Cities and Urban Geography

A condensed, point-by-point summary of the module, for reviewing right before a test or exam.

1. Defining and Measuring Urbanization. What counts as a "city" varies by country, and the world crossed 50% urban around 2007.
2. The World's Megacities by Region. From Tokyo to Lagos, megacities cluster unevenly across Asia, the Americas, and Africa.
3. Urban Models and Structure. Classic theories from Christaller to Burgess explain why cities are sized and shaped as they are.
4. Sprawl, Informality, and Housing. From American suburbs to Mumbai's Dharavi, cities grow outward through both formal and informal means.
5. Urban Renewal and Planned Cities. Cities are reshaped both by top-down renewal projects and by entirely new towns built from scratch.
6. Transport, Technology, and Sustainability. How cities move people and resources shapes their form, from freeways to smart-city experiments.
7. Urban Inequality and Decline. Dense cities generate their own heat, deep inequality, and, after deindustrialization, sharp decline.