For verification of this paper, please visit on http://www.socialresearchfoundation.com/anthology.php#8

Meaning of Urban Geography

A scientific study in nature, Urban geography studies how and why cities grow and change. It also studies the ways through which it affects residents living in the urban space and urban sphers. Urban structures are nothing but simply physical representations of the social, economic, and cultural processes occuring within urban areas. The increasing complexity is because of the inter linkage of all the processes.Human geography is an important discipline within geography. Human geographers study all the aspects relating to human, such as migration, urbanization, cultural landscapes, and the social and economic processes that shape human societies. It studies and examines the spatial organization and distribution of human activities, such as, population (size, density, occupational structures), culture that is characterized by its specific features, economics and economy, and politics.

Urban Geography seeks to understand how the urban people interact with their environment which is full of modernity and which smells individualism, how they shape and are shaped by their urban surroundings constituted by both the colonies and slums, and how these interactions vary across different urban regions and contexts.

Human Geography & Sustainable Development

There are several ways that put together human geography and sustainable development and that link them. As subfield of geography, itmakes a focus on the study of people and their communities formed of the various types of people from different backgrounds, cultures and cultural diversity, economies and their impact, and interactions with the environment by studying their relations with and across locations.

The relationship between human geography and sustainable development can be traced and understood with the help of the following heads and sub-heads-

Spatial Understanding: Human geography is a major source of understanding the distribution of human activities in space: it enables us to be familiar with the ways that change the human activities overtime. The spatial understanding can help one understand sustainable development, that is, the optimal placement of resources, services, and infrastructure.

Cultural Understanding: Human geography deals with the contribution of culture in correlating societies with environment. Here it should be mentioned thatas there are different cultures, so there are varied perspectives on sustainability and environmental management.

Socio-Economic Factors:All the varied socio-economic factors like population, migration, and economic development that directly influence sustainable development are studied in human geography. Hence, the study of human geography provides insights into how these factors affect conservation practices, resource usage, and sustainably living.

Urban Planning and Sustainable Cities: It is only through a well-planned and strategic urban planning that the sustainable cities can exist and continue to accommodate the population for a long time. All the aspects like land use planning, sustainable transportation, and the creation of green spaces need a serious concern.

Geographical Inequalities:The inequalities that exist between different regions of the world, such as disparities in wealth, access to resources, and development opportunities are studied under human geography, and the understanding of all this can drive more equitable and more sustainable developmental strategic plans.

Environmental Interaction:The study of the interaction between humans and environmental surroundings as well as the positive and negative impact of such interactions is the subject matter of human geography. It is only in the context of the understanding of this interaction between humans and their surroundings that the issues like climate change, deforestation, water scarcity, conservation of wild life etc. can be resolved.

Social Aspects of Urban Geography

As a sub-discipline within human geography, the urban geography confines itself to the urban spaces on the globe. Urban geography studies urban environments and the human interactions and interface within urban settings. There are several urban geographical ideas and theories that throw an ample light on the various aspects of Urban geography. In order to reach the depth of the urban setting and to make judgment on the success of the urban development, there are several theories, such as, Christaller’s Central Place Theory.

With the fast urbanization across the world, the word ‘urban’ seems to be mocking itself because now with the exception of few, most of the people belong to the urban spaces and hardy pay heed to the villages they or their forefathers belonged to. About half of the world’s total population lives in cities. Hence, the urban geography no more needs separation from human geography. However, still there is and there will be urban geography to study and examine the various urban aspects relating to humans and their environment.

Human geography is essentially the study of the human interaction with the world, which must include the interactions between people as much as interactions with the wider natural world. Since the urban spaces fall within the boundaries of the world, human geography encompasses urban geography. Human geography is about social things, and all the aspects of social life, including the life in cities and urban setting are included in human geography.

Urban environmentis characterized by hard infrastructure, planned roads and bridges to facilitate the movement of the people from one watery place or railway line to another, and soft infrastructure, such as health and social services. Urban planning and architecture makes the construction of urban areas possible. However, it is not possible to see all the positive things in urban environment. Certain negative things prevail that cause problem to the urban dwellers.

In order to combat  with the negative things in the urban environment, from time-to-time, green infrastructure, gardens and parks, sewage, waste systems, solar energy plants are implemented to bring about and maintain the eco system.  The green infrastructure is effective and helpful in climate change and in reducing flood risks. improves air quality and promotes physical health and mental well-being.

‘Urban geography, a specialized discipline within human geography, deals with the analysis, explanation, and prognosis of urban forms, urban social fabric, and economic structures and functions; it addresses research questions from economic, political, social, and ecosystem geography in their urban contexts at various scales. The results of urban research serve as a basis for decisions on public investment, allocation of resources, and socioeconomic and urban development planning. Urban research is classified into two categories- inter-urban (system of cities) and intra-urban (analyses, which address the processes going on within cities).’[1]

‘Urban geography covers within it analysis, explanation, and prognosis of urban forms, urban social fabric, and economic structures and functions. Questions relating to economic, political, social aspects in the urban sphere are answered by the urban geographers. The other aspects encompassed within the scope of urban geography include-ecosystem in urban contexts at various scales, urban neighborhoods, streets, and even individual households. There are certain conceptual approaches that pertain to urban form and urban morphology, urban socio-urban fabric, economic structures, urban development and urban policy.’[2]

‘Globalization unveiledthe urban geography and has made the changes in it visible.The developing world and the internal structures of cities need to be understood in terms of their evolving roles in the wider global economy. The world city literature created and brought in limelight, explores the development of a global hierarchy of cities that form the basic networks of the global economy. It has made us familiar with the the most prominent Third World cities, like Singapore. The Third World Cities are playing key roles in bringing the developing countries with global commodity markets closer to each other. Globalization has a deep impact on the cities in the developing world.’[3]

‘Urban geography emerged as a major academic subarea in India with active researchers with much of potential in them for research,are its frontier. The decades of 1980s and early 1990s are known for a diversified and growing trend of specialization in inter-urban and intra-urban research in urban geography. The diversification is most clear and pronounced in intra-urban studies where the emphasis is directed towards socio-cultural aspects of the city.’[4]

‘There are many different approaches to the geographical study of towns, although perhaps two are most common. First, the town can be considered as forming a discrete phenomenon in the general fabric of settlement. Concepts and generalizations may be formed regarding their distribution, size, function, and growth. Areas served by urban places may be delimited and the spatial interaction between places may be studied. Second, the town may be studied in terms of its layout and build, which express its origin, growth, and function. Concepts and generalizations may be related to the character and intensity of land use within the urban area and to spatial interaction between its constituent parts. The economic concepts relating land values to differences in accessibility are fundamental to analysis of distribution and intensity of land uses within urban area.’[5]

‘Urbanization brings about the most human-dominated landscapes into existence and causes local environmental changes through transformation of land cover, hydrological systems, and biogeochemistry. The urban expansion across the world, with the exception of none of the cities, is one of the primary drivers of habitat loss for the wild animals many of whom have lost their habitat and hence, are rarely seen in the areas not associated with them. Urbanization is responsible forextinction of plants and animal species.In all the cities of the world, there are high population densities and compact urban designswhich has made it difficult for the people to explore and enjoywalkable neighborhoods and mass transit alternatives to the automobile.Compact urban development and high residential as well as employment densities may be helpful in reducing energy consumption, vehicle miles traveled, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Concentrated populations may find a way topreserve land for agriculture, wildlife, and habitat by making less use of land for urban development.’[6]

‘The earliest studies of urban geography in the United States focused on site andsituation. This developed out of the man-land tradition of geography which focused onthe impact of nature on humans and vice versa. In the 1920s, Carl Sauer becameinfluential in urban geography as he motivated geographers to study a city's populationand economic aspects with regard to its physical location. In addition, central placetheory and regional studies focused on the hinterland (the rural outlying are supportinga city with agricultural products and raw materials) and trade areas were also importantto early urban geography.’[7]

‘Urban Geography studies and analyzes urban systems with reference to their geographical environment. Widely speaking, its subject matter includes the origin of towns, their growth and devel­opment, their functions in and around their surroundings.UNO defines a permanent settlement with a minimum population of 20,000 as an urban place. But several countries have their own minimum such as Botswana (5,000), Ethiopia (2,000), Argentina (2,000), Israel (2,000), Czechoslo­vakia (5,000), Iceland (200), Norway (200), Portugal (10,000), Japan (50,000), Australia (1,000), India (5,000), etc.’[8]

‘Indian urbanization which at present is about 33%, is likely to go up to 53% by  the year 2050, letting hundreds of millions of people to settle down in cities and creating giant megacities, with around 50 million people over that period. There is an urgent need for a concerted effort aimed at measuring urban economic statistics at the local level, including in neighbourhoods, which tend to express the strongest patterns of concentrated disadvantage and inequality’[9]

‘Widely spread urbanization constitutes the recent phenomenon as it has been there since 1960s. The experiences of the cities reveal that urbanization has a negative impact on the environment.  The impact of human activities on environment isseverely complex and miserable because it eventuallyproduces the issues like‘the protection and preservation of existing environmental goods’. The urbanization in India is faster than the rest of the world. Excessive population and congested city life, and environmental degradation are key indicators of Indian urbanization.For the enhancement of a sustainable development in cities with a serious concern to environment protection, the government ought to adopt protective measures at the earliest possible. The policies adopted by the government must mean to get a harmonious progress and orientation of urbanization, economic development and environment.’[10]

Since it is a conceptualized study, it is based and designed on the secondary data collected from the various traditional and modern sources. For the sake of making it a scientific study, the author abided by all the prescribed rules and process of research. No stone was unturned to keep up the scientific spirit of the work by observing the prescribed norms.

1. R. Schneider-Sliwa-Urban Geography, The Scope of Urban Geography, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001 2. Rita Schneider-Sliwa- International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015 3. S. Lloyd-Evans, R.B. Potter- International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2009 4. Thakur Baleswer&ParaiAnindita-A review of recent urban geographic studies in India, GeoJournal volume 29, pages187–196 (1993) 5. ByBarry J. Garner-Aspects and Trends of Urban Geography, A Geography of Urban Places, 1970 6. Karen C. Seto, Roberto Sánchez-Rodríguez, and MichailFragkias-The New Geography of Contemporary Urbanization and the Environment, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Vol. 35:167-194, November 2010 7. Sunil Kumar -A Study About Urban Geography, Think India Journal, Vol-22- Issue-35-December-2019 8. Rashid Faridi-Nature and Scope of Urban Geography: An Overview, Rashid’s Blog: An Educational Portal, Posted on August 22, 2019 9. AnandSahasranaman and Luís M. A. Bettencourt-Urban geography and scaling of contemporary Indian cities, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, March 2019, Volume 16Issue 152 10. Dhanya John, K M Francis, SabuJohny-Urbanization and Environmental Issues in India- An intertemporal and spatial analysis, IJRAR 2019, Volume 6, Issue 2.