What is the City? Activity Debrefing (15 minutes)

• What makes the urban distinctive?
• Rural-Urban Interconnections?

Definitions

• Population Size (variability of definitions)
• Economic Base
• Administrative Criteria (political)
• Functional region

Approaching Urban Geography

Environmentalism

Positivism (Quantitative approach) 

Behavioralism

 Humanism

Structuralism 

• Marxian/political economy approaches
• Managerialism

Postmodernism

Transnationalism

Postcolonialism

Moral Philosophy

Implications of these approaches

• Ideologies and Metaphors
• Importance of Critical Thinking
  • How valid is a particular representation of the world?
  • Who is represented by the theory?
  • How useful are the ideas and for what are they useful?
  • What are the implications of the words, metaphors, maps, graphs, and diagrams being used?
  • Whose interests do these ideas support?

Activity: Paradigms Gone to the Dogs