10/3/22

The development of the manufacturing belt 1865-1950

Detroit, chicago, cleveland, indianapolis, pittsburgh, buffalo, boston, new york, philadelphia,
Baltimore, st. louis

3 specialized economic regions-

Northeast- manufacturing and urbanization
South- plantation agriculture
Midwest- small farmers

Formal regions-
Regions designated by official boundaries or are defined by their uniformity

US Immigration
Which ethnicities dominated which decades of immigration 1820-1910
Discrimination against italians and eastern europeans

The economic base:

Basic employment:
Engine of economy
Mining logging and many large manufacturing companies
Goods are shipped outside the location where they are sourced, thus generating employment
and importing cash into the local economy

Non-basic employment:
Circulates the income
Services companies
They are not linked to any external demand. They may provide employment but only circulate
cash in the local economy.

Situation Characteristics
The location of a place relative to its surroundings and other places:
- Accessibility of a locations
- The extent of a place’s connections with other places
- How close an area may be to raw materials

i.e. Chicago
- Access by boat, barge, and rail
- At heart of nations transportation grid
- Iron ore, steel, grain, beef and copper nearby
 - By end of 19th century, Chicago highly integrated mix of agriculture, industry, and
service

Manufacturing

Fordism: highly specialized division of labor with assembly lines geared to producing
standardized affordable goods for the mass market.
a. Mass production flowing work to a stationary worker doing simplified repetitive tasks
achieved dramatic gains in productivity
b. Car production grew 4x while work force only 2x and price dropped from $575 to $290
c. Increased wages for workers to give them additional purchasing power, creating the
consumer demand needed to underpin mass production
d. Coordination and control by management over planning and direction of work
i. Blue collar- factory floor workers vs. White collar- managers
e. Established a large and vertically integrated firm
i. The rogue and automotive “ore to assembly” complex: “A continuous, nonstop
process from raw material to finished product.”
f. Social contract between capital and labor mediated by government (i.e. labor unions)
i. Ex. 1932 “We want bread not crumbs” “Tax the rich and feed the poor”
g. Diversified labor force
i. Ford employed largest number of AA workers (11%) before 1940 and then WWII
increased that number
ii. Job opportunities for women when 200k men left detroit for armed forces

Impacts of the homestead act:

1. Opportunity for immigrants
2. Formation of the US middle class in rural areas
3. Strengthened the “can do” pioneer spirit

VS

Impacts of Fordism
1. Opportunity for immigrants
2. Formation of the US middle class in cities
3. Strengthened the cities

The Great Migration

In 1900, 90% AA in the South in 1920-1960, 4-6 million AA left for north

Look at a flow line of migration and you’ll see that they typically moved to the factory centers

Push factor: Racism, escape jim crow segregation

Pull factors: Industrial jobs in midwest and northeast
By 1960, 50% of the black population was north of the mason dixon line (IA, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY)

Why have manufacturing jobs moved from their traditional center in the rust belt to other regions
in NA and regions outside NA?
To lower labor cost
Right to work states
Weather amenities
Lower tax rates

The great reverse migration

In the early 70s for the first time, more AA moving from north to south than vice versa

Today 57% of American blacks live in the south, the highest percentage in half a century

10/5/22

Traditional Cities

US was first country in the world to have serious suburbs

Historically traditional cities looked like:

CBD (Central business district)

Location of skyscrapers, major companies, upscale shops, entertainment center to
which many people commute, few actually live there

Zone of transition/Inner city

Urban areas around CBD, typically poorer and more run down, older often abandoned
industry will also be in this area.

High density residential ring

Traditionally housed factory workers, now, poor quality housing stock but may be
gentrified

Lower density residential ring

Middle class housing

Lowest density residential ring

Upper class housing, newer house stock, gated communities
The Birth of Suburbia

Urban sprawl occurs when metropolitan areas lose population but gain land and area

Detroit sprawl: For every 100 new homes in the suburbs, 67 homes in the city are abandoned
and boarded up

In the 1990s, the US became first country with majority of population in suburbs rather than
cities and farms. Suburbs started becoming a thing in the 1950s - Levittown

Suburb: Residential communities located outside of city centers, usually homogeneous ethnicity
and socio-economic class.

Levittown:
Used henry ford ideas for building houses
- Levitt began producing his own nails and making his own cement.
- He even bought timberland in Oregon and cut his own lumber. BY doing all of this, he
kept his house prices very low.
- By analyzing the building process, dividing it into 27 steps, and putting teams of people
to work on each step
Most houses had four and a half rooms and were exactly alike

Levitt’s ideas were copied by other builders and those communities soon boomed as well.

Megalopolis
Term used to describe the coalescence of large cities into one huge city

Megapolis: “great city” Greek

Megalo: a quantity of exaggerated size, thus “extra great city”

First applied in 1960s to the cluster chain of metropolitan areas along the northeastern
seaboard of the US extending from Boston to Washington DC

GI Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act)

Provided benefits for returning WWII veterans
- Low interest mortgages
- Low interest loans to start a business
- Cash for tuition and living expenses
- One year of unemployment compensation

Today’s Cities (urban sprawl/decentralization)

Evolved from concentric circles to sets of urban realms

Urban decentralization
Edge cities:
- Concentrations of business, shopping, and entertainment outside of a typical urban area
- Most edge cities develop at or near existing or planned freeway intersections and are
especially likely to develop near major airports

Exurb:
- Ring of prosperous communities beyond suburbs that are commuter towns for urban
area
- People willing to make a long commute in order to have the satisfaction of a big piece of
property
- Emerged in the 70s when rampant crime and urban decay due to deindustrialization,
depopulation, high unemployment in US cities were the primary push factors
- More recently middle class people who want a large yard or farm are pulled

Remittances:
Money sent by immigrants working abroad back to their families in their country of origin

Gentrification:
Process involves the displacement of lower income residents, the improvement of deteriorated
inner city landscapes, often accompanies by construction of new shopping spaces and
entertainment

New urbanism:
Urban design movement stressing higher density, mixed use, pedestrian scaled neighborhoods,
e.g. Celebration FL

10/12/22

Regional Geography- studies the characteristics of one place that set it off from other places in
the world… how is one region unique from other areas in terms of its history, climate, politcs,
topography, etc.

Latin America

Environment
Geography
Population
Migration

Rio Grande (Rio Bravo in mexico)

20% of its natural discharge makes it to the gulf due to irrigation
17 countries
79% live in cities

Key places for europeans

- Uruguay/paraguay, argentina, southern brazil (around tropic of capricorn)

- Uplands of mexico and central america

Rich volcanic soil
Honduras was banana republic
Most major cities and popoulation

Shields of SA
Large plateaus- brazilian, patagonian, guiana
Relatively poor soils

Basins of SA
Amazon, La Plata, Orinoco

Altitudinal zonation- A concept introduced by homboldt in early 1800s

Certain food crops and agricultural practices associated with changes in temperature as
elevation changes

Globalization 1.0
1492- columbus aqrrives in hispaniola

Treaty of tordesillas
- A 1492 agreement between Spain and Portugal to settle conflicts over newly discovered
lands in New World
- Enabled portugal to claim the coast of Brazil

Historical Migrations
➢ 1492- 47 mil indigenous & 0 European
➢ 1650- 5 mil indigenous & 8 mil European
➢ The indegenous population shrank to one-tenth its pre-contact size epidemics of
influenza and smallpox, warfare, forced labor, starvation

Immigration waves in latin america

 1. Early European immigration (1490s-1650s)
8 mil settlers, primarily in spanish and portuguese to highland locations & largely the
demise of indigenous people
2. African slave trade (1650s-1870s)
8 mil Africans, primarily from Angola and Nigeria to the coastal lowlands (1501-1888)
Brazil- 85 million people of the African descent (45%)
haiti - 8 mil of african descent (90%)
3. 2nd wave of european immigration (1870s-1930s)
8 mil, primarily italians, portugues, spaniards, and germans, to the “southern cone”
countries if chile, argentina, uruguay, and paraguay
4. Asian immigration (1930s-1880s)
1.3 million japanese + 120,000 south koreans

Economic development strategies

Primary sector export dependency
➢ Silver, gold, and sugar during colonialism, then export booms of copper, tin, bananas,
coffee
➢ The key outcome of development based on primary exports: Unequal land wealth
➢ Crown land as estates, then domestic elite consolidated land-holdings
Latifundios
➢ Large estates/ranches owned by domestic elite (suitcase farmers) for prestige and
some production of poor quality crops like cattle
➢ Characterized by limited productivity, limited capital investment, minimal tech, and
cheap labor. (typically 2500 acres) haciendas (Sp) and fazendas (P)
➢ 0.9% of Brazil’s farms hold 44% of its land

Plantation agriculture
➢ Large-scale production of tropical crops with a uniform system of cultivation under
central management of foreign corporations
➢ Characterized by high capital inputs, much tech, and vertical integrated enterprises
handling agricultural products from farm to consumers
➢ Bananas a prime example, e.g., Central America United Fruit company (owned 85% of
Honduras) now receding from direct land ownership but contractual agreements (TNC)

Minifundios
➢ “Miniature” farms owned or rented by peasants for their own subsistence
➢ Characterized by intense cultivation and wage labor on latifundios
➢ 53% of Brazil's farms hold only 2.6% of its land
➢ In early 1960s, 1.5% owned 50% of all farm land in Latin America
➢ Agrarian reform: a popular but controversial strategy to redistribute land to peasants
 ○ Liberation theology- issues of distribution of land wealth particularly in
Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Brazil, and now Chiapas region of S. Mexico
Primate city
➢ City is the population, financial, and political center of a country
➢ Is not rivaled by any other city
➢ A primate city is at least 2x as populous as the second largest city, but often as much as
3 or 4 x’s larger
➢ Latin American examples: Mexico & Argentina
➢ Brazil is a rare example of a developing nation
without a primate city:
○ Financial center is Sao Paulo
○ Political center is Brasilla
○ Cultural center in Rio de Janeiro

Squatter communities
➢ Residential areas inhabited the very poor who have no access to tenured land of their
own
➢ “Squat” on vacant land, either private or public, without legal claims to the land
➢ Infrastructure and services are inadequate (e.g. water, sanitization, electricity, etc.)
➢ Rely on informal sector for employment

Informal sector
➢ The unregulated, unlicensed and untaxed portion of a developing economy, where most
of the urban labor force works

3. Northern Migration
Maquiladoras Program
➢ Created by the mexican government in 1965
➢ objective to stimulate industrialization in northern mexico
➢ In response to rising unemployment in mexico and growing global demand for low-cost
production
➢ Derived from “maquila” a grain miller who ground corn and was paid for that service
➢ Now applies to foerign companies, which send parts to their plants in Mexico for
assembly
➢ TNCs do not pay import duties or taxes except on the value of Mexican workers’

With respect to the successor maquiladoras, which of the following is not one of
Mexico's competitive advantages?
➢ Inexpensive labor
 ➢ It’s membership in NAFTA
➢ Its location along the US border
➢ Less stringent environmental regulations
➢ Abundant raw materials
NAFTA in 1994
➢ The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
➢ Among Canada, the US, and Mexico, based on the model of the European Union
➢ Went into effect on January 1, 1994
➢ Immediately eliminated duties of half of all US goods shipped to Mexico and Canada,
and gradually phased out other tariffs over a period of 14 years
➢ Accelerated a new interior wave of forfeign investment…. Moving from high volume of
sweatshops into higher-value autos and appliances

In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization (e.g., more than 500 mexican plants have
closed since 2000)

Currently have 6,000,000 unauthorized workers in the US from mexico and central emerica
with household members- totaling 10.7 mil undocumented immigrants in US (4% of population)

African Union
- A supranational, continental union consisting of all 55 countries
- Established in 2001
- Headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
- To accelerate the political and social economic integration of the continent

Intertropical convergence zone

Equatorial belt low pressure where the northeast trade winds from the northern tropical high
converge with the southeast trade winds from the southern tropical high… wherever the itcz
meets there is rainfall.

Two extremes: January and July

Determines when to plant crops because the rain depends on itcz

Animal migration follows the ITCZ (wildebeests in serengeti) because grass (their food) follows
rain– diagram on powerpoint

ITCZ Implications

- Agriculture cycle starts with ITCZ arrival

- Food availability leanest during growing/weeding
- Famines during growing/weeding
 - Weddings after harvest (january)
- Have enough grain to share with neighbors
- Migration patterns dry to cities
- Illnesses
- Malaria (rainy season- standing water, mosquitoes proliferate)
- Dysentery (dry season and start of rains)
- Safari Seasons
- Dry (rivers and waterholes that animals congregate at)
- Wet (wildebeest migration)
- War seasons
- When rain stops wars are easier to fight

You can’t grow crops if you have less than 22 inches of rainfall per year

A= wet B= dry

BSh Suptropical Steppe (semi arid)

Sahel belt- a belt of ecological transition between the sahara desert and the wetter Aw
tropical savannah. Home to pastoral herding- cattle, camels, sheep, and goats (transhumance)

Primarily in the north, but in southern africa too

Short wet seasons (3:9 ratio)
Convective precipitation
Rain= 11-22 inches– if it falls below 10, can’t produce enough grass for cattle so need to move
south

Cb Mild midlatitude climates

South africa
Lower temps, winter season, cyclonic rainfall 60-80 inches rain per year

An African initiated church

Independently started in africa by africans and not by missionaries in another continent

Nuer People
An ethnic group- people who identify with each other based on common language, ancestral, or
cultural experiences

Unlike other social groups, e.g. ealth, age ethnicity is often an inherited status based on the
society in which a person lives
What factors dictate the distribution of the population of africa?
50 - 50 - 50:
- 50 million in Latin america when columbus came
- 50 million in Africa when slaves came to americas
- 50

Historical factors
Slavery’s impact on nigeria and angola (slave coast)
8 million africans died after they were captured but before getting on a ship
16 million left on ships
8 million made it to the americas
Nigeria’s middle belt is less populated because of slavery
Official languages of Africa include English, French, Portuguese, etc. Not much
indigineous language left beside somalia and ethiopia
Ethiopia was the one african country that was never colonized

Racial segregation and arpartheid “homelands” in South africa

Apartheid: policy of racial separateness that dictated separate residential and work spaces for
whites, blacks, coloreds, and indians in South africa (1948-1994)
Bantustan: A territory set aside for black inhabitants of south africa as part of the policy
of apartheid

2,000 languages
a. Ethnic laguages
b. Official languages
c. Trade languages “Lingua Franca”
i. Lingua franca: a bridge language used to make communication possible between
people who do not speak the same language
ii. KiSwahili- 50 million (Kenya, Tansania, Uganda, Southern Sudan
iii. Hausa 49 million