Evolvement of US Urban System: Part III

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Evolvement of US Urban System Part III
Geo309 Urban Geography
Instructor Jun Yan Geography Department SUNY at
Buffalo
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Last Class

• Automobile Era and the Great Depression
  (1920-1945) Roaring 20s followed by Great
  Depression
• Result of over-accumulation under-consumption
• Kandratiev Long Wave
• Keynesianism interference of government in free
  market
• Spatial Decentralization and Metropolitan
  Consolidation (1945-1972)
• Changing economic structure Fordism
• Changing technologies interstate highways and
  passenger jets
• Shrinking space
• Regional decentralization suburbanization and
  sunbeltization
• Metropolitan consolidation control centers and
  concentration of RD activities

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Outline

• Economic Crisis and Urban Restructuring
  (1972-1983)
• Economic Restructuring and the Emergence of
  Informational Cities (1983-present)

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Economic Crisis and Restructuring (1972-1983)

• Economic downturn
• Oil Crisis initiates the downturn the end of
  4th Kondratiev cycle
• Declined productivities
• Declined weekly wages
• Increased unemployment rate
• Especially, cities in Manufacturing Belt

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Economic Crisis and Restructuring (1972-1983)

• Start of a new Kondratiev Cycle
• Tertiary circuit RD, education
• New technology production process
• New requirement of labor skill set
• Layout a foundation for next period of economic
  restructuring
• New competition (international) Europe Japan

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Economic Crisis and Restructuring (1972-1983)

• Result stagflation, decreased demand,
  unemployment, trade deficits
• Shift from Keynesianism
• decreased support on social welfare Proposition
  13 in California (1978) Proposition 2½ in
  Massachusetts (1980)
• Beginning of deregulation Ronald Reagan
• Less federal government involvement in urban
  development
• Cities cut-back public services

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Urban Stress

• Long lasted stagflation 19721983
• Deindustrialization especially manufacturing
• Cumulative causation in reverse
• Plant closure
• Job loss in the linked industries
• Job loss in service industries
• High unemployment rate
• Shrinking local tax base
• Bankrupt cities
• Discouraging investment environment

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Self-Propelling Process in Reverse
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Urban Stress

• Urban Fiscal Crisis (UFC) US Department of
  Housing Urban Development
• population growth, income, employment, poverty,
  housing
• 1 (most prosperous)-6 (most stressed)

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Urban Stress
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Investment Switching Mechanism

• Primary circuit the actual industrial production
• Secondary circuit urban infrastructures (e.g.
  office towers)
• Tertiary circuit RD, education
• New technology and new production systems
• Re-structuring of economies to get out crisis!!!

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Emergence of Informational Cities (1983-present)

• A series of new technologies
• Production process automatic, computerized
  system
• Transaction computerized inventory system
• Circulation satellites, fax, microwave, cell
  phone, internet
• Economic restructuring
• Capital-labor relationship substitution of
  labor, labor militarism
• Reagan reforms new federalism deregulation,
  increase spending on defense
• Development of new international and
  inter-metropolitan division of labors constantly
  change urban system social stability of cities

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Economics Basics Types of Economic Activity

• Primary
• farm, fishing, forestry, mining
• Secondary (manufacturing)
• Cars, furniture, computer, clothes
• Tertiary (service)
• Education, transportation, utility, insurance,
  banks

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Economics Basics Types of Economic Activity
Changing Employment
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Emergence of Informational Cities (1983-present)

• Transformation from manufacturing to service
  industries
• New transport, transaction, communication
  technologies
• time-space compression
• More specialized in services
• The importance of information/knowledge
  agglomeration of services services are
  concentrated at large metropolitan areas the
  profitability of a business relies on making best
  use of information
• Space of flow not physical distance between
  cities matters but the intensity of their
  interactions
• Mark the beginning of advanced capitalism

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Growth of Jobs in Services
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Growth of Jobs in Services
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Space of Flow
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Informational Cities
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Next Class

• Economic Restructuring and the Emergence of
  Informational Cities (1983-present)
• Functional Hierarchy
• Demographic and Social Changes
• Reading chp 3. pp 5971