The Urban Pattern

In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Band 352, Heft 1, S. 74-83

Abstract

The traditional city is in the process of trans formation into the metropolis. This new form of human settle ment has been made possible and necessary by increasing pro ductivity and increasing division of labor. It is the result of the interaction of two waves of migration, a long-distance movement from country to city and a more recent short-distance movement from center to periphery. The metropolis is sur rounded by a metropolitan region. The metropolis performs the traditional city function of central leadership plus the tradi tional countryside function of material production. Thus, the majority of the population in developed countries live in metropolitan areas, although each metropolitan populace is dis persed over a large territory containing both urban-developed land and open areas, with places of work and residence sepa rated. Residential areas are segregated according to class or income of their residents; the "good neighborhood" is a fiercely protected status symbol. Manufacturing is moving toward the satellite towns within metropolitan regions, and the me tropolis itself is becoming the center of service industry. These are the characteristics of the metropolis which produce a pattern of land use based on central business, industrial, residential, and open areas. In modifying the natural pattern of the metropolis to make it better, contradictory desiderata will have to be accommodated.