How Are Cities Organized? Crash Course Geography #46
TLDRThis video explores how cities are complex, living ecosystems that have evolved over time. It looks at different models of urban structure and growth, using early 20th century Chicago and medieval Moroccan city Fez as examples. It discusses how transportation innovations, economic shifts, climate, culture and other factors shape a city's layout and neighborhoods. Overall it aims to show how 'reading' the geography of a city can reveal its unique history and internal social dynamics, which city planning processes grapple with.
Takeaways
- 😀 Cities have distinct soundscapes and streetscapes that give clues about their culture and history
- 🏙️ Urbanization changes a city's economic activities, technology use, population, and physical layout
- 📉 Models like the Concentric Zone Model simplify urban theories but don't perfectly describe real cities
- 🛣️ Transportation innovations strongly impact a city's form and land use by shaping density and access
- 🏘️ Many North American cities have gone through phases of development that shaped their current form
- 🌆 A city's layout and buildings adapt to climate, environment, and cultural values of its inhabitants
- 👥 The character of urban spaces comes from how people modify them to suit their needs
- 🌃 Cities have complex ecosystems with interactions around space, access, convenience, and social patterns
- 🗺️ Each city has a distinct internal geography that arises from these dynamic processes
- 😊 Understanding the history and planning of cities helps address urban problems
Q & A
What are some distinguishing features of the soundscape of a city?
-Distinguishing features of a city's soundscape include the rumbling of streetcars, honking cars, wailing sirens, the tinkling of fountains, and the general buzz of people going about their business.
How do shifts in economic activity, technology, and population affect urbanization?
-Shifts in these areas lead to changes in how cities grow and develop over time. For example, the script mentions how Tokyo transformed from a small fishing village to a major metropolis and how increased remote work has changed cities in the last couple years.
What is a model in geography and how is it used to study cities?
-A model in geography summarizes a theory and simplifies complex realities to help explain patterns seen in the world. Models like the Concentric Zone Model and Central Place Theory are used to study and conceptualize elements of urban form and structure.
What are some key differences between North American and North African city design and layout?
-North American cities often have wide, straight streets laid out in grids, while North African cities like Fez have narrow, winding streets, alleyways and covered passages to maximize shade. Courtyard homes are also more common in North Africa due to cultural values around privacy.
What is invasion and succession in regards to cities?
-Invasion and succession refers to the process by which neighborhoods change over time as one social or ethnic group moves in and takes over from another group.
How did suburbanization after WWII transform North American cities?
-There was an explosion of low-density, sprawling, car-dependent suburban growth around cities. Suburbs grew much faster than central cities and transportation innovations allowed new living and working patterns.
What is a polycentric metropolitan area?
-A polycentric metro area is one where suburbs serve many economic functions, with multiple strong employment centers outside of the downtown.
How do transportation systems affect urban form and land use?
-Innovations in transportation are a major factor shaping urban form and land use since they control population density and accessibility.
What is the process by which a city's history is imprinted on its layout?
-As a city grows, each new historical phase brings shifts in processes and relationships that produce distinct patterns of houses, streets, buildings etc. These are imprinted on the city through changes in size, shape, organization.
How do social and cultural factors influence urban geography?
-Aspects like privacy values shape neighborhood layouts. People also compete for space and modify environments to suit their needs, creating complex social dynamics.
Outlines
😊 A City's Unique Story
Paragraph 1 introduces the concept that cities have unique stories that can be 'read' through their soundscapes, streetscapes, neighborhoods, streets, and other elements that provide clues about the city's culture and history. It mentions how urbanization shapes cities over time and states that internal structure and land use patterns also change. The overall theme is that cities are complex entities with distinct identities that have formed over time.
🏙️ Stages of City Growth
Paragraph 2 discusses how desirable central locations formed in cities due to transportation route convergence. It traces city growth through various historical phases, each bringing new urban processes and relationships that produce specific patterns of form, size, shape, layout, and land use. Key stages outlined include early colonial ports, industrialization and factory growth, suburbanization, and polycentric metro regions.
😮 Adapting Cities to Climate
Paragraph 3 explores how climate and environment shape city design, contrasting North American and European grid layouts with the compact, dense layout of Fez, Morocco. Fez adapted to hot, dry conditions and earthquakes through features like narrow streets, dead-ends, small windows, and courtyards to maximize shade, privacy, and earthquake resilience.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡urbanization
💡model
💡transportation
💡suburbanization
💡land use
💡urban form
💡squatter settlements
💡city planning
💡colonial cities
💡earthquake proofing
Highlights
Cities pulse with movement – the back and forth of people going about their business and the incessant visible and invisible flow of money, information, ideas, goods, energy, and more.
Its neighborhoods give us clues about who lives there and the sorts of work people do. Empty or full streets tell us about life there.
Each new phase of a city brings new processes and relationships that produced specific patterns of urban form, or the city’s size and shape and the arrangement of its houses, streets, buildings, and open spaces.
In these industrial cities, a patchwork of ethnic communities ended up encircling the central business district. Though over time there’s been a constant sorting and resorting of residents.
The ring of suburbs grew much faster than the central city. Today they are sprawling, low density and car dependent areas at the fringes of metropolitan areas.
In fact many researchers think that innovations and changes in transportation systems are the most significant factor in deciding urban form and land use because they control how close people live together and how much land they take up.
Today’s North American cities are polycentric metropolitan structures which means the suburbs are not just bedroom communities for those who work in downtowns. They’re strong employment centers that serve many economic functions in their regions.
Clearly we can’t build cities the same way in every climate or environment.
In a hot dry climate, these urban design principles were a practical response to intense heat and sunlight.
The result was compact, highly dense neighborhoods with a continuous layout of buildings which minimized how much land was used and helped foster a sense of community.
The character of urban spaces comes from the people who live and work in it as they modify their physical and social environments to suit their needs and values.
Cities are living, breathing ecosystems where life plays out as a complex dance of interactions, including competition for space, matters of accessibility and convenience, or social patterns that influence how we relate to one another in a shared environment.
The nature of these problems and how they are addressed through the formal process of city planning is a theme we’ll pick up next time.
We encourage you to learn about the history of the place you call home through resources like native-land.ca and by engaging with your local Indigenous and Aboriginal nations through the websites and resources they provide.
Transcripts
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