Metropolitan: The New Urban Form

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Metropolitan The New Urban Form
Geo309 Urban Geography
Instructor Jun Yan Geography Department SUNY at
Buffalo
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Last Class

• Freeways and Metropolitan Sprawl (1945-1972)
• Preconditions freeways, strong housing need
• New urban Phenomenon Levittown, California
  Suburbia, Drive-Thru Morphology
• Urban realms model a lose functional structure
  with mixed land use
• Spatial reorganization industry, retailing,
  office, and central cities

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Outline

• Postsuburban Development (1972-present)

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Redevelopment, Restructuring Deconcentration

• CBD continue to decay and decentralize but some
  parts do receive reinvestment and redevelopment
• Suburb-like features
• Consolidated urban realms
• Continue to grow as additional nodes/cores for
  commercial and business use
• Continue to lessen the dominance of central
  cities
• Form a new standard form of new commercial
  development
• New labels suburban downtowns, edge cities,
  technosuburbs
• End of suburbia city-like features in suburbs
• Thus postsuburban development fragmented and
  multinodal

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Redevelopment, Restructuring Deconcentration

• Resulting Packaged landscape
• Big, set-piece developments
• The residential subdivision, the shopping
  centers, the industrial parks seems to floating
  in space with large empty areas between
  clusters
• Galactic Metropolis

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Telematics and Spatial Adjustment

• New technologies communication and IT
• Space of Flow
• Facilitator of spatial adjustment informational
  mode of development
• Working/shopping at home reality or myth?
• Further shorten the actual geographic distance
• Then further reinforce the trend of spatial
  decentralization

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Telematics and Spatial Adjustment

• Implication for urban development
• Retailing competition from direct marketing and
  Internet
• Banking ATM Internet lessen the tie between
  customers and their neighborhood banks
• CBD more specialized in office, in transaction,
  finance, broadcasting and publishing
• Back offices of business begin to move out city
  less labor but more technology intensive close
  to airports, Federal Reserve Bank, suburban
  residence

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Employment Change 1977-1984
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End of Suburbia

• Urban functions are so disperse over space
• Multiple foci form of metropolitan singles the
  end of suburbia
• Suburbs city-like features, self-sustained,
  increasing concentration of industry, office and
  commerce, mixed land use ? suburban downtown
• CBD
• Continuing deinustrialization and
  decentralization of services (especially
  retailing)
• More specialization in transaction and finance
• Single-handed fueling the gentrification of CBD
• Civic entrepreneurialism revitalized
  entertainment districts?

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Evolvement of Suburban Downtown

• Four stages
• Bedroom communities (pre-60) purely residential,
  limited commercial activities, low-order services
• Independence (1960s) begin to be self-sustained
  regional shopping centers, industrial parks,
  office parks
• Gatalytic growth (1970s) massive suburbanization
  of economic activities of all kinds
• High-Rise-High-Technology (1980s) rising of
  suburban downtown, some even overshadow CBDs,
  high-rising buildings

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New Urban Landscape

• Stealth cities
• Along highways, near airports
• Too fast to have official names, governing
  civil services
• Reflect on skyline and land values
• Suburban freeway corridors
• Linear, along highway section often with closely
  spaced interchanges
• Example I-494 corridor in Minneapolis

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I-494 Corridor, Minneapolis
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New Urban Landscape

• Retail-strip corridors high-tech corridors
• Linear, but smaller scale
• With large lot, extensive parking, a mixed
  services and entertainments Transit, Niagara
  Falls Blvd in Buffalo
• High-tech corridors
• Linear, but smaller scale as well
• Concentrate on high tech RD, hotels Route 128
  in Boston

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New Urban Landscape

• Nucleated centers
• Non-linear, more common
• 5 subtypes
• Regional mall centers
• Diversified office centers
• Large-scale mix-use centers (New Town)
• Old town centers
• Suburban specialty centers

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Edge City

• So integrated, in such a big scale, some of them
  are even qualified as Edge City
• 5 million office space, 600,000 sqr ft
  shopping area
• Strong local identity
• More job than housing
• Changing commuting pattern more in than out
• High-rise, mid-rise buildings
• However, lack of public transit
• Again the deadlock created by automobiles
• Best example DC area, 17 edge cities, Tysons
  Corner is the largest one

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Edge City
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Edge City
Skyscrapers in DC (200 feet)
Tysons Corner
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Edge City Tysons Corner
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Next Class

• No lecture
• Tips for taking exams in geography
• Study guide
• Answer questions