urbanism

Examples of urbanism in the following topics:

• Models of Urban Growth

  • The growth machine theory of urban growth says urban growth is driven by a coalition of interest groups who all benefit from continuous growth and expansion.
  • Such preferences echo a common strain of criticism of urban life, which tends to focus on urban decay.
  • According to these critics, urban decay is caused by the excessive density and crowding of cities, and it drives out residents, creating the conditions for urban sprawl.
  • Cities have responded to urban decay and urban sprawl by launching urban renewal programs.
  • Smart growth programs draw urban growth boundaries to keep urban development dense and compact.

• The Potential of Urban Revitalization

  • Urban revitalization is hailed by many as a solution to the problems of urban decline by, as the term suggests, revitalizing decaying urban areas.
  • Urban revitalization is closely related to processes of urban renewal, or programs of land redevelopment in areas of moderate- to high-density urban land use.
  • Urban revitalization has been around since European city planners in the nineteenth century began to consider how to reorganize overpopulated urban areas.
  • Urban revitalization certainly provides potential for future urban growth, though the story of successes and failures remains mixed so far.
  • Urban renewal can have many positive effects.

• U.S. Urban Patterns

  • Census Bureau classifies areas as urban or rural based on population size and density.
  • Boise, Idaho is an example of an urban area that is officially defined as urban by U.S.
  • Department of Agriculture tallied over 98,000,000 acres of "urban" land.
  • Urban areas are delineated without regard to political boundaries.
  • In the United States, the largest urban area is New York City, with over 8 million people within the city limits and over 19 million in the urban area.

• Social Interaction in Urban Areas

  • The first is an urban ecology model in which the social scientist considers how individuals interact with others in their urban community.
  • Simmel argues that urban life irreversibly transforms one's mind.
  • The first set asks how social interactions are shaped by urban environments and how social interactions in urban environments are distinct from social interactions in other contexts.
  • These are the types of questions asked by Simmel and urban anthropologists.
  • This changes one's orientation to the urban community.

• Sociological Perspectives on Urban Life

  • Urban sociology is the study of social life and interactions in urban areas, using methods ranging from statistical analysis to ethnography.
  • This is one of the earliest examples of a subcultural study that explained the organization of urban subgroups as opposed to strictly highlighting the disorganization that accompanied urbanization.
  • Urban ecology refers to an idea that emerged out of the Chicago School that likens urban organization to biological organisms.
  • Urban ecology has remained an influential theory in both urban sociology and urban anthropology over time.
  • Explain urbanization in terms of functionalism and what the Chicago School understood to be some of the causes of urban social problems at that time

• Urban Decline

  • But what causes urban decay?
  • In some ways, urban decline is an inevitable result of urbanity itself.
  • Economic decline tends to lead to urban decline.
  • The current response to urban decay has been positive public policy and urban design using the principles of New Urbanism.
  • Louis were built under a policy of urban renewal intended to provide affordable housing, but soon turned into a site of urban blight.

• Urbanization

  • Urbanization is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change.Urbanization is also defined by the United Nations as movement of people from rural to urban areas with population growth equating to urban migration.The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008.Urbanization is closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization.
  • Percentage of population which is urbanized, by country, as of 2005.As more and more people leave villages and farms to live in cities, urban growth results.The rapid growth of cities like Chicago in the late 19th century and Mumbai a century later can be attributed largely to rural-urban migration and the demographic transition.This kind of growth is especially commonplace in developing countries.
  • The United States and United Kingdom have a far higher urbanization level than China, India, Swaziland or Niger, but a far slower annual urbanization rate, since much less of the population is living in a rural area.
  • Urbanization can be planned or organic.Planned urbanization, (e.g., planned communities), is based on an advanced plan, which can be prepared for military, aesthetic, economic or urban design reasons.Organic urbanization is not organized and happens haphazardly.Landscape planners are responsible for landscape infrastructure (e.g., public parks, sustainable urban drainage systems, greenways, etc.) which can be planned before urbanization takes place, or afterward to revitalize an area and create greater livability within a region.Planned urbanization and development is the aim of the American Institute of Planners.
  • Percentage of population which is urbanized, by country, as of 2005.

• Suburbanization

  • Sudden and extreme relocation out of urban areas into the suburbs is one of the many causes of urban sprawl, as suburbs grow to accommodate the increasingly large population.
  • Push factors are those that push people out of their original homes in urban areas into suburban areas.
  • This movement is thought to have exacerbated urban decline in cities.
  • As a result of the mass residential migration out of urban centers, many industries have followed suit.
  • As residential wealth and corporations continue to leave urban zones in favor of suburban areas, the risk of urban decline increases.

• The Future of Population and Urbanization

• Industrial Cities

  • Upton Sinclair's The Jungle chronicles the dangerous living conditions endured by immigrant factory workers in the early-1900s, a period of rapid urbanization in the U.S.
  • The growth of modern industry from the late 18th century onward led to massive urbanization and the rise of new, great cities, first in Europe, and then in other regions, as new opportunities brought huge numbers of migrants from rural communities into urban areas.
  • The United States provides a good example of how this process unfolded; from 1860 to 1910, the invention of railroads reduced transportation costs and large manufacturing centers began to emerge in the United States, allowing migration from rural to urban areas.
  • Rapid growth brought urban problems, and industrial-era cities were rife with dangers to health and safety.
  • In the 19th century, health conditions improved with better sanitation, but urban people, especially small children, continued to die from diseases spreading through the cramped living conditions.