Geo SL U3 Key terms

Site

Physical characteristics of the place

Situation

Relative location and connectivity to other places

Function

Main economic/ social roles of a place. Sandwiched districts in a city. Specialize based on assets, accessibility and history.

Settlement hierarchy

Ranked order of settlements by size, service and influence

Levels of economics

Primary: agriculture, extraction of raw materials

Secondary: manufacture products

Tertiary: services, but no physical product

Quaternary: high level research and development

Tertiarization

Growth of services, finance and knowledge work

High order of goods

Before purchase, people compare prices and quality. Large threshold population.

Low order goods

People use it regularly without comparing prices and quality. Smaller threshold population.

Settlements

A place to which people travel to to buy things

Sphere of influence

The distance people are wiling to travel to get to a certain place. 2 principles: threshold population and range.

Models

Simplified maps of a city’s special usage that predict the influences of settlements

Planned urban growth

Government and developers guide land use through master plans, zoning and infrastructure-first investments

Spontaneou urban growth

Incremental, market and community led change without a single overall plan. Responds quickly to demand.

Central business district

High accessibility, densse tertiary/ quaternary economy, wel-connected

Peak land value intersection

Simular to a multinucleated city, PLVI is the best access and most dense population.

Bid rent theory

Retail benefits most from density, and secondly office, thirdly residential

Poverty

Absoulute (lacking basic needs) or relative (lacking resources compared to the societal avg)

Deprivation

When a person’s quality of life falls below a socially acceptable standard. It is multi-dimensional

Informal activity

Economical activity or housing that is not regulated, protected or taxed by the authority

Urbanization

The process by which an increasing proportion of a country’s population lives in towns and cities

Centripetal movement

Any population movement into the city or towards its center

Centrifugal movement

Outward movement from the center of a city towards the periphery or rural areas

Rural-urban migration

The permanent movement of people from rural areas to urban areas

Gentrification

The reinvestment and improvement of older, often run-down, past industrial, inner city residential areas by high income groups

Deindustrialization

The prolonged reduction of industrial capacity, characterized by factory closures and a shrinking manufacturing workforce

Suburbanization

The outward growth of towns and cities to engulf surrounding villages and rural areas. This results in the creation of suburbs on the urban fringe

Counter-urbanization

The movement of population away from inner urban areas to new towns, estates, commuter towns or villages just beyond the city limits

Microclimate

A distinctive climate of a small scale area, ranging form a single garden to a specific cty district 

Albedo

hwo well a surface reflects light, on a scale of 0(absorbs all) to 1 (refelcts all)