The Changing Structure of Urban Settlements: Study Notes (9696 Geography)

Hello Geographers! This chapter is all about understanding how the internal layout of cities—where the shops, offices, factories, and homes are located—is organized and, crucially, how it changes over time. Cities are like living organisms, constantly shifting and evolving!

Understanding these structures (known as urban morphology) is essential for solving real-world challenges like traffic congestion and managing social inequality. Let's dive in!

1. Factors Affecting the Location of Urban Activities

Why is a bank usually in the city centre, but a massive car factory is often on the outskirts? The placement of different activities (retailing, services, manufacturing) is determined by a mix of factors.

1.1 The P.E.S.E. Framework for Location

We can simplify the factors affecting location using the P.E.S.E. framework:

  • P - Political/Planning: Government decisions and regulations.
    • Example: Zoning laws restrict industrial activities (factories) to designated industrial estates to separate them from residential areas. Planning permission dictates building height and density.
  • E - Economic: Cost, profit, and financial necessity. This is often the most important factor.
    • Example: Businesses needing high visibility and accessibility (like flagship retail stores) can afford high land rents in the Central Business District (CBD) because they expect higher profits there.
  • S - Social: Accessibility to customers or skilled labour.
    • Example: Hospitals (services) need to be accessible to a large population. Certain types of specialised retail may locate near specific social groups (e.g., ethnic groceries).
  • E - Environmental: Physical features and quality of life/space needed.
    • Example: Manufacturing requires large, flat, cheap plots of land, often near major transport links (ports, highways), making peripheral areas ideal. Retail prefers pleasant, clean environments to attract shoppers.

Quick Takeaway: Urban location is a balancing act between the need for access (high profit) and the cost of land (lower overheads).

2. How Urban Locations Change Over Time

Historically, everything was clustered in the CBD. However, due to several key processes, urban activities have spread outwards—a process known as decentralisation.

2.1 Changes in Retailing

Retailing has seen the most dramatic shift away from the CBD since the mid-20th century.

  • Old Location (CBD): High-end, specialist shops that rely on passing trade and prestige.
  • New Locations (Periphery):
    • Out-of-Town Shopping Centres: Built on cheap land with ample free parking. These often feature large anchor stores and cater to car-dependent suburban populations. (Example: The growth of malls outside US cities.)
    • Retail Parks: Clusters of large, warehouse-style shops (for furniture, electronics).
Causes of Retail Change:
  1. Mobility: Increased car ownership made CBD access less desirable (parking issues, congestion).
  2. Rent: High CBD rents became unsustainable for many businesses, especially those requiring large floor areas.
  3. E-commerce: Online shopping reduced the need for physical stores, leading to vacant shops in traditional high streets.

2.2 Changes in Services (Financial, Professional, Administrative)

While essential services (like key government offices) often remain central, many others have decentralised.

  • Decentralisation of Back Offices: Functions that do not require face-to-face interaction (data processing, call centres) move to cheaper locations outside the CBD.
  • Suburban Office Parks: Development of clustered office buildings along orbital motorways (ring roads), where they benefit from lower rents and better communication links (fibre optics).

2.3 Changes in Manufacturing

Manufacturing has almost completely abandoned the CBD and surrounding inner city.

  • Shift from Inner City to Edge: Early factories needed access to canals/railways and inner-city labour. Modern industries need large, single-story units for efficiency (assembly lines) and excellent road transport access.
  • Industrial Estates and EPZs: New industries (often high-tech or requiring vast space) locate in dedicated, planned zones on the city edge or far beyond.

Key Takeaway: Decentralisation is driven by increasing land costs, improved transport (especially road networks), and the need for greater operational space.

3. The Changing Central Business District (CBD)

The CBD is the functional heart of the city, characterised by maximum accessibility, high land values, and vertical development (skyscrapers).

3.1 Characteristics of the CBD

  • High Land Values: Due to intense competition for prime locations.
  • High Density/Verticality: Buildings go up instead of out to maximise the use of expensive land.
  • Functional Mix: Dominated by specialist retail, corporate headquarters, financial institutions (banks, insurance), and administrative services.
  • Accessibility: The convergence point of public transport routes.

3.2 Challenges and Changes in the CBD

Decentralisation has led to challenges, often called CBD decline:

  • Competition: Loss of retail to out-of-town malls.
  • Congestion and Pollution: High traffic volumes and noise deter shoppers and businesses.
  • Deterioration: Older buildings can become run down, leading to empty office space.
CBD Renewal (The Response to Decline)

Cities try to save the CBD through **urban renewal** and improved planning:

  • Pedestrianisation: Creating car-free zones to improve the shopping experience.
  • Mixed Use Development: Combining offices, flats, and leisure/entertainment to ensure activity continues after 5 PM (e.g., living above the shop).
  • Improved Transport: Investing in light rail or subway systems to improve access without increasing surface traffic.

Did You Know? Many CBDs in High Income Countries (HICs) have transformed into centres for leisure and tourism, hosting major museums, theatres, and restaurants, rather than purely relying on retail.

4. Competition for Space and Bid Rent

4.1 Spatial Competition and Functional Zonation

Because cities are attractive places for jobs, services, and opportunities, there is intense competition for space. This competition results in functional zonation—the clear separation of different land uses into distinct zones (e.g., the factory zone, the shopping zone, the residential zone).

4.2 The Concept of Bid Rent

The Bid Rent Theory explains why these zones form. It states that the price (or 'rent') a business or household is willing to pay for land decreases as the distance from the CBD increases.

Analogy: The Rent Cake

Imagine the city centre is a slice of cake. The closer you are to the centre (the best part), the higher the price you are willing to bid for that location.

  • Commercial/Retail (The Steepest Curve): This sector requires maximum accessibility (the CBD) to maximise profit. They bid the highest rent and thus secure the central locations.
  • Industrial/Manufacturing (The Mid-Curve): This sector needs access but also requires large space for production and storage. They cannot afford CBD prices and locate further out, usually near transport arteries.
  • Residential (The Flattest Curve): Households value space and quiet more than maximum accessibility. They bid the lowest and are pushed to the peripheral edges of the city.

The actual land price paid (the market rent) follows the curve of the highest bidder at any given distance from the CBD.

Result: Functional Zonation

Bid Rent ensures that activities occupy locations that maximise their utility (value).

  • Inner Zone: Commercial (CBD)
  • Middle Zone: Transition/Industrial (Inner City)
  • Outer Zone: Residential/Suburban

Common Mistake: Don't confuse Bid Rent with *actual* rent. Bid Rent is the *maximum* amount an activity is *willing* to pay. The actual rent charged will usually be slightly less than the maximum bid.

5. Residential Segregation

Residential Segregation is the clustering of people with similar characteristics (e.g., income level or ethnicity) into specific neighbourhoods. This is a crucial feature of the social structure of most urban areas.

5.1 Causes of Segregation

A. Economic/Income Segregation

This occurs because housing costs vary drastically across the city (linked back to Bid Rent).

  • Cause: Income disparities mean that poorer households are restricted to cheaper housing stock, usually found in older inner-city areas or lower-quality periphery estates.
  • Cause: Wealthier individuals compete for larger, higher-quality housing, often in desirable suburbs, resulting in exclusive, high-income enclaves.
B. Race/Ethnicity Segregation

This occurs when groups cluster based on shared cultural background or because of discrimination.

  • Cause: New migrants often cluster together (voluntary segregation) for mutual support, shared language, and access to specific cultural services (shops, places of worship).
  • Cause: Discrimination, exclusion from the main housing market, or social hostility can force ethnic groups into specific, often less desirable, neighbourhoods (involuntary segregation).

5.2 Processes Leading to Segregation

Segregation is reinforced and maintained by several ongoing processes:

  1. Operation of the Housing Market:
    • Filtering: As middle-class families move to newer, better suburbs, their older, inner-city homes 'filter down' to lower-income groups, often reinforcing existing social boundaries.
    • Redlining/Steering: Although often illegal now, historically, banks refused mortgages (redlining) or real estate agents guided ethnic groups (steering) to specific areas.
  2. Influence of Family and Friends:
    • This is a strong factor in chain migration. New arrivals are drawn to areas where established family and community networks can offer support, jobs, and social integration.
  3. Culture:
    • The desire to maintain cultural identity, language, and access to specific goods (e.g., halal meat, specialist groceries) reinforces clustering (creating 'ethnic enclaves').
  4. Planning (Political):
    • Historically, poor planning could create large concentrations of poverty (e.g., poorly managed public housing blocks). Conversely, strategic planning for mixed-income developments can attempt to *reduce* segregation.

Quick Review Box: Segregation Processes

Housing Market: How property values and sales/rentals funnel different groups into certain zones.
Family/Friends/Culture: The social pull factors that encourage voluntary clustering.
Planning: Government actions (or inactions) that affect housing distribution.