🏙️ AP Human Geography: Urban Systems - Your Night-Before Guide 🌃

Hey there, future geographer! Let's get you prepped and confident for your AP Human Geography exam. This guide is designed to be your quick-scan, high-impact resource. We'll make sure everything clicks, so you can ace this test!

🌍 The “Why of Where” for Cities

Geographers use models to understand how cities are distributed. Key concepts include:

• Rank-Size Rule 🥇🥈🥉: A statistical relationship where the nth largest city has 1/n the population of the largest city.
• Primate Cities 💪: A single city that dominates a country's economic, cultural, and political life (e.g., Mexico City).

Rank-Size Rule

• Describes the size distribution of cities within a region.
• Formula: P(n) = K/n (Population of nth city = Constant / Rank)
• Example: If the largest city has 1 million, the 2nd largest has 500k, the 3rd has ~333k, and so on.
• Observed in many countries but not a strict rule.

Primate Cities

• Significantly larger than other cities in a country or region.
• Dominates economic, cultural, and political life.
• Often capital cities.
• Examples: London, Paris, Tokyo, New York.

Central Place Theory

• Explains the distribution of different-sized settlements.
• Threshold: The minimum number of people needed to support a service.
• Range: The maximum distance people will travel to use a service.
• Low-order services (gas stations ⛽) are found everywhere; high-order services (sports arenas ⚽⚾🏀🏈) are only in larger cities.

❓ Unit Preview Questions

• Why are cities located where they are? (Resources, transportation, etc.)
• How does development influence city structure? (More developed = more complex)
• Why do cities share challenges? (Globalization, migration)
• Why aren't largest cities in most powerful countries? (Historical factors, development patterns)
• Why do people move to/from cities? (Economic, social, environmental factors)
• Why suburbs in the US? (Space, affordability, post-WWII growth)
• Why are minorities clustered? (Historical segregation, economic factors)

🏘️ Urbanization & Suburbanization

• Urbanization: Movement from rural to urban areas, increasing urban population.
• Suburbanization: Shift from urban to suburban areas, driven by space and lower costs.

Urbanization

• Global trend with rapid growth in developing countries.
• Driven by economic opportunities and access to services.

Suburbanization

• Driven by desire for more space, lower cost of living, and perceived better quality of life.
• Accelerated in the US post-WWII 💨.
• Motivated by more space, less traffic, lower crime, and lower population densities 🏡🚙🌳.

🗺️ Distribution of Cities

• Cities are located in areas that support economic growth (resources, transportation, markets).
• Distribution varies by country/region.

Examples of City Distribution

• United States: Decentralized, many large cities.
• China: Centralized, few dominant cities.
• Europe: More evenly dispersed, many medium-sized cities.
• Africa: Highly varied, some with few large cities, others more dispersed.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

📈 Growth of Cities

• Largest cities (megacities and metacities) are mostly in low and medium-developed regions.
• Megacities: 10+ million people.
• Metacities: 20+ million people.
• Examples: Tokyo, New York, Mexico City, Mumbai, Shanghai.
• Challenges: Overpopulation, traffic, pollution, resource strain.
• Global Cities: Have political, economic, and cultural influence beyond their boundaries (found in highly developed countries).

Focus on understanding the shift of megacities to less developed regions and the role of global cities in the world economy.

🏙️ City Models

• Geographers use models to understand land use patterns within cities.
• Early models focused on North American cities with a central business district (CBD).
• Later models incorporated suburbanization and **"edge cities