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Chapter 28 - The Changing Nature of the Civic Experience

CHAPTER INTRODUCTION

The urban influences affecting the cultural geography of the modern world represent the end of a long evolutionary process resulting from the influences of different cultures with their goals and capabilities. A city, regardless of the culture where it develops, represents society, culture, opportunity, success, and failure. Europe and America are urbanized societies whose cities and cultures are changing within an urban environment, a condition not true in the developing world. The cities and urban places of the developing world represent the greatest challenge to traditional cultures as we approach the twenty-first century. Developing societies face the formidable task of retaining their cultural identities and traditional values in a rapidly changing world. On their success or failure rests the successful existence of much of humanity.

Two centuries ago demographers estimate less than 5 percent of the world’s population was urban­ized. Today the figure approaches 50 percent and some regional differences and changes are striking, as in such countries as Germany and Belgium where 90 percent of the population lives in cities and towns. In some parts of the world, megalopolises are evolving from formerly separate cities. In others, mega-cities are emerging with populations that exceed those of many countries. In this chapter we will discuss these regional changes and focus on several of the critical problems rapid urbanization has produced. As you will see, the problems of large cities are cross-cultural; they differ in degree, not in kind.

Urban America

The problems of urban America are especially severe in the inner cities and in the older central business districts (CBDs). While urban sprawl continues and cities are coalescing (text Figure 28-1), people have left the inner cities by the millions and moved to the suburbs. The CBD is being reduced to serving the inner-most portion of the metropolis. As manufacturing employment in the core are has declined, many large cities have adapted by promoting a shift toward service industries. Beyond the CBDs of many large cities however, the vast inner cities remain problem-ridden domains of low- and moderate-income people, most of whom live there because they have nowhere else to go.

In older industrial cities, the inner city has become a landscape of inadequate housing, substandard living, and widespread decay. Many of the buildings are now worn out, unsanitary, and many are infested by rats and cockroaches. These apartments are overfilled with people who cannot escape the vicious cycle that forces them to live there.

The Suburban City

For many decades the attraction of country life with city amenities, reinforced by the discomforts of living in the heart of many central cities, has propelled people to move to the suburbs and more distant urban fringes. Mass commuting from suburban residents to downtown workplaces was made possible in postwar times by the automobile. As a result, the kind of suburbanization that is familiar to North Americans and other Westerners became a characteristic of urbanization in mobile, highly developed societies.

Suburban cities are not just self-sufficient, but compete with the central city for leading urban eco­nomic activities such as telecommunications, high4echnology industries, and corporate headquarters. In the current era of globalization, America’s suburban cities are proving their power to attract such activ­ities, thereby sustaining the suburbanizing process. Suburbanization has expanded the American city far into the surrounding countryside, contributing to the impoverishment of the central cities, and is having a major impact on community life.

The European City

European cities are older than North American cities, but they too were transformed by the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, industrialization struck many of Europe’s dormant medieval towns and vibrant mer­cantile cities like a landslide. But there are differences between the European experience and that of North America.

In terms of population numbers, the great European cities are in the same class as major North American cities. London, Paris, Madrid, and Berlin are megacities by world standards. These are among Europe’s historic urban centers, which have been affected but not engulfed by the industrial tide. The cities of the British Midlands and the megacities of Germany’s Ruhr are more representative of the manu­facturing era.

The industrial cities have lost much of their historical heritage, but in Europe’s largest cities the legacy of the past is better preserved. Many European cities have a Greenbelt—a zone of open country averaging up to 20 miles wide that contains scattered small towns but is otherwise open country. This has the effect of containing the built-up area and preserving near-urban open space. For this reason, European cities have not yet experienced the dispersal of their U.S. counterparts, and remain more compact and clustered. Modern CBDs have emerged near the historic cores of these cities.

Colonial Legacies

South America, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa share a common imprint in their colonial heri­tage. Everywhere that urbanization is occurring, there is the imprint of the colonial era alongside the tra­ditional culture. In these three realms, cities reflect their colonial beginnings as well as more recent dom­estic developments. In South and Middle America the fastest growth is where Iberian cultures dominate. Southeast Asian urban centers are growing rapidly, with foreign influences and investments continuing to play a dominant role. In Africa, the diversity caused by European influence in some, and decided lack of in others, makes it difficult to formulate a model African city that would account for all or even most of what is there.

CHAPTER QUIZ

MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS

I.      The urban core of big cities has changed mainly because:

a.              manufacturing plants have moved elsewhere -

b.              middle-income people are taking over the area

c.              too many service sector businesses have moved in

d.              skilled laborers have moved to other part of the country

2.     One of the big problems in trying to draw people and businesses to the central city is:

a.            lack of space

b.            fear of crime

c.            high cost of land and building space

d.            smog

3.     In the city of Los Angeles, over 7 manufacturing jobs were lost between the years 1978 and

1982.

a.            60,000

b.            70,000

c.            80,000

d.            96,000

4.       In the 1980s the suburban population grew by 7 percent while population of central cities grew by only 6.6 percent.

a.            10.5

b.            12.3

c.            15.2

d.            17.2

5.       Large Canadian cities:

a.            suffer from a lack of good planning

b.            are spread out

c.            have a better tax base and offer better services

d.            have slums larger than American cities

6.            In many of Europe’s largest dominant cities:

a.            wars have wiped out the manufacturing areas

b.            the past is better preserved

c.            suburban areas compete with the central city

d.              government planning has had 300 years to develop

7.          Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of communist planned cities.

a.              wide streets with little traffic

b.              microdistrict

c.              ugly apartment blocks

d.              a vital Central business district

8.          In Middle and South America, the urban population had grown toil percent by 1997.

a.            41

b.            55

c.            74

d.            80

9.          The outer ring in both Latin American cities and Southeast Asian cities are usually the place where:

a.              slums and squatter settlements are located

b.              the rich live

c.              markets are found

d.              the industrial area is located

10.     In African cities vertical growth occurs mainly in the   ?   part of the city.

a.       outer

b.       old colonial CBD

c.       transitional business center

d.       native CBD

TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS

1.          In the United States, many inner cities no longer have the financing to keep up adequate schools, housing, and many other city services. (TF)

2.            Deglomeration is affecting many older downtowns, even in small cities. (TF)

3.            Gentrification is the term used to describe areas outside the city where people move to enjoy a more relaxed lifestyle. (TF)

4.            The new high-rise business buildings now found in many city downtowns are bringing many people back to the old central business districts (CBDs). (TF)

5.            Many areas once called suburbs have become cities in their own right. (TF)

6.            Canada’s large cities are more compact and still have large numbers of high- and middle-income people living in the central city. (TF)

7.            Many European cities have greenbelts surrounding the central city. (TF)

8.            Communist planners attempted to create microdistricts in cities. This led to many cities not having a central downtown district. (TF)

9.          The great Central and South American cities contain beautiful plazas usually surrounded by cathedrals, churches, and government buildings. (TF)

10.          The African city quite often contains three central business districts. (TF)

STUDY QUESTIONS

1.            List the problems in America’s central (CBD) cities. Why do these problems exist? What efforts are being made to reverse this trend? How have the original suburbs evolved?

2.            How do European cities differ from American cities? What are some of the factors that have made European cities different?

3.            List the factors that make cities in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa different from Amer­ican and European cities. What is the prime reason these cities developed differently?

Subject: 
Subject X2: 

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