade corporate restructuring and redeployment had accelerated the decentralization of jobs from the older industrial neighborhoods of central cities (particularly in the Manufacturing Belt) and had 100 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 4.4 Contemporary European Urbanization 18 For many visitors to Europe, the most striking aspect of the older parts of European cities is the general absence of skyscraper offices and high-rise apartments. Cities were developed long before reinforced steel construction and the elevator made high-rises feasible. Building codes—to minimize the spread of fire—maintained building heights between three and five stories during the industrial period. Paris fixed the building height at 65 feet in 1795, and other large cities introduced height restrictions in the nineteenth century. Still regulated today, high-rises are found only in redevelopment areas or on land at the edge of the city, like La Défense in Paris (Figure 4.17). Skyscrapers have also been built in the central financial districts of some of the very largest cities, including London. In the former socialist parts of Europe, there was no private ownership of land, and so no urban land market. Until recently, the tallest buildings were usually Communist Party and state administrative buildings, massive “Houses of the People,” and TV towers. A glance at a map of Europe shows that each country developed its own national capital city and urban system. Historically, rural-to-urban migration was the most important component of urban growth, especially during the industrial period. This form of internal migration within Europe, though, has largely ceased. And as birth rates have fallen consider- ably in recent decades, European cities are among the slowest growing in the world. Even so, cities in Europe have begun to expand outward and coalesce into megapolitan regions in tandem with the transpor- tation and communications infrastructure. Europe now contains about 50 megapolitan regions with more than a million inhabitants. The Rhine-Ruhr megapolitan region in Germany has a diameter of about 70 miles and runs from Düsseldorf and Duisburg in the west to Dortmund in the east. Of similar diameter is the Randstad, a densely populated horseshoe-shaped region in the Netherlands that runs from Utrecht and Amsterdam in the north through The Hague and Rotterdam in the west, to Dordrecht in the southeast. Only 60 miles apart, these two megapolitan regions may eventually coalesce to become a dominant European metropolitan core. The metropolitan regions between London and Newcastle form another area of extensive urbanization in England. European urban areas are part of networks of cities that operate at a number of spatial scales. Since 1989, cities on either side of the former Iron Curtain have become more interconnected. Increasing European Union (EU) economic and political integration has influenced the development of the European urban system. For example, the removal of national barriers to trade within the EU, with the internationalization of the European economy, has encouraged population increases along certain border regions. Urban growth zones straddle the boundaries between the Netherlands and Germany, Italy and Switzerland, and the southern Rhine regions of France, Germany, and Switzerland. European cities are linked through trade and other mech- anisms to major urban areas throughout the global economy. Many of the cities within the EU form part of an international trading bloc—an evolving Eurozone—that contains nearly half a billion people with a combined gross national income greater than that of the United States. A select group of cities contain the headquarters of major international agencies, many of which were founded after World War II to promote economic, political, or military cooperation. Geneva is the main European center for the United Nations. Paris is the headquarters for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Space Agency. Vienna is the headquarters for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Important decision-making functions are located in the EU’s “capital cities”: Brussels (with many of the bureaucratic structures, including the Council and European Commission), Strasbourg (the Parliament), and Luxembourg (Court of Justice and Court of Auditors). Brussels is also the head- quarters of NATO. The major centers of international banking and finance in Europe historically have been London and Paris, but now include Frankfurt, Zürich, and Luxembourg. Frankfurt hosts the Bundesbank, Germany’s influential central bank, as well as the European Central Bank that manages the euro, making it the financial capital of the EU. London is the only European city to have grown in status to become a world city on a par with New York. London and Paris contain the headquarters of some of the most powerful transnational corporations in the world. London contains about 17 of the 500 largest global companies (58% of the United Kingdom’s total), including BP, HSBC, and Lloyds. Paris has even more—25 of these companies (64% of France’s total), including AXA, Christian Dior, and Vivendi. Rome contains Vatican City, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church. Milan and Paris are major European centers of fashion and design, while London is the premier insurance center. Accessibility via the latest transportation and communications technologies allows some cities to strengthen their international positions. The high-speed train network reinforces the dominance of London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Cologne. The cities with the busiest airports are London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam. FIGURE 4.17 At the edge of the otherwise low-rise center of Paris with its Arc de Triomphe (Figure 3.20), La Défense, with its modern arch, is a purpose-built edge city designed to serve as a business district for the French capital city. Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 101 stimulated the growth of new production space in Sunbelt cities, where land, labor, and local taxes were all cheaper. The political repercussions of recession, meanwhile, led to a decisive shift away from the Keynesian approach to macro- economic management and to a significant change in attitudes toward metropolitan management. Although the deepening economic recession after 1973 accentuated the vulne rability of more and more households, recession also made it difficult, both politically and economically, to finance the welfare programs that had expanded dramatically in the 1960s (p. 376). Taxpayer “revolts,” led by Proposition 13 in California in 1978 and Proposition 2½ in Massachusetts in 1980, were followed by electoral victories by politicians who argued that not only had Keynesianism generated unreasonably high levels of taxation, a bloated class of govern- ment workers, and disincentives for ordinary people to work and save, but it also may have fostered soft attitudes toward problem groups in society. It was part of an ideological shift from the egali- tarian liberalism of the mid-twentieth century to a neoliberalism that was first marked by the government of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom (1979–1990) and the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) in the United States. Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell have characterized the process as a combination of “roll-back” neoliberalism and “roll-out” neoliberalism . Roll-backs have meant deregulating finance and industry, dismantling public housing programs, privatizing public space, cutbacks in redistributive welfare programs, shed- ding many of the traditional roles of central and local governments as mediators and regulators, curbs on the power and influence of labor unions and government agencies, and reducing investment in the physical infrastructure of roads, bridges, and public utilities. Roll-out neoliberalism has involved establishing public- private partnerships, encouraging central city gentrification, creating free-trade zones, enterprise zones and other deregu- lated spaces, asserting the principle of “highest and best use” for land-use planning decisions, and privatizing government services. Brenner and Theodore suggest that the implicit goal of neoliberalism at the metropolitan scale has been “to mobilize city space as an arena both for market-oriented economic growth and for elite consumption practices.” 19 The effect has been to “hollow out” the capacity of the central governments while forcing municipal governments to become increasingly entrepreneurial in pursuit of jobs and revenues; pro-business in terms of their expenditures; and oriented to the kinds of planning that keep property values high. Similarly, urban planning practice has become estranged from theory and divorced from any broad sense of the public interest: pragmatically tuned to economic and political constraints rather than committed to change through progressive visions. Public-private partnerships have become the standard vehicle for achieving change, replacing the strategic role of planning with piecemeal dealmaking. For their part, many larger companies responded to the stagflation crisis by reorganizing their production processes, eliminating the duplication of activities among existing facili- ties, rearranging the division of tasks among them, closing down or trimming back activities in high-cost locations, investing in new facilities in low-cost locations (often overseas), and diversifying into nonmanufacturing activities. The economic sector that was hit hardest by the crisis was the traditional man- ufacturing sector, and the cities that were most impacted were specialized manufacturing centers. Already suffering from post- World War II regional decentralization, the Manufacturing Belt fell into an accelerated decline that has been characterized as deindustrialization ( Figure 4.18 ). In Youngstown, Ohio, which became emblematic of deindustrialization, the closure of the Campbell Steel Works in 1977 eliminated more than 10,000 jobs overnight. During the 1970s, Detroit lost more than 166,000 jobs (a loss of nearly 30 percent of its 1970 employment base), while nearby Flint lost nearly 16,000 jobs (a 23 percent loss). Deindustrialization on this scale involved a mutually reinforcing series of problems: a sort of cumulative causation in reverse FIGURE 4.18 Padlocked gates symbolize deindustrialization. The photograph shows a Ford Motor Company plant in Wixom, Michigan, that was closed in 2007. 102 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography (Figure4.19). Plant closures led to job losses in ancillary industries, and these in turn led to recession in retailing and personal services. Unemployment and underemployment led to lower incomes and increased levels of poverty, which in turn led to outmigration. Decreased prosperity within communities came to be seen in aging housing and infrastructure and was reflected in weakened tax bases, which meant that city governments were unable to maintain or improve public services or amenities. In some cases the loss of tax revenues, combined with increasing needs in terms of infrastruc- ture maintenance and the provision of services and amenities, led to fiscal crises that threatened to bankrupt cities (see Chapter 10). All this amounted to a discouraging environment for investment, at least until wages and land prices were driven so low that some kind of comparative advantage might be recaptured. Meanwhile, many cities and the people who lived in them became acutely distressed. It would be misleading, however, to portray the decade from 1973 to 1982 as a period of unmitigated economic gloom. Some sectors of the economy were able to prosper, while the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973 and the doubling of oil prices in 1979 enabled oil and petrochemical companies to generate vast profits. Yet, with much of the economy unable to offer attractive prospects for investment, the result was a classic overaccumulation crisis , with surplus labor, surplus money capital, and idle productive capacity existing side by side. Economic Restructuring and New Metropolitan Form (1983–Present) As in previous periods of economic and urban development, new technologies have been critically important in facilitating the restructuring of the U.S. and European economies. Since the 1980s three kinds of “permissive” or enabling technologies have been significant: • Production process technologies such as electronically controlled assembly lines, automated machine tools, robotics, and computerized sewing systems have increased the separability and flexibility of production processes. It is now easier for companies to take advantage of spatial variations in the costs of labor and land. • Transaction technologies , and computer-based just-in-time inventory control systems in particular, have also increased companies’ locational and organizational flexibility, allowing materials, components, or information to be purchased as and when needed and eliminating the necessity for large buffer stocks of parts. • Circulation technologies such as communications satellites, fiber-optic networks, microwave communica- tions, e-mail, and wide-bodied jets have reduced the time and cost of distribution, bringing a wider geographic market within the range of an increasing range of business activities. As larger corporations have exploited the locational and organizational flexibility made possible by these new circulation and transaction technologies, so new divisions of labor have evolved among metropolitan areas nationally and internationally. It is important to emphasize that the “time-space compression” of these new technologies has, paradoxically, heightened the importance of geography. The reduction of spatial barriers has had the effect of greatly magnifying the significance of small differences between local labor and land markets, because new technologies enable these differences to be quickly (if tempo- rarily) exploited. As a result, the urban system is becoming a continuously variable geometry of labor, capital, management, production, and consumption. Meanwhile, the pace of change has been accelerating, raising some important questions about Local agglomeration diseconomies (congestion, land price, inflation, etc.) Markets for product of local industry become saturated and/or and/or Loss of market share through competition from firms located in places with lower factor costs Loss of jobs in major local industry: “deindustrialization” Loss of jobs in local construction, service industries Loss of jobs in ancillary industries Shrinking local tax base and tax yield Deteriorating infrastructure and quality of life FIGURE 4.19 Deindustrialization and the downward spiral of economic decline. Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 103 FIGURE 4.20 Urban Australia, including its largest cities, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth. Most people in Australia live near the coast and the beach. 1 95 94 1 1 95 1A 1 87 8 20 32 1 78 66 66 66 71 54 17 71 32 15 20 34 79 79 39 15 23 1 1 1 1 38 31 Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Hobart Launcetown Adelaide Perth Darwin Mount Isa Alice Springs Dampier Wiluna Geraldton Fremantle Bunbury Northcliffe AlbanyEsperance Kalgoorlie Hyden Narrogin Broken Hill Kingston Bendigo Bathurst Tamworth Toowoomba Bundaberg Rockhampton Townsville Cairns Weipa CanberraWollongongNewcastle Ballarat Geelong Smithton Port Augusta Port Lincoln NORTHERN TERRITORY WESTERN AUSTRALIA SOUTH AUSTRALIA QUEENSLAND NEW SOUTH WALES VICTORIA AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY TASMANIA PAPUA NEW GUINEA INDONESIA EAST TIMOR SOUTHERNOCEAN INDIAN OCEAN Coral Sea Tasman Sea Timor Sea Arafura Sea 30° 20° 10° 30° 40° 20° 10° 130° 130° 150° 140°150° 160° Under 50,000 50,001–250,000 250,001–1,000,000 1,000,001–5,000,000 Australian core area POPULATION 0 300 600 Kilometers 0 300 600 Miles URBAN VIEW 4.5 Australian Cities Most people in Australia live within a relatively narrow—125-mile wide—band along the east, southeast, and southwest coasts, which includes its largest cities—Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth (Figure 4.20). 21 The beach has a special place in Australian people’s identity and recreational activities that include sunbathing and surfing. Away from the coast, settlement is very sparse, especially in the desert areas of the outback. 22 Although people and businesses have been decentralizing to the suburbs of the largest cities since the 1950s, Australian central cities have never suffered the same level of disinvestment, infrastructure deterioration, and racial segregation as those in the United States. Meanwhile, the recent economic restructuring toward business and professional services and other services such as tourism has tended to reinforce the corporate primacy of Australian CBDs. The relative lack of urban freeway construction and peripheral ring roads has worked against the development of edge cities in Australia. Likewise, despite suburbanization, the radial orientation of the transportation networks has helped maintain central city vitality and facilitated recent urban revitalization. In contrast to the United States, stricter planning regulations in Australian cities have also helped restrict the development of edge cities. State government planning agencies in Australia have tightly managed land release for urban expansion and for the staging of corridor development. In addition, by specifying the location and assigning land for “district centers,” state governments have curbed specu- lative business development beyond the edge of the built-up area. That is not to say that economic restructuring has not had an impact on Australian cities. In contrast to the experience in the United States, however, the brunt of deindustrialization in Australia has been quite selective in that it has most adversely affected the postwar industrial suburbs. Particularly hard hit have been the middle and outer suburbs in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide that formerly contained both the traditional manufac- turing jobs and the public housing developments that were built for factory workers and their families. This public housing, and tracts of low-rent accommodation surrounding public resettle- ment hostels, now contain a significant proportion of recent immigrants, many of whom arrived in Australia from Southeast Asia as “boat people” and political refugees. Nevertheless, the level of ethnic residential segregation in Australia is not as extreme as in U.S. central cities such as Detroit and Milwaukee. (continued) 104 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography FIGURE 4.21 Gentrification in The Rocks, Sydney. The Rocks is the site of Australia’s first European settlement. High levels of housing reinvestment associated with gentrification have been a feature in central parts of Australian cities. Like the United States, however, Australia has experienced a polarization of occupations and incomes that has been associ- ated with economic restructuring. Unlike the trend in U.S. cities, however, the growth of business and professional services jobs in Australian cities has been associated with a particularly strong centralization of wealth. High levels of housing reinvestment associated with the gentrification of the inner suburbs have been a feature of Australian cities (Figure 4.21). Since the 1970s, as Australian cities have become increas- ingly integrated into regional and global networks of cities, the national and state governments have adopted neoliberal strat- egies to revitalize the old industrial landscapes and waterfront areas of the city centers (see Chapter 11). The national Better Cities program, for example, incorporated strategic investment in urban infrastructure and other projects with the goal of enabling cities like Sydney to capture a greater share of the financial flows in the Pacific region and move up in the league table of world cities. As in the case of the neoliberal policies in the United States and United Kingdom, however, the Better Cities public-private partnerships have promoted upscale central city revitalization projects—luxury downtown apartments and condominiums, and festival marketplaces—at the expense of affordable housing. what might happen to the social stability of cities, civic loyalties, and people’s sense of place (Chapter 14). One of the most important aspects of the new intermetro- politan division of labor concerns the location of professional and business services whose growth has been a fundamental part of the shift to advanced and now globalized capitalism. Although much of this growth occurred in larger metropolitan areas, the greatest proportional growth has been in midsized metropolitan areas. Much of this growth has been localized and specialized. Boston, for example, has become a major center for computer and data-processing services, engineering services, and R&D laboratories. Washington, D.C., has a concentration of jobs in management consulting services; San Jose in personnel supply services, R&D laboratories, and computer and data-processing services; Raleigh–Durham, Austin, and Orlando in service jobs related to high-technology industries; and Huntsville, Colorado Springs, and Norfolk in R&D labs and private professional and business services related to military activity. 20 World Cities Whereas the dominance of large traditional manufacturing centers in the United States and Western Europe characterized the urban systems from the turn of the twentieth century to the 1950s the pivotal role of metropolitan areas specializing in service industries, particularly producer services, characterizes these urban systems under globalized capitalism. With global- ized capitalism, some cities (not necessarily the very largest) have become so closely integrated within the global economic system that they are known as “world cities.” The term world city originated in 1915 with Patrick Geddes, a leading figure in the evolution of city planning. Geddes used it to highlight the primacy of those few cities in which a disproportionate amount of the world’s business was conducted. The fact that the term world city predates contemporary globalization processes points to the changing nature of spatial interdependence. In the first phases of capitalism (Figure 1.5), the key roles of world cities involved the organization of trade and the implementation of colonial, imperial, and geopolitical strategies. Among the world cities of the seventeenth century were London, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Genoa, Lisbon, and Venice. In the eighteenth century, Paris, Rome, and Vienna became world cities, while Antwerp and Genoa became less influential. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the likes of Berlin, Chicago, and Manchester became world cities, while Venice and Lisbon became less prominent. Since the mid-1970s, the key roles of world cities have been concerned less with the orchestration of trade and the deployment of imperial power, and more with transna- tional corporate organization; international banking and finance; fashion, design, and the media; and the work of international agencies. World cities have become the sites of extraordinary concentrations of activities associated with organizing finance and investment and creating and managing flows of information and cultural products that collectively underpin the economic and cultural globaliza- tion of the world, including processes of neocolonialism and postcolonialism. URBAN VIEW 4.5 Australian Cities ( continued ) Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 105 World cities provide an interface between the global and the local. They contain the economic, cultural, and institutional apparatus that channels national and provin- cial resources into the global economy, and that transmits the impulses of globalization back to national and provin- cial centers. Cities that have been most caught up in these processes—London and New York, in particular—have been called “global cities” by sociologist Saskia Sassen. Central to Sassen’s argument are the agglomerative tendencies and dynamics of advanced business services and design services that result in the distinctive clusters and districts that are the locus of influence and innovation ( Figure 4.22 ). These clus- ters are reinforced by some important aspects of sociality: personal interaction with clients and after-work drinking and dining in settings where key professionals can learn about new opportunities, review one another’s products and prac- tices, and keep abreast of the internal politics of one another’s companies. But the system of world cities is not just a collection of mini-Londons and little New Yorks. All world cities have mixtures of cutting edge economic functions that need not just be advanced producer services. Also, as geographer Peter Taylor has pointed out, world cities exist in networks that are complex and multilayered. One set of networks, for example, is constituted by the infrastructures of airline, telephonic, and Internet systems. Another is constituted by the relations among and between companies conducting business with a global reach; and another still is constituted by the social as well as economic relations within the distinc- tive clusters and business districts that characterize world FIGURE 4.22 Office workers in the City of London, England. cities. In an increasingly interconnected world, many “or- dinary” cities have developed certain attributes of world- or global-cityness: settings for innovative production clusters in the fields of information and communications technol- ogy, medical engineering, biotechnology, the media indus- try, and for minor concentrations of transnational corporate organization; international banking and finance; fashion, design, and the media; and international nonprofit and gov- ernment agencies. Using data on the office networks of global service firms in accountancy, advertising, banking/finance, insurance, law, and management consultancy, Taylor and his colleagues have iden- tified overall levels of integration within the world city network, resulting in a classification of top-level world cities ( Table 4.1 ). London and New York are tightly inter-related with one another and both are significantly more integrated in the overall world city network than any other city. Hong Kong has emerged as the third most highly integrated city. Note that, apart from New York, Chicago and Los Angeles are the only United States cities listed in Table 4.1 . In the U.S., cities have always exhibited lower levels of integration in the world city system than might be expected, mainly because of the very large domestic market for advanced business services. This means that foreign companies find it difficult to penetrate the U.S. market and tend to represent clients through just a New York TABLE 4.1 Alpha-level World Cities Alpha ++ Alpha + Alpha Alpha − London Hong Kong Madrid Warsaw New York Paris Moscow Sao Paulo Singapore Toronto Zurich Tokyo Brussels Amsterdam Sydney Buenos Aires Mexico City Milan Mumbai Jakarta Shanghai Kuala Lumpur Dublin Beijing Chicago Bangkok Taipei Istanbul Rome Lisbon Frankfurt Stockholm Prague Vienna Budapest Athens Caracas Los Angeles Auckland Santiago Source: Taylor et al., Measuring the World City Network: New Developments and Results, GaWC Research Bulletin 300, 2009; http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/ rb/rb300.html. 106 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography investment in networked infrastructures of information and communications technologies—due to their cultures of modernization, concentrations of capital, relatively high average disposable personal incomes, and con- centrations of internationally oriented companies and institutions. In contrast to the infrastructure networks of earlier tech- nology systems that underpinned previous phases of urban- ization, these information and communications technologies are not locally owned, operated, and regulated. Rather, they are designed, financed, and operated by transnational corporations to global market standards. Detached from local processes of urban development, these critical net- worked infrastructures are highly uneven in their impact, and contribute to the so-called digital divide because they selectively serve only certain neighborhoods, certain cities, and certain kinds of metropolitan settings. Geographers Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin refer to this tendency as splintering urbanism . 24 Splintering urbanism is characterized by an intense geographical differentiation, with individual cities and parts of cities engaged in different—and rapidly changing—ways in ever- broadening and increasingly complex circuits of economic and technological exchange. Traditional patterns of urbanization have been overwritten by a very new dynamic dominated by enclaves of superconnected people, companies, and institutions, with their increasingly broadband connections to elsewhere via the Internet, mobile phones, iPads, and satellite TVs and their easy access to information services. We can identify several distinctive kinds of urban settings that are the product of splintering urbanism: • Enclaves of international banking, finance, and business services in world cities and major regional centers. Examples include the business districts in Lower Manhattan, the City of London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur. • Enclaves of Internet and digital multimedia technology development, mostly in world cities in the developed countries. Examples include “Multimedia Gulch” in the SOMA (South of Market Street) district of downtown San Francisco and New York’s “Silicon Alley” (just south of 41st Street in Manhattan). • Technopoles and clusters of high-tech industrial innovation. These have emerged in campus-like subur- ban settings around world cities in developed countries (as in London, Paris, and Berlin); in new and renewed industrial regions within developed countries (as in southern California, Baden-Württemberg in Germany, and Rhône-Alps in France); and in emerging high- tech production and innovation spaces in NIEs (as in Bangalore, India, and the Multimedia Super Corridor south of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). • Places configured for foreign direct investment (FDI) in manufacturing, with customized infrastructure, expe- dited development approval processes, tax concessions, and, in some cases, exceptions to labor and environmental office. It also means that U.S. business service firms, with a big domestic market, have less reason to gamble on global expansion. These world cities have not only experienced profound changes in their economic and demographic profiles but also undergone dramatic transformations in their physical appearance. These include gentrification (p. 228), branded neighborhoods, large-scale urban regeneration projects, iconic buildings, and “semiotic districts” specializing in goods and services with high semiotic content: flagship stores, megastores, shops-in-shops, high-end restaurants, cafés, art galleries, antique stores, and luxury retail shops. World cities derive a huge comparative advantage as a result of the image they acquire from the particular concen- trations of products, business services, and companies they are associated with: advertising and finance in New York; architecture, insurance, and banking in London; haute couture in Paris; logistics in Singapore; design in Milan; and so on. Favorable images, reinforced and amplified by the media and movies, create entry barriers for competing places, while the wealth generated in successful cities helps them to become thriving settings for high-end consumption, establishing them in turn as global tastemakers. These positive images of world cities relate, of course, to their “front regions”: the financial districts, cultural quarters, design districts, entertainment districts, and semiotic districts that are the principal settings for activities with international connections. Less well publicized and documented are the “back regions” of world cities—their gentrified neighborhoods, neobohemias, and “ordinary” neighborhoods—and the associated issues of difference, diversity and inequality. Globalization and Urban Change Networked infrastructures of transportation, information, and communications technologies, such as telephone systems, satellite television, computer networks, electronic commerce, and business-to-business Internet services are central to the increasingly important relationship between urbanization and globalization. According to UN-Habitat (the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements), 23 information and commu- nications technologies are intensifying global urbanization in three main ways: 1. They allow specialist urban centers, with their high value- added services and high-tech manufacturing, to extend their powers, markets, and control to ever-more distant regional, national, international, and global spheres of influence. 2. The growing speed, complexity, and riskiness of inno- vation in a global economy require a concentration of technological infrastructure and an associated know- ledgeable technology-oriented culture in order to sustain competitiveness. 3. Demand for information and communications tech- nologies is overwhelmingly driven by the growth of metropolitan markets. World cities especially are dis- proportionately important in driving innovation and Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 107 URBAN VIEW 4.6 Japanese Cities: Tokyo and the Tokaido Megapolitan Region 25 Japan’s phenomenal economic growth in the decades following World War II stimulated dramatic urban development. Between 1950 and 1970 the percentage of people living in cities with a population of 50,000 or more rose from 33 to 64 percent, while the overall urban population reached 72 percent. As the population in cities exploded, the number and size of larger cit- ies increased dramatically. Since 1970 the urban population has continued to increase, but more slowly, reaching 86 percent by 2010. A distinguishing feature of Japan’s urban landscape is the concentration of its major cities into a relatively small portion of its already small land area. The Tokaido megapolitan region contains about 90 million people, about 70 percent of Japan’s population. It contains the three urban industrial regions of Keihin’y – o (Tokyo–Yokohama), with nearly 35 million people; Keihanshin (Osaka–Kobe–Kyoto), with more than 18 million; and Ch – uky – o (Nagoya), at nearly 9 million (Figure 4.23). Japan’s urban system then comprises a capital region centered on the primate city of Tokyo and the other regions elsewhere in Japan. The rapid urban growth from the late 1950s through the early 1970s saw a shift in population from the rural areas to the big cities in general and to Tokyo in particular. Since then, rural- to-urban migration has been increasingly toward Tokyo at the expense of the rest of the country. The plans for Tokyo’s urban development that were drawn up immediately after World War II were not all implemented. Instead, the city experienced largely haphazard growth that produced congestion and a disorganized city layout. In general, urban growth has been concentrated around key subcenters, such as Shibuya, Shinjuku (an edge city that is now the city government headquarters), and along the key transporta- tion arteries (rail and expressway) radiating outward from the Chiyoda District, the old historic core of the Imperial Palace. In contrast to many U.S. cities, Tokyo’s CBD has main- tained its corporate primacy. This has occurred despite the decentralization of middle-income workers to peripheral areas in search of affordable housing as land costs spiraled upward in the 1980s in the lead-up to the recession of the 1990s. The workers who commute to the central city each day use one of the busiest and most crowded mass transit systems in the world—the average Tokyo commute is a two-hour journey in each direction. The March 11, 2011 Sendai 9.0 magnitude earthquake, tsunami, and damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant wreaked havoc on the lives of people living less than 200 miles northeast of Tokyo. Initial estimates are that the cost of the damage to roads, homes, factories, and infrastruc- ture will exceed $300 billion, making it the world’s most costly natural disaster. Tokyo’s municipal government has emergency response plans for earthquakes that involve evacuation to open spaces like large parks and for tsunamis that involve evacuation to higher ground farther away. The Japanese government also enforces strict building codes in seismic areas and runs public education programs. Nevertheless, had the earthquake hit Tokyo, where the Sendai earthquake was felt, the human and economic toll would have been much worse than in the Sendai area because of the concentration of people and administrative and commercial activities in Japan’s capital city and mega- politan region. (continued) regulations. Such places have emerged in economically depressed regions of developed countries (including Northern England and parts of the U.S. Manufacturing Belt) but are mostly found in or near major cities in less developed countries (as in the Brazilian cities of Porto Alegre and Paranà, which have attracted foreign-owned auto plants). • Enclaves of back-office spaces, data-processing, e-commerce, and call centers. These have emerged in older industrial cities within developed countries (such as Roanoke, USA, and Sunderland, England) and in many cities within NIEs, most notably in India, the Philippines, and the Caribbean. • Spaces customized as “logistics zones.” Airports, ports, export processing zones : enclaves in major cities around the world within which the precise and rapid move- ment of goods, freight, and people are coordinated, managed, and synchronized between various transport modes. Connected to one another through a complex dynamic of flows, these urban spaces and settings are key elements in the spatial articulation of economic globalization. They are embedded within regions and metropolitan areas whose economic foundations derive from earlier technology systems and whose social and cultural fabric derives from more tradi- tional bases. The result is that the local effects of splintering urbanism are transforming traditional patterns of land use and spatial organization in many parts of the world. The Polycentric Metropolis Until the middle of the twentieth century, urban and metro- politan form could safely be conceptualized in terms of the outcomes of processes of competition for land and of ecolo- gical processes of congregation and segregation—all pivoting tightly around a dominant central business district and trans- portation hub (Figure 3.36). Since then, urban development, now a product of the combination of increased automobility and the blossoming of egalitarian liberalism in the form of massive federal outlays on highway construction and mort- gage insurance, developed urban realms—semiautonomous subregions bound together through urban freeways—has 108 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 4.6 Japanese Cities: Tokyo and the Tokaido Megapolitan Region ( continued) FIGURE 4.23 Tokaido megapolitan region. A distinguishing feature of Japan’s urban landscape is the concentration of its major cities into a relatively small portion of its already small land area. The Tokaido Megalopolis contains about 90 million people, about 70 percent of Japan’s population. It comprises three major urban industrial regions centered on Tokyo–Yokohama, Osaka–Kobe–Kyoto, and Nagoya. KYOTO Tottori Yonago Okayama Himeji KOBE Toyohashi Kochi Matsuyama Hiroshima Tokuyama Shimonoseki Fukuoka Sasebo Kure Sapporo Wakkanai YOKOHAMA Hachioji Matsumoto Komatsu Kanazawa Toyama JoetsuNiigata Akita Hirosaki Utsunomiya Ichinomiya Gifu Takasaki Omiya TOKYO NAGOYA OSAKA Muroto Kagoshima Nobeoka Oita Omuta Kitakyushu Kumamoto Nagasaki Takamatsu Wakayama Hamamatsu Shizuoka ShimizuYokosuka Kawasaki ChibaTsuchiura Iwaki Fukushima Sensai Ishinomaki Moroioka Hachinohe Mutsu Hakodate Muroran Tomakomai Asahikawa ObihiroKushiro Nemuro Toba KYUSHU SHIKOKU HONSHUHOKKAIDO 130° 140° 40° 30° 140° PACIFIC OCEAN Sea of Japan SOUTH KOREA NORTH KOREA RUSSIA 0 100 200 Kilometers 0 100 200 Miles Primary region Sedondary region Agriculture Major railroad Core area displaced the traditional core-periphery relationship between central cities and their suburbs. Each urban realm tends to function semi-independently, with a broad mix of land uses and populations of between 175,000 and 250,000. Each realm has retail, commercial, and residential subareas, as well as a commercial and retailing node that functions as a high-order central place for the majority of local residents. As a result, most residents of metropolitan areas had less and less to do with the central core except for occasional trips to major sporting events, large concerts, and so on. Today, the traditional form of the metropolis has slipped into history. Geographer Pierce Lewis coined the term galactic metropolis to capture the disjointed and decen- tralized urban landscapes that resulted from the splintering urbanism of globalized capitalism. The galactic metropolis is fragmented and multinodal, with mixed densities and unexpected juxtapositions of urban form and function. It is characterized by edge cities—suburban hubs of shops and offices that sometimes overshadow the old downtown. Edge cities are nodal concentrations of shopping and office space situated on the fringes of metropolitan areas, typically located on an axis with a major airport, sometimes adjacent to a high-speed train station, always linked to an urban free- way system. Examples include Washington’s Dulles corridor (Figure 4.24), London’s Heathrow district, the O’Hare area (Chicago), and Schipol (Amsterdam). The result is a poly- centric metropolitan structure that now has variants around the world. Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 109 Geographer Michael Dear notes that: It is no longer the center that organizes the urban hinterlands but the hinterlands that determine what remains of the center. The imperatives of fragmentation have become the principal dynamic in contemporary cit- ies . . . . In contemporary urban landscapes, ‘city centers’ become, in effect, an externality of fragmented urban- ism; they are frequently grafted onto the landscape as an afterthought by developers and politicians concerned with identity and tradition. Conventions of ‘suburban- ization’ become redundant in an urban process that bears no relationship to a core-related decentralization. 26 Edward Soja has offered the term “exopolis” to capture some of the key dimensions of contemporary urbanization, including the growth of edge cities and the increasing importance of external forces associated with globalization. Traditional models of metropolitan structure and traditional concepts— city, suburb, metropolis—are fast becoming examples of what sociologist Ulrich Beck calls “zombie categories,” concepts that embody nineteenth- to late-twentieth-century horizons of experience distilled into analytic categories that still mold our perceptions and sometimes blind us to the significance of contemporary change. 27 The challenges of characterizing the evolving outcomes of urbanization have in fact prompted a great variety of neologisms, including postsuburbia, exurbia, exopolis, boomburbs, cosmo- burbs, stealth cities , nerdistans, technoburbs, generica, satellite sprawl, and mallcondoville (see the Urban View 4.7 entitled “From Boomburbs to Bustburbs?”). The term “metroburbia” has emerged to capture the way that residential settings in suburban and exurban areas are thoroughly interspersed with office employment and high-end retailing. The polycentric metropolis, meanwhile, is an encompassing term for the stereo- typical urbanized region that has been extended and reshaped to accommodate increasingly complex and extensive patterns of interdependency in networks of half a dozen or more urban realms and as many as fifty nodal centers of different types and sizes, physically separate but functionally networked (Figure 4.25). 28 urban realm I urban realm II urban realm III edge city edge city edgeless city edgeless city beltway centralcity 75 24 675 FIGURE 4.25 Evolving twentieth-century metropolitan form. FIGURE 4.24 Part of the corridor of development that runs between Tysons Corner and Dulles airport, in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, an example of an edge city. 110 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography micropolitan area extendedexurbia micropolitanarea edgeless city edgeless city edgeless city metro A metro B micropolitan area edge city edge city central city central city edge city mid metro realm urban realm IIB urban realm IB urban realm IA urban realm IIA urban realm IIIA beltway 4 95 95 295 695 18 FIGURE 4.26 Evolving megapolitan form. The other side of the same coin is that central cities are no longer exclusively “urban.” Central cities have not only expe- rienced a continued deindustrialization and decentralization of jobs and population but also a selective reinvestment that has reversed the downward spiral of some neighborhoods’ decline, conserved and preserved some of the remaining fragments of past periods, and introduced residential and mixed-use developments to some areas that were formerly declining. CBDs have experienced a selective recentralization of economic activity that has brought a renaissance of urbanity and a rush of speculative building. At the heart of recent land use changes in central cities has been the growth of skilled jobs associated with advanced busi- ness services (advertising, banking, insurance, design, etc.) that have replaced the semiskilled manufacturing jobs lost through deindustrialization and the decentralization of retail- ing. These employment changes and the associated changes in household composition are dealt with in greater detail in Chapter 12. For the moment, we should note that it was the advanced business service companies that filled the office space created by the building booms of the 1980s and 1990s, and it was their employees who fueled the processes of gentri- fication (p. 228) and historic preser vation (Chapter 13). Bound together through urban freeways, arterial highways, beltways, and interstates, polycentric metropolises are them- selves now beginning to coalesce functionally into “megapoli- tan” regions that dominate national economies (Figure 4.26; see also the Urban View 4.6 entitled “Japanese cities: Tokyo and the Tokaido Megalopolis”). Indeed, the largest of the world’s polycentric metropolises have become “100-mile cities” 29— metropolitan regions that are literally 100 miles or so across, consisting of a loose coalition of central cities, urban realms, edge cities, boomburbs, office parks (“edgeless cities”), and exurbs. The End of “Suburbia” Certainly the scale and organization of metropolitan areas have reached the point where urban functions are dispersed across decentralized landscapes that are no t suburban in any traditional respect. Meanwhile, many central cities are now “central” only in the most limited geographical sense, their econ omic and de- mographic importance having been eclipsed by surrounding urban realms. Hence historian Robert Fishman’s announce- ment of the end of “suburbia.” 31 Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 111 ChandlerTempe GilbertMesa Scottsdale Glendale Peoria Corona Moreno Valley Orange Rancho Cucamonga Riverside San Bernardino Aurora Lakewood Westminster HialeahPembroke Pines Coral Springs Clearwater Naperville Henderson North Las Vegas ArlingtonIrving Carrollton Mesquite Garland Grand Prairie Plano West Valley City Chesapeake Anaheim Costa Mesa Fullerton Irvine Oxnard Simi Valley Santa Ana Santa Clarita Thousand Oaks Escondido Chula Vista Oceanside Daly City Fremont Santa Rosa Sunnyvale Salem Bellevue Fontana Lancaster Ontario Seattle San Francisco Los Angeles Las Vegas San Diego Denver Chicago Dallas Tampa Phoenix Portland Salt Lake City MiamiNorfolk 0 250 500 Miles 0 250 500 Kilometers FIGURE 4.27 Boomburbs in the United States. This map shows the distribution of the 53 places with more than 100,000 residents in 2000 that were not the largest city in their metropolitan areas and that maintained double-digit rates of population growth in the 1 980s and 1990s. URBAN VIEW 4.7 From Boomburbs to Bustburbs? 30 Between the mid-1980s and the housing crisis of the late 2000s, the population of U.S. metropolitan areas increased by double digits, and more than 25 million acres of farmland and open space (an area larger than Indiana) were developed around these metropolitan areas. During that time, the touchstones of the polycentric metro- polis were boomburbs , the fastest-growing suburban jurisdic- tions in the United States, typically located along the interstate beltways that ring large metropolitan areas in the western United States. Boomburbs do not resemble traditional central cities or older satellite cities. Although they possess most elements found in cities, such as housing, retailing, entertainment, and offices, they are not typically patterned in a traditional urban form. Boomburbs almost always lack, for example, a dense business core. As such, they can be seen as distinct from traditional cities not so much in their func- tion but in their low density and loosely configured spatial structure. Robert Lang of Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute defines boomburbs as places with more than 100,000 residents that are not the largest city in their metropolitan areas, and which maintained double-digit rates of population growth in recent decades. While boom- burbs may be found throughout the United States, they occur mostly in the Southwest, with almost half in California alone (Figure 4.27). There are more than 50 boomburbs in the United States, the most populous of which is Mesa, Arizona—bigger than such traditional large cities as Minneapolis, Miami, and St. Louis. Arlington, Texas—the second-biggest boomburb—falls just behind Pittsburgh and just ahead of Cincinnati. Even such smaller boomburbs as Chandler, Arizona, and Henderson, Nevada, surpass older mid-size cities such as Knoxville, Tennessee, Providence, Rhode Island, and Worcester, Massachusetts. In these boomburbs the scale of the development industry has been such that urbanization occurred in large increments, cutting—and within months filling—swathes of rural land with residential subdivisions, condominium complexes, bleak access roads, strip malls, parking lots, office parks, big-box stores, and, most characteristically, strip development. Beyond these strips lie subdivisions dominated by large-lot, single-family homes. Most of the architecture and urban design is without merit, adding up to what architect Rem Koolhaas has called “Generica.” Following the logic of a fast return on investment and flexibility in use, most commercial structures are simple boxes, while economies of scale dictated a cookie-cutter approach for all but the most upscale residential subdivisions—where “monster homes,” “starter castles,” and “McMansions” took over as the norm. The recent recession and housing crisis caused decades of double-digit growth to come to a screeching halt for nearly half of the boomburbs in the United States. It may now be necessary to consider replacing the “boom” in the name with “bust” for those boomburbs that have lost population in the last few years. Fifteen—among them Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle; Coral Springs, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale; Fullerton, California, near Los Angeles; and Lakewood, Colorado, near Denver—are ending the decade with less than a 10 percent overall growth in population because of recent losses. “They will drop out of boomburb status,” says Lang who goes on to say that this “may signal a real shift in the American landscape where suburbs can no longer assume to be gaining on traditional cities.” “The irony is that if they want to keep growing, they must grow as cities, which is diametrically opposite to how they got so big in the first place” concludes Lang. 112 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography FIGURE 4.28 South Street Seaport in New York City, one of a number of high-profile “specialty marketplace” projects designed to attract both residents and tourists by utilizing waterfront locations and historic buildings to create settings in which people can sho p, promenade, and safely engage in the timeless pursuit of people watching. greenbelt cities (p. 94) metropolitan consolidation (p. 88) regional decentralization (p. 88) “roll-back” neoliberalism and “roll-out” neoliberalism (p. 101) splintering urbanism (p. 106) urban realms (p. 107) world cities (p. 104) annexation (p. 91) balloon-frame construction (p. 92) boomburb (p. 111) civic entrepreneurialism (p. 112) cumulative causation (p. 89) edge city (p. 108) enabling technologies (p. 102) galactic metropolis (p. 108) Key Terms Between them these changes transformed many of the landscapes of central cities. Where they were insufficient to rejuvenate the most acute cases of deindustrialization and retail decentralization, civic entrepreneurialism stepped in to engi- neer the appearance of large, set-piece mixed-use developments designed to bolster the city’s image and pull in other forms of development. The best-known examples include Baltimore’s Harbor Place, Miami’s Bayside, Riverwalk in New Orleans, Riverfront in Savannah, Quincy Market in Boston, Pioneer Square in Seattle, and South Street Seaport in New York (Figure 4.28). Even some of the largest and most spectacular of these developments have encountered financial difficulties, however, partly because of the inherent high risks of such projects, and partly because intense competition between cities for investment dollars contributed to over-building. Meanwhile, the underlying shift toward a service-based and information-based economy has created numerous land-use conflicts and social tensions in central cities. These are topics that are examined in some detail in subsequent chapters on politics and planning (Chapters 10 and 11). FOLLOW UP Chapter 4 • Urban Systems and Cities In Transition 113 Log in to www.mygeoscienceplace.com for self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth TM tours, key resources and suggested readings, related websites, “In the News” RSS feeds, and additional references and resources to enhance your study of urban systems and cities in transition. 1. Construct a graph that shows the changing population since 1950 of the central city and suburban counties of your nearest metropolitan area. Annotate the graph to suggest reasons for the trends that you find. 2. Update your portfolio. The material in this chapter lends itself especially well to maps of all kinds. For example, you might prepare a hand-drawn, GIS, or computer cartography map of the city you know best, showing major industrial spaces, shopping centers, shopping strips, suburban downtowns, major highways, and, if it is big enough, urban realms. Population, employment, and unemployment data are available in most libraries and online and provide a good opportunity to devise maps, charts, and graphs that update and amplify the changing experience of different cities. The same topics are also the subject of frequent reports on the websites of various government agencies (the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the U.S. Department of Labor, in particular). Magazines like American Demographics are good sources of up-to-date information on population changes. You should also monitor major newspapers and business magazines for stories that relate to the topics you cover in your basic reading. Try to give the portfolio a balanced content as well as a distinctive flavor. 3. Research the employment structure of the city or town in the United States that you live in or that most interests you. Use census data available from the U.S. Census Bureau’s website to construct an industry-by-industry profile of employment and summarize the data in a graph or table. What do the data suggest in relation to the city’s function within the urban hierarchy? 4. Consider the extent to which your daily life depends on economic linkages between cities around the country and around the world. Look, for example, at the labels on all the clothes you are wearing. How many different places were involved in their production? How did they get to you? How much was a product of your local economy? Review Activities This page intentionally left blank 115 Urbanization and the Less Developed Countries 3 PART 117 F rom a geographical perspective, the most significant aspect of recent world urbanization is the dramatic difference in trends and projections between the more developed countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia and the less developed countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In 1950 just under 60 percent of the people who lived in cities were concentrated in the more developed countries. Since then the world’s urban population has increased nearly fivefold, with the bulk of the growth in the less developed countries. As we saw in Chapter 2, economic development and industrialization in Europe depended greatly on the exploitation of people and regions elsewhere. Inevitably, the international division of labor that underpins this relationship fundamentally influenced the patterns and processes of urbanization in the less developed countries. Although variations in internal and external factors produced different urbanization experiences in each country, a pressing problem today for people in many less developed countries is a process of overurbanization in which cities are growing more rapidly than jobs and housing. Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 5 Chapter LEARNING OUTCOMES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Describe current urbanization trends and projections for developed countries versus less developed countries. ■ Explain how demographic change, rural-to-urban migration, and exceptionally high rates of natural increase combine to promote urban growth in less developed countries. ■ Describe the motivations that drive people and families in less developed countries to migrate from farms and villages to cities. ■ Compare and contrast the developmental approach to modernization with the dependency theory perspective and its conceptualization of underdevelopment. ■ Explain the concept of “overurbanization“ and understand what this phenomenon means for people living in the cities of less developed countries. An entirely new group of cities has grown up since the 1960s around the oil and natural gas fields of countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar. This photograph shows the skyscrapers and camel race course of Dubai, U.A.E. CHAPTER PREVIEW This chapter examines urbanization in the less developed countries in global and historical context. A look at current trends shows urban population increasing at almost twice the general population growth rate in the less developed countries. 1 The factors promoting this kind of urban growth vary within and between the different parts of the world. In sharp contrast to the experience of the world’s more developed countries, where urbanization was largely an outcome of economic growth, urbanization in the less developed coun- tries has resulted from demographic growth that preceded economic development. We consider some of the attempts made during the last 50 years to disentangle the relationship between urbanization and economic development and to explain “underdevelopment” in the less developed countries. 118 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBANIZATION TRENDS AND PROJECTIONS: THE LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES IN GLOBAL CONTEXT In 2007, the world reached an urban milestone: the percent- age of people who lived in cities surpassed 50 percent for the first time. In 2010, the world’s urban population reached nearly 3.5 billion and it is expected to rise to almost 6.3 billion by 2050. 3 Of the major world regions, the United States and Canada is the most urbanized region, with over 82 percent of the people living in towns and cities. Africa (40 percent) and Asia (42 percent) are the least urbanized (Figure 5.2). To put these figures into historical perspective, in 1950 less than 30 percent of the world’s population was urbanized. In that year only 75 metropolitan areas had a million or more people, and just 6 topped the five million mark. By 2010, there were 442 metropolitan areas of a million or more, with 54 containing over 5 million people. Looking ahead to 2025, there Colonization and the expansion of trade around the world allowed Europeans to influence the world’s societies and economies. Although the various regions were at dif- ferent levels of urbanization on the eve of the European encounters, colonization and the Industrial Revolution cre- ated unprecedented concentrations of people in cities that were connected in networks and hierarchies of interdepen- dence around the world. We use a sequence of six phases of colonial urbanization as a framework for examining how this process and its impacts changed over time in different parts of the world. We consider, in turn, mercantile colonialism; industrial colonialism; late colonialism; early independence; neocolonialism; and globalization and neoliberalism. This brings us to a pressing problem for people in many cities in the less developed countries today: a process of overurbanization in which cities grow more rapidly than jobs and housing (Urban View 5.1 entitled “The Dream of a Better Life as a Garment Girl in Dhaka”). FIGURE 5.1 Young women working in a shirt factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 119 5billion or nearly 83 percent of the world’s urban population by 2050 (Figure 5.3). Of the world’s 25 largest metropolitan areas in 1950, 10 were in Europe and the United States. It took only until 1990 for this number to drop to 5, and by 2025 only 3 of these will be on the list. What is more, the largest metropolitan regions are getting much larger because the number of people living in them is rising (Table 5.1). Asia provides some dramatic examples of this trend. From a region of villages, Asia is quickly becoming a region of towns and cities. Between 1950 and 2010, for example, its urban pop- ulation increased more than seven and a half times to nearly 1.8 billion people. By 2050 almost 65 percent of the people in Asia are expected to be living in urban areas (Figure 5.2). Nowhere is the trend toward rapid urbanization more pronounced than in China. For decades the communist gov- ernment imposed strict controls on where people could live because it feared the transformative and liberating effects of cities. By tying people’s jobs, school admission, and even the right to buy food to the places where they were registered to will be about 547 cities with a population of a million plus, including about 75 with over five million. In fact, the pre- dictions for the near future are for virtually all the world’s pop- ulation growth to occur in urban areas. By 2050, for example, more than 69 percent of the world’s population is expected to be urbanized. From a geographical perspective, the most significant aspect of recent world urbanization is the incredible differ- ence in trends and projections between the more developed regions containing countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia and the less developed regions comprising the countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In 1950 just under 60 percent of the people who lived in cities was concentrated in the more developed countries. Since then the world’s urban population has increased nearly fivefold, with the bulk of the growth in the world’s less developed regions. In fact, almost all of the pop- ulation increase between now and 2050 will be absorbed by the less developed countries, whose urban population is expected to rise from more than 2.5 billion in 2010 to over 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2030 2020 2040 2050 Percent urban Year 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 North America Oceania Asia Africa Europe Latin America and Caribbean World FIGURE 5.2 Urbanization by major world region. 41.5 41.5 46.1 51.057.264.0 69.4 73.376.378.8 80.9 82.5 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 Billions of people Less developed regions, percentage of total More developed regions FIGURE 5.3 Urban population growth. 120 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography live, the government made it almost impossible for rural resi- dents to migrate to towns or cities. As recently as 1985, more than 77 percent of Chinese people still lived in the countryside; today the rural population is nearer 50 percent. China is now rapidly making up for lost time. Having decided that towns and cities can be engines of economic growth within a communist system, the Chinese government not only relaxed enforcement of its residency laws but drafted plans to establish over 430 new cities. Between 1980 and 2010 the number of people living in cities in China more than tripled, from 190 million to 636 million, and the number of cities with a population of three-quarters of a million or more increased from 20 to 133 (Figure 5.4). In the world’s developed countries, levels of urbanization are high and have been for some time (Figure 5.5). United Nations figures show that Belgium and Iceland are 90 percent or more urbanized, while Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States are all more than 75 percent urban. Despite low rates of urbanization, especially when compared to the less developed countries, the urban population in the developed countries is still expected to rise to more than 86 percent by 2050. TABLE 5.1 Trading Places on the Top 25 List: The World’s Largest Metropolitan Areas, Ranked by Population Size (Millions) 1950 Population 1990 Population 2025 Population New York, USA 12.34 Tokyo, Japan 32.53 Tokyo, Japan 37.09 Tokyo, Japan 11.27 New York, USA 16.09 Delhi, India 28.57London, UK 8.36 Ciudad de México, Mexico15.31 Mumbai, India 25.81 Paris, France 6.52 São Paulo, Brazil 14.78 São Paulo, Brazil 21.65 Moskva (Moscow), Russia 5.36 Mumbai, India 12.31 Dhaka, Bangladesh 20.94Buenos Aires, Argentina 5.10 Osaka, Japan 11.04 Ciudad de México, Mexico 20.71 Chicago, USA 5.00 Kolkata, India 10.89 New York, USA 20.64 Kolkata (Calcutta), India 4.51 Los Angeles, USA 10.88 Kolkata, India 20.11Shanghai, China 4.30 Seoul, South Korea10.54 Shanghai, China 20.02 Okaka, Japan 4.15 Buenos Aires, Argentina 10.51 Karachi, Pakistan 18.73 Los Angeles, USA 4.05 Delhi, India 9.73 Lagos, Nigeria 15.81Berlin, Germany 3.34 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 9.59 Kinshasa, Dem. Rep. Congo 15.04 Philadelphia, USA 3.13 Paris, France 9.33 Beijing, China 15.02 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 2.95 Al-Qahirah, Egypt 9.06 Manila, Philippines 14.92Sankt Peterburg (St. Petersburg), Russia 2.90 Moskva, Russia 8.99 Buenos Aires, Argentina 13.71 Ciudad de México (Mexico City), Mexico 2.88 Jakarta, Indonesia 8.18 Los Angeles, USA 13.68 Mumbai (Bombay), India 2.86 Manila, Philippines 7.97 Al-Qahirah, Egypt 13.53 Detroit, USA 2.77 Shanghai, China 7.82 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 12.65Boston, USA 2.55 London, UK 7.65 Istanbul, Turkey 12.11Al-Qahirah (Cairo), Egypt 2.49 Chicago, USA 7.37 Osaka, Japan 11.37Tianjin, China 2.47 Karachi, Pakistan 7.15 Shenzhen, China 11.15Manchester, UK 2.42 Beijing, China 6.79 Chongqing, China 11.07São Paulo, Brazil 2.33 Dhaka, Bangladesh6.62 Guangzhou, China 10.96 Birmingham, UK 2.23 Istanbul, Turkey 6.55 Paris, France 10.88 Shenyang, China 2.15 Tehran, Iran 6.36 Jakarta, Indonesia 10.85 Total 108.43 Total 264.04 Total 427.02 Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision, New York: Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division ( http://esa. un.org/unpd/wup/index.htm ). FIGURE 5.4 Guangzhou, in southern China’s Pearl River Delta, has experienced phenomenal growth (from 1.0 million people in 1950 to 10.9 million by 2025) and is projected to become one of the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the world by 2025. The construction cranes in CITIC Plaza in the growing Tianhe District of Guangzhou are building new skyscraper offices, apartment complexes, a train station, a metro station, and a sports stadium. Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 121 FIGURE 5.5 World urbanization. 0 1,500 3,000 Kilometers 0 1,500 3,000 Miles 20–39 0–19 Percentage Urban (2010) Over 80 60–79 40–59 Levels of urbanization are also very high in many of the world’s newly industrializing economies (NIEs) (Figure 5.5). Brazil, Mexico, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea are all at least 75 percent urbanized. And compared to the developed countries, their rates of urban growth are also high. In other less developed countries rates of urbanization are even higher. Jakarta, Indonesia, for example, grew from 1.4mil- lion to 9.2 million between 1950 and 2010 and is expected to reach 10.9 million by 2025. Likewise, Lagos, Nigeria, a city of less than 300,000 in 1950, reached 10.6 million in 2010 and is projected to have a metropolitan population of 15.8 million by 2025 (Figure 5.6). Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata (India), São Paulo (Brazil), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Mexico City, and Shanghai (China) are all projected to have metropolitan populations in excess of 20 million by 2025 (Table 5.1). Many of the very largest metropolitan areas are growing at annual rates of 4 percent or more each year. To put the FIGURE 5.6 Rates of urbanization can be very high in some less developed countries. In Nigeria, for example, Lagos, a city of less than 300,000 in 1950, reached 10.6 million in 2010 and is projected to have a metropolitan population of 15.8 million by 2025. 122 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Rural-to-urban migration involves impoverished rural residents migrating to the larger towns and cities in search of a better life. These people are driven by the desire for employ- ment and the prospect of access to schools, health clinics, piped water, and the kinds of public facilities and services that are often unavailable in rural regions. Overall, the metropolises in the less developed countries have absorbed almost nine out of ten of the 2.2 billion city dwellers added to the world’s popula- tion since 1970. Rural migrants have moved to cities out of desperation and hope, rather than being drawn by actual jobs and opportuni- ties (Urban View 5.2 entitled “Fleeing the Countryside for Life in the City in Africa”). Because of the disproportionate number of teenagers and young adults in these migration streams, an important additional component of urban growth has followed—high rates of natural increase of the population. In most less developed countries the rate of natural increase in cities exceeds that of in-migration. On average, about 60 percent of urban population growth in the less developed countries is due to natural increase. Political and environmental circumstances can also pro- mote urban growth. Wars in Africa have caused countless refugees to flee to cities. After civil war broke out in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in 2002, hundreds of thousands of people fled areas of conflict for the cities of Abidjan, Grand Bassam, and Yamoussoukro. Refugees from Sudan, Somalia, Congo, and Ethiopia have left the refugee camps in Kenya for its capital, Nairobi. Many people fleeing war-torn areas have refused free humanitarian assistance in crowded and squalid refugee camps and risked persecution and marginalization in cities in the hope of a better life. Instead, many refugees experi- ence exploitation, harassment, prostitution, rape, and dreadful living conditions. 5 In Mauritania, Niger, and other countries situation in numerical terms, metropolitan areas like Dhaka and Delhi are adding up to half a million people to their pop- ulations each year: nearly 10,000 every week, even with deaths and out-migrants. It took London 190 years to grow from half a million to 10 million inhabitants; New York took 140 years. More recently, Mexico City, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Kolkata (Calcutta), Rio de Janeiro, Seoul, and Mumbai all took less than 75 years. Now megacities such as Dhaka, Delhi, and Lagos take about half that time to grow from half a million to 10 million people (Figure 5.7). FACTORS PROMOTING URBAN GROWTH The factors promoting urban growth vary within and between different parts of the world. In sharp contrast to the experi- ence of the world’s developed countries, where urbanization was largely an outcome of economic growth, urbanization in the less developed countries has resulted from demographic growth that preceded economic development. The more rapid decline in death rates compared to birth rates—part of a Demographic Transition in the less developed countries—is a fairly recent trend that has generated large increases in population well in advance of any significant levels of industrialization or rural economic development. In rural regions this has produced fast-growing populations in places that face problems with agricultural development. This has been described as urbanization by implosion 4 in which in-place population growth is happening, almost unnoticed, in vil- lages and the countryside across vast stretches of rural India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, Nigeria, and other less devel- oped countries. These high-density rural regions have popula- tion densities that exceed 1,000 persons per square mile—the threshold for defining urban settlements. FIGURE 5.7 Congestion in central Dhaka, Bangladesh, a rapidly-growing megacity. Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 123 a reciprocal arrangement in which the urbanization that was driven by economic growth in turn stimulated further eco- nomic development (Figure 1.5). The various attempts made during the last 60 years to disentangle this relationship and explain urbanization and “underdevelopment” in the less developed countries can be grouped into three categories. Modernization Theories: The Developmental Approach In the 1950s ideas about the development of the less developed countries were based on extrapolations of the European expe- rience. This developmental approach prescribed an economic transition along a continuum of progress from a “traditional” rural society toward a “modern” urban industrialized one. Models, such as Rostow’s stages of economic growth, informed the developmental approach. 7 This model shows the five along the southern edge of the Sahara, deforestation and over- grazing in conjunction with government inaction have forced people to move to the cities as the expanding desert has over- taken whole villages. THEORIES OF URBANIZATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Historically, an association has existed between urbanization and economic development: Countries with higher levels of urbanization tend to have higher levels of economic devel- opment (Figure 5.8). What is not as clear is the direction of causality—the extent to which economic development pro- motes urbanization, or urbanization promotes economic development. In the developed countries, although urbaniza- tion was largely an outcome of economic development, it was URBAN VIEW 5.2 Fleeing the Countryside for Life in the City in Africa 6 For her entire 60 years, Fatima Yadik, a mother of 12 and grand- mother to 18, had lived a nomadic life in the northern part of the Central African Republic with her husband, children, and the family’s long-horn cattle, which kept them constantly onthe move. One day, her camp of Peuhl nomads was attacked by bandits who killed her husband and all the other men and then stole their cattle. Bandits often target Peuhl people because they own livestock. Terrified, Fatima fled south with her children to the town of Yaloké. After settling in the town, the family survived by collecting and selling firewood. But Fatima realized that for her children to have a future, they needed to go to school. “Until now, none of my children have gone to school,” she said, “but now that we no longer have any cattle, they will have to find jobs, and they need to go to school to prepare.” But years of conflict and violence had devastated the already fragile education system in the Central African Republic. Many schools had been looted or damaged, and the teachers had moved to the capital city, Bangui. So a group of Peuhl parents formed a small NGO called Association Mboscuda and, together with other parents, they built the Fraternité School. The school now has more than 600 students, and Mboscuda helps pay for teachers and runs campaigns to encourage Peuhl parents to send their children, especially the girls, to school. FIGURE 5.8 Urbanization and economic development, 2009. 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 70,000 80,000 90,000 100,000 0 20 40 60 80 100 Urban population as percent of total 0 GDP per capita, PPP (US $) Qatar Luxembourg Japan Burundi EthiopiaNepal Cambodia U.K. U.A.E. South Korea North Korea Sierra Leone China Afghanistan U.S.A. Singapore Hong Kong 124 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography are shown spatially in Friedmann’s core-periphery model. 11 The model shows an urban core of economic advantage and growth, surrounded by nearby agricultural areas that are in the process of development due to their proximity to the core, and a distant stagnant or declining periphery (Figure 5.10). Although these kinds of development models have informed public policy and practice in the past, they are now regarded as too simplistic. They perpetuate the myth of “developmentalism,” that all countries and regions—despite differences in their political, cultural, technological, and other characteristics—are on the same economic growth trajectory to become “modern” urban industrialized societies. A major weakness of developmentalism is that it fails to appreciate that the prospects for late starters are different from those of places that enjoyed an earlier initial advantage free from effective competition and limiting precedents. People in the less developed cities and countries must compete in a crowded field and overcome barriers that were created by the success of some of the early starters in Europe and North America. Most problematic for the modernization theories, though, was the indisputable evidence that the pattern of urbanization in the less developed countries was not following that of the devel- oped countries—urban growth was not producing the expected boost in economic development. successive stages through which less developed countries must pass in order to achieve economic convergence with the developed ones (Figure 5.9). Similarly, Myrdal’s notion of cumulative causation 8 saw growth in the less developed regions following the patterns of urbanization experienced by Europe dur- ing the Industrial Revolution (Chapter 2 and Figure 2.27). Economic growth in one region would trigger strong de- mand for food, consumer goods, and other manufactures that local producers could not satisfy. This demand would create the opportunity for investors in less developed regions to establish a local capacity to meet the demand; entrepre- neurs would take advantage of the cheaper labor and land there. If strong enough, these spread effects could enable less developed regions to develop their own upward spiral of cumulative causation. Myrdal’s influential model was followed by others who used a similar logic. Hirshman’s model described trickle- down effects . 9 Perroux highlighted the importance of the propulsive industries that are characteristic of regions with high rates of economic growth, 10 such as the textile indus- try in England during the Industrial Revolution. As the pro- pulsive industry grows, it attracts other related industries, generating a set of agglomeration economies . A growth pole is formed and an urban growth center develops. These ideas FIGURE 5.9 Rostow’s stages of economic development model. TRADITIONAL SOCIETY Limited technology static society PRECONDITIONSFOR TAKE-OFF Commercial exploitation of agriculture and extractive industry TAKE-OFF Development of a manufacturing sector DRIVE TO MATURITY Development of wider industrial and commercial base Exploitation of comparative advantages in international trade Investments in manufacturing exceeds 10 percent of national income; development of modern social, economic, and political institutions Installation of physical infrastructure (roads, railways, etc.) and emergence of social/political elite HIGH MASS CONSUMPTION Transition triggered by external influence, interests, or markets Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 125 failure to embrace Western technology, investment, and values. Instead, underdevelopment stemmed directly from the unequal nature of the interrelationships between people in the devel- oped and less developed parts of the world. Figure 5.11 shows the system as described by Frank: as a photograph of the world taken at a point of time, this model of a world metropolis (today the United States) and its governing class, and its national and international satellites and their leaders—national satellites like the Southern states of the United States, and international satellites like São Paulo. Since São Paulo is a national metropolis in its own right, the model consists further of its satellites: the provincial metropolises, like Recife or Belo Horizonte, and their regional and local satellites in turn. That is, taking a photograph of a slice of the world we get a whole chain of metropolises and satellites, which runs from the world metropolis down to the hacienda or rural merchant who are satellites of the local commercial metropolitan center but who in their turn have peasants as their satellites. If we take a photograph of the world as a whole, we get a whole series of such constellations of metropolises and satellites. 13 Certainly the unequal structure of the world economy and the kinds of monopoly power of a metropolis over its satellites have changed over time—for example, with the switch from merchant capitalism to industrial capitalism in the nine- teenth century or following political independence for former colonies. But the transfer of wealth from satellites to metropolis has continued to fuel growth for people in some places at the expense of others. Urban Bias and Underdevelopment In 1977, Michael Lipton coined the term urban bias in his book Why Poor People Stay Poor: Urban Bias in World Development . 12 Urban bias describes how the urban-based elite who hold power in some less developed countries tend to implement policies that allocate resources for the benefit of cities. By concentrating resources in the urban areas, urbaniza- tion rates accelerate and overall national economic development is impaired; urban–rural inequalities intensify because many of the poor people still live in rural areas despite rural-to-urban migration. Although influential at the time, this notion of an urban– rural divide is now viewed as a simplistic generalization that, at best, describes only those countries experiencing very rapid urbanization. As was the case for modernization theories, the urban bias idea has been faulted for neglecting the international constraints on economic development in the less developed countries. An avalanche of critical writings argued that the pros- perity of the developed countries depended on under – development in other parts of the world. The less developed countries, their role in the world-system already established (and firmly controlled by the economic and military power of the more developed countries), could not “follow” the historical experience of developed countries. In fact, the global system of unequal trade, exploitation of labor, and profit extraction guaranteed that the less developed countries and the people living in them would become more, rather than less, impoverished. Writers like André Gunder Frank rejected the idea that underdevelopment was the result of geographical isolation or a Non-contiguous resource frontier region: Forestry Non-contiguous resource frontier: Mining Special problem region: Agricultural frontier with hostile neighbor Downward transitional region:Exhausted agricultural area Special problem region: Tourism/traditional fishing conflict UPWARD TRANSITIONAL AREA CORE REGION RESOURCE FRONTIER REGION RESOURCE FRONTIER REGION UPWARD TRANSITIONAL AREA CORE REGION FIGURE 5.10 Friedmann’s core-periphery model. 126 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography direction, including from periphery to semi-periphery and semi-periphery to core. Looking specifically at cities, the model of peripheral urbanization used a political economic approach 15 to extend the dependency and world-system perspectives to the national urban systems of less developed countries (Urban View 5.3 entitled “A Model of Peripheral Urbanization”). This six-stage model describes how the extension of the global economic system to the less developed countries generated a strong process of urbanization. 16 But like dependency theory, this model has been criticized for being too deterministic; it implies that the incorporation of the less developed countries into the world economy makes the associated problems of urban development identified in the model seem inevitable. David A. Smith, for one, has stressed that: structural similarity between nations or regions in the global hierarchy may lead to parallel patterns of urban growth. But this will not always be the case . . . The real challenge is to identify the ways in which social relations and outcomes on the local level are linked to macrostructural processes, including those of the global political economy. 17 Frank’s approach is an example of dependency theory, which has been very influential in explaining global patterns of development and underdevelopment. Dependency theory states, essentially, that development and underdevelopment are the reverse sides of the same global process: indepen- dent development is impossible because development in one location requires underdevelopment in another. Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-system theory 14 addressed certain criticisms of dependency theory: that dependency theory ignored differences in the characteristics and processes among the less developed countries and focused too much on how these countries are “locked into” a position of dependence. According to the world-system perspective, the entire world economy is an evolving economic system with a hierarchy of countries comprising a core, semi-periphery, and periphery. The more developed core countries take advantage of their dominant position in the world economy to exploit the periph- eral and semi-peripheral countries. The semi-peripheral coun- tries (such as NIEs) also exploit peripheral countries (many of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa), while in turn being exploited by core countries. What is important about this conceptualiza- tion for the less developed countries is that the composition of this hierarchy is variable, with movement possible in either FIGURE 5.11 The Frank model of dependency. = NATIONAL SATELLITE INTERNATIONAL SATELLITE National metropolis Provincial metropolis Regional satelliteLocal satellite MerchantFarmer Peasant WORLD METROPOLIS Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 127 and examine how this process and its impacts changed over time. Indigenous Urbanization at the Eve of the European Encounters The Europeans were not the first to create city-based empires (Chapter 2). In fact, while Western Europe was in a period of urban stagnation during the Dark Ages, urbanization was going strong in other parts of the world. Cities and city systems of great size and political, cultural, economic, and technological importance thrived in what are now the less developed countries of the world before the arrival of the Europeans. Islamic influence and Muslim culture dominated the cities of Southwest Asia from the seventh century c.e. In Africa between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, Arab influence extended in a band across the north and south of the Sahara and along the east coast. The kingdoms of West Africa, including Mali, and the cities of Timbuktu, Jenne, and Gao, thrived on long-distance trans-Saharan caravan trade (Figure 5.12). Farther south, cities like Mogadishu, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Bulawayo, and Great Zimbabwe were important centers of commercial and cultural exchange, religion, and learning (Figure 5.13). In Asia urban civilizations, such as the Ming Dynasty during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in China, flour- ished. In Southeast Asia the urban centers that developed as early as the first century c.e. were usually either inland sacred cities with ritual rulers, or coastal or riverine centers—some with up to 100,000 inhabitants—that thrived on their long-distance trade connections. In Mesoamerica the Aztec urban system in the highlands of central Mexico was centered on Tenochtitlán, the capital city from 1325 c.e. (Urban View 2.1 in Chapter 2). The towering, brightly colored temples and palaces really impressed New Models from the Less Developed Countries: Opportunities for Development Significant departures from earlier thinking characterize contemporary perspectives on urbanization and economic development. 19 First, there has been a shift away from the dependency theory focus on the international constraints on development in the less developed countries. The emphasis is now on the internal opportunities for development, using models, assump- tions, and objectives that have been devised by people within the less developed countries themselves. This shift has been associated with an increasing recognition of the importance of local context for development and of the potential benefits of the economic and cultural interrelationships that already exist within the less developed countries. Second, the related renewed interest in the role of indig- enous social and cultural institutions and in the structure of the economic relations within less developed countries has led to a resurgence of concern for gender divisions in terms of how these affect and are affected by economic development. Third, the relationship been the environment and develop- ment within the context of sustainable urban development for the less developed countries and at a global scale is attracting increasing attention. This represents a shift away from concep- tualizing development as economic growth and “moderniza- tion” until the 1970s, and from then until the mid-1980s of assigning limited importance to the environmental context in dependency theory. A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON COLONIAL URBANIZATION We begin with a brief review of the state of urbanization around the world at the eve of the European encounters. We then focus on colonial urbanization in historical perspective URBAN VIEW 5.3 A Model of Peripheral Urbanization The model of peripheral urbanization captures how the global system of production and trade generates a strong process of urbanization that affects people in individual cities and systems of cities in the less developed countries. 18 1. Rural-to-urban migration increases as “traditional” forms of agriculture are disrupted by the introduction of commercial agriculture, by fiscal taxes on the rural population, and by competitive pressures on craft industries, initially from cheap imports and later from products by national manufacturers. 2. Production in the rural areas by national and foreign businesses promotes the development of major trans- portation and market centers and the rapid expansion of national capitals and major port cities. 3. The growth of manufacturing concentrates production even more within the largest cities, stimulates the expansion of a national government bureaucracy to encourage the process of industrialization, and leads to the concentration of high-income groups in the major centers. 4. Workers move to the largest cities in search of employ- ment, and their labor and spending support further economic expansion. 5. The national government supports industrial expan- sion and the system is maintained through the provision of physical infrastructure in the main urban centers and social services to selected groups. 6. As development accelerates, private investment begins to spread outward to avoid the rising land prices, labor costs, and traffic congestion in the central city. The government may encourage this process of decon- centration with measures to encourage metropolitan decentralization. 128 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography 0° 0° 10° 30° 40° 50° 10° 20° 20° 10° 20° 30° 10° 20° 30° 0° 10° 20° 30° Tropic of Capricorn Alger Sijilmasa Taghaza Audoghast Tripoli Cairo Tunis Benghazi Fez Marrakesh Rabat OranConstantine Ghadames MarzukGhat Agades Alexandria Asyut El Fashar Dongola Napata Suakin Meroë Sennar Gondar Addis Ababa Bigo Rubaga Harer BerberaZeila Adulis Axum Mogadishu Zanzibar Town Kilwa Mombasa Malindi Gedi Quelimane Sofala Thaba Bosiu Dingaan’s KraalGreat Zimbabwe Bulawayo Cape Town Mbanza Kongo Mwata Yamuo Ujiji Mwata Kazembe Kintambo Gao Njimi Kukawa N’gazargamo Timbuktu Djenne Bissau Bobo- Dialassou Ouagadougou Segu Kumbi Saleh Zinder Sokoto Katsina ZariaKano Kumasi Abomey Whydah Ibadan Abeokuta Onitsha Bida Old Oyo Oyo Ifé Benin SAHARA-CARAVAN GUINEA COAST CENTRALEAST SOUTHEAST NILE & RED SEA MAGHREB INDIAN OCEAN ATLANTIC OCEAN 0 300 600 Kilometers 0 300 600 Miles FIGURE 5.12 Historical centers of urbanization in Africa. FIGURE 5.13 Great Zimbabwe, the capital of the Rozvi Mutapa Empire, flourished between the fourth and ninth centuries. Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 129 to fulfill colonial functions, with ceremonial spaces, offices, and depots for colonial traders, plantation representatives, and government officials; barracks for a garrison of soldiers; and housing for colonists. As these cities grew, housing and commercial land uses were added for the local people who were drawn to the city by employment opportunities as service workers, such as servants, clerks, or porters. Examples of pure colonial cities were the original settlements of Mumbai (Bombay), Kolkata (Calcutta), Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Hong Kong, Macao (Figure 5.15), Jakarta, Manila, and Nairobi. The other type of colonial city had colonial functions grafted onto an existing settlement to take advantage of a good site and a ready supply of labor. Examples include Mexico City, Shanghai (Figure 5.16), Tunis, and Delhi. In these cities the colonial imprint is most visible at the center of the city in the formal squares and public spaces, the layout of avenues, and the presence of colonial architecture and monu- ments. This architecture includes churches, city halls, and railway stations; the palaces of governors and archbishops; and the houses of wealthy traders, colonial administrators, and landowners. The colonial legacy can also be seen in the planning and building regulations of many cities. Colonial planning regu- lations were usually the same ones used for the colonizing country itself. Because they were based on Western concepts, these regulations were often inappropriate for colonial contexts. Most colonial building codes, for example, used Western models of a small family home in a residential neighborhood at some distance from the workplace. This is at odds with the needs of large, extended families whose members work in a busy domestic economy in family busi- nesses that are traditionally integrated with the residential the Spanish when they arrived in 1519 (Figure 5.14). With about 200,000 inhabitants, the city was larger than Lisbon or Seville at that time. The Aztecs had a highly stratified society that included a ruler, soldiers, priests, skilled craftsmen such as gold and metalworkers, merchants, and large numbers of agricultural peasants using irrigated farming and terraced fields. Farther south along the Andes between central Chile and Colombia, the Inca Empire reached its height in the fifteenth century c.e. The capital city, Cuzco, had impressive monuments and a population of between 100,000 and 300,000 people. The Inca Empire was organized around a system of 170 administrative centers connected by an elaborate road system that was used to transport the military as well as the agricultural produce from the irrigated and terraced field farming system. Colonial Urbanization Economic development and industrialization in the devel- oped countries depended greatly on the exploitation of people and regions elsewhere. Inevitably, the international division of labor that this relationship put in place fundamentally influenced the patterns and processes of urbanization in the less developed parts of the world. The colonial powers established gateway cities in these regions. In an effort to establish economic and political control over continental interiors, colonial cities were deliberately established or developed as centers of administration, political control, and commerce. One type of colonial city was the new city that was “planted” in a location where no significant urban settlement had previously existed. These cities were laid out expressly FIGURE 5.14 Tenochtitlán (just north of modern-day Mexico City) was the capital of the Aztecs from 1325 C.E. At an estimated 200,000 people, it was one of the largest cities in the world at the time, and its towering, brightly colored palaces and temples, such as the Temple of the Sun, really impressed the Spanish when they arrived in 1519. 130 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography their internal and external relationships. Because the role and function of colonial cities could vary depending on thescale of analysis, it can be helpful to use a number of spatial scales for examining colonial cities: 1. City: The city itself—its internal dynamics, functions, and form. setting. Colonial planning, with its gridiron street layouts, land use zoning regulations thatdo not allow for mixed land uses, and building codes designed for European climates, ignored the specific needs and cultural preferences of local communities. King 20 offered a conceptual framework for analyzing dif ferent colonial cities at different times within the context of FIGURE 5.15 Macao, an example of a “planted” colonial city with its Portuguese colonial architecture. FIGURE 5.16 The Bund. Shanghai had British “concession” settlement and architecture grafted onto the existing Chinese walled city. Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 131 itself out and impacted people in these cities. The motivation for colonial expansion into a particular part of the world was also a factor. Simon 21 theorized about the determinants and evolving nature of the relationships between the colonizers and the colonized people. He identified ten general determinants of colonial and post-colonial urban form: 1. The motives for colonization—for example, trade (mercantilism), agricultural settlement, or strategic acquisition. 2. The nature of precolonial settlement—for example, isolated villages or permanent urban centers. 3. The nature of imperial or colonial settlement—for example, imperial control required military security with little if any permanent settlement; colonialism could involve signifi- cant levels of permanent settlement. 4. Relationships between the colonizers and the indigenous population—for example, extermination (Australia and the United States), assimilation (Hispanic America after the initial conquest), or some intermediate relationship (much of Africa). 5. The presence or absence of indigenous towns—for example, where such centers did exist, they were 2. Region: The city within the context of its immediate region—its regional production systems, trading rela- tions, settlement patterns, transportation networks, and labor movements. 3. Colonized Society or Territory: The city in relation to the colonized society or territory—in terms of changes in social stratification, cultural attitudes, and so on. 4. Metropolitan Power: The city within the context of its interactions with the colonial metropolitan power— through trade, capital investment, and colonial policies. 5. Colonial Empire: The city within the context of its assigned role within the empire—as an administrative center, commercial port, or transportation hub. 6. World Economic System: The city and its place in the evolving world economy and global system of cities. Internal and external factors produced a different urbanization experience for every country with a colonial history. Timing was important—colonial control was imposed at, and for very different, periods of time in various parts of the world (Figure 5.17). Regional differences in ethnicity and culture, kinds and levels of urbanization, social, political, and economic systems, environmental conditions, and level of technology all influenced how colonial urbanization played FIGURE 5.17 Comparative periods of colonial rule and phases of colonial urbanization. 1550 1500 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1900 1920 1850 1950 1970 Cars Railroads Industrial Revolution MALAYSIA WEST INDIES CEYLON (SRI LANKA) Steamships ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE MAINLAND LATIN AMERICA Panama Canal Suez Canal INDIAN SUB- CONTINENT AFRICA Scramble British Government Trading Companies CUBA MERCANTILE COLONIALISM INDUSTRIAL COLONIALISM LATE COLONIALISM EARLY INDEPENDENCE NEO- COLONIALISM 132 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography to become involved in the production process itself. The various East India Companies that operated out of European states, such as England, France, and Holland, were prominent in this process. Overall, the mercantile colonial period had only a limited impact on individual cities and systems of cities. Europeans were usually confined to small areas of existing cities that were already organized into ethnic or occupa- tional districts. Colonial vernacular architectural styles were European in function but local in design and materials. No new urban hierarchies were created, and settlements of purely colonial origin, such as Lima, Manila, or Cape Town, were the exceptions. By about 1800, there was diminishing European interest in overseas business activity, which resulted in a transitional period in the nature of colonial urbanization (and indepen- dence for much of Latin America). The Napoleonic wars had tied up many of the adventurers and some venture capital in Europe. The shift from trade to production had increased the cost of colonial activities for individual companies, forcing some, most notably the British, French, and Dutch East India Companies, into liquidation and government takeover. Greater profits could be made from the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Industrial Colonialism By the 1870s, European investment was again flowing overseas in response to the enormous demand for raw materials and food for the growing urban workforce of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. With government involvement needed to acquire terri- tory and organize production, colonial influence began to have a profound impact on cities and urban systems in Asia and Africa. Within colonial cities, functional and residential segregation intensified. Although manufacturing was limited to prevent competition with European exports, a large commercial and service sector served the trading and consumer needs of the colonial power. Functional specialization was based on class and ethnicity. Europeans and their institutions dominated foreign trade, expatriate non-Europeans controlled local assembly and distribution, and the indigenous people were involved only in local production, and then under expatriate supervision. This functional specialization reinforced earlier ethnic and occupational residential segregation. Many European districts were separated from non-European ones by physical barriers such as railway lines, parade grounds, police barracks, and racecourses. When combined with the existing social stratification of the indigenous communi- ties, this produced extremely complex patterns of residential segregation. Industrial colonialism so affected the urban systems in some Asian countries like Malaysia that new urban hierar- chies were created. Africa saw a general reorientation of urban economic activity from the interior trading routes to the new coastal ports. Control of production and distribution gave these cities a crucial role in an evolving world economy and international division of labor that supported the growth of destroyed, ignored, added to, or incorporated within a new planned city. Where there were no preexisting centers, new colonial cities were established, some- times for the colonists alone, sometimes for colonists and indigenous people in separate sections of the city, and sometimes for all groups without formalized segregation. 6. The nature of the anticolonial struggle, the means by which independence was ultimately gained, and the degree to which the new leadership identified with exist- ing administrative centers, especially the capital city, that symbolized both the colonial past and the achievement of liberation and independence. 7. The extent to which the ex-colonial elite retained economic dominance or were supplemented or replaced by skilled expatriates. 8. Policies pursued by the new national elite with respect to national integration, ethnic and class conflict, and the nature of the country’s insertion into the world economy. 9. The functioning of the economy, including government policies affecting the various sectors: private, public, and informal sectors. 10. The extent of urban legislative change under capi- talist expansion policies or some model of socialist centralization. Although not every region had the same experience, Drakakis-Smith’s sequence of five phases of colonial urbaniza- tion 22 with the addition of a phase of globalization and neolib- eralism is a useful framework for examining how this process and its impacts changed over time in different parts of the world (Figure 5.17). Mercantile Colonialism Individual entrepreneurs made initial forays outside Europe in search of riches like gold and silver. 23 Later, attention turned to commodities that were valued within the European trading system, such as spices, silk, and sugar. There was no extensive overseas European settlement because mercan- tile colonialism was based on private companies rather than state enterprises. These companies could afford to locate only a few permanent representatives within the existing coastal centers. As a result, the local trading and collection networks were retained and incorporated into the new European trad- ing systems. The nature of mercantile colonialism did vary in response to the different local contexts. In Latin America the earliest contacts were incredibly devastating for the people and cities of the Aztec and Inca empires. This contrasts with the experience in Asia where the Chinese Empire did not permit direct European contact in the trade of valuable commodities of Chinese origin. As profits increased the Europeans began to establish a more extensive presence. Company representatives used troops to take control of local trading and collection net- works and to protect warehouses. Later, the demand for com- modities of dependable quality forced European companies Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 133 Early Independence The 1950s and 1960s saw independence spread rapidly throughout most of Asia and Africa. After the colonial powers departed, there was an influx of indigenous people into the cities in search of jobs in the administrative and commercial sectors from which they had been excluded. During the early years of independence, these job opportunities were limited because of the continuation of European control of commercial companies and the sluggish demand for primary products from a shattered postwar Europe. Ironically, a major problem in Europe was a shortage of unskilled labor. As a result, unemployed workers from the former colonial cities migrated to Western Europe in search of work. Initially, the migrants came from former colonies to former colonial powers (such as Indians to Britain or Algerians to France), but this migration soon spread to many other poor countries, especially those around the Mediterranean Sea (for example, Turkey). The workers were abundant, nonunion- ized, low-wage, and, being easily threatened with deportation, compliant. During the 1950s and 1960s these migrant workers represented a lucrative bonus for European industrialists and their governments and economies. The governments of the sending countries encouraged this labor migration because it helped slow urban population growth, increase foreign exchange revenues through the remittances sent home, and, they hoped, train some of their workers. The build-up of workers in Europe was rapid and highly concentrated. By the late 1960s West Germany and France together had some six million foreign workers, concen- trated in the industrial cities in the most menial jobs. The sending countries gained few benefits relative to their losses: large numbers of their younger and most trainable workers gone; few migrants receiving useful skills or training; and the remittances used mostly by the returning migrants to finance small consumer businesses in the larger cities, accentuat- ing already serious urban problems. By the 1970s a growing recession in Europe was forcing most countries to tighten their labor immigration laws and reduce the inflow of migrant workers. During the period of early independence, the economic situation in most less developed countries saw little improve- ment. Expatriate companies and the same commercial and trading relations from the colonial period continued to domi- nate these new countries—they exported inexpensive primary products and imported expensive manufactured ones. In fact, since the period of early independence in many countries, extensive restructuring of the inherited colonial transportation and urban networks has not yet occurred. Many of the rail lines in Africa, for example, still have the predomi- nantly coastal to interior emphasis that fit the exploitation needs of the colonial powers but is less suited to the functioning of an independent country. This has been the experience even in countries where new capital cities were deliberately estab- lished in the interior in an effort to promote a more balanced urban system and shed the negative associations that people had for the colonial administrative centers on the coast (for the European industrial economy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But the concentration of economic and political power in certain cities at the expense of others estab- lished the foundations for urban primacy that we see today in many less developed countries. Late Colonialism World War I and World War II, and an intervening economic recession in Europe, caused erratic demand for primary products from the colonies. In an effort to ensure contin ued profitability, European interests in most regions sought to improve efficiency through economies of scale—land reforms and mechanization—that forced out smaller producers and landholders. This fueled rapid rural-to-urban migration that generated more workers than the slower growth in domestic service and factory jobs in the cities could accommodate. A planning process dominated by Europeans allowed uncon- trolled squatter settlements to develop; at the same time, the high point of colonial planning and architecture was pro- ducing new and redesigned European districts based on the Garden City concept (see Chapter 11) and impressive institu- tional structures like city halls, universities, and banks in the downtown areas (Figure 5.18). Accelerated migration into colonial cities of blue- and white-collar workers attempting to escape the recession in Europe accompanied the rural- to-urban migration. This expatriate influx made it increasingly difficult for the slowly growing group of educated indigenous residents to break into middle-income occupations in either administration or commerce. FIGURE 5.18 City Hall and downtown square in Cape Town, South Africa, an example of colonial architecture and urban design, with Table Mountain in the distance. 134 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography done for a number of reasons. First, the cost of produc- tion had risen in the cities of the developed countries due to the rising cost of wages, rents, and imported raw mate- rials, combined with declining productivity and increasing environmental regulations. Second, steady rural-to-urban migration kept the cost of labor down in the cities of the less developed countries. Third, a large informal sector, repre- senting a reserve army of workers, depressed demands for wage increases. Fourth, advances in technology allowed the separation of production from management. E-mail, satellite links, and containerization made it possible for the labor- intensive parts of the production process to be located in the cities of less developed countries (Figure 5.20) at the same time that the head offices of companies could remain in the largest cities of the developed countries. And finally, inter- national agencies and national governments supported the new international division of labor based on the assump- tion that the new jobs created in the growing cities in the less developed countries could help promote economic and political stability. The new international division of labor has had a varied and complex impact on the cities in the less developed countries. First, rapid economic growth has been highly selective. Only a relatively small number of NIEs, like South Korea and Taiwan, initially experienced rapid industrial growth. Following rising labor costs in these early NIEs, transnational corpora- tions looked for new supplies of cheap labor, and new indus- trial producers emerged, including China. Second, cities have received the bulk of this foreign direct investment (FDI) . This has encouraged more people to join the rural-to-urban migration flow and made existing urban problems worse. Third, the effect on social class formation has been consider- able. The new waged workforce is relatively conservative, while the informal sector has continued to grow, raising concerns about urban instability. Fourth, in contrast to the early years of independence, women have been incorporated into the urban workforce at unprecedented rates. example, Dodoma replaced Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, Abuja replaced Lagos in Nigeria, Yamoussoukro replaced Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, Brasilia replaced Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and Islamabad replaced Karachi in Pakistan). Socially within cities, the major change during early independence was the emergence of a large segment of poor people who were unable to secure paid employment and so could not afford adequate housing, education, and healthcare for themselves and their families. These households looked inward for their survival to create an informal sector in which meager incomes are earned and then spent in a wide variety of illegal and quasi-legal economic activities (Figure 5.19) (see Chapter 7). Neocolonialism and the New International Division of Labor During the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a dramatic change in the way that workers from the less developed countries were integrated into the world economic system. The new international division of labor involved trans- national corporations from the developed countries shift- ing the labor-intensive parts of the production process to cities in less developed countries. Despite independence, many less developed countries are said to have experienced neocolonialism due to transnational corporations from former colonial powers taking advantage of the workers and exploiting the resources of former colonies. This was FIGURE 5.19 A woman selling a range of everyday items is part of the informal sector of the economy in Saigon, Vietnam. FIGURE 5.20 Container port in Valparaiso, Chile. Automated cranes load and unload cargo containers between the ships and the flat beds of nearby trains and trucks. Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 135 and improvement to languish. In the end, the growth of inequality has happened because national governments have abdicated their responsibilities to their citizens to promote fairness, redistribution, social justice and stability in favour of a chimera of competitiveness and wealth for the few. It is also the outcome of international organizations that have adopted a dominant neo-liberal philosophy, which has failed to deliver on most of its promises almost everywhere that is has been applied. 25 OVERURBANIZATION A problem today for many cities in the less developed coun tries is a process of overurbanization in which cities and their populations grow more rapidly than jobs and housing. Overurbanization and Megacities Unprecedented rates of urbanization have been associated with the growth of megacities. Megacities can be distinguished by a very obvious characteristic—sheer size. Most have a population of 10 million people or more. Examples of mega- cities include Delhi, Mumbai (Bombay), São Paulo, Dhaka (Bangladesh), Mexico City, Kolkata (Calcutta), Shanghai, and Karachi (Pakistan) (Figure 5.22). All have more inhabit- ants than 100 of the countries that are members of the United Nations. These megacities are usually characterized by primacy anda high degree of centrality within their national urban systems. Primacy and primate cities occur when the population of the largest city in an urban system is disproportionately large in relation to the second-largest and third-largest cities in that system (see the discussion of the rank-size rule in Chapter 3). Centrality refers to the functional dominance of cities within an urban system. Cities that have a disproportionately large share of national economic, political, and cultural activities have a high degree of centrality within their urban system. This combination of size and centrality often causes megacities in different countries to have more in common with one another than with the smaller metropolitan areas and cities within their own countries. Although most megacities do not function as world cities , they do perform an important intermediate role between the upper tiers of the system of world cities and the provincial towns and villages. Not only do the megacities link the local and provincial economies into the world economy, but they also represent important points of contact between the formal and informal sectors of the urban economy (Urban View 5.4 entitled “The Harsh Realities of Life in a Megacity”). Widespread Overurbanization Megacities and the people in them grab a great deal of attention because of their enormous size and continued growth. But only about 1 in 8 urban residents in cities of 100,000 or more in the less developed countries live in megacities. This means that most Globalization and Neoliberalism Many of the economic and political changes in which globalization has accelerated during the past few decades have taken place in countless cities in the less developed countries based on neoliberal ideologies and policies . 24 A neoliberal agenda—so-called free trade, cuts in government spending on social programs, privatized public services, and reduced regulation of private companies—that became firmly estab- lished in developed countries like the United Kingdom and the United States (Chapter 4), was soon exported to the rest of the world. The national government’s role has been crucial in the adoption of neoliberal policies in many less developed countries. In an effort to encourage economic growth by attracting foreign direct investment in what is seen as an increasingly competi- tive global economy, many governments borrowed heavily to modernize their cities, adding new airports, conference centers, and free trade zones (FTZs) , also known as export processing zones (EPZs )(Figure 5.21). Already in debt to international banks and agencies, many governments have had to adopt economic adjustment programs dictated by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a precondition for further loans. An important part of these structural adjustments has been a reinforcement of neoliberal policies involving further reductions in government spending in areas such as social welfare. These cutbacks have impacted poor people in the cities most and have worsened the already existing shortfall in the provision of basic urban services. UN Habitat has strongly criticized the neoliberal policies of national governments and international organizations like the World Bank and IMF within the context of globalization: The widespread feeling of insecurity that cities and countries are “falling behind” and are in the grip of vast impersonal economic forces has provided an excuse to do nothing and to allow programmes of social redistribution FIGURE 5.21 The entrance to an Export Processing Zone in Guangdong Province in southern China. 136 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography to decentralize government functions from national to local governments. This vast urban expansion in developing countries has global implications. Cities are already the locus of nearly all major economic, social, demographic and environ- mental transformations. What happens in cities of the less developed world in coming years will shape prospects for global economic growth, poverty alleviation, population population increase will be in urban areas of 500,000 people or less. The fact that smaller cities and towns will absorb the bulk of future urban growth may be both good news and bad news. The good news is that it may be easier to respond to growing population pressures because smaller urban areas may have more flexibility in urban decision-making and territorial expan- sion than megacities. The bad news is that smaller towns and cities tend to have weak planning implementation capabilities and face increasing responsibilities due to a worldwide tendency FIGURE 5.22 Major urban agglomerations of the world. Sydney Lagos São Paulo Mexico City Los Angeles Buenos AiresRio de Janeiro New York Paris Delhi Cairo Moscow Manila Karachi Beijing Istanbul Mumbai (Bombay) Shanghai OsakaTokyo Dhaka Kolkata (Calcutta) Over 10,000,000 5,000,000–10,000,000 3,000,000–5,000,000 Population of Urban Places (2010) URBAN VIEW 5.4 The Harsh Realities of Life in a Megacity 26 Adegoke Taylor, a thin, serious thirty-two-year old itinerant trader with a restless gaze, shares an 8′ by 10′ room in an alley with three other young men. Adegoke moved to Lagos from Ile-Oluji, a Yoruba town about a hundred miles away. He has a degree in mining from a technical college and had the dream of a professional career in the big city. After arriving in Lagos, he went to a nightclub that played juju—pop music infused with Yoruba rhythms—and got home at 2 a.m. “This experience alone makes me believe I have a new life now. Everywhere you look, you see crowds. I was motivated by that. In the village, you’re not free at all, and whatever you’re going to do today you’ll do tomorrow,” he said in English, the lingua franca of Lagos. But it did not take long for Adegoke to realize that none of the few mining jobs that were advertized in the Lagos news- papers were going to be his. “If you are not connected, it’s not easy, because there are many more applicants than jobs. The moment you don’t have a recognized person saying ‘This is my boy, give him a job,’ it’s very hard. In this country, if you don’t belong to the elite, you will find things very, very hard,” he said. Adegoke ended up taking odd jobs: changing money, peddling stationery, and moving heavy loads in a warehouse for a daily wage of the equivalent of US$3. Sometimes he worked for West African traders who came to the markets near the port and needed someone to locate goods. When Adegoke first arrived in Lagos, he stayed with the sister of a childhood friend, and later found cheap accommodation in a shared room for US$7 a month until the building was burned down during ethnic riots. Having lost everything, Adegoke moved to Lagos Island where he pays a much higher rent, US$20 a month. Adegoke tried to emigrate from Africa but was denied a visa by the U.S. and British embassies in Lagos. There are times when he longs for the tranquility of his hometown, but he never seriously considered returning to the early nights and monoto- nous days or the prospects of a lifetime as a manual laborer. His future is in Lagos. “There’s no escape, except to make it,” he says. Chapter 5 • Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries 137 megacities (p. 135) modernization theories (p. 123) newly industrializing economies (NIEs) (p. 121) transnational corporation (TNC) (p. 134) underdevelopment (p. 125) urban bias (p. 125) urbanization by implosion (p. 122) world-system theory (p. 126) centrality (p. 135) colonial cities (p. 129) containerization (p. 134) Demographic Transition (p. 122) dependency theory (p. 126) economies of scale (p. 133) free trade zones or FTZs (also known as export processing zones (EPZs) (p. 135) FOLLOW UP Key Terms 1. If you have access to a library with DVDs and videos, arrange to watch Episode 3 in the Americas video series, produced by WGBH Boston and Central Television Enterprises for Channel 4, UK (1993). This video, Continent on the Move: Migration and Urbanization , examines rural-to-urban migration in Mexico within the context of the underlying processes driving this move- ment of people to the cities and the associated social and economic problems that have overwhelmed the resources of city governments. 2. Use the population figures in Table 5.1 to make a map that shows the 25 largest metropolitan regions around the world in 2025. Make a list of the most important factors that you think are responsible for the spatial distribution shown on your map. Categorize these factors into those operating mainly at a metropolitan or national scale and those that are triggered by larger global processes. Then think about some of the social, economic, political, and environmental implications of what you have identified for the urban residents and city governments of these metropolitan regions. 3. Pick a large metropolitan region with a colonial history that interests you, perhaps Lagos (Nigeria), São Paulo (Brazil), or Jakarta (Indonesia). Do some research online to find historical information that you can use to fill in some details for your metropolitan region under these head- ings: Mercantile Colonialism; Industrial Colonialism; Late Colonialism; Early Independence; and Neocolonialism. Think about some of the reasons why what you find out about the history of your metropolitan region might differ from that of other large metropolitan regions in other parts of the less developed world. 4. Wo r k o n y o u r portfolio. You might consider spending some time going through the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) website (at http://www. unchs.org/ ) to find supplementary information about some of the processes and outcomes of urbanization in the less developed countries that you are least familiar with. It might also be helpful for you to find maps and data that help you to consider how and why the urban experiences of the less developed countries has been different from those of the developed countries. Review Activities Log in to www.mygeoscienceplace.com for self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth TM tours, key resources and suggested readings, related websites, “In the News” RSS feeds, and additional references and resources to enhance your study of urbanization in the less developed countries. As we will then see in Chapter 7, the local outcomes include squatter settlements that often are associated with severe problems of social disorganization and environmental degra- dation. Nevertheless, the people in many neighborhoods have been able to develop self-help networks that have formed the basis of community within often overwhelmingly poor and crowded cities. stabilization, environmental sustainability and, ultimately, the exercise of human rights. 27 In the next chapter we will see that this close relation- ship between globalization and urbanization means that the traditional patterns of urban land use and spatial organiza- tion in many less developed countries are being transformed. 139 After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Recognize the factors that shape the internal structure of cities around the world, and understand how and why these factors combine to create different urban forms in each world region. ■ Summarize the impacts of a history of colonialism on the cities of Latin America. ■ Describe the challenges faced by people living in squatter settlements on the edge of Latin American cities. ■ Explain the variety of types of cities that have developed in Africa. ■ Demonstrate how Islamic cities provide good examples of cultural values, economic necessities, and environmental conditions being reflected in urban form and land use. Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 6 Chapter LEARNING OUTCOMES Since the earliest cities, the internal urban structure and behavior of city dwellers have varied from one region of the world to another in response to the influence of factors such as environmental conditions, history, and culture. In this crowded street in Old Delhi, India, for example, a cow, considered sacred by Hindus, sits undisturbed by passersby. A variety of historic and contemporary processes—including colonialism, rural-to-urban migration, and overurbanization—have shaped the cities of less developed countries. The patterns of land use and functional organization in cities in different regions remain somewhat distinct, reflecting varia- tions in such factors as historical legacies, levels of technology, and environmental and cultural influences. But the local effects of globalization are transforming these historical patterns of urban land use and spatial organization. Economic and cultural globalization is generating new urban landscapes of innovation, economic development, and cultural transformation. A major problem is that the uneven diffusion of the networked infrastructures of information and communications technologies has intensified economic and social inequalities not only between urban residents in the more and less developed parts of the world, but also among city dwellers in the less developed countries themselves. CHAPTER PREVIEW In the less developed countries, as in other parts of the world, competition among people for territory and location strongly shapes urban form and land use. In general, different categories of land users— commercial and industrial, as well as residential—compete for the most convenient and accessible loca- tions in cities. This chapter examines the various patterns of urban form and land use in Latin American, African, Islamic, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian cities. We draw on some well-known descriptive urban models—simplifications of reality—to establish useful snapshots of the major differ- ences among these regions. Of course, these rather static generalizations cannot capture all the outcomes 140 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography of the historic and contemporary social, cultural, economic, political, technological, and environmental processes affect- ing cities and the people who live in them (Urban View 6.1 entitled “Life in a Haiti Tent City”). Since the earliest cities (described in Chapter 2), internal urban structure has varied from one region of the world to another in response to the influence of factors such as history, culture, environmental conditions, and the different roles of individual cities within the world-system. Even so, the urban form and land use of many cities in the less developed countries bear the imprint of certain general demographic, cultural, economic, and political processes (described in Chapter 5). Recent demographic processes such as rural-to-urban migration have shaped urban form and land use within less developed countries. As we will see in Chapter 7, overurbaniza- tion has led to a large informal sector of the economy, as recent migrants and other people who cannot find regularly paid work resort to earning a living in jobs that are not regulated or taxed by government. The resulting pronounced dualism, or juxtaposition in geographic space of the formal and informal sectors of the economy, is quite evident in the form and land use of cities. For example, there has been a “quartering” of cities into spatially partitioned, compartmentalized residential enclaves. Luxury homes and apartment complexes correspond with an often dynamic formal sector that offers well-paid jobs and opportunities in the central business district (CBD) (Figure 6.1); these residential developments contrast sharply with the slums and squatter settlements of people working in the informal sector who are disadvantaged by a lack of formal education and training and often rigid divisions of labor shaped by gender, race, and ethnicity (Figure 6.2). In addition, the imprint of colonialism remains evident, often at the center of the city in the formal squares and public spaces, the layout of avenues, and the presence of colonial architecture and monuments. The colonial legacy, combined with the general processes of urban demographic, cultural, economic, and FIGURE 6.1 Business people cross the broad pavement from the Bangkok City Tower building on Sathon Tai road in the CBD of Bangkok, Thailand. FIGURE 6.2 Children in a favela (squatter settlement) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. political change, continue to influence the internal structure and land use at urban and metropolitan scales within less developed countries. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 141 URBAN VIEW 6.1 Life in a Haiti Tent City 1 A rooster crows at 6 A.M. and people are waking up in the tent city across from the badly damaged presidential palace in the capital, Port-au-Prince (Figure 6.3). Some women and girls are already waiting in line to use the portable toilet. Many others are lining up with buckets to get some water when the water truck arrives. Some people who are still in their tents are washing their faces in small plastic washbasins. One day blends into the next. Without jobs, most people just clean their tents, sit around, and chat. If they have any money, they buy some food from one of the street vendors who hawk brown rice, cornmeal, flour, beans, vegetables, dried fish, and salami. Too many people are adjusting to a life that has become far too permanent in tent cities that were never supposed to be anything but temporary. The outpouring of support from around the world was imme- diate and generous. The 2010 magnitude 7.0 earthquake that rocked Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area killed 230,000 people, injured another 300,000, made a million more home- less, and left most of the city as rubble. But everyone agrees that, despite a great deal of effort and concern by governments and international organizations, progress in rebuilding the city and mov- ing people into more permanent housing has been far too slow. After the earthquake, hundreds of thousands of terrified people were moved into tent cities established by the govern- ment or NGOs and many more were forced to live in impromptu tent cities that they set up themselves in parks, soccer pitches, and schoolyards because they had nowhere else to go. Their homemade tents are so close together that, from above, they look like a patchwork quilt of plastic tarps and bed sheets. More disturbing, if that is possible, are the growing number of roofs of corrugated iron or wood—a sign that some tent cities are becoming permanent squatter settlements with time. Some observers have asked why these people are not more angry. The disturbing explanation that some have offered is that after two centuries of poverty, corruption, and political instability, Haiti’s poor had been living in such utterly desperate conditions before the earthquake that, however unpalatable to outsiders, the tent cities may actually represent an upgrade in their standard of living. As dreadful as they are, the tent cities are often a source of food rations, clean water, medicine, and some education for the children in the makeshift school tents. But as night falls, and the candles light up the tents, people gather for evening church services, desperately praying for something better for themselves and their children. FIGURE 6.3 Some of the survivors of the 2010 magnitude 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti’s Port-au-Prince and surrounding area had to live in a tent city across from the badly damaged presidential palace. The earthquake killed 230,000 people, injured another 300,000, made a million more homeless, and left most of the city as rubble. PATTERNS OF URBAN FORM AND LAND USE Latin American Cities The internal structure of many Latin American towns today shows evidence of a colonial past—always most visible in what is now the urban core. The most numerous were the Spanish colo- nial towns of the seventeenth century that generally were located and planned in compliance with royal edicts—the so-called “Laws of the Indies”—which contained design features reflecting the legacy of the Roman Empire in Spain itself. This city plan- ning legislation dictated a gridiron pattern of square or rectan- gular blocks subdivided into long narrow lots along similarly narrow streets. A central plaza (market square) was surrounded by the important buildings—the Roman Catholic church, town hall, hospital, governor’s palace, and commercial and retail ar- cades (Figure 6.4). The Spanish settlers lived near the center of 142 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography relocating them to the cities made this task easier. The towns fa- cilitated the expansion of empire, and the indigenous people— as forced laborers in the mines and fields—could more easily be recruited and controlled by the Spanish in an urban setting because the gridiron street pattern allowed them to quickly put down uprisings. 2 Although the original plaza remains important as a historic or tourist attraction in larger cities and might re- tain many of its commercial and administrative functions the city, with the wealthy closest to the plaza and residents of middle or lower income in neighborhoods ( barrios) farther out (Figure 6.5). The indigenous population was located at the periphery along with undesirable land uses such as slaughter- houses and cemeteries. As an urban society, the Spanish used towns as social control mechanisms in the pursuit of their three goals: “God, Glory, and Gold.” The Roman Catholic Church wanted to con- vert as many of the indigenous people as possible, and forcibly S S S S GS S S S SS S SL GS S S S S SS Plaza Plaza S SS S G SS SS S S * * * * * * * * * Residences of leading Spaniards Residences of lesser Spaniards Built-up blocks Urban fringe/ isolated houses and quintas Church Government offices Stores Slaughterhouse Indians, gardens, temporary structures G S SL * FIGURE 6.4 Colonial Spanish town plan conforming to the “Laws of the Indies.” FIGURE 6.5 Cuzco, Peru, with the Church of La Compañia on the central Plaza de Armas. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 143 A zone of maturity surrounding the CBD comprises stable middle-income neighborhoods that are well served by paved streets, lighting, public transportation, schools, water, and sewerage. Newer middle-income suburban housing tracts are located adjacent to the elite sector. There is a small area of gentrification in some attractive historic neighborhoods within the zone of maturity near the CBD and elite sectors. Farther out is a zone of in situ accre- tion (literally, in place addition) containing lower-income neighborhoods that show signs of becoming part of the zone of maturity. Because currency fluctuations and deval- uations can reduce the value of a bank account overnight, many low-income homeowners instead spend their savings on building materials to enlarge their homes to generate rental income from a lodger. The zone is in a constant state of construction, and many houses have half-finished rooms or second stories. Around the edge of the built-up area is a zone of periph- eral squatter settlements housing impoverished recent immi- grants to the city. This zone has the worst quality housing, with most people making shacks from scavenged materi- als such as timber and corrugated iron. The zone is almost completely without urban services. Sectors of disamenity— along polluted rivers and industrial corridors—run outward from the CBD. Squatter settlements in these sectors tie into those at the periphery. In larger cities a peripheral ring road ( periférico ) connects the shopping mall and industrial park, but development is restricted by the difficulties of expanding infrastructure and upgrading the zone of peripheral squatter settlements. It is particularly difficult, however, to generalize about urban form and land use in contemporary Latin American cities because land use regulations are weak and often com- pletely disregarded (Figure 6.7). Figure 6.8 shows a model of land use that combines typical commercial, residential, and industrial patterns within a broad overview that reflects the general disregard for land use zoning regulations in Latin America. 4 Some important features are: locations where the informal sector of the economy dominates; widely dispersed individual commercial establishments, such as small grocery stores, specialty stores (furniture, clothing, housewares), and restaurants, reflecting the fact that most people do not own a car; strip malls along major highways; industrial activities in individual factories throughout the city and low-income hous- ing covering a large part of the city, including slums in less desirable locations near the downtown, especially near older industrial areas. In contrast to Latin American cities farther south, many towns in northern Mexico have experienced growth stimulated by foreign direct investment (FDI) from U.S. companies since the early 1990s and Mexico’s entry into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and before that as a result of the Border Industrialization ( Maquiladora) Program. Since 1965 this program has allowed many U.S. companies to import materials and components duty free into Mexico if the goods then produced by the low-cost Mexican workers are reexported in smaller towns and cities, contemporary Latin American cities exhibit certain additional characteristic features of urban form and land use. The model in Figure 6.6 shows a commercial spine and adjacent elite residential sectors sur- rounded by a series of encircling zones in which residential quality decreases with distance from the central business district (CBD) in what has been described as an inverse con- centric zone pattern . 3 The downtown comprises a CBD and a market that reflect how many Latin American downtowns have modern self- contained commercial and retail districts that are now quite separate from the more traditional mixed market districts with their small, street-oriented businesses. The dominance of the CBD reflects a road and public transportation system focused on the downtown and the presence of a large number of relatively affluent people living in central city neighbor- hoods. An extension of the CBD—a commercial “spine” sur- rounded by elite residential neighborhoods with tree-lined boulevards and parks—stretches outward along the main transportation artery. This sector has the best urban services and most of the high-end commercial locations outside the CBD: golf courses, restaurants, and office buildings. A sub- urban shopping center at the periphery of the commercial spine might compete with the downtown. A separate indus- trial sector, along a railroad or main highway, terminates in a suburban industrial park with modern factories, warehouses, and distribution facilities. ` ` Commercial Market Industrial Zone of maturity Zone of peripheral squatter settlements Zone of in situ accretion Elite residential sector Gentrification Middle-class residential tract Periferico Periferico Industrial Park Mall Spine Market CBD Disamenity Disamenity FIGURE 6.6 Ford’s model of Latin American city structure. 144 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography FIGURE 6.7 A view of Rio de Janeiro showing the CBD and the unregulated favelas appearing to spill down the mountainside in the left foreground of the photo. FIGURE 6.8 Crowley’s model of major land uses in Latin American cities. CBD M Elite Middle-class Working class Squatters–slums RESIDENTIAL CBD, spine, strips & centers Market Informal economy Individual stores Mom and pop Arterial Rail line COMMERCIAL M Zones Individual factories Small plants INDUSTRIAL Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 145 growing agglomeration economies in nearby urban centers; government intervention in the region surrounding São Paulo, including public investment in infrastructure and government subsidies for companies; and the extraordinary regional concentration of income and research resources in São Paulo that has restricted development to the immedi- ate region. African Cities Although there have been attempts to create a generalized model of the urban structure of African cities, 8 the varied his- tories and rapid changes in urban structure since independence in African countries make it more realistic to think in terms of six categories of African cities. 9 1. The indigenous (native) city: Most towns established before major European contact were administrative cen- ters of indigenous power that also had craft and trade functions (Figure 6.11). These indigenous cities include the Yoruba cities of southwest Nigeria that date back to at least the tenth century. The larger towns were walled and contained central palaces and courtyards. Some, like Ibadan, had populations exceeding 50,000 people by the time Europeans arrived and were profoundly influ- enced by colonial rule. Farther east, Addis Ababa grew to become the largest indigenous city after Emperor Menelik made it his capital in 1886; although Ethiopia to the United States. This imprint of globalization is captured in Arreola and Curtis’s model of the Mexican border city shown in Figure 6.9. 5 Note some characteristic features: the pre-1950 “traditional” urban core is truncated along its northern edge by the international border; the CBD contains a small tourist district; and, the maquiladoras are close to the U.S. border and the airport. A distinguishing feature of recent urbanization in parts of Latin America has been the extension of some megacities beyond their city and metropolitan boundaries to form extended metropolitan regions (EMRs) . 6 In Brazil “polygonized development” reflects a relative decline in the formerly overwhelming dominance of the city of São Paulo as a result of a relatively “concentrated decentralization” pat- tern of new economic activity that is locally concentrated in surrounding smaller cities and towns (Figure 6.10). 7 New economic activity has been concentrated in the geographical polygon that now surrounds São Paulo and encompasses Belo Horizonte, Uberlândia, Londrina, Maringá, Porto Alegre, Florianópolis, and São José dos Campos. The main growth poles of high technology in Brazil have developed within this new industrial polygon. A number of factors have led to this expansion of São Paulo into an extended metropolitan region and have worked against a broader deconcentration of new invest- ment throughout Brazil. These include: agglomeration diseconomies in the metropolitan area of São Paulo and Lower & lower middle income residential Middle & upper middle income residential Elite residential Innercity slums Peripheral slums Public housing El Centro (CBD) Tourist district Regional shopping center Compound-type Zona de Tolerancia Industrial Maquiladora Industrial Park Cemetery Extent of built-up area at beginning of modern era (ca. 1950) Spine Major highway Major commercial strips Railroad Airport Border crossing T T M S S S SPINE M M M Newer Newer Newer Newer Older Older Newer SPINEOlder Newer FIGURE 6.9 Arreola and Curtis’s model of urban structure for Mexican border cities. 146 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography parts of Asia, including the main covered bazaars or street markets ( suqs), mosques, a citadel (fortress), and public baths. 3. The colonial (administrative) city: Many cities in Africa date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu- ries and are colonial in origin. These cities were founded for administrative and trade purposes rather than as set- tlements for Europeans. Many, such as Dakar (Senegal) and Freetown (Sierra Leone) (Figure 6.13), were ports that served as the main points of contact between the colonial powers and the local people. The colonial transportation retained its political independence, the city was still influ- enced significantly by European contact. 2. The Islamic city: Islamic cities in Africa—including Kano in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, and Merca in Somalia— were founded by African people or invaders who brought Islamic influences (Figure 6.12). These cities flourished as the capitals of empires, religious centers, and marketplaces at the end of long-distance trans- Saharan caravan routes. They contained features char- acteristic of Islamic cities in the Middle East and other New industrial agglomerative polygon LEGEND Deconcentration axes Main technological poles (a) (1) São Paulo (2) Campinas (3) São Carlos (4) São José dos Campos (5) Santa Rita do Sapucaí (6) Florianópolis (7) Campina Grande Uberlândia Belo Horizonte São José dos Campos (4) Campinas (2) São Carlos (3) Porto Alegre Maringá Londrina Florianópolis (6) Campina Grande (7) Santa Rita do Sapucaí (5) São Paulo (1) AMAZONAS RORAIMA AMAPÁ PARÁ MARANHÃO CEARÁ PIAUÍ BAHIA ACRE RONDÔNIAMATO GROSSO TOCANTINS GOIÁS DF MINAS GERAIS MATO GROSSO DO SUL PARAÍBA RIO GRANDE DO NORTE PARANÁ ALAGOAS SERGIPE RIO DE JANEIRO RIO GRANDE DO SUL ESPÍRITO SANTO SANTA CATARINA SÃO PAULO PERNAMBUCO FIGURE 6.10 São Paulo’s extended metropolitan region. FIGURE 6.11 Harar, Ethiopia, an example of an indigenous African city, is the fourth holiest city of Islam, and contains 82 mosques. This market is at the entrance to the Shoa Gate, one of six gates in the sixteenth century walls of this city. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 147 and residential segregation that the Africans who lived and worked in these cities were viewed as temporary resi- dents. The most extreme expression of the “European” city was the apartheid city of South Africa (the Urban View 6.2 entitled “Fighting Racial Discrimination in South African Cities with Soccer?”). 5. The dual city: The dual city represents a combination of two or more of the indigenous, Islamic, colonial, or “European” categories of cities. Kano, for example, com- bines both an ancient walled Muslim city surrounded by a new area of colonial origin. Greater Khartoum com- prises the indigenous city of Omdurman on the west bank of the Nile and the colonial city of Khartoum on the opposite bank. These dual cities were interdependent but physically separate—each had a full range of urban functions and each developed with a certain degree of independence. network of road and railway lines connected the interior regions with these coastal trade centers; this allowed the Europeans to maintain political and military control and to extract minerals and agricultural produce from the interior areas for export. These cities were characterized by quite sharp functional and residential segregation that was imposed by the colonial powers. 4. The “European” city: The “European” city is a special category of colonial city . It is a true “colonial” city in the original sense of a colony as a place of permanent new settlement. Cities such as Harare (formerly Salisbury) in Zimbabwe (Figure 6.14), Lusaka in Zambia, and Nairobi in Kenya were established primarily as places for Europeans to live and to provide urban services for per- manent European settlers in the surrounding rural areas. They were designed as replicas of towns in Europe and reflected European town planning ideas. Although their main functions were administration and trade, manu- facturing to meet the needs of the European settlers was allowed. The Europeans imposed such sharp functional FIGURE 6.12 The Central Mosque of Kano, Nigeria, the oldest city in West Africa, and in the foreground, horsemen charging to show off their riding skills during the annual Durbar festival. FIGURE 6.14 Harare (formerly Salisbury), Zimbabwe is an example of a “European” colonial city. This is a photo of Stanley Avenue in the 1930s looking east. FIGURE 6.13 The port of Freetown, Sierra Leone, an example of a colonial (administrative) city 148 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography include Sub-Saharan Africa’s only megacity, Lagos (Nigeria), and other rapidly growing primate cities, such as Nairobi (Kenya) (Figure 6.16), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), and Harare (Zimbabwe). Islamic Cities Islamic cities are found in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East—the heartland of the Islamic Empire under the prophet Muhammad (c.e. 570–632)—and in those regions into which Islam spread, including parts of Africa, South-Central Asia, and Indonesia. Many elements of the traditional Islamic city can be found as far away as Seville, Granada, and Córdoba in southern Spain; Kano in northern Nigeria and Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania; and Davao in the Philippines. Islamic cities are good examples of how cultural values (Islam), economic necessities (trade), and environmental con- ditions (dry climate) are reflected in the form and land use of 6. The hybrid city: Indigenous and foreign elements are integrated in the hybrid city. Since independence, most African cities have become hybrids as their indigenous, Islamic, colonial, and “European” elements have become more integrated. Accra, Ghana, is a good example of this kind of city. 10 It was an indigenous city, founded prior to the sixteenth century, that became a colonial admin- istrative center in the late nineteenth century. It com- bines indigenous, colonial, and modern development. Aryeetey-Attoh’s model of the internal structure of Accra shows an irregular pattern of ethnic and religious enclaves superimposed on residential sectors of different income level (Figure 6.15). Unplanned peripheral sprawl of high- income development accompanied Accra’s rapid expan- sion. This recent trend contrasts with earlier descriptions of an inverse concentric zone pattern for African cities in which the wealthy and middle-income groups congre- gated close to the government center to avoid the hazards of a time-consuming commute, while the poor occupied the peripheral locations. A characteristic of many African cities is the existence, within the same municipal boundary, of two enclaves: a poor highly marginalized population and a wealthy expatri- ate elite. 11 The urban elite is connected to the international economy; poorer people are tied into the informal sector of the urban economy. Greater integration is difficult because the African formal sector has not been able to disengage from its unequal political, economic, and cultural links with other parts of the world and make urbanization work for the benefit of African cities and their residents. It is difficult for people in the informal sector to make the transition to the more prosperous formal sector of the urban economy. Modern technology, which is relatively easily available to those in the formal sector, is virtually inaccessible to most people in the informal sector. This situation presents particular prob- lems for cities that are experiencing overurbanization. These FIGURE 6.15 A model of a Sub-Saharan African city. Middle income “Stranger” communities Zongos Enclave Upper income Low income Light industry Military Industry Historic districtCBD LI LI Commercial Sprawled residential development of upper income FIGURE 6.16 Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, a rapidly growing African primate city whose skyline is visible in the distance as wildebeest cross a dirt road in Nairobi National Park. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 149 URBAN VIEW 6.2 Fighting Racial Discrimination in South African Cities with Soccer? When it was announced that South Africa had been chosen to host the 2010 World Cup, people celebrated and Nelson Mandela could not hold back the tears. “The World Cup will help unify people. If there is one thing in this planet that has the power to bind people, it is soccer,” he said. During his 27 years in prison for his anti-apartheid activism, he played soccer with other prisoners in the prison yard. 12 Apartheid was introduced by the white minority in South Africa with the explicit goal of imposing separate racial develop- ment in the “European” city. The 1950 Group Areas Act required the spatial separation of the officially defined racial groups (Whites, Indians, Coloureds, and Blacks). Different areas—separated by clear natural divides such as greenbelts or physical barriers such as railways, roadways, and industrial strips or, if necessary, buffer zones of vacant land—were designated for each group (Figure 6.17). Ten “homelands” ( Bantustans) comprising only about 14 percent of the area of the country—mostly barren land—were designated for black people, who comprised 70 percent of the population. The 1952 “Pass Laws” gave black males temporary work permits that allowed them to work in the cities only as needed. The white minority used apartheid to control the black majority, using fundamentally geographical means to achieve the spatial separation of races within cities, within the countryside, within buildings, in employment, and by marriage. For nearly 40 years, one sport—soccer—thwarted this system and perhaps even foreshadowed the end of apartheid. 13 As Leepile Taunyane, life president of South Africa’s Premier Soccer League said: “Soccer played a very crucial role as a form of resistance, never yielding to being divided by government policy.” Although blacks were legally limited in where they could go within cities, there were white people who helped black teams find somewhere to play. This was one of the few examples of the beginning of a pro- cess that established a foundation for the racial integration that would come with the end of apartheid. Later, in the 1960s, the top white teams wanted to play against black teams to test their abilities. By the late 1970s, as black teams drew more fans, some major South African corporations sponsored matches. The international pressure that contributed to the end of apart- heid included sports boycotts (that prevented South African soccer players from representing their country internationally), a forced withdrawal from the British Commonwealth, trade sanctions, and voluntary investment bans by major transnational corporations. A number of white South Africans were also vocal in their opposition to the system. The early 1990s saw the end of apartheid in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was freed from jail, and President F. W. de Klerk agreed to political power sharing. In 1994, South Africa held the first election in its history in which blacks were allowed to vote. Nelson Mandela was elected the first black president. (continued) FIGURE 6.17 Cape Town apartheid city plan. Table Bay False Bay ATLANTIC OCEAN TABLE MOUNTAIN 0 0 8 Kilometers 55 8 Miles Blacks Whites Coloureds Indians Industry 150 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 6.2 Fighting Racial Discrimination in South African Cities with Soccer? ( continued) Despite efforts to promote greater integration, the shadow of apartheid planning is expected to remain visible in the geog- raphy of South African cities for decades. 14 The white elite still occupy the affluent neighborhoods, while vast numbers of poor blacks live in squatter settlements. Much progress remains to be made in addressing apartheid’s legacy and in reducing the deep social, economic, and spatial divisions. Some observers are optimistic about South Africa’s urban future—that planners and politicians can work closely with the communities they serve, attempting to meet their urban services and other needs despite limited public resources. This is why some of the government’s beautification strategies in preparation for the World Cup have been so troubling. In Cape Town, massive slum clearance that displaced thousands of poor people and the building of the N2 gateway housing project as “beautiful formal housing opportunities” have been a distress- ing reminder of the forced removals during apartheid. The loca- tions of eviction and gentrification in the run up to the World Cup (Figure 6.18) mirror the locations of the coloured and black sectors of Cape Town during apartheid (Figure 6.17). 15 N1 N2 N2 R300 Delft Cape Town Stadium Station AirportFootball for Hope Center Commercial Area Fifa Fan Festival TABLE MOUNTAIN Central Downtown Green Point Langa Athlone GugulethuNyanga Gatesville Crossroads Mitchells Plain Khayelitsha Belleville Table Bay False Bay ATLANTIC OCEAN 0 0 8 Kilometers 55 8 Miles New or upgraded/enlarged construction Upgraded roads World Cup public investment Low Medium High Social marginalization/poverty level Gentrification Eviction areas (homeless, shackdwellers, street traders) Squatter settlements N2 gateway housing project Transit camps (temporary relocation areas of housing for evicted shackdwellers) Forced relocations Failed relocation after protests Protests and people’s resistance Urban space reorganization FIGURE 6.18 Cape Town: World Cup for tourists. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 151 cities (Figure 6.19). The fundamentals of the layout and design of the traditional Islamic city are so intimately connected with Islamic cultural values that they are found in the Qur’an (the Koran), the holy book of Islam. Although urban growth does not have to conform to any master plan, certain basic principles are intended to ensure Islam’s emphasis on personal privacy and virtue, on communal well-being, and on the inner essence of things, rather than on outward appearance. Privacy is central in the construction of the Islamic city. According to Islamic values, women must be protected from the gaze of unrelated men. Traditionally, doors must not face each other across a minor street, and windows must be small, narrow, and above eye level. Dead-end streets are used to restrict the number of people approaching the homes, and angled entrances prevent intrusive glances (Figure 6.20). Larger homes are built around courtyards that provide an interior private focus for domestic life (Figure 6.21). The rights of others are given strong emphasis. The Qur’an specifies an obligation to neighborly consideration and cooper- ation that traditionally is interpreted as applying to a minimum radius of 40 houses. In traditional designs parapets surround the roofs to prevent views of the homes of neighbors and drain- age channels are steered away from adjacent houses. Because most Islamic cities are in hot, dry climates, these basic prin- ciples of urban design have evolved in conjunction with cer- tain practical responses to intense heat and sunlight. Narrow winding streets help to maximize shade, as do latticework on windows, wind towers that draw air into houses to cool them, and the courtyard design of residential areas (Figures 6.20 and 6.21). The overall effect is a compact, cellular urban structure within which it is possible to maintain a high degree of privacy. The traditional Islamic city grew up at desert oasis sites, and prospered from trade connections. The model of the internal structure of the Islamic metropolis in Figure 6.22 reflects some important features. 16 At the heart of the city is the walled Kasbah or citadel (fortress). Its often ornate gates open onto the palace buildings, baths, barracks, small mosque, and shops. Surrounding the Kasbah is the medina or old city. The medina usually had a wall with several watchtowers for defense. City gates controlled access, allowing strangers to be scrutinized and merchants to be taxed. Until the eleventh century, the absence of corporate bodies in a society composed of rulers and subjects meant that there was no need for public buildings and communal meeting places. 17 After that time mosques began to proliferate, and the Jami —the city’s principal mosque—became the dominant feature of the traditional Islamic city. Located centrally, the mosque complex is not only a center of worship, but also a hub for education and a broad range of welfare functions. As cities grew, new, smaller mosques were built toward the periphery, each out of earshot of the call to prayer of each other. The covered bazaars or street markets ( suqs) nearest the Jami typically specialize in the cleanest and most prestigious goods, such as books, perfumes, prayer mats, and modern Expressed on the landscape: Souks (markets) Khans & Bedestans Craft industries Basic manufacturing Economic geography TRADE Physical geography DRY Expressed on the landscape:Mosques & Minarets Madrasas Islamic Universities Shrines & Mausoleums Cultural geography ISLAMIC THE TRADITIONAL MIDDLE EASTERN CITY Expressed on the landscape: Wells and fountains Small, open courtyards High, thick wallsWind towers FIGURE 6.19 The traditional Middle Eastern city. FIGURE 6.20 Privacy concerns and climatic conditions are given urban form in the maze of narrow streets in many Islamic cities like Zanzibar, Tanzania. 152 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography consumer goods. Those nearer the city gates specialize in bulkier and less valuable goods such as basic foodstuffs, build- ing materials, textiles, leather goods, and pots and pans. Within the suqs, each profession and line of business has its own alley. The residential population in the old city tended to be con- centrated in distinctive quarters or ahya’, many of which had gates of their own. There were different quarters for workers with similar occupations, for Jews, Europeans, Christian sects, and ethnic groups, and for people of different village, tribal, or regional origin. Both rich and poor lived together in each quarter. In the colonial era a new city developed outside the old city walls (Figure 6.22). The traditional elements of urban form— mosques, public baths, and small shops—were incorporated but augmented with the modern amenities and architectural styles of the colonizers—new government buildings, wide boulevards, hotels, department stores, and corporate offices. Like cities everywhere, contemporary Islamic cities bear the imprint of globalization despite the fact that Islamic culture is self- consciously resistant to many aspects of Western-based culture. The new city that developed outside the old city walls during the colonial era became surrounded by the modern, post colonial city (Figure 6.22); as this happened, courtyard homes all but disappeared, their place taken by apartment blocks, with high-income and single-family units increasingly common. The postcolonial city became the zone of interna- tional hotels, department chain stores, skyscrapers and office blocks, universities, factories, and highways. The postcolonial city has also become the location for squatter settlements that are now home to recent rural immigrants. FIGURE 6.21 The central courtyards of larger homes in Islamic cities were designed to provide privacy and shade for the family, as in this historic home in Cordoba, Spain. Citadel Kasbah Old City Medina New CityColonial City Modern City Postcolonial City Urban Expansion Zone Future City Social transect Housing transect Transportation transect Commercial transect Walls FIGURE 6.22 Internal structure of the Middle Eastern metropolis. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 153 contains multistory apartment blocks—now the most characteristic feature of the residential landscape of the contemporary Islamic city. 3. Commercial Transect : The old city still contains suqs, traditional industries, and small-scale, family-owned craft businesses. The modern city offers department stores as well as international and national franchise businesses. 4. Transportation Transect: The old city contains narrow congested streets of pedestrians, donkey carts, and taxis. The new city reflects the proliferation of private cars and associated amenities, such as gas stations and parking spaces. A feature of recent urbanization has been the entirely new group of Islamic cities that has grown up around the modern oil and gas fields. These are best exemplified by the cities of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar (Urban View 6.3 entitled “Towering Ambition in Persian Gulf Cities and the Global Economic Downturn”). Another characteristic of recent urbanization is the devel- opment of increasingly integrated urban regions containing An urban expansion zone in which small villages are undergoing urbanization has grown up beyond the modern city (Figure 6.22). New industrial estates, an international air- port, modest new housing tracts, or, in the case of countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, new cities, are being added. In the richest countries experiencing growing car ownership, this can also be a zone of uncontrolled urban sprawl. The contemporary Islamic city has become an interlock- ing set of zones—the citadel, old city, new city, modern city, and urban expansion zone—that show changes in urban form and function that are patterned in time. A series of different transects extend out from the center of the city through each of these zones (Figure 6.22). 18 1. Social Transect: The old city has become socially margin- alized as wealthy residents have moved out. The modern city is attracting most of the new housing investment and the best urban services. Even foreign tourists stay in hotels in the modern city and make only brief visits to the old city in air-conditioned buses. 2. Housing Transect: The old city usually comprises tra- ditional two-story courtyard houses. The modern city URBAN VIEW 6.3 Towering Ambition in Persian Gulf Cities and the Global Economic Downturn An entirely new group of cities has grown up since the 1960s around the oil and natural gas fields of countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar. 19 Petrodollars financed this city building. These cities often comprise two zones: a tiny historic core, anchored by a fort and perhaps what remains of a traditional wharf area, whose layout and architectural style provide a source of local identity; surrounding the core is a modern city of glittering high- rise offices, expensive shopping malls, exclusive apartment com-plexes, sprawling suburbs, and mosques. 20 Oil wealth has paid for the world’s star architects— “starchitects” such as Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel—to design cities and buildings that blend modern urban design and archi- tecture with traditional themes. The world’s tallest skyscraper was officially opened in 2010 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. At 160 stories, it can be seen from as far away as 60 miles (Figure 6.23). 21 But the celebrations and incredible high-tech fireworks display could not disguise the impact of the global economic downturn and property market collapse for Dubai, whose oil wealth is much less than neighboring Abu Dhabi’s. The announcement that the building will be known as the Burj Khalifa in honor of the President of the United Arab Emirates and head of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, rather than the Burj Dubai, reflects Abu Dhabi’s multi-billion bail-out loans to Dubai. Until the global recession, the economic magnetism of cities like Dubai attracted unskilled workers from countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and skilled workers (continued) FIGURE 6.23 The world’s tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, was opened in 2010 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. At 160 stories, it can be seen from as far away as 60 miles. 154 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography a number of Islamic cities. These megalopolises include one that stretches along a new superhighway across the desert from Cairo to Alexandria and another, anchored by Istanbul and Bursa, that forms Turkey’s Marmara megalopolis. South Asian Cities Two main forces—colonial and traditional—have influenced the urban form of South Asian cities. 24 The colonial-based city model incorporates land use pat- terns found in colonial cities in other parts of the world but also contains certain regional characteristics that reflect the colonial functions specific to the Indian subcontinent (Figure 6.24). The development of colonial cities in South Asia typically involved certain characteristics. The port facility often became the nucleus of the colonial city. The need for trade and military reinforce- ments required a waterfront location accessible to oceangoing ships. A walled fort nearby functioned as a military outpost. If the port contained factories that processed agricultural raw materials for export, this formed the initial basis for colonial trade. Beyond the fort, the native town—overcrowded, unplanned, inade- quately serviced—housed the local workers who serviced the fort and the colonial administration. A nearby Western-style CBD contained the government, administrative, commercial, retail, and public buildings. The European town grew in a different area or direction from the native town. It was low-density with spacious bungalows, elegant apartment houses, planned boulevards, and good urban services and recreational facilities. Between the fort and European town, an extensive open space ( maidan) was reserved for military parades and European recreational activities, such URBAN VIEW 6.3 Towering Ambition in Persian Gulf Cities and the Global Economic Downturn ( continued) Persian Gulf cities are also associated with serious envi- ronmental challenges. 23 A surprising and very visible feature of desert cities like Dubai is how much green—lawns, parks, golf courses—there is. Figuratively, the oil is turned into water and the water into green space. But in a desert, the water comes from processing seawater in huge desalination plants, which makes it the most costly water—economically and environmentally—onearth. Dubai has also expanded so quickly that its sewage treatment plants have not been able to keep pace and its tourist beaches are becoming polluted. Dubai’s neighbor, Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich capital of the UAE, is generally viewed as having taken a more cautious approach that has involved diversifying into cultural and envi- ronmental sustainability areas. The cultural strategy includes Saadiyat Island that offers high-end commercial, residential, and tourist developments, including a branch of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums. The environmental strategy includes Masdar City, which is designed as the world’s first carbon neutral eco-city—quite a contrast to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. FIGURE 6.24 The colonial-based city in South Asia. Bazaar-based high-intensity commercial and residential land use Anglo-Indian residences Administrative quarters Port extension Original port Fort Open space European town New wealthy and middle- class residential extensionsNative or black town Central business district from Europe, the United States, and other parts of the Arab world. There are many accounts of the exploitation of the unskilled workers and their lives in the overcrowded make- shift camps an hour outside the city. 22 The common story is of young men who were recruited by an employment agent who came to their village and signed them up to work on the construction sites in cities like Dubai. The agent told the young men that they could earn $650 each month for an 8-hour workday. The young men sold their family land and took out loans from local lenders to pay the $3,700 fee for a work visa, which they expected toeasily pay off in just six months. After they landed at the airport, their passports were taken by the construction company and they were told that they would be working 14 hour days for $150 a month. Without a pass- port and money, they could not return home to face their family who depended on them or the local moneylender who would have them thrown in prison. They stayed to work and pay off their loans, but the property market crash has meant that construction companies have slashed jobs and now these workers have no choice but to return home. as cricket and horse racing. Between the native and European town, Anglo-Indian colonies contained the Christian offspring of European-Indian marriages who were never fully accepted by either community. Since independence the colonial city has Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 155 accommodation in smaller towns; hotel accommodation in the larger towns and cities reflects Western influence. Surrounding this inner core is a zone of wealthy residences, with separate housing for domestic servants, cleaners, shop assistants, and porters. The homes of the poor comprise a third zone, beyond which are the native elite and middle-income groups who settled in what had been the “civil lines” in the colonial period—zones containing civil functions, such as the courthouse, police headquarters, jail, hospital, and public library. Ethnic, religious, linguistic, and caste neighborhoods formed in specific areas depending on the timing of settlement and the availability of land; the Dalits (“ Untouchables ” ) always live at the periphery of the city, the site of most squatter settle- ments. As in the colonial cities, many traditional bazaar-based cities were extended as the city grew. Governmental, semigov- ernmental, cooperative, and private agencies built planned high-income developments, especially for the native elite. The planned city represents a third category of South Asian urban form. Ancient cities that were planned, such as Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, did not survive ( Chapter 2 ). Other planned cities from the precolonial, colonial, and independence periods formed the basis for later development. An example of a precolonial planned city is Jaipur, which was founded in 1727 by the Maharajah of Jaipur ( Figure 6.26 ). A city that was been extended into reclaimed lowland or undeveloped areas to create new living space, particularly for the native elite. Bazaar-based cities were part of a thriving urban system in South Asia before colonialism, and they contain features that predate the colonial period ( Figure 6.25 ). Their urban form today reflects their roles as early centers of trade and commerce, administration, or religious pilgrimage. Typically there is a retail business concentration at the main crossroads. Around this intersection—known as a chowk in northern India—are the houses of the wealthy and the merchants who live above or behind their shops and warehouses. The bazaar, or city center, contains a variety of land uses, although commercial activities dominate. With the bulk of family income spent on basic necessities—food, clothing, and shelter—most streets contain retail outlets for foodstuffs and clothes; sidewalk vendors are everywhere. As the bazaar evolved, functional separation of retail and wholesale busi- nesses occurred. There are specific areas for retail traders— textile shops and tailors, grain and bread shops, jewelry stores and pawnshops, and vendors of perishable goods (vegetables, meat, and fish) that people buy daily because most do not own a refrigerator. Public or nonprofit inns provide inexpensive FIGURE 6.25 The bazaar-based city in South Asia. Bazaar-based traditional city fromthe precolonial times with rich inzone I and poor in zone III New postindependenceextensions with extensivesquatter settlements Religious and linguistic clusters and Untouchables Preindependencehigh-class development Physical Space Cultural Space Chowk, or crossroads Civillines III II I High-intensitycommercial andresidential land uses Wholesale market Squatters/slums FIGURE 6.26 Jaipur, India, an example of a precolonial planned city, which was founded in 1727 by the Maharajah of Jaipur. This is the old section of the city, known as the Pink City, seen from the Jantar Mantar, an astronomical observatory also built by the Maharajah. The City Palace is at center. 156 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography over time and surrounded by later unplanned traditional devel- opments and semiplanned modern extensions. The traditional bazaar often thrived alongside the modern CBD, even in former colonial centers like Kolkata (Calcutta) and Mumbai (Bombay) that have since become megacities. In South Asia, megacities such as these have grown so far beyond their city and metro- politan boundaries that they now form extended metropolitan regions. Although many cities in South Asia are only marginally connected to the world economy, some are beginning to tap into the service employment opportunities associated with foreign direct investment. In India, cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad have focused on providing educated English speakers and good telecommunications infrastructures to attract transnational corporations (Urban View 6.4 entitled “A Day in the Life of a Call Center Worker in India”). As a result, India has become a global center for software develop- ment and back-office processing (accounting, medical tran- scription, payroll management, maintaining legal databases, and processing insurance claims and credit card applications). In a world economy, India has been able to also attract call center business (telemarketing and help desk support) by offering these services for 30 to 40 percent less than coun- tries that have traditionally provided these services (such as Ireland, Canada, Australia, and even Hong Kong and the Philippines). And although the first companies to set up back- office processing or call centers in India were from Europe and the United States (e.g., Swissair, British Airways, General Electric, and American Express), Indian businesses now also offer outsourcing opportunities to transnational corporations (Figure 6.28). planned in the British colonial period is Jamshedpur, which was designed as a company town around India’s first steel mill (Figure 6.27). As they grew, the colonial-based, traditional bazaar-based, and planned cities developed hybrid elements. Colonial func- tional demands affected the traditional bazaar city layout; tradi- tional elements were added to the colonial cities. Many bazaar and colonial cities have new planned extensions at their periph- eries. The original cores of the planned cities were modified FIGURE 6.27 Jamshedpur, India, an example of a city that was planned in the British colonial period, which was designed as a company town around India’s first steel mill. This photo of the Tata Iron and Steel Co. works was taken in 1952. URBAN VIEW 6.4 A Day in the Life of a Call Center Worker in India 25 Parag Arora, 23, works in a call center of a British transnational corporation in Mumbai. He has a BA in economics from Delhi University and earns the equivalent of about US$75 a week. 4 p.m. Parag works nights to coincide with office hours in the United Kingdom, and so wakes up in the after- noon. He shares an apartment with three other call center workers. 5 p.m. Breakfast/lunch: paratha (a type of bread stuffed with vegetables), dhal (lentil soup), subgi (a cooked vegetable dish) and idli (a fluffy rice cracker dipped in a savory sauce). 5:30 p.m. Parag relaxes with his friends, plays computer games, does some shopping or goes to a movie. 11 p.m. The journey to work on the bus should take 20 minutes, but the streets are often choked with traffic. 12 midnight The ten-hour shift begins with a short team meeting to set targets for the workers before they put on their headsets. Parag answers credit card calls such as ones about payment problems. Workers must aim for an average call-handling time of two and a half minutes— the system also monitors how often customers are put on hold (which implies that the worker needs to ask for help). More than 2,000 people are employed in the call center and about 700 work on any given night. 5 a.m. A half-hour break and a meal in the crowded can- teen: similar dishes to lunch (Chinese food is also popu- lar). Workers are permitted another two 15-minute breaks during their shift. 10 a.m. Parag leaves work. The shifts are hard to adjust to, as they change every few weeks; invariably they involve working far into the morning. He works a five-day week but his days off vary. 11 a.m. Bed. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 157 the vicinity of a Malay fishing village; and Batavia (Jakarta, Indonesia) was located at the site of an existing trading center. Colonial cities were typically laid out using a gridiron street plan. The commercial and administrative functions were con- centrated at the urban core. The exclusive residential districts for the Europeans were located outside the central “urban vil- lages” ( kampungs ) that contained different ethnic groups. In some cities elements of the precolonial urban form—religious, military, or court functions at the core and the markets and merchants at the periphery—have survived, as in the old walled fort in Manila and the Shwe Dagon Pagoda and Buddhist mon- asteries in Yangon (Rangoon). 28 Aside from their considerable size and growth rates, a major characteristic of the larger colonial port cities was the tremen- dous mixing of economic activities and land uses (Figure 6.29). 29 The port zone—the center of economic activity in the colonial era—has retained its importance in the postcolonial period. Instead of a single CBD, there are separate civic and com- mercial/retail concentrations: a government zone; a Western commercial zone with foreign-owned banks, office towers, department stores, and modern hotels; and one or more high-density “alien” (often ethnic Chinese or Indian) com- mercial zones, containing small businesses—jewelers, tailors, chemists—in two-story shops and warehouses where the goods are manufactured and sold and where the business owner lives. In addition to the colonial-era elite residential neighbor- hoods near the government zone, new high-income suburbs and gated communities have been built to accommodate recent growth. Similarly, in addition to the middle-density Southeast Asian Cities The earliest cities in Southeast Asia originated as a result of the diffusion of Indian and Chinese influences into the region beginning in the first century c.e. 26 Two main types of cities developed: the sacred city and the trading city. Sacred cities were inland agrarian capitals that were cen- ters of spiritual authority. They contained great temple complexes—such as Angkor Wat in Angkor, Cambodia—for the spiritual rulers. These sacred cities were located and designed according to cosmological principles and were fre- quently relocated on the advice of court astrologers. The for- tunes of these cities rose and fell depending on agricultural productivity and their rulers’ military successes. In contrast, trading cities were bustling coastal or river ports that were part of a complex international trading network. The largest contained between 50,000 and 100,000 people. The eth- nic elite lived inside the walls of these cities while the native and foreign traders lived outside. The arrival of Europeans resulted in the establishment of colonial cities and systems of cities in Southeast Asia. The early centuries of European contact produced an embryonic colonial urban network of existing and new gateway cities to facilitate control of Asian trade. 27 In the nineteenth century the need for markets and raw materials for the rapidly industrializing coun- tries of Western Europe prompted a shift in colonial empha- sis toward Southeast Asia. This fueled the growth of a larger network of colonial urban settlements that included port cities, administrative centers, and mining and market towns, linked together and to areas of production by an extensive transporta- tion system. The colonial port cities were oriented primarily toward Europe. Virtually all were located on sites of existing settlements—Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) was built near the Chinese village of Cholon; Singapore was built in FIGURE 6.28 Indian employees at a call center in Kolkata, India provide service support to international customers. Govt. zone Port zone Market gardening zone Zone of new suburbs and squatter areas Mixed land use zone Middle density residential zone New industrial estate a 1 2 3 a 1 = Alien commercial zone 2 = Alien commercial zone 3 = Western commercial zone a = Squatter areas b = Suburbs b b High class residential High class new residential FIGURE 6.29 The Southeast Asian city. 158 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Surrounding these megacities are “peri-urban” suburban fringes that are within commuting distance of the urban core. Farther out are what McGee calls desakotas—whose name comes from combining the Bahasa Indonesian words for vil- lage ( desa) and town ( kota)—to capture the intensive mix of agricultural and nonagricultural land uses in areas at the urban periphery and along the transportation corridors connecting the major cities (Figure 6.31). 31 Six features characterize the desakota areas: 1. A large population engaged in smallholder rice cultivation 2. An increasing amount of nonagricultural activities in areas that were largely agricultural previously 3. Intense movements of people and goods using relatively cheap transportation, such as two-stroke motorbikes, buses, and trucks 4. Intense mixing of land uses, including agriculture, cot- tage industries, industrial estates, and suburban residen- tial developments 5. Increasing participation of females in nonagricultural labor 6. “Invisible” or “gray” areas of informal sector activities where government regulations may not apply or are difficult to enforce The evolution of high-density rural areas of intensive agriculture close to the major urban centers establishes the preconditions for the development of extended metropolitan regions in Asia. 32 These preconditions include sizable pools of labor that are available for relocating industries; significant improvements in transportation and communications that have increased the accessibility of regions close to the urban core and in some cases led to corridor development between two major urban centers; and areas within the extended metropolitan regions that are attractive to decentralizing activities, such as labor-intensive industry and housing. neighborhoods ( kampungs) of different ethnic groups closer to the urban core, there are now new middle-income suburbs. Squatter settlements are found in zones of disamenity through- out the city (e.g., along polluted rivers) and at the edge of the built-up area. A peripheral zone of intensive market garden- ing supplies fresh produce to the city’s markets. New industrial estates have also been built at the urban periphery to attract transnational corporations and promote job growth. As in other parts of Asia and in Latin America, a distinguish- ing feature of recent urbanization in Southeast Asia has been the extension of megacities beyond their city and metropolitan boundaries to form extended metropolitan regions. Megacities like Jakarta, Bangkok, and Manila now lie at the epicenter of extended metropolitan regions. Extended metropolitan development tends to produce an amorphous and amoebic-like spatial form, with no set boundaries or geographic extent and long regional peripheries, their radii sometimes stretching 75 to 100 km from the urban core. The entire territory—comprising the central city, the developments within the transporta- tion corridors, the satellite towns and other projects in the peri-urban fringe, and the outer zones—is emerging as a single, economically integrated ‘mega-urban region,’ or ‘extended metropolitan region.’ Within this territory are a large number of individual jurisdictions, both urban and rural, each with its own administrative machinery, laws, and regulations. No single authority is responsible for overall planning or management. 30 The extended metropolitan region of Jakarta is called Jabodetabek, which gets its name by combining the first let- ters of each jurisdiction that comprises the larger region (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi) (Figure 6.30). Jabodetabek contains more than 25 million people and thou- sands of factories that together represent much of Indonesia’s industrial employment. FIGURE 6.30 Jakarta, Indonesia, at the heart of the sprawling Jabodetabek extended metropolitan region. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 159 Although this kind of urbanization appears to repeat the experience of the developed countries during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there are some important dif- ferences: 33 The distinction between rural and urban activities is breaking down faster in Asia than it did in the developed countries; considerable advances in technology—facilitating the flow of goods, people, and capital—have allowed extended metropolitan regions to develop; and rapid industrialization and economic growth have focused primarily on the extended metropolitan regions and particularly on the peripheral parts of these regions. East Asian Cities Since World War II, the distinctive differences that have emerged in the internal structure of East Asian cities reflect the influence of the socialist tradition in Communist China, North (1) Major cities (2) Peri-urban (3) Desakota (4) Densely populated rural (5) Sparsely populated frontier Smaller cities and towns Communication routes Spatial System FIGURE 6.31 Spatial configuration of extended metropolitan regions in Asia. URBAN VIEW 6.5 Shanghai, a World City and ”Dragon Head” of China’s Economy Shanghai, with an estimated population of 20 million residents in 2010, is China’s largest city. It is located on the Huangpu River near the mouth of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) River (Figure 6.32). At the time of the Communist revolution of 1949, Shanghai had a population of over a million, was one of the three larg- est manufacturing centers in the world, and was the busiest international port in Asia. Its growth was fueled by its role as the primary Asian entrepôt for trade in opium, silk, and tea. The British were the first to develop Shanghai in this way at the end of the Opium Wars in 1842. By 1847 the French had arrived, and by 1895 large sections of the city had been divided into colonial concession zones. The centerpiece of the city was the Bund, the riverfront development of monumental neoclassical buildings containing the major international banks and trading houses (Figure 5.15). Just as the foreigners had drained the wealth out of the city, now the Communist government officials tapped into its eco- nomic strength, but to redress regional imbalances in prosperity across China. Shanghai was heavily taxed—75 percent or more of its revenues went to the national government—with very little reinvested in the city. As a result, Shanghai lost its vibrancy and became rundown despite industrialization and growth under the Communists. Dramatic changes came in the 1980s when the central govern- ment recognized the need for massive investments in Shanghai’s infrastructure. Designated as one of 14 “open cities,” the Shanghai Economic Zone and several Economic and Technological Development Zones were established as attractive locations for international investment. In addition, about 200 square miles of low-density farm, industrial, and residential land to the east of the Huangpu River was designated as the Pudong New Area (lit-erally, “east of the (Huang)pu ( Pudong Xinchu)”) (Figure 6.32). Shanghai was to be the “dragon head”—the economic engine that would stimulate development along the entire length of the Chang Jiang valley—the “dragon body.” 34 The official designation of Pudong as a national develop- ment project in 1990 was an acknowledgment of the strate- gic importance of Shanghai for China’s overall development. This designation allowed city government officials to offer a comprehensive range of incentives, including tax breaks, to attract domestic and foreign companies and investment and to utilize central government funds for infrastructure and other expenditures. 35 Plans were drawn up for new bridges across the Huangpu River, inner and outer ring roads, subway lines, sew- age works, and a second international airport. Pudong is now a multibillion dollar concentration of export-processing industries; office space in Lujiazui that serves as the city’s new CBD and as FIGURE 6.32 The megacity of Shanghai with the Oriental Pearl Tower and Pudong new area in the foreground on the east of the Huangpu River and the extended metropolitan region stretching off into the distance and smog. (continued) 160 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography household were very important in the traditional Chinese city and were located at the core. Religious and commercial land uses were secondary. Residential land uses were differentiated based on people’s social status or occupation. Post-1949 changes include the addition of a number of long, wide boulevards running in an east–west direction through the city that established the basis for the city street system. Streets were named for revolutionary heroes and events. The streets cut the city into grids of varying sizes, many of which comprise self-contained neighborhood units—large rectangular parcels of housing and other uses surrounded by enclosing walls. The buildings are arranged in rows and col- umns and divided into subcompounds based on their residen- tial, office, service, or other functions. Most buildings share the same uniform, box-like character. Near the city center there is a huge square for people to attend mass gatherings that contains a monument such as a revolutionary hero’s sculpture. Government compounds line both sides of the major boule- vards toward the center of the city, along with Communist party committee compounds, revolutionary history exhibi- tion halls, and some commercial buildings. Large factories and factory workers’ housing estates are located at the periphery, and the universities are concentrated in one area of the urban outskirts (Figure 6.33). In general in East Asia, colonial penetration was more limited than in other parts of Asia. Even so, European and Japanese contact had a strong influence on Chinese port cities like Shanghai and Tianjin. The Treaty of Nanjing in 1842 ceded the island of Hong Kong to Britain and gave the British the right to reside in a small number of Chinese port cities. Subsequent refinements to this treaty—the so-called Open Door policy —gave other foreign powers the same rights as the Korea, and Mongolia versus the capitalist system in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao. The internal structure of the free market cities reflects the high levels of industrialization and urbanization that come with being tied into the world economy. Their urban form and land uses reflect the operation of the capitalist economic system, including private ownership of property, the impor- tance of people’s private investment decisions, relatively high standards of living, increasing reliance on the private car, and at times significant stratification by socioeconomic background. 37 In contrast, the planning of socialist cities in China and Mongolia between the late 1940s and the late 1970s, and still today in North Korea, reflects the Communist ideal of a cen- tralized and highly standardized form of social organization that integrated a classless society with government economic planning based on national and local self-reliance. 38 Changes to the internal structure of cities associated with their transforma- tion to a socialist model after 1949 involved replacing the retail concentration at the core with political-cultural- administrative functions, standardizing housing, and adopting the self- contained neighborhood unit concept. Maoist policies created a peculiar mix of old and new in the urban form and land use of Chinese cities. Dutt et al.’s model of a traditional Chinese city with post-1949 socialist develop- ments captures this mix (Figure 6.33). 39 The surviving ele- ments of the traditional Chinese city reflect that the original design was based on cosmological principles of urban planning. This dictated a normally square city shape with a surround- ing series of walls and moats, three gates in each city wall, and three streets within the walls that ran east–west and north– south. Government buildings and the palace of the imperial URBAN VIEW 6.5 Shanghai, a World City and ”Dragon Head” of China’s Economy ( continued) a national financial center; scientific, research and educational facilities; and new residential communities. Shanghai’s phenomenal growth has not only reinforced its status as China’s largest city but has also propelled it into the role of a world city , a key node in the flows of capital, goods, and information that underpin the global economy. But world cities are cities of extremes, and Shanghai is no exception. It contains places of grinding poverty and vice alongside luxury apartment buildings and upscale department stores, sprawling suburbs of high-rise apartments and gated communities, and the stories of 20 million people. Four 22-year olds in a punk rock band rehearse in downtown Shanghai behind the metal blast doors of an old subterranean bomb shelter known as 0093. The all-female band members share an apartment in a new downtown high-rise from where they can see across the Huangpu River to the site of what was the contemporary version of the world’s fair, Expo 2010 and the Expo Center, Culture Center, and Houtan Park that remain for people to enjoy after the Expo ended. A total of 190 countries and 56 international organizations exhibited in pavilions designed to amaze and display different aspects of urban development: urban dwellers, urban beings, urban planets, urban footprints, and urban dreams. But although this international Expo attracted more than 73 million visitors, most came from mainland China. A 26-year-old migrant worker can also see the Expo site from where he hangs suspended hundreds of feet above Shanghai’s downtown as he helps build another new skyscraper. He passes the glitzy stores along Nanjing Road everyday as he walks to and from the construction site but sends most of his wages home to his family in their rural village. A rat scurries across the room where a 91-year-old grandmother is serving a family meal of Hong Shao Rou , a Shanghai favorite of sweet and fatty braised pork belly. She worries that her traditional Shanghai neighborhood or lilong has deteriorated and its courtyard homes have become so overcrowd- ed that it will be demolished and its rich sense of community lost. Many old Shanghai neighborhoods have been demolished already to make way for new development, including one nearby to make room for a power switching station that lit up Expo 2010. 36 Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 161 and warehouses were built later. With increased trade, com- mercial zones and elite Western residential districts were added; a Chinese residential zone: The majority of the Chinese population lived in the old city that had been designed using traditional Chinese principles of urban planning; and a buf- fer zone: This area became a highly desirable location for the Chinese elite—senior Chinese officials, business people, and high-ranking employees of foreign companies. After the defeat of Japan in 1945, the colonial era ended in East Asia except in (British) Hong Kong and (Portuguese) Macao. After that time the internal structure of the colonial concession-based cities were significantly changed as they were transformed to reflect socialist planning principles (Figure 6.35). The Western residential districts became offices or houses for the party bosses, new port facilities were added as part of indus- trial expansion, infill neighborhood units were built on available sites in the area surrounding the old city, and high-rise housing developments were constructed at the periphery. In the reform (post-Mao) era since the late 1970s, free mar- ket forces and global capital investment have been allowed increasingly to dictate the course of urban development (Figure 6.36). 42 As has occurred in cities like Seoul in South Korea and Taipei in Taiwan, the internal structure of the larger cities in China has been modified to include shiny new and revitalized central business districts with modern high- rise offices and luxury hotels. Competition to have the world’s tallest building has increased in Asia since the Petronas Towers in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur took the title from the Sears Tower in Chicago in 1998. The Petronas Towers lost the title in 2003 British. By 1911, after more treaties, about 90 cities were open to foreigners—along the coast, up the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) valley, in northern China, and in Manchuria (Figure 6.34). 40 After being opened up to foreigners, these colonial con- cession-based cities became the largest industrial, commercial, and transportation centers at that time in East Asia. 41 They contained three sections: a concession zone: Docks and military bases were established initially along coasts or rivers. Factories Government office Elite recreation Common people residentialPublic square New industrial (post-1949) New industrial (post-1949) Educational New residential development (with high-rises, post-1949) City wall Marketing or commercial Crafts workshop Elite residential Marketing or commercial Crafts workshop Elite residential FIGURE 6.33 Traditional Chinese city model with post-1949 socialist developments. FIGURE 6.34 The legacy of colonialism is visible in the architecture at the center of Guangzhou (then called Canton), which became a British and French concession in 1859–60. 162 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Post 1949 new urban residential developments with high-rise apartments New migrating Chinese housing area Low density foreign residential area (now offices or living quarters of party bosses) New migrating Chinese housing area New port (Post 1949 industrial expansion) High density Chinese residential area (old Chinese city or town established before concession) Industrial Area Port Central Business District (CBD) Industrial Area Chinese elite residential area (now offices or living quarters of more privileged Chinese) R iver or Sea FIGURE 6.35 Colonial concession- based Chinese city model. Public square. Concessionaires operate refreshment and entertainment stands on weekends. Revitalized central business district, now houses fashionable international and domestic shops and restaurants. Former treaty port. Some structures remain as housing, others restored for commercial use. Redeveloped commercial districts, residents relocated to new housing on outskirts. Former administrative center, now restored as a tourist attraction. Path of former city walls. Maoist work-unit districts. Many units remain, but industry increasingly separated from housing. Local retail and entertainment centers developed at key crossroads. Economic development zone. High-rise hotels, restaurants, entertainment, and office structures. Villa and expensive housing developments. New housing developments (mid- and high-rise) for relocated workers. New commercial centers. Planned highway. FIGURE 6.36 The Great International Chinese City Model. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 163 Seoul in South Korea have experienced enormous transforma- tions in their economies, societies, and internal structure as their government officials and business people have made con- certed efforts to take advantage of their increasing integration into the world economy (Urban View 6.5 entitled “Shanghai, a World City and the ‘Dragon Head’ of China’s Economy”). As in other parts of Asia and in Latin America, the megacities in East Asia are also growing beyond their city and metropolitan boundaries to form extended metropolitan regions (Urban View 6.6 entitled “Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Development in the Pearl River Delta, the World’s Largest Extended Metropolitan Region”). URBAN VIEW 6.6 Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Development in the Pearl River Delta, the World’s Largest Extended Metropolitan Region Anchored by the major metropolitan centers of Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Macao, the Pearl River Delta, home to about 120 million people, is the world’s largest extended metropolitan region (Figure 6.37). Since the liberal economic reforms initiated with the post-Mao “Opening and Reform” in 1978, the Chinese government has fostered this region as one of its “engines” of capitalist growth. With this reversal of its antiforeign investment stance, China became a magnet for foreign direct investment, and the Pearl River Delta became the country’s most intensive region of foreign direct investment, economic development, and urbanization. Within the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong, a British colony until 1997, is a metropolis of more than 7 million people with a world-class financial, service, and logistics base that includes one of the world’s busiest container ports and international air cargo handling centers (Figure 6.38). In recognition of Hong Kong’s role as a capitalist economic dynamo, the Chinese government set it up as a Special Administrative District with its own cur- rency, legislature, and legal system, based on the principle of “one country, two systems.” Hong Kong’s success in attracting foreign direct investment through incentives such as low corporate taxes prompted the Chinese government to create two of its first Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in nearby Shenzhen and Zhuhai (Figure 6.37). These were established as export processing zones (EPZs ), also known as free trade zones (FTZs ), that offered cheap labor, land, and tax breaks to attract transnational corporations and their investment, technology, and management practices. Many Hong Kong businesses shifted their labor-intensive manufactur- ing or contracted out their assembly-line work to Chinese sub-contractors in this new “ back factory.” Hong Kong acted as the “ front shop ,” concentrating on marketing, design, purchasing raw materials, inventory control, management and technical supervision, and financial arrangements. 43 The entire delta region was subsequently designated an Open Economic Area, in which local governments, individual businesses, and farm households enjoy a high degree of independence in economic decision-making. This policy change and the increasing coop- eration and coordination between government officials in Hong Kong and Guangdong Province have meant that the so-called on completion of the 101-story “Taipei 101” in Taiwan, which lost its title in 2010 to the Burj Khalifa (Figure 6.23). Larger cities in China also have seen extensive renovation of older central city commercial and residential districts, some preservation districts in older parts of the urban core that pro- vide a visual link to their presocialist past and are popular with tourists, ring roads to channel some of the much increased traf- fic around the city, and satellite towns to absorb new popula- tion growth. The imprints of globalization such as these are most vis- ible in the megacities and extended metropolitan regions of East Asia. Megacities like Shanghai and Beijing in China and Guangzhou Dongguan Huizhou Huiyang Longgang Shenzhen Zhuhai Macao Doumen Jiangmen Foshan Hong Kong Zhongshan FIGURE 6.37 Anchored by the major metropolitan centers of Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Macao, the Pearl River Delta, home to about 120 million people, is the world’s largest extended metropolitan region. (continued) 164 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 6.6 Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Development in the Pearl River Delta, the World’s Largest Extended Metropolitan Region ( continued) “front shop, back factory” relationship has shifted to more of a partnership model in which manufacturing in Guangdong is promoted certainly, but so too is the services sector. The relaxation of central government controls also allowed the region’s growing rural population to migrate to urban areas in search of assembly-line jobs or to stay and diversify their rice- paddy cultivation into more profitable agricultural activities such as market gardening, livestock husbandry, or fisheries. Economic freedom also allowed rural industrialization, involving mostly low-tech, small-scale, labor-intensive industries. The triangular area between Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Macao has emerged as a particularly important economic zone due to its relatively cheap land and labor and the enor- mous investments by regional and local government officials in the transportation and communications infrastructures to meet the needs of local and international businesspeople. New infra- structure includes major airports, high-speed toll roads, satellite ground stations, port installations, light rail networks, and new water management systems. These, in turn, have attracted busi- ness and technology parks, financial centers, and resort com-plexes in a loose-knit sprawl of urban development. The result is a distinctive extended metropolitan region in which numerous small towns play an increasingly important role in fostering the process of urbanization, with an intense mixture of agricul- tural and nonagricultural activities and an intimate interaction between urban and rural areas. At the same time, concerns have been raised about the long-term sustainability of the Pearl River Delta. One issue is that the region’s growth is dependent on foreign direct investment, something that can be extremely volatile in its source, volume, and destination over time. Other concerns relate to the pressures of economic development and urbanization on the environment and agriculture in the delta region. The poor quality of the living and working conditions of the millions of low-skilled workers in the factories has attracted international attention. A simple poem “The Factory Girl” offers a personal account of the life of one young female migrant worker in Guandong Province who works 13-hour days with two meal breaks for about US$40 a month. From the damp, dirty hallway, from the long lines of the cafeteria, From the rumble of the machines and the unbearable factory noise, The daylight drifts by, the starlight drifts by. Forever crying on the production line, the factory girls endure exhaustion and hardship. Every peaceful, lonely night, the factory girl is bursting with longing for her village. And she can hear the sweet call of the mountain goat. She dreams about the soft, warm bend of her mother’s arm, And she can smell the sweetness of the old, secluded garden. 44 FIGURE 6.38 Hong Kong, a metropolis of more than 7 million people, has a world- class financial, service, and logistics base. As we saw in this chapter, the close relationship between globalization and urbanization means that traditional patterns of spatial organization are being transformed. We will see in Chapter7 how the processes involved in urbanization and global- ization are inherently problematic for urban dwellers in the less developed countries, and how space and place often play key roles. Chapter 6 • Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries 165 “front shop, back factory” model (p. 163) growth pole (p. 145) informal sector of the economy (p. 140) inverse concentric zone pattern (p. 143) maquiladora (p. 143) overurbanization (p. 148) rural-to-urban migration (p. 140) squatter settlements (p. 140) agglomeration economies and diseconomies (p. 145) apartheid (p. 149) colonial concession zone (p. 161) desakota (p. 158) export processing zone or EPZ (also known as free trade zone (FTZ) (p. 163) extended metropolitan region or EMR (p. 145) foreign direct investment or FDI (p. 143) Key Terms FOLLOW UP 1. If you have time, read a novel that is evocative of urban life in one of the less developed regions of the world. There are hundreds to choose from, including bestsellers about Mumbai in India, such as Q & A by Vikas Swarup (New York: Scribner), which was made into the movie, Slumdog Millionaire , that won 8 Academy Awards in 2009. 2. Hosting a mega-event like the World Cup soccer tourna- ment in a city like Cape Town in South Africa can be asso- ciated with drawbacks as well as benefits for the local people (p. 149). Pick a mega-event (Olympic games, world expo, etc.) that was hosted by a city in a less developed country that interests you and go online to find out more about the positives and negatives for the city and its residents. 3. Go online to find maps that were produced at different points in time to chronicle the growth of Lagos in Nigeria as it grew to become the first Sub-Saharan African mega- city. Examine the extent and direction of growth and think about some of the most important social, economic, tech- nological, and political processes that drive this growth. 4. Work on your portfolio. Make a diagrammatic and anno- tated entry for each of the models of urban structure in the less developed countries that were covered in this chapter. Make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of using models such as these to help our understanding of the internal structure of cities in the less developed countries. Review Activities Log in to www.mygeoscienceplace.com for self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth TM tours, key resources and suggested readings, related websites, “In the News” RSS feeds, and additional references and resources to enhance your study of urban form and land use in the less developed countries. 7 Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries LEARNING OUTCOMES R apid urbanization in many less developed countries has created a host of problems for urban residents and weakened the role of cities as engines of economic growth. Pervasive poverty, inadequate hous- ing, lack of urban services, transportation problems, and environmental degradation all contribute to dreadful living conditions for many urban dwellers. Recent progress has been made in responding to these problems within the context of sustainable urban development. Government involvement is important because this is the point where urban sustainability as a concept overlaps with urban management as a practi- cal process. Government efforts can also help to establish democratic institutions and a participatory planning process that facilitate the involvement of impoverished local people—those disproportionately affected by the problems of urbanization. Chapter After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Explain how and why many of the people living in cities in the less developed countries have become trapped in poverty. ■ Identify the main kinds of informal sector activities and the kinds of workers each attracts. ■ Appraise the impacts of inadequate housing and a lack of services for people living in cities in the less developed countries. ■ Explain the double threat that HIV/AIDS poses for children in Africa. ■ Explain what sustainable urban development involves and why it provides a compelling framework for response to the urban problems discussed in this chapter. CHAPTER PREVIEW This chapter is not intended to provide an exhaustive inventory of urban problems and the responses to them in the less developed countries. Instead, the goal is to show how the processes involved in urbanization are inherently problematic for urban dwellers and how space and place often play key roles (Urban View 7.1 entitled “Narrowing the Digital Divide in Africa: Skipping Landlines for Cell Phones”). We focus on five major sets of problems—poverty, inadequate housing, lack of urban services, transportation problems, and environmental degradation. The close relationship between globalization and urbanization means that traditional patterns of spatial organization are being transformed. The local impacts for the people in these cities are associated with acute problems of social polarization and environmental degradation. The problems are visible in the extensive areas of slum and squatter settlements in megacities, high rates of unemployment and underemployment, and a large informal sector of the economy in which people seek economic survival. If present trends continue, an increasing number of the fastest-growing settlements in less developed countries are likely to face these problems of urbanization. Certainly, cities in both the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) and the oil-rich countries face serious difficulties. Islamic culture and urban design principles, Rapid urbanization in many less developed countries has created a host of problems for urban residents. Pervasive poverty, inadequate housing, lack of urban services, transportation problems, and environmental degradation all contribute to dreadful living conditions for many urban dwellers like this woman who lives in a tent near new luxury highrises in Dhaka, Bangladesh. 167 168 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Part of the difficulty arises from the “ globalization paradox” faced by cities. The residents, business people, and govern- ment officials in cities must act as a collective unit to respond to international competition in the world economy; but the people in cities also face growing internal social and economic fragmentation that hampers their capacity to build coalitions, mobilize resources, and develop good governance structures. During the last decade or so four changes in urban gov- ernance have emerged that represent attempts to address this “globalization paradox”: decentralization and formal govern- ment reforms, participation of local communities in urban policymaking and implementation, multilevel governance and public-private partnerships, and process-oriented and for example, have not always been able to cope with the pres- sures of contemporary rates of urbanization. But this chapter focuses on the poorest countries of Africa, Latin America, and Asia that must confront the most severe urban problems. Many people have been able to establish self-help networks and organizations—with and without the help of government agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—that have formed the basis of community cohesion within the often overwhelmingly poor and crowded cities. There is also increas- ing recognition that responses to the problems of urbanization must be framed within the context of the concept of sustainable urban development; nevertheless, the intensity of urban prob- lems swamps efforts to respond. URBAN VIEW 7.1 Narrowing the Digital Divide in Africa: Skipping Landlines for Cell Phones In Yanguye, South Africa, Bekowe Skhakhane lives very much as her mother did before her. She spends four hours every day getting water from the river, she cooks on an open fire using firewood that she gathers nearby, and she lights her modest hut with candles. In one fundamental way, though, Bekowe’s life is very different to her mother’s—when she wants to talk with her husband who works 250 miles away in a steel factory in Johannesburg, she calls him on her cell phone. “It is a necessity” she says, pausing from washing clothes in a plastic bucket as she pulls her pink Nokia from the pocket of her flowered apron. “Buying air time is on my regular grocery list.” It costs Bekowe the equivalent of US$1.90 a month for five minutes of precious telephone time on the cell phone that her husband purchased with savings from his factory job. Before the cell tower was erected by Vodacom, an African mobile commu- nications company, Bekowe kept in touch with her husband by letter and waited weeks for mail. The nearest public phone box is 10 miles away and the phone is often broken. Bekowe and other cell phone owners in her neighborhood pay a neighbor, Nsle, the equivalent of 80 cents to charge their cell phones. Nsle keeps a car battery in her home and regularly takes it with her on the bus to the nearest gas station 20 miles away to recharge it. 1 Many people like Bekowe have helped to make Africa the fastest-growing cell phone market in the world. A 2010 report by the International Telecommunications Union indicated that many more people in Africa use cell phones than in any other part of the world. Whether it is simply making a call, transferring money, or checking the market prices of crops, individual cell phones and “village cell phones” are bridging many divides in Africa. Cell phones are beginning to create all kinds of personal and economic possibilities for millions of Africans despite lack of online access, too few bank branches, inadequate local medi- cal facilities, lack of teachers and books, and bone-rattling roads (Figure 7.1). 2 FIGURE 7.1 Young students in South Africa overcome the lack of computers in their school by using a cell phone instead. Chapter 7 • Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries 169 without a plan for a post-oil economy and water resources are so depleted that many people are predicting that Sana’a will be the first capital city in history to go dry. 4 In less developed countries, a combination of internal and external factors influences the economies of cities and shapes their labor markets. Within national economies, the urban and rural sectors interact through exchanges of people, goods, ser- vices, money, and information (Figure 7.2). Many cities are expe- riencing unprecedented rates of growth that are driven by rural “push” factors —overpopulation and the lack of employment opportunities—rather than urban “pull” factors—prospective jobs and a better quality of life. With high rates of natural increase and many more people moving to the cities than available jobs, the result is widespread unemployment and underemployment. Underemployment occurs when people work less than full time even though they would prefer to work more. Underemployment is difficult to measure accurately, but estimates range from 30 to 50 percent of the employed workforce in the less developed countries. The urban and rural sectors of the economy, separately and together, are also linked through trade and other exchanges into the world economy (Figure 7.2). Through the new inter- national division of labor , towns and cities in different parts of the less developed world play a key, if often unequal, role in international economic flows that link provincial centers into their national urban network and, ultimately, into the hierarchy of world cities and the global economy. Based on the assumptions underlying modernization theories, in the 1970s many governments adopted neoliberal policies to promote urban economic development, including fiscal and other incentives to attract foreign direct investment (Chapter 5). Public officials were attempting to take advantage of the new international division of labor—to attract some of the transnational corporations that were gravitating toward the greater profit opportunities offered by lower-cost locations. 5 Cheap labor is certainly an important factor in the loca- tional decision-making of transnational corporations . But the demand of the global market for quality products means that other factors—educated and trainable workers, a good- quality transportation network, and reliable services such as area-based policies. As we will see, although some of these changes are not new, the rationale for introducing them is. URBAN PROBLEMS Poverty The number of people subsisting below the World Bank’s international poverty line of US$1.25 a day (in 2005 prices) fell from 1.9 billion in 1981 to 1.4 billion today. 3 This reduction in extreme poverty partly reflects international, NGO, and other efforts to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people below the interna- tional poverty line between 1990 and 2015. But the reduction in extreme poverty has been uneven and millions of people remain trapped in poverty, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Poverty is also increasingly becoming an urban phenom- enon. In countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and Haiti, more than 50 percent of the urban populations live below their respective national poverty lines. Poor people are trapped in poverty for a variety of reasons including a lack of education; bad health; degraded environmen- tal resources; and conflict and mismanagement that waste pub- lic expenditures. Rampant corruption by government officials in some countries has led to public funds being siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts by corrupt politicians, while building regulations are not enforced by city inspectors who take bribes for new buildings that later collapse and crush to death whole families. After decades of being forced to live in poverty under oppressive dictators, many people have taken to the streets in popular uprisings that began in the streets of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia and spread across North Africa and the Middle East. Within the context of globalization, despite the fact that some terrorist leaders did not grow up in poverty, many of their followers often come from impoverished families in desperately poor countries such as Yemen. A concern of some humanitar- ian groups is that focusing too narrowly on fighting terrorism neglects the dreadful social and economic conditions of the ordinary people. In Yemen, oil resources are being used up FIGURE 7.2 Spatial and sectoral interactions involving the urban economies in less developed countries. GLOBAL ECONOMY NATIONAL ECONOMY People/migration Commercial actitives Subsistence activities Goods/resources Capital/investment RURAL ECONOMY URBAN ECONOMY Formal sector Informal sector 170 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography 3. Petty capitalists who see greater opportunities for profit in the informal sector where they can avoid taxes and legal employment regulations, such as minimum wages and safe working conditions 4. Criminal and socially undesirable activities, including drug dealing, smuggling, theft, extortion, and prostitution water and electricity—are also important. This meant that the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere were bypassed. The relatively few locations that could offer attrac- tive conditions in the 1970s experienced rapid growth, most notably the four so-called Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), as well as Mexico and Brazil. Since then, international investment has promoted growth in other countries, most notably China. With time, international invest- ment has shifted to the larger urban centers, reinforcing existing investment patterns and aggravating already serious problems of urban primacy and uneven development . Dependence on international capital and global economic trends has introduced instability into the labor market and further fragmented both the urban and the rural sectors of the economy into large informal and smaller formal components (Figure 7.2). Overurbanization has led to a large informal sec- tor because people who cannot find regularly paid work resort to earning a living in jobs that are not regulated by government. The resulting pronounced dualism, or juxtaposition in urban space of the formal and informal sectors of the economy, is quite evident in the built environment: Modern high-rise office and apartment complexes and luxury homes correspond with an often dynamic formal sector that offers well-paid jobs and opportunities; these contrast sharply with the slums and squat- ter settlements of people working in the informal sector who are disadvantaged by a lack of education, formal training, rec- ognized qualifications, and often rigid divisions of labor shaped by gender, race, and ethnicity (Figure 7.3). 6 But the informal sector of the economy is ambiguous—it en- compasses wealth and poverty, productivity and efficiency, exploi- tation and liberation (Urban View 7.2 entitled “Defying Gender Stereotypes: Las Cholitas in Bolivia”). 7 Four main kinds of infor- mal sector activities attract different kinds of workers (Figure 7.4). 1. Subsistence activities in which the goods and services, such as clothing and repairs, are primarily for household consumption rather than for profit 2. Small-scale producers and retailers, often self-employed, who produce or sell to earn an income—the typical workers in this category are street traders, artisans, and food vendors FIGURE 7.3 A squatter settlement in Lagos, Nigeria. FIGURE 7.4 The informal–formal sector continuum. Reproduction – domestic labor INFORMAL SECTOR Labor productivity Household labor Capital, goods and services SubcontractingFORMAL SECTOR Unremunerated Waged Unpaid Self-employment/waged Subsistence production – agriculture – household work Petty commodity production – small scale operators – petty capitalists Full capitalist production – TNCs – public sector Chapter 7 • Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries 171 FIGURE 7.5 Informal employment in selected cities. Jakarta, Indonesia Montevideo, Uruguay Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Cuenca, Ecuador Nouakchott, Mauritania Entebbe, UgandaRecife, Brazil Cordoba, Argentina Harare, Zimbabwe Douala, Cameroon Guayaquil, Ecuador Marinilla, Colombia Dhaka, Bangladesh N’Djamena, Chad Leon, Nicaragua Lilongwe, Malawi Surabaya, Indonesia Conakry, Guinea 10 0 20 30 40 Percentage of employed population in the informal sector 50 60 70 80 In many cities more than one-third of the population is engaged in the informal sector; in some cities this figure is more than two-thirds (Figure 7.5). Globally, the share of workers in the informal economy is projected to grow and could exceed two-thirds of the workforce by 2020. Although informal jobs—selling souvenirs, driving pedicabs, or dressmaking—might seem marginal from the point of view of the world economy, they support nearly two billion people around the world. In many countries the labor force of the unregu- lated informal sector includes the world’s most vulnerable workers—women and children (Figure 7.6). In environments of extreme poverty, every family member must contribute something. Industries in the formal sector often take advan- tage of this situation and the fact that labor standards are nearly impossible to enforce in the informal sector. Many companies farm out their production using subcontracting schemes that are based, not in factories, but in home settings that use child workers. Table 7.1 lists a combination of factors that creates an unfavorable position for women in both the informal and formal sectors of urban economies in the less developed countries. Urban geographers recognize that the formal and informal sectors are interconnected—the informal sector represents an important resource for the formal sector of urban economies. The people working in the informal sector provide a huge range of cheap goods and services that reduce the cost of living for workers in the formal sector, allowing employers to keep wages low. Although this arrangement does not contribute to urban economic growth or help alleviate poverty, it does keep many companies competitive within the global economic sys- tem. For export-oriented businesses, in particular, the informal sector provides a considerable indirect production subsidy. And while this subsidy is often passed on to consumers in the FIGURE 7.6 A young child selling chewing gum on the street. 172 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography TABLE 7.1 Factors Producing an Unfavorable Position for Women in the Urban Labor Force in Less Developed Countries 1. Women’s reproductive role, particularly in relation to domestic work 2. Colonial introduction of the notion of the male breadwinner and female housewife 3. Orthodox economic perception of women as having relatively low levels of skills, aptitudes, and/or education 4. Women seen as more “passive” workers, less likely to organize and resist exploitation by employers 5. Gender stereotyping of women as dexterous and able to undertake repetitive tasks Source: R. B. Potter and S. Lloyd-Evans, The City in the Developing World, Harlow, UK: Longman, 1998, pp. 166–67 . URBAN VIEW 7.2 Defying Gender Stereotypes: Las Cholitas in Bolivia 8 The women of the Aymara ethnic group in El Alto a suburb of La Paz, Bolivia, still mostly wear their traditional brightly col- ored shawls pinned with filigree jewelry, multilayered skirts, and trademark black felt bowler hats perched jauntily on their braid- ed hair. The story goes that a clever salesman from Manchester with a shipment of bowler hats started this fashion trend in the nineteenth century. In the twenty-first century, Bolivia remains very patriarchal and women still lag in literacy and economic opportunities com- pared to their counterparts in neighboring Argentina and Chile, whose people have already elected female presidents. But in El Alto, some women have experienced a newfound pride and respect—as female wrestlers! Las cholitas are female lucha libre performers who attract a huge paying audience to watch their freestyle wrestling every Sunday night in El Alto’s largest public gym (Figure 7.7). On a good night they can earn US$15—not enough to give up their day job in the fields but enough to help pay the bills and convince their husbands to support their unorthodox second career. “Bring them on! Bring them on!” the crowd shouts impatiently to the beat of the music. And then the houselights go dim and the master of ceremonies appears and announces their names into his microphone as the curtains to the locker room part and “Amorous Yolanda” and “Evil Claudina” come out to thunderous applause. They wave and twirl their petticoats as they make their way to the wrestling ring. The music suddenly stops and they quickly take off their bowler hats and unpin their shawls. Then they start bashing each other. Claudina grabs Yolanda by her braids, and lifts and hurls her against the ropes. “Watch out” the audience roars. Too late. Claudina, twirling in celebration, trips and falls on her face while Yolanda launches herself through the air and lands on her. The audience goes wild. “She is destroyed forever” the announcer yells hysterically. But “Evil Claudina” will be back to fight “Amorous Yolanda” another day because, in lucha libre, no defeat is ever final. FIGURE 7.7 Las Cholitas. These female wrestlers are defying gender stereotypes in Bolivia. developed countries in the form of lower prices, the poorest households in the cities of the least developed countries are forced to resort to increasingly drastic strategies for coping with worsening poverty (Table 7.2). Inadequate Housing Social polarization is a dimension of urbanization that is intensified by globalization. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) has identified social polarization as an indirect but crucial determinant of con- temporary patterns of segregation of people and land uses around the world—the “quartering” of cities into spa- tially partitioned, compartmentalized residential enclaves. In less developed countries, these separate “quarters” Chapter 7 • Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries 173 TABLE 7.2 Household Strategies for Coping with Worsening Urban Poverty Increase resources • Add more household members to the labor force • Set up new businesses • Grow own food • Increase scavenging of items for use or resale; increase foraging for wild foods • Rent out rooms to tenants Limit consumption • Reduce or eliminate consumption of items such as new clothes, meat, or “luxury” food and drink • Buy cheaper food and secondhand clothes • Withdraw children from school • Delay medical treatment • Postpone repair or replacement of household equipment • Defer house repairs or improvements • Reduce social events, including visits to rural homes Change household composition • Postpone or stop having children • Increase household size, with women and married children, to keep wage earners in the family and enable older women to work • Migration Source: C. Rakodi. “Poverty lines or household strategies? A review of conceptual issues in the study of household poverty.” Habitat International 19(4), 1995, p. 418. include protected enclaves of the wealthy; middle-income neighborhoods; low-income neighborhoods; and ethnic enclaves. The typology 9 of urban housing supply shown in Figure 7.8 describes several kinds of housing options in the cities of less developed countries. Private housing (such as owner-occupied, rental, and employer-provided) and public units (built or subsi- dized by government) comprise a relatively small proportion of the total housing supply. The “popular” housing category (that includes slums and squatter settlements) contains the major- ity of urban residents—the very poor, the never employed, the permanently unemployed, and the homeless. The United Nations has estimated that more than one and a half billion of the world’s urban residents live in inadequate housing, mostly in the slums and squatter settlements in the less developed countries (Figure 7.9). More than half of the housing in these countries is substandard, with one-quarter being makeshift structures and more than one-third not complying with local building regulations. 10 The informal labor market, then, is directly paralleled in the slums and squatter settlements: With so few jobs offering regular wages, most people cannot afford rent or mortgage payments for decent housing. Unemployment, underemployment, and pov- erty result in overcrowding. In situations where overurbaniza- tion has overtaken the supply of cheap housing—outstripping the capacity of builders and governments to provide new and affordable homes—the inevitable outcomes are slums and squat- ter settlements that offer precarious shelter at best. Whereas slums are, at least technically, legal permanent homes that have become dreadfully substandard over time, squatter settlements contain nonpermanent makeshift housing that is built illegally on land that people desperate for shelter FIGURE 7.8 Typology of low-cost urban housing supply in less developed countries. POPULAR PRIVATEPUBLIC Joint ventures Renters Aided self-help LOW-COST HOUSING • Squatters • Slum dwellers • Street sleepers • Hostels • Small-scale tokenism • Large estates • New towns • Building sites • Workers’ units • Domestic employees • Open-market– conventional (rental and owner occ.) 174 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Most cities cannot afford to build new low-income housing to replace the demolished neighborhoods. Displaced house- holds have no option but to create new squatter settlements elsewhere in the city. The futility of slum clearance has led to a widespread reevaluation of such neoliberal policies; this housing is now seen as a rational response to poverty. Slum and squatter neighborhoods can provide affordable shelter as well as reception areas that might offer supportive community networks and informal employment opportunities for rural migrants. Recognizing the positive functions of this housing and the many self-help improvement efforts by residents, city governments have begun to support them instead of sending in police and municipal workers with bulldozers. 11 But there are limits to community-based efforts, and there are many squatter settlements where self-help organizations do not emerge. Lack of Urban Services The influence of the informal labor market is felt in the inability of cities to provide basic services (Figure 7.10). Because the informal sector yields no tax revenues, there are limited municipal funds for providing adequate health and educational services or for maintaining a clean, safe environment. Although the number of people without access to an adequate and secure source of water has dropped below 1 billion worldwide for the first time, it remains a sobering fact that a 5-minute shower by a person who lives in the United States will take more water than that used in a whole day by the average person who lives in a slum in a less developed country. 12 Many governments classify the exis- tence of a water tap or standpipe wit hin about 300 feet of a house as “adequate,” but this does not guarantee enough water for good health for nearby households. In some cities residents must wait in long lines to fill even one bucket of water because communal neither own nor rent. This housing is constructed on unpaved streets in the least desirable locations—derelict sites, poorly drained land, even cemeteries and waste dumps—usually with open sewers and no basic services like electricity or run- ning water. Shacks are cobbled together from any material available—corrugated iron, planks, mud, thatch, tar paper, and cardboard. In Chile squatter settlements are called callampas, meaning “mushroom cities”; in Turkey, gecekindu—literally, “built after dusk and before dawn.” In India they are called bustees; in Brazil, favelas; and in Argentina, simply villas miserias. In the worst cases, overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, and lack of maintenance promote extremely high levels of illness and infant mortality. Faced with the growth of these squatter settlements, many governments initially responded by eradicating them. Encouraged by Western housing experts and development econ- omists advocating neoliberal policies, many cities tried to stamp out this kind of unplanned urbanization through large-scale eviction and clearance programs. In dozens of cities—including Jakarta (Indonesia), Caracas (Venezuela), Lagos (Nigeria), and Kolkata (India)—hundreds of thousands of people in slums and squatter settlements were ordered out on short notice and their homes were bulldozed to make way for public works, land speculation, luxury housing, urban renewal, and, on occasion, to improve the appearance of cities for visitors and tourists. In preparation for mega events such as the Olympic Games, World Cup soccer tournament, and World Expo, governments have forcibly evicted people to make way for beautification programs. It has been estimated that the Olympic Games has resulted in the displacement of more than 2 million people during the last 20 years. Although disputed by the Chinese government, esti- mates are that as many as 1.25 million people were displaced in Beijing in preparation for the Olympic Games in 2008. FIGURE 7.9 A squatter settlement built by poverty-stricken people along a huge water pipe in New Delhi, India. Chapter 7 • Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries 175 drains into the Billings reservoir, a major source of the city’s drinking water. Jakarta has no municipal sewage system but there are plans to build one. In the meantime, septic tanks serve about one-quarter of the city’s population; others use pit latrines, cesspools, and roadside ditches. Despite the fact that India’s 900 million Hindus revere and bathe in many of the country’s rivers, especially the Ganges, less than 30 percent of the sewage from its towns and cities running into these rivers is treated. Every day, a shocking 7 billion gallons of untreated wastewater runs into India’s rivers; the Yamuna collects up to half a billion gallons of this as it passes through Delhi. A major problem is that India’s population is growing faster than new sewage treatment plants are being built. If there are, as it is often the case in big cities, no toilets . . . people have to use a bucket that will, under the veil of darkness, be tipped out into a drain or sewer tunnel. Or they have to squat down above a spread piece of paper or plastic bag that afterwards goes to the rubbish dump in which dogs or pigs are rummaging about. These packets of dirt are sometimes called “flying toilets” . . . Today millions of people catch all sorts of diseases through contact with excrements that have been left on fields, paths, streets, or the banks of rivers . . . 14 In the less developed countries, 30 to 60 percent of all municipal household waste is collected. In Dar es Salaam, for example, only 35 to 40 percent of all garbage and solid waste is collected and removed—the rest is partially recycled informally, tipped into gullies, canals, or rivers, or simply left to rot. Even the household waste that is collected can create problems. Neoliberal policies involving privatized collection has resulted in private garbage collection companies taking advantage of lax municipal oversight to dump in unauthorized sites where the foul stench and health hazards affect nearby residents. In the worst cases, workers are not provided with boots and gloves and must pick through garbage containing the rotting corpses of dogs and cats with their bare hands. When these workers become ill, they do not have healthcare coverage to address the commonly reported symptoms of headaches, coughing and diarrhea, and bacterial infections from the decomposing garbage. Although dreadful, these problems provide employment opportunities for people in the informal sector. Street vendors, who get their water from private tanker and borehole opera- tors, sell water in cans by the gallon. They typically charge 5 to 10 times the local rate that public water utilities charge afflu- ent residents whose homes have piped water; in some cities the street vendors charge 60 to 100 times as much. Similarly, many cities have informal-sector mechanisms for sewage disposal. In some Asian cities, for example, handcart operators remove human waste at night. The problem with this arrangement is that this waste is often disposed of improperly and eventually pollutes the rivers or lakes from which the urban poor draw their water. In NIEs such as Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, an educated labor force was an important factor in economic growth. 15 Yet access to education remains a problem in many taps or standpipes often function for only a few hours very day. In 2009, the 1.8 million people in Bhopal, India, were rationed to 30 minutes of water supply every other day because the monsoon rains did not come as expected. The 100,000 people there who live in slums without piped water rely on tankers to deliver water. Fights have broken out and people have been hacked to death by angry neighbors who accused them of stealing water. Some people tap into the main water supply pipe. Others try to collect water leaking from the ventilation valves of the main pipe- lines. Many women are forced to get up in the middle of the night to walk over a mile to the nearest pumping station where someone has usually removed some bricks from the base that allows a steady flow of water to run out. Many people have no alternative but to use contaminated water—or at least water whose quality is not guaranteed. Less than half of the households in the less developed countries, many of whom are typically the residents of the most affluent neighborhoods, has water piped into their homes. Sewage services are just as bad. Only just over half of the people in less developed countries are connected to sewers. 13 The bulk of these sewers discharge their waste untreated into a nearby river, a lake, or the sea. São Paulo has a thousand miles of stinking open sewers; raw sewage from the city’s slums FIGURE 7.10 A garbage-strewn alley and water channel in Cairo, Egypt, caused by a lack of basic urban services and illegal dumping. 176 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography century, the social and economic changes associated with urbanization will make depression, heart attacks, and traffic accidents the leading healthcare burdens in the cit- ies of less developed countries, as opposed to respiratory diseases, diarrhea, and early childhood conditions now. • Some communicable health problems, including HIV/ AIDS, still dominate urban areas. In fact, urbanization has been paralleled by increasing HIV/AIDS cases in cities, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa (the Urban View 7.3 entitled “A Terrible Human Toll: HIV/AIDS in Sub- Saharan African Cities”). Within cities, children are par- ticularly susceptible to communicable diseases, including acute respiratory infections. • Poor urban residents suffer from the health-related prob- lems of rural areas, such as inadequate diet and poor san- itation, in addition to being exposed to health problems countries, especially for rural residents, because the centers of education are concentrated in cities. Investments in education have benefited middle-income groups more than the poor, and men more than women. The bias against women varies from country to country but is most marked in Islamic cities and in the poorest households. Urbanization does not necessarily bring improved health because physical well-being and poverty are inextricably intertwined. 16 The United Nations has identified a number of problematic issues specific to urban health. 17 • Urban health patterns are different from those in rural areas because urban populations are leading the epide- miological transition: a shift from communicable to non- communicable diseases. The World Health Organization has predicted that by the third decade of the twenty-first URBAN VIEW 7.3 A Terrible Human Toll: HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan African Cities Of the 33 million people worldwide who were estimated to be liv- ing with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2008, more than 22 million were in Sub-Saharan Africa. 18 Despite having only about 13 percent of the world’s population, this region is home to about 67 percent of the infected people. About 70 percent of all new HIV infections are in Sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS has already claimed the lives of more than 15 million people and orphaned 14 million children there. In the worst-hit countries, such as Swaziland and Botswana, life expectancy has plunged by half, to an unimaginable age of 32 in the case of Swaziland. Infection rates are high in cities because the concentration of large numbers of people at high density increases the speed of trans- mission of HIV. Prostitution, multiple sexual partners, and teenage pregnancy are more common in cities than in rural areas. In addition to this devastating human tragedy, the spread of HIV/AIDS adds to already overwhelming economic problems and drains limited public resources in Sub-Saharan African cities in a number of ways: 19 • Productivity is reduced because AIDS deaths decrease the number of experienced workers, especially those in their most productive years. • International competitiveness is hurt by higher production costs because of a shortage of skilled workers. • Employment creation is slower due to lower government revenues and reduced private savings. • Higher public expenditures are needed for monitoring, prevention, and health care. Research suggests that there is a link between rapid urban- ization amid poverty and the urban character of the HIV/AIDS problem. The African dilemma is particularly troublesome because the percentage of urban poor living below the inter- national poverty line of US$1.25 per day is particularly high. In Tanzania and Nigeria, for example, the urban poverty percentages are 70 and 55 percent respectively. In some cities—Kinshasa, Lagos, Karachi, and Dhaka, to name a few—more than 50 per- cent of residents live in slums and squatter settlements. A recent study in Nairobi, Kenya, found that poor slum dwellers start sexual intercourse at an earlier age, have more sexual partners, and are less likely than other city residents to know about or adopt condom use or other preventative mea- sures against contracting HIV/AIDS. 20 Three features of slum conditions help socialize children into very early sexual inter- course: poverty, a social context that is accepting of prostitution, and household arrangements that do not allow privacy, causing children to think that sexual intercourse is an activity that they too can participate in at a very early age. HIV/AIDS poses a double threat for children in Africa: it makes orphans of them by killing their parents and it infects them too. In Sub-Saharan Africa, nearly half a million children die from AIDS every year; most die before reaching their fifth birth- day. For most children, their mother transmits the deadly virus to them at birth or through breast-feeding. Children are also infected through sexual contact. Girls have much higher rates of infection than boys of the same age. Many girls are infected because of the cruel myth that has spread across Africa that sex with a virgin can protect against or cure HIV infection. Some girls are raped. Others agree to sex in exchange for payment, usually of school tuition. 21 The poor economic conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa and its cities increase the likelihood that women, especially adoles- cents, will engage in risky sexual behavior for economic sur- vival despite the risk of contracting and spreading HIV/AIDS. Desperation can push some women to rely on sexual relations to supplement the household income to cover the cost of rent, schooling, and other basic necessities; many of these women maximize the number of sexual partners in an effort to increase their economic security. The Nairobi study highlighted the need to treat people in squatter settlements as a low-income group that is particularly vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS because of poor access to health services, family planning facilities, education, and basic amenities due to their relative geographic isolation, low incomes, and illegal or informal residence. The results of the study suggest that it might be difficult to improve the reproductive health sta- tus of residents in slums and squatter settlements without also improving their economic and living conditions. Chapter 7 • Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries 177 3. The “automobile dependent” city with densities of 25–50 persons per acre. The trend away from traditional “walking” cities and toward “automobile dependent” cities in the less developed countries has generated unprecedented traffic problems. Despite some innovative responses, transportation systems in many cities are breaking down, with poorly maintained roads, traffic jams, long delays at intersections, and frequent accidents. Many governments have invested in expensive new freeways and street-widening schemes. Because the new roads tend to focus on city centers—still often the settings for the majority of jobs and most services and amenities—they ultimately fail, emptying vehicles into a congested and chaotic mixture of motorized traffic, bicycles, animal-drawn vehicles, and hand-drawn carts. Beijing, Bangkok, and Mexico City have some of the worst traffic problems in the world (Urban View 7.4 entitled “How Rationing Can Backfire: The ‘Day Without a Car’ Regulation in Mexico City”). In Bangkok, the 15-mile trip from Don Muang Airport to the city cen- ter can take 90 minutes. Traveling at a speed of ten miles an hour would have been welcomed by many people caught up in what may have been the longest traffic jam in the world so far in 2010: from August 14 to 28, road construction and coal trucks caused thousands of vehicles to be stuck in near total gridlock on China National Highway 110 between Inner Mongolia’s border and Beijing. Many drivers moved only half a mile each day and some were stuck in the traffic jam for up to five days. People who lived along the highway took advantage of the stranded drivers and sold them water, instant noodles, and cigarettes at, literally, highway robbery prices. The costs to the national economy of these traffic backups can be enormous. In Jakarta, Indonesia, the world’s largest city associated with factors specific to cities, such as stress arising from overcrowding and poor working conditions. • The health burden of the urban poor can only be fully understood within the context of overall inequities within cities. Transportation Problems Even though city governments in less developed countries typically spend nearly all of their budgets on transportation infrastructure in a race to keep up with population growth, conditions are bad and rapidly getting worse. Cities in less developed countries have always been congested, but in recent years, congestion has turned into near gridlock (Figure 7.11). In megacities the availability and use of private cars have increased sharply. Not only are there now more people and traffic, but also the changing spatial organization of these cit- ies has increased the need for transportation. Traditional pat- terns of land use have been superseded by the agglomerating tendencies inherent in modern industry and the segregating tendencies inherent in contemporary societies. The greatest single change has been the separation of home from work, which has caused a significant increase in commuting for many people. The general trend has been for increasing automobile dependence and decreasing urban density. Figure 7.12 shows the relationship between city form and dominant transporta- tion system in three kinds of cities: 22 1. The traditional “walking” or “pedestrian” city with densities of 250–500 persons per acre. 2. The “transit” city with densities of 175–250 persons per acre. FIGURE 7.11 Traffic on Ratchadmari Road in Bangkok, Thailand. Roads in the larger cities of less developed countries have always been congested, but in recent years, congestion has turned into near gridlock. 178 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography FIGURE 7.12 Different city forms according to dominant mode of transport. URBAN VIEW 7.4 How Rationing Can Backfire: The “Day Without a Car” Regulation in Mexico City 23 When children in Mexico City paint a picture of their city, they color the sky black. The children are too young to be making a political statement; they are merely painting what they see, a city with one of the worst air pollution problems in the world because of car use. 24 In Mexico City daily traffic backups can extend for miles and it can take 2 to 4 hours to drive across the city (Figure 7.13). In an effort to stem the use of cars, Mexico City’s govern- ment introduced a regulation in 1989 that banned the use of each car on a specific day of the week. The “Day Without a Car” regulation— Hoy no circula (“today it does not circu- late”)—prohibited cars with license plate numbers ending in 1 or 2 from being driven on Thursdays, 3 or 4 from being driven on Wednesdays, and so on. Chapter 7 • Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries 179 without a rapid transit system, where traffic moves at an average speed of 8 miles per hour, estimates of the annual cost of traffic delays range from US$1.4 billion by the national government to US$4.9 billion by the World Bank. Environmental Degradation Due to pressing problems of poverty, poor housing, and inad- equate service and transportation infrastructures, cities in less developed countries are unable to devote many resources to environmental issues (Figure 7.14). Because of the speed of pop- ulation growth, these problems are escalating rapidly. Industrial and human wastes pile up in lakes and lagoons and pollute long stretches of rivers, estuaries, and coastal zones. Chemicals leach- ing from uncontrolled dump sites pollute groundwater. The demand for timber and domestic fuels are denuding forests near many cities. This environmental degradation is, of course, directly linked to human health. People living in such envi- ronments have much higher rates of diarrhea, respiratory infec- tions, and tuberculosis and much shorter life expectancies than people living in the surrounding rural communities. Children in squatter settlements may be 50 times as likely to die before the age of five as those born in affluent countries. Air pollution has escalated to hazardous levels in many cities. With the growth of a modern industrial sector and car ownership, but without enforceable pollution and vehicle emis- sions regulations, tons of lead, sulfur oxides, fluorides, car- bon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, petrochemical oxidants, and other toxic chemicals are pumped into the atmosphere every day in large cities. The burning of charcoal, wood, and kero- sene for fuel and cooking in low-income neighborhoods also contributes significantly to poor air quality. The World Health Organization has estimated that up to 2 billion people world- wide die prematurely every year as a result of air pollution, and that many more suffer from breathing problems, heart infections, lung infections, and even cancer. A recent study of 18 megacities found that all had at least one major air pollutant at levels exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) guide- lines. 26 Based on WHO guidelines, 13 were ranked as poor and 5 were ranked fair. Based on a multi-pollutant index, the most polluted megacities are Dhaka in Bangladesh, Beijing in China, Cairo in Egypt, and Karachi in Pakistan. Such pollution is not only unpleasant, but dangerous. In Dhaka, it is estimated that every year 15,000 people die prema- turely, and several million people suffer from respiratory, heart, and other illnesses attributed to poor air quality. URBAN VIEW 7.4 How Rationing Can Backfire: The “Day Without a Car” Regulation in Mexico City ( continued ) The regulation was controversial. Proponents believed that it was reasonable to expect car owners to contribute to eas- ing traffic congestion and air pollution problems. Those who opposed the regulation argued that it was unfair because some people could avoid the ban more easily than others. Ultimately, the regulation was counterproductive and a failure—it caused higher congestion and pollution levels because people who could afford a second car purchased one and effectively circumvented the ban on their first vehicle. Total car use and traffic congestion in Mexico City actually increased due to the regulation. 25 Even though a second car was purchased primarily to replace a first car on its driving ban day, total car use increased in households with multiple drivers because a second car was now available. The regulation led to more rather than less pollution because, in addition to higher car use causing more emissions, people tended to buy older second cars with lower technical standards. Although Mexico City introduced emissions testing in 1990 in an attempt to address the problem of higher emissions from older cars, many drivers cheat by bribing testing technicians or bringing another car to the emissions test. FIGURE 7.13 Avenida de la Reforma, Mexico City, Mexico is clogged with traffic and smog during the afternoon rush hour. 180 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography • A greater incidence of sickness and death is closely asso- ciated with housing that is crowded, poorly built, located in unsafe areas (subject to natural and other hazards), and inadequately serviced by water facilities, sewage treatment, and garbage disposal. • Poor quality housing is often makeshift and temporary, dilapidated, poorly maintained, and fire-prone. • Low incomes combined with rising land and property prices result in overcrowding and homelessness. • Insecure and illegal land tenures come with eviction and demolition, which remove any motivation to invest in home improvements. • The poorest members of society are the most disenfran- chised and the least able to articulate their concerns about environmental and other problems. 27 RESPONSES TO THE PROBLEMS OF URBANIZATION Sustainable Urban Development The relationship between urban economic development and environmental conditions has attracted increasing attention within the context of sustainable development. There is now greater recognition that the responses to the problems of urbanization must be framed within the context of the concept of sustainable urban development . Responses to the urban- ization problems in the less developed countries must address several interconnected components of sustainable urban development (Figure 7.15): 28 • Economy: The most sustainable economic activities are those that integrate the external role of cities within the regional, national, and world economies with the needs Proximity to industrial facilities—often because poor people need to live near their place of employment—poses another set of risks. In 1984 the world’s worst industrial accident at the Union Carbide chemical factory in Bhopal, India, caused nearly 4,000 deaths and more than 500,000 injuries, mostly among the residents in the nearby squatter settlements. The interrelationships between poor housing conditions, poverty, and urban environmental problems reflect a number of factors: FIGURE 7.14 Garbage floats behind the sampans of the Chao Praya River in Bangkok, Thailand. FIGURE 7.15 The components of sustainable urban development. • Appropriate urban planning • Minimal use of non-renewable resources • Sustainable renewable resource use • Democratic institutions • Participatory urban planning • State role • Basic human needs • Basic human rights • Fertility • Migration • Access to adequate income • Urban fiscal base SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENTAL DEMOGRAPHIC POLITICAL SOCIAL Chapter 7 • Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries 181 of the labor force and the revenue requirements of city governments. Jobs in the informal sector of the economy have a role, but government employment policies are also necessary. Addressing poverty is fundamental not only for the well-being of urban residents but also for the prosperity of the cities themselves. • Environment: The Brown Agenda and Green Agenda 29 involve addressing urban environmental problems such as pollution and land degradation (Table 7.3). They are important for poor people in cities in the less developed countries because environmental concerns are not a luxury. 30 Both agendas focus on the complex and unintended side-effects of human activity. The Brown Agenda is concerned more with immediate, localized, and health-related effects. It emphasizes the neces- sity to reduce the environmental threats to health that are associated with poor sanitary conditions, crowd- ing, inadequate water provision, hazardous air and water pollution, and local solid waste accumulation. The Green Agenda is concerned more with delayed, dispersed, and ecological effects. It emphasizes reduc- ing the impacts of urban-based production, consump- tion, and waste generation on natural resources and ecosystems at regional and global scales. Prevention of environmental problems is central to both agendas. Both acknowledge the challenge of ensuring that people whose principal motivations are elsewhere should be made to take environmental impacts into account. Both agendas are concerned with equity: the Brown Agenda is concerned more with the burdens on low-income groups in the present and the Green Agenda with bur- dens likely to affect future generations. Some of these sustainability issues, such as water and air quality, are citywide and are primarily the responsibility of govern- ment planning efforts. Other issues, involving renew- able and especially nonrenewable resources, can involve individuals and households to a greater extent. • Society: The basic needs of society include a range of issues, from shelter to food to education to healthcare. Government has a role in meeting citywide needs, such as schools and hospitals, as well as in improving human rights. Opportunities for genuine community involvement and self-help programs are also important. • Demographic situation: Exceptionally high rates of natural increase of the population within cities, combined with often massive rural-to-urban migration , have not only overwhelmed the resources of city governments, but also intensified and complicated the social and ethnic dimensions of urbanization, threatening the sustainability of much urban development. • Political sphere: The role of government is an important dimension of urban sustainability. Governments can help to establish democratic institutions and a planning process that allows the participation of all members of society, including the poorest people. The political arena is also the point at which urban sustainability, as a concept, overlaps with urban management as a practical process. TABLE 7.3 Characteristics of the Brown and the Green Agendas for Sustainable Urban Development The “Brown” Environmental Health Agenda The “Green” Sustainability Agenda Characteristics of problems high on agenda: First order impact Human health Ecosystem health Timing Immediate Delayed Scale Local Regional and global Worst affected Lower income groupsFuture generations Characteristic attitude toward: Nature Manipulate to serve human needsProtect and work with People Work with Educate Environmental Services Provide more Use less Aspects emphasized in relation to: Water Inadequate access and poor qualityOveruse; need to protect water sources Air High human exposure to hazardous pollutantsAcid precipitation and greenhouse gas emissions Solid waste Inadequate provision for collection and removalExcessive generation Land Inadequate access for low income groups for housingLoss of natural habitats and agricultural land to urban development Human waste Inadequate provision for safely removing fecal material (and waste water) from living environmentLoss of nutrients in sewage and damage to water bodies from its release of sewage into waterways Typical proponent Urbanist Environmentalist Source: G. McGranahan and D. Satterthwait, “Environmental Health or Ecological Sustainability: Reconciling the brown and green agendas in urban development,” in C. Pugh (ed.), Sustainable Cities in Developing Countries , London: Earthscan, 2000. The “Globalization Paradox” and Recent Changes in Urban Governance The United Nations 31 has drawn attention to the “globaliza- tion paradox” faced by people in cities in the less developed countries as they try to achieve sustainable urban planning 182 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography address metropolitan-wide problems of environmental degradation, social exclusion, crime, and violence. The United Nations maintains that strategies that create new governmental forums can increase the voice of margin- alized groups, particularly in cities where ethnic minorities are geographically concentrated. The Popular Participation Law that was passed in 1994 in Bolivia, for example, created municipal councils in which representatives from the Quechua (descendants of the Incas) and Aymara (pre-Inca ethnic group) minorities play a role in allocating resources within cities. In India a constitutional amendment was passed in 1993 that reserved one-third of the seats in local govern- ment for women. In 2009, the Indian government took a step further and became the first country to reserve 50 percent of these seats for women. Mandating the representation ofwomen in new governmental forums is a good first step; but the empowerment of women in many less developed countries is often still constrained by traditional gender relations. 2. Participation of local communities in urban policy- making and implementation: The emphasis is now on the internal opportunities for development, using models, assumptions, and objectives that have been devised within the less developed countries themselves. This shift has been associated with an increasing recogni- tion of the importance of local context for development and growing support for participatory approaches that give citizens a stronger voice in urban policymaking and implementation. The greater involvement of urban residents—notably through participation by community-based organizations— is becoming more common in urban planning. By helping to legitimize policymaking, resident participation in devising and implementing policies—by both men and women— can make public policy implementation more efficient and responsive to the needs of the community (Figure 7.16). This is particularly important in cities where, because of and management. The increased competition and fragmen- tation associated with globalization and neoliberalism are having contradictory effects on cities. The residents, busi- nesspeople, and government officials of a city must act as a collective unit to respond to international competition and compete effectively in the world economy while being less able to rely on higher levels of government for assistance. At the same time, growing social and economic fragmentation hampers the capacity of people in cities to build coalitions, mobilize resources, and develop good governance structures. This predicament is particularly detrimental when urban change is dramatic and requires enhanced decision-making capacities—as in many of the cities and metropolitan regions in less developed countries. During the last few decades, four changes in urban governance have emerged as attempts to address the “globalization paradox” in the less developed countries. 32 The relative importance of these changes varies among coun- tries, and they do not necessarily herald the end of more tra- ditional systems of governance. Some of the changes, such as decentralization and formal government reforms, have been around for some time. What is new is the rationale for introducing them. 1. Decentralization and formal government reforms: Although certain issues that affect cities and the people who live in them, such as rural poverty and rural-to-urban migration, are best addressed at the national scale, many urban problems are better tackled closer to the source. This principle underlies the trend toward decentral- izing power to regional and local levels of government. Decentralization has included strengthening the pow- ers of city government politicians, such as in some Latin American countries. Regional programs—such as the Consulting and Training System for Local Development (SACDEL) in Latin America—support the decentralization efforts. Funding and assistance for SACDEL come from the national governments of Latin American countries such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru, as well as the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank and UN-Habitat, to name a few. The program operates from a regional center in San Salvador, El Salvador, and provides training and assistance to public and private training agencies that are charged with enhancing the local capacity of municipal governments in Latin America. 33 There have also been attempts at formal govern-ment reform at the metropolitan level—including estab- lishing new government str uctures and agencies with metropolitan-wide responsibilities for strategic plan- ning, economic development, urban services, and, more recently, environmental protection. The rationale for these reforms includes long-established goals of effi- ciently and cost effectively providing urban services and infrastructure. More recent reasons for reform include the need to devise and implement policies that better FIGURE 7.16 Women from a self-help sanitation committee build latrines in an effort to raise the level of health in their community in Chinyamunyamu, Malawi. Chapter 7 • Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries 183 surrounding each lane. The Pilot Project helped them to survey the site, draw up plans, and prepare cost estimates. The residents collected money to pay for the sewer installation. As more households became involved, the local government began to provide some financial support. Since then, the residents administered the con- struction of more than 72,000 latrines and 1.3 million feet of sewer lines. 3. Multilevel governance and public–private partnerships: Multilevel governance involves a set of joint practices, including partnership and cofunding. Decentralization has increased the overlap of responsibilities, creating the need to involve different levels of government in urban policymaking. In many cities multilevel governance involves not only public institutions but also private com- panies, nonprofit agencies, and NGOs. The private sector is often involved because of neoliberal privatization poli- cies, as when the water systems were privatized in many African countries. Community-based organizations may be involved because they have legitimacy in representing the people and first-hand knowledge of local problems. NGOs too can play an important role because they are knowledgeable about program management or because they have assumed certain responsibilities from gov- ernment. Multilevel governance often comes about for the inability of local public institutions to provide basic urban services, people have had to organize themselves to undertake self-help water and sanitation projects (Urban View 7.5 entitled “Urban Social Movements and the Role of Women: Mahila Milan in Mumbai, India”). When local citizens in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, found that the government was economically and technically unable to improve the water supply, they looked for affordable ways to do it themselves. 34 Local residents formed community-based organizations with elected members, such as the Kijitonyama Development Community (KIJICO) in 1991 for the 30,000 residents in the more than 5 square mile Kijitonyama neighborhood. Negotiations between KIJICO and the city government with the participation of outside agencies like the World Bank resulted in the residents receiving assistance for a number of projects, including constructing a deep well and a more than 9-mile water distribution network with reservoirs and water pumps with a capacity of nearly 32,000 gallons a day. Orangi, a community of about 1 million people in Karachi, Pakistan, had no public sanitation system because it was a squatter settlement. 35 In 1980, the com- munity established the Orangi Pilot Project, which helped them to organize into small groups of households URBAN VIEW 7.5 Urban Social Movements and the Role of Women: Mahila Milan in Mumbai, India In many cities in less developed countries, poor residents are join- ing self-help efforts to improve their living conditions. 36 When community-based organizations form broad-based associations, the possibility of an urban social movement arises. An urban social movement can be defined as a social organization with a territorially based identity that strives for emancipation through collective action. The concept of emancipation here involves satisfying basic needs (including housing and urban services), developing a respectful attitude toward the environment, lack of discrimination (on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, socioeconomic status, or residential location), and gaining access to urban policymaking and implementation. Theorists like Manuel Castells believe that a basic character- istic of a true urban social movement is that it seeks societal change. 37 Others, like Schuurman and van Naerssen, 38 argue that the poor in the less developed countries might not be able to achieve societal reform because they cannot always over- come the political and social constraints that limit their efforts. Nevertheless, urban social movements often represent the only mechanism for improving the living conditions of poor people and are becoming more prevalent in the less developed coun- tries. Because women comprise a large percentage of the poor, they have high participation rates in urban social movements in many countries, including India. In 1985, a Supreme Court ruling gave the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai the authority to demolish pave- ment dwellings in the city. Pavement dwellings are the most basic kind of informal settlement in megacities. As their name suggests, these shacks are built on the sidewalks and run like ribbons along city streets; this makes them more vulnerable to demolition than larger squatter settlements on less central stretches of vacant land. A group of 500 poor women organized and formed Mahila Milan (“women together” in Hindi) to successfully prevent the demolition of their pavement dwelling homes. 39 Today, Mahila Milan has grown to become a decentralized network of women’s collectives that empowers women to become involved in community and city issues. For example, the women established a crisis credit fund by saving tiny amounts of money on a regular basis so that they could make small emergency loans to women in poor communities for crises like medical inju- ries where a family needed to borrow money to purchase medi- cine or to when a wage earner lost a job and the family needed a loan to buy food. Undeterred by illiteracy, they record their savings with different colored squares of paper representing different amounts of money. Although these poor women cannot save enough for larger loans for upgrading a shelter or buying a home, the women have gained skills and confidence from managing their savings and loans. They expanded their credit scheme with the help of NGOs and established a fund that offers micro-loans for pro- ductive enterprises in the informal sector such as vegetable and fruit vending, carpet repair, rag picking, and garbage recycling. Because the women carefully consider the viability of the pro- posed micro-enterprise, the creditworthiness of the borrower, and the terms of the loan, including interest rate, they have had an almost 100 percent rate of repayment. 184 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography way of reaching decisions in which policy content is, at least in part, a function of the decision-making pro- cess itself. These new forms of collective action can no longer take place at the central government level. Area-based regulation has replaced national regulation because of the government’s inability to solve problems and address issues at lower levels of government and the need to integrate the diverse elements of effective public policies. The extent to which these changes in governance address the “globalization paradox” and represent the kind of policy- making and implementation that move cities in the less devel- oped countries toward sustainable urban development can be judged using certain basic criteria. 41 These include the quality of life of urban residents, including levels of poverty, social exclusion, and human rights; the scale of nonrenewable resource use and waste recycling; and the scale and nature of renewable resource use, including freshwater resources. The cities and governments in the less developed countries—especially the poorest ones—face a daunting set of problems with often limited resources. As we will see in Chapter 15, there is little comfort in the fact that, despite sig nifi- cantly higher levels of prosperity, problems of urbanization persist in the cities of developed countries like the United States. practical reasons, but it is increasingly considered a new way of policymaking and implementation. For example, a partnership of residents, national and local government agencies, and NGOs came together to set up the Masese Women’s Self Help Project in 1989 to build 700 homes in the Masese slum in Jinja, Uganda. With the municipal government providing the land and the Project receiving a loan from an NGO through a national government department, the women received secure land tenure and ten-year loans to pay for con- struction materials. The loans were intended to be pro- vided through a revolving loan fund that would be able to offer future loans once the earlier loans were paid off. More than 300 new homes were built, but twenty years on, only 60 loans had been paid off because of lack of income, which has severely restricted new loans from being made to other residents from the revolving loan fund. 40 4. Process-oriented and area-based policies: Urban gov- ernance today involves a system in which a variety of participants work in partnership with government agencies. This complicates policymaking. Policymaking now involves coalitions and compromises; it also requires discussion and debate, which, in turn, depend on appropriate negotiation procedures. This is a new natural increase (p. 169) push and pull factors (p. 169) slums (p. 170) subsistence activities (p. 170) sustainable urban development (p. 180) underemployment (p. 169) urban social movement (p. 183) Brown Agenda (p. 181) decentralization of government power (p. 182) digital divide (p. 168) dualism (p. 170) epidemiological transition (p. 176) Green Agenda (p. 181) “globalization paradox” (p. 168) international poverty line (p. 169) Key Terms FOLLOW UP 3. Because of their rapid growth and high under- employment, it is among the peripheral metropolises of the world—such as Mexico City (Mexico), São Paulo (Brazil), Delhi and Mumbai (India), Dhaka (Pakistan), Jakarta (Indonesia), Karachi (Pakistan), and Manila (the Philippines)—that we can find contenders for the title of “shock city” of the twenty-first century. Using online and library sources, document the most remarkable and disturbing economic, social, and cultural changes for one of these megacities. Think about how and why 1. Go to YouTube and watch for a short video from a repu- table source that shows how people are attempting to over- come urban problems in Africa, Asia, or Latin America. What surprised you about the problem and how the people tried to overcome it? 2. Go online and collect some digital images that document some of the acute housing, traffic, and pollution problems in the cities of the less developed countries. Display the images with accompanying captions in a short Microsoft PowerPoint presentation ©. Review Activities Chapter 7 • Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries 185 the processes and outcomes you identify for this “shock city” in a less developed country today are similar to and different from those in Manchester (UK) and Chicago in the nineteenth century. 4. Work on your portfolio. Collect official figures that docu- ment some urban problems in less developed countries that particularly interest you. The United Nations (UN-Habitat) has economic and social indicators for selected cities in recent editions of its annual Global Report on Human Settlements or State of the World’s Cities that you can find in the library or on the UN’s website ( http://www. unhabitat.org/ ). Log in to www.mygeoscienceplace.com for self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth TM tours, key resources and suggested readings, related websites, “In the News” RSS feeds, and additional references and resources to enhance your study of urban problems and responses in the less developed countries. This page intentionally left blank 187 Processes of Urban Change 4 PART 189 What makes the built environment especially interesting within the overall context of urbanization is that it reflects the decisions of city makers such as landowners, financiers, developers, and politicians. In London, U.K., public funding lever- aged billions of dollars in private investment so that a formerly derelict dockland area now has a new image—created by the largest single urban redevelopment scheme in the world—centered on the sleek office towers of Canary Wharf. The Urban Development Process 8 Chapter I t is useful to think of urban development as a process that involves people as decision makers, each with rather different goals and motivations. Although architecture and urban design are important in contrib- uting to the distinctive character of different parts of cities, much of the decision making about what kind of structure gets built and when and where is in the hands not of architects and urban designers but of other “city makers” such as developers and politicians. As these different groups of people interact with one another over specific development issues, they constitute an organizational framework for city building. These frame- works have been called “structures of building provision” and it is through them that the built environment is created and modified. The resulting process of urban development involves a complex ebb and flow of invest- ment, disinvestment, and reinvestment. LEARNING OUTCOMES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Explain how the flow of investment in the built environment is influenced by the interaction of rent, market conditions and investment cycles in the broader economy. ■ Describe the evolution of real estate industry in the United States and explain how U.S cities have been affected by changes in the organization and dynamics of the industry. ■ Account for the roles and linkages between the various people and mediating institutions (such as government agencies and banks) that are involved in the process of actually building the urban environment. ■ Recognize the increasingly diverse range of commercial and residential of types of “building products” that are available to customers. CHAPTER PREVIEW In this chapter we take a closer look at the processes and some of the principal groups of people involved in the production of the built environment. What makes the built environment especially interesting within the overall context of urbanization is that it reflects, through its very creation, the decisions of city makers such as landowners, financiers, developers, builders, politicians, and bureaucrats as well as members of the design professions. Townscapes must be seen as the culmination of land development processes that involve all these key people within the framework of changing metropolitan form, land use, and architecture described in Chapters 3, 4, and 13. Understanding these processes requires us to identify the key people, their motiva- tions and objectives, their interpretations of market demand, and their relationships with one another (Urban View 8.1 entitled “Two Sides of the Housing Crisis: Skateboarding and Foreclosure”). These, in turn, must be seen within the context of one key precondition for investment in the built environment: the expectation of a satisfactory rate of return on a prospective project. We begin, therefore, with a review of the relationships between property, location, rent, and investment. 189 190 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography investment opportunities. One dimension of this broader context is related to the role of the built environment in relation to the circuits of capital investment flows that maintain the circula- tion of the economy. One important aspect of this is the role of investment in the built environment as a response to the occa- sional overaccumulation crises of capitalism. Overaccumulation occurs when three surpluses exist at the same time: surplus labor (unemployed and under employed people), surplus productive capacity (idle factories and machinery), and surplus capital (because investors with profits, interest, and dividends cannot find enough reasonably safe, profitable investment opportunities in productive businesses). At such times capital seems to “switch” from the primary circuit (investment in manufacturing production) into the secondary circuit (fixed capital assets such as buildings) or the tertiary PROPERTY, LOCATION, RENT, AND INVESTMENT In general terms, investment in the built environment depends on: • efficiently managing capital by mediating financial insti-tutions, responding to prevailing rates of return in the different circuits of capital investment flows, and • government intervention, acting on principles of Keynesian economic management and principles of social welfare and conflict resolution or neoliberal ideol- ogies and principles of competition and the free market. We must also recognize that investment in the built envi- ronment depends in part on the broader context of other URBAN VIEW 8.1 Two Sides of the Housing Crisis: Skateboarding and Foreclosure 1 On a recent sunny Saturday morning, 23-year-old Josh, who goes by J Mac, was smiling as wide as a half-pipe as he did an ollie and acro- batically launched himself into the air before landing and skating up the other side of the swimming pool of a foreclosed home in Fresno, California. Skateboarders use real estate tracking websites or satel- lite images from Google Earth to find foreclosed homes with pools. Across the country, swimming pools, once conspicuous indicators of suburban middle-class success, are now stinking symbols of the housing crisis as the foul stagnant water attracts uninvited guests like smelly algae, putrid muck, and scurrying rats. J Mac is uninvited too, but at least he arrived prepared to clean out the pool using his portable gas-powered pump, shovel, and mop. Skateboarders admit that what they are doing is illegal but maintain that they are helping the environment because the standing water in these pools is a rich breeding ground for mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus. Skateboarders like J Mac also uphold skateboarder rules: no trash or graffiti and never use the houses, only the pools (Figure 8.1). Tom and Anne Smith and their two young children have fond memories of living in that house and swimming in that pool. They bought the house with a $200,000 mortgage when Tom was making good money as an Internet marketer. As their equity in the house rose, they borrowed another $100,000 to pay off credit card bills and install the swimming pool. When Tom was suddenly laid off, they could not keep up with the mortgage payments and the bank foreclosed on their home. They moved in with Tom’s sister. Her two bedroom apartment is much too small for all of them but they have a foreclosure on their credit history and, anyway, cannot afford to rent an apartment of their own. Tom feels depressed and guilty about the foreclosure. “When I took out the mortgage, I committed to making the payments, and then, all of a sudden, we didn’t have the money. Then you have to look your kids in the eye and tell them that they have to leave the home and pool that they love so much.” FIGURE 8.1 Skateboarding in the swimming pool of a foreclosed home. Chapter 8 • The Urban Development Process 191 pockets within the metropolis are parcels of undeveloped prop- erty that are open to a variety of initiatives. And in between are older properties that are undercapitalized and devalued by age where renewed investment could yield higher rents . Geographer Neil Smith described this last situation as representing a rent gap. In Chapter 9 we will see the importance of rent gaps in explaining processes of neighborhood change such as gentrification . For the moment, however, it is sufficient to note their role in the overall process of uneven development that is a fundamental characteristic of capitalist develop- ment at any scale. Investment always flows to locations with rela- tive advantages in terms of cost and revenues where, other things being equal, rates of return will be highest. In the case of property development, capital moves away from locations where land and building costs are high to those where they are low; from loca- tions where revenues are low to those where they are high; and from undercapitalized projects (such as older housing or out- dated 1960s enclosed shopping malls) to projects that can com- mand higher rents at the same location (such as condominiums or new shopping malls designed to replicate the traditional town center main street). There is, therefore, a constant restlessness to the built environment, as both simultaneous and sequential pro- cesses of investment, disinvestment, and reinvestment take place. Historically, real estate development in U.S. cities was a predominantly local affair, organized on a project-by-project basis by real estate promoters, financiers, or investors and implemented under contract by small, local construction firms. The stabilization of the mortgage market and the setting of national minimum standards for housing financed by the Federal Housing Administration in the 1930s allowed more and more builders to become what Marc Weiss calls “community builders”—developers who design, engineer, finance, construct, and sell buildings on extensive new subdivisions. 4 These com- munity builders were the precursors of the developer-builder companies that now dominate the design and construction of the U.S. metropolitan built environment. It was the community builders of the 1930s and 1940s who pioneered deed restric- tions mandating uniform building lines, front and side yards, standards for lot coverage and building size, and minimum construction standards, as well as innovations in landscaping, street layout, and planned provision for retail and office build- ings, parks and recreation facilities, and churches and schools. After World War II, it was the community builders who extended these features to developments for middle-income homebuyers, unfolding the “democratic utopia” of post-World War II suburban development. This democratic utopia was also, of course, a developers’ utopia, with sustained high levels of demand, plenty of land, relatively cheap capital, weak envi- ronmental regulations, and little opposition to development in the form of NIMBYism (“Not In My Backyard”). More recently, the development industry has followed the trends of other producer and service industries—with mergers and acquisitions, vertical and horizontal integration, product diversification, the deployment of new technologies, just- in-time delivery, and niche marketing—resulting in a much greater market dominance of big, publicly traded companies with complex and sophisticated operations. The profitability of circuit (science, technology, and social infrastructure like edu- cation), to alleviate the consequences of underconsumption. It was geographer David Harvey who first conceptualized these circuits and pointed to the central role of the built envi- ronment and the city-building process in the overall dynamics of capitalism. 2 Harvey has shown not only that investment in the built environment is critical at times of overaccumulation but also that it is consistently important as a precondition for successful capital accumulation. If the built environment is not renewed and extended, the economy will stagnate and social tensions will develop. A second dimension of the broader context of investment opportunities stems from the overall relationship between the supply of property, prevailing interest rates, and current rates of profit from investment in property (see also the discus- sion of rent in Chapter 3). Using the example of investment in housing, we can identify four main ways in which rent inter- acts with market conditions to affect the flow of capital into the built environment: 3 1. If interest rates are high relative to profits from house build- ing, there will be a financial disincentive for capital to go into new construction, even if there is a shortage of hous- ing. Continued housing shortages, however, will push rents higher for existing dwellings, which in turn may encour- age speculative investment in vacant land. Eventually, con- tinued housing shortages will result in higher profits from construction, and lead to renewed investment in housing. 2. If interest rates are high relative to profits from house building but housing space is plentiful, rents will be depressed and there will be a tendency for disinvestment. This trend will continue until the supply of housing is reduced to the point that rents rise, leading to an eventual upturn in investment in housing. 3. With low interest rates relative to profits from house building and a shortage of housing space, land acqui- sition and construction will boom until the backlog in demand is met. Typically, construction overshoots this point, leading to overbuilding, high vacancy rates (though not necessarily of the newly constructed hous- ing), lower profits, and lower rents. 4. When interest rates are low relative to profits from house building, there will be a speculative boom even if there is plenty of housing space. This boom may also encour- age the upward revaluation (on paper, at least) of existing investments in housing. A third dimension of the broader context of investment opportunities operates at the intrametropolitan scale and involves the existence of localized property submarkets. Although inter- est rates do not normally vary within metropolitan areas, other market conditions do. Demand for certain types of residential, commercial, retail, or industrial space varies sharply from one part of the metropolis to another. At the same time, different parts of the metropolis consist of property with different degrees of capital investment (“capitalization”). In some areas, new, highly capitalized property precludes most development initia- tives. Around the fringes of the metropolis and in some isolated 192 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography long-term prospect for developers is rosy: the United States will add approximately twenty-eight million households by 2025, along with about forty-five million new jobs, turbocharging the infinite game of real estate development. Two million homes will need to be constructed each year, and non-residential construction may top three billion square feet annually. Up to $30 trillion will be spent on development between 2000 and 2025. Half the residential structures expected to be in place by 2025 did not exist in 2000. Developers’ decisions in orchestrat- ing and delivering all this will not only determine their com- mercial success but also influence the evolution of the form and appearance of the U.S. cities. The leading edges of metropolitan regions, in particular, are the product of the decisions of inde- pendent developers with a “supply-side aesthetic” that is heav- ily influenced by the market research and production decisions of the largest firms in the home building industry. smaller firms has been constrained by the economies of scale and scope enjoyed by these larger firms. Smaller firms also find it harder to deal with the dramatic increase in NIMBYism; with the widespread introduction of impact fees; and with environmental regulations that are now more complex and more strictly enforced. At the same time, neoliberal reforms that began with the Reagan administration have weakened trade unions, radically altered the system of housing finance, loosened capital markets, and weakened corporate tax law: For the larger firms, it is still a developers’ utopia. The housing booms of the 1980s and the late 1990s to mid-2000s that accompanied the emergence of the new, polycentric metropolitan form described in Chapter 4 afforded billions in profits for the largest firms. And, although the housing market crashed in 2008 (Urban View 8.2 enti- tled “Global Financial Meltdown, Local Disinvestment”), the URBAN VIEW 8.2 Global Financial Meltdown, Local Disinvestment 4 The boom in the “new economy” of the 1980s and 1990s fueled a housing boom, especially at the top end of the market. This was at a time when mortgage interest rates hit their lowest levels in more than four decades. Then, with the collapse of the dot-com specula- tive bubble in 2000–2001, property markets received a further boost as the built environment became a refuge for capital. The collapse of the dot-com boom made real estate an attractive investment for aff luent households: people traded up as fast as they could, aided by a credit industry that became increasingly competitive and increasingly lenient, offering all sorts of mortgage arrange- ments to help people afford houses that otherwise would be beyond their reach: interest-only mortgages, graduated-payment mortgages, growing-equity mortgages, shared-appreciation mort- gages, and step-rate mortgages that supercharged the market and contributed to the housing market bubble of the first half of the 2000s. Traditionally, banks and savings-and-loan companies had financed their mortgage lending through the deposits they receive from their customers. Together with the involvement of federal agencies, this has always limited the amount of mort- gage lending they could do, creating a natural stabilizing effect in the market. With the homebuilding boom of the early 2000s, however, mortgage lenders moved to a new model, selling the mortgages on to bond markets. This made it much easier to fund additional borrowing, but in the neoliberal political cli- mate that had developed it also led to abuses, as banks no longer had an incentive to carefully check out borrowers. The new types of mortgages included “sub-prime” lending to bor- rowers with poor credit histories and weak documentation of income (also pejoratively referred to as the NINJAs—those with no income, no jobs, and no assets), who were shunned by the “prime” lenders underwritten by federal agencies. They also included “jumbo” mortgages for properties priced in excess of the federal mortgage limit of $417,000. Such business proved extremely profitable for the banks, which earned a fee for each mortgage they sold on. Naturally, they urged mortgage bro- kers to sell more and more of these mortgages. By 2005, one in five mortgages was sub-prime, and they were particularly popular among recent immigrants trying to buy a home for the first time in the expensive housing markets of big metropolitan areas. The problem was that these sub-prime mortgages were “balloon” mortgages: payments were fixed for two years and then became variable and much higher. Inevitably, this led to defaults, and as the bad loans accumulated, mortgage lenders found themselves, in turn, unable to meet their repayments. The internationalization of finance meant that the first casualty was a British company, Northern Rock. Meanwhile, a wave of fore- closures and repossessions began to sweep across the United States. There were massive levels of defaults of loan repayments and widespread repossession of housing, usually at values far less than the initial loans. The consequences were experienced at two levels. First, at the macroeconomic level the worldwide banking industry was thrown into crisis. This arose because sub-prime mortgages had been bundled into packages known as CDOs (collateral- ized debt offerings) or SIVs (structured investment vehicles) and resold to other banks and financial institutions around the world. It had been hoped that this financial reengineering would spread the risks associated with these loans and that lenders could avoid federal limits on their lending-to-capital ratios. However, it appears that few managers in the financial services industries fully understood what they were buying and that various risk assessment agencies were seriously at fault in underestimating the risks associated with these loans. The result was massive losses in many banks around the world, leading to risk aversion and a lack of liquidity (capital) for loans—a so-called “credit crunch.” By 2009, the country’s big- gest homebuilding companies had laid off tens of thousands of workers, and were collectively producing only about one-third of the volume of new homes that they had been producing during the boom of the mid-2000s. Second, at the micro level, many neighborhoods were blighted by empty homes. The credit crunch had severe impacts on millions of households and many of these were concentrated in particular U.S. regions. As a proportion of all loans offered, Chapter 8 • The Urban Development Process 193 URBAN VIEW 8.2 Global Financial Meltdown, Local Disinvestment ( continued ) sub-prime loans were above 40 percent of the total in two belts of U.S. states: in the Midwestern heartland and in the South. In terms of absolute numbers California, Illinois, and Ohio were especially hit by the mortgage crisis; among individual cities, Cleveland was particularly affected by mortgage defaults, repossessions, housing abandonment, and neighborhood decline (Figure 8.2). Meanwhile, African Americans have been disproportion- ately affected. Instead of helping to narrow the wealth and homeownership gap between whites and African Americans, the mortgage crisis helped to strip a great deal of the equity out of African-American neighborhoods. In effect, the credit crunch amounted to a massive redistribution of wealth away from the African-American community in the United States. This is partic- ularly troubling because African-American homeownership had been rising sharply following decades of discriminatory lending and zoning practices that prevented many African Americans from buying a home. The large number of foreclosures of homes and rental properties has resulted in many African- American families losing their homes, savings, and credit, their neighbors seeing the value of their homes plummet, and renters being evicted. FIGURE 8.2 Sub-prime mortgage foreclosures in the Cleveland metropolitan area, 2005–2008. 0 6 Kilometers 04 2 2 4 6 Miles 0% 0.1% – 10% 10.1% – 25% 25.1% – 45% 45.1% – 65% 65.1% – 100% Subprime foreclosure Cleveland boundary City/Neighborhood boundary Percent loan originationsto African Americans 194 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography driving up rents while increasing the degree of differen- tiation between rents in different localities, and open- ing local property markets to a wider circle of investors (including international investors). • The rapid reorganization of urban form and land use, described in Chapter 4, has increased competition in local property markets, which has increased the pres- sure for property owners to respond rationally to market conditions. • The more sophisticated use of advertising and marketing in promoting property investments has helped both to attract a wider pool of investors and to promote the idea of property as an “ordinary” asset or commodity. • The loosening of planning and development controls (described in Chapter 11) has further allowed investors to treat property as an ordinary asset. • The involvement of new kinds of investors (transnational corporations, pension funds, and so on) and the emer- gence of new kinds of professionals (real estate manag- ers and property investment analysts) have propagated a more calculating (rent-maximizing) attitude of people in property markets generally. • Until the global financial meltdown, the deregulation of financial markets had removed many institutional and legal barriers between capital markets that were pre- viously highly segmented. This deregulation had also increased competition within property markets, driven up rents, attracted a wider pool of investors, and facili- tated their ability to treat property purely as a financial asset. As a result, there was an overall tendency toward increasing investment in the built environment through- out the postwar period, cyclical fluctuations including late 2000s disinvestment notwithstanding (Figure 8.3). THE STRUCTURES OF BUILDING PROVISION The concept of the structures of building provision is based on the observation that, in addition to general principles of demand and supply and universal theories of rent and invest- ment, each building project is the result of the actions of a variety of people and mediating institutions (government agencies, banks, and so on). The creation of the built envi- ronment, therefore, must be seen in terms of the functional linkages between specific sets of decision makers and institu- tions. Table 8.1 indicates the range of key decision makers, or “city makers,” involved in the urban development process. In this section we identify the most important of these city makers, paying particular attention to their motivations and constraints before going on to examine the overall functional linkages between them in the context of land development processes. City Makers In any given situation the creation of the built environment is the result of a variety of people, all with their own objectives, motivations, resources, and constraints, and all connected Patterns of Investment in Land and Property The restlessness of the built environment has been complicated by the fact that some property owners do not behave “ratio- nally” especially when it comes to their home. Rather than treating a property purely as a financial asset, some people may treat it in part as a source of social status, political influence, or “pocket money,” and then fail to respond (or respond too late) to changes in market conditions. Investment in land and property varies in terms of both the purpose of the investment (the use value of the land or property or its future exchange value) and the time horizon in which the investment decision is made (present or future). As Anne Haila explains, “A piece of land can be acquired and a building can be constructed for occupation (use), or for monetary return (exchange) the prop- erty yields when rented (annual rent) or when sold (capital gain, defined as the difference between the purchase price and the resale price). An investor acquiring real property and devel- oping it can be oriented towards satisfying a present need or receiving a short-term revenue (present), or can expect to receive benefit or revenue in the long term (future).” 5 Property as a Financial Asset For many observers, contemporary urban development pro- cesses are dominated by speculators who try to anticipate the change of prices and to sell and buy in favorable market situ- ations. For example, they may try to manipulate the market by lobbying for or against planning permissions. Their source of investment is capital borrowed and gathered from differ- ent sources (savings of small investors who buy shares in real estate investment trusts (REITs); capital of firms, financial institutions and public institutions that form joint-stock com- panies for construction projects). The principal purpose of investment is capital gain. Speculative developers are mainly interested in—and so consider—land as a financial asset. David Harvey has argued that in contemporary society, prof- its from property development are seen as in principle no dif- ferent from the returns on investments in bonds, stocks, and shares: The money laid out is interest-bearing capital in every case. The land becomes a form of fictitious capital, and the land market functions simply as a particular branch—albeit with some special characteristics—of the circulation of interest-bearing capital. Under such condi- tions the land is treated as a pure financial asset which is bought and sold for the rent it yields. 6 As a result, interest-bearing capital circulates through land markets continuously in search of higher future ground rent. Although Harvey sees this change as part of the overall evolu- tion of the economy, there are several specific trends that have been important in consolidating the tendency to treat property as a financial asset: 7 • The globalization of the economy has made the prop- erty market more international, increasing competition (particularly for office and high-status residential space), Chapter 8 • The Urban Development Process 195 the central business district (CBD), to the office development process, and to the process of developing industrial space— though the structure and composition of the web will vary in each case. To complicate things still further, each group of people will involve many individuals. In any city of any size, for example, there will be hundreds of major landowners and dozens of developers and builders. Some of these people will act for themselves within the web of the development pro- cess; others will be representing clients, large corporations, or public agencies. Some people may play more than one role at a time. Landowners may be actively involved in subdividing and building, for example, while city government officials may act as both regulators and entrepreneurs. Finally, all the people within the web of the development process must operate within a locally and historically specific context of market conditions and political constraints. As long as we bear these caveats in mind, it is possible to identify the people that are typically involved in the creation of the built environment. It is also possible to make some gen- eralizations about the roles and objectives of each of the major groups within the web of the development process. 9 Landowners Landowners stand at the beginning of the chain of events involved in urban development. There are three major types of landowners, each with rather different perspectives: • The first, landed estates , encompasses “old” money, whose ancestors were able to acquire large land holdings at an early stage in the history of development. For this group of landowners profitability is important, but it is often modified by social and historical ties. Decisions about the sale of land are made with an eye to the very long term. • The second, industrial land owners , is dominated by commercial farmers, a group that is crucial to the land Value (billions of 1987 dollars) 550 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 500 1930 1920 1940 1950 1960 Year1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 FIGURE 8.3 The value of new private construction put in place each year in the United States, in constant (1987) dollars. 1. Industrial and commercial location decisions : Executives of industrial companies Executives of commercial companies 2. Development decisions : Executives of development companies (developers) Land speculators and landowners Apartment owners and landlords 3. Financial decisions : Commercial bankers Executives of savings and loan associations (“thrifts”) Executives of insurance companies Executives of mortgage companies Executives of real estate investment trusts (REITs) 4. Construction decisions : Builders and developer-builders Executives of architectural and engineering firms Construction subcontractors 5. Support decisions : Chamber of Commerce executives Real estate brokers Executives of leasing companies Apartment management firms Source : J. Feagin and R. Parker, Building American Cities: The Urban Real Estate Game, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991, Table 1.1. TABLE 8.1 Urban Development: Decision Categories and Selected Decision Makers in the United States with one another in several different ways. The suburban resi- dential development process has been described as “a sort of three-dimensional spider web that can be moved by impact in any corner.” 8 The same applies to the development process in 196 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Speculators Speculators try to buy relatively low-priced land just before it begins to appreciate rapidly in value and to sell it just as it reaches a peak. Sociologists John Logan and Harvey Molotch have identified three very different kinds of speculators: 10 • The first is the serendipitous speculator —someone who has inherited property or who has bought it with a particular use in mind and then finds that it would be more valuable sold or rented for some other use (such as a landlord who can sell a rundown apartment building near the CBD to a developer who wants to build a high-rise office). • The second is the active speculator—the individual who hopes to anticipate changing patterns of land use and land values, buying and selling land accordingly. The prototypical active speculator is a small- or medium-scale investor: individuals (not corporations) who attempt to monitor the investments and disinvestments of bigger investors, using local and online social networks to find out who is going to do what, when, and where. • The third is the structural speculator —the bigger investors who rely not merely on an ability to anticipate chang- ing patterns but who also hope to influence or engineer change for their own benefit. “Their strategy is to cre- ate differential rents by influencing the larger arena of decision making that will determine local advantages.” 11 They may attempt, for example, to influence the route of a freeway or the location of a rapid transit stop, to change the land use zoning map or the master plan, or to encourage public expenditure on particular amenities or services. Developers The principal role of developers is in deciding on the nature and form of new building projects, platting large parcels of land into smaller lots, installing the infrastructure necessary for a particular use (e.g., streets, sewer and water mains, gas and electric lines), and selling the lots to builders. These activities generally fall under the descriptive label of “subdivision.” Many development companies, however, have extended their activities well beyond the business of subdivi- sion to include land assembly and speculation, design, con- struction, and marketing. Because it is the developers who must decide on the type of project to be undertaken on a particular site, they can fairly claim to be the single most important group of city makers. The Development Process. Figure 8.4 shows the major steps involved in the overall development process. 12 The preliminary development activities consist of site selection, conceptual- izing the project (whether it will be a residential subdivision, private master-planned community, office park, or whatever), and assessing the concept’s feasibility. Site selection and project conceptualization stand together at the very beginning of the process, each influencing the other. This first step is clearly very important to the outcome of the city-building process, since the developers are inscribing their judgment and interpretation onto the landscape. Other things being equal, developers will conversion process at the edge of urban areas. Their decision-making typically has to balance short-term financial considerations against longer-term lifestyle considerations. Maintaining an occupation and lifestyle as a farmer often means paying higher taxes that result from the inflation of land values because of proximity to an expanding urban area. The alternative is to capture the rising value of land by selling some (or all) of it to speculators or developers. In response, many state and local governments in the United States have established tax laws that favor agricultural uses. • The third type is based on financial ownership, dominated by property companies and financial institutions such as insurance companies and pension funds. As we will see, the importance of financial institutions has grown rap- idly, as savings and profits have been channeled into long- term investments and as large transnational corporations have diversified into property. Property com panies, in contrast, are less concerned with the long-term apprecia- tion of assets, focusing on the exploitation of urban land markets for short- and medium-term profits. Although each of these groups tends to behave in rather different ways within the web of city makers, all of them have influenced the outcome of the city building process in two broad ways: (1) through the size and spatial pattern of parcels of land that are transferred to speculators and developers and (2) through conditions that they may impose on the subse- quent nature of development. In terms of the size and spatial pattern of land parcels, much of course depends on the over- all pattern of land holdings. The large ranchos and mission lands around Los Angeles, for example, have formed the basis of extensive tracts of uniform suburban development, while in eastern cities, where the early pattern of land holdings was fragmented, development has been more piecemeal. Because of the structure of the tax system, however, it is often prefer- able for landowners to sell smaller parcels over an extended period. As a result, developers often arrange “installment con- tracts” with a variety of landowners to maintain a sufficient supply of building land. The outcome in terms of spatial pat- terns of development tends to be one of apparently random urban sprawl. Because many landowners often sell only part of their hold- ings at a time, they have a strong interest in what happens to the land they sell. Any change in the use of sold-off parcels is likely to affect the future exchange value of their remaining holdings. In the past it was very common for landowners to sell off parcels of land with contractual provisos— restrictive covenants —that limited the nature of subsequent development. Such covenants usually discriminated against people with low incomes or socially undesirable land uses, sometimes in a very explicit way. With changed social attitudes and tougher laws against discrimination, restrictive covenants are somewhat less common but they have by no means disappeared. Rather, the practice has been to frame them obliquely, stipulating mini- mum lot sizes or low residential densities, for example, to ensure development for more affluent residents. Chapter 8 • The Urban Development Process 197 availability of utilities and municipal services, the possibility of special engineering or construction needs because of the site’s physical properties, and the potential reaction of neighboring land users to the project. For most residential development, the decisive factor is site costs, although the nature of the proposed project can introduce important aesthetic considerations: Builders constructing lower-priced units are concerned primarily with minimizing costs. They seek to supply basic housing without frills; flat terrain with few trees is ideal. By contrast, builders of higher-priced houses look for sites with natural or social amenities. The costs of building on more rugged terrain and in denser vegeta- tion are higher, but builders invariably find that the value of the completed house is increased by an even greater amount. When units will be sold for a higher price, build- ers and subdividers may create ponds out of marshes or add to the relief of an otherwise flat area by cutting streets lower and piling excess dirt up on the building sites. Characteristics that are limiting factors to the builder of opt for what is easiest to produce and what is the safest bet in terms of effective demand—the middle of the market. Only a few will have both the nerve to gamble on innovative projects and the ability to persuade financiers and customers that the potential outweighs the risks. In terms of residential develop- ment, this conservative approach translates into housing for the “typical” household (or, at least, the developer’s idea of the typical household). Through the 1960s and 1970s this approach resulted in the prevalence of three-bedroom single-family suburban housing (Figure 8.5), with little provision for atypical households—who were effectively excluded from new suburban tracts. Only in the 1980s, when marketing consultants caught up with social shifts that had made the “typical” household a demographic minority, did developers begin to cater to affluent single peo- ple, divorcees, retirees, and “DINKs” (dual-income, no kids), adding luxury condominiums, townhouses, and the like to their standard repertoire. Among a developer’s concerns in the site selection pro- cess will be the location, size, and cost of available land, the FIGURE 8.4 The development process. PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES Project conceptualization DEVELOPMENT IMPLEMENTATION FACILITIES MANAGEMENT Feasibility Site selection Marketing Financing Operation Building and construction FIGURE 8.5 Large-scale development of lower-priced housing depended on the availability of large tracts of cheap land, on which Fordist principles of mass production can be exploited. 198 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography And although some developers are active across several regional markets, many specialize in just one metropolitan market. Builders As we have seen, developers sometimes extend their operations to include building; more often than not, however, developers will subcontract to general building contractors. At the same time, many small and medium-sized building firms will undertake their own speculative land acquisition and development functions. Much depends, as with development companies, on the size and internal organization of the com- pany. Before World War II, about a third of all new houses in the United States were built by small, local, general contractors for their new owners, while another third were built specula- tively by operative builders who each averaged between three and five houses per year. Medium- and large-sized community builders accounted for the rest, though no firm produced hous- ing for large regional markets, let alone the national market, and none had the capacity to build more than a few hundred houses a year. There are still around 80,000 home builders in the United States, most of them tiny, but the biggest builders are rapidly getting bigger, and taking up an increasing share of the market. In 1986, the market share of the 100 largest builders (in terms of new home sales) was 24 percent. At the peak of the most recent housing boom, in 2006, it was 44 percent, with the top ten builders capturing just over 25 percent on their own. It has been the top twenty builders who have taken market share away from the rest. Pulte Homes, the top homebuilder in 1986 with sales of 9,500, was third-largest in 2006, with sales of 41,487. The top builder in 2006 was D.R. Horton, with sales of 53,410 homes in seventy-seven markets across twenty-six states. Between them, the ten largest builders accounted for the sale of almost 296,000 homes in 2006: the equivalent of the entire housing stock of a metropolitan area the size of El Paso, Texas. The increasing dominance of big firms is due to a combina- tion of factors: access to land and capital, mergers and acquisi- tions, strategic alliances, geographic diversification, improved production methods, and product innovation. One of the stron- gest driving forces in the consolidation of the building industry is the importance of access to land—not only land in the right sort of location but also in sufficient quantity for developers to be able to achieve economies of scale. Big firms have a huge advantage because it takes a lot of time to buy land and get the necessary permits to build on it, which means having the per- sonnel for intelligence-gathering, scouting, and handling the fiscal and regulatory paperwork. Big firms also have the upper hand because they have the financial resources to acquire prime parcels of land. A $30 million deal for a piece of land has become commonplace, and a $150 million deal is not unheard of. With deals in this league, most large companies in fact usu- ally purchase an option on land rather than buying it outright. This enables the company to back out of a deal if a municipality refuses to provide the clearances needed to build. The larger the firm, the greater the need to acquire a land bank in advance of development, simply to ensure a smooth flow of projects. At any given time, builders like Toll Brothers Inc., Hovnanian lower-priced houses therefore are considered in a posi- tive light in the trade-off calculations of the builders of higher-priced houses. 13 The final phase of predevelopment activities is determin- ing feasibility . Typically, this phase requires coordination with local planners in order to check on compliance with zoning ordinances and legal codes, approaching community leaders in order to gauge reactions to the proposed project, undertak- ing detailed market analyses, drawing up alternative schematic designs (“schematics”), investigating any special technical issues arising from these schematics, and projecting costs and revenues. Having completed the preliminary phase, the developer moves into implementation: financing, marketing, design, and construction (Figure 8.4). Financing involves convincing oth- ers of the project’s feasibility. Typically, the developer, just like the would-be homeowner, must put down part of the cost as cash: the developer’s equity. The remainder is sought from a bank or from some other backer or consortium of backers— pension funds, insurance companies, and the like—who may themselves require certain changes in the nature of the project. The development industry is highly “leveraged,” meaning that the developer’s equity often works out to be a much smaller proportion of the overall cost than the homeowner’s equity. Marketing has become increasingly sophisticated as devel- opment projects have become larger. In addition to profes- sional market research, this phase involves active promotion of the project early on. If possible, finished space will be sold or leased in advance of construction. In extreme cases, where stakes are very high, developers may buy out the existing leases of prestige customers in order to allow them to move into the project as a way to lure in other tenants. The design and construction phase begins with detailed contract drawings being produced from the schematics, fol- lowed by a bidding process in which general contractors are invited to bid for various aspects of the engineering, construc- tion, and landscaping. Timing is essential during this phase. Interest has to be paid on construction loans that increase as the project proceeds. Any delays in producing revenue from a project can result in significant losses due to increased inter- est payments, particularly when delays occur toward the latter stages of construction. Although it usually takes about 10 years for a typical mixed-use project to break even, the survival of a project depends on generating some revenues as quickly as possible simply to avoid foreclosure. Once construction is com- pleted, the developer has to search for and manage tenants, col- lect rents, generally maintain and administer the project, or sell to new owners. This is the facilities management stage of the process (Figure 8.4). The actual development process will vary a good deal, of course, depending on the size and nature of the project and the resources and scope of operations of the development com- pany. Many developers specialize in a certain type of project: suburban subdivisions, master-planned communities, office blocks, mixed-use developments, hotels, factories, and so on. Chapter 8 • The Urban Development Process 199 Realtors, Financiers, Other Professional Facili tators Realtors, financiers, and other professional agents are essen- tial to the development process as facilitators, intermediar- ies, and specialized experts. A wide range of professionals is involved, including surveyors, market analysts, advertising executives, lawyers, title insurance agents, appraisers, prop- erty managers, engineers, ecologists, and geologists. The most important of these “exchange professionals,” how- ever, are mortgage financiers and realtors. Their activities go well beyond the actual creation of the built environment to encompass continuing processes of neighborhood change. As “gatekeepers” of this change, they are discussed at length in Chapter 9. Government Agencies The development industry forms a staple of local politics and the focus of a good deal of local pol- icy. Indeed, local economic development in the United States since the 1970s has been associated with an unprecedented form of growth machine politics and unprecedented partner- ships between development companies and public agencies. As we will see in Chapter 11, city government officials have increasingly shifted to a new culture of civic entrepreneur- ialism that draws heavily on public-private partnerships in which public resources and legal powers are joined with private interests in order to undertake development projects. This shift has fostered a speculative and piecemeal approach to the man- agement of cities. Local government officials (with additional funding leveraged from state and federal agencies) have subsi- dized projects such as downtown shopping malls, festival mar- ket places, new stadiums, theme parks, and conference centers because these have been seen as having the capacity to enhance property values and generate retail turnover and employment growth (Chapter 10). If successful, the reasoning goes, such projects can cast a beneficial glow over the whole city; but even in the face of poor economic performance they can be regarded as a kind of “loss leader” that may bolster the image of a city and attract other forms of development. Development is much less of a political issue at the fed- eral level but, as we have already seen in Chapter 4 with the examples of the interstate highway system and federally insured mortgages, federal policy can be a crucial factor that influences urban development. As a result, many important development- related decisions are made by politicians and government officials at the federal as well as the local level (Table 8.2). In Chapters 10 and 11 we will explore several issues where the development process intersects with urban politics and policy. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that the United States is some- what unusual compared to other countries in the degree to which regulation of the property development process is weak and decentralized—another direct legacy of enshrining private property rights as a civil liberty under U.S. land law (first dis- cussed in Chapter 3). Moreover, as we saw in Chapter 4, many federal responsibilities were de centralized and many spheres of activity involving federal oversight were deregulated in the 1980s as part of the overall retrenchment and restructuring that marked the shift away from Keynesian economic management. Enterprises, and Pulte Homes control enough land for tens of thousands of houses. Big publicly traded firms also have access to big capital, and usually at better rates than smaller, private firms that have to rely on banks. Credit-rating agencies have rewarded the suc- cess of the top home builders and, coupled with the reduced risk that many builders enjoy by optioning most of their land, instead of owning it, have helped the top builders secure larger credit lines at lower interest rates. The big firms have also become more creative in the ways they finance deals and man- age risk, particularly with the use of joint ventures. Vertical and horizontal integration has also extended economies of scale and scope as well as intensifying the structural dominance of large firms within the industry. Some of the largest builders have meanwhile brought parts of their supply chain in-house in an effort to reduce cycle time (the average time it takes to complete a house) and exert more control over the tight labor supply in the construction industry. The big builders have also deployed new technologies and refined production methods to push down costs and undersell small and medium-sized builders. Toll Brothers, for example, uses prefabricated wall panels and roof-truss systems, shipped from its factories to home sites; Pulte Homes has introduced prefabricated concrete foundation plates instead of site- poured concrete foundations. What is more revolutionary is that the big builders do not really build anything, at least in a technical sense: nearly all the physical work is contracted or subcontracted to electrical, framing, roofing, painting, masonry and plumbing companies, many of which follow the big firms in itinerant fashion from development to development. These contractors do the actual building in accordance with the big firms’ signature designs and management guidelines. Consumers Consumers—households and commercial and industrial businesses—represent the demand side of the develop- ment process. Demand for space within the built environment is an important and complicated topic, and a full discussion is reserved for Chapters 9 and 12. One point that needs to be made in the present context, however, is that consumer preferences and consumer behavior must be seen as having developed in a social context “that is fundamentally shaped by markets ruled by capitalists and top managers in industrial and development corporations. . . . The physical structure of production builds barriers and sets lim- its to individual choices. Moreover, citizen preferences are fre- quently created or manipulated by powerful investors and their associates working through advertising, public relations, and the mass media.” 14 It should also be stressed that people need not always react individually—as consumers—to the choices created for them by business decision makers and managers. As we will see in Chapter 10, individual people may also affect the develop- ment process through citizen protests over specific develop- ment projects, through involvement in pro-growth, no-growth, or slow-growth politics, or through involvement in residents’ associations. 200 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Market Responses of the Development Industry Like most other industries, the development industry has undergone some radical changes in the past 40 years in response to globalization and structural economic change. In parallel with producers in many other industries, devel- opers and builders have found it advantageous to decrease their emphasis on Fordist strategies of mass production-mass consumption in favor of more flexible approaches aimed at exploiting profitable new market niches. Meanwhile, patterns of investment, along with patterns of corporate and profes- sional organization, have become global in scope (Urban View 8.3 entitled “Urban Development is Less and Less a Local Activity”). In this section we illustrate some of these changes, noting how they have inscribed new elements into the built environment. URBAN VIEW 8.3 Urban Development is Less and Less a Local Activity Investment in the built environment has come increasingly to emphasize large-scale projects, and because of this trend urban development has, in turn, become more international and less and less a local activity. Take, for example, 30 St. Mary Axe, the first tall structure to be built in the heart of heritage-conscious London since the early 1980s and the third-tallest skyscraper in the one-mile-square historic City of London, after the 1980 Tower 42 and 2011 46-story Heron Tower (although all three will be dwarfed by The Pinnacle (also known as The Bishopsgate Tower) when it is completed). The 40-story St. Mary Axe build- ing in London’s financial and insurance district is cone-shaped so that the wind will pass easily around it (Figure 8.6). It has won a number of prestigious architectural awards, including the 2004 Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize. The building has also been featured in movies such as Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince . FIGURE 8.6 30 St. Mary Axe in London, completed in 2004, is a reflection of how the scale of activity in the development industry is often international in its dimensions. 1 2 3 5 4 10 7 6 11 8 9 1. Mt. Vernon, N.Y. 2. Livingston, N.J. 3. London, U.K. 4. Zurich, CHE 5. Aesch, CHE 6. Stockholm, SWE 7. Arnhem, NLD 8. Rotterdam, NLD 9. Eeklo, BEL 10. Vienna, AUT 11. Espoo, FIN 1. Actions on utility services, building codes, zoning, tax abatements, boosterism, and progrowth agendas: Mayors and city council members County governmental officials Officials on local zoning and planning commissions Officials in special local agencies 2. Housing, redevelopment, and tax decisions: Members of Congress U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials Local and state government officials Source: J. Feagin and R. Parker, Building American Cities: The Urban Real Estate Game, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991, Table 1.2. TABLE 8.2 Urban Development: Decision Categories and Selected Government Decision Makers in the United States Chapter 8 • The Urban Development Process 201 URBAN VIEW 8.3 Urban Development is Less and Less a Local Activity ( continued) The project involved a number of international companies and/or their subsidiaries. The developer and primary occupant is Swiss Re, a Swiss reinsurance company. The architect was Foster and Partners, a British company headed by Sir Norman Foster, whose designs include the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in Hong Kong. The gen- eral contractor was Skanska, a Swedish company. The struc- tural engineers were Ove Arup & Partners, a British company, as was the mechanical and electrical engineer, Hilson Moran. The facade supplier was Schmidlin, a Swiss company, and the facade maintenance system supplier was Lalesse Gevelliften, a Dutch company. The structural steel supplier was Victor Buyck-Hollandia, a joint venture by two companies—Belgian and Dutch. The steel dome was supplied by Waagner Biro, an Austrian company. The elevator supplier was KONE, a Finnish company, and the elevator engineers were Van Deusen & Associates, a company from New Jersey. Universal Builders Supply (UBS), a company from New York, was subcontracted to supply the tower and hoist erectors (Figure 8.6).The significance of this kind of international dimension to the development industry and its giant corporations lies in their potential for removing much of the debate and control over patterns of development from local arenas of municipal government, from the influence of local “growth machine” coalitions, and from the voices of neighbor- hood and environmental groups. Although large national and international development companies often work with local partners in joint ventures to exploit local networks of key contacts, design professionals, and construction companies, the larger, stronger partners tend to learn quickly, setting up local subsidiaries or simply gaining the experience to take on more of the projects themselves. A case in point is the 46-story Heron Tower that involved Skanska, the Swedish company that had been the general con- tractor for 30 St. Mary Axe. For Heron Tower, though, Skanska removed the need for separate subcontractors—for mechani- cal, electrical, plumbing, IT, piling, steel decking, suspended ceiling, and engineering work—by providing what the com- pany calls a “total construction and building services solution.” Heron Tower still retains an international dimension though due to its U.S. architects, Kohn Pederson Fox Associates (KPF), and British structural engineering company, Ove Arup & Partners. International is also a good way to describe the larger-than- life U.K. property developer, Gerald Ronson, arguably the most respected developer in Europe and perhaps the last of the great British tycoons. Ronson is infamous for his involvement in the larg- est U.K. financial scandal of the 1980s: an attempt to manipulate the stock market on a massive scale to inflate the price of Guinness shares and make possible a £2.7 billion takeover bid for Distillers, a Scottish drinks company. Ronson was found guilty (a ruling that was criticized by the European Court of Human Rights) and spent six months in jail. With his company overextended, Ronson barely avoided bankruptcy by securing loans from wealthy international friends including Bill Gates (Microsoft), Rupert Murdock (Australian- born media magnate), and the Sultanate of Oman. Ronson then spent the last few decades rebuilding his company and reputation as evidenced by a favorable decision to allow Heron Tower to be built following a multimillion pound public inquiry. Opposition to the skyscraper came from the British government’s English Heritage (officially, the Historic Building and Monuments Commission for English) and Westminster City Council. They argued that the building would have a negative impact on the view of St. Paul’s Cathedral from Waterloo Bridge. New Products The development industry has responded to the need for greater flexibility through the pursuit of product dif- ferentiation and niche marketing. In the commercial sector prod- uct differentiation has resulted in a variety of new formats for hotels: luxury/full service, executive conference resorts, extended- stay (with kitchen and laundry facilities en suite), economy-only, and all-suite. Developers of office buildings responded to the changing business climate by producing self-consciously luxuri- ous buildings (Figure 8.7). Developments for retailing have simi- larly seen different formats for different market segments: upscale downtown gallerias and malls, for example (Figure 8.8), and “big box power centers” (community shopping centers anchored by a major tenant such as Wal-Mart, along with one or two other major retailers and a complementary mix of specialty retailers, restaurants, banks, or other consumer services). Another signifi- cant new “product line” for developers is the specialized mall: a medical mall, for example, that is designed to provide busy, affluent consumers with one-stop shopping that offers physicians, counselors, therapists, medical laboratories, pharmacies, outpatient facilities, fitness centers, health food stores, and cafes. Developers of business and industrial parks, meanwhile, are offering “flex-space”: single-story structures with “designer” frontages, loading docks at the rear, and interior space that can be used for offices, R&D labs, storage, or manufacturing, in any ratio (Figure 8.9). Old product lines can also be “treated” to enhance flexibility within the market. Business and industrial parks have been repackaged as “planned corporate environ- ments” with built-in daycare facilities, fitness centers, jogging trails, restaurants and convenience stores, lavish interior decor, and lush exterior landscaping. In the residential sector some developers have reposi- tioned themselves away from single-family “starter” homes to build more multifamily projects (that, like business parks, are packaged with services: in this case, security systems, con- cierge services, exercise facilities, bike trails, and so on) or more expensive homes for the “move-up” market, where the basic product—single-family suburban homes—is differentiated by features such as dramatic master bedroom–bathroom suites, marble floors, and signature landscaping. At the very top end of the residential market are specu- lative homes differentiated by the most lavish “designer” fea- tures such as elaborate master bedrooms, bathrooms with spa amenities (steam shower, whirlpool tub, and sauna), exercise room, game room, home theater, library, “gourmet” kitchen 202 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography FIGURE 8.9 “Flexspace”: a new product line for developers in the 1980s, this concept combines “designer” office frontages with rear- area loading bays and interior space that can be used as office, industrial, or warehousing space, in any proportion. FIGURE 8.8 Upscale shopping mall in Las Vegas, Nevada. FIGURE 8.7 La Coline office development, Paris, France, is a good example of developers’ attempts to capture a distinctive market niche among upscale business and professional services. The building incorporates a wooden bridge that arches across an ornamental pool in a glass-ceilinged atrium. Chapter 8 • The Urban Development Process 203 FIGURE 8.10 Consumer booms and increased materialism can bring a rash of new speculative building at the top of the residential market, which is normally dominated by custom building such as this. FIGURE 8.11 Townhouses in a new, private, master-planned community. Note the variety that has been introduced to windows, doors, rooflines, and so on in an attempt to signal the distinctiveness of the project. descendants of the planned communities of the 1960s (p. 94), they are a result of an extreme form of product differentiation and carefully targeted niche marketing. By exploiting new and more flexible land use zoning regulations, developers can put together projects that are attractive to a very profitable sector of the residential market while retaining scope for flexibility in the composition and timing of the development. Residents of such communities are offered sequestered settings with an extensive package of amenities that typically include a golf course, tennis courts, swimming pools, play areas, jogging courses, an auditorium, exercise rooms, a shop- ping center, a daycare center, and a security system symbolized by imposing gateways and operated by electronic keyless entry systems. Housing is typically a mixture of expensive single- family houses, upscale townhouses and condominiums, and smaller studios or apartments for young singles or the elderly, all in High Suburban style: mock- Tudor, mock-Georgian, neo-Colonial, Giant Cape Cod, and so on (Figure 8.11). with butler’s pantry, temperature-controlled wine cellar, and integrated multizone air conditioning, media, home appli- ance, and security systems controlled from touchscreens throughout the house (Figure 8.10). Most recently, “designer” features have also incorporated environmentally friendly ele- ments such as nontoxic building materials and solar thermal radiant flooring. Large, privately planned communities have also become popular with developers because they allow more flexibility in design and product type and enable developers to respond quickly to changing market demand (such as the growing num- ber of older Baby Boomers seeking smaller homes with less maintenance). 15 The essential features of these communities are “a definable boundary; a consistent, but not necessarily uniform, character; overall control during the development process by a single development entity; private ownership of recreational amenities; and enforcement of covenants, conditions and restrictions by a master community association.” 16 The direct 204 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Key Terms FOLLOW UP overaccumulation crises (p. 190) rent gap (p. 191) restrictive covenants (p. 196) serendipitous speculator (p. 196) structural speculator (p. 196) structures of building provision (p. 194) sub-prime mortgage (p. 192) active speculator (p. 196) circuits of capital investment (p. 190) city makers (p. 189) foreclosure (p. 190) ground rent (p. 194) land banks (p. 198) niche marketing (p. 191) NIMBYism (p. 191) The entire ensemble is typically framed in a carefully landscaped setting that might contain a lake stocked with swans or a neoconservationist assemblage of remnant woodland, an artificial wetlands environment, and plantings of wild flowers. The landscape is completed by a parade of joggers in expensive warm-up suits and by busy delivery vans bringing affordable luxuries ordered online from designer clothing and house- hold furnishing websites. The very names of the communi- ties are carefully selected to set a tone of distinction, heritage, and authenticity. Advertising imagery draws on the totemism of golf, equestrianism, and past oral landscapes, and leaves no doubts about the status and stylishness of the product. Clearly the importance of design in the built environment is increasing. As one developer put it, “My buildings are a product. They are products like Scotch Tape is a product, or Saran Wrap. The packaging of that product is the first thing that people see. I am selling space and renting space and it has to be in a package that is attractive enough to be financially successful.” 17 Such sentiments are by no means new, though they are perhaps felt more keenly nowadays. As we shall see in Chapter 13, however, design is much more than packaging. It involves language and ideologies that go well beyond the orbits of developers’ worlds. It follows that we can “read” these “designer” neighborhoods as the product of our times, the carriers of our society’s concern with materialism and social distinction. As we will see in Chapter 12, these themes have emerged very clearly in the residential patterns of U.S. cities in particular. Review Activities 1. It is interesting to follow the various stages of the develop- ment process for a single project. Two books that do this are From the Ground Up , by Douglas Frantz (New York: Henry Holt, 1991) and Skyscraper, by Karl Sabbagh (New York: Penguin, 1989). 2. Go online and access one of the Planet Money podcasts or blogs by Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson (“This American Life” and NPR News) at http://www.npr.org/ money/. “The Giant Pool of Money” show explains in an understandable way how the housing crisis and the turmoil on Wall Street were connected, and why banks made half- million dollar loans to people without jobs or income. 3. Consider the statement (p. 191) that “There is . . . a constant restlessness to the built environment, as both simultaneous and sequential processes of investment, disinvestment, and reinvestment take place.” Can you find examples from your nearest town or city that illustrate this? Chapter 8 • The Urban Development Process 205 Look for features that illustrate the treatment of property as a financial asset and the responses of the development industry to the opportunities presented by urban change. You may also find data on vacancy rates and on land and property prices that you can use to illustrate aspects of changing urban geography. 4. Update your portfolio and gather more materials. A very good source in relation to the material covered in this chapter is the online real estate section of any major metro- politan newspaper. Real estate sections usually appear once a week and often contain useful insights and illustrations of the activities and interactions of various city makers. Log in to www.mygeoscienceplace.com for self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth TM tours, key resources and suggested readings, related websites, “In the News” RSS feeds, and additional references and resources to enhance your study of the urban development process. After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Explain how neighborhood change results from a combination of factors, including physical deterioration of housing stock, obsolescence of housing stock, cohort aging, and change in the composition of inhabitants. ■ Recognize the factors that prompt people to invest or to disinvest in a neighborhood. ■ Explain the relative lack of public housing in U.S. cities as compared to cities elsewhere. ■ Articulate the variety of factors that shape the relocation decisions of people and households. ■ Describe the role of key urban professionals in shaping and constraining people’s location and relocation decisions. CHAPTER PREVIEW This chapter examines how and why neighborhoods change. The first task is to clarify the different com- ponents of neighborhood change: the aging of residents, the movement of households into and out of the neighborhood, and the aging of the physical environment. We will see that each of these components exhibits a different periodicity and that the overall effect can be conceptualized in terms of neighborhood life cycles. Having established these fundamental dynamics, the next task is to review another important dynamic: the changing pattern of people’s housing tenure that links broad shifts in the political economy to the context of local housing markets. At this point an important question is raised: Why has public housing for low-income families been so limited in U.S. cities compared to urban housing markets in other developed countries such as the United Kingdom? How Neighborhoods Change 9 Chapter LEARNING OUTCOMES W e have seen in previous chapters that in many parts of the world the overall form of larger metro- politan areas has evolved from a relatively straightforward, monocentric structure to a “galactic” sprawl with a polycentric structure—fragmented and multinodal—characterized by surrounding new urban spaces and settings that include edge cities and boomburbs. Embedded in this framework of splin- tering urbanism is the kaleidoscope of residential neighborhoods, arranged in terms of intersecting cleavages of people’s socioeconomic background, household type, ethnicity, and lifestyle. If we look at these neighbor- hoods closely, we can see that each one is the product of a steady flux of change: arrivals and departures of people, births and deaths, additions and replacements, abandonments and demolitions that collectively carry each neighborhood in a certain direction at a particular speed. In this chapter we examine this dynamism in detail, emphasizing how people operate in housing markets and their residential mobility plays a role in shaping and reshaping neighborhoods. If we look at a neighborhood closely, we can see that each one is the product of a steady flux of change: arrivals and depar- tures of people, births and deaths, additions and replacements, abandonments and demolitions that collectively carry each neighborhood in a certain direction at a particular speed. Urban geographers examine this dynamism for cities like New Haven, Connecticut, emphasizing how people operate in housing markets and how their residential mobility plays a role in shaping and reshaping neighborhoods. 207 208 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography fundamental motor of neighborhood change, the actions of key “gatekeepers” such as real estate agents and mortgage financiers also influence the outcomes. As we will see, they are sometimes the agents of social and racial discrimination and bias. The final section of the chapter draws on all these ideas— neighborhood life cycles, housing submarkets, household behavior, and social gatekeepers—in illustrating the nature of neighborhood transformation that affects people’s lives through to gentrification, involving social changes and physical upgrading in older, central city residential neighborhoods. Another important issue raised here concerns the exis- tence of spatial submarkets in which the dynamics of neigh- borhood change are played out. The majority of people in these submarkets comprise of course individual households, whose decisions about where to live and whether or not to move are the subject of the middle part of the chapter. In this section we will see how similarities in the behavior of partic- ular types of households (in terms of people’s socioeconomic background, household type, ethnicity, and so on) can be linked in causal terms to processes of neighborhood change. Yet, although we can consider households’ pat- terns of demand within spatial submarkets to be the URBAN VIEW 9.1 Staying Put Despite the Spiral of Neighborhood Decline: A Mad Hatter? Gary Witkowski’s business, The Custom Hatter, one of the last remaining makers of handmade hats in the United States, is staying in the historic Polonia neighborhood despite neighbor- hood decline (Figure 9.1). Polonia was the name given to this East Side neighborhood with the heaviest concentration of the 80,000 Polish immigrants who started arriving in Buffalo, N.Y., in the early 1870s. Some of the very long and narrow “Polish cottages” that were built for these new arrivals have survived. With more than one family often living in the 1½-story clap- board cottages, these immigrants had to sleep in shifts. But as devout Roman Catholics, they contributed money to build churches whose spires are visible for miles around. Hundreds of businesses sprang up around the intersection of Broadway and Fillmore Avenues. And when the Broadway Market opened nearby in 1888, this shopping district rivaled the main street of downtown Buffalo. Today, the Broadway Market has managed to retain some family-owned and -operated businesses that continue the tradition of selling fresh produce that harkens back to the earliest days of the market: black olives from Spain, cheeses from Italy, dates from Africa, smoked salmon from Scotland, and jellied eels from England. But the neighborhood has suffered a spiral of decline. Second- and third-generation Polish-Americans started the downward trend as they moved upward socioeconomically and outward spatially to neighborhoods farther from the downtown, and from there to suburban neighborhoods. The churches lost their congregations, many businesses followed their customers, and the neighborhood became blighted. But Gary Witkowski stayed. His website lists over a dozen Hollywood movies for which he made hats during more than 35years in business, including one worn by Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road and one for Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade . He goes by his pseudonym, Gary White, because people told him that his Polish surname might keep away wealthy clients. His store website actually addresses the question: Are you mad as a hatter? He explains that this term comes from the traditional practice of using mercury to put a special finish on hats. This could lead to insanity for hatters who were exposed to this chemical element. Today, mercury is no longer used because of the obvious health hazards. But even so, could Gary still be mad as a hatter? Not really! Despite the changes to the neighborhood, it remains familiar to him—there is a strong sense of place. His store is only several blocks from where he grew up on Lombard Street in a typical East Side Polish and Roman Catholic family. From morning through evening during Witkowski’s youth, the community was alive. Paperboys perched on corners, selling The News and the now-defunct Courier-Express to factory workers and passengers catching trains at the local station, the city’s largest. Patrons browsed the racks at Sattler’s department store at 998 Broadway, just east of Fillmore Avenue and a short walk from where the Custom Hatter sits. Diners enjoyed Friday fish fries at the Broadway Grill, which, like Sattler’s, has closed . . . The old neighbor- hood... now exists only in memory. In summer, Witkowski will sometimes stand out on the sidewalk, sanding hats and chatting with visitors who stop to watch...He still loves the people. Sometimes, children who live nearby drop in... But the Broadway-Fillmore area is a ghost of what it once was, and Witkowski knows that. 1 FIGURE 9.1 Gary Witkowski’s business, The Custom Hatter, one of the last remaining makers of handmade hats in the United States, is staying in the historic Polonia neighborhood of Buffalo, NewYork. Despite neighborhood decline, it remains familiar to him—there is a strong sense of place for this hatter to the stars. Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 209 that many mansions were converted into nonresidential uses. Technological obsolescence occurs when the functional design and equipment of housing and the neighborhood infrastructure become outmoded. Advances in kitchen design and appliances, in heating and cooling systems, and in the addition of swimming pools, bike trails, and community centers are among the more important triggers of such change. Given that most tracts of housing are developed for a specific and relatively homogeneous group of people, the principal point about social demographic changes in place (i.e., changes expe- rienced by a community in a particular locality) concerns the gradual aging of the original “colonizing” cohort of people (i.e., the initial group of residents). But certain stages of the house- hold life cycle tend to trigger moves by people to different kinds of accommodation and different parts of the city (Figure 9.4). Although those households who are unwilling or unable to move may have a life span that approximates that of the housing itself (say 60 years: formed around the age of 25 until death at about 85), the tendency for family life cycle changes to trigger a change of residence means that the periodicity of demographic change tends to be much shorter than that of physical deterioration and obsolescence. Consequently, successive rounds of filtering will bring about a changing composition of inhabitants, generally resulting in an influx of younger and slightly less affluent households to the neighborhood. In addition, of course, physical deteriora- tion, structural and technological obsolescence, and the aging of the original “colonizing” cohort of people will collectively have changed the neighborhood to the point where further changes are induced, eventually to the point where people of a significantly different socioeconomic, demographic, ethnic, or lifestyle group move into the neighborhood. Redevelopment and Reinvestment All these changes, in turn, translate into changing opportunities for investment . Other things being equal, most neighborhoods over time attract a certain amount of investment by homeowners and landlords in renovations and improvements. Where physical dete- rioration, obsolescence, and social change discourage people from doing this, disinvestment may take place—deliberately neglecting routine maintenance, putting homes, apartment buildings, and vacant land on the market, or abandoning them altogether. Other things are not always equal, though. NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGE Several components of neighborhood dynamism can be isolated, although, as Figure 9.2 suggests, they are all highly interdependent, each influencing—and being influenced by— the others. The most obvious and straightforward aspect of neighborhood change is that of the physical deterioration of the housing stock. The rate of physical deterioration of any neighborhood is chiefly a function of two factors: the quality of initial construction and the level of subsequent maintenance by property owners. Both of these are in turn related to the socioeconomic backgrounds and lifestyles of the occupants. Although it is not uncommon for fragments of the urban fab- ric to last for 100 years or more, 50 to 60 years can be consid- ered to be a reasonable life expectancy in most circumstances in the United States. In general terms, each subdivision or tract of new housing can be thought of as describing a depreciation curve over time as it ages (Figure 9.3). It should be acknowl- edged, however, that such curves are averages that mask local unevenness in physical deterioration. Housing of the same age and initial quality wears unevenly because of variations in maintenance and improvements by its owners and the localized effects of road works, redevelopment, conversion, abandonment, fire damage, and so on. This unevenness in the rate of depreciation sets up an important precondition for neighborhood social change. Closely related to physical deterioration is the structural and technological obsolescence of the housing stock. Both, in turn, are clearly a function of the needs and expectations of the occupants (and potential occupants) of the housing. Structural obsolescence occurs when the nature of the housing becomes unsuited to people’s contemporary needs. Obsolescence does not necessarily bring abandonment or demolition, but it often brings a change of occupants and can lead to a shortened physi- cal life span. A good example is provided by the earliest suburbs of many cities, where housing built before 1910 suddenly became obsolescent for many potential occupants because of the lack of off-street parking and garage space for cars. Meanwhile, the trend away from large families, combined with a sharp rise in the cost of domestic servants, made large, free-standing town man- sions something of an anachronism by the 1920s, with the result Investment/ disinvestment Physical deterioration/ obsolescence Neighborhood change Social and demographic changes in place Household mobility FIGURE 9.2 The principal determinants of neighborhood change. FIGURE 9.3 A hypothetical depreciation curve for a tract of suburban housing. Value of housing (adjusted for inflation) 0 YearsDepreciation curve 210 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography URBAN VIEW 9.2 The Household Life Cycle Figure 9.4 shows an idealized model of the life cycle of middle- income households, implying that there are recognizable stages, each with a distinctive household composition that is associated with people’s particular space needs, specific preferences in terms of accessibility, type of housing tenure, locational setting, and different propensities to move. According to this scheme, the typical household life cycle begins with a brief stage based on single-person households or communal households of young single persons in their late teens or early 20s—like Michael and Emily—who have left home to study or find work. In this stage the physical size of the dwelling is relatively unimportant to these young people, whereas acces- sibility to jobs and urban amenities is often a major consideration. The first year or two of living together or marriage can represent a continuation of this phase for people like Michael and Emily when they hit their mid-20s. Later, in the event of the birth or adoption of a child, for couples and singles alike, the household’s real and perceived needs change dramatically, reversing the rela- tive importance of dwelling space and accessibility and placing a premium on safe, quiet residential environments. Over time, during their 30s and early 40s, a series of adjusting moves will be made as Michael and Emily’s household income increases. By the time their children are of junior-high or middle-school age, access to high-quality neighborhood facilities—especially schools and social amenities—becomes increasingly significant. Meanwhile, the household’s earning power is likely to have increased, partly through job promotions for Michael and if Emily returns to the labor force after a period of homemaking. This increased income enables the household to move to a new subur- ban or exurban home. But in their early 50s, Michael and Emily’s divorce and remarriage results in more moves. Some middle-aged adults who experience divorce or lose a job may move in with their elderly, usually widowed parent—offering companionship and assistance in exchange for sharing the parent’s home. At the “empty nester” stage, when a household’s space requirements decrease considerably, neighborhood ties and sentimental attach- ments can prevent many couples or single parents from moving to smaller homes; housing professionals have recently begun to pay increasing attention to household desires to remain in a cher- ished home or valued neighborhood by refitting existing homes to meet changing household configurations. At the same time, the increasing financial independence of older people since the 1960s has been accompanied by increasing residential independence and associated housing options, such as assisted living accommo- dation or specialized retirement communities (Figure 9.5). 2 The final residential change for many people like Michael and Emily, however, can come in their late 60s or 70s at the stage when they move to live with a son or daughter or to an assisted living facility. This model fits with much of the available evidence about conventional residential mobility and urban structure (pp. 218–222). It should be stressed, however, that it is an idealized model that is inherently family centered and middle income in orientation. (For people who choose to remain single, for example, different assumptions have to be made. Similarly, purchasing a home can- not be assumed to be an option for low-income households.) The idea of a household life cycle therefore needs to be linked to intersecting cleavages of socioeconomic background, ethnicity, and lifestyle before we can chart the impact of household type on the residential kaleidoscope with any sensitivity (Chapter 12). Initial move from family household Moves during college or initial work experience Household formation(married, living together, or remain single) Birth or adoption of child; need for additional space; job changes Additional children; job changes Increasing income;larger dwelling Divorce; remarriage; stability Early retirement; move for new career or to amenity-rich retirement community Retirement; death of spouse/partner; move for less space or toretirement community (or adult child moves in) Move for more support, to assisted- living facility Couples and individual in owner-occupied homes (space unimportant) Couples, families, and individuals in owner-occupied homes (space important) Individuals in rented apartments and houses (space unimportant) 0 Age 17 25 30 35 45 60 65 75+ FIGURE 9.4 A household life-cycle model of middle-income residential mobility and housing preferences. FIGURE 9.5 Elderly women enjoy water aerobics in a swimming pool in Sun City, on the edge of the Phoenix metropolitan area, a specialized adult community—in this case, with an active, resort retirement lifestyle—whose more than 40,000 residents make it the largest retirement community in the country. Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 211 part of the juxtaposition of neighborhoods at different stages of successive life cycles. New townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings in central city locations correspond to neighborhoods that have already experienced at least one cycle of structural obsolescence and that have now been rede- veloped. Nearby are areas of older housing that have become technologically obsolescent for most households because of their lack of amenities. As a result, successive neighborhoods of this sort have seen the very lowest socioeconomic groups move in. Where the cycle of physical deterioration has been completed, some neighborhoods stand scarred and partially abandoned; in others, urban renewal has made room for public housing projects that have begun a new life cycle of their own. Where the original central city housing was built to a higher standard, the cycle of physical deterioration is still incomplete. Neighborhoods of larger dwellings—built to house prosperous nineteenth-century merchants and in- dustrialists—remain as the basis of residual neighborhoods that have filtered down the socioeconomic ladder to become rooming house areas, with the structural and technical ob- solescence of large units being resolved by subdivision and multiple occupancy. Pockets of well-built but smaller dwell- ings remain as the basis of gentrifying neighborhoods: areas that had slowly filtered down the socioeconomic ladder but that have seen younger, middle-income households move in and invest real capital or sweat equity, 4 or both, in renovating the housing. Farther out are the city’s middle-income suburbs, which, because they date mostly from the 1960s onward, have suffered only moderately from physical deterioration and structural or technological obsolescence. Most still contain a significant proportion of the people who originally moved in, added to over the years by households of similar types. The chief excep- tions are the older, innermost suburbs, which have reached the thinning-out stage, with a large number of younger fami- lies moving in and the conversion and demolition of some homes to make way for commercial developments and highway improvements. Finally, the newest suburbs, in the outermost reaches of the polycentric metropolis and in occasional pockets of development, represent households in neighborhoods at the beginning of their first life cycle. HOUSING MARKETS Any consideration of just how these patterns of residential mobility and neighborhood change come about must take place with reference to the operation of housing markets and the way people treat housing as a commodity. Housing, as geographer David Harvey has observed, “is fixed in geographic space, it changes hands infrequently, it is a commodity which we cannot do without, and it is a form of stored wealth which is subject to speculative activities in the market. . . . In addition, the house has various forms of value to the user and above all it is the point from which the user relates to every other aspect of the urban scene.” 5 In market terms, therefore, housing extends well beyond the shelter provided for people by the dwelling itself to include a complex package that is often referred to in terms of First, differences usually exist between neighborhoods in the rate and nature of change, affecting the landscape of investment opportunities for property developers. For example, a neighborhood may be physically quite sound and socially and demographically very stable—characteristics that ordinarily mean stability without major reinvestment. Such a neighborhood may nevertheless be considered ripe for redevelopment or reinvestment because of the differences between current rates of return on property in the area and the rates of return anticipated from investment in a change in neighborhood character or land use. Put in crude terms, the anticipated profits from established low-income housing may be significantly lower than the profits anticipated from a new shopping mall in the same location. Second, neighborhood change also has to be seen in relation to changes in market demand. For example, a neighborhood may have changed to the point where modest investments by property owners are able to capture new or expanding markets through conversions (from rental apartments to upscale con- dominiums, from industrial loft space to residential lofts, from town mansions to funeral homes, and so on). Neighborhood Life Cycles Drawing on these observations about neighborhood change, we can make some tentative generalizations about the typical sequence and interdependent relationships that constitute the neighborhood life cycle. Interactions between physical dete- rioration, obsolescence, sociodemographic change of people in place, and sociodemographic change of people that is induced by filtering may result in a five-stage life cycle. 1. Suburbanization. The beginning of the life cycle, which is characterized by low-density, single-family housing occupied by young families of relatively high socio- economic background. 2. In-filling. Multifamily and rental dwellings are added on vacant lots, increasing the density and decreas- ing the social and demographic homogeneity of the neighborhood. 3. Downgrading. The longest phase of the life cycle. A period of slow but steady deterioration and depreciation in the housing stock, of aging in place, and of increasing population turnover. 4. Thinning Out. The beginning of the end: high population turnover bringing social and demographic change; con- version and demolition of some residential units. 5. Renewal or Rehabilitation and Gentrification. Renewal ends the neighborhood life cycle abruptly and begins a new one in the form of new tracts of housing, usually at a high density that reflects the neighborhood’s (now) rela- tively central location. In certain cases, rehabilitation and gentrification by new and existing residents can extend the neighborhood life cycle through conversion and reinvestment. This example shows very clearly how housing “acts both as a determinant and a consequence of neighborhood change.” 3 It also helps us to see the residential kaleidoscope as a result in 212 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography take long, though, for the ideal of home ownership to be grafted onto this notion, thanks largely to real estate interests. Realtors, in particular, systematically developed and deployed strategies that helped to make “normal” this notion of home and neigh- borhood so that it was desired by “middle class” U.S. families. As Jeffrey Hornstein notes in his book Nation of Realtors, “The conception of real estate brokerage as an occupation-cum- profession depended upon the existence of ‘home’ as an intel- lectual and cultural object . . . Thanks in large measure to real estate brokers’ cultural and political work, the single-family home on a quarter-acre lot in a low-density suburban develop- ment became the ‘American Dream,’ and the vast majority of Americans bought into it.” 7 From about 1915 through the 1920s, realtors collaborated with various government agencies and civic groups to promote single-family home ownership. Their Own-Your-Own-Home campaign sought to reinforce the idea for people of the home as a privileged consumer durable, worth sacrificing and going into debt for. This mission to make the United States into a land of universal homeownership “was merely the culmination of a long republican tradition linking civic virtue to property own- ership. The American republic would be able to save itself from the degenerative ravages of historical time, class struggle, and urban corruption by providing all citizens with a home of their own in healthful, natural surroundings: American civilization would develop in space rather than time.” 8 When the housing market crashed at the onset of the Depression, the National Association of Real Estate Boards was in a position to work closely with President Hoover’s White House Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership. In doing so, it secured support for a reduction of taxes on real estate and endorsement for a federal mortgage discount bank to facilitate long-term mortgages. These became key elements in the ambitious programs of the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal. The overall proportion of owner-occupied dwellings in U.S. cities rose from 20 percent in 1920 to 44 percent in 1940, 60 percent in 1960, 66 percent in 1980, and 68 percent by 2010 (Figure 9.6). There are four principal reasons for this trend: 1. Increasing affluence among a progressively wider section of society , which made homeownership possible for a greater proportion of households. Meanwhile, econ- omies of scale and other innovations in the develop- ment and construction industries kept down the costs of suburban single-family dwellings, reinforcing the basic affordability of home ownership. 2. Increasing perception of the benefits of homeownership in terms of • establishing social status and fulfilling the American Dream of independence based on property rights. • achieving residential segregation and pursuing exclu- sionary social and political strategies. • acquiring financial benefit through equity gains that in turn help to finance upward social mobility on the housing “ladder.” • fulfilling, in many cases, family-centered lifestyles. housing services. We can identify four main aspects of housing services: 6 1. Shelter and privacy. 2. Satisfaction and status associated with the size and quality of the dwelling and the prestige of the address. 3. Environmental quality, including both the quality of the physical environment (trees, vistas, parks, sidewalks, bike trails) and the quality of the social environment. 4. Accessibility to places of work, schools, shopping, friends, sport and recreational facilities, and other services and amenities. The overall utility of these services is generally referred to as the use value of housing. Because it depends a great deal on the needs and preferences of particular households, the use value attributed to a particular dwelling will tend to vary for people according to their socioeconomic background, house- hold type, lifestyle, and so on. The role of housing as a form of stored wealth adds a fifth aspect to housing services: 5. Equity (for owners)—the financial return on an investment in housing (specifically, the difference between the market value of a dwelling and the amount of any outstanding mort- gage debt on the property) that is (for owner-occupiers) tax-free. In this context we should note that the equity value of housing, along with that of other real estate investments, rises and falls with property bubbles as they expand and burst. The potential for gaining unearned income through equity increases, together with the use value of a dwelling, will determine its exchange value in the marketplace. At this point we are confronted by the fact that by no means all of the housing market is for people who want to be owner-occupiers. Other forms of tenure, particularly private rentals, account for a large proportion of the stock of avail- able housing in every city; so it is less useful to think in terms of overall urban housing markets than to think in terms of a series of submarkets . The changing composition of these hous- ing submarkets is both a product of urbanization processes and a determinant of sociospatial differentiation. Housing submarkets can be delimited in terms of dwelling type, price range, and location, but people’s tenure represents the single most important factor. Urbanization and the Tenure Transformation The rise of homeownership has been not only the greatest single aspect of the transformation of urban housing but also one of the most important elements in the social and cultural evolution of American urban life. The ideal of home owner- ship as a central element of the “American Dream” took root for people in the 1930s. The product of Depression-era politics, the original notion of the American Dream built on the idea of individual freedom, especially the possibility of dramatic upward social mobility through a person’s ingenuity and hard work, with the promise that successive generations would enjoy steadily improving economic and social conditions. It did not Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 213 As a result of the increasing recognition of these economic and political aspects of homeownership, suc- cessive governments have actively fostered the growth of homeownership . In broad terms in the United States, the federal government has done so through two main sets of policies, those aimed at: • Cultivating and protecting savings and loan institutions involved in financing homeownership. In addition to insuring mortgage loans made by private institutions for home construction or purchase (Chapter 4), the institutions themselves received privileges and conces- sions in terms of corporate law and taxation. • Encouraging households to purchase rather than rent. Two particular aspects of income tax policy are impor- tant here: the inclusion of interest payments on mortgage loans for “qualified” residential property as allowable deductions before tax rates are applied and a generous exemption of equity gains from capital gains tax. 4. A sharp decline in the profitability of rental units . This decline is also the result of a combination of several factors: • The introduction and enforcement of more rigorous building standards and housing codes, which caused landlords to eliminate the cheapest rental units. • The relatively slow rise in the incomes of tenants in privately rented accommodation, which has made it difficult for landlords to raise rents. • Rent control legislation, initially introduced to divert investment capital and civilian labor away from housing and into defense industries during World War II. • The increasing physical deterioration of the rental stock, especially buildings that had been constructed in the nineteenth century. • Taxation policies that have made it unattractive for landlords to maintain or improve their rental properties. • The decrease in demand by people for rental accom- modation as a result of the government-supported financial advantages associated with homeownership. 3. Increasing recognition of the economic and political significance of homeownership . There were several aspects to this factor. • The role of homeownership in the circulation of capi- tal: Traditionally, saving for the substantial down payment needed for entry into the homeowner- ship submarket created a pool of capital that finan- cial institutions could use to lend to entrepreneurs to invest in industrial projects; interest payments on existing mortgages, meanwhile, ensure a steady additional flow of (potential) investment capital; and financial institutions can buy and sell the mortgages themselves and use them to leverage further sources of investment capital. Lastly (but by no means least), homeownership promotes the circulation of capital by creating a platform for all kinds of consumption, from furniture and furnishings to yard care equipment, that stimulate cycles of investment/production/consump- tion/profitability in a variety of industries. • The role of homeownership as a regulatory economic mechanism: As we saw in Chapter 4, the size of the housebuilding industry and its multiplier effects in relation to the market for consumer goods made it a key element in Keynesian economic management in the past: one of the principal levers that governments have been able to manipulate in boosting or if neces- sary curbing economic growth. • The role of homeownership in promoting social and political stability: As suggested in Chapter 4, the more people there are who have a stake in the private prop- erty market, the less likely they are to behave in ways that threaten economic and political stability. The more people there are who carry the significant encum- brance of debt that comes with a mortgage, the more individual and social incentives there are to protect and enhance the exchange value of property, to sup- port employment stability (even at the cost of foregone wage raises), and to adopt a conservative approach to economic and political affairs. FIGURE 9.6 Tenure of occupied nonfarm dwelling units in the United States. Percent 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1900 1890 1910 1920 1930 1940 Year1950 1960 1970 Renter-occupied Owner-occupied 1980 1990 2000 2010 214 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Hungary (after mass privatization)). In most countries, the per- centage of social housing has decreased during the last decade because its provision has not kept pace with the rate at which either private housing has been constructed or social housing has been privatized or demolished. 11 In the United States, the 1.2 million public housing units represent less than 1 percent of all housing units. 12 An impor- tant feature that makes U.S. public housing distinctive, however, is that more of it is provided indirectly through rent subsidies (2.2 million units in the “Housing Choice Voucher” program) to private landlords (instead of being provided directly as pub- lic housing units by government housing agencies). In addi- tion, there are another 1.7 million multi-family assisted units (private-owner, project based). Despite having only these 5.1 million publicly subsidized units (representing just under 4 percent of all housing), U.S. cities have just as much need for public housing as the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden. Although escaping the devastation of wartime bombing (unlike many cities in Europe and Japan), U.S. cities have certainly experienced acute problems of housing As a result, progressively fewer rental units were built, and increasing numbers of rental units were demolished, abandoned, sold into owner-occupancy, or converted to nonresidential uses. Over time, then, U.S. cities experienced an almost complete reversal of the relative importance of the owner-occupier and rental submarkets. Public Housing In U.S. cities public housing is conspicuous by its absence. Cities in many other developed countries contain a substantial amount of “social housing” that has been provided to address acute problems of housing need that have arisen because the private market has been unable to provide decent housing for low-income households and still make a profit. In Europe, for example, social housing represents a relatively large pro- portion of the housing stock in some countries (35 percent in the Netherlands, 25 percent in Austria, 21 and 20 percent in Denmark and Sweden respectively) to a small proportion in other countries (6 percent in Germany and 4 percent in URBAN VIEW 9.3 Cabrini-Green: A Cherished Home in a Place That was a Symbol of Everything Wrong with Public Housing 9 The final tenant with her four youngest children moved out of the last high-rise public housing unit in Chicago’s notorious Cabrini-Green in December 2010. With the help of Hope VI grants from the federal government (p. 216), all of the mid- and high-rise towers are being demolished and replaced with low- rise mixed-income market-rate apartments and townhouses, with some units reserved for public housing tenants. The for- mer residents of Cabrini-Green have mostly been moved into other public housing units elsewhere in the city or have moved into market-rate apartments made affordable with the help of government housing vouchers. The last tenant, Annie Ricks, a 54-year old teacher’s aide, grew up in a one-room shack in Riverview, Alabama. She moved into Cabrini-Green 21 years ago after a fire destroyed her West Side house. Her daughter, Tasha, now 29, a union construction worker who owns a two-bedroom condo on the South Side, still remembers what life was like after the fire. “We were homeless and walked the streets for months and slept in the homes of relatives and friends, and even for two weeks in the waiting room of Cook County Hospital. There was Mama and seven kids with no place to go. We tried to get into all the different projects but couldn’t. Then we got into Cabrini. I guess my mother loves it so much because it’s the only thing that got us off the streets.” So what became a symbol of everything that was wrong with public housing was a cherished home for Annie Hicks. And now it is gone. Residents like her feel the loss of their close- knit community. Over the years, in the face of shared hardships, the Cabrini-Green residents organized to pressure the City of Chicago for help with the gang violence and neglect, as well as to protect and support each other. They even went to court to try to ensure that replacement housing would be built before the Hope VI-funded demolition of their high-rises. The Cabrini-Green high-rises were built during the late 1950s and early 1960s as part of urban renewal efforts to clear a slum known as “Little Hell.” Cabrini-Green eventually housed 15,000 people. This public housing project was named after St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first U.S. citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. A downward spiral was inevi- table because the Chicago Housing Authority’s budget for main- taining the buildings and addressing crime came from the rents that had to be kept low because of the poverty of the residents. Cabrini-Green attracted national attention in 1981 when a gang war killed 11 residents. In 1992, 7-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot by a stray bullet as he held his mother’s hand on his walk to school. In 1997, a 9-year-old girl—known as Girl X—was found in a stairwell of one of the high-rises after being brutally raped, choked, and poisoned with roach poison sprayed down her throat, leaving her blind, paralyzed, and unable to speak. There were many other towers of poverty in Chicago. Most gone now. And most of them were places were the flash of a knife or the pop of the gun could on any given day come quicker than at Cabrini Green. But what made Cabrini Green stand out was its proximity to the glitter and the gold prime real estate, the wealth of the sur- rounding neighborhood. Cabrini Green stood in the shad-ows of the downtown towers of Chicago. The skyline as seen from Lake Michigan where the power elite counted money, made deals and then went out to play. Cabrini Green stood, since its very inception, in a vise. Continually squeezed, as the surrounding real estate got more and more expensive. Chicago is a city where generations grew up knowing on an almost biological level, that there are certain streets you just don’t cross. And the streets around Cabrini got tighter and tighter. 10 Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 215 the more affluent consumers and taxpayers who had moved to the suburbs. The 1949 Housing Act authorized the construction of 810,000 low-rent units over six years. The overall contribu- tion of this program to the housing stock of U.S. cities has been minimal, however. The 810,000 units called for under the 1949 legislation took 25 years to materialize. Besides, it did so in the form of very poor quality housing that was localized in some of the most economically distressed neighborhoods in cities. Meanwhile, the rate of construction of public hous- ing was swamped by the scale of urban poverty and the rate of physical deterioration of inexpensive private rental units. By the mid-1970s public housing had become synonymous with fail- ure, and the prospect of establishing a substantial program of public housing had vanished, at least for the foreseeable future. Looking back, we can see several reasons why public housing did not take root in the United States: • An exceptionally strong free-enterprise ethic (Figure 9.8) in which public housing aroused suspicions of “creep- ing socialism.” In this context it is not insignificant that the crucial period of debate about public housing took place during the notorious McCarthy witch-hunt for Communist sympathizers. • Racial bias and discrimination that caused many people to be reluctant to support a program whose beneficiaries were likely to be mostly African American or Hispanic. • Highly organized and well-funded opposition from the National Association of Real Estate Boards, the National Association of Home Builders, the United States Savings and Loan League, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the need. Slums have persisted within every large city for decade after decade. A succession of studies has shown that about one-third of all families in central cities are in need of basic housing, which they cannot afford, 13 and homelessness has risen alarmingly. It is, therefore, instructive to examine how and why U.S. urbanization has not produced more public housing units. In fact, there was a time when public housing might have developed into a substantial segment of the housing market. The initial legislation mandating public housing was passed in 1937 in the political climate of the post-Depression New Deal. Although public housing was widely seen as ideologically dis- tasteful (as it had been in most other countries), the depth of the Depression was seen as having created exceptional need, and the program was able to be “sold” politically in terms of employment creation rather than housing subsidy. The pro- gram established a federal government presence in urban housing, but it was not until after World War II that a more extensive and ambitious national program was launched. The Housing Act of 1949 linked public housing construction to slum clearance programs and represented a significant com- mitment to subsidized housing for the poor (Figure 9.7). Strong opposition to the act was deflected by a coalition of different interest groups, all with different agendas and dif- ferent assumptions about the main purpose of the legislation. Political liberals (thinking of both the slum clearance and the provision of public housing) saw it as a means of elimi- nating slums and rehousing the poor, but business interests (thinking mainly of the slum clearance) saw it as a means of increasing central city property values, while many local poli- ticians (equating slum clearance with urban renewal) saw it as a means of bolstering their tax base and luring back some of FIGURE 9.7 Public housing built under the provisions of the 1949 Housing Act. The relaxed atmosphere depicted in this photograph soon deteriorated to a more oppressive one as public housing in the United States became widely regarded as a receptacle for “problem” families. 216 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography economically incompetent and socially undesirable. Many of the residents themselves, feeling labeled and with no security of tenure, found no reason to care for their homes or their neighborhood, which helped to fuel the arguments of opponents of public housing, who maintained that it would be a breeding ground for social problems (Figure 9.9). In the early 1990s the federal government introduced an improvement program called HOPE VI, designed to revital- ize the worst public housing projects, such as Cabrini-Green, into mixed-income developments. Cities were awarded block grants to plan, demolish, and redevelop public housing proj- ects, drawing on the fashionable design principles of New Urbanism (Chapter 13). Redeveloped projects were expected to be high-density, low-rise, pedestrian friendly, and transit- accessible. By 2010, when funding for the program ended, more than 250 HOPE VI Revitalization grants had been awarded, totaling more than $6 billion. The principal criticism of the program has been that it did not require one-for-one replace- ment of the nearly 100,000 demolished housing units, so that there was usually a loss of affordable housing for the poor, with tenants being displaced. The program has also been criticized for being deployed as part of cities’ neoliberal strategies, with HOPE VI redevelopments effectively seeding the gentrification of “difficult” neighborhoods. Before the Hope VI program ended, the Choice Neigh- borhoods program was launched with a budget of $65 million for 2010. Choice Neighborhoods is intended as a successor to Hope VI that not only continues the focus on improving pub- lic housing but also incorporates a broader approach to con- centrated poverty by widening the scope of the efforts to the surrounding neighborhood by adding daycare centers, parks, sidewalks and even farmers markets, with related investments in school reform, public transportation, and improved access to jobs. Mortgage Bankers Association of America, and the American Bankers Association. • Overly restrictive terms and conditions governing the construction and management of public housing. Because of a dollar limit on construction costs (pegged at $2,400 between 1949 and 1965) some tenants were given homes that had no bathroom doors, no toilet seats, and no baths or showers. Strict means-testing for potential tenants was commonly coupled with a rule that the household had to vacate the property as soon as its income exceeded the qualifying minimum by 25 percent or more. As such, public housing was programmed to be no more than a jerry-built haven for the chronically poor. Public housing projects soon came to be stigma- tized as “instant slums,” their residents stigmatized as FIGURE 9.8 Free-market propaganda, cleverly wrapped in patriotism and democratic ideals, was organized by industrial, financial, and real estate organizations to minimize the “creeping socialism” of public housing legislation and other liberal urban policies in the United States. FIGURE 9.9 A self-fulfilling prophecy: underfunding and overly restrictive tenancy regulations led to the failure of many public housing projects, including this one— Cabrini-Green—in the process of demolition in Chicago. Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 217 URBAN VIEW 9.4 Public and Private Housing in European Cities 14 Apartment living is common in Europe—residents of all income groups own or rent apartments. Apartments are a good land use choice in high-density and compact European cities where space is at a premium and land values are high. Traditionally, instead of growing outwards, cities grew upwards to the limit of a city’s height regulations. The multistory apartment house originated in northern Italy to accommodate the wealthy during the Renaissance. By the early eighteenth century, the apartment house had spread to the larger cities in continental Europe and Scotland. Until the inven- tion of the elevator, social stratification within individual buildings was vertical: Wealthier families occupied the lower floors, while poorer residents lived in smaller apartments above. Horizontal social stratification also developed within apartment blocks. The large expensive units were located in the front of buildings, with small low-rent units facing the rear. By the late eighteenth cen- tury, as the Industrial Revolution spurred increasing urbanization, apartment blocks had spread to medium-size cities. Speculators built large-scale standardized tenements for middle-income occupants and barracks for low-income residents. The two-story terrace of single-family houses is distinctive to England, Wales, and Ireland. This row house tradition can be traced back to efforts to restrict congestion in London in the late 1500s that made it illegal for more than one family to rent a new building. The narrow multistory house with an apart- ment on each floor, a variation of the row house, is found along the North Sea coast from cities like Rouen and Lille in northern France to Bremen and Hamburg in northern Germany. The serious housing shortage that started with the Great Depression of the 1930s was exacerbated by the lack of con- struction and significant destruction during both world wars. The public housing programs that began in Vienna in the early 1920s were stepped up across Western Europe after World War II. Modern architecture and urban design principles were combined with low-cost factory production methods. This resulted in the replacement of the war-damaged historic houses and dilapidat- ed nineteenth-century tenements in the central parts of cities by monotonous high-rise apartment buildings. In the 1950s and 1960s most governments adopted a policy of metropolitan decentralization of public housing to inexpen- sive open land at the edge of cities. Modern high-rise apartment blocks were concentrated in large peripheral estates known by their French name— grands ensembles. Developments like Park Hill in Sheffield, Sarcelles in northern Paris, and Chorweiler in Cologne contained 1,000 or more apartments at densities as high as 120 residents per acre. Traditionally, West European governments spent more on public housing construction than on rent subsidies. Because the poorest segment of society cannot afford public housing, less stigma is attached to public housing in Europe compared to North America. The very poorest residents are distributed in- stead throughout European cities in the very cheapest private rental units. These poor quality dwellings are found in damp basements, attic spaces, and run-down rear apartments. Where a stigma is associated with public housing, it applies only to specific kinds of government-subsidized developments. These include the purpose-built housing projects that replaced the peripheral shantytowns of poor rural immigrants and postwar refugees in Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. Historically, the severity of need and the political leanings of governments determined the amount of public housing provided within each city and country. The amount was highest in cities with serious housing shortages and liberal municipal governments such as Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland where the number of public units grew to well over half the total housing stock. Until the 1970s, public housing comprised 20 to 30 percent of the total in England, France, and Germany, and 10 percent in Italy. Public housing represented only 5 percent or less of the housing in the more affluent and conservative Swiss cities. Since the 1970s, how-ever, the amount and percentage of public housing have declined due to government cost-cutting privatization programs. In general, the cities that developed under socialism through- out Central and Eastern Europe were less spatially segregated than those that evolved under capitalism. Certainly, mansions—the prewar residences of the social elites—were used for political purposes to house party officials, foreign delegations, or insti- tutes. But housing was viewed as a right, not a commodity; each family was entitled to its own home at reasonable cost. In the face of the tremendous housing shortfalls following World War II, from the 1950s to the 1970s the Communist govern- ments began massive building programs of housing estates: typi- cally 11-story, prefabricated, multifamily apartment blocks. These apartments were small (about 460 to 650 square feet), poorly con- structed, and almost universally disliked by residents. Often, hous- ing estates were built in large clusters, sometimes forming massive concrete curtains, usually on land near the edge of cities. Because of this, urban population densities, which are typically higher in Central and Eastern Europe than in North America, could actually increase near the urban periphery (Figure 9.10). The housing estates were often constructed in groups to form a neighborhood unit consisting of three to four apartment blocks arranged into a quadrangle surrounding shops, green space, and play areas for children (Chapter 11). The purpose of these units, in keeping with socialist planning philosophy, was to promote great- er social interaction; however, the neighborhood unit concept, along with the construction of housing estates, was abandoned by the mid-1980s after governments recognized the futility of trying to achieve social engineering through physical planning. FIGURE 9.10 Former socialist suburban housing in Dresden, Germany. 218 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography housing opportunities and household needs and expectations. These needs and expectations of people, in their turn, are influ- enced by what Ley calls the household’s biography (in terms of income, lifestyle, household type, ethnicity, and so on) and by the individuals in each household’s knowledge and perceptions of housing opportunities. Movers, Stayers, and Neighborhood Change We can take these relationships seriously only if it can be shown that rates of residential mobility in cities run consistently at reasonably significant levels. In fact, the turnover of addresses in most U.S. cities is strikingly high: About 1 in every 12 metro- politan households moves to a new home each year. Naturally, this figure masks some important differences between metro- politan areas, between central city and suburban areas, between neighborhoods, and between tenure sectors (such as owners versus renters). These differentials suggest that residential mobility is a selective process, with some neighborhoods being dominated by households with little propensity ever to move. These households have been called stayers. Among “stayers,” people in households who are home owners, middle-aged and elderly, and with low-to-middle socioeconomic background tend to be overrepresented. A major contribution of the people in these households to the city’s residential mosaic is to impose a relatively high degree of stability on certain neighborhoods. Movers , whose impact as we have seen, may either reinforce neighborhood composition or initiate change, tend to be people who are younger, renters, and at one extreme or another of the socioeconomic ladder. Given that people age, adopt new lifestyles, experience changes in income levels, and so on, it follows that stayers can become movers, and vice versa. In addition, research has shown that there is an independent duration-of-residence effect, whereby the longer a household remains in a dwelling the less RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY AND NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGE Residential mobility is a central facet of urban social geography, for it provides a spatial expression of the link between the individual household and the social structure, between the household’s life-world and its biographical situation, between internal culture-building processes and the spatial template of the city. The residential choices of individual households in aggregate define the social areas of the city. The rapid transformation of American central cities and the plight of their dwindling fiscal base was caused in part by the massive migration of middle- class families to the suburbs in the 1960s. Similarly, the anticipated revitalization of the downtown areas of some cities in the 1970s . . . was brought about by the reverse migration of childless professionals to “gentrified” cen- tral neighborhoods. But there is a two-way relationship between individual and aggregate levels, for at the same time the individual’s pattern of choices is constrained by the preexisting set of spatial opportunities in the city and the household’s own biography—those characteristics of income, stage in the life cycle, ethnic status and lifestyle which will close off certain housing options to it and substantially reduce its range of choice. 15 This quotation from the work of social geographer David Ley provides a good description of the overall relationship between residential mobility and urban residential structure. Although people’s migration actively creates and remodels the social and demographic profile of neighborhoods, it is also conditioned by the existing pattern of neighborhoods. This relationship is outlined in Figure 9.11, which emphasizes the effects of household mobility and residential structure on each other. The residential mosaic is seen as a cumulative product of residential mobility, which in turn is seen as a product of FIGURE 9.11 Relationships between housing demand, residential mobility, and neighborhood change. Ethnicity and culture Income and education Lifestyle Housing opportunities Housing needs and expectations Vacancies Residential mobility New construction and conversion to residential use Neighborhood composition Knowledge and perception of neighborhoods and housing Stage in life cycle Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 219 better jobs or career advancement, if they do purchase a home rather than rent, they tend to opt for homes that are likely to be relatively easy to resell. Finally, experience may have alerted them to the possibilities of moving into a neighborhood only to find that their own values and lifestyle are out of tune with the established character and social networks of the neighborhood. The overall result is a tendency to select newly built homes in suburban tracts or packaged developments, moving on after a year or two, when they have developed a better sense of the geography of their new city. Intraurban Moves Moves by people within metropolitan areas account for at least two-thirds of the total turnover. In addition to the follow-up moves of newly arrived migrants, they include a great variety of adjustments as new households are formed, old ones split up, and existing ones respond to changed circumstances. Most moves take place over relatively short geographical distances— about one-sixth to one-quarter of the diameter of the city. This fact is generally taken to reflect the importance of people’s desire to preserve local ties and, in particular, children’s ties to friends and schools. Household changes in housing quality and neighborhood status are usually incremental, and there is a marked directional bias to patterns of movement, with many households staying within the same sector or quadrant of the city. Most metropolitan areas are so large that many people prefer to consider first the housing vacancies that occur within the part of the metropolis that they know best. Analyses of the geographical interrelationships between patterns of residential mobility and neighborhood housing attributes and socioeconomic attributes have also shown that, in addition to these broad generalizations, housing type (as measured by owner-occupancy rates, the incidence of single- family dwellings, and the number of rooms per dwelling) rather than housing quality (as measured by housing values, housing age, and the number of bathrooms per dwelling) is the chief determinant of intraurban mobility. 16 The same studies have shown that it is family status rather than socioeconomic status that is a function of housing type (and therefore of mobility), thus underscoring the importance of changes in the household life cycle in triggering residential mobility (Figure 9.4). As we might expect from our knowledge of changing metropolitan form and changing patterns of residential differentiation, how- ever, these relationships have become progressively weaker likely it is to move, mainly because of the emotional attach- ments that people develop toward the home and the immediate neighborhood and because of the social networks established there. These attachments are explored in Chapter 14, but it is worth noting here that research has also supported the idea that people can be thought of as locals or cosmopolitans , depending on their natural propensity to develop such attachments. The Impact of New Arrivals to the City Another important distinction to make in relation to patterns of residential mobility by people concerns the difference between intraurban moves (i.e., within the metropolis) and other kinds of mobility—intermetropolitan migration, in- migration from nonmetropolitan areas, and immigration directly to metropolitan areas. In the typical U.S. metropolis, intermetropolitan migration, inmigration, and immigration account for up to one-third of all moves—substantially less than in the past, when migration and immigration not only fueled urban growth to a much greater extent but also dominated neighborhood dynamics. The impact of these long-distance moves today can best be divided into two categories: the arrival of low-income migrants and the arrival of middle-income and high-income migrants. Traditionally, flows of low-income migrants and immigrants have mainly focused on central city neighborhoods with inex- pensive housing, but with a significant degree of localized dif- ferentiation according to ethnicity and place of origin. More recently, some of these flows have been directed to first-tier and second-tier suburbs, where established ethnic communi- ties provide a port of entry for new arrivals. A good example is the “Little Saigon” area in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Va., a 60-year-old suburb of Washington, D.C. Such flows reflect the continuing importance of chain migration, whereby migrants who were encouraged and assisted in their move by friends and relatives from their place of origin encour- age other friends or relatives to join them, helping them to find accommodation and jobs when they arrive. The impact of middle-income and high-income migrants, in contrast, is much less focused in spatial terms. These peo- ple do, however, exhibit certain broad regularities in spatial behavior. An occupationally and geographically mobile group of cosmopolitan movers, they are often constrained by lim- ited amounts of time available to search for a home. In addi- tion, because they are willing and able to move in search of URBAN VIEW 9.5 Neighborhood Stability in West European Cities 17 West European cities enjoy remarkable neighborhood stability. Europeans move much less frequently than North Americans, and homeowners maintain their characteristic solidly con- structed concrete block, brick, and stone housing. As a result, older neighborhoods at or near the center of large cities enjoy remarkably long lives despite suburbanization. The districts of handsome mansions built by speculative developers for wealthy families in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries remain stable high-income neighborhoods, such as Belgravia, Bloomsbury, and Mayfair in central London (Figure 9.12). High-income suburban neigh- borhoods developed typically in the western part of older (continued) 220 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Involuntary moves can account for a significant and surpris- ingly high proportion of intraurban mobility—between 15 and 25 percent. They are necessitated by events totally beyond the household’s control: property demolitions, eminent domain proceedings, evictions for rent arrears or defaulting on mortgage repayments, and disasters such as fire or flood. In addition to these purely involuntary moves are somewhat more voluntary moves that are induced by unwanted or unforeseen circumstances, such as divorce, ill health, a death in the family, or corporate relocation (a change in the location of the place of work—because of office since 1950, thus pointing to an increasing complexity in the pattern and logic of residential mobility. Reasons for Moving We can begin to understand the complexity of residential mobility a little better by investigating the behavior of individual house- holds, and try to find answers to the question of why families move by distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary moves and between “push” and “pull” factors (Figure 9.13). 18 URBAN VIEW 9.5 Neighborhood Stability in West European Cities ( continued) Revolution. Higher taxes on city land until the late nineteenth cen- tury kept the poorest residents and immigrants outside the city walls. Beginning with Paris in the second half of the nineteenth cen- tury, this tradition was strengthened by the replacement of areas of slums and former city walls with wide boulevards and imposing apartments. Since the eighteenth century in Western Europe, however, urban growth has spread to suburban zones and has even enveloped freestanding villages and towns. Yet these separate urban centers became distinct quarters within the expanding city as they maintained their long-established social and eco- nomic characteristics, major landmarks, and shopping streets. During the second half of the nineteenth century, annexa- tions of groups of these suburban quarters produced distinc- tive city districts with their own shopping areas and government institutions. In the last few decades governments in older industrial cities have funded urban renewal projects designed to attract higher-income residents to the revitalized parts of central areas. The success of these large-scale city center redevel- opments has given rise to gentrification in the surrounding area. Demand for housing that has the potential to be ren- ovated for higher-income occupants, however, has raised property values in certain areas and pushed out lower-income residents. industrial cities, upwind of industrial smokestacks and residential chimneys. Many wealthy residents, in fact, have remained at or near the city center in Western Europe since before the Industrial FIGURE 9.12 Belgrave Square in Belgravia, central London. Districts of handsome mansions such as this, which were built by speculative developers for wealthy families in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, remain stable high-income neighborhoods. • Demolition • Eminent domain • Eviction • Disaster (flood, fire) ADJUSTMENT INDUCED HOUSING FACTORS • Space • Quality/design • Cost • Tenure change NEIGHBORHOOD FACTORS • Quality • Physical environment • Social composition • Public services EMPLOYMENT STATUS CHANGE LIFE CYCLE EFFECTS • Household formation • Change in marital status • Change in household size LOCATION AND ACCESSIBILITY • Workplace • Shopping/school/ amenities • Family/friends • Job change • Retirement MOVE Involuntary/Forced Voluntary FIGURE 9.13 Reasons for household relocation. Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 221 change of employment. Other pull factors include accessibility to shops, amenities, and friends, the attractions of better-quality schools and public services, the chance to switch housing sub- markets (usually from renting to owning), and the attractions of particular settings in pursuing particular lifestyles. Understanding Household Behavior: The Decision to Move In practice, of course, households are “pushed” and “pulled” by a variety of factors at once. In addition, the combined effect of push and pull factors may not be enough to cause a household to look for alternatives. Even if a search among potential alter- natives is begun, a household may not necessarily eventually move: Adjustments can be made to perceived wants and needs, to the dwelling itself, and even to the neighborhood. These possibilities are accommodated in Figure 9.14, which is based decentralization, for example). On average, such moves account for a further 15 percent or so of all intraurban mobility. People give a wide variety of reasons for purely voluntary moves. Most are adjustment moves that are intended to change the type and quantity of housing. Classic migration theory groups these reasons into push factors and pull factors . The most frequently cited push factor by far is the lack of suffi- cient space—or, to be precise, the feeling of insufficient space for household needs. Once again, this factor underscores the relevance of changes in the household life cycle. Other fre- quently cited push factors include the costs of maintenance and repair, structural or technological obsolescence in the dwell- ing, aspects of the physical environment of the neighborhood (e.g., poor upkeep of neighboring properties, heavy traffic), and characteristics of the social environment (e.g., too many or too two few children, too much or too little street life). The most frequently cited pull factors by far are those associated with a A B Stress Social environ- ment Environment Improve environment Redefine aspirations Decision: Seek alternative residence Define aspiration region Search for vacancies Match vacancies to aspirations Select specific vacancy Move to new residence Household biography Needs, expectations, aspirations Neighbor- hood Dwelling Income and education Lifestyle Stage in life cycle Ethnic and cultural identity FIGURE 9.14 A model of the residential location decision process. 222 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography systematically pore over newspaper advertisements, while still others base their search on wide-ranging neighborhood visits and online presentations, guided by real estate agents with computerized multiple listings. The search is not simply a function of the range and quality of information, however. Households differ in the extent to which they face barriers and constraints during the search pro- cess. Lack of personal transportation is an obvious barrier for some people that is directly related to socioeconomic status. More important, but less clearly a function of socioeconomic status, is the constraint of time. Each household has to balance (1) the probability of making a better decision after an exhaus- tive search against (2) the costs—both real and psychological— of doing so. Where time is limited, the anxiety produced by lack of success may result in a modification of the household’s aspiration region, a restriction of its search space, or a shift in its use of information sources. The pressure of time may also simply lead to confused or irrational decision making. Then again, the longer the search goes on, the greater the household’s knowledge of the housing market, although there comes a point, as in shopping for anything else, where the cost of missed opportunities outweighs the value of additional knowledge. Having identified possible alternatives, households must make a choice. The better defined the household’s aspiration region, the more clear-cut this decision should be, though research has suggested that, having gone through the search process, most households do not refer rigidly to their original formulations. Rather, they are likely to compromise a good deal. In the final decision, neighborhood quality (and in par- ticular the quality of neighborhood schools, for households with children of school age) seems to weigh more heavily than housing quality or accessibility, and interior style and appear- ance weigh more heavily than exterior style and appearance. 20 Households that are unable to find vacancies that fall within their aspiration region at this point (B in Figure 9.14) must revert to one of the two other possible courses of action—going back and addressing the shortcomings of their existing dwelling or neighborhood, or redefining their aspirations and needs. Empirical analyses of people’s behavior in large and com- plex housing markets show that their search patterns tend to be quite restricted. Most households do not, for example, search anywhere near all of the housing submarkets within their affordable price range. Rather, they are likely to attempt to reduce search costs and uncertainty by searching within a sin- gle housing submarket. Searches tend to be anchored around familiar community areas and key nodes such as workplace locations, and most households are very persistent in restricting themselves to one or two preferred local areas. 21 One important factor that is not explicit in Figure 9.14 is discrimination and bias within housing markets. Most schol- ars agree that this is an important factor in shaping patterns of residential location, along with affordability, job location, household preferences, and household information. There is, however, considerable debate as to just how important dis- crimination is within the overall context of the residential kaleidoscope. 22 The various ways in which bias and discrimina- tion take place are discussed in the next section. on a conceptual model of the household relocation and search process first developed by urban geographers Larry Brown and Eric Moore (that fits within the behavioral approach described in Chapter 1). 19 This model recognizes that a household will derive some degree of “utility” from its current dwelling: a product of its own biography and of the qualities and attributes of the dwell- ing itself and the neighborhood. This utility may not be posi- tive, however. “Stressors,” arising from the interaction of a variety of push and pull factors, may reduce the utility of the dwelling so that the household feels forced to do something about the situation (point A on Figure 9.14). One course of action is to address directly the shortcom- ings of the dwelling or neighborhood. Dwellings can be remod- eled, extra space can be added, or kitchens can be remodeled. Neighborhood shortcomings can be addressed through joining or forming residents’ associations, by confronting troublesome neighbors, or by political action. If such action is not feasible, or if it is unsuccessful, a second course of action may be pursued: modifying the household itself as a means of coming to terms with existing conditions. Plans to have children may be deferred or abandoned, house- hold lifestyle may be modified or constrained, or, more likely, household aspirations and expectations may be lowered. The older people get, the more adept they become at lowering their aspirations to fit their experience of reality. This, then, is an important explanation for the tendency for older households to become stayers. Understanding Household Behavior: The Search for Alternative Places to Live The third course of action is to seek alternative places to live. Figure 9.14 shows that there are three stages to this course of action: (1) defining the “aspiration region” (based on site char- acteristics including the attributes desired in a new home and its locational situation), (2) searching for dwellings that fall within the aspiration region, and (3) comparing possible alter- natives. The importance of these stages is that different kinds of households behave differently at each stage, thus reflecting and sustaining the processes of social and residential differentiation . Households with different biographies and income constraints will set out to look for vacancies with quite different housing goals in mind. In addition, some households will develop a much clearer idea of what they are looking for, depending in part on the personality of household members but mostly on their ability to organize their thoughts (partly a function of education) and on their overall knowledge and experience of housing and neighborhood types. The search process itself is much more closely linked to household socioeconomic attributes. Typically the search does not cover the whole city, or even whole housing submarkets, but takes place within the household’s awareness space , which is a product of its action space and its information space , both of which are closely linked to income, education, and occu- pational status. Consequently, while some households rely on word-of-mouth within a very localized search space, others Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 223 Real Estate Agents as Social Gatekeepers 25 The key to understanding the professional behavior of real estate agents is in their reward system, which is normally a commission based on a percentage of the sale price of a prop- erty. Ideally, therefore, real estate agents would like to see a situation where house prices are high and there is a high turn- over rate. This is by no means the usual situation, however, and in many circumstances high prices work against a high turnover or vice versa. In addition, real estate agents can find themselves working on behalf of both buyers and sellers in the same market, thereby not only dividing their loyalties but also complicating their attitudes toward asking prices. As a result, real estate agents develop a keen sense of the residential kaleido- scope as an opportunity structure that has to be managed and exploited carefully. Neighborhoods with high prices (and therefore high potential commissions) must be monitored for changes that might depress exchange values, neighborhoods with low turnover rates must be carefully monitored for signs of movement, and lower-priced neighborhoods must be moni- tored for signs of gentrification. It is a short step for some unscrupulous real estate agents (a small minority within their profession, it must be emphasized) to encourage or contrive such changes. The principal activity in this respect has always been steering: keeping like with like, deterring households from moving into neighborhoods occupied by households of a different socioeconomic background, ethnicity, or sexual orientation in order not to jeopardize local prices. In 1955 real estate agents could openly explain steering in this way: People often try to get in higher class areas than they’ll be accepted in. We just don’t show them any houses in those areas. If they insist, we try to talk them out of it one way or another. I’ve purposely lost many a sale doing just that. It pays in the long run. People in the community respect you for it and they put business your way. 26 The result was “slammed door” discrimination, mainly against African Americans. In 1968, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act (Fair Housing Act) made such activity illegal. Discrimination continued, however. A 1989 report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service described how “revolving doors” had replaced “slammed doors”: The new technique—apparently developed to evade statutory prohibitions against discrimination—consists essentially in deceiving a minority applicant into believing that he or she would be welcome as a tenant or owner, but in withholding information about available housing.... In a sales situation, the applicant may be told the seller has already accepted another sales contract or told the owner had changed his mind and taken the dwelling off the mar- ket. Everything is done in such a way that the applicant will go away believing that nothing is available and with- out the slightest awareness that he or she has been dis- criminated against. The black or Hispanic applicant has been led in and then conducted out, so to speak. 27 HOUSING MARKET GATEKEEPERS, BIAS, AND DISCRIMINATION Decisions about where to live and when to move are constrained not only by income, barriers to the search process, and the interdependence of people’s actions, but also by the decisions and behavior of key groups who influence the supply of hous- ing and housing finance. We saw in Chapter 8 how speculators, developers, builders, realtors, and public officials, as well as individual households, can be regarded as “city makers.” Yet city making does not end once housing has been built and sold. The continual restlessness of people and capital invest- ment constantly remakes the sociodemographic landscape in response to new needs and opportunities (and in so doing inevitably modifies the physical landscape). At the center of this process are the “exchange professionals” who facilitate residential mobility: realtors, mortgage financiers, insurance agents, appraisers, landlords, and so on. Although these exchange professionals project themselves as being socially neutral, in certain circumstances they may act as “social gatekeepers,” facilitating residential mobility by cer- tain groups of people and financing housing in certain neigh- borhoods but limiting mobility by other groups of people and suppressing the capital available to other neighborhoods. This gatekeeping is not necessarily the result of conscious attempts to influence the pattern of flows of people and capital. In some circumstances exchange professionals may not even be aware of the gatekeeping consequences of their actions. 23 Given the importance of their roles in the marketplace, however, the dynamics and constraints of their professional environments make a certain amount of bias almost inevitable. Every profession tends to develop its own distinctive profes- sional ideology or view of the world, and individual profession- als are influenced and guided by these perspectives in making their day-to-day decisions. 24 These professional ideologies are the product of a variety of factors, including • selectivity in recruitment (including the self-selection that draws people with certain backgrounds, interests, and dispositions to certain careers). • values, attitudes, and priorities imbued through educa- tion and training. • the criteria of professional success sponsored by profes- sional journals, magazines, and websites. • the reward system and career structure. Within every profession, however, there is also scope for deliberate discrimination: consciously wielding professional power or influence to deny members of particular groups access to housing in certain neighborhoods or to restrict the flow of finance to certain properties or neighborhoods. This discrimi- nation may be personally motivated, but more likely it is the result of the exploitation of social prejudices for personal (or corporate) financial gain. Civil rights legislation has made such activity illegal in the United States, but most cities still bear the imprint of housing discrimination of the pre-civil rights era. In addition, discrimination remains endemic to housing markets because it is very difficult to police. 224 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography to comparable white homebuyers. Hispanic homebuyers, in particular, faced significant discrimination from real estate agents when it came to help in obtaining financing. Between 1989 and 2000, the overall incidence of white-favored treatment on financ- ing assistance (offers of help with financing, lender recommenda- tions, and discussion of down payment requirements) rose from 33.3 percent to 38.6 percent. The results of the 2000 study of metropolitan rental markets showed that there had been a modest decrease in discrimination toward blacks seeking to rent a housing unit. Hispanic renters, however, did not experience this downward trend (Table 9.1). Hispanics, for example, were more likely to be quoted a higher rent for the same housing unit than their white counterparts in 2000 compared to 1989. In addition, Hispanic renters were more likely to experience discrimination in their housing search than African-American renters in 2000. There is evidence that housing discrimination has increased due to online advertising. 31 The rise in complaints has been driven by discrimination in online advertising for rental prop- erties, with most of the ads discriminating against families with children, which is illegal under the federal Fair Housing Act. Discrimination against minorities in online rental listings on Craigslist is also being increasingly documented. This is an issue because three-quarters of all renters use the Internet to search for vacancies. 32 Of course, housing discrimination is not confined to the United States. In Sweden, for example, researchers carried out a housing discrimination study based on online rental listings and found ethnic and gender discrimination there too. 33 Three fictitious renters with distinctive sounding ethnic and gender names were created. These potential renters applied for vacant rental apartments that were advertized online by landlords. The male with the Arabic name received many fewer responses and apartment showings than the male with the Swedish name. The female with the Swedish name had the least difficulty finding an apartment online. In 2009, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and HUD-certified state and local agencies that enforce laws equivalent to the Fair Housing Act received 10,242 com- plaints. The most common basis of complaints was disability discrimination (44 percent) followed by race discrimination (20 percent). 28 The number of housing discrimination com- plaints typically exceeds 10,000 but certainly a large number of complaints are not reported. By some estimates as many as four million instances of housing discrimination occur each year in the United States. 29 Every ten years, HUD commissions a “paired testing” hous- ing discrimination study. Having set new guidance on housing discrimination against members of the LGBT community in 2010, the next HUD study will for the first time address LGBT discrimination as well as the usual focus on discrimination against minorities. For the 2000 HUD study, 4,600 pairs of testers—one minority and the other white—posed as otherwise identical home seekers and visited real estate or rental agents to inquire about the availability of advertised housing units that were for sale or rent in 23 metropolitan areas across the United States. 30 This methodology is designed to provide direct evi- dence of differences in the treatment experienced by minorities and whites in their search for housing and a way to track the extent to which housing discrimination is changing over time. Comparing the results of the 2000 and 1989 studies of metro- politan home sales markets shows that there was a decline in the level of discrimination experienced by blacks and Hispanics seek- ing to buy a home (Table 9.1). Between 1989 and 2000, however, steering based on neighborhood racial composition increased for black homebuyers—by 10 percent in the case of homes recom- mended and by almost 8 percent in the case of the homes that were inspected. So although black homebuyers faced less discrim- ination overall in 2000, blacks and whites were apt to be recom- mended and shown homes in different neighborhoods. Blacks were more likely to be steered to neighborhoods that were pre- dominantly black compared to the neighborhoods recommended TABLE 9.1 Discrimination by Real Estate and Rental Agents against Minorities in U.S. Metropolitan Housing Markets, 1989 and 2000 1989 2000 Examples of discrimination Homebuyers Black 29.0% 17.0% White homebuyers were more likely to be able to inspect available homes, to be shown homes in predominantly white neighborhoods, and to receive more information/assistance in financing as well as more encouragement. Hispanic 26.8% 19.7% White homebuyers were more likely to receive information/assistance in financing and to be shown homes in non-Hispanic neighborhoods. Renters Black 26.4% 21.6% Whites were more likely to receive information about available housing units, had more opportunities to inspect available units, and were more likely to be offered rental incentives. Hispanic 23.7% 25.7% Whites were more likely to receive information about available housing units, had more opportunities to inspect available units, and were more often quoted a lower rent for the advertised unit than similarly qualified Hispanic renters. Source: The Urban Land Institute, Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets: National Results from Phase 1 HDS 2000, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2002 . Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 225 practice, known as redlining, also results in a bias against minorities, female-headed households, and other vulnerable groups, because they tend to be localized in high-risk neighborhoods. A further problem with redlining is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as neighborhoods starved of mortgage funds become progressively more run-down and so increasingly risky. We can summarize the consequences of redlining in terms of seven stages: 35 1. The cheaper housing typical of redlined areas is effec- tively placed beyond the means of many lower-income households, because with regular mortgages difficult or impossible to obtain, loans can be secured only by means of higher down payments, higher interest rates, and shorter loan maturities. 2. The worst dwellings, denied mortgage loans even from more expensive sources, are left vacant and neglected, thus initiating a spiral of neighborhood decline that is difficult to stop. 3. The neighborhood declines to the point where even home improvement loans are difficult to obtain, leading to rapid physical deterioration and, in some cases, abandonment. 4. As conditions worsen, property insurance becomes expensive and difficult to get. Neighborhood businesses begin to fail, taking essential services and important sources of cash flow out of the neighborhood. 5. In the face of accelerating decline in property values, those who are able to do so begin to move away, leaving behind a residual population dominated by elderly and disadvantaged households. 6. The city treasury feels the results of neighborhood decline as property tax revenues decline while the demand for public services increases. 7. The entire city is drained of so much revenue that public services have to be cut back across the whole city or tax rates have to be increased, or both. The severity of these problems, coupled with the fact that it was most often minority neighborhoods that were the worst casualties, led to a series of laws designed to eradicate redlin- ing in the United States. These laws included the Civil Rights Act (federal Fair Housing Act) of 1968, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1976, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, and the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Act of 1989. Nevertheless, many cities still carry the blight of neighborhood decline initiated (or at least reinforced) by redlining. There is evidence that housing discrimination in home loans has increased due to the housing crisis. 36 As the number of foreclosures increased, private fair housing centers around the United States have seen more cases of discrimination against minorities in mortgage lending than before the hous- ing crisis. In addition, recent studies continue to document discrimination. 37 A 2010 study in the Federal Reserve Bulletin reported that in 2009 the rejection rate for conventional home loans for African-American borrowers (32.3 percent) was about 2.5 times higher than the rejection rate for white borrowers (13.1 percent), while the rejection rate for Hispanic borrowers (25.6 percent) was about twice as high. 38 In the real estate market, steering and “revolving door” tactics are not the only kinds of intervention pursued by unscru- pulous real estate agents. Local submarkets can be manipulated by block busting , whereby prices are deliberately driven down, temporarily, allowing real estate agents or their associates to buy up as many properties as possible before restoring equa- nimity to the market and then selling to a new group of pur- chasers. Prices can be driven down in various ways: by steering minority households toward a lower-income white neighbor- hood, for example, supplemented by scare tactics designed to hasten “white flight”—posting bogus FOR SALE signs, or hus- tling for listings. In extreme cases outsiders may be hired to commit petty acts of vandalism that are intended to signal the social deterioration of the neighborhood. Alternatively, neigh- borhood price decline can be “seeded” by purchasing houses only to leave them vacant and neglected. As residents see the neighborhood beginning to slip, more will put their homes on the market. When a sufficient number of dwellings has been acquired, the real estate agents or their associates will hope to derive a large profit, either by selling them one by one to mem- bers of an incoming group of people or by selling them all to a single developer seeking a large lot for a big project. Mortgage Finance Managers as Social Gatekeepers Discrimination against minorities in the metropolitan home sales market may also arise in subsequent contacts involving applica- tions for loans. Bank officers and savings and loan association managers tend to operate within decision-making frameworks that are fairly closely circumscribed by company policy, nationally established money market rates, and federal law. Nevertheless, these lenders still exercise a considerable amount of discretion in allocating mortgages, so that they are able to play a pivotal role in deciding “who lives where, how much new housing gets built, and whether neighborhoods survive.” 34 The chief allegiance of commercial lending institutions is not to borrowers but to investors. Funds are therefore not to be risked on loans to vulnerable households, for unconventional properties (because they may be difficult to sell if the borrower defaults), or for properties in unpromising neighborhoods (also difficult to resell in the event of a default). Risk minimiza- tion means attaching a good deal of weight to creditworthiness, with special emphasis on income stability. This practice tends to favor salaried middle-income households while making it more difficult for wage earners, the self-employed, and female- headed households to secure a mortgage. Risk minimization also involves categorizing applicants and properties in terms of stereotypes. Because mortgage finance officers traditionally have tended to be predominantly white, male, middle-income and married with children, such stereotyping tends to work to the disadvantage of minority groups, female-headed house- holds, other nontraditional household types, and people with unconventional lifestyles. The easiest means of stereotyping properties is on the basis of neighborhood quality, drawing a line around “high-risk” neigh- borhoods and using this as a basis for determining loans. This 226 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography properties at a negligible price, and then, after minimal cosmetic or even no work being done to the property, selling it at a price far above what it is worth. Victims of property flipping are often unsuspecting low-income, minority first-time homebuyers. Insurance Agents as Social Gatekeepers Discrimination against minorities in the metropolitan home sales market may also arise in contacts involving applications for home insurance. Discrimination in underwriting may seem less note- worthy than discrimination in lending, but its impact is no less profound. A lender will not provide a mortgage unless a poten- tial homebuyer first obtains property insurance. The insurance policy is required because it minimizes the risk of financial loss to the lender in the event that the house is damaged or destroyed. Households who experience problems of insurance avail- ability tend to be located within central city neighborhoods, often with high concentrations of minority residents. Certain risk factors—such as older wood frame homes, electrical and heating systems that have not been updated, and higher theft rates—are greater for central cities than for suburbs. 43 A study of loss costs in eight major metropolitan areas in the United States published by the Insurance Research Council found that the frequency of claims, the size of the claims, and consequently industry costs per insured home were higher for urban than suburban policy holders. 44 At the same time, anecdotal and quantitative evidence points to the existence of discrimination on the part of property insurers based on racial stereotyping. Systematically ascertaining the extent of discrimination is difficult due to the limitations of current data availability— the insurance industry is not subject to the federal disclosure requirements that apply to home lenders. Nevertheless, a sta- tistical analysis of 33 U.S. metropolitan areas by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a trade association of state law enforcement officials who regulate the insurance industry, found that the racial composition of the neighbor- hood remained significant in the number and cost of policies after controlling for risk factors covering loss experience and other demographic factors. 45 Paired testing of major insurers in nine cities by the National Fair Housing Alliance found evi- dence of illegal discrimination in the shares of tests: Chicago (83 percent), Atlanta (67 percent), Toledo (62 percent), Milwaukee (58 percent), Louisville (56 percent), Cincinnati (44 percent), Los Angeles (44 percent), Akron (37 percent), and Memphis (32 percent). 46 Fair housing organizations have filed a series of lawsuits and administrative complaints against some of the country’s largest insurers (and lenders) that have resulted in settlements in the millions of dollars. Recent prog- ress in addressing discrimination in underwriting include voluntary educational, mentoring, and outreach initiatives on the part of insurance companies and the establishment in 1994 of the National Insurance Task Force (NITF), renamed the NeighborWorks Insurance Alliance in 2004, comprising insurance companies, government regulators, and commu- nity groups, which has the mission of developing partnerships between the insurance industry and community groups. 47 A 2009 study by the nonpartisan Center for American Progress of data from 14 large lending institutions found that 17.8 percent of white borrowers were given higher-priced mortgages (defined by the Federal Reserve as having an annual percentage rate at least 3 points higher than a Treasury security of the same maturity) when they borrowed from large banks in 2006, com- pared to 30.9 percent of Hispanics and a staggering 41.5 percent of African Americans. Disparities in lending remain even after accounting for differences in creditworthiness or income. High- income African-American and Hispanic borrowers were about three times more likely (32.1 and 29.1 percent respectively) than high-income white borrowers (10.5 percent) to be given higher- priced loans. 39 Another study in 2007 in the Federal Reserve Bulletin reported that 53.7 percent of African Americans and 46.6 percent of Hispanics were given subprime loans compared to about 17.7 percent of whites. 40 While some portion of this over- all racial gap may be explained by careful underwriting that takes into account differing household incomes, credit scores, and loan- to-value ratios, the enormity of the gap and the fact that studies continue to find that the gap persists across the same income lev- els of minorities and whites raise important questions about the lending practices of financial institutions. Evidence of discrimination in lending also comes from other sources that document how some mortgage finance man- agers targeted minority communities for risky, high-cost loans. In a 2008 lawsuit, Mayor and City of Baltimore v. Wells Fargo Bank , for example, affidavits filed by two former employees of the bank showed that the lender: • targeted for subprime loans African-American com-munities (but not white ones) in Baltimore and Prince George’s County, Maryland • provided significant financial incentives to bank employees for steering African-American borrowers into subprime loans despite these borrowers actually being qualified for prime mortgages • used black churches as platforms for selling subprime loans by sending African-American bank employees to make presentations there. 41 The rejection rates for federally backed ( Federal Housing Administration [FHA] , Veterans Administration [VA], and the Farmers Home Administration [FmHA]) mortgages show similar patterns of disparities. This situation raises concerns because FHA loans have comprised a disproportionate, and since the housing bubble burst, rising, share of the financing used by African-American and Hispanic homebuyers. In 2008 federally backed loans accounted for 51 percent of all home purchase loans to African-American applicants and 45 percent of home purchase loans to Hispanics (compared to 27 percent for white applicants) (the lower 2001 percentages were 42, 38, and 19 respectively). 42 In addition, in the lead up to the hous- ing crisis, HUD had identified abuse of the FHA program by lenders and sellers who had tried to take advantage of first-time homebuyers and have used FHA loans to carry out “property flipping” scams. Property flipping involves purchasing distressed Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 227 URBAN VIEW 9.6 Hoxton’s Serial Transformations 48 Like many central city neighborhoods in large metropolitan areas, Hoxton has gone through a series of transformations in response to structural economic change, to cycles of investment and disinvestment, to its changing situation within the evolving overall framework of the city’s infrastructure and spatial organi-zation, and to the movement of different groups of people into and out of the district. In the late seventeenth century Hoxton, just beyond London’s city walls, was seen by property developers and London gentry as far enough away from the dirt and squalor of the city but close enough for a short commute to work. It was duly transformed into a superior sort of district, a phase that is marked by a few surviving Georgian residences and by its formal street pattern featuring Charles Square and Hoxton Square. The Industrial Revolution brought another transformation. By the midpoint of the nineteenth century Hoxton had become a working-class neighborhood, the center of the London furniture industry, with workshops and warehouses surrounded by hastily erected housing for a rapidly increasing population of migrants and immigrants. By the end of the century, Hoxton had become run-down, its population notorious for poverty and squalor. For much of the twentieth century, despite the elimination of the worst of the slum housing and the provision of social housing, Hoxton remained a classic central city problem area, its manu- facturing base sharply diminished and its population trapped in a cycle of deprivation. Hoxton is still one of the most underprivi-leged and run-down areas of London, with poor schools, high levels of unemployment, and a built environment dominated by obsolescent and semi-derelict structures. Yet it has famously undergone a double transformation since the mid-1980s as the processes of gentrification have flickered across the landscape. The trigger for the gentrification of Hoxton was that it acquired a neo-bohemian aspect as aspiring artists and young designers and musicians found inexpensive live/work spaces in the district’s industrial lofts and buildings toward the end of the 1980s. The streets of Hoxton began to be used for experimental shows and the buzz attracted galleries and dealers. Soon, the neighborhood’s atmosphere began to attract an avant-garde of graphic design firms, independent music labels and studios, interior design firms, photographic studios and galleries, archi- tecture firms and new media companies who colonized the old furniture workshops of the district. Disused and obsolescent workshops and warehouses were renovated as offices, galleries, and bookstore/cafés. Loft spaces were renovated as apartments. By moving into Hoxton, designers could signal their trendy commitment to themselves and to others, including clients. They had distinct ideas about what living like a designer should entail, and this in turn impacted the atmosphere of the district. Hoxton’s signature identity was “fashion rebel”: scruffy clothes and daft haircuts. For men, the “uniform” was vintage Levi jeans paired with T-shirts bearing the names of obscure record labels; the “look” was completed by a haircut that became known as the Hoxton Fin. The Hoxton-girl look was deliberately trashy, featuring Blondie T-shirts, plastic jewelry, and pixie ankle boots. Several projects funded through government central city regeneration programs helped to reinforce this phase of gentrifica- tion, including basic refits of warehouses and the remodeling of an old electricity generating station. Meanwhile, neoliberal govern- ment policies—fewer controls on development, a reduction in social support services for working class families, and the privatization of the public housing stock—contributed to a gradual displacement of the existing multicultural working class community. In their place came young “creatives” of all sorts, attracted by the low rents, the neo-bohemian atmosphere of the district, and the gritty authen-ticity of the built environment. Abandoned warehouses began to be converted into lofts and pubs; and clubs, including a pioneering gay club, the London Apprentice , opened around Hoxton Square. Media representations of the district, ignoring its less glamorous aspects and the displacement of disadvantaged households, helped to promote Hoxton as the exemplar of an edgy and innovative cultural quarter: Time Magazine, for example, referred to Hoxton as one of the “coolest places on the planet” in 1996. This strengthened the trendy reputation of Hoxton but made it unaffordable for the neo-bohemians at the heart of its initial transformation, because most of them never had the capital or the creditworthiness to purchase their property and protect them- selves from rent increases. As property prices began to rise, many of them left for cheaper space farther east. In their place has come a more affluent cohort of gentrifiers with the capital and credit- worthiness to purchase and renovate loft apartments and to patronize an increased number of galleries, upscale cafes, noodle bars, sushi restaurants, and Italian delicatessens. Near enough (less than a mile) to the expanding fringe of London’s banking and financial quarter, Hoxton has also developed an embryonic night- time economy, its restaurants, clubs, and bars catering increasing- ly to affluent office workers. As a result, a second transformation has occurred, tipping Hoxton from a district of cultural produc- tion to one of cultural consumption; and from an avant-garde neo-bohemia to just another gentrifying district (Figure 9.15). FIGURE 9.15 Near the expanding fringe of London’s banking and financial quarter, Hoxton has developed an embryonic night- time economy; its clubs, bars, and restaurants (like Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen ) cater increasingly to affluent office workers. As a result, a transformation has occurred, tipping Hoxton from a district of cultural production to one of cultural consumption; and from an avant-garde neo-bohemia to just another gentrifying district. 228 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography neighborhoods or multi-occupied “twilight areas” and the replacement or displacement of many of the original occupants. It involves the physical renovation or reha- bilitation of what was frequently a highly deteriorated housing stock and its upgrading to meet the require- ments of its new owners. In the process, housing in the areas affected, both renovated and unrenovated, under- goes a significant price appreciation. Such a process of neighborhood transition commonly involves a degree of tenure transformation from renting to owning. 49 Although gentrification has been most pronounced in world cities like New York and London and in regional nodal centers that have evolved from older urban cores, such as Minneapolis and Philadelphia in the United States or Manchester and Glasgow in the United Kingdom, by the early twenty-first century it has become virtually global in its inci- dence. 50 Research on gentrification in the United States sug- gests that it is increasing and involves between 1 and 5 percent of urban households and the displacement of an estimated 900,000 households each year. 51 Displacement imposes substantial hardships on some classes of displacees, particularly lower-income house- holds and the elderly. Although some displacees report finding similar or improved dwelling units and neigh- borhoods, a substantial number report a deterioration in post-move dwelling units and/or neighborhood quality. Rents almost always increase, modestly for some house- holds, substantially for others. Lower-income outmovers are particularly hit, finding the least satisfactory alterna- tive units and neighborhoods and facing the highest pro- portional shelter-cost increases. For elderly displacees, the neighborhood studies show particular hardships. 52 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: THE EXAMPLE OF GENTRIFICATION It should not be surprising—given what we have seen in previous sections about the differential physical deterioration of neighborhoods, fluctuations in the flow of investment capi- tal, variability in household behavior, changing institutional constraints, and the influence of key gatekeepers—that neigh- borhood change is not easy to predict. For the same reasons, explanations of changes that have taken place are difficult to establish and are often hotly contested among academics, city planners, policy makers, and politicians. Figure 9.16 brings together the major elements influenc- ing neighborhood change in general terms (and fits within the structuralist approach described in Chapter 1). Here, house- holds are seen as one of a number of interdependent groups of people whose actions are set within the context of the financial climate, legal frameworks, public policies, institutional prac- tice, and professional ideology. What Figure 9.16 cannot capture, however, are the relative importance and specific interactions of particular elements in relation to any given type or case of neighborhood change. Consequently, it is possible to “explain” neighborhood change in different ways, depending on the emphasis given to different elements. In this section we examine the case of gentrification (Figure 9.17) as a particular type of neighborhood change, showing how various elements depicted in Figure 9.16 can be interpreted and how they in turn are connected to broader shifts in the trajectory of economic, social, cultural, political, and urban change. Gentrification is simultaneously . . . a physical, economic, social and cultural phenome- non. [It] commonly involves the invasion by middle-class or higher-income groups of previously working-class SOCIETAL FORCES Socioeconomic background Lifestyle Race and ethnicity PRINCIPAL ACTORS LandownersInvestors Mortgage lenders SpeculatorsDevelopers Architects PlannersBuilders Realtors Brokers Appraisers Lawyers Property managers Consumers Housing submarkets Changingmarket conditions GOVERNMENT REGULATION Financial regulationContract law Building codes Land use regulations Urban planning Economic development policy Public utility regulation Changing neighborhood composition Changing housestock FIGURE 9.16 Actors and institutions affecting neighborhood change. Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 229 employed in central city settings, and because their postmodern sensibilities lead them to reject modern homes in downtown condominiums or suburban tracts in favor of settings with some history, human scale, and ethnic and architectural diversity, they are attracted to older central city neighborhoods. Once estab- lished in sufficient numbers, gentrifiers are able to consolidate their lifestyle through local political influence, enhancing their neighborhood and attracting still more gentrifiers by electing representatives who “deliver” better security, environmental improvements, and the preservation of historic buildings. Real estate agents and mortgage finance managers further reinforce the process by exploiting the trend while commercial investors reinforce the process through investments such as in upscale clothing boutiques, chic wine bars, and bookstores with coffee shops. The most important people in this perspective, how- ever, are the individual households who initiate and sustain the demand for “gentrified” settings. In contrast, the alternative interpretation of gentrifica- tion, associated mainly with the work of Neil Smith, 54 sees the most important people as real estate agents and develop- ers. This structuralist argument gives priority to the process of capitalist economic development and, in particular, moves by capital to arrest declining rates of profit and can be para- phrased as follows. The suburbanization of economic activity and households has steadily distorted the classical land value gradient that fell steadily from the CBD , to the periphery of the city. In particular, land values in central city neighborhoods have fallen relative to the CBD and suburban nodes, creating a “valley” in the land value gradient. This valley intensified after World War II, resulting in the “devalorization” of central city neighborhoods, a situation in which the rent from land uses allocated under the market conditions of earlier (preauto- mobile) times was significantly less than the ground rent that could be obtained under new uses. This situation is the rent gap (p. 191), the fundamental precondition for gentrification, which The significance of gentrification really lies in its qualita- tive, symbolic, and ideological implications for urban change . Gentrification involves dramatic changes in neighborhood character, with a good chance for social conflict. Because it cre- ates improvements to the built environment, encourages new retail activity, and results in the expansion of the local tax base without necessarily drawing heavily on public funds, it has be- come an important symbol and prospect for urban change for ideological conservatives. Because it fosters capital accumu- lation, caters to the consumption patterns of higher-income groups, and results in the displacement of vulnerable and dis- advantaged households, it has become emblematic of urban restructuring and a portent of urban change for ideological liberals. Because it can be seen as the product of a wide variety of factors, it has become the focus of theoretical debates con- trasting the effects of production and consumption, supply and demand, capital and culture, and gender and socioeconomic background in accounting for neighborhood change. The scope of these debates is important, partly because it shows how the same causal factors can be seen very differently in relation to one another, but most importantly because it shows how the elements depicted in Figure 9.16 are in turn con- nected to broader contextual changes in the trajectory of eco- nomic, social, cultural, and political life—as depicted in Figure 1.4. The scope of the debates has been framed around two main sets of ideas. The first, associated in particular with the work of David Ley, 53 emphasizes the importance of occupational, social, and cultural shifts in influencing patterns of demand. This humanistic argument gives priority to human agency and consumer preferences and can be paraphrased as follows. The increased pool of professional, administrative, managerial, and technical workers, together with the politicization of middle- income interest groups and the emergence of postmodern cultural sensibilities, has generated an emerging group of poten- tial gentrifiers. Because many of these potential gentrifiers are FIGURE 9.17 Houses in a gentrified neighborhood of the Richmond district of San Francisco—part of the streetcar suburb illustrated in Fig. 3.22. 230 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography well-paid career jobs. This development, of course, is related to other broad sociodemographic shifts, including the restructur- ing of family life that has been reflected in the postponement of child bearing, decreased family size, and closer spacing of children. These trends result in small, affluent households pre- pared to pay high prices for sought-after housing because they benefit more from the reduction in commuting costs associated with inner-urban residential locations than do those with only one adult working in the city center. Based on their work on gay involvement in gentrification, writers such as Larry Knopp and Mickey Lauria have intro- duced sexuality to the equation. 59 They argue that the decline in traditional manufacturing employment in many U.S. cities, combined with the increase in administrative, managerial, and producer services jobs in the CBD, drew many first-generation and second-generation openly gay and lesbian people to central city neighborhoods. For a variety of reasons, the LGBT com- munity (especially gay men) have traditionally been dispropor- tionately represented in these types of jobs. The economic draw of these jobs, combined with the heterosexism and homophobia experienced in suburban “family” neighborhoods, has made central cities very attractive. In addition, the inexpensive and renovatable housing stock in depressed neighborhoods gave members of the LGBT community (and again, particularly gay men, because of their higher earning power as male wage earn- ers) the opportunity to develop a territorial and economic base for establishing a political voice and for developing community resources. Writers such as Sharon Zukin and Rosalyn Deutsche, meanwhile, have emphasized the role of the avant-garde and the contextual shift toward a “society of the spectacle” in which stylish materialism is increasingly important. 60 In larger metro- politan areas, they argue, the artistic avant-garde have become less high-culture and elitist and more important as cultural intermediaries. Politicians, speculators, and developers have come to see avant-garde art and culture as a crucial element in any new project. Meanwhile the avant-garde themselves, with a lifestyle that focuses very much on identity, appearance, pre- sentation of self, fashion design, decor, and symbolism, have been critically important not only in pioneering the “resettle- ment” of rundown, low-rent areas but also in simultaneously providing these areas with the “designer” touch of radical chic necessary for them to be seen in a new light by the newly affluent and aestheticized professional service workers. All writers on gentrification acknowledge that both economic and cultural processes are at work, so the crucial issue is which factor is most important . This might seem like some esoteric academic debate, but it has important implications, such as for neighborhood planning by city governments and for political action by community groups and individuals adversely affected by gentrification. If the forces of capital are seen as over- whelmingly dominant, as in the structuralist explanations, then human agency can achieve relatively little without wholesale reforms of the operation of capital markets. If, however, more importance is given to the autonomous role of cultural move- ments, as in the humanistic arguments, then these can influence the nature of capitalist development itself. What is clear from the is then initiated by three types of developers: (1) professional developers who purchase property, redevelop it, and resell for profit; (2) occupier-developers, who buy and remodel property and inhabit it after completion; and (3) landlord developers, who rent property to tenants after rehabilitating it. The role of gentrifying households, meanwhile, is interpreted less in terms of individual consumer preferences and more in terms of socioeconomic relationships, intertwined with the dynamics of culture and politics. To varying degrees in different cities, gen- trification has been incorporated into the neoliberal policies of city governments. Gentrification is therefore a back-to-the-city move by private-sector capital that is directly facilitated by public-sector policies. Smith sees this move—together with deregulation, privatization, and the other neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and 1990s—as a new form of revenge by the pow- erful in society for the moral and economic decline of city life following the social reforms of the 1960s (hence the term revanchist city —the French word revanche, meaning revenge). Drawing on both sets of ideas, three conditions can be posited as being necessary to explain the occurrence of gentrification: 55 1. A pool of potential gentrifiers. This pool can be traced to the production and concentration of key factions of pro- fessional, administrative, managerial, and technical work- ers in major cities around the world. It is argued that it is a product of the restructured social and spatial division of labor associated with the onset of advanced capitalism. 2. A supply of potentially gentrifiable central city property (the rent gap theory). But the existence of a rent gap does not necessarily lead to gentrification: Without the existence of a pool of potential gentri- fiers and available mortgage finance, gentrification will not occur however great the rent gap and how- ever great the desire of developers to make it happen. And where appropriate housing stock does not exist in sufficient quantity, as for example in cities such as Dallas, Phoenix and other new southern and west- ern U.S. cities, gentrification may be very limited. 56 3. A degree of effective demand for central city property from potential gentrifiers. Preferences for central city settings depend on both the growth of service class job opportunities downtown, and on demographic and lifestyle changes which have seen large numbers of women enter the labor force and growing numbers of both single households and dual career child- less couples. For these groups, with a high dispos- able income, inner-city locations offer proximity to employment and to restaurants, arts and other facilities. 57 Finally, it should be noted that other theorists put the emphasis elsewhere. Liz Bondi and Alan Warde, for example, both emphasize the interaction of class and gender in under- standing gentrification. 58 From this perspective, the location of dual-earner households in the central city is a solution to prob- lems of access to work and home and of combining paid and unpaid labor for married middle-income women and men in Chapter 9 • How Neighborhoods Change 231 as highly capitalized or widespread as in New York City. In the Caribbean, the increasing interrelationships between gentrifi- cation and global capital investment tend to filter through the tourist industry, giving gentrification there its own distinctive flavor. 61 research, however, is that the relative importance of economic and cultural factors varies in different cities. In Berlin, geo- politics has been a factor, the reunification of the country in 1990 amplifying rent gaps and inducing dramatic changes in household mobility. In Mexico City, gentrification is not nearly household versus neighborhood life cycles (p. 210) information space (p. 222) redlining (p. 225) revanchist city (p. 230) spatial submarkets (p. 207) steering (p. 223) use value (p. 212) Key Terms FOLLOW UP action space (p. 222) awareness space (p. 222) block busting (p. 225) chain migration (p. 219) depreciation curve (p. 209) eminent domain (p. 220) exchange value (p. 212) gentrification (p. 228) to Smith. Use your library’s website to get a copy of these three articles and see what you think—do you tend to agree more with Hamnett’s arguments or Smith’s or do you find yourself somewhere in between? The articles are in the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers . You should read them in chronological order: (1) Hamnett, “The blind men and the elephant: the explanation of gen- trification” 16(1991): 173–89; (2) Smith, “Blind man’s buff, or Hamnett’s philosophical individualism in search of gentrification” 17(1992): 110–15; and (3) Hamnett, “Gentrifiers or lemmings? A response to Neil Smith” 17(1992): 116–19. 4. Update your portfolio . Remember to keep a note of any questions that are raised by your reading and to reflect from time to time on the overall framework provided by Figure 1.4. Now that you have covered more material, you may also find it useful to review earlier sections of your portfolio and perhaps add new material or observations. 1. Consider your own neighborhood or one that you know. How does it fit within the conceptualization of neigh- borhood life cycles described on page 211? What signs of change can you see in the neighborhood? How is this change related to changes in nearby neighborhoods and to changes in the rest of the city? 2. List the residential moves that your family (or one that you know) has made within a city. How can these moves be explained (1) individually and (2) collectively? 3. Academic journals sometimes contain a series of articles that represent a back-and-forth academic debate about some important topic—such as one about gentrifica- tion between Chris Hamnett and Neil Smith. In this case Hamnett’s initial paper reviewed the major theories of gentrification, Smith’s commentary took issue with some of Hamnett’s arguments (and to being characterized as a “blind man” whose theory only perceived part of the “elephant” of gentrification), and Hamnett then responded Review Activities Log in to www.mygeoscienceplace.com for self-study quizzes, MapMaster layered thematic and place name interactive maps, Urban View Google Earth TM tours, key resources and suggested readings, related websites, “In the News” RSS feeds, and additional references and resources to enhance your study of how neighborhoods change. 233 Historically, as cities such as San Francisco, California, became larger and more complex, the scope of urban government broadened to include the regulation and provision of an increasingly wide range of urban infrastructure, goods, and services for residents—all of which had a direct and sometimes profound effect on the social geography as well as the built environment of cities. Chapter 10 The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance CHAPTER PREVIEW The purposes of this chapter are (1) to show how, as the economic base of cities evolved, the fortunes of different groups of people changed and cities themselves generated new problems and challenges; and (2) how, as cities became larger and more complex, the scope of urban government broadened to include the regulation and pro- vision of an increasingly wide range of infrastructural elements, goods, and services for residents—all of which had a direct and sometimes profound effect on the social geography as well as the built environment of cities. We will also see that the combination of sociospatial change, changing urban problems, and the changing scope of urban government resulted in a succession of different types of power holders; different, that is, in terms of these people’s motivations and objectives. The ethos and orientations of urban governance, reflect- ing these changes, in turn fostered further changes in the nature and direction of urban development. In the broadest terms, it is possible to recognize distinctive phases in the evolution of urban governance and urban politics that reflect the overall evolution of cities and urban systems as outlined in Figure 1.5. In the first part of this chapter, we summarize the history of urban governance and politics in the United States in terms of the I n this chapter we examine urban governance and the politics of changing urban geographies. In keeping with the overall approach of this book, the emphasis is on the relationships between urbanization and the changing roles of urban government, and on the changing politics of urban development . Our concern is with the generalizations that can be made about the influence of urban change on urban governance and vice versa rather than with the details of governmental organization, the structures of political participation, or the political careers of influential urban leaders. Similarly, we look beyond “symbolic politics” (the “hot” issues that provide easy copy for newspaper editors while satisfying the need for political figures to stay in the public eye) 1 to focus on long-term politics that determine “who gets what, when, and how.” 2 LEARNING OUTCOMES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: ■ Be familiar with the principal phases in the evolution of urban governance and how they relate to patterns of industrialization and urbanization and to the shifting economic and political power of various social groups. ■ Discuss how the emergence of neoliberal ideologies has affected perceptions and strategies of planners, local politicians, developers and civil society groups. ■ Discuss the related problems of fiscal squeeze and fiscal retrenchment in central cities and explain the privatization of many city services. ■ Illustrate the consequences of the increasing entrepreneurialism of city governments. ■ Compare and contrast the major theoretical models of political power in the city and their characterization of the nature of power, governance and conflicts in local politics. 233 234 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography periods of development described in Chapter 3 and the first half of Chapter 4. In the second part of the chapter, we focus on the entrepre- neurial politics and neoliberalism that have shaped the United States since the mid-1970s (corresponding with the period cov- ered in the second half of Chapter 4). In the concluding section of this chapter, we turn to conceptual and theoretical perspec- tives on urban governance and politics to answer three broad questions raised by the changes we have reviewed: (1) How is power structured within cities and how does its structure change with the changing dynamics of urbanization? (2) How can we interpret the role of central governments in relation to urban development? and (3) How can we interpret local con- flicts in relation to patterns and processes of urban change? First, though, we should clarify what is meant by urban gov- ernance. Urban govern ance is not the same as urban govern- ment . Governance is a concept that recognizes that power exists outside as well as inside the formal institutions of government. Most definitions of governance include three main groups: gov- ernment, the private sector, and civil society. Urban governance emphasizes “process.” It recognizes that any decision-making that affects cities is based on the complex interrelationships among many individuals and groups who have different goals and priorities. It is the reconciliation of these competing goals and priorities that lies at the heart of the concept of urban gov- ernance. The United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT) has proposed the following definition: Urban governance is the sum of the many ways individu- als and institutions, public and private, plan and manage the common affairs of the city. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and cooperative action can be taken. It includes formal institutions as well as informal arrange- ments and the social capital of citizens. 3 URBAN VIEW 10.1 The Disneyfication of Times Square Appropriately enough, Times Square in New York contains the largest Disney store in North America. The Disney connection is apt because Times Square itself has been Disneyfied. Disneyfication is a term used to describe a place that has been made more market- able and attractive in a very sanitized way by removing unpleasant aspects, including even historical ones. The term is usually used in a derogatory way because it captures how a place may end up re- sembling a sterile theme park version of its original authentic self. For Times Square, that was back in the early decades of the twentieth century when it was a lively cultural hub of theaters, music halls, and ritzy hotels. It was a wonderful place for people to come together and celebrate events like World Series wins. But Times Square went downhill during the Great Depression in the 1930s and afterwards gained a dreadful reputation as a dangerous hub not only for criminal activity involving pimps and prostitutes on street corners, and drug dealers and addicts shooting up in the streets, but also for sleezy businesses like sex shops and peep shows. After Rudolph Giuliani became mayor of New York in 1994, he did his part to help clean up Times Square by closing down the seedy businesses, forcing out drug dealers and other criminal elements, and encouraging more upscale tourist-friendly establishments. One of the few businesses that survived the cleanup of Times Square is Jimmy’s Corner, a bar on West 44th Street. Its owner, 80-year-old Jimmy Glenn, was a boxing trainer who also owned the now long gone Times Square Gym on the second floor of a building on 42nd Street where boxers like Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and Mike Tyson trained. Now, he says of Times Square: “it’s like a pinball machine out there.” But he does not miss the drug addicts, porn shops, and criminals. “Everybody loves Times Square now,” he says. 4 Although Times Square is a cleaner and safer place for visitors, its Disneyfication has come with a loss of authenticity. An online review by a customer of Jimmy’s Corner captures a certain nostal- gia for the past: “They really don’t make them like this anymore. If I ran the landmarks and preservation committee, be assured I’d give this place the historic status it richly deserves so as to keep at least one tiny part of Times Square good. Not hip, not cool. Just good.” 5 Nearby neighborhood residents, including those in Hell’s Kitchen, have seen negative impacts after the Disneyfication of Times Square, including gentrification. “We’re like a big plum, and all the real estate people are salivating, and if we don’t watch it we’ll become the next Columbus Avenue,” said Marisa, a 51-year-old actress who has lived in Hell’s Kitchen for decades. 6 But the fact is that Times Square today is economically incred- ibly successful, attested to by its huge aniated neon and LED ad- vertisements and giant curved seven-story NASDAQ sign (Figure 10.1). It is home to corporate giants like Morgan Stanley, Viacom, and Condé Nast. Disney is only one of many retailers, includ- ing Aeropostale, Forever 21, and American Eagle Outfitters, that have opened glittering stores in the hopes of making customers of some of the estimated 1.5 million people who pass through Times Square everyday. But this freewheeling, dazzling economic success story is a bit of a paradox. As Tim Tompkins, President of the Times Square Alliance, puts it: “The irony is that this place represents in many ways the epitome of free-market capitalism, but its transformation is due more to government intervention than just about any other development in the country.” 7 FIGURE 10.1 Times Square. Tourists enjoy the safe and clean Disneyfied Times Square with its huge aniated neon and LED advertisements and abundant shopping and entertainment opportunities. Chapter 10 • The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance 235 or beneficial way. The indirect consequences were that cities became increasingly perplexing, their overall economic growth being accompanied by social polarization and mounting disorder, disease, and congestion. The basic framework of local government in most of the United States dates from this period, as counties, municipali- ties, and school districts were set up to assist state govern- ments in carrying out their responsibilities. Municipalities were established to provide essential local services for people. School districts were established as independent units because of a strong conviction that the public education of children was important enough to society to warrant its economic and political freedom from other government units. A notable exception to this pattern of local government was the town- ship, which originated during the colonial period and is still prevalent in New England. In addition to the principle of elected representatives guiding local affairs according to their interpretation of the “public good,” an important feature of the New England township system is the element of partici- patory democracy for residents provided by town meetings (Figure 10.2). In the early nineteenth century local government was quietly dominated by a small pool of “natural” leaders drawn from “established” local families. Few of these people regarded their role as extending beyond providing a reasonably sanitary and lawful environment for urban residents. Local govern- ments covered their expenditures, such as they were, directly from revenues from property taxes, fines, and fees. The main disadvantage of this system was that capital expenditures for costly undertakings such as roads, sewers, and bridges were limited to the amount that could be covered by annual tax levies. It was a disadvantage that became acutely apparent to people as the pace of urbanization quickened. It was solved by incorporation , an act that changed urban government from a passive, regulatory activity to an active agent in economic development. THE HISTORY OF URBAN GOVERNANCE As economic, social, cultural, technological, and other changes have shaped one another and simultaneously shaped and re-shaped urban geographies, they have also been involved as both cause and effect in the broad sweep of changes in urban governance. In this section, we describe the main features of five distinctive periods: 1. Laissez-faire and economic liberalism (1790–1840) 2. Municipal socialism and the rise of machine politics (1840–1875) 3. Boosterism and the politics of reform (1875–1920) 4. Egalitarian liberalism and metropolitan fragmentation (1920–1945) 5. Cities as growth machines and service providers (1945–1973) Laissez-faire and Economic Liberalism (1790–1840) The earliest phase of the evolution of urban governance and politics, roughly coincident with the era of the mercantile city, was dominated by the doctrine of economic liberalism, a laissez-faire philosophy that rested on the assumption that the maximum public benefit would result from unfettered market forces. This phase was also the “Age of the Common Man,” with rapid demographic growth and an expanded electoral franchise combining to wrest urban political power from the exclusive control of the literate and the wealthy. Because of the perva- sive ideology of free enterprise, urban government was weak and disorganized. And because of the pervasive opportunism in political life, the system was also endemically corrupt, with victorious politicians routinely handing out jobs and rewards to friends and supporters. The result was that urban gover- nance or politics rarely affected urban development in a direct FIGURE 10.2 New England town meeting. 236 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography Municipal Socialism and the Rise of Machine Politics (1840–1875) The second phase in the evolution of urban governance and urban politics, roughly coincident with the era of the early industrial city, saw the erosion of laissez-faire ideology, an increase in the range and strength of local government powers, and an increase in expenditures (paid for through an expan- sion of debt financing), all in response to the continuing threats posed by distinctively urban problems: fire, disease, and mob violence. This was also the age when machine politics emerged, with charismatic leaders controlling hierarchical (and often corrupt) political organizations that drew on working class sup- port for more paternalistic urban governance (Figure 10.4). What was so important about incorporation was that it conferred limited liability and, therefore, the opportunity for debt financing through issuing bonds. Bond repayments for incorporated places were relatively secure: They could rea- sonably be expected to be met from property taxes, revenues from which could be expected to increase as a result of the growth stimulated by the new infrastructure and improved services financed by bond issues (Figure 10.3). The mercan- tile cities of the period were all incorporated to allow them to compete with one another as central places. As a result, U.S. urban governance and politics came to be founded on a fragile web of debt financing, economic growth, and increasing property values . FIGURE 10.3 The interdependence between urbanization, economic development, and debt financing. Positive municipal credit rating Improved infrastructure and services Increased urbanization Increased need for infrastructure and services Debt financing Enhanced economic development Higher property values Improved tax yield Ability to service debts FIGURE 10.4 This cartoon depicts New York corruption with Boss Tweed holding onto the reins of the Democratic Party prior to the 1872 election. Chapter 10 • The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance 237 to activities that might attract investors—boosterism. The expanding middle class, meanwhile, made its presence felt in the latter part of this period through the politics of the Progressive Era (1895–1920), lending its support to the reform movement that was aimed at reducing corruption, ridding urban governance of machine politics, and establishing the basis for a more progressive approach to urban development. Corruption became the symbolic issue that the new urban elite chose in seeking to undermine the legitimacy of the political machines. It was no coincidence that this period also saw the characterization of immigrant neighborhoods (the power base of the machines) as breeding grounds for social problems. Editors, novelists, and reformers competed with each other to draw attention to the corrupting moral influ- ence of the “Great Unwashed” and to emphasize the theme of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Meanwhile, the economic recessions of the 1870s and 1890s changed the context of urban politics decisively, stirring the urban elite to form alliances that would eventually replace the corrupt machines and install representatives who would improve the business climate of the city for new investment. The leadership of every town and city, big and small, soon came to realize that, under the dramatic spatial reorganiza- tion involved in forging a modern industrial economy, their economic future depended on outdoing their competitors in attracting investors in manufacturing and business. What is particularly significant about this period for the subsequent evolution of U.S. cities is that the public interest came to be defined more in terms of aggregate economic benefits than in terms of equity, social justice, civil rights, democracy, or community well-being. Against this background, the common theme of reform emerged in the 1870s and 1880s. Religious and moral reform focused on temperance as the way to combat gambling, pros- titution, and social malaise (Figure 10.5). Educational reform focused on school attendance, administrative reorganization, and revised curricula as the way to imbue the urban masses with standards of citizenship, democracy, and diligence. Housing and sanitary reformers saw improved physical condi- tions as a prerequisite for moral and social well-being and as a necessary step toward improved efficiency and productivity in the workplace. The Progressive Era From the mid-1890s to 1920 the reform movement dominated local politics nationwide. This was the Progressive Era. The Progressive movement was reinforced by several concurrent trends. The need for expertise in municipal government was increasingly apparent with every technological innovation and every increment in the size and scope of public activities. City governments had to regulate the laying of pipes and cables and the setting up of streetcar systems. They needed inspectors to regulate and inspect new building methods, elevators, and gas and electricity supplies. They needed accoun- tants who could handle increasingly complex city budgets and administrative officers who could coordinate and professional- ize civic boosterism. The people in these growing occupations sought to establish and legitimize themselves with professional associations and trade magazines, and they realized from Crowding and uncontrolled development had resulted in city residents being vulnerable to fires and epidemics. The free market, meanwhile, had created an impoverished workforce whose living conditions were so bad that rebellion and disor- der emerged as a constant threat and an occasional reality. The combination was sufficient to convince a majority of people of the need for municipal socialism —local government inter- vention in the marketplace to impose standards and ensure the provision of key services and basic amenities for people (what is now sometimes referred to as collective consumption). Governance thus became involved with efforts (1) to moral- ize the lives of citizens through regulating the physical and social environment, and (2) to develop a framework of welfare provision that would systematically change the conditions that caused individual impoverishment and fostered social disorder. This period of radical change attracted a variety of new, self-made entrepreneurs—merchants, manufactur- ers, building contractors, and real estate speculators—to vie for political control in order to steer the expanded range of public policies in directions suited to their own interests. In this volatile and rather confused phase of urban politics, it was increasingly apparent that the key to success was organi- zation . Political parties and trade unions became increasingly important, and they in turn fostered the emergence of new kinds of political leaders whose careers were based on close attention to the concerns of their constituents. In larger cities with sizable working-class populations, organization began to take the form of “machines” that delivered votes in return for the patronage jobs and benefits that could be granted by successful politicians. 8 Machine politics helped to ensure that patronage and corruption became firmly embedded in urban governance. Paradoxically, the corruption of the machine system helped in some ways to accelerate the modernization of cities. Machine bosses were astute enough to appreciate the general economic benefits of major infrastructure improvements, as well as the personal kudos that could be derived from being associated with them. In more pragmatic terms, the more housing codes, build- ing regulations, and municipal ordinances that were passed to regulate the emerging infrastructure, the more opportunities there were to solicit bribes in return for not enforcing them. It should be noted, though, that Southern cities were for the most part an exception to this trend toward organized machine poli- tics. Because Southern cities lagged in terms of industrializa- tion, did not attract large numbers of immigrants, and did not allow African Americans to vote, their working-class vote could not be delivered in the same way as in the industrial centers of the Northeast. Boosterism and the Politics of Reform (1875–1920) The era of the industrial city saw a struggle between the interests of ethnic and working-class groups and those of the new urban elite. Downtown business and professional interests organized themselves to restore urban rule to the “the better elements” of society and to shift the emphasis of urban government 238 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography the start that it was in their own best interests to support the ideals of the Progressive movement. Their voices were joined by those from another emergent group: social scientists and their professional organizations, who saw in the Progressive movement a ready audience for the careful documentation and analysis of every facet of urban life. At the same time, falling paper prices and technical advances in printing allowed a great expansion in the circulation of newspapers and popular mag- azines. Although the ideals of the Progressive movement did not often make for good copy, scandals, exposés, and shocking revelations about slum life did. The consequent crusades had the incidental effect of publicizing the objectives of Progressive reform. By the early years of the twentieth century, the Progressive movement had achieved some tangible success. Galveston, Texas, became the first city to be run on the business model when an emergency situation after a hurricane prompted the state legislature to replace the city council and mayor with a commission of business leaders, each of whom was respon- sible for administering a different branch of municipal affairs. This form of government was subsequently adopted on a per- manent basis. By 1915 more than 450 towns and cities had dopted the commission format of urban governance (with the mayor usually being the commissioner who is responsible for public safety). Nonpartisan, citywide balloting was meanwhile instituted in a number of cities—Akron, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Nashville being among the first. In 1908 the city manager form of government was intro- duced in Staunton, Virginia. After Dayton, Ohio, adopted it in 1914, the city manager form of government spread rapidly. The elected council and the chief elected official (e.g., mayor) are responsible for making policy, and the city manager, who is ap- pointed by the council, has full responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the government. About half of all cities in the United States now operate with a city manager. The most widespread reform between the mid-1890s and 1920, however, was the introduction of the civil service model, which embodied the principles of specialization and scientific management that were central to the ethos of the industrial era. By 1920 some form of civil service was in operation in nearly all the larger and more industrialized cities. The chief holdouts and exceptions, as in so many other aspects of urban gover- nance and politics, were Southern cities. Annexation In keeping with the spirit of boosterism and efficiency that pervaded the period, the geography of cities was transformed by an acceleration of annexation—the addition of unincorporated land into cities. Boosterism was one important motive for annexation. With the advent of streetcar systems and new developments in home construction techniques, city populations had begun to decentralize, and city pride dictated that these people be recaptured. Progressive ideals also played a part. Annexation, it was argued, created the framework for economies of scale in government—economies that would benefit both the suburbs and the central city as the costs of infrastructure provision and bureaucratic expertise were spread over a larger popula- tion. It also helped the Progressive cause that the addition of middle-class voters from outlying districts would weaken the potential strength of machine-style politics. Even more com- pelling (for the annexing governments, at least) was the im- portance of capturing the tax base represented by the growing suburbs. Annexation enabled cities to maintain, perhaps even strengthen, the delicate web of economic growth, increas- ing property values, and debt financing (Figure 10.3). Finally, real estate interests and development-related entrepreneurs FIGURE 10.5 Women in Madison, Minnesota, campaign for the prohibition of alcohol. Minnesotans ratified national prohibition in 1919 and only repealed the state’s dry laws in 1934, a year after the 21st amendment was passed. Chapter 10 • The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance 239 independent and often hostile governments (Figure 10.6). Geopolitically, the U.S.’s metropolitan areas were fragmented, and that metropolitan fragmentation undercut the ability of cen- tral city governments to deal with urban change and develop- ment even as it intensified sociospatial segregation . Metropolitan fragmentation diminished the ability of central city governments to deal with urban change and devel- opment in several ways: • The suburbanization of the middle classes reduced the pool of experienced and educated political leaders and reformers. Suburbanites with an impulse to become involved in civic affairs now did so in suburban jurisdic- tions, channeling their efforts into establishing and pre- serving a rather narrow and sectionalized version of the public interest. • The loss of a large percentage of the middle classes, meanwhile, not only directly weakened the central city’s tax base but also confined it by putting future property taxes out of reach. This loss, of course, made debt financ- ing more difficult, which impaired the ability of central city governments to provide safe and efficient settings for economic development. Without room for new develop- ment, central cities were left with a steadily aging envi- ronment requiring increasing levels of maintenance and expensive fire protection. • At the same time, the loss of middle-class people and the continuing influx of low-income migrants and immigrants forced central city governments to face even (e.g., builders and their suppliers) were strong advocates of annexation because it enhanced opportunities for speculative development. Annexation of undeveloped land was particu- larly attractive to them, because it carried the implicit promise that this land would eventually be equipped with all the utilities and amenities of the city. Suburbanites, of course, recognized that they had to pay higher taxes once annexed. They also had to share schools and municipal services with city residents, which sometimes led to conflict. As suburban speculative development increased in sophistication (with improved packages of amenities) and suburban self-consciousness became stronger, opposition to annexation increased. Citizen participation in such decisions was still some way off, however, and state legislatures gener- ally took the view that no small territory should be allowed to impede metropolitan development. It would not be long, however, before state legislatures began to retreat from forced annexation in the face of suburbia’s mounting electoral power and political influence. Egalitarian Liberalism and Metropolitan Fragmentation (1920–1945) Between 1920 and 1945 the suburbanization associated with the mass production of cars gave rise to the incorporation of suburban jurisdictions that quickly developed a politics of their own: exclusionary and competitive. An important corollary of this shift was that central cities lost not only a large section of better-educated middle-class voters and taxpayers but also a significant component of the pool of potential political lead- ers. In the early 1930s the Depression helped to generate a climate of opinion that was much more favorable to govern- mental provision of goods and services for people, resulting in an extension in the roles and legal powers of both federal and local governments and in a shift in the nature of urban politics. Beginning in the 1920s, the pace of suburbanization quickened. As we saw in Chapter 3, the combination of cheap, mass-produced cars and federal mortgage insurance policies resulted in a major shift in metropolitan spatial dynamics. For the first time, population growth in the suburbs outpaced that of the central cities in both relative and absolute terms. Middle- class suburbanites sought not only to escape from proximity to the slums of central cities but also to escape from the tax burdens of central cities and to establish a distinctive setting for governance and politics in which middle-class values and preferences might flourish. Rather than waiting to fight annexation, the people in many suburban communities took the preemptive strategy of peti- tioning for suburban incorporation for themselves (not nec- essarily as cities, since incorporation as a village was sufficient to protect their reputation, status, and independence). At the same time, state legislatures, recognizing the changing spatial distribution of voters, became increasingly reluctant to alienate suburbanites by approving annexation. Gradually, the prevail- ing legal view came to be that annexation should be voluntary, with the clear support of the residents of the affected area. The result was that central cities came to be encircled by a ring of FIGURE 10.6 The process of metropolitan growth and political fragmentation. Incorporation Annexation Suburban incorporation 240 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography case of Euclid v. Ambler (p. 78). The decision was significant because it recognized land use zoning as a proper use of the police powers of local governments. But the Court actually went further in its judgment, explicitly ruling that it was legitimate for local governments to protect the character of neighborhoods of single-family dwellings against the threat of lower property values and negative externalities associated with apartment hous- ing, commercial activities, and industrial land use. Reformers and planners endorsed this view because they felt that zoning provided a means of controlling urban growth and fostering efficient patterns of land use. But the chief motivation for introducing zoning ordinances in suburban jurisdictions was to keep out undesirable social groups by artificially raising the cost of housing. Normal practice quickly came to involve limits on the amount of new construction, minimum lot sizes, maximum densities, and bans on apartment houses. Such barriers have underpinned metropolitan socio spatial fragmentation ever since . The political independence of middle-class suburbs also con- tributed to the third consequence of metropolitan fragmentation, the fragmentation of metropolitan political life . As political scien- tist Ken Newton has observed, social groups can confront each other when they are in the same political arena, but this possibil- ity is reduced when they are separated into different jurisdictions. “Political differences are easier to express when groups occupy the same political system and share the same political institu- tions, but this is more difficult when the groups are divided by political boundaries and do not contest the same elections, do not fight for control of the same elected offices, do not contest public polities for the same political units, or do not argue about the same municipal budgets.” 10 This attenuation of democracy means in turn that community politics tends to be low-key, while the politics of the whole metropolitan area are often notable for their absence. The balkanization of the municipalities within metro politan areas means that it is difficult to make, or even think about, area-wide decisions for area-wide problems. The result is greater burdens in terms of the provision of welfare- related services and social control functions. • Central city governments continued to be responsible for providing metropolitan-wide amenities such as galleries and museums and for expenditures on roads, parking space, utilities, and policing incurred by suburban com- muters and shoppers. All these changes and trends put central city governments in an unavoidable fiscal squeeze (Figure 10.7) as revenue capacity fell while expenditure demands increased. The issues and con- flicts associated with this squeeze have shaped the politics and geography of central cities ever since. The second consequence of metropolitan fragmentation, intensified sociospatial segregation , was a result of the politi- cal independence of the middle classes, which enabled them to erect barriers to keep out lower-income people. The reasons for wanting to exclude lower-income households had to do with the perceived threat to property values and to the lifestyles and the kind of moral order the middle-class suburbanites sought to achieve in their schools and communities. The chief instrument at their disposal was exclusionary zoning . By carefully framing their land use zoning ordinances, suburban jurisdictions were able to make it difficult or impossible for “undesirables” to move in. The zoning tactics invented in San Francisco to discriminate against the Chinese and refined in New York in 1916 to discriminate against undesirable factories (p. 66) were soon deployed by subur- ban communities to exclude undesirable social groups and unwanted land uses. By the spring of 1918, New York had become a place of pilgrimage for citizens and officials wanting to find out how zoning worked. 9 In 1924 the U.S. Department of Commerce drafted a model zoning law as a basic instru- ment that could be used across the country, and in 1926 the Supreme Court gave its approval to zoning in the landmark FIGURE 10.7 The fiscal squeeze on central city governments. Metropolitan fragmentation (loss of potential tax base) Selective outmigration ofresidents and businesses Slowed growth inproperty values Falling share of retail sales Aging infrastructure Increasing crime Residual aged and impoverished population Low-income migrants and immigrants Metropolitan-wide service functions CONSTRAINTS ON REVENUES FISCAL SQUEEZE INCREASED DEMANDS ON EXPENDITURES Chapter 10 • The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance 241 slum dwellers. A fourth was federal support for home mortgage insurance, another part of the strategy to stimulate economic growth. Together, these policies and programs not only had a significant impact on patterns of urban development, but they also changed the pattern of intergovernmental relations and fostered new political alignments within cities; both of these shifts have left their mark on the trajectory and outcomes of U.S. urbanization. Meanwhile, the New Deal also fostered a new coalition within cities: that between liberal reformers and the blue- collar constituencies that had previously supported the political machines. Political scientist John Mollenkopf has argued per- suasively that this alliance represented a progrowth coalition that came to be established across most of the country and that formed the basis of modern party politics: Domestic urban development programs . . . became the principal means through which the modern Democratic party was created. Progrowth coalition building thus became a central feature of national as well as local poli- tics. National politicians and the federal government became important actors in local politics, and this in- volvement, in turn, integrated local politicians, program administrators, and program beneficiaries into a new national political framework. 11 Cities as Growth Machines and Service Providers (1945–1973) One of the immediate carryovers of New Deal politics was a slum clearance and public housing program (for details of federal urban policy and an interpretation in relation to urbanization and theories of urban change, see Chapter 11). The funding for urban renewal programs provided an ideal plat- form for the development of progrowth coalitions. During the 1950s downtown revitalization became the rallying cry for civic leaders around the country. The coalitions varied in character from city to city, but they typically included business elements (developers, bankers, and financiers), blue-collar interests (labor unions), liberal interests (planners and welfare agencies), and representatives of both local government (city managers and political leaders) and the federal government (urban renewal executives). It soon became clear that the most important people were the investors who had the economic power to organize the coalitions into would-be growth machines 12 that might restore prosperity to the central cities. Growth machines could not flourish simply on the basis of an alliance between busi- ness interests and local politicians, however. The urban renewal projects that were the preoccupation of urban governance and politics during the 1950s were carried forward within a web of interdependent interests (Figure 10.8). By the early 1960s it had become increasingly apparent that growth machines were producing results that were not entirely beneficial. Although most members of the growth machines were happy, an increasing number of citizens began to feel that the benefits of growth were being chan- neled unevenly and that their cities were being stripped of their identity as blank Modernist offices, apartment blocks, that small issues rule the day for want of a political structure that could handle anything larger. Metropolitan political fragmenta- tion has imposed a legacy of competition rather than cooperation between neighboring governments. Not only do suburban juris- dictions compete with central cities for land users with a high tax yield and low demands for public services, they also compete with one another. In addition to land use zoning, local governments seek to gain a competitive edge through their tax packages and the “bundles” of services that they offer to businesses and residents. The result has been termed fiscal mercantilism, an allusion to the fierce and unrelenting competition between trading nation-states in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The New Deal The economic distress of the Depression in the early 1930s brought about new federal roles that not only restructured the relationship between the federal government and the country’s cities but also brought about a realignment of politics at the metropolitan level. What was so significant about the changes ushered in by the New Deal was their scale. After the New Deal, cities found themselves the beneficiaries of heavy federal expenditure on a series of programs, and this fiscal relationship, in turn, brought about a close interdepen- dence between federal and local politics that lasted for almost 50 years. These developments were attributable in part to the geog- raphy of distress during the Depression years. As we have seen (p. 75), cities were certainly hit hard, and the more specialized industrial cities experienced acute economic and social dis- tress. Many city governments attempted individually to provide relief, expand public employment, and initiate public works programs. But economic recession had caused a slump in prop- erty values, which triggered a precipitous decline in city reve- nues from property taxes. Faced with the prospect of municipal bankruptcy, city governments desperately petitioned the federal government directly for help. There were two fundamental reasons for the particularly close relationship between cities and the federal government during the Depression: 1. The federal government’s acceptance of responsibility for national economic growth, the maintenance of aggregate demand, and the minimization of unemployment made cities important targets for Keynesian strategies of eco- nomic management because of the potential multiplier effects of public expenditures in metropolitan settings. 2. Urbanization had made metropolitan votes much more important to the composition of the Electoral College that determines presidential elections. The specific policies and programs introduced under the New Deal are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 11. Several dimensions were of particular importance to the political economy of urbanization. One was federal spending on public works and infrastructure, part of a broader package of measures to stimulate economic growth. A second was federal expendi- ture to provide relief from poverty and unemployment, bol- ster personal incomes, and defuse urban social unrest. A third was federal expenditure aimed at clearing slums and resettling 242 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography faced a steep increase in rents because of their forced move upmarket. Community disruption such as this eventually provoked a new kind of militant activism strong enough to change the dynamics of urban politics. Although renewal agencies had been careful to enlist support from established neighborhood organizations—indeed, they had to in order to qualify for fed- eral assistance—they found increasing opposition from new organizations and coalitions of grassroots protest groups. Remember too that by the 1960s the Baby Boom generation, with its rebellious counterculture of iconoclastic politics and a collectivist approach to the public interest, was coming and mixed-use developments came to take the place of dis- tinctive old settings. The biggest losers were the residents of neighborhoods that were officially designated as blighted (Figure 10.9). In particular, the lack of affordable units in renewal projects effectively dismantled whole communi- ties; their members were scattered across the city to make room for upscale housing and commercial land uses. By removing the structure of social and emotional support pro- vided by the neighborhood and by forcing people to rebuild their lives separately among strangers elsewhere, urban renewal imposed serious psychological costs on low-income households. At the same time, displaced families typically FIGURE 10.8 The web of growth machine politics. Newspapers (owners and editors) Utility and transportation companies Investors (speculators, developers) Organized labor Federal bureaucracy Local bureaucracy Local Political Leaders Downtown business interests (chamber of commerce, banks, major retailers) Self-employed (professionals, and exchange professionals) National politicians (White House, Senate, Congress) Local universities The Arts (museums, theaters, expositions) Professional sports FIGURE 10.9 Downtown Minneapolis in 1962. Urban renewal during the 1950s and 1960s involved the demolition of about 200 buildings across 25 blocks, representing about 40 percent of the downtown area. This photo shows the Guaranty Loan Building being razed and what were intended to be temporary surface parking lots on the sites of buildings that had already been demolished. Chapter 10 • The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance 243 My Backyard-ism) was born (though, subsequently, it was in middle-income suburbs rather than central city neighborhoods that NIMBYism and the more extreme BANANAism [Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything] came of age). Equally important, the interaction between community orga- nizations and city officials that took place over redevelopment issues resulted in much stronger local leadership networks. Black Power and Black Politics Because of the social geography of cities, black communities and black busi- nesses were typically the chief casualties of urban renewal programs. Indeed, the removal of black communities from the immediate environs of CBDs was very often an implicit goal of growth machines, because the key participants were acutely aware of the need to protect property values and to maintain an attractive environment for upscale retailing and leisure aimed at a predominantly white clientele. But African- American community activism over renewal projects has to be seen against the context of wider challenges to discrimination andsegregation. into young adulthood (p. 96). Finding themselves outside the framework of both formal politics and the web of interdepen- dent interests that constituted growth machines, community activists and their supporters came to represent the vanguard of urban social movements that epitomized the “people power” that permeated the urban politics of the 1960s. Their methods were chiefly those of door-to-door campaigns, community- wide meetings, and militant but (mostly) peaceful demonstra- tions. They were eventually successful in turning the tide of public opinion against renewal programs. Bolstered by books such as Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities , 13 antirenewal, slow-growth, community-oriented, and environmentally sensitive perspectives increasingly came to be incorporated into urban politics. Community groups gained representation on renewal agencies; accommodations began to be made; and a few out- right victories were achieved, such as the abandonment of con- struction on Milwaukee’s Park East freeway which threatened to cut off the lakefront (Urban View 10.2 entitled “Milwaukee Demolishes the ‘Freeway to Nowhere’”). NIMBYism (Not In URBAN VIEW 10.2 Milwaukee Demolishes the “Freeway to Nowhere” 14 “Taking down a freeway without help from an earthquake is remarkable,” said one of the judges from the Congress for the New Urbanism who awarded the City of Milwaukee’s Park East Redevelopment Plan a Charter Award in 2003. What was com- monly referred to as the “Park East Freeway,” however, was not really a freeway at all. It was the remnant of an abandoned plan to encircle Milwaukee’s downtown with freeways. About half of the Park East Freeway had been built when citizen protest in the 1970s halted construction of the connecting highway segments, including one that was planned to run along the lakefront. This left the Park East Freeway as a spur—a half-mile of elevated roadway—that actually limited access to the downtown. The underutilization of the freeway and the potential redevelopment opportunities of the land beneath and surrounding this freeway spur prompted the city of Milwaukee to demolish it and adopt a tax increment finance district (p. 246) to provide financing for the infrastructure needed to reconnect the land with the local street grid (Figure 10.10). FIGURE 10.10 The Park East “Freeway to Nowhere”—the remnant of an abandoned plan to encircle Milwaukee’s downtown with freeways in the 1970s—in the process of being removed in 2003 (at right); the 22-acre former Pabst Brewing Co. headquarters (behind) is being redeveloped as The Brewery, a residential, commercial, and educational complex. 244 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography registration drives to maximize black power at the ballot box. Black culture, black history, and black issues demanded—and received—respect and attention as black voters and community leaders made their presence felt in urban politics. The Struggle for Social Justice and Spatial Equity Black politics was not the only source of change and reform, however. Even as the riots and civil disorder of the 1960s were forging the bases of a new black politics, the New Deal coali- tion between urban blue-collar classes and liberal reformers was reaching maturity. President Johnson initiated a “War on Poverty” in an attempt to build the “Great Society” implicit in the New Deal vision. In 1966, Johnson created the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which was a land- mark in urban affairs because of the subsequent proliferation of national urban policies and the expansion of federal aid to cities (Chapter 11). By 1969 over 500 federal grant programs were targeted for cities, with total annual appropriations amounting to $14 billion. At the beginning of the decade, there had been only 44 such programs, with appropriations amounting to less than $4 billion. 15 The political mood fostered by these initiatives had the effect of intensifying certain long-standing issues related to metro- politan governance. One of these issues was quintessentially geog raphic in nature: the difficulty of matching the boundaries of electoral units to the shifting population distributions inherent in metropolitan growth—the malapportionment problem. Unless there is an at-large voting system, variations in the number of voters between electoral districts represent an erosion of democ- racy. To take a simple example: The influence of a single voter in a constituency of 2,000 voters is proportionally much greater than that of another voter who happens to live in a constituency of 3,500 voters. This situation is an example of malapportion- ment. It arises almost inevitably as urbanization redistributes people across the map of electoral districts from year to year; it can also arise quite deliberately if the legislative bodies that con- trol electoral boundaries are able to create larger-than-average Urbanization had exposed African Americans to the promises and frustrations of mass consumer society and to the American Dream of opportunity and social mobility. Urbanization had also brought enough African Americans to the cities for collective action to be effective. In the early 1960s this action took the form of nonviolent protest (Figure 10.11). The model had been the boycott of the bus company in Montgomery, Alabama, inspired by the personal protest of Rosa Parks in 1955 and sustained for a year by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The tactics that led the Supreme Court to eventually overturn Alabama’s segregation laws inspired boycotts, sit-ins, and demonstrations elsewhere. In 1964, after President JohnF. Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson was finally successful in getting Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed racial discrimination. The following year, Congress authorized federal agents to register voters who had been illegally kept off the electoral rolls in parts of the South. The year 1964 also marked the beginning of ghetto riots. The stress of ghetto life, exacerbated by rapidly rising but unfulfilled expectations in African-American communities and by antiblack activism (provoked by white fears about losing hegemony over schools, housing, and jobs), was sparked into violence and disorder by incidents of (white) police aggressive- ness. In 1965, Malcolm X, a leader of the militant and sepa- ratist Black Muslims, was assassinated. In 1968, Dr. King was assassinated, as was Robert Kennedy, a presidential candidate who as Attorney General in his brother’s administration had spearheaded the White House drive for civil rights legislation. The effect on black politics was decisive. Integration through nonviolent protest was displaced by self-advancement in the context of collective “black power.” Racial pride, inspired by the emergence of independent black countries in Africa, became the basis for political, social, and cultural solidarity. African-American leaders such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson organized aggressive boycotts to persuade white-owned busi- nesses to hire African Americans and to do business with black-owned businesses. At the same time, they organized overt FIGURE 10.11 Non-violent civil rights protesters on the freedom march between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. Chapter 10 • The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance 245 of government for a specific purpose such as fire protection or sewage treatment. Special districts also have the potential advantage of being customized to correspond closely to specific functional areas and, therefore, of being finely tuned to local social organization and participation. Between 1942 and 1972 the number of nonschool special districts in the United States increased from 6,299 to 23,885. By 1977 the largest 35 metro- politan areas in the United States each had an average of 293 separate jurisdictions of one kind or another (many of them with very narrow functions, such as the one created to provide for the St. Louis Zoo). 18 The increasing partitioning and layering of metropolitan space created more problems than it solved, however. Taking a metropolitan-wide view, it was increasingly apparent to many people that local autonomy and administrative conve- nience were more than offset by fiscal imbalances, inefficient and inequitable distributions of public services, the creation of complex, competing, and expensive bureaucracies, and the jux- taposition of conflicting policies. Opportunities for economies of scale and coordination in areas such as transportation, plan- ning, water supply, housing, and public health were forfeited. The sheer proliferation of governmental jurisdictions made it difficult for citizens to keep up with the politics and policies that affected them, leaving the control of many special districts to a self-selected knot of individuals and special interest groups. Together with the continuing political fragmentation at a metropolitan scale associated with the incorporation of suburban communities, these problems make it increasingly difficult to sustain the notion of metropolitan governance and management (Chapter 11). There are in fact several ways in which reforms might recapture the fit between governmental structures and socioeconomic reality. 19 These reforms include transferring key functions to a higher tier of government, insti- tuting intergovernmental agreements where a number of juris- dictions jointly provide certain services, and consolidating two or more jurisdictions into a unitary, multifunction authority. In general such reforms have been tentative and exceptional: There are simply too many vested interests in the status quo. ENTREPRENEURIAL POLITICS AND NEOLIBERALISM (1973–PRESENT) In the most recent phase in the evolution of urban governance and politics, economic restructuring and spatial reorganization have prompted major changes in the nature of urban governance and politics. Aggravated by the stagflation of the 1970s, central city decline reached the point where governments faced mount- ing expenditures on everything from infrastructure provision and repair to welfare services—while at the same time they were losing the capacity to raise money through taxes and bond issues. The result was a “fiscal crisis” that first became apparent in New York in 1975. With pressure on public spending, the quality of public services, public goods, and physical infrastruc- tures inevitably deteriorated, which in turn added even more pressure for those with money to spend it privately. People’s concern to have their children attend “good” schools intensified demand for housing in upscale developments with their own constituencies in areas where opposing political groups are known to have the support of a majority of voters. The most flagrant cases of deliberate malapportionment were in fact at the level of congressional districts and state senatorial and assembly districts, where the bias was decidedly in favor of rural districts and against metropolitan areas. In a series of decisions between 1962 and 1965 the Supreme Court ruled against the practice of malapportionment, beginning a “reapportionment revolution” that was based on the strict crite- rion that the number of voters in each constituency should vary by no more than a half a percent. In addition to representing an improvement in the natural justice of the situation, these rul- ings had the effect of adding decisively to the importance of the urban voter in national and statewide politics. The Supreme Court’s ruling did not apply to local jurisdic- tions, however, with the result that large variations (as much as 30 percent in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis) persisted in the size of the electorate from one city ward to another. This variation effectively disenfranchises large numbers of registered voters. If, as is often the case, the malapportioned group involves the central city poor, the problem assumes more serious proportions. Policies affecting rent control and waste collection and questions such as the location of undesirable land uses and facilities or the imposition of a commuter tax will be decided in favor of suburban communities. 16 A related geopolitical issue is that of gerrymandering. This occurs where a specific group or political party deliberately manipulates the spatial configuration of election boundaries in relation to known concentrations of supporters or opponents. It is quite possible to satisfy fairly strict apportionment crite- ria but still bias the outcome of election results by carefully drawing election boundaries in relation to the social ecology of the city. The problem is that it is very difficult to establish conclusive proof of gerrymandering. There is strong circum- stantial evidence, however, of gerrymandering against African- American communities. Research suggests that in cities with relatively small African-American neighborhoods the most common type of gerrymandering has involved cracked districts (in which opposition voting strength is fragmented, leaving the voters neutralized as a minority in a large number of seats). In contrast, in cities with African-American neighborhoods that would be extensive enough to warrant two or more elected representatives, it has been common for the electoral map to minimize the number of African-American majority districts, with the rest of the African-American electorate scattered across predominantly white districts; the U.S. Congressional districts of New York and Chicago, the state senatorial districts of Milwaukee and Philadelphia, and the city council districts of Atlanta have been cited as examples of these in the past. 17 Meanwhile, the spirit of local autonomy that characterized the 1960s accelerated the creation of special districts, result- ing in a confusing overlay of metropolitan jurisdictions. Special districts, such as port authorities, were seen as an attrac- tive solution to a wide range of problems because they were not subject to the statutory limitations on financial or legal powers that apply to municipalities. In particular, a community can increase its debt or tax revenue by creating an additional layer 246 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography politics as well as in law and economics journals, the traditional arguments for land use zoning—abating nuisances, creating ef- ficiencies in planning for the common good—were increasingly dismissed. Instead, zoning was portrayed as an inequitable redis- tribution of the rights to develop land. The argument began to form among libertarian theorists that municipal zoning amounts to a “taking” of property owners’ development rights that should not be allowed, or that should be compensated financially. The overall effect has been to “hollow out” the capacity of central government while forcing municipal governments to become increasingly entrepreneurial in pursuit of jobs and revenues; increasingly pro-business in terms of their expenditures; and increasingly oriented to the kind of planning that keeps property values high. Neil Brenner and Nik Theodore suggest that the implicit goal of neoliberalization at the metro- politan scale has been “to mobilize city space as an arena both for market-oriented economic growth and for elite consumption practices.” 20 As a result, planning practice has become estranged from theory and divorced from any broad sense of the public interest. Urban policy has become pragmatically tuned to eco- nomic and political constraints rather than being committed to change through progressive visions. Public-private partner- ships have become the standard vehicle for achieving change, replacing the strategic role of planning with piecemeal dealmak- ing. Planning has become increasingly geared to the needs of producers and the wants of consumers and less concerned with overarching notions of rationality or criteria of public good. Inevitably, the ascendance of neoliberalism has affected the tenor and vitality of civil society. The meaning of civil society has changed over time but is generally understood to involve all the main elements of society outside of government—the “para- political” elements that serve as mediating agencies between indi- viduals and the formal machinery of institutional politics. These include business organizations, trades unions, homeowners’ associations, and voluntary groups of all kinds, such as charities and conservation societies. Although relatively few such orga- nizations are explicitly “political” in nature, many of them are politi cized inasmuch as they occasionally pursue group activi- ties or campaigns through the medium of government. Indeed, there is a school of thought among political scientists that argues that private groups are highly influential in raising and defining issues for public debate. 21 According to this school of thought, community pre-schools and elementary schools. Increasing numbers of people began to buy private security systems, enroll their children in private extra-curricular lessons and activities, and spend time at the mall rather than the local playground. It is only human nature that people paying for private services will tend to resent paying for public services that they feel they no longer need. Also resentful of continued spending on socially and geographically redistributive programs, they began to sup- port the view of certain policy experts and politicians who were asserting that government at all levels had grown too big and too expensive. As a result, neoliberal ideologies began to per- meate urban politics. Neoliberal ideologies are predicated on a minimalist role for government, assuming the desirability of free markets as the ideal condition not only for economic orga- nization, but also for political and social life. Labor-market “flexibility” became the new conventional wisdom. The proponents of neoliberalism regard policies designed to redistribute resources to disadvantaged districts or cities as necessitating excessive taxation of wealthy people, thereby discouraging entrepreneurial leadership, reducing investment capital, and undermining productivity. If necessary, social goals and regulatory standards have to be sacrificed, it is argued, to ensure that businesspeople have the maximum lati- tude for profitability. The rising tide of economic development, the argument goes, will then float all boats, urban and rural, cen- tral city and suburban. If the tide does not happen to rise high enough in any given location, people can “vote with their feet” and move to more prosperous cities or regions of the country. So, rather than focus on metropolitan problems such as poverty, environmental degradation, and traffic congestion, urban governance became more concerned with providing a “good business climate” that might attract investment. As geographer David Harvey noted, urban governance shifted decisively from management to entrepreneurialism. The 1970s and 1980s also saw the rise of a strong libertar- ian element in U.S. political thought. Individual liberty and the sanctity of private property ownership were the cornerstones of a neoliberal ideology that sought to undermine the rationale for land use zoning. In the political climate of the 1980s, popular sup- port for progressive notions of scientific management had ebbed away, to be replaced by a greater emphasis on individual self- expression and a new resistance to central authority. In populist URBAN VIEW 10.3 Tax Increment Financing (TIF) 22 To its advocates, tax increment financing is the greatest thing to happen to cities since paved streets . . . As the Denver-based Front Range Economic Strategy Center recently noted, ‘Tax increment financing subsidies are like a development credit card for the city: Buy a project now and pay it off with future revenue.’ But as anyone who has a credit card knows, the temptation to misuse it can be strong. 23 As the federal government reduced its role in funding urban development beginning in the 1970s, and as neoliberal ideologies took hold, entrepreneurial city governments turned increasingly to tax increment financing . TIF is a mechanism used by cities to finance redevelopment efforts that is directly tied to the success of those efforts. If an area in a city can be made more attractive to private developers and new development occurs, the tax revenue collected from that area would be expected to rise. Tax increment financing taps into any increase in tax rev- enues by using the tax “increment” (the difference between the taxes after redevelopment and the expected taxes without rede- velopment) to finance the improvements and other activities that stimulated the redevelopment to occur in the first place. Chapter 10 • The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance 247 politicians and officials tend to back off until it is clear what the alignment of groups on any particular issue will be and whether any official decision-making will be required. In essence, this gives municipal governments the role of umpiring the struggle among private and partial interests, leaving them to decide the outcome of major issues in all but a formal sense. Fiscal Crisis As we have seen, metropolitan fragmentation left many cities with a legacy of chronic fiscal problems as a result of the fis- cal squeeze—between falling revenues and increasing demands on municipal expenditures (Figure 10.7). After World War II this pressure intensified, particularly in the older industrial cit- ies of the Northeast. Freeways and metropolitan sprawl drew out even more of their middle classes and employers, and with them went their tax dollars. Only a relatively small portion of the properties they left behind was replaced in urban renewal programs by newer, bigger, or more-luxurious structures. The remainder continued to deteriorate, the worst falling into a spiral of decay and abandonment (Figure 10.12). The aggregate yields of property taxes fell accordingly. Sales taxes also fell, the suburbanization of the middle-income groups having drsawn retailers along in their wake. During the 1960s retail sales in larger central cities, when adjusted for inflation, fell by between 15 and 30 percent. Meanwhile, the demand for central city ser- vices increased at an unprecedented pace. In addition to the overall trend toward providing an increased range of services that was inherent to the progrowth coalition’s welfare state, central cities faced increasing expenditures for several reasons: • Their original infrastructure of roads, sewers, water mains, bridges, and so on had reached the end of its designed Aging neighborhoods Physical deterioration Structural obsolescence Technological obsolescence Physical deterioration and decay Low-income tenants Low tax base Contagion Substandard housing Crowding Unmet maintenance Abandonment Slums FIGURE 10.12 The spiral of neighborhood decay. URBAN VIEW 10.3 Tax Increment Financing (TIF) ( continued) In U.S. states with statutes authorizing the use of TIF, originally in areas that were “blighted” but increasingly anywhere that will generate significant economic benefits, the first step for a city is to ascertain the property tax revenue that is being collected in a particular area before redevelopment. Following feasibility stud- ies and cost-benefit analyses, the city establishes a tax increment district (TID) for a specified period (often 20 years), formulates a development plan, enters into development agreements with pri- vate developers, and borrows money (through loans or by selling bonds) to use in various ways to improve the development pros- pects of that district: property acquisition, site preparation, loans to developers and new businesses, capital improvements such as new roads and street lights, and new services such as improved street cleaning and security patrols. As redevelopment occurs, tax revenues increase, and the tax above the preredevelopment property tax revenue is used to pay off the city’s loans or bonds. Although tax increment financing sounds very attractive in theory—the local government does not lose any revenue because it is assumed that the tax increment would not have occurred without the redevelopment efforts financed by that increment— it is not without potential drawbacks. Obviously, cities can find themselves in trouble if the redevelopment does not produce the estimated increment (that has been earmarked to pay off the loans or bonds). In situations where the TIF involves a general cap at pre-TIF levels on property valuations or tax assessments, other public entities that normally receive property tax revenues— school districts, special districts, the county—do not receive their part of the tax increment for the life of the TID or until the loans or bonds are paid off, even in situations where the redevelop- ment creates additional demands for their services. If TIF is used unnecessarily—in areas where redevelopment would have oc- curred in the absence of a TID—some or all of the tax increment represents revenues that the local government would have col- lected anyway and that now instead cuts into general revenue because it has to go to pay off the loans or bonds. There may also be a lack of “transparency” for ordinary citizens—because the TIF bonds are not “general obligation” bonds, voter approval is not required. This has led to concerns about high levels of TIF debt due to an overdependence on TIF by cities. But “TIF is like any other tool, useful or harmful according to how it’s used ... [like a colander] ... ‘Use it as a rain hat and it doesn’t work very well. Use it to drain spaghetti and it works just fine.’” 24 248 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography heeled suburban workforce. Industrial investments were now part of vast multilocational networks of plants, thus weakening the local multipliers from local plant investments. This export of the income benefits of local economic growth meant a con- tinuous reservoir of poor, structurally unemployed people who turned to city governments for jobs and services. On the other hand, the rising office economy of the central city required a restructuring of urban space to move people and information most efficiently. This required a massive investment in public capital for mass transit, parking, and urban renewal, [as well as] the more traditional forms of infrastructure. 25 These infrastructure investments were often effectively insulated from conflict and political debate by the new forms of admin- istration and financing that had evolved with the rise of growth machines: autonomous special districts, banker committees, and new forms of revenue and tax increment finance bond issues. As a result, two spheres of city expenditures emerged: one oriented to constructing the new infrastructure necessary for profitable private development, the other to providing ser- vices and public employment for the city’s residents. These two worlds—of social wage and social capital—were structurally separated, with the first governed by electoral politics and the excesses of patronage and the second housed in bureaucratic agencies dominated by public administrators who survived by their efficiency. 26 life of 75 to 100 years; repairs and replacements began to impose an increasing burden on city expenditures. • Rising crime rates induced corresponding increases in spending on policing, incarceration, and the courts. • Rising proportions of immigrants, the lone elderly, single-parent families, and the unemployed in older central city neighborhoods required increased expenditure on specialized public services and amenities. • The costs of federal welfare programs began to be passed on to local governments. Federal Medicaid, for example, provided free medical care for welfare-dependent people, but state governments were required to contribute 50 per- cent of the costs. It did not take long for states to begin to pass along part of this burden to their cities. The fiscal problems of U.S. cities in the 1970s were rooted, then, in a long-standing and intensifying fiscal squeeze. But the fiscal squeeze on its own did not add up to crisis. What pushed the fiscal squeeze to the edge of crisis was the transition that had taken place in the restructuring of metropolitan economic geography and, with this restructuring, a shift in the political economy of central cities: On the one hand, new economic growth in the cen- tral cities did not provide sufficient employment and income benefits to the central city’s residents. Industrial jobs were taken by suburbanized union workers. Construction work was dominated by restrictive craft unions. And the new office econ- omy was drawing on the better educated, better URBAN VIEW 10.4 The Fiscal Squeeze and U.S. Central Cities New York City was the first to reach the crisis point of fiscal distress. Between 1965 and 1970 the city’s budget had doubled, as had the number of people on its welfare rolls. By 1975 its accumulated operating deficit was $2.5 billion and it faced an unfunded budget gap that could not be filled by borrowing. In the end, New York was bailed out not by the federal govern- ment but by the New York State Legislature, which turned over control of the city’s finances to an Emergency Financial Control Board, headed by the governor and dominated by representa- tives of the major banks. It also created the Municipal Assistance Corporation (which inevitably came to be referred to as Big MAC) to lend New York City the funds it needed to service its debts. These institutions imposed a number of austerity mea- sures that were to foreshadow the subsequent retrenchment of other local governments.Between 1975 and 1978 New York laid off more than 60,000 public employees, initiated salary rollbacks and wage freezes, established user fees for some municipal services, reduced bud- get allocations, and consolidated or eliminated several munici- pal departments. Meanwhile, banking interests, appalled at the scale of the problem, persuaded a reluctant federal government to make loans and guarantees available. It did so, making it very clear that the sole reason was to avoid city bankruptcies that could trigger a national banking crisis. This development was important because it refocused the public interest once more in terms of economics, leaving the interpretation of urban affairs to the representatives of banks, real estate investors, and corporate financiers. New York’s experience was meanwhile repeated, although in somewhat less dramatic fashion, in a number of cities, including Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, and St.Louis. A combination of bailouts, retrenchment, and a national eco- nomic recovery put an end to the crisis, but the fiscal squeeze has persisted, leaving central cities vulnerable. 27 In 1991, for example, Bridgeport, Connecticut, was threatened with bank- ruptcy, as was Chelsea (in the Boston metropolitan area). In Philadelphia the city treasury was so short of cash that weekly meetings were convened to decide which bills could be paid. About 25 years after its first crisis, New York was again facing a growing deficit and another crisis, even though its role as a pro- vider of services had by then become secondary to its role as fa- cilitator of economic development. This time, the city’s enormous Chapter 10 • The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance 249 21/2 limited property taxes to 2.5 percent of assessed real estate value. Similar proposals were passed in Idaho and Nevada. In Arizona, Hawaii, Michigan, and Texas, voters approved bills that severely limited public spending, and everywhere there was increasing reluctance to sanction bond issues for munici- pal development. In 1980, Ronald Reagan, who had cham- pioned this new conservatism as governor of California, was elected president, marking the success of the new alliance at the national level. The result was that cities were forced to reevaluate their roles, regardless of whether they were in fiscal trouble. The out- come of this reevaluation was a general fiscal retrenchment in service provision. In Oakland, for example, the city govern- ment responded to the neoliberalism imposed by Proposition 13 by closing a fire station and four branch libraries; reducing the police department’s budget for criminal investigations, park maintenance, after-school recreation programs, library and museum hours, and street sweeping and maintenance; and eliminating over 100 administrative positions. 30 By the mid- 1980s, many older central cities had cut the number of munici- pal employees by 10 to 15 percent. Boston and Cincinnati had cut their workforce by more than 20 percent, while St. Louis had eliminated more than 40 percent of its employees. Other trends accompanied this sort of retrenchment as it was replicated across the country. Cost efficiency in service delivery and public administration came to be emphasized at the expense of need, spatial equity, and social justice. Voluntarism came to be an important means of maintaining service provision, particu- larly in relation to neighborhood security, elementary education, and library services. But voluntarism is an uneven phenomenon, and for the most part it only served to underline the increas- ing metropolitan sociospatial polarization and fragmentation. 31 Other aspects of retrenchment included cost-recovery programs, coproduction arrangements (where the public sector works with nonprofit organizations), and “intensification” (increas- ing labor productivity through managerial and organizational changes). Perhaps the most important single trend in the United States, however, was that of the privatization of public services (as opposed to that privatization that involves selling off public assets, which is more common in other countries), because it reflected so clearly the new ethos of urban governance. Fiscal Retrenchment and Neoliberalism The fiscal well-being of central cities was not the only aspect of urban governance and politics to be affected by the economic and metropolitan restructuring that began in the mid-1970s. The political economy as a whole was altered beyond recogni- tion within just a few years. Partly in response to longer-term trends in the economy and society and partly in response to the jarring economic and fiscal experiences of the mid-1970s, a new conservatism—neoliberalism—emerged in local politics. This was a politics that was based on freeing up the economy for recovery by reducing government regulation and control and lowering taxes by cutting back on expenditures for public ser- vices. This neoliberalism was widely supported by middle-class voters who were seeing their incomes stagnating after years of steady growth and who had come to believe in the argument that all they had been given in return for their tax dollars was a bloated group of meddlesome and inefficient bureaucrats and an army of welfare “freeloaders.” Neoliberalism was also, of course, supported by the entire spectrum of the business com- munity, which naturally saw lower taxes and less regulation as catalysts for renewed profitability. So a new political alliance was born, between private busi- ness interests and the middle income groups. It was an alliance that met relatively little opposition. The circumstances of its creation had damaged its would-be opponents. Working-class solidarity, and organized labor in particular, had been seriously weakened by deindustrialization and the associated changes in economic geography. Corporate restructuring in an ever more centralized and internationalized economy increasingly out- maneuvered workers and left them to operate in local arenas, while companies were able to switch production and invest- ment between cities, regions, and countries. 29 The progressive element of the middle income groups had been demoralized by the obvious failures of welfare provision and Modernist tech- nocratic reform to combat crime, poverty, and environmental degradation. It had also been weakened by the defections of people who no longer felt as progressive once they personally began to feel the pinch of economic recession. The first and most striking evidence of the new alliance was manifest in “taxpayer revolts.” In California, Proposition 13 cut property taxes by 60 percent. In Massachusetts, Proposition URBAN VIEW 10.4 The Fiscal Squeeze and U.S. Central Cities ( continued) budget gap—around $6 billion in 2002—was partly the result of simultaneous events outside the city’s control—the September11 attacks, the decline of the stock market, the national recession, and the problems and scandals of the financial industry that is so crucial to New York’s economy. Nevertheless, the federal govern- ment was no more inclined to help (other than 9/11 reparations) than it was in 1975. The City closed the budget gap with drastic measures such as an 18.5 percent property tax hike and enjoyed economic recovery until the recession hit in late 2007. Since then, cities across the country have struggled to overcome the fiscal squeeze and fund even the most basic of services. New York City’s budget gaps are projected to be $3.6 billion, $6 billion, and $6.6 billion for 2012, 2013, and 2014 respectively. Further cutbacks will adversely affect the City’s already trimmed down budgets for construction and maintenance of City-owned buildings, pensions, and health benefits for City workers, and City support for groups that shelter the homeless, investigate domestic abuse, and provide families with daycare. 28 250 Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography plants. With the introduction in 1981 of tax incentives for busi- nesses involved in privatization, the interest of major engi- neering companies intensified. By 1985, 15 municipalities had opted for privatized wastewater projects. By 1988 one-third of the local governments in a national survey had privatized some roads, bridges, or tunnels. 34 Almost as many had privatized water supplies, nearly one-quarter had privatized water treat- ment facilities, and almost one-fifth had privatized municipal buildings or garages. The privatization of services has since accelerated to reach a significant level. Surveys of local governments suggest that more than 80 percent of U.S. cities now use some form of privatization in their service provision. The use of contract- ing by local governments varies significantly depending on the service, however. More than 50 percent of local governments contract out commercial waste collection, vehicle towing and storage, legal services, and the operation of hospitals, daycare facilities, and homeless shelters. 35 Other services that are con- tracted privately on a significant scale include domestic waste and recycling collection, bus and ambulance operations and maintenance, street repair, street lighting, data processing, landscaping, and vehicle fleet repair. Concerns about quality and public accountability make contracting out other kinds of government services more difficult. Less than 5 percent of local governments contract out crime prevention, police and fire communications, fire prevention and suppression, traffic con- trol and parking enforcement, sanitary inspection, or prison and jail services. Meanwhile, the retrenchment of public-sector activities and the unwillingness and inability of urban governments to take responsibility for new or expanded service needs caused another kind of privatization to emerge: the provision of services by the private sector without contracting or formally cooperating with the public sector . The most striking example of private-sector services is in the area of security: private security “officers” patrol shopping malls and office build- ings, and private security forces protect upscale residential developments. Some serious questions have been raised concerning the effectiveness and the desirability of privatization. In particular, it remains to be seen whether private contractors will be both able and willing to keep costs down. The obvious danger, of course, is replacing a public monopoly with a private monopoly. There are a number of causes for concern about privatization, including: 36 1. “Low-balling,” in which contractors initially bid lower than their actual costs to secure a contract and then, after the city disbands its own delivery system, raise the price to recover their initial costs and establish a monopoly. 2. Disruption of service resulting from bankruptcy or labor disputes. Clauses can be included in privatization contracts that hold the contractor liable for the remain- der of the contract term, but the problem remains as to how cities might deal with disruption of service if they The Privatized City 32 In 1988 the Report of the President’s Commission on Privatization concluded that privatization “may well be seen by future historians as one of the most important developments in American political and economic life in the late 20th cen- tury.” 33 Because the commission was reporting to the Reagan administration, its conclusions are perhaps not surprising. There is, nevertheless, some substance to support the conclu- sion. The Council of State Governments has estimated that whereas under $30 billion of services were furnished annually by the private sector in the 1970s, the figure had risen to over $80 billion by the early 1980s and $150 billion by the 1990s, when the Local Government Center’s database included over 35,000 specific instances of state or local privatization. These data reflect a trend that has to be seen in terms of the perceived benefits for both the public and the private sector. The particular advantages of privatization as seen by city governments are: • reducing direct municipal outlays. • sharing financial risks with the private sector. • accessing skilled staff not available in the public sector. • reducing costs for taxpayers through private-sector effi-ciencies such as savings in construction costs and time, operational productivity, and economies of scale. • maintaining service levels with no increases in tax rates or user fees. • improving service quality. • increasing flexibility from the reduction in bureaucratic complexity and procedures. For private companies, privatization has provided new markets, new outlets for investment capital, and new entrepre- neurial opportunities. Timing is of critical importance here. It was no coincidence that private capital was available for pub- lic-private partnerships just as cities were facing retrenchment and fiscal stress: Both were the product of a phase of over- accumulation. In short, changing circumstances in international, national, and real estate markets brought the private sector to the public sector as much as ideological and fiscal shifts brought the public sector to the private sector . In the United States privatization has been most pronounced in relation to infrastructure projects. Both federal and local governments have become increasingly aware of the extent of infrastructure decay and deficit and its implications for metropolitan economic development. Privatization has been seen as a means of funding projects that might otherwise have been left on the drawing board. Overall, the provision of basic public works facilities accounts for the greatest dollar vol- ume of privatization activity. The most important projects have been large-scale schemes for wastewater and sewage handling, water provision, resource recovery, and waste-to-energy plants. During the 1970s, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) increased water quality standards, many cities turned to the private sector to operate and maintain such Chapter 10 • The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance 251 the color of Christmas tree lights, and the maximum length of stay for guests. Most limit the number and types of pets that residents may keep, as well as the kinds of activities that are allowed in gardens, driveways, streets, and public spaces, and whether any sort of business can be conducted from the home. Under U.S. law, servitude regimes have to be taken very seri- ously, because if homeowner associations do not enforce them to the letter they can be accused of being arbitrary and capri- cious. Homeowner associations have the power to levy fines to bring transgressors into compliance. They also have the power to obtain a lien on the property of recalcitrant homeowners and can even threaten foreclosure. As a result, the master-planned developments of contempo- rary suburbia are culturally hermetic spaces, “purified” arenas of social reproduction, characterized by ostentatious consump- tion and social segregation. Private master-planned commu- nities have an internal politics characterized by NIMBYism and growth/slow-growth/no-growth disputes. Sociologist Setha Low suggests that common interest communities, with weak social ties and diffuse interpersonal associations among homogenous populations, promote “moral minimalism”—a reluctance to get personally involved in any kind of political dispute. Only when residents can be assured that someone else will bear the burden of moral authority, enabling them to re- main anonymous and uninvolved, are they likely to participate in any kind of local politics. 38 NIMBYism, Smart Growth, and the Geopolitics of Suburbia NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”) squabbles are a chronic aspect of local politics throughout suburbia. Suburban homeowners are especially conservative because what is typically their single largest asset—their home—is always linked to the fate of their neighborhood. The result is that they tend always to vote in local politics in the interest of resisting change that might affect their neighborhood. When changes to the physical or social fabric of a neighborhood are perceived by more than a handful of resi- dents to threaten property values—or, more euphemistically, the “character” of a neighborhood—the flashpoints for NIMBY squabbles become politicized. Voters, faced with the prospect of some unwanted change, are typically quick off the mark with placards, leaflets, and mobilization e-mails with upper-case phrases and multiple exclamation points for emphasis. At issue, almost always, are property values and the closely associated concerns of aesthetics and social exclusion. The appetite for bigness and bling that has led to the insertion of big new homes—“McMansions”—in place of older homes in established neighborhoods, for example, has led not only to NIMBY bickering among neighbors but also to politi- cal campaigns aimed at changes in zoning ordinances. Thus, for example, Chevy Chase, Maryland, an upscale suburb of Washington, D.C., imposed a six-month moratorium on home construction in 2005 to make time to examine how to deal with the proliferation of oversized single-family houses on themselves have relinquished the capacity to provide theservice. 3. The replacement of “primary” jobs in the public sector by “secondary” jobs in the private sector, with women and minorities in particular experiencing the effects of less security, lower pay, and fewer benefits. The effects of privatization on career civil servants could include career disruption and dislocation and reduced morale and productivity. 4. The risk of corruption associated with the inter- dependence of leading bureaucrats, politicians, and local contractors. 5. The emphasis on cost efficiency implicit in privatization; not a bad thing in itself, but cause for concern in that it reinforces the idea of a rather narrowly defined public interest. Privatopia The politics of privatism are perhaps most starkly obvious in the master-planned speculative devel- opments of suburbia that are controlled by homeowner as- sociations (also known as common interest communities) that effectively operate as private governments. At least half of all housing currently on the market in the fifty largest metropolitan areas and nearly all new residential develop- ment in California, Florida, New York, Texas, and suburban Washington, D.C., is subject to mandatory governance by a homeowners’ association. In Arizona, Pima County alone has more than 800 associations representing about 100,000 homeowners. They have been characterized as fragmented “privatopias,” in which “the dominant ideology is priva- tism; where contract law is the supreme authority; where property rights and property values are the focus of com- munity life; and where homogeneity, exclusiveness, and exclusion are the foundation of social organization.” 37 Privatopias are premium spaces designed to accommodate affluent households in enclaves that are legally controlled by “servitude regimes” (i.e., covenants, controls, and restric- tions that regulate both the physical environment and social comportment). Servitude regimes are typically designed by developers not only to preserve landscaping and maintain the integrity of urban design but also to control the details of resi- dents’ homes and their personal behavior. Developers thus become benevolent dictators, imposing their framework on the landscapes and communities of master-planned suburbs. For consumers, these servitude regimes offer a means of narrowing uncertainty, protecting equity values, and, above all, establishing the physical framework for the material consump- tion that constitutes their lifestyle. Little is left to chance, with covenants, controls, and restrictions specifying what is and what is not allowed in terms of garden fences, decks, hot tubs, and clotheslines, the color of doors and mailboxes, and so on. Most ban all signs except for real estate placards, and restrict what kind of vehicles can be parked outside, even in driveways; some even prescribe how long garage d