Urban Origins
Major cities in developing countries attracted the most people with promises of employment and
benefits.
Transportation centres or colonial government centres.
Four ways Cities/Urbanism was originated
1. Agricultural surplus and growth.
2. Market Places established for exchange.
3. New functions for centres, such as military, defence, administration, etc.
4. Religious Centres
Pre-Industrial Cities
Cities before industrialization.
Focuses on marketing, commercial activity and craft industries.
No organization of different land uses/functions.
Only division was the separation of the elites in the city.
Elites found in the central core, the economic, cultural and political focal point.
Guild system: land use zoning; clustering of areas based on people sharing jobs/skills, uniformity
of practise.
Trade system contributed to urban growth after collapse of Roman Empire.
Mercantilism emerged as a dominant belief in governance: the involvement of the state in
economic activities for state growth!
Capitalism combined with technological advances led to Industrial revolution and industrial city.
The Industrial Revolution (Begun in England)
New legal, economic and political institutions. (I.e. security property rights, social mobility)
Large-scale use of energy resources and factory production.
New technology, new machines.
More factories.
New landscapes of high concentrations of workers in residences near industries OR transportation
routes.
Decline in agriculture.
Movement from Europe to new colonial territories.
Great population growth.
Mass movements from rural areas to the urban city.
No longer feuds between societies and competition, but the emergence of capitalism and
nationalism = individual profit and success.
Expansion of countries to empires.
Desire for modernism for practicality and scientific knowledge.
Industrial Cities
Emergence of middle class.
No more mercantilism, detested by middle class.
Phases of capitalism created new urban landscapes: 1. Competitive capitalism by markets between local business activities.
2. Organized Capitalism; emergence of transnational organization, rise in service economy and
consumption.
3. Disorganized capitalism; producers on the lookout for exotic products.
Large densities in cities with changes in social life.
Rapid growth in key resource locations.
Economic Base Theory
Subdivides urban economics into two sectors:
1. Basic; goods and services for sale outside the city, generated income for city residents.
2. Non-Basic; goods and services sold within the city, circulates income.
Two conclusions:
1. The larger the city results in lesser dependence on the basic sector
2. The larger city has potential for growth.
Globalization and Industrial Geographies
Affects location, organization and activity of industry.
Two key points related to developing/developed country.
Industrial restructuring, shifts in industrial investment and activity in 3 principle forms.
‘A decline in the friction of distance that is a consequence of new communication technologies’.
Fordism to Post-Fordism
Massive assembly lines.
Vertical/horizontal integration.
Massive production.
Sustained economic growth at the exploitation of labours led to the rise of transnational
corporations.
The corporations of countries were restricted in external investment, instead they took advantages
of transportation advances.
Loss of manufacturing activity (deindustrialization).
Reindustrialization in other countries.
Industrial Restructuring
Three principle forms
1. Machine/automated manufacturing, industry declines in developed country and moved to
locations that will accompany low labour costs.
2. Transfer from collective consumption to joint public private projects and deregulation.
3. New technologies that allow organizations to efficiently respond to labour costs.
Technological Advances that allowed flexible accumulation (flexibility in labour practises,
relation firms, technology and consumption). Production, transaction and circulation
technologies.
Increase in market.
Deindustrialization and reindustrialization
Rise of transnational corporations and communication technologies.
New competition between firms.
Expansion in output and massive unemployment.
Emergence of ser
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