Urban space
Urban space , also urban area or urban space according to English , is primarily an urban area in settlement geography, in contrast to rural and unpopulated areas. In this respect, it is a term used in urban geography and urban sociology . The urban area is characterized by size, high population and building density as well as functional spatial specialization and socio-spatial differentiation. In addition, urban areas have a central function, which is reflected in the political, economic and religious importance of the area. The development phases of a society are mapped in urban areas. More than half of the world's population lives in urban areas due to urbanization .
Historical development of the term
The demarcation of rural and urban areas is as old as the cities themselves. It was visible in antiquity and in the Middle Ages through the wall ring and is still recognizable today from settlement names such as in front of the walls ( Italian fuori le mura etc.). In the late Middle Ages and early modern times, the first suburban areas formed outside of urban areas .
Due to the surrounding, graduated compression chambers (also compression region or metropolitan area ), there are now often no clear demarcation between urban and rural areas more. Rather, the city fits into the rural area, but also the country into the urban area. This process is often referred to as suburbanization . Even if Gerhard Isbary and others early on marked the terms rural and urban areas as useless for settlement geography and sociology, other researchers have retained this fundamental distinction and merely abandoned the assumption of a sharp demarcation between town and country. As urban since a room with large settlement units, high population density, almost exclusively non-agricultural activities, natural distance, heterogeneity of the population, strong applies stratification and mobility , formal and secondary social relations.
Conversion of the urban-rural contrast into a system of graded intermediate types
As a rule, further spatial types are now located between urban and rural . The concept of urban space is thus often identified with the concepts of the core city or the inner city . As early as the early 1960s , Andrew Hacker made a distinction in the English-speaking context between urban (English urban ), suburban and suburban ( suburban ), medium-sized ( midurban ) and rural ( rural ). As urban while rooms in which 60% or more of the population live in a central city apply. Reinhold Grotz identified the urbanized area from a geographical perspective between the urban and rural areas and determined the typification based on the distribution of the center and the surrounding population:
| room | Center population | Surrounding population in settlements with 2000 inhabitants and more | Surrounding population in settlements with fewer than 2000 inhabitants |
| Rural area | 20-40% | 0-20% | 50-75% |
| Urbanized space | 25-50% | 25-40% | 15-40% |
| Urban space | 25-50% | 45-75% | 0-25% |
Olaf Kühne knows the suburban area between rural and urban areas and defines the following criteria for urban areas : Polyvalent landscapes of the first and second order are accordingly created by districts with a high symbolic charge (e.g. Reeperbahn ), cities, parks, shopping centers educated; Residential and industrial areas are regarded as monovalent landscapes, industrial wastelands , abandoned city districts and disused railway tracks, on the other hand, as "non-valent" landscapes. This three-way division is also used by the Swiss Federal Office for Statistics and Census.
The OECD typology today distinguishes between predominantly urban , predominantly rural and intermediate types of space, several German typifications speak of core cities , rural and densely populated districts, the most differentiated being the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research .
See also
literature
- Herbert Kötter, Hans-Joachim Krekeler: On the sociology of urban-rural relations. In: René König: Handbook of empirical social research. Volume 10: Urban-rural relationships. 2., completely reworked. Edition. Enke, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-432-86952-5 , pp. 1-41.
- Olaf Kühne: City - Landscape - Hybridity: Aesthetic references in postmodern Los Angeles with its modern persistence. Springer, 2012, ISBN 978-3-531-18661-0 .
- Wolf Gaebe: Urban spaces. Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart, 2004, ISBN 978-3825225117 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Extra muros - suburban spaces in the late Middle Ages and early modern times
- ^ Gerhard Isbary: Reorganization of the rural area as a task of regional planning. In: regional planning. Munster 1966.
- ↑ Herbert Kötter, Hans-Joachim Krekeler: On the sociology of urban-rural relationships. In: René König: Handbook of empirical social research. P. 24.
- ^ Andrew Hacker: Congressional Districting. In: The Issue of Equal Representation. 1963, pp. 801f.
- ↑ Christoph Brocherdt et al .: Supply locations and supply areas. Centrality research in Northern Württemberg. 1977, p. 178.
- ^ Olaf Kühne: City - Landscape - Hybridity: Aesthetic references in post-modern Los Angeles with its modern persistence. 2012, p. 151.
- ↑ Federal Statistical Office and Population Census: The urban area compared to the rural area: Monitoring Urban Area Switzerland. 2003; that .: Federal Population Census: The spatial structure of Switzerland. 2005.
- ↑ Comparative types of employment agencies 2008 (PDF file; 667 kB).