Unit 6 - Urban Landscape

Question for the video

Turn standards into questions

Explain the factors that initiate and drive urbanization and suburbanization.

• Site and situation influence the origin, function, and growth of cities.

• Transportation and communication have facilitated urbanization (e.g., Borchert’s epochs of urban growth) and suburbanization.

• Improvements in agriculture and transportation, population growth, migration, economic development, and government policies influence urbanization.

• World cities function at the top of the world’s urban hierarchy and drive globalization.

• Megacities are rapidly increasing in countries of the periphery and semi-periphery.

• Megacities and world cities experience economic, social, political, and environmental challenges.

Apply models to explain the hierarchy and interaction patterns of urban settlements.

• Models that are useful for explaining the distribution and size of cities include the rank-size rule, the law of the primate city, and Christaller’s central place theory.

• The gravity model is useful in explaining interactions among networks of cities.

Explain the models of internal city structure and urban development.

• Classic models that are useful for explaining the internal structures of cities and urban development are the Burgess concentric-zone model, the Hoyt sector model, and the Harris– Ullman multiple-nuclei model.

• The galactic city model is useful for explaining internal structures and urban development within metropolitan areas.

• World-regional models (e.g., Latin America, Africa) are useful (with limitations) for explaining land use and urban development.

Analyze residential land use in terms of low-, medium-, and high-density housing.

• Residential buildings and patterns of land use reflect a city’s culture, technological capabilities, and cycles of development.

Evaluate the infrastructure of cities.

• Economic development and interconnection within a metropolitan area are dependent upon the location and quality of infrastructure (e.g., public transportation, airports, roads, communication systems, water and sewer systems).

Explain the planning and design issues and political organization of urban areas.

• Sustainable design initiatives include walkable mixed-use commercial and residential areas and smart-growth policies (e.g., new urbanism, greenbelts, slow-growth cities).

• Functional and geographic fragmentation of governments presents challenges in addressing urban issues.

Analyze the demographic composition and population characteristics of cities using quantitative and qualitative data.

• Quantitative information about a city’s population is provided by census and survey data.

• Qualitative data from field studies and narratives provide information about individual attitudes toward urban change.

Evaluate problems and solutions associated with growth and decline within urban areas.

• Economic and social problems associated with the growth and decline of urban communities include housing and insurance discrimination, housing affordability, access to food stores and public services, disamenity zones, zones of abandonment, and gentrification.

Evaluate problems associated with urban sustainability.

• Land use and environmental problems associated with the growth and decline of urban communities include suburban sprawl, sanitation, air and water quality, remediation and redevelopment of brown fields, farmland protection, and energy use.