Urban geography


Urban geography is the subdiscipline of geography that derives from a analyse of cities as well as urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists study various aspects of urban life and the built environment. Scholars, activists, and the public realise participated in, studied, and critiqued flows of economic and natural resources, human and non-human bodies, patterns of developing and infrastructure, political and institutional activities, governance, decay and renewal, and notions of socio-spatial inclusions, exclusions, and everyday life.

Research topics


Cities differ in their economic makeup, their social and demographic characteristics, and the roles they play within the city system. One can trace these differences back to regional variations in the local resources on which growth was based during the early developing of the urban pattern and in component to the subsequent shifts in the competitive advantage of regions brought about by changing locational forces affecting regional specialization within the framework of a market economy. The recognition of different city species is critical for the kind of cities in urban geography. For such(a) classification, emphasis assumption in particular to functional town classification and the basic underlying dimensions of the city system.

The goal of classifying cities is twofold. On the one hand, it is for undertaken to search reality for hypotheses. In this context, the recognition of different types of cities on the basis of, for example, their functional specialization may lets the identification of spatial regularities in the distribution and format of urban functions and the formulation of hypotheses about the resulting patterns. On the other hand, classification is undertaken to grouping reality in order to test specific hypotheses that realize believe already been formulated. For example, to test the hypotheses that cities with a diversified economy grow at a faster rate then those with a more specialized economic base, cities must number one be classified so that diversified and specialized cities can be differentiated.

The simplest way to categorize cities is to identify the distinctive role they play in the city system. There are three distinct roles:

The composition of a city's labor force has traditionally been regarded[] as the best indicator of functional specialization, and different city types have been most frequently intended from the analysis of employment profiles. Specialization in a condition activity is said to represent when employment in it exceeds some critical level.

The relationship between the city system and the development of manufacturing has become very apparent. The rapid growth and spread of cities within the heartland-] as a manufacturing center.

The location of manufacturing is affected by myriad economic and non-economic factors, such(a) as the nature of the fabric inputs, the factors of production, the market and transportation costs. Other important influences add agglomeration and outside economies, public policy and personal preferences. Although it is unmanageable to evaluate exactly the issue of the market on the location of manufacturing activities, two considerations are involved:

Urbanization, the transformation of population from rural to urban, is a major phenomenon of the modern era and a central topic of study.