CONCLUSION

The first cities arose as new technologies—particularly the domestication of plants and animals—facilitated the concentration of people, wealth, and power in a few specific places. This transformation from village to city life was accompanied by increased social stratification. Although the first cities developed in specific hearths, urban life has now diffused worldwide, and the majority of the world’s population has become urban.

The future of cities is an evolving question. Focused urban planning measures might alleviate many present-day ills, but long-range hope lies with endeavors to make cities more livable and resilient.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

DOING GEOGRAPHY

Reading “Your” Urban Landscape

Even without extensive training in geography, most of us are avid “readers” of our landscapes. We drive through residential neighborhoods and make judgments about the types of people who live there; we walk downtown and, finding that the streets grow narrower, surmise that they were built a long time ago, before automobile traffic was a factor; we marvel at how high buildings rise into the sky, knowing that those with offices at the top make “top” dollar. But, reading landscapes can be tricky business. What we see in front of us may not always be as it appears, nor built when and for whom we think. This exercise, then, is about interpreting your own urban landscape and about understanding the limitations of that interpretation.

Your goal in this exercise is to create an interpretative walking tour of part of your city that could be used by tourists (or anyone, really) and that is both informative and engaging. In other words, the idea is to get people to look around them, think, and make connections—but also to understand the limitations of “just looking.” To do this exercise, follow the steps below.

Steps to Reading Your City

Step 1:

Pick your place. Decide on a route that takes people through a particular part of your city—it could be downtown, an ethnic landscape, a commercial area, or a local neighborhood. Almost anywhere will work. After reading this chapter, you should have a fairly good idea of the types of urban landscapes and those that are of interest to you.

Step 2:

Walk the route yourself, marking places where you want people to stop, look, and think.

Step 3:

Investigate the places you marked. You should be able to use the information in this chapter and elsewhere in the book to do a good bit of the investigative work, but the specifics of your city will require more information: archival research, perhaps informal interviews, or something else altogether. At each point, you should ask yourself: What can I learn from looking at this landscape and what would I never have guessed?

Step 4:

Based on what you have learned, write your interpretative tour, providing information and questions for each particular stop on the route

Finally, try it out—give your route map and written descriptions and questions to a friend, and see what happens.

Observing the urban landscape. (Gerhilde Skoberne/Corbis)

KEY TERMS

Match each of the terms on the left with its definition on the right. Click on the term first and then click on the matching definition. As you match them correctly they will move to the bottom of the activity.

Question

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453

SEEING GEOGRAPHY

SEEING GEOGRAPHY

Rio de Janeiro

What are some of the major environmental and social impacts of an increasingly urbanized world?

A view of Rio de Janiero, Brazil, looking toward Sugarloaf Mountain.

(isitsharp/Vetta/Getty Images.)

Few cities boast such a spectacular site as Rio de Janeiro, located between the mountains and Guanabara Bay along the Atlantic Ocean. This view highlights the dramatic siting: the bustling city, the beautiful beaches, the rugged mountain peaks against the sky. One can barely discern in this image the “other” side of Rio: the favelas, or slums, located on the mountainsides (see Figure 10.26, also the World Heritage Site feature for this chapter). Perched above the centers of economic activity and the middle- and upper-class residential areas located along the southern coastal areas of Rio, the favelas are an ever-present part of the urban landscape and home to approximately one-fifth of the city’s population.

The information in this chapter should help us to “read” this image of Rio de Janeiro. As a city of the developing world, Rio experienced rapid population growth in the twentieth century, and its metropolitan area now exceeds 12 million people. More striking is the dramatic increase in the urban population of Brazil. The percentage of the population living in metropolitan areas rose from approximately 31 percent in 1940 to about 84.2 percent in 2010. In Rio, that population growth is evident in the intensity of land use within the city, which is marked by the presence of skyscrapers and high-rise apartment buildings, the metropolitan sprawl that extends well beyond the parameters of this image, and the presence of the favelas, home to many of the rural-to-urban migrants. Like other cities of the developing world, population growth has strained the city’s infrastructure and its ability to provide services, which has led to traffic congestion, pollution, and crime. It has also exacerbated ecological problems. When vegetation covered the hillsides, the heavy summer rains Rio experiences were absorbed into the soil. Now the summer rains often flood the streets of the low-lying areas of the city and lead to landslides on the slopes that house the favelas. One such episode in 2011, for example, led to the death of 700 people. Yet Rio, like its larger neighbor 230 miles (370 kilometers) to the south, São Paulo, is now experiencing much slower population growth as a result of lower birthrates and less rural-to-urban migration.

Founded as a Portuguese colonial city in 1565, Rio grew quickly in the eighteenth century, when it became the primary port for exporting the gold and diamonds discovered in the interior of the country. Later, in the first decades of the twentieth century, Rio underwent industrialization. The southern and coastal portions of the city became home to the elite, while the factories and working classes moved north and west of the downtown.

Today, Rio is part colonial city and part global city. It is home to the regional headquarters of 10 multinational firms, hosted the World Cup soccer games in 2014, and will host the summer Olympic Games in 2016. Its beaches, particularly Ipanema and Copacabana, are icons for global jet-setters. Yet its favelas, some of which have now been recognized by the government as legal communities, continue to grow, with little infrastructure and few public services. Like other globalizing cities, it experiences both the bright lights and grimmer realities of the twenty-first-century economic order.

454

Chapter 10 LEARNING OBJECTIVES REEXAMINED

Chapter 10

LEARNING OBJECTIVES REEXAMINED

10.1

Describe the historical and contemporary regional patterns of urbanization, and the models geographers use to understand cities.

What is the hydraulic civilization model? Does this model address the development of all urban hearths? Why or why not?

10.2

Identify the ways that migration has shaped the growth of cities, how cities have grown and changed, and how humans get around within cities.

What is rural-to-urban migration and how has it affected the growth of cities?

10.3

Discuss the notion of global cities and some of the problems associated with them.

What defines a global city? Name three global cities.

10.4

Recognize the ways that human and natural worlds interact in cities, and the effects on the human health and well-being of those living in cities.

What is an urban footprint and what affect does it have on the natural environment?

10.5

Read an urban landscape and identify the trends shaping cities today and into the future.

What is gentrification and what positive and negative effects has it had on cities?

The City on the Internet

You can learn more about the city in time and space on the Internet at the following web sites:

A Shocking Satellite Tour of the World’s Biggest Slums

http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-biggest-slums-2011-2?op=1

Satellite images of the world’s largest slums, showing detailed aerial views of their spatial layout, density, and relationship to the surrounding countryside.

Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown/

Compiled by an art historian, this web site documents the cultural history of Levittown, New York—the first mass-produced automobile suburb in the United States.

McKinsey & Company: Urban World

http://www.mckinsey.com/features/urban_world

This site hosts an interactive map of the next generation of economically dynamic cities; in addition, there are interesting slideshows and other information showcasing the role of cities and urban dwellers as consumers.

United Nations Habitat for a Better Urban Future

http://www.unhabitat.org/

Provides a wealth of resources on the world’s cities, focusing in particular on urban environmental challenges and climate change.

Urban Resilience

http://urbanresilience.net/

Maintained by Jon Coaffee, an urban geographer in the United Kingdom, this website hosts a blog and a variety of other resources on the topic of resilience in the face of natural as well as man-made threats.

Sources

Brennan, Morgan. 2012. “Houston Tops Our List of America’s Coolest Cities.” Forbes, 26 July. http://www.forbes.com/sites/morganbrennan/2012/07/26/houston-tops-our-list-of-americas-coolest-cities-to-live/.

Campanella, Richard. 2013. “Gentrification and Its Discontents: Notes from New Orleans.” NewGeography blog post, 1 March. http://www.newgeography.com/content/003526-gentrification-and-its-discontents-notes-new-orleans.

Carmin, JoAnn, Nikhil Nadkarni, and Christopher Rhie. 2012. Progress and Challenges in Urban Adaptation Planning: Results of a Global Survey. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http://www.icleiusa.org/action-center/learn-from-others/progress-and-challenges-in-urban-climate-adaptation-planning-results-of-a-global-survey.

Chauncey, George. 1994. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books.

Christaller, Walter. 1966. The Central Places of Southern Germany. C. W Baskin (trans.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Davis, Mike. 2006. Planet of Slums. London: Verso.

Diem, William. 2013. “Decline of Car Culture Under Scrutiny in France.” WardsAuto, 11 June. http://wardsauto.com/europe/decline-car-culture-under-scrutiny-france.

Florida, Richard. 2013. “Global Cities of the Super-Rich.” The Atlantic Cities: Place Matters, 21 March. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/03/global-cities-super-rich/4951/.

Garthwaite, Josie. 2011. “Bike Share Schemes Shift into High Gear.” National Geographic Daily News. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/06/110607-global-bike-share/.

455

Huang, Yefang, Yee Leung, and Jianfa Shen. 2007. “Cities and Globalization: An International Perspective.” Urban Geography 28: 209-231.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. 2010. World Disasters Report 2010: Focus on Urban Risk. http://www.ifrc.org/Global/Publications/disasters/WDR/WDR2010-full.pdf.

Kearney, A. T., and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. 2012 Global Cities Index and Emerging Cities Outlook. http://www.atkearney.com documents/10192/dfedfc4c-8a62-4162-90e5-2a3f14f0da3a.

Kotkin, Joel. 2013. “Houston Rising: Why the Next Great American Cities Aren’t What You Think.” The Daily Beast, 8 April. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/08/houston-rising-why-the-next-great-american-cities-aren-t-what-you-think.html.

Le Goix, Renaud, and Chris J. Webster. 2008. “Gated Communities.” Geography Compass 2(4): 1189-1214.

Sassen, Saskia. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Schaefer, Kathleen. 2010. “New Policies Exterminating Teen Mall Rats.” ABC News, 23 September. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/shopping-malls-increasingly-putting-restrictions-teens/story?id=11701470.

Schueth, Sam, and John O’Loughlin. 2008. “Belonging to the World: Cosmopolitanism in Geographic Contexts.” Geoforum 39(2): 926-941.

Schwartz, John. 2013. “Young Americans Lead Trend to Less Driving.” The New York Times, 13 May. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/us/report-finds-americans-are-driving-less-led-by-youth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. 2009. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision.

United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). 2010. State of the World’s Cities 2010/11: Cities for All: Bridging the Urban Divide.

Wittfogel, Karl. 1957. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

World Bank. 2009. Systems of Cities: Harnessing Urbanization for Growth and Poverty Alleviation. Washington, D. C.

Ten Recommended Books on Urban Geography

(For additional suggested readings, see the Contemporary Human Geography LaunchPad: http://www.macmillanhighered.com/launchpad/DomoshCHG1e.)

Boo, Katherine. 2012. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. New York: Random House. Written by a journalist, this book details the lives of Mumbai slum dwellers and sheds light on the huge gap between rich and poor in India’s cities.

Brown, Michael, and Richard Morrill (eds.). 2011. Seattle Geographies. Seattle: University of Washington Press. University of Washington geographers Brown and Morrill, alongside many U.W. geography faculty and graduate students, unpack the richly layered historical, cultural, and urban geographies of the Emerald City.

Cole, Teju. 2011. Open City. New York: Random House. This novel follows Jules, a Nigerian immigrant, in his walks around Manhattan and through cities of his past.

Davis, Mike. 2006. Planet of Slums. New York: Verso. A devastating overview of people’s everyday struggles to maintain decent lives in the world’s urban slums.

Fussey, Pete, Jon Coaffee, Gary Armstrong, and Dick Hobbs. 2011. Sustaining and Securing the Olympic City. Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate. Examines how cities that host the Olympic Games are profoundly impacted both spatially and socially.

Gehl, Jan. 2010. Cities for People. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Architect Gehl draws on lessons from his involvement in urban planning in Melbourne and Moscow to discuss what it is that makes cities livable.

Peake, Linda, and Martina Rieker (eds.). 2013. Rethinking Feminist Interventions into the Urban. Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge. A collection of essays that utilizes feminist insights to challenge the conceptual and practical divisions between “developed” cities in the Global North and “developing” cities in the Global South.

Ross, Andrew. 2011. Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City. New York: Oxford University Press. Provides a sobering look at Phoenix, Arizona—a sprawling automobile-oriented city of 4 million that has recorded the hottest summertime temperatures of any North American city and is poised for an even dryer, hotter, and less sustainable future as climate change progresses.

Rybczynski, Witold. 2010. Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas about Cities. New York: Scribner. Argues that market forces, rather than urban planning, are shaping today’s cities.

Speck, Jeff. 2012. Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Acknowledges that we already know what is wrong with American cities, and makes practical suggestions for how cities can prioritize pedestrians in their attempts to become more livable and welcoming places.

Journals in Geographies of Cultural Difference

Environment and Urbanization. Published by SAGE, Thousand Oaks, Ca. Volume 1 appeared in 1989.

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Published by Edward Arnold, London. Volume 1 appeared in 1987.

Urban Geography. Published by Taylor and Francis Group, Lanham, Md. Volume 1 appeared in 1976.

Urban Studies. Published by Routledge, New York. Volume 1 appeared in 1964.