Areal Political Structure and Its Influence on Urban Patterns

Abstract

AREAL POLITICAL STRUCTURE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON URBAN PATTERNS James E. Vance, Jb. University of California, Berkeley Study of the geographical nature of the city has been particularly concerned with the forces shaping urban patterns of functional division, density of settlement, and morphological development. By those whose work has been morphological in nature these patterns have been related especially to terrain and historical development. By those viewing the city as a functioning entity greatest stress has been laid on the economic forces at work in the city. By neither group has any systematic consideration been given to the part that larger political patterns play in shaping the city. It might be anticipated that the political geographer would evince interest in how areal political patterns bear upon the city, but this has not been the case. That there is a "political geography" of the city is strongly demonstrated by a number of studies of individual cities. Nelson's work on Vernon, California,1 clearly shows the contribution of local political conditions in the growth of a part of the city. Attention has been given to the influence of state and national boundaries on urban clusters but perhaps the most basic aspect of urban political geography, the nature and form of local civil divisions, has been overlooked by both urban and political geographers. We as geographers are fully aware of the part which land" sub-division in rural areas has played in the creation of a distinctive agricultural settlement pattern. A contrast is often made between areas of metes and bounds surveying and of the Congressional Land Survey, but in the case of cities we have tended to work at only the lowest level of partition. Stanislowski brought to our attention the importance of the rectahnear block in shaping the city2 and Dickinson,3 Leighly,4 and Taylor5 have all turned at times to the influence of inherited town plans. But in no case has the second level of land division, the minor civil division, been considered. It is suggested that this second level has, if anything, a more pervasive influence on the functional and physical development of the city than the first level, as within the 1 Nelson, Howard J., "The Vernon Area, California—A Study of the Political Factor in Urban Geography," Annals of Assoc, of Amer. Geog., Vol 42 [1952], pp. 177-191. 2 Stanislawski, Dan, "Origin and Spread of the Grid-Pattern Town," Geog. Rev., Vol. 36 [1946], pp. 105-120. 3 Dickinson, Robert E., The West European City: A Geographical Interpretation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1951. 4 Leighly, John B., "The Towns of Mälardalem in Sweden: A Study in Urban Morphology," Univ. of Cat. Publications in Geography, Vol. Ill, No. 1 [1928-1930]. Berkeley, 1931, pp. 1-135. 5 Taylor, Griffith, Urban Geography. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1949, particularly Ch. VIII. 40 minor civil division we find the smallest repository of independent political initiative. The Minor Civil Division Any discussion of areal political structure is concerned with an heirarchy of civil division. Historically, we may distinguish among systems of administration and control; monarchy and republic, federation and unitary government. But in every case there must be an organization of ultimate sovereignty with non-formal contractual responsibility to a higher level of government. Today this would be the "nation state" but in the past it might well have been the "city state," the "free city," or some other non-national unit. If ultimate sovereignty reposes with the nation-state, this sovereignty is seldom exercised entirely by any central administration. The very size of any nation-state militates against total central administration. To accomplish the ordering of government for a large area, even in an authoritarian state, it is necessary to delegate responsibility, and usually initiative, to subsumed administrative units. The nature of these lesser units has great meaning in the growth of the city. In the United States the federal form of government organically introduced the two levels of government at the top, the nation and the subdivision of the nation which became our state. But even in the antecedent Colonial times all colonies proved too large to be governed from a central point so that...