3 Development

At the beginning of this chapter, we consider the factors that influence a city’s physical form, structure, and land uses. We’ll then explore how a city’s morphology reflects its history and how transportation technologies affect growth and development patterns. Next, we will investigate how changes in the global economy have reshaped cities and fueled urbanization. Then, we will also look at the ways in which local governments direct and spark redevelopment, changing who lives where and what our neighborhoods look like. Finally, we’ll examine different forms of bottom-up development and alternatives to traditional ideas about urban growth and development.

Historical Urban Development Patterns

If you walk the streets of a city anywhere in the world and pay close attention to the layout and design, you may be able to identify when a particular area was developed. Cities that emerged during different historical time periods have distinctive forms. For example, ancient cities were very compact and were surrounded by a defensive wall, and cities that were established as colonies during the Roman Empire are laid out in a grid pattern with two major thoroughfares, one running north/south and another laid-out in an east/west orientation.^[1]

Despite their cultural and geographical diversity, ancient cities built between 3,000-8,000 years ago share some similarities. Two features that were present in ancient cities across the globe were the outer walls that surrounded them and their inner citadels, or walled fortifications within the city that were the center of religious and political life.^[2]  Cities in the Mesopotamian region were oval-shaped, while ancient Chinese cities had a square shape.^[3] In some ancient cities, settlements grew up outside of the city walls, but when ancient Greek cities grew beyond their capacity, a new satellite city-state was formed.

Citadels were constructed in many ancient cities. In Western European cities, castles, a form of a citadel, were built in the center of the city.^[4]  Erbil, a Kurdish city in Iraq, is home to the longest, continuously inhabited citadel in the world. The Erbil citadel complex is 6,000 years old.^[5] This Unesco World Heritage site contains the Grand Mosque, where residents of the city still worship, a museum, a few businesses, many residential and commercials buildings that are in various states of ruin, and one family’s home. The presence of this lone home preserves this citadel’s status as the world’s longest, continuously occupied city center. The newer parts of the city radiate out from the citadel and resemble more modern urban forms, but the citadel remains a relic of the city’s early history, and it continues to play a central role in the lives of Erbil’s residents.

Ancient cities were primarily concerned with protecting themselves from outside threats, hence their walls and fortified inner citadels. In Mesopotamian cities, the areas located closest to the citadel were designed and planned intentionally and had an ordered structure to them, while the farther from the citadel you went, structures were more informally built and arranged.^[6] Those living outside of the city’s walls were less influenced by the religious, social and architectural customs of the city. However, cities in other parts of the world were more cohesively structured. Ancient Chinese cities were laid out in a grid pattern with the major thoroughfares leading to the city gates.^[7] The Greeks and the Romans also used a grid pattern to plat streets in their colonial cities.^[8]

While the ancient cities’ cores were intentionally designed and planned, residential neighborhoods were more in flux. Neighborhoods in ancient cities were usually bounded by a natural feature, such as a river or stream, but the street layouts and built environment shifted as the needs of the inhabitants changed.^[9] Neighborhoods were often populated by residents who shared a common occupation, religion, or ethnicity, but they were heterogeneous and included people of different status. In the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan, large apartment complexes were built to house between 60-100 people who all shared the same occupation or craft.^[10] Homes were sites of production as well as residences, and in some ancient cities, neighborhoods included fields where crops were grown.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, cities in Europe were repeatedly attacked and destroyed.^[11] When cities began to re-emerge in the 10th and 11th centuries, urban settlements were designed around commerce and trade. While these medieval cities also contained fortified outer walls, as the cities grew, new concentric walls were built to accommodate the growing population. In ancient cities, houses opened up to inner courtyards and the outer street-facing walls were designed for privacy.  Medieval homes were mixed-use with the bottom floors occupied by businesses and the upper ones designed as residences. The central plaza of the city was used as a marketplace, rather than for religious or political purposes.

During the Renaissance period, European cities continued to highlight commerce and trade but were also concerned with aesthetics and art. Cities that developed during this era have plentiful public spaces and made major investments in urban culture. Renaissance cities often have a primary main thoroughfare that was dotted with public artworks like sculptures and fountains. Cities that were established during this era are dense with radial street patterns that included wide main streets that could accommodate horses and carts, and smaller pedestrian only lanes in the residential areas.

The industrial revolution caused an exponential growth in the size and number of cities. In 1800, only 3% of the world’s population lived in a settlement that contained more than 5,000 people.^[12]  By 1900, 10% of the world’s population was living in cities. Today, more than half of the globe resides in cities, and by 2050, an estimated 70% of the world will live in an urbanized area.^[13]

Cities that developed or grew during industrialization looked different than their predecessors.  As populations expanded, the need for perimeter protective walls disappeared. ^[14] Massive factory districts were constructed near city centers. New communities were built around these large, factory complexes. In Manchester, New Hampshire, the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company was established on an undeveloped plot of land along the Merrimack River in 1837, and the company built the town around its massive plant.^[15] The factory owners laid out a street grid around the textile mill complex and sold lots to developers to build housing for their workers. Manchester’s urban form is typical of many industrial cities with a central business and industrial district surrounded by working class residential areas.

In addition to gridded street patterns, industrial cities also contained central business districts, or downtown areas where commerce, government, and business functions were located.^[16] Factories and manufacturing zones were initially centered in or just outside of the central business area.^[17] Adjacent to the manufacturing zones were working class housing districts that were overcrowded, poorly built, and heavily polluted.^[18] Residents’ levels of wealth, access to open space, and decent sanitation increased the farther one traveled away from the central city. Unlike ancient or medieval cities where the powerful lived near the center, those with wealth and power lived outside the industrial city in single family homes where open space and fresh air were plentiful.

Class-based segregation was evident in both the physical geography and layout of industrial cities. The wealthiest residents lived far enough away from the factories they owned or managed to escape the smoke, wastes, toxins, and smells that these industries produced.^[19] Roads, and later, railways made it possible for the wealthy to travel to and from the central city without having to pass through working class districts. In his description of industrialized Manchester, England, Friedrich Engels explained how all of the roads leading out of the central business area were lined with commercial enterprises, which helped hide the squalor of working class housing districts that were located off the main road. These commercial arteries effectively served to “conceal from the eyes of wealthy men and women of strong stomachs and weak nerves the misery and grime which form the complement of their wealth.”^[20]

In the industrial cities of the northern and midwestern United States, residential segregation was not only based on class, but also on race.  Even prior to the Great Migration, when the Black population in northern cities was small, there was evidence of racial segregation. In 1899, noted sociologist W.E.B. DuBois documented the discrimination that African American residents faced in Philadelphia in housing, employment and political life.^[21] Blacks were concentrated in the inner city 7th Ward and faced higher housing costs than whites did. They were confined to some of the worst housing in the city, and landlords routinely refused to make repairs on dwellings occupied by African American tenants. While not barred by law from living in majority white districts, when Black families moved into white areas, they faced outright hostility and harassment from their neighbors. These patterns of segregation, disinvestment, and violent discrimination would come to characterize African American experiences in U.S. cities throughout the twentieth century.

Although the Industrial Revolution sparked widespread urbanization in Western Europe and North America, most of the world remained largely rural. European colonization and North American imperialism facilitated industrialization and urbanization in the “core” parts of the world through the mass extraction and export of raw materials from “periphery” nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.^[22] Just as agricultural surpluses fueled the development of ancient cities, industrialization was enabled by the mass plunder of resources and people from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Colonization not only involved the complete subjugation of the indigenous economic and political systems for the benefit of the colonizer, but it also transformed the geography of the colonized nation.^[23] Colonization left its imprints on many cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Some of the characteristics of cities that were subject to colonization include extensive infrastructure geared toward the transportation and export of agricultural and mining products, Western influence in architecture, and hyper-segregation and massive inequality between the sectors of town that were inhabited by colonial settlers and the areas that were home to indigenous populations.

Even after independence, colonialism left lasting imprints on layout, planning, and design of African cities.^[24] Port cities located along the coast or rivers had the most highly developed economic and political infrastructure. They had been developed under colonial rule as export centers. Additionally, the colonial governments limited indigenous Africans’ ability to settle in these cities. Europeans also concentrated urban planning functions within the national government, rather than allowing local authorities to manage their own growth and development. After independence, many of these cities experienced large waves of rural to urban migration, and local governments were unable to provide housing and infrastructure to accommodate them.

Since many of the export-oriented cities that were influenced by colonization had already been in existence long before any settlers arrived, to understand cities in Asia, Africa, or Latin America as being solely shaped by their colonial experience only reinforces a Eurocentric worldview. Despite sharing some similar characteristics, cities throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America are diverse and their structure is influenced by their unique development histories before, during, and after the colonial period.

Some African nations sought to break free from legacies of colonialism by constructing new capital cities based upon indigenous traditions.^[25] Abuja was planned and built in the 1970s and 1980s and became the official capital of Nigeria in 1991. Despite being intentionally planned as a post-colonial capital, Abuja replicated some of the characteristics of colonial cities, including having a central business district that is dominated by government institutions and housing districts that are highly segregated along class lines. Although the city was built using a master plan, it is a patchwork of formally constructed areas, remnants of the indigenous villages that existed prior to its construction and informal settlements. Dodoma, Tanzania, is another post-colonial African capital that has been more successful at dismantling colonial urban forms. Established in 1974, Dodoma was planned to be a physical manifestation of ujamaa, which was an African political and economic philosophy that built upon traditional village communalism, self-reliance, and interdependence. Residential neighborhoods in Dodoma were designed in pods of 10 homes that were built around a communal green space meant to replicate rural Tanzanian village life. While rural to urban migration outpaced the ability to construct formally planned neighborhoods, Dodoma experienced less of an influx of residents than Abuja did. Residents living in the planned communities worked with residents in informal areas to regularize these areas, to pressure the government for resources, and to involve residents in the planning process.

Transportation and Urban Development

In the United States, cities expanded their urban footprints over time, while European cities remained more densely settled. The lower densities of U.S. cities were due, in part, to the relative abundance of undeveloped land, but cities also grew in concert with advancements in transportation technologies.^[26] Throughout time, the borders of cities have consistently been established at distances that are approximately 45 minutes travel time from the city center.  As new, faster transportation modes emerged, cities began to open up more land for development, and the edges became more distant from the center.

Until the mid-1880s the predominant form of travel within U.S. cities was by foot or horse-drawn vehicle. Cities built during this period were small, dense and highly concentrated.^[27] Wealthier citizens could afford to travel by horse and carriage and, therefore, could live farther away from the city center. In the 1890s, the electric streetcar facilitated development of lands that were once considered too far away to be developed.  Residential neighborhoods, known as streetcar suburbs, emerged around these electric trolley lines. The growth of streetcar suburbs produced a star-shaped development pattern with residential neighborhoods expanded out on either side of the trolley line, but remaining within walking distance of the railway. In these streetcar suburbs, the avenue the trolley ran down became a thriving commercial zone, with residential streets laid out along a grid on either side. Streetcars were the first form of mass transportation, and the communities that emerged along the lines varied in make up from lower working class enclaves to middle class neighborhoods.

The introduction of the mass-produced automobile in 1916 significantly reshaped the urban development patterns.^[28] As car ownership grew, the undeveloped areas in between various streetcar lines became attractive sites for homebuilding. These new car-dependent neighborhoods reduced the demand for constructing new streetcar lines. As car ownership grew, automobiles began to compete for road space with trolley lines and mass transit ridership fell.

The rise of the automobile not only helped spark development in unbuilt sections of cities away from rail lines, but it also led to an exodus of residents to new communities being developed outside of the city.^[29] In the 1920s and 1930s, parkways or roads that were designed strictly for automobiles were constructed outside of major cities. These roads were precursors to freeways and took urban motorists out into the countryside. The earliest suburban communities sprung up alongside parkway routes. Parkways were not only embraced by real estate speculators, but also supported by farmers, because these thoroughfares allowed them to transport their crops to urban markets more efficiently. By 1929, every state had instituted a gas tax to fund new road construction to accommodate the nation’s growing fleet of automobiles. While state and eventually the federal government viewed road building and maintenance as public services that should be funded by tax dollars, mass transit projects like streetcars received no subsidies, yet were forced to keep their fares artificially low under local regulations.

As road construction accelerated and automobile usage grew, streets no longer functioned as multipurpose public spaces.^[30] During the 19th century, the street was more than just a transportation thoroughfare through urban neighborhoods. It was a place for recreation, a place to sell goods, and a neighborhood gathering spot. With the rise of the automobile, streets were built and designed for fast travel. The speed and number of cars made it unsafe for people to use the street for any purpose besides traveling from one place to the next.

After World War II, federal housing policies and subsidies coupled with advancements in construction technology fueled massive suburban development.^[31] Veterans returned from the war to a nation that had a severe housing shortage. Few housing units had been built during the Depression or the war, and young GIs were eager to start their own families. In response to the wave of home foreclosures during the Great Depression, the U.S. government guaranteed low-interest mortgage loans through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and later through the Veterans’ Administration (VA). These low-interest loans made homeownership accessible to white, working class families. The underwriting rules used by the FHA and VA and adopted by private sector lenders favored newly constructed, single-family homes in racially and ethnically homogenous neighborhoods. These homes were likely to increase in value, so families looking to purchase new suburban homes had no trouble getting financing. These same underwriting rules viewed inner city communities, Black neighborhoods, and racial and ethnically heterogeneous areas as too risky to lend to and refused to issue mortgage loans in these communities. This racial and anti-urban bias in home lending often made it cheaper for white families to purchase a new home in the suburbs than to continue to rent in the city. One of the enduring legacies of racial biases in the mortgage industry is the large Black/white homeownership gap that persists to this day. In 2017, 71.9% of whites owned their own homes, while only 41.8% of Black families were homeowners.^[32]

The availability of federally insured home loans coincided with developments in the construction industry that enabled the mass production of housing.^[33] State-subsidized roads and parkways and the surge in automobile ownership opened up farmlands outside of cities for development. Homebuilders began to purchase cheap farmland to construct large residential developments. One of the nation’s largest homebuilders, Levitt and Sons, used an assembly-line construction process that allowed them to quickly build simple homes with identical floor plans and finishes. While these innovations in homebuilding didn’t originate with the Levitts, they became associated with them due to the publicity their developments received and the sheer number of homes they built. The Levitts constructed more than 140,000 homes. The first Levittown on Long Island was the largest housing development ever constructed by one company. It contained more than 17,000 identical four-room homes that were designed to be easily expanded as families grew. The development included some playgrounds and green space, but initially, there were no stores, schools or other amenities. Levittown came to characterize the suburban homogeneity that was captured in the lyrics of Malvina Reynolds’ 1962 song Little Boxes: Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky…little boxes all the same.

As a result of the postwar suburban boom, cities became far more decentralized then they were in the past. Automobile-dependent cities retained their walking city cores, but the central city was now surrounded by multiple rings of suburbs that decreased in density the farther away from the core you went.^[34] As white urbanites began to move en masse to suburban areas, manufacturers and retailers soon followed. The resulting development pattern was polycentric with multiple business centers within a single metropolitan area, and communities that are stratified along class, race, age, lifestyle, and occupational lines. Today’s suburban residents are now far more likely to work in their own or a neighboring suburb than they are to commute to the central city.^[35] The Los Angeles metropolitan area is representative of the prototypical U.S. urban form in the 21st century. Rather than a dominant central city surrounded by residential suburbs, it is more of a city region with multiple networked employment and industrial centers that maintain ties to other parts of the region as well as to global production networks.^[36]

Scholars have identified new elements of the city region. Joel Garreau uses the term “edge city” to describe the centers of industry, retail, and office space that have emerged on the metropolitan fringe.^[37] Edge cities develop in existing suburbs or in exurban, or newly developing areas, on the outer suburban fringe. Edge cities are hubs of employment, office and retail space, and some are centered near airports or other transportation hubs. Robert Fishman describes the technoburb as a sprawling, suburban agglomeration of high-tech companies, low-density office parks, retail, housing, and agricultural spaces that emerge along highway corridors and span multiple towns and jurisdictions.^[38] An example of a technoburb is the eastern Seattle suburbs that line highways 520 and 405 and are home to the headquarters of Microsoft and other tech giants.

Globalized Cities

By the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. cities were increasingly decentralized with poorer residents clustered in declining inner city neighborhoods and wealthier residents living in newer, more socially homogenous suburbs away from the urban core. Many U.S. cities’ populations shrunk as a result of the mass exodus to the suburbs. European cities did not follow this model. Greater state involvement in planning and welfare provision, more regulation, a relative lack of land to expand upon, and longer urban settlement histories produced cities where wealth and power were concentrated in the urban core, while impoverished residents were relegated to suburban areas.^[39]   Cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America followed a model similar to the European one, with the poor living on the edges of the city and the wealthy settling in the center of town. However, due to different historical trajectories, these cities exhibited characteristics not seen in Western Europe or North America. Cities in the Global South have concentrations of power and wealth in central city areas that were once dominated by a colonial elite.^[40] Some of these cities also have Western-style suburban commercial business districts, and most have vast neighborhoods of informal settlements often built in vulnerable areas like hillsides or flood plains that may lack adequate housing, water, sewage, and other basic infrastructure.

Toward the end of the 20th century, the process of globalization began to reshape urban development patterns around the world, blurring some of the regional differences that had defined cities under earlier world economic systems. Globalization is the strengthening and deepening of world economic ties enabled by innovations in technology, like the rise of computers, mobile networks and container shipping.^[41] These technological advances coupled with changes in political and economic policies have exponentially increased global trade, reshaped labor networks, facilitated the movement of people, goods and cultural products around the world, and changed how our cities look and function.