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Urban Function

Dernière mise à jour le 7 juin 2019

Urban functions consist of the entirety of administrative, industrial, and commercial activities exercised by a city within an urban area and across the space over which it extends.

The study of urban functions makes it possible to characterize urban space and to study its dynamics. Thus the industrial function, which in the nineteenth century was located in suburbs and even in major city centers, intertwined with the residential function, was redirected, beginning in the 1960s, towards vast, specialized industrial zones, located on cities’ outskirts, near major road crossings or multimodal platforms.

Metropolises often concentrate command functions, the effects of which extend well beyond the city itself. Some of these command functions are political (for instance, seats of government), while others are economic (for instance, headquarters of multinational corporations). Command functions are situated in urban centers, either in the old city centers (in Europe) or central business districts (in the United States).

The goal must be to create a balanced distribution between various urban functions within an urban agglomeration by taking into consideration social and economic factors (social habitat, private habitat, economic activity, business, infrastructure, etc.), as opposed to urban specialization. Urban diversity seeks to coincide with a variety of urban functions.

Sources: School help – geography (French) and Social diversity definition on Muleta’s website

File translated by Michael C. Behrent – Assistant Professor – Department of History – Appalachian State University – Boone, NC  28608