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Urban Geography
An introduction
What is urban geography?
• It can be the study of where cities are in a
country, of how cities and towns relate to
each other, or of how people are
distributed within a city.
What is urban geography?
• Urban geography is the
study of areas which have
a high concentration of
buildings, infrastructure
and economic activity as
well as a high population
density.
• It can be considered a
part of the larger field of
human geography,
however, it can often
overlap with other fields
such as anthropology and
physical geography.
• Urban geographers
seek to understand
why cities are where
they are, what
function they serve,
the hierarchy that
exists between them
and why they develop
with the form that they
have.
• Urban geography also
involves planning city
expansion and
improvements while
taking into account the
human and
environmental
impacts of the change.
As a geographer…
What are our major concerns?
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Location
Space
Of urban centres
Size
Function
Structure
Of urban population
Composition
problems
Many urban geographies 
•
There is no one approach to studying urban spaces
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Analytical approach
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Behavioral
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With their interest in contradictions, the focus here is spatial
contradictions
Humanistic
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Spatial analysis with a focus on how individuals make spatial
decisions
Marxist
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Build models and analyze data
Urban cultural geography
Postmodernist
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Largely anti-spatial analysis
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Recognize that there is no one way to interpret space
In this class, we do not have any one way 
Sub fields of Urban Geography
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Cultural Geography
Population Geography
Political Geography
Economic Geography
Medical Geography
Historical Geography
Social Geography
URBAN
GEOGRAPHY
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Anthropology
Demography
Political Science
Urban planning
Economics
Medicine and Health
History
Sociology
Look out to
discover more!