Urban geography
The urban geography, and urban geography, is a traditional part of geography. As a geographical cross-sectional discipline is closely connected with other sub-disciplines of geography, for example, the population geography, economic geography and transport geography. There are also with other sciences, such as sociology, urban studies, urban planning and spatial planning, urban development / history, folklore and architecture links. Therefore one understands urban geography as a part of the interdisciplinary urban research.
In the city geography to be a settlement internal structures and the underlying processes studied, on the other, relations between cities and towns and smaller settlements ( see, eg, suburbanization ), as well as urban development and its problems. For this reason, the urban geography is originally associated with the settlement geography.
Characteristics of the city
Cities have a certain size to an internal structuring, a division into subspaces with different characteristics. This structure can on the long-term causes ( planned city asset like absolutism or unplanned growth), the cultural region, or even, as with most cities in the developed countries, on the shorter-term Funktionsentmischung after (sometimes even before) industrialization and the introduction of mass transit be due.
The city is in a geographical sense a settlement with special functional, social, geographical ( Social Geography ) and physiognomic characteristics:
Based on these features, so-called city models were of different geographers drawn, which are intended to provide accurate information on the, for a specific room or a certain time, typical structure of a city or to indicate plans for a future, ideal city.
Main directions of research
From the late 19th century seven research areas is constituted in the general urban geography field.
Morphogenetic Urban Geography
From the turn of the 20th century the oldest direction of urban geography was formed out which is also known as urban morphology. My research topic is on the one hand the analysis of urban form, so the appearance of a city, as well as their development. Be considered, inter alia, the floor plan and elevation design of the city as well as historical phenomena of city development.
Functional Urban Geography
This approach deals with the functions of a city within a larger area, and the functional spatial units within a city (such as residential areas, industrial and commercial areas, "City" ). For functional urban geography include, for example, the settlement system research or the centrality of research. A well-known representatives of this line of research is the German geographer Walter Christaller with his theory of central places.
Culture Genetic urban geography
The cultural- genetic urban geography finds its roots in the period between the world wars, but has only developed in the 1950s to a significant direction. This area examines the impact of cultural or historical differences in the development of a city.
Social Geographical Urban Research
This area was developed in the 1950s from the social geographical alignment of human geography. The social- geographic urban research focuses on the influences of groups and societies on the processes in urban areas. It was decisively influenced by the works of the Munich school of social geography from the end of the 1960s, which dealt among other things with the existence of basic functions and their fulfillment within urban areas. More recently, the study of urban lifestyles is a new focus of social geographical urban research. Linked to this is also the process of gentrification.
In the English-speaking world, the social geography and urban social geography, however, preoccupied with current social problems in cities, such as poverty, ghettoisation, and racial conflict.
Quantitative urban geography
The quantitative or theoretical urban geography is characterized by a high degree of mathematization. This young part of town research uses in the review of theories and models of statistical methods (eg cluster and factor analyzes) or geographic information systems.
Behaviour-oriented urban geography
The behavior-oriented urban geography is concerned since the early 1970s, especially with the perception and evaluation of urban structures by population. Here also the relationships between perception and evaluation are to be analyzed. Studies are concerned, for example, with the shopping and leisure behavior.
Applied Urban Geography
Since the 1970s, develop within the urban geography increasingly planning and practice-oriented research directions. Intended to counter the problems of the city, an exchange between theoretical and practical work directions arise. Possible areas of responsibility include the Urban Renewal or neighborhood improvement. The instruments of city marketing or spatial planning are under the influence of applied urban geography.