Geography 8 - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Geography 8

National Context: the North American Urban SystemSlide2

Keywords

Urban system

Urban hierarchy

Central place theory

Normative

Rank-size rule

Primate City

Vance—mercantile cities model

Erie Canal

Gateway city—

entrepot

American manufacturing belt

The “Cheap Oil Epoch”

Sunbelt

vs

Rustbelt

Principle of initial advantage—

Pred’s

model of cumulative causation Slide3

How do we understand where big cities are located in a country or region?

Two theories

Walter

Christaller’s

Central Place Theory

Rank-Size Rule TheorySlide4

Walter

Christaller

Famous but controversial

Very mathematically complicated and abstract

Was a Nazi, then after the war part of the German Communist Party

Became influential after the 1960sSlide5

Quantitative, normative social science

Christaller’s

approach

It has been the long preferred method, especially in economics

No effort to describe the real-world

Instead, creates a theoretical, pretend world

A flat, featureless isotropic plain

Has homogenous spatial density

Only thing that differs from one place to another is distance

AssumesCities exist only as a meeting place for face-to-face retail tradePeople produce goods at home (farm) and take to market for exchangeApplication Used for planning—to create an optimal urban-economic geographyDesign that will minimize distance of region’s inhabitants in their regular travel to town to buy & sellChristaller applied this to the Polish territories the Nazis had invadedSlide6

Christaller’s Perfect Hierarchical Symmetry:

--cities will vary in size and be perfectly arranged in a hierarchical symmetry

--many small towns (limited function—buy daily bread)

--fewer medium sized towns (maybe sells clothes AND bread)

--fewer cities as they get bigger, but more diverse offerings

--only 1 big city (with specialized goods…jewelry) --all exist in a hexagon with the center of the hexagon being the lowest order town (the bread only town) --the hexagon is the territory served by the higher order citySlide7

Rank

MSA

Actual

Predicted

1

New York

21.2 m

2

Los Angeles

16.410.6

3

Chicago

9.2

7.1

4Washington7.65.35SanFrancisco74.26Philadelphia6.23.57Boston5.838Detroit5.52.69Dallas5.22.410Houston4.72.150Richmond997 k424 k100Canton407212200Wheeling153107

CountryBiggestAgglomeration1 -2 -3Philip.Manila100-11-9ArgentinBuenos Aires100-11-10FranceParis100-14-14S.KoreaSeoul100-17-13CongoKinshasa100-18-18MexicoMexico City100-19-17IndonesJakarta100-19-18IranTehran100-22-16UKLondon100-22-21BangladDacca100-32-12USANew York100-83-49Rank-Size100-50-33

Rank-Size Rule Pop X = Pop 1/Rank X Slide8

The North American Urban Model

Most normative models, like Central Place Theory fall short in describing/explaining North American cities

This is because they emphasize

local trade

But a driving force for many cities around the world is

long-distance trade

Many primate cities have grown

because of

connections across continents: London, Istanbul, etc.

Jay Vance: UC Berkeley geographer, created a new model to explain NA urbanism: Mercantile ModelSaid that the uniqueness of colonial experience shaped North American cities:They were entrepots, or gateway portsThey funneled “staple” commodities—fur, fish, lumber, tobaccoEventually became connected to the interior as wellSlide9

The North American Urban Model cont.

Vance’s model explains the growth of North American cities until the early 1800s

Cities grow first along coasts and port locations

Cities eventually grow along connections to the rich interior—railway, rivers, canals

Borhert

& Wyckoff explain growth of cities after early 1800s

Changes in transportation and communication systems reshape the American urban system

First—integration of the railroad network

Second—emergence of cars and airplanes

Most recently—globalizing trends associated with mobile telecommunicationsSlide10

There are five stages to these changes:

1600s

-

1830s: emphasis on mercantile ports (Vance)

1830s

-

1870s: railroad, early industrialization, some frontier gateways

1870s-1920s: advanced industry, more national integration

1920s

-1970s: big changes: cars, airplanes and a decentralization1970s-Present: globalization—telecommunications, fragmentationSlide11

Stage 1: 1600s-1830s

Montreal

Boston

New York

Philly

Baltimore

New Orleans

1600s-1830s: colonial outposts.

Early 1800s: gateway ports

--first, natural harbors

--later, access to continental interior and rich Mississippi Valley

--but….access to the Mississippi Valley is blocked by….? --Most successful cities are: *New York * Baltimore *New OrleansSlide12

Stage 2: 1830s-1870s

Cinn

.

Pitt

St.Louis

New Orleans

Chicago

Gateway port cities don’t disappear—still have largest populations from 1790-1890.

New cities burst onto scene—they are close to rivers and canals of the Mississippi River.

Ohio River—Cincinnati & Pittsburgh

Mississippi River—St. Louis & new Orleans

Post Civil-War: Railroad beats out Rivers

Now it’s all about Chicago—king of the rail system.

Waterfront, but not what gave it its advantage.

“Funnel Point”, most long-distance RRs pass through1890—Chicago is U.S.’s 2nd city, rivers lose outSlide13

Stage 3: 1870s

–

1920s

AMB

AMB: American Manufacturing Belt—east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio.

Chicago is the center of this nationally integrated urban network.

Even West & South begin to develop cities as they become connected by RR to industrial Northeast.

Shift from local production/consumption to national.

Nature’s Metropolis, Phillip

Armour

, Richard Sears.

NE still dominates:

1910, NE 75% urbanized, South 28% urbanized and West & Midwest barely 50% urbanized.Slide14

20

th

Century

Big changes for the U.S.

Great Depression

WWII

Rise of the Sunbelt, decline of AMB Decline of Fordist industries Rise of aerospace technopolesEra of cheap oilFederal gov’t policies

Federal defense spendingSlide15

You might ask why the cities of the American Manufacturing Belt (AMB) endure

?

Initial

Advantage

Allen

Pred

, UC Berkeley geographer

Argued : cumulative

causation

See this with Los Angeles too