WORLD GEOGRAPHY

CHAPTER SIX

“HUMAN SYSTEMS”

PART II: URBAN AND RURAL GEOGRAPHY

I. USING THE LAND

A. Not all resources that humans need are found in one place

B. People must travel or trade to find what they need

C. First humans were hunter-gatherers

D. Domestication (grow plants and tame animals for their own use) brought about agriculture

1. Produced more food so same land could support more people

2. Populations increased

3. People could settle permanently in one place (cities)

E. Urbanization (growth in the proportion of people living in towns & cities)

II. URBAN GEOGRAPHY

A. When studying the growth of cities, two important concepts are ...

1. Site: the actual location of a city

2. Situation: relative location of a city w/ respect to other geographic features, regions, resources, and transport routes

B. Functions of towns and cities change over time

1. Security, defense

2. Religious centers

3. Trade centers (local and long distance)

4. Government administration

5. Manufacturing centers

6. Service centers

C. As cities grow, problems emerge

1. Transportation problems emerge, especially as automobile travel increases

2. Rich and poor neighborhoods exist in different areas isolated from one another

3. Providing essential services (fresh water, sewage, trash disposal, electricity, schools, clinics) becomes a problem

4. Air, water, and noise pollution increase

5. Sprawl results in the conversion of agri. land to urban uses, esp. in No. Am.

6. Rapid immigration results in “shantytowns” on edges of cities in Latin America, Africa & Asia

7. In developing countries, major cities are more connected to regions outside the country than to regions within the country