GEO-A-DSE-B-6-07-TH – Urban Geography Theory

Urban Geography: Nature and scope, different approaches and recent

trends in urban geography
Nature of Urban Geography
Aurousseau (1924) was among the first ones who gave an outline of the subject matter of the urban
geography. He is of the view that since this part of geography embraces a large part of human geography
if fails to be a specialized subject and therefore is not sure about the nature of urban geography. But after
analysing various approaches he concludes that the regional study of towns and their functional study do
form an important component of its scope. This gave impetus to the ‘site and situation’ and ‘functional’
approaches within this discipline.

The morphological approach gained momentum with the emergence of the Chicago School in the late
1920s. They paid attention to diverse social and economic factors that were responsible for the segregated
land use in the city. Thus, now the scholars diverted their attention to the complexities of the cityscape
rather than concentrating on the growth and layout of the cities. This gave foundation to the new urban
geography where this discipline became more of an integrated systematic study. In the words of Dickinson
(1947), urban geography is not about planning but is concerned with various factors which are inherent to
the spatial and geographical structure of the city upon which planning should be based.

With planning gaining emphasis, functions too became important as now location was understood
through functions that are what a town does or did in the past. The functions now also determine the
pattern of city’s growth and development. When urban geography started crystallising into a well define
systematic study; came the quantitative revolution. Model building came into existence and theory had
to be tested in reality; which usually involved statistical techniques; the most significant example being
Christaller’s central place theory (1933).

Scope of Urban Geography

Urban Geography is concerned to identify and explain the distribution of towns and cities and the socio-
spatial similarities and contrasts that exist within and between them. Following this there are two basic
approaches to urban geography: the first refers to the spatial distribution of towns and cities and the
linkages between them, this can be considered the study of systems of cities; the second refers to the
internal structure of urban places, this can be named the study of the city as a system.

While every town and city has an individual character, urban places also exhibit common features that
vary only in degree of incidence or importance within the particular urban fabric. All cities contain areas
of residential space, transportation lines, economic activities, service infrastructure, commercial areas,
and public buildings. Cities also exhibit common problems to varying degrees, including inadequate
housing, economic decline, poverty, ill health, social polarization, traffic congestion and environmental
pollution. Many characteristics and concerns are shared by urban places. These shared characteristics and
concerns represent the foundations for the study of urban geography.

Urban Geography maintains important links with other branches of geography, and its main power is to
synthesize many different perspectives so as to advance our understanding of urban phenomena. This
eclectic approach to the analysis of urban places extends beyond geography to incorporate research
findings and knowledge across traditional disciplinary boundaries. The integrative power of urban
geography is a key characteristic of the subdiscipline. Another principal characteristic of geographical
analysis of the city is the centrality of spatial perspective. This distinguishes urban geography from
cognate areas of urban study such as urban economics, urban sociology or urban politics.

Different Approaches in Urban Geography

Urban geography is a subdiscipline that comprises a combination of past ideas and approaches, current
concepts and issues that are still being worked out. While the significance of the different philosophical
perspectives for the practice of urban geography has changes over time, none of the main approaches has
been abandoned completely. Two main groups can be identified for these approaches: early and modern
approaches.

• Site and Situation and Urban Morphology

In the early approaches, site and situation, and urban morphology were relevant. For the first, studies for
the early twentieth century were concerned primarily with the physical characteristics as the determining
factors in the location and development of settlements. This concern has been long superseded in all but
historical and some rural studies as cities have grown in both size and complexity. Original location factors
have tended to be overridden by the scale of subsequent urbanization or have greatly declined in
importance as the form and function of urban areas have changed. Secondly, urban morphology was an
important root of urban geography that developed particularly strongly in German universities in the early
twentieth century. It was a descriptive approach that sought to understand urban development through
examination of the phases of growth of urban areas.

• Positivism

The first major paradigm shift to affect urban geography reflected the desire to make geographical
investigation more scientific. Modern approaches started with the introduction of the philosophy of
positivism that is characterized by the adherence to the scientific method of investigation based on
hypothesis testing, statistical inference and theory construction. This philosophy is based upon the belief
that human behavior is determined by universal laws and displays fundamental regularities. Positive
approaches can be subdivided in two types, ecological and neo-classical approaches. Ecological
approaches ere based upon the belief that human behavior is determined by ecological principles, namely
that the most powerful groups, would obtain the most advantageous positions in a given space, the best
residential location for example. This school of urban geography goes back to the Chicago school of
sociology from the 1920s, and their contributions include the concentric zone, and the sector model of
land use. Neo-classical approaches were based on the belief that human behavior was motivated
primarily by rationality. This means that each decision was taken with the aim of minimizing the cost
involved (in terms of time and money) and maximizing the benefits. This type of behavior was referred as
utility maximization.

• Behavioral and humanistic approaches

Behavioral and humanistic approaches were united in their belief that people, and the ways in which they
made sense of their environment should be central to their approach. Behaviorist approaches can be
regarded as an extension of positivist approaches; they sought to expand positivism’s narrow conception
of human behavior and to articulate more richly the values, goals and motivations under-pinning human
behavior. However, despite this they were still concerned with uncovering law-like generalizations in
human behavior. In a radical departure from the scientific approaches of the 1950s and 1960s, the
humanistic approaches brought techniques more associated with the humanities to understand people-
environment relationships. They sought to understand the deep, subjective and very complex relationship
between individuals, groups, places and landscapes.
• Structural analysis

Structural analysis in urban geography has been based primarily on the work of K. Marx. The political
economy approach entered urban geography in the early 1970s in response to the continuing social
problems of urban areas. Cities are viewed as an integral part of the capitalist mode of production by
providing an environment favorable for the fundamental capitalist goal of accumulation. Much attention
has been directed to the analysis of urban property and housing markets, and studies of residential
patterns. This approach interpreted urban residential segregation primarily as a result of decisions by
those with power in the property market, including building society managers, estate agents, and local
authority housing managers. The political economy approach has had a major impact in urban geography
and has provided real insight into economic and political forces underlying urban change.

• Postmodern theory

Postmodern theory began to exert an influence on urban geography in the late 1980s and 1990s. The
postmodern perspective is characterized by a rejection of grand theory and an emphasis on human
difference. The most visible impact of postmodern thinking on the city is in its architecture where the
concrete functionalism of the modern era is replaced by a diversity of styles. In terms of the social
geography of the city, the most important contribution of a postmodern perspective is how its focus on
differences, uniqueness and individuality sensitizes us to the needs and situations of all members of a
society. This emphasis has been reflected in studies of gender differences in urban labor markets, “spaces
of exclusion” occupied by minority groups, marital status, sexuality, race age, and disability.

Recent Trends in Urban Geography

Urbanisation is a process of movement of people toward cities because of better facilities available there
for jobs, health, sanitation, infrastructure, education and housing. In India Urbanisation is taking place
because of rapid growth in mixed economy structure of urban areas. Hence lesser encouraging agriculture
and primary sector job is making people to migrate from rural to urban area while urban people not
returning back to rural area even after completion of their work term. Urbanisation is prevalent in cities
which are adjoined by lesser developed rural areas and where facilities for education is available nearby
so that both skilled and unskilled people shifting toward urban area for livelihood.

Recent trends:
1. Rate of urbanization has increased compared to earlier.
2. Peri-urbanization i.e. areas around urban centres are expanding
3. Most of the urbanization is happening in million plus cities

Characteristics:
1. Economic: Since urban areas are dominated by secondary and tertiary activities. Such activities are
becoming more and more capital intensive and technology intensive thus not providing adequate
employment. This results in urban poverty.
2. Unbalanced sex ratio: Since most of the migrants are males so sex ratio is unbalanced.
3. High population density : Population grows but area doesn't increase in proportion resulting in high
population density.
Post liberalization growth of urbanization has fallen in relatively backward states of Bihar,Himachal
Pradesh,UP and North eastern states who were leading in urbanization process,while that of developed
states like Maharastra,Tamilnadu has been higher than national average.Also,rate of urbanization is
falling after 1980s with only 32% population in urban areas.

-Sinchan Banerjee, Alokesh Mondal & Akash Kumar Manna