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GEOG 6.01 - Urban Geography

Course guide for GEOG 6.01.

Course description

     This course examines the historical, cultural, and socio-economic geographies of cities. We begin by tracing the process of urban development from its inception over 5,000 years ago, to industrial modern cities, to postmodern urban forms, using case studies to illuminate certain key features and processes. We then focus on understanding the particular dynamics that shape cities today. Examples are widely drawn but particular attention will be given to American urban patterns and processes.

[Source, ORC/Catalog, 09/06/2023]; DIST: SOC

DEFINING URBAN GEOGRAPHY

     The study of cities and city life from a geographical perspective (see city). Although urban geography is one of the most popular and productive parts of human geography, a precise delineation of the field is understandably difficult.

     Despite some ambivalence about the term ‘urban geography’, over the past sixty years urban geographers have developed some distinct and ongoing themes (Hall and Barrett 2012). Perhaps the most important has been the study of the internal social and spatial structure of cities, in part inspired by ideas from the Chicago School. Urban morphology considers the spatial layout and appearance of cities in different historical and national contexts. It can be extended by typologies of different kinds of urban area, for example, edge city, exurb, or suburb. Most focus has been on the social differentiation of urban areas by class, age, race, gender, and sexuality, as well as its causes and consequences (see community; gentrification; segregation; social area analysis; social geography). A second long-standing theme considers cities as systems or networks, linked by flows of people, goods, money, and information (see Central Place Theory; urban system; World City Network). The third area of inquiry has considered the diversity of cities in historical and international contexts, again frequently through typologies (see industrial city; pre-industrial city; post-industrial city). Here, an important development in the past two decades has been the recognition that normative models or ideas derived from a narrow set of mainly Western cities are not universal (see desakota region).   ...

Rogers, A., Castree, N., & Kitchin, R. (2013). Urban geography. In A Dictionary of Human Geography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 May. 2022

In the Library's collections

Books on Urban Geography are located in the 2 different call number ranges:

  • GF 125 on Berry Level 4
  • HT 101 through HT 397 on Berry Level 3

You can use one of these subject headings to start your research in the library's online catalog:

Introductory reading(s)

Selected book title(s)

Other library resource(s)

Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)

Articles and other writings about Urban Geography can be found in many publications. Our collection includes at least 2 journals which looks exclusively at Urban Geography. Those titles are listed below. You can also use the search box at the top of this page to find relevant articles.

Internet resource(s)

Citing and Tracking Your Bibliographic References

Use this guide to help you learn how to correctly cite and keep track of the references you find for your research.

Keeping up with Geography journal literature

Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Geography? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.

You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.