Korte, beknopte & bondige samenvatting van Inleiding
Stadsgeografie
Door Marte Vroom
Hoorcollege 1 – De historische stad
Hoofdstuk 3 – Urban form and structure
Studying urban form and structure
Morphology: the form or shape of the city
Harold Carter: complexity of urban form
M.R.G. Conzen:
o Basic principles of urban morphological study
Division of urban landscape, building form and land use
Subdivision of city’s plan into streets, plots/blocks/open spaces and
building/block plans
Recognition of individual plot as fundamental unit of analysis
o Conceptualization of developments in the urban landscape
Recognition that different elements of urban landscape change at different
speeds over time
Conceptualization of cycles of development at micro scale within plot
Burgage cycle: general phenomenon of gradual plot infilling
Conceptualization of phases of growth of city at macro scale
Fringe belts
Three principal strands of current interest:
o Work based on Conzen’s ideas has continued in Britain
o Renewed interest in culture in geography has focused attention on the symbolic
forms of urban landscape
o Researchers have become interested in the emergence of the new urban forms
linked to post-modernism and changes in the dominant forms of architecture in
cities
Urban origins
Early urban development linked to changes in human societies beginning in Neolithic
period, associated with development of human control of environment
Development of urban areas and populations seen to have provided stimulus for
agricultural development
The form of the pre-industrial city
Forms of earliest cities often intimately linked to religious and cultural beliefs of particular
societies
Gideon Sjoberg: model of the structure of the pre-industrial city
o Centre: prestige building, religious complexes and residences of social elite
o Concentric rings of decreasing social status span out from centre
Vance: consideration of mercantile city
, o Importance of occupational sub-districts based on economic rather than purely
religious concerns
Pedestrian cities
o Compact in size
o Narrow streets
o Organic in structure
Burgage plots: typical structures where homes, workshops and storage areas were combined
in a single plot
The modern city
Significant phases in human history
o Industrialization
o Colonialism
The industrial city
University of Chicago was particularly influential
Classical models of modern urban structure
o Burgess’ concentric zone model
Social organism, ecological analogy of invasion and succession
Social status and wealth increased towards the edge of the settlement, with
the best housing and wealthiest groups on the edge of the city
Central business district: commercial functions
Transitional zone: industry mixed with poor housing
o Hoyt’s sector model
Pattern of sectors
High status sectors could be found along routes radiating out from centre
and away from industrial zones
Early variation of Burgess and Hoyt’s models: multiple nuclei model by Harris & Ullman
o Complex pattern of zones and sectors
o Lower status local authority housing on edge of cities
Intervention by state, communism
o Camel back structure
High density core
Low density industrial zone
High rise housing projects on the periphery
Fringe belt: long-term development of urban areas to economic fluctuations, the role of
innovation and cycles of building in particular
Urban expansion cyclical, with periods of rapid outward growth alternating with periods of
standstill
Distant landscapes created by successive phases of suburban expansion
More open and organic forms (Garden City movements)
Key changes:
o Incorporation of garages into buildings
o Greater variety of dwelling types
Breakthrough streets: accommodate new transport forms
, The colonial and post-colonial city
New settlements led to abandonment of indigenous cities
Dual city: retain distance between populations, juxtaposition of different urban forms
Drakakis-Smith: idea distinct dualism too simplistic, in reality hybrid zones of indigenous and
colonial forms
Post-colonial cities shaped by 2 key processes linked to colonial past
o Immediate post-colonial period has been driven by desire to modernize unfettered
by colonial restrictions
o Developing socio-economic structures different from western industrial cities
The post-modern city
Post-Fordist
Transition from modernity to post-modernity in advanced capitalist societies which have
taken place in many disciplines
Los Angeles, California School, influential school of urban studies since 1970s
More chaotic in structure, fragmenting into a series of independent settlements, economies,
societies and cultures
Galactic metropolis: urban form as resembling a pattern of stars floating in space rather than
a unitary metropolitan development growing steadily outward from a single centre
Patch-work model
Ed Soja: 6 geographies of urbanization
o Restructuring economic base of urbanization
o Formation global system of world cities
o Emergence edge cities or exopolis
o Changing social structure of urbanization
o Rise of paranoid or carceral architecture based on protection, surveillance and
exclusion
o Radical change in urban imagery
Fortress landscapes: landscapes designed around security, protection, surveillance and
exclusion
Mike Davis: increasing obsession with control and protection
Decentring of the city, development of multiple centres and rise of edge cities
Hoofdstuk 6 – Planning, regeneration and urban policy
Urban planning and policy traditions and approaches
Plans and policies can have different roles
o Restrict
o Control/manage
o Facilitate
Planning as a rational modern and technical response to unruly city, seeking to impose order
through recording, quantifying, mapping and designing
Crisis in modernist planning