URBAN GEOGRAPHY

GUIDELINES FOR PROBLEMS AND AN AGENDA TOWARDS SOLUTIONS

Abstract

The goals of urban geography include studies of existing issues and possible solutions. It is necessary to consider the role of the government and entrepreneurs in promoting education, public sanitary services and health, the democratic use of the urban land and its corresponding housing problems, and also in relation to the understanding of how new jobs and accessible public transportation can be created and maintained. Geography should aim towards critically analyzing agents such as the state, contractors and the citizens. The state uses its legislative and restraining power to control and normalize the territory, while contractors try to get benefits, introducing themselves as building and intermediating the supply-and-demand of housing in urban territories. The citizens, who are taken to be a mere inhabitant or consumer, are often a victim of the other two agents. It is also important to know the socio-spatial peripheralization that negatively impacts over the population living on the outskirts of the urban circle.