Monumental in scale and epic in development, cities have become the most visible and significant symbol of human progress. The geography on and around which they are constructed, however, has come to be viewed merely in terms of its resources and is often laid to waste once its assets have been stripped. The City in Geography is an urban exploration through this phenomenon, from settlement to city through physical geography, which reveals an incremental progression of removing terrain, topography and geography from the built environment, ushering in and advancing global destruction and instability. This book explains how the fall of geography in relationship to human survival has come through the loss of contact between urban dwellers and physical terrain, and details the radical rethinking required to remedy the separations between the city, its inhabitants and the landscape upon which it was built.

When first released much praise was given to this book: "An outstanding book on urban geography. . . representative of the best on this subject."--Higher Education Journal "The book ought to be required reading for every planner and student of planning . . . a magnificent achievement." --Town and Country Planning. The Geography of Towns provides a concise but thorough introduction to the important subject of urban geography. It traces the development of urban areas from the earliest sites of Nineveh, Aleppo, and Agade to modern megalopolises and strip cities, and deals authoritatively with problems of classification and ranking, location and type, origins, and course of development, and the relationship of the city to its region and nation. All facets of urban geography are covered, including the core, integuments, population structure, land-use patterns, enclaves, and town structure. Population mobility and the continual crisscross circulation of populations within and between town and region are seen as important forces affecting the internal geography of towns. The author questions the usefulness or validity of such terms as "neighborhood" and stresses the need for more meaningful conceptualizations and vocabulary. One of the fundamental problems connected with urban geography is to assist in the planning of future cities. This book contributes substantially to an understanding of the interrelations of town and region and to an understanding of the components of the city itself which are essential to intelligent planning for the future.

Urban Geography a comprehensive introduction to a variety of issues relating to contemporary urban geography, including patterns and processes of urbanization, urban development, urban planning, and life experiences in modern cities. Reveals both the diversity of ordinary urban geographies and the networks, flows and relations which increasingly connect cities and urban spaces at the global scale Uses the city as a lens for proposing and developing critical concepts which show how wider social processes, relations, and power structures are changing Considers the experiences, lives, practices, struggles, and words of ordinary urban residents and marginalized social groups rather than exclusively those of urban elites Shows readers how to develop critical perspectives on dominant neoliberal representations of the city and explore the great diversity of urban worlds

"This extraordinary collage of sophisticated essays on key terms in urban geography both provides a conventional basis to and recasts innovatively a burgeoning field in the discipline." - Roger Keil, co-Editor, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research "The city is an obvious but confounding object of geographical analysis; urban structure and life are shaped by an astounding array of social, economic, and political dynamics. This volume embraces these complexities of city form in a wide-ranging, readable, well-informed, and highly interdisciplinary analysis of key topics in urban studies. With its fresh approach, this book provides an accessible entry point for the newcomer to urban geography, yet also delivers creative insights for those with greater familiarity." - Professor Steven K. Herbert, University of Washington Organized around 20 short essays, Key Concepts in Urban Geography provides a cutting-edge introduction to the central concepts that define contemporary research in urban geography. Involving detailed and expansive discussions, the book includes: An introductory chapter providing a succinct overview of the recent developments in the field. Over 20 key concept entries with comprehensive explanations, definitions and evolutions of the subject. A glossary, figures, diagrams and suggested further reading. This is an ideal companion text for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students in urban geography and covers the expected staples of the subdiscipline from global cities and urban nature to transnational urbanism and virtuality.

This text is an introduction to the study of towns and cities. The book synthesizes a wealth of material to provide a comprehensive introduction for students of urban geography, drawing on a rich blend of theoretical and empirical information, to advance their knowledge of the city. For the first time in the history of humankind, urban dwellers outnumber rural residents and this trend is destined to continue. Urban places, towns and cities are of fundamental importance: for the distribution of population within countries; in the organization of economic production, distribution and exchange; in the structuring of social reproduction and cultural life; and in the allocation and exercise of power. Even those living beyond the administrative or functional boundaries of a town or city, will have their lifestyle influenced to some degree by a nearby or distant city.

This book was first published in 1980.

As the growing world population increasingly comes to live in cities, the field of urban geography will continue to expand in numbers and significance. This book encompasses both systems of cities and the internal geography of metro areas. It is a contemporary introduction to urban geography by a renowned scholar in the field.

This book offers a unique contribution to the burgeoning field of Chinese historical geography. Urban transformation in China constitutes both a domestic revolution and a world-historical event. Through the exploration of nine urban sites of momentous change, over an extended period of time, this book connects the past with the present, and provides much-needed literature on city growth and how they became complex laboratories of prosperity. The first part of this book puts Chinese urban changes into historical perspective, and probes the relationship between nation and city, focusing on Shanghai, Beijing and Changchun. Part two deals with the relationship between history and modernity, concentrating on Tunxi, a traditional trade center of tea, New Villages in Shanghai and street names in Taipei and Shanghai. Part three showcases the complexities of urban regeneration vis-à-vis heritage preservation in cities such as Datong, Tianjin and Qingdao. This book offers an innovative interdisciplinary and international perspective, which will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese urban studies, as well Chinese politics and society.

The spread of urbanization has transformed the concept of the city, but the way urban planners, urban scientists and, above all, urban dwellers address it has also changed, probably even more so. The city is thus a new topic for geography, a discipline that has experienced an ambiguous relationship to cities in the past. What kind of geography is required in order to bring fresh insight to this renewed field? Drawing together a wide range of texts from philosophers, sociologists and economist as well as geographers and urban planners, this volume provides a theoretical framework within which this question can begin to be explored.