Defining City
I am concerned with defining city from non-city space rather than defining one city from another (Krupat and Guild, 1980).
Cities can be defined by differing criteria, including size, density, function, and degree of urbanism (Frey and Zimmer, 2001).
Defining cities through social categories is increasingly challenging as rural areas begin to showcase characteristics of urban areas and those from rural areas who migrate to urban spaces bring their characteristics with them. This suggests urban and rural spaces to exist simultaneously with minimal divisions under social characteristics (Frey and Zimmer, 2001).
Frey and Zimmer (2001) work to move their definition of city beyond the administrative boundaries, set by government, that we are typically familiar with. However, in order to make my target area as easily understandable to my stakeholders as possible, I feel it is necessary to maintain these administrative boundaries for cities, as they are so widely understood.
However, Frey and Zimmer (2001) accept that the majority of researchers do accept the administratively defined boundaries of cities as it is hard to gain sufficient data to define urban areas.
(Critique) – the work of Frey and Zimmer (2001) largely focuses upon urban growth factors in the city and the historical formation of cities, which isn’t relevant to the circumstances in which I am looking to utilise the term city. This is due to city being a locality providing a boundary of space to work within for my project, which isn’t reliant upon examining how these spaces are developed or grow.
My working definition of city:
Large spaces of densely settled populations, identified by government-set, administratively defined boundaries.
What I Learned:
- Defining cities through social characteristics is increasigly challenging due to the migration of practises and ideals through urbanistaion
- Scales of growth through urbanisation, size, density and function are all utilsied to define cities
- Adminsatrivelty given boundaries, set by govenrments are the most commonly used method for defning cities utilsied by reserachers due to difficulties in gaining data
- My working deifnition of city – Large spaces of densely settled populations, identified by government-set, administratively defined boundaries.
(Frey and Zimmer, 2001)
Reflections
This definition of city will help to provide clarity in the spaces I am looking to target and address in my work. The definition may evolve as my research progresses and I will adjust the definition based upon any boundaries I encounter or limits I need to enforce whilst progressing through my project.
Bibliography
Frey, W.H. and Zimmer, Z., (2001). ‘Defining the city’. Handbook of urban studies, 1, pp.14-35.
Krupat, E. and Guild, W., (1980). ‘Defining the city: The use of objective and subjective measures for community description.’ Journal of Social Issues, 36(3), pp.9-28.