GEOG 1HB3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Primate City, Urban Land, Land Values
30 May 2018
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Urbanization Lecture C – Urban Systems & Urban Hierarchies
The roles/ functions of urban centers include:
• Urban centres are places which consume food and other goods are services.
• Urban centres are places which process and produce goods and materials.
• Urban centres are place that distribute goods and services.
From its functions, we notice that urban centres are functionally connected to other urban centres and
to the surrounding non-urban (rural) areas. Many of the connections between urban centres are
related to their absolute (site) and relative (situation) locations.
Centrality of Places
Introduction: Given the situational locations of urban centres and their interconnected functions, they
do not function independently—each urban centre contributes to the urban system by providing good
and services for other centres and by consuming the goods and services of other centres.
We use the central place theory to explain the spatial distribution of urban centres with respect to their
size and function:
• Urban centres compete with one another via the range of goods and services they provide.
• And they are located in such as way as to maximize their accessibility to the largest possible
range of consumers.
Central places: urban centres that provide goods and services to the surrounding population; may take
the form of a hamlet, village, town, city or megacity.
The area in which a central place competes with its neighbours over customers is a hinterland.
Hinterland: the market area surrounding a central place. It is also the spatial area from which the
providers of goods and services in a central place draw their customers. It can be considered a trade
area. Example: Areas like Hamilton, Mississauga are included in the hinterland for Toronto, as many
residents of these areas consume goods and services in Toronto.
• Hamlet: most hamlet areas provide low order goods (necessities like gas, food, general store)
and therefore have small area of hinterland as much of the goods they offer can be found
almost everywhere.
• Mega city: megacities provide necessities plus more high order goods and services like theatres,
sporting stadiums, universities, stock exchange, amusement parks etc. Megacities tend to have
big areas of hinterland as they offer a lot of specialty items.
Generally, the greater the diversity of goods and services provided, the greater the size of hinterland.
Megacities like New York, Toronto offer unique items and services that attract a lot of people who are
willing to travel from far to indulge in them, and that explains the bigger hinterland size compared to
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salle ities ho dot offe as uiue ites ad attat smaller consumers hence the smaller
hinterland size .
Also a entral plaes hinterland is proportional to its size, and its assortment of goods and services. A
big central place that offers very diverse services and goods will attract a lot of consumers from various
regions around the central place (big hinterland).
A system of cities: An urban hierarchy
Urban systems have an urban hierarchy: a ranking of urban centres based on population size and range
of functions they provide. The more functions you provide, the higher up on the pyramid you would be
positioned.
Pyramid shaped
• Bottom: many small urban centres that serve small areas and provide limited assorted of goods
and services are located at the bottom of the pyramid—Rural areas.
• Top: few large urban centres that serve large areas and provide broad assortment of g/s are
located at the top of the pyramid—Big cities.
In Ontario, Toronto would be at the top of the pyramid. Areas like Hamilton, Oshawa, Burlington,
London, and Ottawa would be placed in the middle of the pyramid. Georgetown, Brampton, Barrie,
Guelph, etc. would be at the bottom of the pyramid.
Globally, global cities that have large sphere of influence, strong economies like New York, Tokyo,
London, etc. are at the top of the pyramid while cities with smaller sphere of influence like Toronto,
Moscow, Sidney, Sao Paulo, etc. are located lower on the pyramid.
We have considered ordering central places by their functions but they can also be ordered by their
population size.
Urban systems usually follow one of two distributions based on population size:
• Rank-size distribution: population of an urban centre is inversely proportional to its rank on the
hierarchy.
In general, the nth largest urban centre will be 1/n multiplied by the size of the largest urban
centre.
Example: The 1st ranked city has a population of 1 million people (most populous city) .To find
the population of the third ranked city, we calculate as so:
n = 3 ∗ ,, =333,333 people
To find the fourth or fifth ranked city, all we need to do is change n and calculate.
We at epet populatio size to e pefet ad uifo as sa ,, people, thee ould
be always be some divergence when we use rank size distribution. Usually, cities just generally
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Document Summary
Urbanization lecture c urban systems & urban hierarchies. From its functions, we notice that urban centres are functionally connected to other urban centres and to the surrounding non-urban (rural) areas. Many of the connections between urban centres are related to their absolute (site) and relative (situation) locations. Central places: urban centres that provide goods and services to the surrounding population; may take the form of a hamlet, village, town, city or megacity. The area in which a central place competes with its neighbours over customers is a hinterland. Hinterland: the market area surrounding a central place. It is also the spatial area from which the providers of goods and services in a central place draw their customers. Megacities tend to have big areas of hinterland as they offer a lot of specialty items. Generally, the greater the diversity of goods and services provided, the greater the size of hinterland.
