Unit 9 APhug

Annexation

Legally adding land area to a city in the United States.

Census tract

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

Central Business District (CBD)

The area of a city where retail and office activities are clustered.

Central city

An urban settlement that has been legally incorporated into an independent, self-governing unit.

Concentric Zone Model

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

Edge city

A node of office and retail activities on the edge of an urban area.

Galactic (or 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.

Gentrification

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

Megalopolis

A continuous urban complex in the northeastern United States.

Multiple Nuclei Model

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

Public housing

Government-owned housing rented to low-income people.

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 (CBD).

Sprawl

Development of new housing sites at relatively low density and at locations that are not contiguous to the existing built-up area.

Suburb

A residential or commercial area situated within an urban area but outside the central city.

Urban area

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

Urban cluster

In the United States, an urban area with between 2,500 and 50,000 inhabitants.

Urbanized area

In the United States, an urban area with at least 50,000 inhabitants.