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Cities and Urban Land Use

The California-Mexico Border: Dreams of a Transnational Metropolis

“A basic truth about the cultural geography of the California border [is this]—two very different city-building traditions come crashing into each other at one of the most contentious international boundary lines on the planet. In this collision, in the shocking contrast of landscapes, lies one critical ingredient of the border’s place identity.”

Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:

As a geographer native to the San Diego region (with family on both sides of the border), I found this article very compelling.  Relations across the border are economic, cultural and political in nature, and the merger of those varied interests have led to an uneven history of both cooperation and separation.  Herzog analyses three distinct factors that have shape the landscape of the California-Mexico border zone: urbanization, NAFTA, and global interruptions (9/11).    

Tags: borders, AAG, political, landscape, California, unit 4 political, Mexico.

See on www.aag.org

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Public Transit and Density

Transit

Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:

This image is an excellent visualization to use when teaching about density, public transportation and urban planning. 

 Questions to Ponder: How is this a persuasive image?  Do you argee with the argument that the planning office is making? Are there something important factors that this image ignores?

Tags: transportation, urban, planning, density, sustainability, unit 7 cities.

See on www.humantransit.org

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Climate Change, Disaster Mitigation and City Planning

TED Talks As Vicki Arroyo says, it’s time to prepare our homes and cities for our changing climate, with its increased risk of flooding, drought and uncertainty.

Our major cities are suceptible to environmental catastrophes for a whole host of reasons.  Cities depend on a smooth of goods, money and services provided by infrastructure that we take for granted and assume will always work 24/7.  Presented in the video are some ideas about how we should rethink our cities with a different ecological paradigm to protect our cities more in the future.

Tags: planning, urban ecology, environment adapt, sustainability.

See on www.ted.com

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The Burgess and Hoyt Model

It is possible in many cities to identify zones with a particular type of land use – eg a residential zone. Often these zones have developed due to a combination of economic and social factors. In some cases planners may have tried to separate out some land uses, eg an airport is separated from a large housing estate.

The concentric and sector models in one news article?  The BBC is showing once again the possibilities available if only the United States taught more geography in the schools.

Tags: urban, models, unit 7 cities, APHG.

See on www.bbc.co.uk

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Burning Man

This annual arts festival with a strong counter-cultural ethos literally is an experiment in producing alternative urban and cultural geographies that reject normative regulations embedded within societies.  These geographies created last only about a week, as an escape from the regular strictures of society and the ephemeral alternative geographies fade back into the desert.  The images of the event are quite striking.

I’ll let the producer of the video explain: “It is an 8-day event which takes place annually in late August in the temporary city of Black Rock City located in a dry lakebed in northwestern Nevada, USA.  The radial streets are laid out like a clock face, from 2:00 to 10:00. I have marked some of these streets as well as some of the prominent and favorite theme camps and villages.  The attendees are all participants in a sense and are themselves the attraction. There is no corporate sponsorship or presence of any sort. Only ice and coffee are sold. Everything else is brought in under the concept of ‘radical self-reliance’ or gifted by others. Most ‘burners’ participate by finding the creative or artistic thing that they enjoy most and do best, do it to the fullest extent, and share it as much as possible.”

Tags: art, culture, unit 3 culture, popular culture.

See on www.youtube.com

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Flexible Urban Planning

mixed used train-tracks/market place…

I’ve used similar videos in my classes and students are usually quite shocked to see how a city like Bangkok, Thailand operates.  I’ve used this as a ‘hook’ for lessons of population growth, urbanization, economic development, sustainability, megacities and city planning.

See on Scoop.it – Geography Education

See on www.youtube.com

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Philippines floods: the aftermath

See on Scoop.it – Geography Education

The torrential rains that caused widespread flooding in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, have left the city reeling…

This is a grim, but captivating photo gallery showing how people adapt to environmental disasters.  Human settlements are vulnerable to disasters based on their environmental situations but people still display an amazingly capacity to be resilient in the face of danger.  “The torrential rains that caused widespread flooding in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, have left the city reeling. Thousands of people remain in evacuation shelters, and those who stayed in their homes during the deluge face a major clean-up operation.”

See on www.guardian.co.uk

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Cities where homebuying is most (and least) affordable

See on Scoop.it – Geography Education

Looking for an affordable home? Here are 5 cities that are good bets, and 5 cities where owning is tough.

This is an intriguing set of lists.  What geographic factors explain why some cities are on either of these lists?  In related news on housing in the United States, many of the so-called “McMansions” of the 1990s and 2000s were virtually unsellable during the height of the recession.  They are now being sold, but for around half of what they were selling for at their peak.

See on money.cnn.com

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The Importance of Place

Using the vocabulary of this course, please describe in detail the geographic context of a town like this (real or imaginary).  What is the town like?  How did it get that way?  What type of meaning does ‘place’ have for those that live there?

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