This document summarizes and compares several articles about urbanization and the growth of cities outward from their cores to their peripheries. It discusses Edward Soja's analysis of increasing regional urbanization and the contrast between urban and suburban areas. It also examines Steve Pile's discussion of Lewis Mumford's view that both physical and social connections are important in defining cities. Examples are provided of Chicago growing due to its natural resources but then depleting them, and of cities like Tehran and Lahore experiencing uncontrolled urban sprawl, migration to the edges, and exploitation of rural areas.

1. Khawaja 1
Agglomeration
on
Peripheries
Muzna Khawaja
Keywords:
urbanization, zoning,
peripheries, urban sprawl
natural resources,
land use.
Introduction
The world is a global village and shrinking
day by day on economic and social level.
The statement reciprocates the notion when
such shrinkage is compared to the other side
of the scene, which is the expansion aspect
of the world. This critical review would
highlight this other side through an insight
and comparison of four articles by five
authors. Highlighting the key issues on
social, geographic and political levels
concerning agglomeration on the city edges,
the journey of review will start from the
traditional urban models suggested by urban
historians, followed by either their
implications and consequences or
downplaying globally and what were the
consequences in their urban and suburban
physical settings, which in turn affected
naturally resources and caused migration?
My first selection of text is of
Edward.W.Soja "Regional Urbanization and
End of Metropolitan Era". Having a
geography background, he is also well
reputed being a spatial theorist, and
presented a global picture of urbanization
through out the ages, by reflecting the major
features of different stages of urbanization

2. Khawaja 2
with the support of other urban planner’s
concepts.
The next one is from City Worlds by Steve
Pile from human geography field, whose
main interest lies in "living in a globalised
world". He has tried to suggest his own idea
of explaining the meaning of a city and as
well as by taking accounts of few other
urban historians like Ebenezer Howard, an
urban planner and a founder of Garden City,
which was mainly about providing adequacy
of facilities and better life in all his
concentric rings of urbanization. Hence
Steve Pile proposes a model of an ideal city
besides taking into account the physical
settings, the social aspects are also put into
focus. On this role model of urbanization,
Chicago is exemplified, age. Built on the
above stated urban model by Ebenezer
Howard, it shows the stages of Chicago’s
development and how this city on the basis
of its natural resources extended its
economical, social networks within and
across the national borders which in turn
made this city a cosmopolitan and
metropolis. Contrary to this, the expansion
of peripheries caused drastic effects on its
available resources which profoundly
changed its rural geography.
The next text is from Arrival City about
Tehran written by Doug Saunders. Being a
journalist and having served for a long time
as a foreign correspondent in an
international newspaper, gave him
motivation to write this book, in which he
has covered 20 nations on five continents, in
order to study the global wave of migration
from rural to urban or to other countries.
Doug Saunders analysis of migration aspects
in those particular regions where it was
unavoidable and caused agglomeration on
peripheries; further describing the reason of
this population concentration on the edges of
Tehran that resulted due to gigantic
migration from rural to urban and back
forth, creating arrival cities on the
peripheries of Tehran. Hence affected the
rural settings.
Lastly, another comparative study is being
given by an architect and environmental
designer Anis. A. Siddiqi along with Soufia.
A. Siddiqi paid attention to the geographical
transformations of the city. He writes about
Lahore (Pakistan) presenting a similar
situation as to Tehran where
mismanagement and unplanned strategies,
dispersed its urban fabric caused urban
sprawl towards peripheries which ultimately
transformed the rural/suburbs physical
settings.
As a conclusion, the review is framed as an
argument based on all these comparative
studies.

3. Khawaja 3
E
Regional
urbanizationC
Regional Urbanization and End of
Metropolitan Era by Edward Soja:
Soja presents a clear picture of the
urbanization process in terms of zoning,
introduced by Chicago school Urban
Ecology. Later this notion gets invalidated
over the time when this conventional system
couldn’t incorporate the challenges
pertaining to population and its demands on
socio-political level. The failing of
metropolitan era is better understood
through a dualism mentioned in his text
between urban and suburban worlds of
life,»….. where the former is the place of
creation and possibilities having
heterogeneity and the later as a way of life,
with a homogenous character«. (Edward
Soja, 2011, 680).
The uniformities of urban area were just
reordered in suburbia causing migration of
people from the core of cities towards its
peripheries. These circumstances resulted
into a huge contrast between the two zones
in terms of density. Soja further presents a
convincing chart of the whole urbanization
in totality, where he depicts the density
through shifts and changes in each zones. In
this chart of density he mentions
»…..second boundary which is the mobile
one of the city, defining the outer edge of
constantly expanding suburban growth«
(Edward Soja, 2011, 680). Such expansions
caused an upheaval at demographic and
cultural levels, resulted into a regional
urbanization, which is additionally »…..
superseded by another new phase of multi-
scalar regional urbanization«. (Edward
Soja, 2011, 680)
These transformations are better understood
when we have a look at the concepts and
considerations of urbanisation in the
following comparative study taken out of
City Worlds, in making of utopian city to
understand the meaning of a city.
0 B D
Density graph
So what is a city by Steve Pile:
Density
A
Distance
A`

4. Khawaja 4
The author mainly defines a city besides its
physical structures, in terms of social ones,
in order to understand its vitality and
complexity. He further analyses the city by
taking an account of Lewis Mumford, an
urban historian and a sociologist.
Lewis Mumford who wrote about making of
cities at the time, when there was an
alarming situation in America of
unmanageable population growth rate of
cities. Although he did not propose any
model or solution but presented an
observation, which could be taken as a role
model for its conceptualization, to avoid
explosion, conflicts and dispersion within or
outside a city.
Mumford argued that for making a city not
only physical features are to be taken into
consideration but the social relations in a
city are also of equal significance. Steve Pile
assumes that Lewis Mumford must have had
acknowledged the previous similar notions
of some other utopian planners like
Ebenezer Howard and Abercrombie’s plans
for an ideal city. The main thriving concept
behind all these notions was to segregate
different activities of city and assign their
locations accordingly, to envisage a dream
city in order to avoid a chaotic feature of a
city. ».... within a sustainable environment in
which people would live and thrive«. (Steve
Pile, 1991, 14)
Lewis Mumford further defines the meaning
of a city in terms of three main objectives; a
network of associations on social, cultural,
political and economical levels among
individuals and groups, whether known or
strangers. These associations depend on
spatial forms through direct or remote
encounter of people belonging to different
classes and backgrounds. Such happenings
occur both at private and state sectors,
bringing people from all directions in
specific modes and activities and places. He
further stresses that due to the ever
sprawling nature of a city, city’s existence
becomes questionable if its planning is not
wholly based on such social processes and
flows of interchange of commodities,
business, and values rather on sustainability
of its urban characteristics.
From Nature to Metropolis by Steve
Pile

5. Khawaja 5
Chicago was first built as a raised city out of
mud due to natural circumstances, while
heavily confrontation to floods. Furthermore
it was targeted to create it a place of
diversity, cosmopolitan and intensity.
This place was firstly envisaged on paper as
a fictitious city and people’s greedy
imagination, »…..Fictive lots on fictive
streets in fictive towns became the basis for
thousands of transactions«
(Cronon, 1991, 32)
Nevertheless the potential of this place got
acknowledged quite beforehand, by utmost
planning and development strategies, in
order to transform it as a geographic
network in almost all sectors i.e. finance,
information and social. The connectivity of
its hinterland to the rest of the country was
given utmost importance in order to promote
exchange of goods. For this matter networks
of transportation and »…..accelerated flow
of information were executed to transform it
as a nexus« (Steve Pile, 1991, 25). This
strategy of making it a place of convergence
of all activities, turned out to be a gateway
from east to west and to the rest of the
world, which in return intensified its urban
characteristics as thought and planned. Such
connectivity changed the landscape much of
America, became hard to distinguish
between urban and its hinterlands.
A place from nowhere grown into a
capitalist through circulation, production and
exchange; ready to be a metropolis. On one
hand this city became a focal point; an
overlap of so many activities, but on the
other side its exaggerated magnetism has
adverse effects on the nature located on its
peripheries. More and more trees were being
cut down as per demand of the production
and growing timber market, which in turn
left footprints in its landscapes, pushing its
hinterlands further away. The city is now
sucking up its own natural resources, with
which this place once came into being as a
city but turned its precious nature into
commodity. Nature is commodified.
»…Chicago is growing bigger and bigger,
especially as the railway networks were
expanding― until there were no more trees«
(Steve Pile, 2005, 31)
Chicago is now heavily congested that
raised the cost of doing business there and
people started bypassing this place as a
transit from going east to west. Due to the
reason that more cutting of trees made the
distance bigger from the city to transport
wood from the high altitude of forest where
availability of timber woods was high, rather
the selling of woods had started directly at
the site of wood which in return reduced the
attraction of going to Chicago.
Simultaneously railway networks that once
made concentration on this place in various

6. Khawaja 6
commodities now caused dispersion to other
cities. But by this time the city already won
a cosmopolitan status. Many people got
uprooted and migrated to this part of the
world across continents. The spatial and
social map of the city encompassed
distinctive districts within conventional
concentric rings of urbanization, as once
introduced by Lewis Mumford. Here in
Chicago this different spatial distribution
although stands in conflict with each other
depending upon how their ethnic differences
are interrelated to each other. Different
nationalities, cultures and classes living in
contrast next to each other and settled down
in distinctive areas. Chicago is thus
intensified focal point for social and
economic activities but at the cost of
changing its natural geography by cutting
more and more trees and shrinking down the
natural resources.
Plan
Peripheries of The Garden City by
Ebenezer Howard

7. Khawaja 7
Land distribution of Chicago
When the margins explode by Doug
Saunders
In contrast to the earlier example, this text
presents an opposite picture when city’s
strengths and resources are not
acknowledged and hence fallen apart into
hands of corrupt and disloyal government
local/state.
A constant dualism between urbia and
suburbia is quite evident here. The author
here comprehensively sketches two places
Emamzadeh and Eslamshahr, situated
around Tehran as "Arrival cities". The
former, lying on the north of the city, this
place got affected by every political and
social upheavals taking place in the main
city. Every political move of politicians
which couldn’t fulfil the promises they made
with the people while their election
campaigns, had adverse reaction on this
region.
The place is inhabited by craftsmen, and
small traders coming from rural areas. It
offered a potential to invest in real estate for
the rural people by leaving their villages
behind and residing here to invest their
savings.
Due to unaccomplished promises of the
rulers and ignorance, this area over the time
turned into a place of dissent.
Simultaneously poor urban settlers have
nowhere to go as the city got aggressive in
estate prices which forced them to leave the
central city and head towards fringes. An
appropriate citation fits here well by a local
urban planner as a foreseen warning »an
explosion is waiting to happen here on the
edges of Tehran« (Doug Saunders, 2011,
200). This is due to inadequacy of the urban
planning which failed to meet the
demographic shifts of the centre, resulted
into a migration towards the edges, and thus
living in unrecognized settlements. A
vacuum for more migrants in the future was
created and in return for state-run sector jobs
opportunities, created an inequality at the
urban level. Such circumstances just added
fuel for an explosion on the margins. The
latter arrival city which was used to be a
frontier area of Tehran is Eslamshahr. Its
illegal distribution of land transformed its

8. Khawaja 8
status into a suburb, a place of beginnings in
turn. This offered as a parallel space to the
legal sector of the government, and became
a great opponent as it attracted more people
to reside there.
The consecutive play of different political
revolutions caused an extreme unrest and
uncertainty among the poor people living on
edges and working as unidentified blue
collars manual working class, not enjoying
or being acknowledged by their work in the
central urban of Tehran. This caused the loss
of politician’s credibility as they did not
meet up the expectations and hence misled
the people by false promises and unjust
strategies. Every time by each revolutionary
political upheaval the eyes of the people
were set onto their upcoming politicians.
They risked everything and migrated from
their rural roots towards urban life for the
sake of better future. Ultimately afflicted
population started emerging autonomously
by self organizing their own needs, donating
their efforts and skills in urban planning
sectors. More and more people turned to this
arrival city which thus forcibly halted its
expansion. This caused another explosion in
such arrival cities and created sub-
settlements around this place. But these sub-
fringes were still inaccessible to poor rural
people which in turn created their own new
arrival areas on its peripheries. They
remained on marginality and excluded from
the urban society, accessible to only those
living in the former peripheries of the central
Tehran. Overall such repeated creations and
explosions on the margins were result of
failed processes of politicians and rulers that
paved the way of burst over and over again.
Tehran and its expansion.

9. Khawaja 9
Urban sprawl in Lahore by
Anis.A.Siddiqi
Lahore (Pakistan) is subjected to poor urban
planning by local government and is the 2nd
largest city of the country. Besides being
continuously urban sprawling based on an
unplanned expansion, without any serious
consideration on its natural resources, infra-
structure and land use distribution, is already
in the making of metropolis. Furthermore,
relying more and more on road
transportation caused outstripping the
available natural resources. This has resulted
into an alarming situation on the outskirts.
(Shreekant Guptal and Indu Rayadurgam,
2008, 4)
According to another recent demographic
work indicating Pakistan’s primary cities
integrated with their rural suburbs into the
city economies. »....have formed into a
significant population agglomeration that
has increased its political and economic
importance« (Ali, 2003).
This has radically increased the current level
of urbanization in Pakistan as 50%.
The major concern areas are the drainage
problems, transportation system, land use,
density, vegetation and other amenities to
their residents.
Past
Present
Conclusion:
This review has at first presented an
overview of urbanization in terms of
dualism between urban and rural areas by
Edward Soja. Due to regional densities and
economic inequalities, migration towards
edges occurred which created a huge
contrast between the two zones. To
understand this flow, Sonja’s density chart
gives us a clear picture of the shift in
between two zones, with a prediction of
another new creation of a zone outwards
from the peripheries.

10. Khawaja 10
Next is conceptualization of an ideal city
presented by Steve Pile with a close eye on
the concentric rings of urbanization to
achieve a sustainable city. As an example
Chicago is quoted to study its evolution and
transformation from a nowhere land into a
cosmopolits, on sheer basis of natural
resources but later due to over consumption
of these available means and explosion of
population on the peripheries drastic change
occurred in the landscape.
A contrasting picture of Tehran and its two
peripheral areas are being sketched in the
following sequence by Doug Saunders,
which is a product of state’s urban planning
negligence and utter political upheavals and
unrest. These areas served as parallel to
urban, created due to illegal distribution of
land but governed on self organization of the
localites. However, this process doesn’t stop
here rather continued to be subdivided on its
fringes, creating arrival cities and changed
the suburb landscape profoundly.
In the end another similar situation of
Lahore (Pakistan) is presented by
Anis.A.Siddiqi. Besides having an alarming
situation on its outskirts, the city is heading
towards transformation into a metropolitan
city. It is facing quite enormous challenges
in the hands of state’s disregardances and
unplanned urban expansion.
Arguments:
This critical writing review has in turn raised
few considerations and queries.
Due to the reason that almost every major
city is urbanized in the world, how can the
hinterlands or suburbs survive or sustain, so
that the landscape of peripheries are not
profoundly affected due to agglomeration in
urban?
Can the urban areas survive without their
Hinterlands?
What is the role of urban governance in that
process of sustainability and impartial
distribution of land use and resources?
Summary:
After all these above comparative studies,
it’s been observed that living in rural area
has been a part of life but simultaneously
clinging to the urbia is also not avoidable.
Rural and urban have their distinctive
attributes and activities. The hinterlands are
dependent on its urban areas and in return,
subjected to its control but nevertheless,
suburbs are adjoined with villages,
performing a vital role of providing natural
resources i.e. agriculture, raw materials for
food and vegetation.

11. Khawaja 11
The major role here is played by urban
governance. The difference between local
and state sector in terms of their
responsibilities of land distribution and uses
should be clearly demarcated, in order to
achieve a sustained city, so that the
expansion of the urban could be well-
planned and the future expansion of the
urban sector could be better foreseen.
Mainly due to low density urban and
suburban development people are forced to
move to peripheries and hence increased
distances and usage of automobiles. Ending
up on occupying farm lands and forests and
destroying natural resources―an exodus of
congestion towards city edges.
Bibliography:
Edward, Soja (2011): Regional Urbanization and End of Metropolitan Era. Blackwell Publishing
Ltd.
Pile, Steve (1999): City worlds. What is a City? Routledge: London.
Pile, Steve (1999): City worlds. From Nature to Metropolis. Routledge: London.
Saunders, Doug (2011): Arrival Cities. When the margins explode. Alfred A. Knopf: Toronto.
Guptal, Shreekant and Rayadurgam, Indu (2008): Urban growth and governance in South Asia.
Patterns of urbanization in South Asia.
Anis.A.Siddiqi and Soufia.A.Siddiqi: Urban Sprawl in Pakistan and Architect’s role in the war
against a waterless world.
Word Count:
3,151

12. Khawaja 12