Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Studying the Urban Scene
As centers of population, political and religious power, trade, and commerce, cities have al-
ways been geographically significant. At no time, however, have they been more important
than they are today — not only because so many people live in them, but also because cities
have grown in number and size. Literally millions of square miles of natural landscapes have
become “cityscapes.” Indeed, cities have become so expansive that they have complex geo-
graphies of their own. No wonder an entire sub-field called
urban geography,
the subject of
this chapter, has developed to analyze:
The reasons why cities develop at particular locations
The factors that underlie urban growth
The spatial arrangement of commercial, industrial, residential, and other kinds of land use
within cities
The planning that is meant to improve the quality of urban life
The social and political tensions between people who live in different parts of cities, and
between cities and fringing political jurisdictions
The environmental quality issues occasioned by urban development and growth
Each of these will be touched upon to some extent in the pages that follow.
What does “urban” mean?
Obviously, urban means a lot of people bunched together in a recognizable town or city.
But how many? The answer varies from one country to the next. As far as the folks who
run the U.S. Census are concerned, the threshold figure is 2,000. Thus, if you have a
town with that many people, then its residents are considered
urban.
If a neighboring
town numbers 1,999 souls or less, then they are classified
rural.
Depending on where
you live, “urban = 2,000 people” may make a lot of sense or sound like a bad joke.
Throughout the lightly populated Dakotas, for example, the definition seems entirely ap-
propriate. In New York City, however, where you may have that many people and more
in a single building, the number 2,000 may seem woefully lacking.
