• Cyburbia is a friendly big tent, where we share our experiences and thoughts about urban planning practice, the built environment, planning adjacent topics, and anything else that comes to mind. No ads, no spam, and it's free. It's easy to join!

About peri-urban definition

C

christopherdc

Member
Messages
10
Points
1
Peri-urban seems to be a term used mostly for defining a specific set of living conditions in developing countries. It seems to denote areas of extreme poverty at the perimeter of developing-world cities.

With the collapse of the housing market in America, one can already see the signs of the decay in the suburbs nearest the city, areas, and please correct me if i'm wrong, tend to be inhabited by those considerably less well off than those who can afford to live in larger homes further out.

I am posting out of an almost complete ignorance of urban planning, but can anyone tell me if there is a term for this swath of land just outside a city like Washington DC or New York? I'm thinking about the many web articles on the Slumming of Suburbia.

Can the term peri-urban be used to describe this area in this new and approaching/occurring reality of the american landscape? Or is there a better/newer/more appropriate one?
 
Quote from Miller-McCune Article

Adding:

"Nelson (director of metropolitan research at the University of Utah) and others warn that suburbia’s least desirable neighborhoods – aging, middle-class tract-home developments far from city centers and mass transit lines — are America’s emerging slums, characterized by poverty, crime and other social ills. Treating those ills is complicated by the same qualities that once defined suburbia’s appeal — seclusion, homogeneity and low population density. “We built too much of the suburban dream, and now it’s coming back to haunt us,” Nelson said.

What will this new reality be called?
 
Users Hink_Planner and Ursus thought it would be a good idea to move this topic out of the Introduce Yourself forum and into Make No Small Plans. They also (gently) suggested that I consolidate a sequential post. With that in mind:

I am the owner of whitespace, a concept and design agency. We are currently researching and developing progressive strategies for revising current interpretations and viewpoints surrounding the issue of increasing suburban poverty.

URGENT NEED is on clarification on the term, peri-urban

From cursory research, Peri-urban seems to be a term used mostly for defining a specific set of living conditions in developing countries. It seems to denote areas of extreme poverty at the perimeter of developing-world cities.

With the collapse of the housing market in America, one can already see the signs of the decay in the suburbs nearest the city, areas, and please correct me if i'm wrong, tend to be inhabited by those considerably less well off than those who can afford to live in larger homes further out. Please see web articles on the topic "Slumming of Suburbia."

Can the term peri-urban be used to describe this area in this new and approaching/occurring reality in an american landscape as opposed to a developing world landscape? Or is there a better/newer/more appropriate one?

OTHER URGENT NEEDS are for directions to the following resources:

Mapping of "large-lot" developments in all major US metro regions currently showing increased foreclosure

1950s statistics/infographics on urban population change day vs. night. see joe lertola's website, under "graphics", for nyc population change day vs. night, 2007.
 
Interesting topic of discussion. As someone who has spent some time in the developing world. I do see a distinct difference between the peri-urban setting and the presence of decaying suburban or fringe areas in the developed world. I think a different term would be more appropriate.

For one thing, in the developing world context, these peri-urban areas are often characterized by a lack of developed infrastructure - sewerage, potable water, electricity, planned roads (as opposed to those created haphazardly by residents). This stands in contract to the developed context where, though it may be in a state of decline, infrastructure does exist. It may lack adequate resources for maintenance and improvement, but the basic framework and social behaviors tied to it are already present.

Another contrast I see is that in my experiences in Uganda, the peri-urban realm was comprised largely of migrants coming from deeply rural (and often agrarian) settings. These are not urbanized people and their social behaviors, needs and living patterns often reflect an experimental melding of rural and urban life. I don't feel this is the case in the suburban or fringe city settings of the developed world. These areas are usually populated by people who are already urbanized and whose behaviors reflect a fluency in that style of living.

In the developed world context, people are not generally building their own housing, digging their own open sewers and pit latrines or cooking outside. The responsibility for these activities has largely been compartmentalized and contracted out to specialists. And they are also more subject to the rules and regulations of planning that require things to be done in a prescribed manner (with fines and penalties for non-compliance). In the developing context, more people are generally involved in all aspects of their living setting - dealing with waste, access to water, etc. and the authorities are generally less present to enforce rules regarding safety, sanitation, etc.

I don't mean to imply that the developing world peri-urban context is entirely the aggregation of individual efforts. I read a fascinating description of coordinated and planned land takeovers by landless people in Chile, for example (I think that's where it was), where groups assemble, plan out the takeover of vacant land and then, bam!, in one day they show up early in the morning and move en masse into the space, creating as much infrastructure as they can before the authorities show up (making it harder for them to be removed). These scenarios are well-planned and carefully thought out, but in general, it is the people developing and building things themselves and not buying homes already built as we would find in the developed world.
 
Wahday,

Thanks for your reply. It's very good to have the input of someone who has seen the peri-urban in a developing country actually "on the ground." Myself, I've only become interested in the phenomenon through business, and specifically, concepting on an idea. I have no practical knowledge and very little learned knowledge on this subject. Thankfully, you have it.

For the sake of dialogue, I would say in response to your point about "migrants coming from deeply rural (and often agrarian) settings, "I have lived in parts of New York City and Paris where English has been spoken as a second language if it is spoken at all, and in these settings many of the societal habits of another country had simply been fitted into the built infrastructure of that city. I now live in suburban Maryland where I see much the same thing. Single family tract houses that were designed for the american idea of a single family being occupied by peoples with an entirely different idea of "the single family home." These family units can have two to three times as many family members than the homes were designed for. So in terms of use these tract homes are still functioning properly. But with an altogether in-posed concept of family operating within. I know for a fact that there are homes across the street where only Korean is spoken and where the elder members of the family speak no english whatsoever. And this is an assumption, but I would imagine that many of the rhythms of the household are similar to those in their country of origin. So that while not being migrants from deeply rural areas, they are "migrants" in much the same way."

Also, do you think it is question of time making the term "peri-urban" appropriate in this country? Or, if as you say, a new term is needed, who will coin it? What could it be?
 
I think there are interesting parallels between the developing world context and the American urban fringe context to be sure. But what I see as a distinct difference is that the developing world context is about a population transforming an undeveloped area into an urbanized one (and on their own, which I think is important because in the US, these settings were created by developers and then sold to individuals). The developed world context is about an established, urbanized setting decaying. So, while they may cross somewhere in the middle (as one becomes more urbanized and the other less), their starting points are different. And I really think stressing the aggregate nature of developing world dynamics is an important one. In many areas, people just settle as they arrive in the area, and/or in relation to those already present (dictated by familial relationships, for example) and not as part of a pre-planned set of rules or guidelines.

So, I do see them as different animals deserving of different terms, but comparing and contrasting the dynamics is still a valuable exercise.

I think your observations about immigrant communities in suburban settings is really interesting and shows how conventional rules of living can be upended even in enclaves commonly thought of as historically very homogenous. Some years ago I recall there was a big story in a major magazine about the changing nature of the suburbs, which are increasingly being populated by first generation immigrant communities. When I was growing up (in the suburbs of Philadelphia), there were very few first generation immigrants - most of those folks were in the city and would move out to the suburbs after a generation or two. But that has changed dramatically and as a result, so has the use of the built environment. In this example, the (im)migrants are re-interpreting a built landscape to suit cultural needs. In the developing world, the migrants are creating a new built form from scratch to suit their cultural needs. Also, I think there may be more emphasis on assimilation among immigrants in the US, whereas in my Uganda examples, migrant groups worked hard to MAINTAIN cultural identities in the face of urban life.

What I witnessed in Uganda in the peri-urban areas was a lot of folks moving, often in large groups, from village settings and structuring their developments on standards applied in those more low density settings. The way trash was dealt with, sewerage, the prominence of gardens, the compound approach to building (many small, one room buildings all together rather than one larger building with multiple rooms) and more stood in contrast to the way the urban core of Kampala was built. Based on what you mentioned, I would also add dynamics of family structure to the mix as multi-family, or even polygamous marriages are not uncommon in the rural area, and the way space is used to negotiate these complex relationships is definitely a prominent aspect of the rural compound in Uganda.

Its also worth mentioning that these migrant groups in the areas I saw largely settled within their own socio-linguistic group. So, you could walk through these areas and pass from the Luo speaking area to the Teso-speaking area and so on. And each area would also have slight differences in the way space was organized based on their home regions. It was very fascinating!
 
Different starting points

"When I was growing up (in the suburbs of Philadelphia), there were very few first generation immigrants - most of those folks were in the city and would move out to the suburbs after a generation or two. But that has changed dramatically and as a result, so has the use of the built environment. In this example, the (im)migrants are re-interpreting a built landscape to suit cultural needs. In the developing world, the migrants are creating a new built form from scratch to suit their cultural needs. Also, I think there may be more emphasis on assimilation among immigrants in the US, whereas in my Uganda examples, migrant groups worked hard to MAINTAIN cultural identities in the face of urban life."

Yes. But where, or from whom, will come a term to describe this dramatic change? Are there writers who I could address who have enough authority to look into creating the terminology? It isn't precise enough, it isn't accurate enough, any longer, to simply describe the built environment along urban/suburban/exurban lines. This inner suburban, "urban fringe" as you call it needs to be specified in order to attract new and positive reimagining. I think there is much more to be done than just settling on "suburban slum." It's too negative for an area that could potentially be dramatically positive. I''m not sure "urban fringe" suffices. Or does it?
 
Back
Top