Functional Regions

How do you interact with the space around you? Is there a specific local radio, television channel, or newspaper that you like? Activities and functions you partake in each day only have a certain spatial range within which they occur. This is how you can conceptualize functional regions.

Whether you know it or not, there are many moments in your daily life when you are interacting in a functional region. Let's discuss.

Functional Regions Definition

Functional regions, as the name implies, are regions that exist due to a function.

The function in the functional region can be commercial, social, political, or something else. The are surrounding the central node can be considered its sphere of influence. The influence weakens as distance increases, through distance decay.

Another way to define functional regions is to define them by a central location. The surrounding area influenced by this central location is the functional region.

Formal and Functional Region

In addition to functional regions, there are also formal regions and perceptual/vernacular regions. This article will discuss functional regions in depth, but it is important to know the differences.

As a reminder, functional regions are regions that exist due to a function surrounding a node. An example of a functional region can be the fan base population surrounding a MLB ballpark. While there can be a bit of variation, the fan base of a baseball team resides in the surrounding area and supports the team in the MLB ballpark closest to them. For instance, residents of Massachusetts support the Boston Red Sox because that is the MLB team located in the state's capital city.

Meanwhile, formal regions are areas that share a uniform attribute, such as language, culture, or political organization. An example of a formal region includes the borders of the US. Formal regions are usually well-defined and established.

Perceptual/vernacular regions are informal regions based on popular perception rather than a well-defined concept. Instead of having formal borders, like formal regions do, the boundaries of perceptual/vernacular regions are often debated. An example of a perpetual/vernacular region includes the Bermuda Triangle. This ill-defined region does not exist in actuality, but instead is based on myth. Perceptual/vernacular regions have no definitive borders; it depends on how an individual perceives the region. These regions reside in our "mental maps."

Characteristics of Functional Region

There are not many characteristics of a functional region. The one necessity to be considered a functional region is that an area must contain a central node around which the function is centered or focused. As a reminder, this central mode can be political, commercial, or social.

Functional Regions Examples

Other than a central node and a function, there are not any defining characteristics. With such a broad definition, there are numerous examples of functional regions.

Metropolitan Areas

Metropolitan areas are good examples of functional regions because they feature central, dense districts influencing surrounding areas. Metropolitan areas in the US have extensive urban sprawl. The primary node of activity is the downtown, usually located in the city center. For instance, Boston has a wide metropolitan area. Downtown Boston is the core of economic activity for a region that extends hours in all directions from it.

Megaregions

Unlike formal regions, functional regions do not have to be well-defined. This is important to note because metropolitan areas are so hard to define. The US is actually witnessing the rise of "megaregions" or megalopolises as cities and their urban sprawl spread and combine across thousands of square miles.

For instance, the stretch of the East Coast of the US from Boston to DC contains dense human activity and settlement. This megalopolis is known as BosWash. It can be hard to decipher where the centralized focus of economic activity is located because the suburban areas of each city blend into each other. This megaregion is closely linked through telecommunication and transportation technology. BosWash can be thought of as one functional region.

Fig. 1 - The megaregions of the US. Metropolitan areas fuse as urban sprawl spreads. It is hard to decipher where economic activity is centralized

As urban sprawl grows around the country, there are many other examples of megaregions in the US. For instance, Southern California is a region with immense sprawl that spreads far beyond the city limits of Los Angeles.

For more information about the consequences of the spread and combining of urban sprawl, check out the explanation for Galactic City Model.

Concentric City Model

Canadian sociologist Ernest W. Burgess theorized about the city as a functional region. His Concentric Zone Model depicts the city as a concentric circle, with the highest density and activity happening in the downtown center of the city, called the Central Business District. Surrounding this district is a ring of factories and industrial areas, followed by working-class neighborhoods. In the outer ring is the suburbs. Thus, the city is centralized in the downtown area and spreads its influence to the outer rings of the concentric circle. This is the archetype for a functional region, as there is a node and a surrounding region. For more information, check out StudySmarter's full explanation on this topic.

Fig. 2 - Burgess' Concentric City Model features the activities of a city surrounding the Central Business District in a pattern of concentric rings

School Districts

School districts are examples of functional regions because they are regions designed for a function surrounding a node. The node is the school and the surrounding functional area is the school district. School districts are not well-defined; they shift as a result of new schools or changing demographics.

Fig. 3 - School districts are the functional regions surrounding a school

School districts are important functional areas, because the school district an individual is educated in can determine much about their future and potential success. Because schools are funded by property taxes, school districts are impacted by property values, and vice versa.

Broadcasting

Modern technology has allowed the diffusion of media via electronic signals. Unless you are using a different form of connection at home, radio, television, mobile phone data, phone calls, and Wi-Fi all arrive via electromagnetic technology. This information is transmitted from cell phone towers. The range and reach of these technologies are a functional region.

Fig. 4 - A cell phone tower in Iceland. The range of the electromagnetic waves diffused by this tower define a functional region

You may notice that you have left the functional region of a cell phone tower if you no longer have any phone service. In relation to radio, when you leave the functional region of a radio station, you will no longer be able to listen to that channel, and will instead hear static. On a much smaller scale, at home, you may notice that you left the functional area of your Wi-Fi router when you are no longer connected to the Wi-Fi. When this happens, you must get closer to the central node to be connected again.

Large phone, radio, and television companies can afford the technology that allows information to travel across an entire country, but many times radio, phone, and television connections will be more localized. Thus, the functional area of technology depends on the technology and company.

Functional Regions in Geography

Functional regions are important to geographers because they involve specific areas of human activity. Geography is not just about land and its physical features. It is also about how humans interact with space. Functional regions can describe which sports team an individual supports, what radio station they listen to, which school they will attend, and so forth. Thus, functional regions are a fundamental concept for human geographers.