Built Environment : Place Types :

Urban Places

A Historical / Geographical / Morphological Discussion


Example places are linked to part of an online topographic map collection at TopoZone and will call up a topographic map in a new window showing the place.

See also my schematic comparison of urban places.


[Sub-Hamlet]

Ebenezer Church and neighboring house, Twin Township, Ross County, Ohio (view southeast)

This is my proposal for a granule of urbanity smaller than Hamlets - barely urban, but still more than just an isolated building or two. A "sub-hamlet" needs to have at least one non-residential building, and can have a grand total of two to six buildings.

Examples:

Hamlet
The Smallest Town and Most Crowded Rural Place

Nipgen, Ross County, Ohio (view west-northwest)

Hamlets are the most populous / most concentrated rural place type, and the smallest urban place type: They are the transition between rural and urban. A top population suggested by Trewartha is 150.

Trewartha wrote an excellent definition of hamlets, as I had discussed, concerning the hamlet of Rome in the ASC Group report on Lawrence Route 7 (Trewartha 1943: 32-40). See the Hamlets webpage for the discussion.

Examples:


[Sub-Village]

Bourneville, view east on US 50, Ross County, Ohio

It feeels like there should be a classification between Hamlet and Village, especially within the 150-500 population gap. These urban places have the differentiated core and non-rural density of buildings, but mostly lack outer / secondary streets. Little old "Pike Towns" are often of this classification, consisting of nothing more than a short stretch of buildings along a highway.


Village

Bainbridge (c1900 view of downtown), Ross County, Ohio

Bigger than Hamlet; maybe 500 population minimum and 5,000 maximum. One modern indicator may be a lack of public transit: The town is too small to prevent to average pedestrian from walking across town, and thus does not need busses.

Examples:


[Small Town]

There seems to be a need for a smaller sized town, so I propose this. Population is between about 5,000 and 15,000.

Examples:


Town

Chillicothe (downtown), Ross County, Ohio

Though this is often a general term for urban places, not specific as to size, there is a need for its classification between Village and City. (Trewartha (1943: 32) uses the term between Village and City...) Population is between about 15,000 and 50,000.

Examples: None of these have expanded out to any towns the same size, or expanded out to even any recognizable hamlet or village since the nineteenth century. They remain the largest towns in their counties and the county seat:


City

Bigger than Town; population maybe from about 50,000 to 250,000.

Examples:


Metropolis

Columbus (downtown), Franklin County, central Ohio

A city that has expanded out to neighboring towns and absorbed them, or so dominates their character that they are considered a "greater part" of the large city. The urban area is usually only a county or two in size. Overall population may be about 250,000 to 5,000,000. Other Metropolis Cities have not expanded out to them; the metropolis remains the dominant center within its region (unlike Megalopolis Cities).

Examples:

  • Columbus, Franklin County, central Ohio - ranked as the United States 15th largest city in 2005 with 730,657 population; the metropolitan area has a population of 1,725,570 - Wikipedia entry
    • Greater Central Ohio includes most of Franklin County and edges of adjacent counties
    • Columbus has already absorbed small county villages such as Franklinton, South Columbus, and Clintonville (mostly in the nineteenth century).
    • It has spawned suburban cities such as Grandview, Upper Arlington, Bexley, and Whitehall in the first half of the twentieth century.
    • It has expanded to and around and dominates other former villages such as Hilliard, Dublin, Worthington, Westerville, Gahana, Reynoldsburg, Obetz, and Grove City in the latter half of the twentieth century.
    • It has not touched the neghboring county seats of Delaware, Lancaster, or Circleville, but it strongly influences them, and some arterial exurban development almost connects them.
  • Dayton, central southwest Ohio - estimated population of 158,873 in 2005 - though that's a bit low for this classification, the Dayton metropolitan area, or Greater Dayton (which includes the communities of Vandalia, Trotwood, Kettering, Piqua, Tipp City, Centerville, Beavercreek, Fairborn, West Carrollton, Huber Heights, Troy, and Miamisburg) had a population of 843,577 as of the 2005 estimate - Wikipedia entry
  • Toledo, northwest Ohio - population of 313,619 in 2000; metropolitan area had a population of 653,695 - Wikipedia entry
  • Cleveland, northeast Ohio - population was 478,403 in 2000; the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population of 2,250,871 - Wikipedia entry
  • Cincinnati, southwest Ohio - population of 368,868 in 2007; the Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington Combined Statistical Area has a 2006 population of 2,147,617 - Wikipedia entry
  • Indianapolis, central Indiana - population of 791,926 in 2000; the Combined Statistical Area (CSA) of Indianapolis had a population of about 2 million people in 2006 - Wikipedia entry
  • Louisville, northern Kentucky - population of 256,231; the Louisville metropolitan area (not to be confused with Louisville Metro), has a population of 1,222,216 - Wikipedia entry

Megalopolis (Megacity, Megapolis)

Manhattan Island, New York City, New York state, USA - as viewed from the Rockefeller complex (image borrowed from Wikipedia)

A city that has expanded out to nearby large cities - metropolises - creating an urban region that spans counties (Cooper-Hewett Museum 1982; Wikipedia entry; About.com entry).

Examples:

  • New York
    • "With over 8.2 million residents within an area of 322 square miles (830 km), New York City has the highest population density of major cities in the United States. The New York metropolitan area, with a population of 18.8 million, ranks among the largest urban areas in the world." (Wikipedia entry)
  • Washington, D.C. area
  • Los Angeles)
  • Chicago

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    • < Places_Urban.html >
    (Adapted 06/22/02 from "I_Towns" entitled "Urban Places"
    Second Draft - v 2.0, Sunday June 30, 2002 - Previous Draft: January 5, 2001; July 28, 1997)
    © INTREPID HISTORICAL SERVICES - Kevin B. Coleman
    Chillicothe, Ohio, USA
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