What do cities have in common

Rochester, NY. Syracuse, NY. Tulsa, OK. What do these cities have in common? I count five things. When the private sector shrinks and the federal government grows, handmaidens of federal spending, like education and health care, stay alive. The eds and meds have outpaced the private sector in growth through the downturn, into the recovery, and they will continue to cast a long shadow over job creation in the next decade. Six of the top eight jobs with the fastest projected growth are in the health care or medical science industries.

Three of the top five jobs with the largest projected growth are in health care. The rock of federal spending has helped military towns stay steady, too. Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news.

Executive Lifestyle. Chris Weller. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Because of high competition and limited space, property values for commercial and private ownership tend to be at a premium. CBDs also tend to use land above and below ground in the form of subways, underground malls, and high- rises. Sports facilities and convention centers also tend to be dominating forces in CBDs.

Urban planning is a sub-field of geography and until recently was part of geography departments in academia. An urban planner is someone trained in multiple theories of urban development along with developing ways to minimize traffic, decrease environmental pollution, and build sustainable cities.

Urban planners, sociologists, along with geographers, have come up with three models to demonstrate and explain how cities grow. The first model is called the concentric zone model , which states that cities can develop in five concentric rings. The inner zone of the cities tends to be the CBD, followed by a second ring that tends to the zone of transition between the first and third rings.

In this transition zone, the land tends to be used by industry or low-quality housing. The third ring is called the zone of independent workers and tends to be occupied by working-class households. The fourth ring is called the zone of better residences and is dominated by middle-class families. The second model for city development and growth is called the sector model. This model states that cities tend to grow in sectors rather than concentric rings.

The center of this model is still the CBD. The next sector is called the transportation and industry sector. The third sector is called the low-class residential sector , where lower-income households tend to group. The fourth sector is called the middle-class sector, and the fifth is the high-class sector. The third and final urban design is called the multiple nuclei model.

In this model, the city is more complex and has more than one CBD. A node could exist for the downtown region, another where a university is situated, and maybe another where an international airport is located. Some clustering does exist in this model because some sectors tend to stay away from other sectors.

For example, the industry does not tend to develop next to high-income housing. The multiple nuclei model also features zones common to the other models. Industrial districts in these new cities, unfettered by the need to access rail or water corridors, rely instead on truck freight to receive supplies and to ship products, allowing them to occur anywhere zoning laws permitted. In western cities, zoning laws are often far less rigid than in the East, so the pattern of industrialization in these cities is sometimes random.

The reasons for neighborhoods to develop where they do are similar as they are in the sector model. Amenities may attract wealthier people, transport advantages attract industry and commerce, and disamenity zones are all that poor folks can afford.

There is a sort of randomness to multiple nuclei cities, making the landscape less legible for those not familiar with the city, unlike concentric ring cities that are easy to read by outsiders who have been to other similar cities. The premise of this model is that the internet and modern transportation systems have made location and distance mostly irrelevant to the location of different sorts of activities within a city.

Geographers Ernest Griffin and Larry Ford recognized that the popular urban models did not fit well in many cities in the developing world. In response, they created one of the more compelling descriptions of cities formerly colonized by Spain — the Latin American Model. According to these rules, each significant city was to have at its center a large plaza or town typical for ceremonial purposes.

For several blocks outward from this elite spine was built the housing for the wealthy and powerful. The rest of the city was initially left for the poor because there was almost no middle class. The poorly built houses close the central plaza where jobs and conveniences existed.

Over time, the houses built by the poor, perhaps little more than shacks, were improved and enlarged. Ford and Griffin called this process in situ accretion. At the edges of the city are always the newest residents, often squatting on land they do not own. Sociologists, geographers, and urban planners know that no city exactly follows one of the urban models of growth. However, the models help us understand the broader reason why people live where they do.

Higher-income households tend to live away from lower-income households. Renters and house owners also tend to segregate from each other. Renters tend to live closer to the CBD, whereas homeowners tend to live in the outer regions of the city.

Introduction to Human Geography by R. City Push and Pull Factors Cities began to form many thousands of years ago, but there is little agreement regarding why cities form.

Photo by Emiliano Bar on Unsplash Some cities grow large because of specific site location advantages that favor trade or industry. Stage 1: Sail-Wagon Epoch — ; the only means of international trade was sailing ships.

Once goods were on land, they were hauled by wagon to their final destination. Stage 2: Iron Horse Epoch —70 ; characterized by the impact of steam engine technology, and development of steamboats and regional railroad networks. Stage 3: Steel Rail Epoch — ; dominated by the development of long-haul railroads and a national railroad network.

Stage 4: Auto-Air-Amenity Epoch —70 ; with growth in the gasoline combustion engine. Stage 5: Satellite-Electronic-Jet Propulsion —? This stage has continued to the present day as both transportation and technology improves. Understanding Distribution and City Size Under very unusual circumstances, one might find that among a group of cities, no single city has unique site location advantages over others.

Central Place Theory. This diagram represents an idealized urban hierarchy in which people travel to the closest local market for lower-order goods, but must go to a larger town or city for higher orders goods.

Examples of Countries with Primate Cities Paris 9. Similarly, the United Kingdom has London as its primate city 7 million , while the second-largest city, Birmingham, is home to a mere one million people.

Mexico City , Mexico 8. A considerable dichotomy exists between Bangkok 7. China, Canada, Australia, and Brazil are additional examples of non-primate- city countries. Utilizing the metropolitan area population of urban areas in the United States, we find that the U. With the New York City metropolitan area population at approximately 21 million, second-ranked Los Angeles at 16 million, and even third-ranked Chicago at 9 million, America lacks a primate city.

Previous: Chapter 7: Rural and Urban Landscapes. Next: 7. I accept. Infrastructure The one thing that all great cities have in common. Take action on UpLink.

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