The Popuration, Function and Boundary of the Urban Settlements in the United States

Abstract

To help the comparative study of American and Japanese urban settlements, the author describes some peculiarities of the former. Firstly, most of the incorporated places with more than 2, 500 inhabitants have the status of city in the U. S., while population over 30, 000 is required for the Japanese urban settlements to gain the same status. This is partly due to the higher economic power of the American cities and low population density of their trade areas, but the exclusion of suburbs and farms from the incorporated area is another important reason. On the other hand many Japanese cities includes spacious farm areas and large agricultural population.
Urban settlements are classified by the author as follows and their functions described : I. Urban centers of the first order (Villages-pop. 250-4, 000 Towns 1, 0006, 000) II. Urban centers of the second order (Cities 10, 000-.400, 000 Industrial or heavily industrialized commercial cities 100, 000300, 000) III. Metropolitan centers (over 300, 000)
Secondly, incorporated areas of the most of the American cities are very limited and do not agree with the unit areas of economic and social activities, which is not the case of the Japanese cities where the annexation presents little difficulty. Some samples of complicated administrative units in the metropolitan districts and plans for corordination or consolidation are shown.
This paper is based on the author's study at the University of Wisconsin during the 195051 academic year but owes much to the works of Professors G. T. Trewartha, J. H. Kolb and R. E. Dickinson, to whom his deep thankfulness is hereby expressed.