AP Human Geography: Unit 6 Vocabulary

Griffin-Ford Latin American City Model

Combines elements of Latin American Culture and globalization by combining radial sectors and concentric zones. Includes a thriving CBD with a commercial spine. The quality of houses decreases as one moves outward away from the CBD, and the areas of worse housing occurs in the Disamenity sectors. Example:

Counterurbanization

The net loss of population from cities to smaller towns and rural areas. Example: More people move out of a city than into it

Urban Sprawl

Unrestricted growth in many American urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning. Example: Phoenix, AZ

World/Global Cities

A city generally considered to be an important node in the global economic system Example: London, New York

Gateway City

A city that serves as a link between one country or region and others because of its physical situation. Example: New York City

Mega Cities

A city with a population of greater than 10 million. Example: Tokyo

Planned Communities

A city, town, or community that was designed from scratch, and grew up more or less following the plan. Several of the world's capital cities are examples, notably Washington, D.C. in the United States, Canberra in Australia, Brasília in Brazil, and Islamabad in Pakistan

Economic Base

A community's collection of basic industries. Example: Northern Indiana

Megalopolis/Conurbation

A continuous urban complex in the northeastern United States. Example: Boston, Massachusetts through New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and ending in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia

Super City

A continuous urban complex in the northeastern United States. Example: Zhusanjiao, China

Urban Area

A dense core of census tracts, densely settled suburbs, and low-density land that links the dense suburbs with the core. Exaple: Greater Tokyo Area

Edge City

A large node of office and retail activities on the edge of an urban area. Example: Newark

Zoning Ordinances

A law that limits the permitted uses of land and maximum density of development in a community. Example: New York City uses these.

Central Place

A market center for the exchange of services by people attracted from the surrounding area. Central Place: Midtown, Manhattan

Galactic City Model (aka Peripheral Model)

A model of North American urban areas consisting of an inner city surrounded by large suburban residential and business areas tied together by a beltway or ring road. Example: A small town in the rural area.

Harris & Ulman's Multiple Nuclei Model

A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a collection of nodes of activities. Example: Los Angeles

Hoyt's Sector Model

A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a series of sectors, or wedges, radiating out from the central business district. Example: Newcastle Upon Tyne

Burgess's Concentric Zone Model

A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are spatially arranged in a series of rings. Example: Chicago

New Urbanism

A movement in urban planning to promote mixed use commercial and residential development and pedestrian friendly, community orientated cities. A reaction to the sprawling, automobile centered cities of the mid twentieth century. Example: Breakfast Point, Sydney

Rank-Size Rule

A pattern of settlements in a country such that the nth largest city is 1/n the population of the largest settlement. Example: Germany

Periferico

A peripheral area beyond the ring highway that contains squatter settlements. Included in the Griffin-Ford Model updated by Larry Ford. Example: Ras Khamis in Israel

Redlining

A process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries. Example: 1980s Atlanta

Blockbusting

A process by which real estate agents convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices because of fear that black families will soon move into the neighborhood. Example: Chicago

Ghettoization

A process occurring in many inner cities in which they become dilapidated centers of poverty, as affluent whites move out to the suburbs and immigrants and people of color vie for scarce jobs and resources. Example: Jewish enclaves in European cities

Filtering

A process of change in the use of a house, from single-family owner occupancy to abandonment. Example:

Gentrification

A process of converting an urban neighborhood from a predominantly low-income, renter-occupied area to a predominantly middle-class, owner-occupied area. Example: Berlin

Cumulative Causation

A process through which tendencies for economic growth are self-reinforcing; an expression of the multiplier effect, it tends to favor major cities and core regions over less-advantaged peripheral regions. Example:

Urban Hierarchy

A ranking of settlements (hamlet, village, town, city, metropolis) according to their size and economic functions. Example: Arcadia, Nebraska (hamlet)

Greenbelt

A ring of land maintained as parks, agriculture, or other types of open space to limit the sprawl of an urban area. Example: Sao Paulo

Exurb

A ring of prosperous communities beyond the suburbs that are commuter towns for an urban area; began to emerge in the 1970s when rampant crime and urban decay in U.S. cities were the primary push factors; more recently since house prices have skyrocketed, middle-class people who want a large yard or farm are pushed beyond suburban counties and into this. Example: Loudoun County, Virginia

Restrictive Covenants

A statement written into a property deed that restricts the use of the land in some way; often used to prohibit certain groups of people from buying property. Example: North Carolina uses these.

Suburb

A subsidiary urban area surrounding and connecting to the central city. Many are exclusively residential; others have their own commercial centers or shopping malls. Example: Monterrey

Christaller's Central Place Theory

A theory that explains the distribution of services based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services; larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements and provide services for a larger number of people who are willing to travel farther. Example: Cambridge Ely Newmarket Haverhill Saffron Walden Royston St. Neots St. Ives

Ethnic Neighborhood

A voluntary community where people of like origin reside by choice. Example: South and North Omaha

Colonial City

City established by colonizing empires as administrative centers. Often they were established on already existing native cities, completely overtaking their infrastructures. Example: Boston

Shock City

City that is seen as the embodiment of surprising and disturbing changes in economic, social, and cultural life (Such as Manchester, England during the Industrial Revolution).

Census Tracts

An area delineated by the United States Bureau of the Census for which statistics are published; in urban areas, census tracts correspond roughly to neighborhoods. Example:

Food Desert

An area in a developed country where healthy food is difficult to obtain. Example: New Orleans, LA

Zone In Transition

An area that is either becoming more rural or more urban, area of mixed commercial and residential land uses surrounding the CBD; mixture of growth, change, and decline Example: An area where two types of trees mix together.

Shantytowns/Squatter Settlements (and other terms for the same concept)

An area within a city in a less developed country in which people illegally establish residences on land they do not own or rent and erect homemade structures. Example: Ras Khamis in Israel

Urban Hearth Area

An area, like Mesopotamia or the Nile River Valley, where large cities first existed.

Urbanization

An increase in the percentage of the number of people living in urban settlements. Example: 1801, urban population jumping from 17% to 72% in England.

City

An urban settlement that has been legally incorporated into and independent, self-governing unit. Example: Chicago

Micropolitan Statistical Area

An urbanized area of between 10,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, the county in which it is found, and adjacent counties tied to the city. Example: Cleveland

Urban Banana

Arch of the dominant overland, trade-based cities stretching from London to Tokyo in the 1500s before the rise of sea-based trade and exploration.

Industrial City

Cities that were developed hugely as an effect of the Industrial Revolution.

Public Housing

Housing owned by the government; in the United States, it is rented to the residents with low incomes, and the rents are set at 30% of the families' incomes. Examples: Apartments, condos

Metropolitan Statistical Area

In the United States, an urbanized area of at least 50,000 population, the county within which the city is located, and adjacent counties meeting one of several tests indicating a functional connection to the central city. Example: Atlanta

Annexation

Legally adding land to a city in the US; the formal act of acquiring something (especially territory) by conquest or occupation. Example: Ukraine annexing Crimea

Smart Growth

Legislation and regulations to limit suburban sprawl and preserve farmland. Example:

Borchert's Model of Urban Evolution

Model created in the 1960s to predict and explain the growth of cities in four phases of transportation history. Stage 1. The "sail wagon" era of 1790-1830 Stage 2. The "iron horse" era of 1830-1870 Stage 3. the "steel rail" epoch of 1870-1920 Stage 4. the current era of car and air travel that began after 1920. Example: Pittsburgh

Suburbanization

Movement of upper and middle-class people from urban core areas to the surrounding outskirts to escape pollution as well as deteriorating social conditions (perceived and actual). In North America, the process began in the early nineteenth century and became a mass phenomenon by the second half of the twentieth century. Example: St. Louis

Racial Steering

Real estate agents advising customers to purchase homes in neighborhoods depending on their race. Example: Detroit

Gated Communities

Restricted neighborhoods or subdivisions, often literally fenced in, where entry is limited to residents and their guests. Although predominantly high-income based, in North America gated communities are increasingly a middle-class phenomenon. Examples: Corpus Christi

Succession Migration

Pattern of inflow of new migrants to the CBD in the concentric model and the pushing of existing inhabitants outward into other rings. Example: Puerto Ricans kicking out the Jews

Bid-Rent Curve

Price and demand on real estate changes as the distance towards the Central Business District (CBD) increases. Different land users will compete with one another for land close to the city center. This is based upon the idea that retail establishments wish to maximize their profitability, so they are much more willing to pay more money for land close to the CBD and less for land further away from this area. This theory is based upon the reasoning that the more accessible an area, the more profitable it is. Example: An apartment in the CBD costing more than an apartment in Zone 4, if they even have apartments.

Urban Renewal

Program in which cities identify blighted inner-city neighborhoods, acquire the properties from private members, relocate the residents and businesses, clear the site, build new roads and utilities, and turn the land over to private developers. Example: Singapore

Public Transit

Public modes of transportation available in cities---bus, subway, trolley, etc.

Threshold

The minimum number of people needed to support a service. Example: Only a certain percentage of actually people using service.

Segregation

Separation of people based on racial, ethnic, or other differences; in geography can be measured by examining residential patterns. Example: 1960s America

Central Business District (CBD)

The area of a city where retail and office activities are clustered. Example: Budapest, Hungary

Hinterland

The area surrounding a central place from which people are attracted to use the place's goods and services. Westchester-->NYC

Density Gradient

The change in density in an urban area from the center of the periphery. Example:

Functional Zonation

The division of a city into different regions, or zones, (e.g. residential or industrial) for certain purposes or functions (e.g. housing or manufacturing).

McGhee Southeast Asian City Model

The focal point of the city is the colonial port zone combined with the large commercial district that surrounds it. McGee found no formal CBD but found separate clusters of elements of the CBD surrounding the port zone: the government zone, the Western commercial zone, the alien commercial zone, and the mixed land-use zone with misc. economic activities. Example: Kuala Lampur, Malaysia

Rush Hour

The four consecutive 15-minute periods in the morning and evening with the heaviest volumes of traffic. Example: 8 AM, 5 PM,

Uneven Development

The gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of globalization of the economy. Example: New York having tons of development and technology, but rural areas in Nebraska having little to none.

Site

The internal physical and human features of a place, independent of the place's relationship to other places around it. Examples: Climate, water bodies, topography, soil, vegetation, elevation

Primate City

The largest settlement in a country, if it has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement and is dominant in politics, economics, and culture of the country. It is disproportionately larger. Example: France

Range (of goods and services)

The maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service. Example: 5 min to Convenience store

Peak Land Value Intersection

The region within a settlement with the greatest land value and commerce. As such, it is usually located in the central business district of a town or city, and has the greatest density of transport links such as roads and rail Example: A downtown area where land is very expensive

Situation

The relative location of a place in relation to the physical and cultural characteristics of the surrounding area. Example: Near an ocean

Urban Morphology

The study of the physical form and structure of urban places. Examples: Lewis Mumford, James Vance and Sam Bass Warner

Central City

The urban area that is not suburban; generally, the older or original city that is surrounded by newer suburbs Example:

Disamenity Sector

The very poorest parts of cities that in extreme cases are not even connected to regular city services and are controlled by gangs or drug lords. Example: Unofficial Suburbs of Rio de Janeiro

Gravity Model

This model states that the potential spatial interaction between two locations or the use of a service at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel to reach the location or service. Example: Large cities being spread apart

Non-basic Sector

Those economic activities of a city that supply the resident population with goods and services and that have no "export" implications. Example: Grocery Store

Basic Sector

Those products or services of an urban economy that are exported outside the city itself, earning income for the community. Example: Auto industry