AP Human Geography Models & Theories

Peripheral Model

A model of North American urban areas, created by Chauncey Harris, consisting of an inner city surrounded by large suburban residential and business areas tied together by a beltway or ring road. There are eight different zones: 1. Central City 2. Suburban Residential 3. Shopping Mall 4. Industrial District 5. Office Park 6. Service Center 7. Airport Complex 7. Combined Employment & Shopping Center

Sector Model

Focuses on residential patterns explaining where the wealthy in a city choose to live. Hoyt argued that the city grows outward from the center, so a low-rent area could extend all the way from the CBD to the city's outer edge, creating zones which are shaped like pieces of a pie. There are five different zones: 1. CBD 2. Transportation & Industry 3. Low-Class Residential 4. Middle-Class Residential 5. High-Class Residential

Rostow's Stages of Growth

model that postulates that economic modernization of countries occurs in five basic stages between agricultural and service-based economies: Traditional society, Preconditions for take-off , Take-off, Drive to maturity, Age of High mass consumption

Gravity Model

A fraction that predicts the interaction between places on the basis of their population size and distance between them (Population 1 x Population 2 ÷ Distance) The greatest distance will have the least spatial interaction.

Heartland Theory

A geopolitical hypothesis that any political power based in the heart of Eurasia could gain sufficient strength to eventually dominate the world. Mackinder further proposed that since Eastern Europe controlled access to the Eurasian interior, its ruler would command the vast "heartland" to the east

Dependency Theory

A model of economic and social development that explains global inequality in terms of the historical exploitation of poor nations by rich ones

Epidemiologic Transition Model

A shift in the disease pattern of a population as mortality fell during the first stages of the demographic transition. Acute infectious diseases were reduced, whereas chronic, degenerative diseases increased. It also meant a gradual upward shift in the age distribution of deaths.

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 determined by analysis of range and threshold.

Domino Theory

A theory that if one nation comes under Communist control, then neighboring nations will also come under Communist control.

Modernization Theory

A version of market-oriented development theory that argues that low-income societies develop economically only if they give up their traditional ways and adopt modern economic institutions, technologies, and cultural values that emphasize savings and productive investment.

Sustainable Development

A way of using natural resources without depleting them, and of providing for human needs without causing long term environmental harm

The Epidemiological Transition

Abdel Omran developed a system of three stages of epidemiological transition: age of pestilence and famine, age of receding pandemics and finally age of degenerative and human-made transitions. It was later expanded to five stages.

Least Cost Theory

Alfred Weber, German economist who developed in 1909 a theory for the location of industries that focused on transportation, labor, and agglomeration as factors of production affecting the optimal (least cost) industrial location.

Profit Maximization

August Losch developed the Zone of Profitability to determine the locations manufacturing plants could choose to maximize profit. He added the consumer demand and production costs to his calculations, determining the point of maximum profit is often difficult, but firms will usually try to identify a zone in which some kind of profit can be expected.

Concentric Zone Model

Burgess' concentric zone model is a description of the process of urban growth that views the city as a series of circular areas or zones, each characterized by a different type of land use that developed from a central core. There are five different zones: 1.Central Business District 2.Wholesale and Light Manufacturing 3.Low-Class Residential 4. Medium-Class Residential 5. High-Class Residential. Example: Chicago

cultural landscape

Carl Sauer defined cultural geography, as an area fashioned from nature by a cultural group. A combination of cultural features such as language and religion; economic features such as agriculture and industry; and physical features such as climate and vegetation.

Multiple Nuclei Model

Created by Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman in the 1940s, it's a model that suggests that the CBD is losing its dominant position. A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a collection of nodes of activities. There are nine different zones: 1. CBD 2. Wholesale, Light Manufacturing 3. Low-Class Residential 4. Medium-Class Residential 5. High-Class Residential 6. Heavy Manufacturing 7. Outlying BD 8. Residential Suburb 9. Industrial Suburb.

Rimland Theory

Developed by Nicholas Spykman, which argues that the Eurasian rim (land & sea), not the heartland, holds the key to global power. He adopts Mackinder's divisions of the world, renaming some: the Heartland, the Rimland, and the Offshore Islands & Continents.

Concentric Zone Model

Ernst Burgess is the geographer who created this Model of the North American city

Ravenstein's laws of migration

Ernst Ravenstein hypothesized a set of 11 migration "laws" that can be organized into three groups: the reasons why migrants move, the distance they typically move, and their characteristics.

Latin American City Model

Griffin-Ford model. Developed by Ernst Griffin and Larry Ford. Blends traditional Latin American culture with the forces of globalization. The CBD is dominant; it is divided into a market sector and a modern high-rise sector. The elite residential sector is on the extension of the CBD in the "spine". The end of the spine of elite residency is the "mall" with high-priced residencies. The further out, less wealthy it gets. The poorest are on the outer edge.

Locational Interdependence theory

Harold Hotelling developed a theory that suggests competitors, in trying to maximize sales, will seek to constrain each other's territory as much as possible which will therefore lead them to locate adjacent to one another in the middle of their collective customer base.

Multiple Nuclei Model

Harris, C. & Ullman, E developed in the 1950s, this model explains the changing growth pattern of urban spaces based on the assumption that growth occurred independently around several major "NODES", many of which are far away from the central business district and only marginally connected to it.

Sector Model

Homer Hoyt published this model of urban structure, response to concentric zone model.

Demographic Transition Model

Hypothesis that countries, as they become industrialized, have declines in death rates followed by declines in birth rates

World System theory

Immanuel Wallerstein created this theory, which explains how the globalization of capitalism led to changing relations between countries. He said that as capitalism spread, countries around the world became connected to one another in ways they had not been before.

Rank Size Rule

In a model urban hierarchy, the idea that the population of a city or town will be inversely proportional to its rank in the hierarchy, such that the nth largest settlement is 1/n the population of the largest settlement.

Von Thunen Agricultural Model

It explains agricultural land use patterns by varying transportation cost. The pattern predicts more-intensive rural land is closer to the marketplace, and more extensive rural land is farther from the market place. These rural land use zones are divided into concentric rings.

Borchert's epochs

John Borchert proposed a four-stage model of the evolution of the American urban system.

Migration Transition Model

Migration trends follow demographic transition stages. People become increasingly mobile as industrialization develops. More international migration is seen in stage 2 as migrants search for more space and opportunities in countries in stages 3 and 4. Stage-4 countries show less emigration and more intraregional migration

Rimland Theory

Nicholas Spykman's theory that the domination of the coastal fringes of Eurasia would provided the base for world conquest.

The Southeast Asian City Model

Terry (T.G.) McGee developed a model showing similar land-use patterns among medium sized cities of Southeast Asia. Its focal point is the old colonial port zone. The model also does not find any CBD in Asia, but rather he found elements of the CBD present as separate clusters surrounding the port zone.

food production increases arithmetically, human production increases geometrically

Thomas Malthus was one of the first to argue that the world's rate of population increase was far outrunning the development of food production. This is important because he brought up the point that we may be outrunning our supplies because of our exponentially growing population.

World Systems Theory

Wallerstein's theory of the core, semi-periphery, periphery, and external areas. The core benefited the most from the development of a capitalist world economy. THe semi-perihpery was the buffer between the core and periphery. The periphery are states that lack strong central governments or are controlled by other states. External areas are states that maintained their own economic system and for the most part, remained outside of the capitalist world economy

Central Place Theory

Walter Christaller, German geographer who in the early 1930s first formulated central-place theory as a series of models designed to explain the spatial distribution of urban centers. Crucial to his theory is the fact that different goods and services vary both in threshold and in range

Central Place Theory

Walter Christaller, German geographer who in the early 1930s first formulated central-place theory as a series of models designed to explain the spatial distribution of urban centers. Crucial to his theory is the fact that different goods and services vary both in threshold and in range.

Modernization Model

Walter Rostow developed this model - a liberal model that postulates that economic modernization occurs in five basic stages: Stage 1: Traditional Stage 2: Preconditions for takeoff Stage 3: Takeoff Stage 4: Drive to Maturity Stage 5: Age of Mass Consumption

the demographic transition model

Wilbur Zelinsky, identified 12 major perceptual regions on a series of maps and analyzed the telephone directories of 276 metropolitan areas in the US and Canada & developed a migration transition model which complemented the demographic transition.

Neo-Malthusians

a belief that the world is characterized by scarcity and competition in which too many people fight for few resources. Pessimists who warn of the global ecopolitical dangers of uncontrolled population growth

Core Periphery Model

based on the notion that as one region or state expands in economic prosperity, it must engulf regions nearby to ensure ongoing economic and political success. The area of high growth becomes known as the core, and the neighboring area is the periphery. Cores and peripheries may be towns, cities, states, or nations.

Malthus' Principles of Population

belief that there will always be poverty because food production can't keep up with the rising population, Based on the idea that all poverty comes from a lack of food, and there will never be enough food to support the growing population, and therefore there will always be poverty.

Von Thunen's agricultural model

created an agricultural model for market-oriented crops. A big assumption of the model is that all the farms and their crops have the same market. The model predicts the type of agriculture based on its distance from the farm to the market. Technology has slightly outdated the model. The model can be applied with rings, sectors extending outwards, or even realms.

Bid-Rent Theory

geographical economic theory that refers to how the price and demand on real estate changes as the distance from the Central Business District (CBD) increases.

Weber's Least Cost Theory

theory that described the optimal location of a manufacturing firm in relation to the cost of transportation, labor, and advantages through agglomeration