The urban system of America’s Heartland seems to work on a hierarchical pattern. There are factors that help to create each level and help to determine the function of each level.
Let’s describe the different levels of hierarchy within the Heartland Region, and while we are doing so, give the factors that help to create those levels of hierarchy, as well as the function of each of those levels.
a) Chicago clearly stands out as the dominant city and metropolitan area of the Heartland Region for the United States, while Toronto seems to have a similar position in the Canadian portion of the region. These cities have the largest populations, the most businesses, the biggest transportation hubs, including busy airports, freeways, and commuter rail lines, and are wholesaling centers. They also have a larger portion of the region’s manufacturing and warehousing firms.
b) The second tier of the hierarchical urban system of the Midwest are the cities that are still considered some of North America’s largest, but not as large as the cities of Chicago and Toronto. These cities, too, have a large share of manufacturing and warehousing, but not as must as the two largest in the region. These cities would include Detroit and St. Louis, although the Detroit metro area is definitely the largest among the cities of this second tier (although the central city of the metro area, Detroit, has a shrinking population).
c) The third level, or tier, among the urban system of this region would be cities such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul. The core prominence of these cities are as locations along one of the Great Lakes or great interior navigable rivers, allowing them an important place for trade and transportation, although some manufacturing goes on in these cities, as well.
d) The fourth tier are cities that get their prominence because of their location as a transportation intersection, having grown mainly as a result of their prime location, although, in some cases, being a government center, such as being a state or national capital, helps in its prominence, as well. These cities include the city of Indianapolis, as well as Columbus, Dayton, Louisville, Nashville, Omaha, Rochester, Des Moines, as well as Hamilton, Ontario.
e) A fifth level would be those medium-sized cities that are well-placed in locations halfway between larger cities, as well as sub-regional hubs, or seats of college campuses, or places where raw materials or food product can be taken before taken to the larger population centers. These would include places like Grand Rapids, Flint, Kalamazoo, Cedar Rapids, the Quad Cities (Davenport, etc.), Lafayette, Fort Wayne, Terre Haute, Bloomington, Peoria, Decatur, Rockford, Madison, Eau Claire, as well as other cities of the same size.
f) The sixth level would include county seats, or cities that are at the center of each county, which serve as a center of government for that county as well as providing businesses, such as stores, restaurants, and services for the surrounding county. They tend to get their supplies from fifth-tier cities, who, in turn, get their supplies from higher up the tier chain.
g) The lowest level of the urban hierarchy for the Heartland Region would be the small towns and countryside that are responsible for the growing of the food that is consumed in the urban centers that are in the tiers above them.
This system of hierarchy among the cities of America’s Heartland is more evident, particularly by looking at a map, than any system of economic hierarchy found in any other region of North America. Elsewhere, there might be one or two major cities that stand out, or even a hierarchy of a lesser degree, but it usually doesn’t have the format or structural and spacial layout you find in the Heartland Region.
