LAST BLOG POST EVER

Today was our last day in human geography :( I have enjoyed my time in this class. Over all this class taught me a lot, like using Google docs, and I now have an understanding of the countries around us. Mr. Schick, I thank you for teaching me and giving me boosts of confidence when I was unsure. You are a very good teacher, and I wish that I was in your class next semester. I hope you have a good rest of the year.
Sara Dieter

Study Guide: Terms Only

Urban Geography Study Guide

City= a conglomeration of people/buildings clustered together to serve as a center of politics, culture, and economics.

Urban= the buildup of the central city and the suburban realm- the city and the surrounding environs connected to the city

Facts:

Almost half (50%) of the Earth's population live in urban areas/cites.

A rural area can become urbanized quite quickly in the modern world.

Shenzhen, China is an example of a rural area becoming urbanized very quickly. It only took 25 years for that area to totally change.

The first urban revolution:

Before urbanized people often clustered in agricultural villages

Agricultural villages= a relatively small, egalitarian villages, where most of the population was involved in agriculture

About 10,000 years ago, people began living in agriculture villages.

They soon learned "growing", and now they have a ready supply food. By growing food you can stay in one pace and have the chance to become civilized.

Components to form cities:

1. An agricultural surplus

2. Social stratification (a leadership class)

Hearths of Urbanization:

Mesopotamia (Iraq) - 3500 BC

Nile River Valley (Egypt) - 3200 BC

Indus River Valley (India) - 2200 BC

Haung He An Wei River Valley (China) - 1500 BC

Mesomerica (The Americans) - 200 BC

These are an agricultural surplus and social stratification

Examples:

Indus River Valley:

Harappa and moheno-daro were two of the first cities of the Indus River Valley

They lived an equal lifestyle, keeping houses in equal size, no palaces, no monuments, and this idea was intricately planned.

Haung He An Wei River Valley:

The Chinese purposefully planned their cities too.

They are centered on a vertical structure, and had an inner wall built around the center.

They did not treat everyone here equally, for there were palaces and temples, but only for the leadership class.

Mesomerica:

Mayan Aztec civilizations

Many ancient cities were theocratic centers where rulers were deemed to have divine authority and were god-kings.

Diffusion of Urbanization:

The Greek cities:

By 500 BC, Greeks were highly urbanized.

A network of more than 500 cities and towns made up the Greek empire.

These cities and towns were sitting on mainlands and islands.

Each city had an acropolis and an agora.

The Roman cities:

A system of cities and small towns that were linked together with roads and routes.

The Romans were the first to come up with connecting their cities with roads.

Sites of Roman cities were typically for trade.

A Roman city's form combines the acropolis and agora into one space.

Roman cities had extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Between 1/3 and 2/3's of the population was enslaved.

Second urban revolution:

A large scale of people moved to cities to work in manufacturing, and this was possible because of:

1. The 2nd agricultural involution that improved food production and created a larger surplus

2. Industrialization, which encouraged growth of cities near industrial resources (like a snowball effect)

The second half of the century:

The nature of manufacturing changed and locations changed as well. Many factors have been abandoned, creating "rust-belts" out of once thriving industrial districts

An example is: Steel- most of the things we use are plastic, we no longer use steel as frequently as we use to. Therefor the steel industries are not needed as much as they were back then.

Zones of the city:

1. Central business district (CBD)

2. Central city (the CBD + older housings)

3. Suburb (outlining functionally uniform zone outside of the central city

Edge cities:

Suburban downtown, often located near key freeway intersections that often have:

1. Office complexes

2. Shopping centers

3. Hotels

4. Restaurants

5. Entertainment facilities

6. Sports complexes

Making cities in global core:

Redlining= financial institutions refusing to lend money in certain neighborhoods

Blockbusting= realtors purposefully sell a home at a low price to African Americans and then solicit white residents to sell their homes and low prices, to generate "white flight"

Video part 3: The fertile cresent

The animals that were talked about on my last blog were not all over the Earth to start. Lamas came from South America, and around 14 of the animal came from Asia, Europe, and North Africa. But where did these animals come from, and why does Papua New Guinea have none of these animals? A place called the Fertile Crescent, was one of the luckiest geographical spot on Earth. It had the right climate, was a food provider, and had goats for livestock. This is where people first started making civilization. But the area soon became abandoned. This happened because the people had wrecked the land, and the climate became a problem for them. They over exploded the environment. The civilization that once lived here was amazing. They were very smart in how they organized and built things. When they would build houses they would plaster the walls, that is amazing for people who have never really been "taught" how to do this, but they just thought that it would be important to do. They also had an understanding of fire. Once they abandoned the Fertile Crescent, they moved east and west. By moving east and west they stayed with in the same lines of latitude. Because of this the climate and land stayed the same. This is how the world became full of livestock. When the people moved and spread across they took things with them. This made the world into what we know it to be. If it weren't for those people life could be very different.

The question that was asked was, "Why you white people have so much, and we have so little" is answered by the word geography. In Papua New Guinea they do not have the ability to use livestock. They have to spend so much time worrying if they have enough food to feed themselves that they did not think about other important factors. Maybe if they had more "geographical luck" there lifestyles would be a lot more different.

Video part 2: Animal Domestication

A very important factor in a civilization is farming. For example, China mainly grows rice, America grows corn, squash, and beans, and Africa grows sorghum,and, yams. Jared Diamond believe that plants are one of the main reasons for Papua New Guinea's lack of civilization. Papua New Guinea does a lot of farming, and it is all done by hand, because they do not have the proper tool and resources. Domesticated animals are very useful for farming. They can plow the ground, give people food, warmth/clothes with their fur, and milk. By Papua New Guinea not having these domesticated animals the people of New Guinea have to do everything by hand. The benefit of having animals is that once you pick the crops they can come in and eat what is left. While the animals are eating they fertilize the ground too with their waste. The best kind of animal to have is the ones that tend to reproduce once they are 3 to 4 years old, and not having to wait 15 years before an elephant can reproduce. Over all there are around 140 domesticated animals, and some of them are goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, camels, water buffalo, lamas, reindeer, yaks, muskox (ox), and cattle.    

Guns, germs, and steel: video

A man named Jared Diamond is a teacher at UCLA, and has his degree as a biologist, human-physiology, and he also enjoys bird watching. In Papua New Guinea Jared went there to study and watch birds. While he was there a man named Yahleh had asked him the question "Why you white men have so much cargo, and we have so little?" Jared did not know how to answer this question so he said that her would go and search for it. The word cargo to them means all material things. When people first came the white people made themselves superior to others. The New Guinea people are very smart and have the ability to make a great city. But in order to have that goo city they need advanced technology, a large population, and a well-organized work force. There is also a major problem with the food in Papua New Guinea, with hunting animal there is no guarantee that they can get food every day, for the animals have a mind of their own, and can go anywhere. They also use a food that is in the sego tree. It provides food for them, but it cannot be stored, therefore you cannot have a supply, or stock up on it. The food takes 3 to 4 days to process.

In the Middle East around 13000 years ago the people used barley and wheat, these are plentiful foods and they are able to be stored. But then a huge drought came over the Middle East, and we wonder how they survived. Well, Ian Kite is an archaeologist and he works in Drah. He and his team have found one of the first possible villages. Here in this building they believed that they have discovered a granary, where they would store their food. So, how did they get this food if there was a drought? Well we believe that they began to grow their own food. They also started to domesticate their food without even realizing it. Domestication is when people cross breed food (taking the best portion of food and re-planting it).    

Urban geography part 3

More notes on urban geography
Second urban revolution:
A large scale of people moved to cities to work in manufacturing, and this was possible becuse of:
1. the 2nd agricultural involution that improved food production and created a larger surplus
2. Industrialization, which encouraged growth of cities near industrial resources (like a snowball effect)

The second half of the century:
The nature of manufacturing changed and locations changed as well. Many factors have been abandoned, creating "rust-belts" out of once thriving industrial districts
An example is: Steel- most of the things we use are plastic, we no longer use steel as frequently as we use to. Therefor the steel industries are not needed as much as they were back then.

Zones of the city:
1. Central business district (CBD)
2. Central city (the CBD + older housings)
3. Suburb (outlining functionally uniform zone outside of the central city

Edge cities:
Suburban downtown, often located near key freeway intersections that often have:
1. office complexes
2. shopping centers
3. hotels
4. restaurants
5. entertainment facilities
6. sports complexes

Making cities in global core:
redlining= financial institutions refusing to lend money in certain neighborhoods
Blockbusting= realtors purposefully sell a home at a low price to African Americans and then solicit white residents to sell their homes and low prices, to generate "white flight"

Urban geography part 2

Today in human geography we continued to discuss the topic of urban geography.

Components to form cities:

1. An agricultural surplus

2. Social stratification (a leadership class)

Hearths of Urbanization:

Mesopotamia (Iraq)- 3500 BC

Nile River Valley (Egypt)- 3200 BC

Indus River Valley (India)- 2200 BC

Haung He An Wei River Valley (China)- 1500 BC

Mesomerica (The Americans)- 200 BC

These are an agricultural surplus and social stratification

Examples:

Indus River Valley:

Harappa and moheno-daro were two of the first cities of the Indus River Valley

They lived an equal lifestyle, keeping houses in equal size, no palaces, no monuments, and this idea was intricately planned.

Haung He An Wei River Valley:

The Chinese purposefully planned their cities too.

They are centered on a vertical structure, and had an inner wall built around the center.

They did not treat everyone here equally, for there were palaces and temples, but only for the leadership class.

Mesomerica: 

Mayan Aztec civilizations

Many ancient cities were theocratic centers where rulers were deemed to have divine authority and were god-kings.

Diffusion of Urbanization:
The Greek cities:
By 500 BC, Greeks were highly urbanized.
A network of more than 500 cities and towns made up the Greek empire.
Theses cities and towns were sitting on mainlands and islands.
Each city had an acropolis and a agora.
The Roman cities:
A system of cities and small towns that were linked together with roads and routes.
The Romans were the first to come up with connecting their cities with roads.
Sites of Roman cities were typically for trade.
A Roman city's form combines the acropolis and agora into one space.
Roman cities had extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Between 1/3 and 2/3's of the population was enslaved.