GG102- Final Exam

Urbanization

The spread and growth of cities; an increasing proportion of a population living in urban areas (cities and towns).

Urban area

• The spatial extent of the built-up area surrounding and including an incorporated municipality,

• Ex. City

• Combination of:

  • Population size

  • Population density

  • Nature of residents’ employment

Metropolitan area

A region comprising two or more functionally connected urban areas and the less densely populated (or built-up) areas between them; examples include New York and the Greater Toronto Area.

Urban sprawl

The largely unplanned expansion of an urban area into rural areas.

Megacity

A metropolitan area with a population of more than 10 million.

Donut effect

Characterized by people moving out of the core or inner suburbs of a city and moving into newer peripheral suburbs.

Urbanism

The urban way of life; associated with a declining sense of community and increasingly complex social and economic organization as a result of increasing size, density, and heterogeneity

Agricultural surplus

Agricultural production that exceeds the sustenance needs of the producer and is sold to or exchanged with others.

Acropolis

The fortified religious centre of cities in ancient Greece; the literal translation is “highest point in the city.”.

Agora

The centre of ancient Greek civic life; the area where public meetings, trials of justice, social interaction, and commercial exchange took place

Forum

The centre of Roman civic, commercial, administrative, and ceremonial life; combined the functions of the ancient Greek acropolis and agora

Mercantilism

A school of economic thought dominant in Europe in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries that argued for the involvement of the state in economic life so as to increase national wealth and power

Entrepot

A city, usually a port, that functions as an intermediary for trade and trans-shipment and that exports both raw materials and manufactured goods

Central place theory

A theory to explain the spatial distribution of urban centres with respect to their size and function.

Central place

An urban centre that provides goods and services for the surrounding population; may take the form of a hamlet, village, town, city, or megacity

Hinterland

The market area surrounding a central place; the spatial area from which the providers of goods and services in a central place draw their customers

Range

The maximum distance that people are prepared to travel to obtain a particular good or service.

Threshold

The minimum number of people (market size) required to support the existence of a particular economic function

Rank-size distribution

A descriptive regularity among cities in an urban system; the numerical relationship between city size and rank in an urban system; sometimes referred to as the rank-size rule.

Primate city

The largest city in an urban system, usually the capital, which dominates its political, economic, and social life; a city that is more than twice the size of the next-largest city in the system

Global city

A city that is an important node in the global economy; a dominant city in the global urban hierarchy; sometimes referred to as a world city.

Supranational organization

A multinational grouping of independent states, where power is delegated to an authority by member governments.

Gateway city

A city that is a key point of entry to a major geographic region or country for goods or people, often via an international airport, container shipping port, or major rail centre; a city in which several different cultural traditions are absorbed and assimilated

Central business district (CBD)

The social, cultural, commercial, and political centre of the city; usually characterized by high-rise office and residential towers, key municipal government buildings, and civic amenities

Class

A large group of people of similar social status and income (and often culture); commonly used forms include upper class, middle class, and working class.

Urban structure

The arrangement of land uses in cities

redlining

A spatially discriminatory practice, favoured by financial institutions, that identified parts of the city regarded as high risk in terms of loans for property purchase and home improvement; affected areas were typically outlined

filtering

A process whereby housing units transition from being occupied by members of one income group to members of a different income group over time

charter population

The dominant or majority cultural group in an urban area; the host community.

minority population (or groups)

A population subgroup that is seen or that views itself, as somehow different from the general (charter) population; this difference is normally expressed by ethnicity, language, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, lifestyle, or even income (as in the case of the homeless or the extremely wealthy).

congregation

The residential clustering of specific populations (minority groups), usually as a matter of choice or preference; a form of segregation.

involuntary segregation

The residential clustering of specific populations (minority groups), usually as a result of discrimination; a form of segregation

visible minority

A member of a minority group whose minority status is based wholly on the colour of his or her skin; the Canadian government recognizes anyone that is neither white nor Indigenous as a visible minority

cultural minority

A member of a minority group whose minority status is based on factors other than skin colour, such as language, religion, lifestyle, ethnic origin, etc.

suburbanization

A process through which land on the periphery of an urban area (the rural-urban fringe) becomes urbanized over time, as people and businesses move there; the process of suburban development.

Conurbation

A continuously built-up area formed by the coalescing of several expanding cities that were originally separate.

edge city

A centre of office and retail activities located on the edge of a large urban centre.

cycle of poverty

The idea that poverty and deprivation are transmitted intergenerationally, reflecting home background and spatial variations in opportunities

back-office activities

Repetitive office operations, usually clerical in nature and performed using telecommunications, that can be located anywhere in or out of the city, including relatively low-rent areas.

front-office activities

Skilled occupations requiring an educated, well-paid workforce; because image and face-to-face contact with others is important, these activities favour prestige locations in major office buildings in city centres

garden city

A planned settlement designed to combine the advantages of urban and rural living; an urban centre emphasizing spaciousness and quality of life.

green belt

A planned area of open, partially rural, land surrounding an urban area; an area where urban development is restricted

informal settlement

A concentration of temporary dwellings, neither owned nor rented, at the city’s periphery; related to rural-to-urban migration, especially in less developed countries; sometimes referred to as a squatter settlement or shanty town.

slum

A heavily populated informal settlement, usually located within the urban core, and characterized by poverty, substandard housing, crime, and a lack of sanitation, water, electricity, or other basic services

Informal sector

A part of a national economy involved in productive paid labour but without any formal recognition, governmental control, or remuneration

globalization

A complex combination of economic, political, and cultural changes that have long been evident but that have accelerated markedly since about 1980, bringing about a seemingly ever-increasing interconnectedness of people and places.

principle of least effort

Considered a guiding principle in human activities; for human geographers, refers to minimizing distances and related movements.

Time–space convergence

A decrease in the friction of distance between locations as a result of improvements in transportation and communication technologies.

Innovations

Introduction of new inventions or ideas, especially ones that lead to change in human behaviour or production processes.

Tariff

A tax or customs duty imposed on imports from other countries.

transnational corporation (TNC)

A large business organization (firm) that operates in two or more countries; examples include Nike, Apple, Toyota, Coca-Cola, Samsung;

foreign direct investment (FDI)

Direct investment by a government or transnational/multinational corporation in another country, often in the form of a manufacturing or processing plant.

international division of labour

The current tendency for high-wage and high-skill employment opportunities, often in the service sector, to be located in the more developed world, while low-wage and low-skill employment opportunities, often in the manufacturing and processing sectors, are located in the less developed world.

competitive capitalism

The first of three phases of capitalism, beginning in the early eighteenth century; characterized by free-market competition and laissez-faire economic development.

organized capitalism

The second phase of capitalism, beginning after World War II; increased growth of major corporations and increased state involvement in the economy

disorganized capitalism

The most recent form of capitalism, characterized by disorganization and industrial restructuring.

alienation

The circumstance in which a person is indifferent to or estranged from nature or the means of production.

Holocene

The post-glacial period of earth history that began approximately 12,000 years ago and was preceded by the Pleistocene.

Anthropocene

A recently coined term used to characterize the current period of earth history, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on the physical environment, including climate; preceded by the Holocene.

stock resources

Minerals and land that take a long time to form and hence, from a human perspective, are fixed in supply.

renewable resources

Resources that regenerate naturally to provide a new supply within a human lifespan.

ecocentric

A world view which emphasizes the equal value of all parts of an ecosystem rather than, for example, placing humans at the centre, as in an anthropocentric perspective

anthropocentric

A world view which regards humans as the most important part of any ecosystem; the opposing view to the ecocentric perspective

desertification

The process by which an area of land becomes a desert; typically involves the impoverishment of an ecosystem because of climate change, human impact, or both

catastrophists

Those of the view that population increases and continuing environmental deterioration are leading to a nightmarish future of environmental catastrophe, including flooding, mass extinctions, food shortages, disease, and conflict

cornucopians

Those who argue that advances in science and technology, along with cultural adaptation, will continue to create resources sufficient to support the growing world population and mitigate environmental change.

adaptation

The process by which humans adjust individual and collective behaviour in the face of a particular set of circumstances; sometimes used in relation to environmental change, but applies equally to cultural change.

conservation

Any form of environmental protection, including preservation.

sustainability

An approach that reflects the interdependence of the economy, the environment, and social well-being, and the need to maintain all three components across generations

sustainable development

Economic development that sustains the natural environment for future generations.

Demography

The study of human populations.

Census

The periodic enumeration of all individuals and collection of demographic and other data in a given country at a particular point in time (commonly every 5 or 10 years).

Physiological density

Population per unit of cultivable (arable) land.

Fertility

A population’s natural capability of having children; also used to refer to the actual number of live births produced by a woman

Fecundity

A biological term for the potential capability of having children; refers to potential rather than actual number of live births

Replacement-level fertility

The level of fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next; each couple has just enough children to replace themselves

Mortality

Deaths as a component of population change.

Population momentum

The tendency for population growth to continue beyond the time that replacement-level fertility has been reached because of the relatively high number of people in the child-bearing years

Doubling time

The number of years required for the population of an area to double its present size, given the current rate of population growth

Carrying capacity

The maximum population that can be supported by a given set of resources and a given level of technology.

Population pyramid

A diagrammatic representation of the age and sex composition of a population.

Population aging

A process in which the proportion of elderly people in a population increases and the proportion of younger people decreases, resulting in increased median age of the population

Limits to growth

A view that argues that both the world population and the world economy will collapse because of insufficient available natural resources

demographic transition

The historical shift of birth and death rates from high to low levels in a population; mortality declines before fertility, resulting in substantial population increase during the transition phase.

migration

The long-term or permanent relocation of an individual or group of people from one area to another.

life cycle

The process of change experienced by individuals over their lifespans; often divided into stages (such as childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age), each of which is associated with particular forms of behaviour

infectious disease

Diseases that spread from human to human via bacteria or viruses; sometimes referred to as communicable disease

degenerative or chronic disease

Diseases that are long-lasting and result from a gradual degeneration of the body; these diseases are more common today than in the past as a result of longer life expectancies

epidemic

A rapid increase (beyond what is normal) of relatively short duration in the number of cases of a disease within a population

pandemic

An outbreak of disease that is of greater scope and scale (a whole country or region, or even the world) than an epidemic.

epidemiology

The study of the incidence, distribution, and control of disease in human populations.

epidemiological transition

A transition in the dominant causes of death in a population over time, typically exemplified by a relative decline in infectious diseases and an increase in degenerative or chronic diseases