Urban Form, Function, and Land Use

1
Urban Form, Function, and Land Use
Geo309 Urban Geography
Instructor Jun Yan Geography Department SUNY at
Buffalo
2
Last Three Weeks

• Evolution of US urban system
• Economic changes technological changes
• Evolution of US urban system
• What kind of changes are occurring within an
  individual city?
• Are there any regularities?
• What kind of factors are driving the urbanization
  within cities?
• Economic? technological? political? social?

3
Any Patterns?
4
Outline

• The Commercial City (before 1840)
• The Transitional City ( 1840-1875)

5
The Commercial City (before 1840)

• Urban form
• Compactness high density, small land lot size
• Transportation walking, 45 Minutes Rule,
  Pedestrian City
• Scale human
• Mixed land uses little separation of home and
  workplace, rich and poor
• However, this does not mean there is no social
  separation
• Jut not much spatial separation rich and poor do
  live in different areas, but they are just very
  close
• Occasionally specialized clusters ethnic groups,
  occupations

6
The Commercial City (before 1840)

• Sjobergs Model (Pre-Industrial City)
• Core dominated by higher class
• And surrounded by the residence of lower class
• Everything is within waling distance
• Some occupationally distinctive but socially
  mixed quarters
• This type of cities only exist very shortly in US

7
Buffalo Village (1804)
8
The Transitional City (1840-1875)

• Economic foundation Industrial Revolution in US
• Emergence of new social classes based on income
• Industrial business elite business owners
• White-collar managers, office workers
• Blue-collar factory workers
• Land market (real estate)
• Fierce competition among social classes, which
• Turn the city inside out
• Core specialized industrial/commercial use
• Surrounded/mixed by working class
• Periphery the rich
• Scale non-human, rail horsecars

9
The Transitional City (1840-1875)
Chicago
10
Political/Legal Issues

• Land law
• Unlimited possibility for land ownership
• Land ownership individuals civil liberties,
  property tax
• Northwest Ordinances Constitution
• Pr-Emption Act (1841) up to 160 acres for 1.25
• Homestead Act (1862) up to 160 acres for 2634,
  in some states 160?320 640.
• Symbol of American culture
• Implication to urban development Influence of
  speculators
• Strong local control The whole city/town/region
  could be owed by one person
• Locations of physical infrastructures canals,
  railroads, school
• Land use decision negatives, less stable, less
  convenient

11
Transportation As Land Shaper

• Demand of public transport by rich people move
  to exurban areas
• because of agglomeration diseconomies in the city
• Upper upper-middle classes
• Horsecars horse ominbus system and light rail
  system hauled by horse
• First in NYC (1829), by 1840, hundreds in NYC
  And other cities adopted
• Commute up to 3 or 4 miles
• Housecar suburbs only rich people, relatively
  small size, very sparse over space

12
Transportation As Land Shaper (Cont.)

• Railroads short-haul passenger (hub-spoke),
  reorganization of urban land use
• Emergence of Central Business District (CBD)
• Large land near city center needed by railroad
  companies
• Rising of CBD near railroad stations in city
  center (most accessible points)
• Rising land costs in city centers stores,
  hotels, restaurants, warehouses, offices
• Changes of physical conditions within city
  high-rise buildings in center shattered
  fragments of land inconsequential streets

13
Grand Central Station in NYC
14
Transportation As Land Shaper (Cont.)

• Railroads short-haul passenger (hub-spoke),
  reorganization of urban land use
• Industrial linear industrial belts along some
  restricted radial routes
• Residential then spread out along these radial
  routes

15
Transportation As Land Shaper (Cont.)

• Railroads short-haul passenger (hub-spoke),
  reorganization of urban land use
• Divided city sectors by railroad tracks
  hub-spoke system
• Beginning of residential segregation
  right/wrong side of the tracks
• spatial separation separation of classes by
  distance
• Exurban growth increasing commuter population
  suburban housing need exclusively middle class
  upper Green-Belt
• However most people still live very near their
  places of work ? crowded city center surrounding
  CBD

16
Buffalo 1880
17
Buffalo Railroads Downtown

• Incredible density of the railroads in Buffalo
  area prior to 1950 Buffalo had the 2nd largest
  rail traffic, only behind Chicago
• City is dissected into several isolated sectors
• The freight yard by the loading deck
  transshipment
• By now, about 85 of tracks are gone--"scorched
  earth policy

Downtown Station
Freight Yard
18
Buffalo Railroads Central Terminal (1950)
19
Buffalo Railroads Central Terminal (1992)
20
Buffalo Railroads East Buffalo Yards (1956)
21
Next Class

• The Industrial Cities (1875-1920)
• Functional organization of CBDs
• Reading chp 4. pp 8596