Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes

Urbanization

The process by which an increasing proportion (percentage) of a population lives in towns and cities rather than rural areas.

Urban growth

An increase in the number of people living in cities (even if the percentage urban changes slowly).

City

A concentrated settlement that functions as a node of residence, commerce, transportation, and governance.

Metropolitan area

A central city and surrounding suburbs that are economically and socially integrated, often measured by commuting patterns.

Urbanized area

The continuously built-up physical footprint of development, which often crosses political boundaries.

Percent urban

The proportion of a country’s population living in urban areas (a key measure of urbanization).

Population density

Population per unit area; calculated as Population ÷ Land Area (averages can hide dense cores and low-density suburbs).

Agglomeration economies

Benefits firms and people gain by clustering in close proximity (e.g., lower transport/transaction costs, large labor pools, faster innovation).

Tertiary sector

Service-based economic activities that often concentrate in urban areas (e.g., retail, healthcare, education, finance).

Quaternary sector

Information- and research-oriented activities that concentrate in cities (e.g., R&D, universities, high-level corporate work).

Push factors

Conditions that drive people to leave rural areas (e.g., few jobs, low farm income, mechanization, land shortages, environmental stress).

Pull factors

Conditions that attract people to cities (e.g., jobs, higher wages, education, healthcare, social mobility).

Natural increase

Population growth from births minus deaths; can be a major driver of urban growth in youthful populations.

Site

The physical characteristics of a place (absolute location) that can help explain settlement and growth.

Situation

A place’s relationship to other locations (relative location), such as access to trade routes or other cities.

World (global) city

A major node in the world economy with global transportation links and advanced business services; influential beyond its population size.

Command-and-control functions

The coordination and management roles global cities play in organizing global production and finance networks (often via headquarters and specialized services).

Deindustrialization

A shift in a city’s economic base away from manufacturing toward services, often producing job loss and abandoned industrial areas.

Brownfield

A contaminated or underused former industrial site that can create redevelopment challenges and opportunities.

Foreign direct investment (FDI)

Investment by foreign firms that can reshape urban land use (e.g., office towers, logistics hubs, infrastructure upgrades) and potentially increase inequality.

Growth pole

A focal area for an industry (often in a city/region) that attracts firms, workers, and investment.

Economic multiplier effect

Economic “spin-off” impacts from growth, such as additional firms, investment, and jobs created around an expanding industry cluster.

Urban hierarchy

A ranking of settlements by size and by the services they provide, from small towns (everyday services) to large cities (specialized services).

Central Place Theory (CPT)

A model explaining the size and spacing of settlements based on market principles and service provision in an idealized, uniform landscape.

Hinterland (market area)

The surrounding region served by a settlement’s services (the area from which customers are drawn).

Threshold

The minimum number of people (and purchasing power) needed to support a business or service.

Range

The maximum distance (often better measured as travel time) people will go to obtain a service.

Rank-size rule

A pattern where a city’s population is inversely proportional to its rank (Pn = P1/n), producing a relatively balanced urban system.

Primate city

A disproportionately large and dominant city, often at least twice the population of the next-largest city, commonly linked to centralization and colonial legacies.

Megacity

An urban agglomeration/metropolitan area with more than 10 million people.

Bid-rent theory

The idea that more accessible locations have higher land values because higher-revenue activities can outbid others for that space.

Central Business District (CBD)

The commercial and business core of a city, typically with high land values, dense vertical development, offices, and major transit hubs.

Concentric Zone Model (Burgess)

A 1923 model of industrial-era North American cities with land uses arranged in rings around the CBD.

Invasion and succession

A process where land uses or social groups move into an area and replace earlier uses/groups over time, reshaping neighborhoods.

Sector Model (Hoyt)

A model where city land uses form wedges radiating from the CBD, often structured by transportation corridors and neighborhood patterns.

Multiple Nuclei Model (Harris & Ullman)

A model describing cities with multiple specialized centers (nuclei) such as a CBD, university area, airport district, and suburban business centers.

Latin American City Model (Griffin-Ford)

A 1980 model emphasizing Latin American urban structure shaped by colonial planning (e.g., plaza-centered CBD) and socioeconomic patterns.

Informal settlement

Housing areas that develop outside formal planning and legal systems, often lacking reliable services (water, sanitation) and secure property rights.

Land tenure

Legal right or title to land; insecurity of tenure is a key issue in informal/squatter settlements.

Filtering

A process where housing ages and declines in value, becoming more affordable for lower-income residents (often linked to disinvestment).

Gentrification

Reinvestment in existing neighborhoods that raises property values and rents as higher-income residents move in, often displacing lower-income residents.

Redlining

A discriminatory lending/insurance practice that denied mortgages or coverage in “risky” neighborhoods (often minority areas), reinforcing disinvestment and wealth gaps.

De jure segregation

Segregation enforced by law (historically exemplified by Jim Crow laws in parts of the United States).

De facto segregation

Segregation that occurs without legal requirement but still produces separation (often through markets, policy outcomes, and past discrimination).

Suburbanization

The movement of people and jobs from central cities to suburbs, driven by cars/highways, cheaper land, and preferences for space and amenities.

Urban sprawl

Low-density, car-dependent expansion of development into peripheral land, often with separated land uses and heavy highway reliance.

Edge city

A major concentration of offices, shopping, and entertainment outside the traditional downtown, typically forming near transportation nodes and increasing suburb-to-suburb commuting.

Induced demand

The tendency for added road capacity to generate more driving, so congestion often returns after highways are expanded.

Smart growth

Planning approach promoting compact, mixed-use, transit-oriented development, walkability, open-space protection, and infill to reduce sprawl.

Greenbelt

A protected ring of open space intended to limit outward expansion and preserve farmland/habitat (can raise housing prices if supply inside is not increased).