Artificial Geography: A Result of City Development Process and Expansion

Abstract

Place promotion or city marketing is an industry that has developed around the deliberate manipulation of natural system of urban areas to promote economic development leading to an artificial urban geography. Cities closer to water edge have been exploiting the natural edge beyond repair. These artificial geographies have become a new dimension in defining a city. Cities have negotiated these. Most of these negotiations happen through a natural process of adjustments and many times these changes are unguided and uncontrolled leading into a crisis. The new emerging cities of upgraded infrastructure and reclaimed lands have altered the natural geography to an artificial geography without an assessment of its impact on natural systems both in the short term as well as the long term. The development of cities is entering into a state of crisis. Natural geography has lost its way to artificial geography. City's natural system is under threat. This paper intends to understand the current trends of city development process where city marketing and place promotion have become the top most priority rather than the essential needs of the city and its environment both naturally as well culturally.