Key Concepts in Urban Geography

Citation

Latham, A., McCormack, D., McNamara, K., & McNeill, D. (2009). Key Concepts in Urban Geography. SAGE Publications.

Chapter Summary

The book runs to about 240 pages. After an introduction, twenty short concept entries are grouped into five parts. Each entry is an essay of roughly ten pages, signed with the initials of the author who wrote it, and ends with a box of key points and a short annotated list of further reading. SAGE presents it as part of a set of companion texts for the sub-disciplines of human geography.

Introduction

The introduction starts from the difficulty of saying what makes a city a city, discussing density, legal incorporation and the urban "footprint" that extends into the countryside. It warns against treating one city, such as Chicago for the Chicago School or Los Angeles for the Los Angeles School, as the model for all, and against the neglect of small and "ordinary" cities and of cities outside the West. It then sketches the history of urban geography: early regional work, the quantitative "spatial science" of the 1960s, humanistic and feminist critiques, Marxian political economy after David Harvey's Social Justice and the City (1973), the cultural turn and the turn to everyday life. It closes by introducing each of the five parts.

Part I: Location and Movement (1.1 Centrality; 1.2 Mobility; 1.3 Global Cities; 1.4 Transnational Urbanism)

These entries deal with spatial relations within and between cities. Centrality runs from central place theory and the classic models of urban structure to the central business district, the return of city-centre living, gentrification and displacement. Mobility contrasts quantitative transport geography with the interdisciplinary "mobility paradigm", using automobility as its main case. Global Cities reviews the economic literature on cities as command points in the world economy and its critics, who point to neglected but populous cities and question the term itself. Transnational Urbanism looks at how migrants build social, economic and political networks across borders and how these shape cities.

Part II: Constructions (2.1 Nature; 2.2 Materiality; 2.3 Infrastructure; 2.4 Architecture)

The city as a built environment. According to the introduction, the nature entry treats the urban environment as a hybrid of the natural and the social, touching on urban political ecology and animals in cities; materiality and infrastructure follow the networks of bodies, objects and technologies, from cables to power supplies, that hold urban life together; architecture considers both how buildings come to be made and how they are used, from housing to parliaments and museums.

Part III: Envisioning and Experience (3.1 Diagram; 3.2 Photography; 3.3 Body; 3.4 Virtuality; 3.5 Surveillance)

The longest part responds to the critique that quantitative geography ignored human experience. The introduction presents the diagram as a loaded way of seeing urban space, photography as a key medium of urban visuality, the body as a site of experience and emotion, virtuality as imagined and simulated space as well as the digital, and surveillance as governance woven into everyday routines.

Part IV: Social and Political Spaces (4.1 Segregation; 4.2 Urban Politics; 4.3 Community)

Segregation, urban politics and community, set against the Marxian and sociological traditions. The introduction says the community entry traces a shift from "community lost" to "community saved", in revived neighbourhoods, online, or in new combinations of people and objects.

Part V: Sites and Practices (5.1 Consumption; 5.2 Media; 5.3 Public Space; 5.4 Commemoration)

The final part covers consumption, from spectacular to everyday sites; the media as material practice, representation and a link between places; public space; and commemoration, including memorials as sites of contest and of collective grief or celebration.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Part I

• Spatial science: the quantitative urban geography of the 1960s that sought general laws through measurement, statistics and models.
• Centrality: the pull of central places and business districts, and how dispersal has changed what "central" means.
• Mobility paradigm: an approach that puts movement at the centre of social science rather than treating transport as a technical matter.
• Global cities: cities seen as nodes in global flows of capital and command, and the debate over that framing.
• Transnational urbanism: city life shaped by migrants' cross-border networks, globalisation "from below".

Parts II and III

• Urban nature: the city as a hybrid of natural and social processes rather than the opposite of nature.
• Infrastructure: the often hidden socio-technical systems that make urban life possible.
• Virtuality: imagined, simulated and anticipated urban space, not only digital space.
• Surveillance: monitoring by cameras, corporations, governments and the military as part of everyday urban life.

Parts IV and V

• Segregation: the separation of social groups in urban space.
• Community: a contested idea, traced from "community lost" to "community saved".
• Public space: spaces of visibility and assembly, and how they are shaped and contested.
• Commemoration: memorials and the practices around them as sites of identity and conflict.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Short, self-contained entries. Each concept can be read on its own in one sitting, with key points to check understanding and a guide to the next readings. Ruth Craggs (St Mary's University College), in an instructor comment on SAGE's site, liked the short sections and summaries and found the writing accessible despite difficult concepts.
• A map of the field's debates. The introduction gives a compact history of urban geography from spatial science to the cultural turn, and the entries show how each concept has been used and contested. Steven Herbert (University of Washington) described the book as an accessible entry point for newcomers that still offers insights to those who know the field.
• Topics beyond the usual textbook. Entries on materiality, infrastructure, diagrams, photography, the body, virtuality, media and commemoration cover recent cultural and relational work that survey textbooks treat briefly, if at all. Asher Ghertner (LSE) singled out the nature, materiality and infrastructure entries for postgraduate reading.
• International range. The sample chapters move between cities in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia, in line with the introduction's warning against generalising from one model city.

Limitations

• Not a full textbook. Alastair Bonnett (Newcastle) rated the book of supplementary value only, and Ghertner found it too light for a master's course and too distant from political economy for his undergraduate course.
• Assumes some familiarity with social theory. The introduction moves quickly through Marxian, humanistic, feminist and poststructuralist approaches, and SAGE pitches the book at advanced undergraduates and graduate students; first-year readers may need a survey text first.
• Coverage depends on the selection. The twenty concepts were chosen to show ways of thinking about cities, not to cover the sub-discipline; topics such as housing, suburbanisation or urban planning have no entry of their own, so students need other sources for them.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is a companion volume, not a course text. Kevin Archer's The City: The Basics is a general introduction that traces cities from ancient times to the present and compares the Global North and South; Hall and Barrett's Urban Geography is the survey textbook covering urban development, form, governance and transport. Either makes the better starting point, with Key Concepts read alongside to go deeper into specific ideas.

Pacione's Urban Geography: A Global Perspective is a much larger systematic text on cities in the developed world and the Global South; use it for breadth and Key Concepts for theoretical debate. David Harvey's Social Justice and the City, which the introduction presents as a turning point for Marxian urban geography, is the natural primary reading after Part IV. Levy's Contemporary Urban Planning covers planning practice, an area the concept entries touch only indirectly.

How to Use This Book

The book suits second- and third-year undergraduates and master's students in urban geography, urban studies or planning; first-year students can use it once they have a survey text. No technical background is needed, but some familiarity with the main traditions of human geography helps.

A practical approach:

• Read the Introduction first. It explains why the concepts were chosen and gives the history of the field that the entries refer back to.
• Then read by need, not in order. Match entries to course topics: Centrality and Global Cities alongside lectures on urban structure and the world economy, Segregation and Community with social geography, Public Space and Consumption with urban culture.
• Use the apparatus. Before reading an entry, skim its key points; afterwards, try to restate each one with an example from a city you know. Use the further-reading lists to choose sources for essays.
• For essays and seminars, Parts II and III offer less familiar angles, such as infrastructure, the body or surveillance, from which to approach a standard topic.

Pair the book with a survey text for the systematic coverage it does not attempt.