Understanding Urbanization and Cultural Landscapes

Posted on Jun 6, 2025 in Geography

Lecture 10


Popular Culture: The practices, attitudes, beliefs, traits, and preferences held in common by large numbers of people who are otherwise heterogeneous.
Food, Fashion, Technology
Cultural Groups: Associated with particular foods.
Landscape: The visible human imprint on the land.
Natural/Physical Environment
Human Environment: Urban, rural, suburban, etc.
Cultural Landscape: The outcome of interactions between people (societies) and their environments; a result of cultural adaptation.


Lecture 10
Culture: The ‘way of life’ of a group of people. Each cultural group adapts (cultural adaptation) to their local environment in different ways, e.g., new languages (or dialects or accents), new religions, new ways of dress.
Many Forms of Settlement: e.g., rural and urban: Many varieties of both of these, e.g., rural hamlets, towns, cities, mega-cities, etc.
Urban: “Built up”, large population, densely settled.
Rural Settlement Patterns: 1) Dispersed Settlement: Typically looks like isolated farmsteads, connected to agricultural activity and land ownership. Consider the North American pioneer (settler-colonial) experience. 2) Clustered Settlement: Also known as nucleated (clustered) rural settlement. The first cities were merely rural (agricultural) nucleated settlements. Typically looks like hamlets, villages, towns, etc. Varying models, sizes.
Rural Settlement Issues: Depopulation: Industrialization pulls people to cities for new types of work. Farm depopulation via mechanization and industrialization. Resource and employment base (factories, mines, mills, etc.) close up or relocate. Regional economic centers draw people in. Youth Outward Migration Service Deserts / Aging Populations: School, service center closures, retail, capital flight, hospital, health care access for people of all ages.
Greenbelt: A planned area of open, rural (and sometimes natural) land surrounding an urban area; an area where urban development is restricted.

A tactic to control urban sprawl. Newer housing forms: subdivisions and gated communities. The result: How are some repopulating rural places changing? Newer Housing Forms: • Subdivisions • Gated communities. Rapid Development: Pressures on municipal governments • Transit, streetlights, sewage, policing… Changing Populations, Cultural Mixing: • Aging populations, young families, hipster-hobby farmers. Changing way of life?

Lecture 12

Urban Area: The spatial extent of the built-up area surrounding and including an incorporated municipality, such as a city.
Two typical criteria: 1) Demographic: Exceeding some threshold of population and/or density. 2) Economic: The presence/absence of economic activities (i.e., mining, agriculture, or finance and manufacturing). Some variations from around the world.

Urbanization happens in different places at different times: • Canada and other ‘Western’ countries (19th & 20th centuries) • China, India, and the developing world (now).

Urban change is understood with respect to two dimensions of growth: Relative and absolute growth. Urbanization: An increase in the proportion of the population living in urban areas; a fundamental re-organization of human society; the transformation of the population from rural to urban status. Give a picture of some rural farmers to set up the next slide. Imagine: A very rural country with thousands of people moving to cities each year.
Canada, U.S., Brazil, Western Europe, etc.: > 80% China, India, South-East Asia, Africa, etc.: < 60%.

North America, Europe, Oceania, Japan, etc.: > 75% Latin America, plus some others: > 75% • Africa (40%), Asia (48%).
Urbanism: The urban way of life; increasingly complex social and economic organization as a result of increasing population size, density, and heterogeneity. • For earlier urban scholars: Associated with a declining sense of community. • Is there something fundamental about urban living, no matter where you go? • Recall: the urban way of life (vs. rural life). • Consider: attitudes, values, patterns of behavior, etc. Urbanism is an outcome of the process of urbanization.
Change is understood with respect to two dimensions of growth: Relative and absolute growth. Urban growth: An increase in the absolute size of an urban area/city. • Key measure: An increase in the number of people. • Alternate measure: An increase in the total area of land.
Population growth is most prevalent in LDW urban settlements. Other than a definitional difference, is there something truly different about these types of settlements?
Megacity: A city with a population of 10 million or more. Since the mid-20th century, the proportion of cities in the MDW has declined significantly. • MDW: 100% → 15% → 16%. • The largest cities are now concentrated in the LDW.
Only 5 of the 33 megacities in 2018 were in the More Developed World.
The Concentric Zone Model, in detail: The Concentric Zone Model: Ernest Burgess theorizes how residential neighborhoods come to be associated with particular social groups (economic, cultural, etc.). A spatial relationship exists between a household’s socio-economic status (i.e., income) and distance from the CBD (the location of most employment). • Greater distance – greater wealth (and better housing). • Trade-offs in terms of home quality, costs, and time spent commuting. Concentric zones, each with neighborhoods comprised of people of different social status.
Three influential models, especially for North American cities: A. Concentric Zone Model (sociologist – Ernest Burgess) B. Sector Model (economist – Homer Hoyt) C. Multiple Nuclei Model (geographers – Chauncy Harris, Edward Ullman). Collectively known as “the Chicago School”.
Chicago: 1920s. Rapid growth fueled by: • Immigration • Regional migration. Result: Zone of transition comprised of: • Overall diversity (heterogeneity) • Homogeneous ethnic neighborhoods.

Gesellschaft: Society, depersonalized, anonymous, urban.
Gemeinschaft: Community: communal, interdependence, personal contacts, rural.

6 million years ago: Primates walk upright.
2-4 million years ago: Australopithecus walks upright + climbs trees.
2+ million years ago: Homo group makes tools, has bigger brains.
2-300,000 years ago: Homo sapiens.
60-80,000 years ago: Humans migrate to new, non-temperate areas.
12,000 years ago: Agriculture, the Neolithic temperate areas ~5-7,000 years ago: First cities.
Emergence of cities.

Phase 1: Nomadic (hunter-gatherer) societies: Millions/hundreds of thousands of years.
Phase 2: Agricultural societies began: -12,000 years ago, domestication of plants, animals, permanent settlement, technology, irrigation, tools, resulting in agricultural surplus.
Strong connection between the growth of cities, culture, and civilization.
Agricultural revolution = culture = agglomeration = urbanization.
Civilization: A culture with agriculture and cities, food and labor surpluses, labor specialization, social stratification, and state organization (p. 96).

Lecture 13
Urban area: The spatial extent of the built-up area surrounding and including an incorporated municipality, such as a city.
1) Demographics: Exceeding some threshold of population and/or density.
2) Economic: The presence/absence of economic activities (i.e., mining, agriculture, or finance and manufacturing). Some variations from around the world.
Urban change is understood with respect to two dimensions of growth: Relative and absolute growth.
Urban growth: An increase in the absolute size of an urban area/city.
Key measure: An increase in the number of people.
Alternate measure: An increase in the total area of land.
Urbanization: An increase in the proportion of the population living in urban areas; a fundamental re-organization of human society; the transformation of the population from rural to urban status.
Urbanism: The urban way of life, associated with a declining sense of community and increasingly complex social and economic organization as a result of increasing population size, density, and heterogeneity.
Urbanism is an outcome of the process of urbanization.
Significant spatial variation today:
North America, Europe, Oceania, Japan, etc.: > 75% Latin America, plus some others: > 75% Africa: 40% Asia: 48%.

Megacity: A city with a population of 10 million or more.
In 2018, how many of the world’s 33 megacities were located in the More Developed World? Only 5 of 33 megacities.
Urban Structure: The arrangement of land uses in cities; related to urban morphology.
The form or physical organization of the city (i.e., its layout, arrangement of land uses, population density, and land use intensity, etc.).


Lecture 14
Urban landscape typically features: Downtown – i.e., the Central Business District (CBD); Residential areas (housing) – i.e., neighborhoods; Industrial areas – i.e., manufacturing, etc.; Commercial areas – i.e., offices, stores, restaurants, etc.

Residential Mobility: The social-cultural character of neighborhoods can change.
Filtering and Gentrification: Economic change: Filtering: A transition that occurs as housing units are passed from members of one income group to another. Downward filtering can lead to urban decay and abandonment. Upward filtering or gentrification: A process of inner-city neighborhood change resulting from the in-movement of higher-income groups.
Residential Segregation: The spatial separation of population subgroups within the wider population.
Charter Group: The dominant or majority cultural group.
Minority Group(s): A population subgroup that is seen, or sees itself, as somehow different from the general (charter) population.
1) Involuntary Segregation: Residential clustering by structural constraints and discrimination (i.e., the urban poor, certain racial/ethnic groups, religious minorities).
– Racist, classist housing and mortgage policies.
– *Geography as strategy*
2) Congregation: Residential clustering by choice. Why do groups do this?
– Preserve culture.
– Mutual support.
– Minimize conflict.
– Establish a local political power base.

Secessionist Movements: Nations within multinational states that want to: