Unit 6 Cities and Urban development
In the United States and Canada, which areal unit best approximates a city neighborhood in size?
A A census tract
The map shows urbanized areas. Which of the following additional types of quantitative data will be most helpful to a geographer analyzing expansion of the urbanized areas shown on the map?
A A census tract map of each city and the surrounding counties showing the difference in population density over a ten-year period
With regard to environmental sustainability, which of the following explains an advantage of urban light-rail networks in Europe and East Asia compared to most light-rail systems in United States cities?
A Light-rail is integrated with fast commuter railroad networks and subways and extends out to multiple suburbs.
Mixed-use development, pedestrian-friendly design, and the incorporation of front porches and alleys are design elements of which of the following?
A New urbanism
La Défense is an edge city constructed in the late twentieth century and characterized by high-rise office buildings. Which of the following best explains why La Défense is located on the outskirts of Paris?
A The land at the center of Paris is filled with numerous historic buildings that residents do not want torn down.
New Urbanism is an example of sustainable urban development. This type of development is intended to
A reduce the miles driven on personal vehicles
Which of the following resources is used to produce the largest amount of electricity in the United States?
A. Coal mined and transported within the United States by railroads
Which of the following is the primary reason for the rapid population growth in megacities throughout the developing world?
A. Interregional migration
In the contemporary pattern of migration to cities in more developed countries, migrants are more likely to settle in
A. Suburban areas
Which of the following best explains the strength of the diagram shown as a theoretical model in human geography?
A. The model presents a general theory that is most applicable to metropolitan areas that were once colonial-era Spanish cities.
What aspect of the design of Brasília, Canberra, and Washington, D.C., was different from the design of most other urban centers?
A. They were designed as show places to reflect the power and wealth of their respective countries
Most Latin American cities are focused on a
A. central plaza
Which of the following groups would most likely engage in the gentrification of an older residential neighborhood?
B Double-income households without children
Although gentrification can revitalize cities by rehabilitating residential areas, which of the following problems can be explained by the type of building renovations shown in the before and after images?
B Higher rents causing displacement of existing residents
Which of the following factors best explains the development and expansion of squatter settlements?
B Rapid urbanization and inability of infrastructure to keep pace with the growth of megacities in developing countries
Which of the following statements explains the characteristics of cities in a postindustrial economy?
B The postindustrial city has a large share of offices housing technology and information services.
The presence of media hubs, coalitions focusing on specific environmental challenges, and headquarters for multinational corporations in major cities help explain how such cities
B are linked globally in ways that transcend national political boundaries
A primate city such as Mexico City is
B more than twice the size of any other city in its country and dominant economically and culturally
Locational advantages important to the development of the earliest cities included
B. productive agricultural land and defensible sites
Which of the following describes a primate city?
B. It is disproportionately large in relation to the next largest cities in that country.
Which of the following best describes the process of gentrification in United States and Canadian cities?
B. Privately funded redevelopment of existing commercial and residential buildings
Which of the following defines Chicago's position in relation to the infrastructure of the United States?
B. Situation
Many medium-sized metropolitan areas such as Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota, or Charlotte, North Carolina, have added light-rail train systems to their public-transit networks. Which of the following best explains the goals of light-rail projects?
C Reduce the ecological footprint of cities and reduce the air pollution created by vehicle exhaust
As migrants from rural areas continue to move to cities for jobs, cities face a variety of economic and social challenges. Which of the following economic or social challenges is best illustrated by the photograph shown of Mumbai, India?
C There is a significant income gap between residents on the periphery of the city and residents in the city center.
An urban center that is disproportionately larger than the second largest city in a country and that dominates the country's social, political, and economic activities can be best classified as
C. A primate City
In the development of urban land, which of the following is typically built on the most accessible sites?
C. Retail complexes
Compare the largest urbanized-area populations for each country, and then select the following statement that correctly draws a conclusion regarding the pattern in the data.
C. The United States is closer to following rank-size rule.
Which of the following best explains the importance of stock exchanges in the cities of Mumbai, India and Shanghai, China?
C. These cities function as global economic centers in the semiperiphery.
Historically, the growth of North American suburbs was most constrained by
C. limited transportation
According to the rank-size rule, if the largest city in a region has a population size of 900,000, then the third largest city will have a population of
D 300,000
According to the rank-size rule, if the largest city in a country has a population of 10 million, the next largest city will have a population of
D 5 million
The photograph above shows high-density residential housing built in the early 2000s in Henderson, Nevada, a suburb of Las Vegas, developed to accommodate large increases in population in the area. Which of the following best explains the growth in population and housing shown in the image and the census data?
D A cycle of rapid economic development and real estate investment
As old central business districts and industrial zones in more developed countries lost businesses and employment in the mid- to late twentieth century, suburban development expanded. Which of the following types of cities resulted from rapid suburban growth and the expansion of retail areas, office developments, business centers, and corporate headquarters to provide jobs and services in suburban areas?
D Edge cities
Which of the following best explains what the central business district data indicate?
D Government policy makers and business partners have focused infrastructure efforts on creating a downtown work environment that is positive for economic development.
Which of the following describes a feature of the original central business district (CBD) found in most cities?
D Land values are the highest of any zone in the metropolitan area.
Which of the following best explains a geographic characteristic shared by megacities in the global periphery?
D Megacities demonstrate unplanned growth patterns and often contain squatter settlements.
Today, most of the United States and Canadian population lives in which of the following?
D Metropolitan areas
Which of the following types of urban land use is most common on the periphery of cities in Latin America?
D Residential squatter settlements
The map above shows percent change in population for counties in Texas from the 2000 to the 2010 census. The three largest metropolitan areas are Dallas-Fort Worth (Tarrant and Dallas Counties), Houston (Harris County), and San Antonio (Bexar County). Which of the following statements best explains urban growth in the period from 2000 to 2010 ?
D The greatest percentage growth in population occurred in counties adjacent to the three largest metropolitan areas, indicating continued suburbanization.
According to the rank-size rule, which of the following is typically true of higher-order services, such as hospitals with a large number of medical specialties?
D They have larger ranges and thresholds.
An example of an important physical site characteristic is a
D natural harbor
The multiple-nuclei model of city structure tends to be most applicable to
D newer, fast-growing cities
Which of the following best explains why New York City has more specialized stores than do smaller urban places in the United States?
D. Central Place Theory
According to central place theory, the threshold is defined as the
D. minimum number of people needed to support a service
International company headquarters, significant global financial functions, and a polarized social structure are defining characteristics of
D. world cities
Which of the following accurately describes the city population data in the table?
E Bangkok is both a megacity and a primate city.
Which of the following is useful for describing a settlement node whose primary function is to provide support for the population in its hinterland?
E Christaller's model of central place
Transit-oriented development in Southeast Asian cities is an innovative strategy to minimize crippling traffic jams. One aspect of transit-oriented development is the use of dedicated rapid-transit bus lanes to more efficiently connect residential neighborhoods with activity nodes. An added benefit of this strategy that would appeal to advocates of sustainable city-development programs is the
E reduction in carbon emissions
The number of functions in a central place is dependent on all of the following EXCEPT the
E total number of central places in the urban system
Although photovoltaic solar farms appear to be a free resource with few negative impacts, there are environmental problems related to this type of renewable energy production. Which statement explains the limits to the sustainability of solar panel farms to produce electricity for a city in a more developed country?
E. Large amounts of land, permanently cleared of natural vegetation are needed.
In the new global economy, an increasing proportion of influential financial decisions are being made in
E. major corporate centers such as New York, London, and Tokyo
All of the following have helped create ghettos in North American cities EXCEPT
E. Economic Enterprise Zones
Which of the following is a general theory in geography that can be used to quantify and predict the interaction between two cities based on population sizes, distance between the places, the number of migrants moving from one place to the other, or the flow of trade goods between the two locations?
E. Gravity model
Which of the following is true of an edge city?
E. It has a large amount of recently developed retail and office space.
In the fundamentals of central place theory, which of the following terms is defined as the maximum distance a consumer will travel to acquire a good or service?
E. Range
Based on a comparison of the zones in the model shown, which of the following best explains how the model is limited in its representation of present-day urban land-use patterns?
E. The model does not show the cost-to-distance effects of multiple suburban central business districts and the pattern of residential areas that surround them.
Which of the following occurs when the cities in a country follow the rank-size rule?
The largest city is two times the population of the next-largest city.
Central place theory describes the
spatial patterns of urban and outlying areas based on the flow of goods and services
