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

• Economic Crisis and Urban Restructuring
  (1972-1983) Depression and Oil Crisis
• Economic slowdown
• Deregulation
• Urban stress mainly in Manufacturing Belt
• Economic Restructuring and the Emergence of
  Informational Cities (1983-present)
• Advances in industrial technologies
• Economic restructuring business and professional
  services
• Time-space compression
• Space of flows interaction betweens cities
• Informational Age profits from making best use
  of information
• Advanced Capitalism flexible production system

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Outline

• Economic Restructuring and the Emergence of
  Informational Cities (1983-present)
• Functional Hierarchy of urban system
• Demographic and Social Changes

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Emergence of Informational Cities (1983-present)

• New inter-urban hierarchies evolve to reflect the
  globalization of production a global urban
  system
• World Cities Globalization of world economy
  first-tier
• Dominant NYC, London, Tokyo with highest
  portion of global business conducted centers of
  global system of finance and production
• Major Chicago, LA, Berlin, Paris, Brusels,
  Singapore, Sao Paulo
• Secondary Houston, Miami, San Francisco, DC

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World Cities

• They are indeed very different
• Centers of information flows
• Economic and Social polarization
• A dominant producer-service class (from all over
  the world) banking, law, insurance, accounting,
  stock marketing, advertising
• Inner-city gentrification
• A large informal economy
• Growing class of disadvantaged people
• Massive concentration of new immigration groups
• Heightened political conflict race, class

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World Cities
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Emergence of Informational Cities (1983-present)

• Compared to the rest of the world, functional
  hierarchy most pronounced in US
• Regional command control Centers second-tier
• Concentrated corporate headquarters, RD,
  producer-services, wholesaling
• Regional nodal centers Atlanta, Boston, Dallas,
  Seattle
• Subregional nodal centers Charlotte, Memphis,
  Syracuse
• Specialized Producer-Service Centers third-tier
• More narrowly-defined producer-services
• Functional nodal centers Detroit, Pittsburgh,
  Milwaukee
• Government/education centers Albany, Austin,
  Lansing

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Emergence of Informational Cities (1983-present)

• Dependent Centers fourth-tier
• US economy supports additional types of urban
  (dependent) centers
• Resort/Retirement/Residential Centers Las Vegas
• Manufacturing Centers Buffalo
• Industrial/Military Centers San Diego
• Mining/Industrial Centers Charleston

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National Urban System
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Functional Hierarchy of US Cities
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Quality of Urban Life

• Hierarchy begins to be associated with quality of
  life issues
• Quality of Life(QL) has merged as a key
  locational determinant Places Rated Almanac
  (ranking of 333 metros)
• Cost of living
• Job growth
• Crime
• Health care and environment
• Transportation
• Climate
• Recreation
• The arts
• Education

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Quality of Urban Life
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Demographic and Social Changes

• The maturing of Baby Boomer People were born
  at the intermediate postwar era
• Implication to urbanization the materialism in
  early 1980s
• More households single-adult, single-parent,
  female-headed, smaller family
• Rising housing price
• Labor market feminism movement, intensified
  competition further worse the economic recession
• Changes of social attitudes to family, to
  self-realization, to sex, to marriage
• Cultural changes hippie ? yuppie
  counter-culture movement ? materialism
  liberalism ? conservatism
• Sub-urbanization and Sunbeltization

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Demographic and Social Changes

• Growing elderly population
• Implication to urbanization
• From 20.1 million (9.2/1970)30.9 million
  (12.4/1990) over 65yrs
• Different life styles
• Rising housing price
• The growth of sunbelt cities growth of
  Resort/Retirement/Residential Centers

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Population Gain in Sunbelt Cities
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Demographic and Social Changes

• The new patterns of immigration
• Implication to urbanization
• Abolition of ceiling and quota system in 1965
• 1/3 of urban population growth during 1980s
• Ethnic composition has changed Dominated by
  immigration from Asia and Latin America
• New Immigration vs. Old Immigration
• The destination Large metropolitan areas
• Political implication for taxation policy

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Old Immigration Vs New Immigration
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Old Immigration Vs New Immigration
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Next Class

• Economic Restructuring and the Emergence of
  Informational Cities (1983-present) New Urban
  Geographies
• Summary
• Reading chp 3. pp 7175