URB - Issues & Services in Urban Areas Lesson

Issues and Services in Urban Areas Lesson

Settlements are permanent collections of buildings where people live, work and obtain services
Services are activities that fulfill a human want/need in return for money
- 70% of workers in MDC are in services
- 25% of workers in LDC are in services
Consumer services are for individual customers who can afford them (retail, education, health, leisure)
Business services facilitate other business (transportation, professional, financial)
Public services provide security and protection
- Permanent services grew with permanent cities
  - Started with burial sites and moved to religious services, trade services, education, manufacturing centers
  - Nomadic groups were on their own, but settlements had government and military protection
- Many of these cities became important because of location and access to other cities, they were known as gateway cities (i.e., San Francisco)

Basic employment brings money into an urban place and gives the city its function (basic industries or services are specialized)
- Pittsburgh and the steel industry, Colorado Springs and the Air Force, Las Vegas and gambling
Non-basic employment is made up of jobs that support the basic ones and shift money within the city, but do not bring money in
- Teachers, retail workers, repair companies, food workers
- These are the ancillary services that keep an area running
The larger the city the higher percentage of non-basic jobs
All cities have the same the non-basic jobs, so it is the basic industries that define a city
The multiplier effect holds that the addition of one basic job tends to produce more jobs (you can determine the economic pull of a city by looking at the base ratio – which is basic jobs compared to non-basic jobs
Becoming successful in basic areas also leads to agglomeration

The Central Business District (CBD) has been the traditional location for services
- Especially those with high threshold, high range and those that cater to people living around the CBD, in the central city and surrounding suburbs
- In modern times retail stores, manufacturing, offices and residents have moved to the suburbs, while business service centers have remained in the CBD
Land values decrease moving out from the CBD (bid-rent curve)
- Land prices and population density decline as distance increases
- Leads to vertical expansion (skyscrapers, subways, etc.) in the center

Commerce and businesses (large department stores/chain stores) are willing to pay the greatest rent to be located in the CBD (services, public, government, etc.)
- It is traditionally the most accessible location for a large population, which is essential for retail stores, which require considerable turnover.
- Willing and able to pay a very high land rent value
- As you move from the CBD, commerce is unwilling to pay as much for a site
Industry is willing to pay to be on the outskirts of the CBD
- There is more land available for their factories, but they still have many of the benefits of the CBD
As you move further out, so the land is less attractive to industry and the householder is able to purchase land
- The further you go from the CBD, the cheaper the land - this is why inner city areas are very densely populated (terraces and high rises), while the suburbs and rural areas are sparsely populated (semi and detached houses)
The pattern is never as simple in reality. Today, out-of-town shopping centers and industrial sites have influenced the pattern

Bid Rent Curve

Bid Rent Curve

Population Density vs. Distance from Downtown Graph

Population Density vs. Distance from Downtown Graph

View the presentation below. To make the presentation full screen, select the double arrows at the bottom right corner of the object.

Suburbs and Transportation

Growth of Chicago from the central city (illustrates both urban and suburban sprawl)

South to North View of Chicagoland Area

Urban sprawl makes people more dependent on personal transportation for access to work, shopping, and leisure activities
- U.S. suburbs are characterized by sprawl, the progressive spread of development over the landscape
- The suburban explosion in the 20th century relied on motor vehicles and ownership is now nearly universal among American households
- Private developers select new housing sites based on cheap land that can easily be prepared for construction and families seek to own large tracts of land
The U.S. government encouraged the use of cars and trucks by paying 90% of the cost of limited-access high-speed interstate highways
- Stretch for 46,000 miles across the country
- An average city allocated 1/4 of its land to roads and parking lots
Public transportation was created because few people in the United States live within walking distance of their place of employment
- Urban areas are characterized by extensive commuting
- Public transportation is cheaper, causes less pollution, and more energy efficient than cars and you can avoid rush hour, but public transportation is losing popularity because it is not flexible enough

European cities limit sprawl with ordinances and greenbelts (boundaries for urbanization) known as smart growth
- These belts also prevent in-filling or merging of large cities
- Street morphology (patterns) creates subdivisions with cul-de-sacs and loop streets, which keep other people out, but creates traffic patterns in the same direction (hurts pedestrians and traffic flow)
  - The livable city movement (neo-urbanism) focuses on creating planned cities with pedestrian walkways, festival settings (large recreational areas) and separate office parks

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IMAGES CREATED BY GAVS (Images are available in the Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons; Creative Commons License Attribution)