Unit 6

Auto-Air Amenity Epoch

Period of maturation of national urban hierarchy, key elements were airplane and automobile, expansion of white-collar services jobs, growing pull of amenities (pleasant environments) stimulating urbanization of the suburbs.

Basic Industry

Industries that sell their products or services primarily to consumers outside the settlement.

Blockbusting

As early as 1900, real estate agents and developers encouraged affluent white property owners to sell their homes and businesses at a loss by stoking fears that their neighborhoods were being overtaken by racial or ethnic minorities.

Burgess, E.W.

Author of the Concentric Zone Model.

Business Service

Services that primarily meet the needs of other businesses.

Census Tract

Small, relatively permanent statistical subdivisions of a county or equivalent entity that are updated by local participants prior to each census as part of the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program.

Central Business District (CBD)

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

Central Place

A market center for the exchange of services by people attracted from the surrounding area.

Central Place Theory

A theory that explains the distribution of services, based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services; larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements and provide services for a larger number of people who are willing to travel farther.

Christaller, Walter

Geographer who introduced central-place theory in his book entitled Central Places in Southern Germany.

City

A large urban settlement with clearly defined boundaries and municipal functions; for example Cairns, Toowoomba, Townsville. Cites are often the center of local government and regional services.

City-state

A sovereign state comprising a city and its immediate hinterland.

Clustered Rural Settlement

A rural settlement in which the houses and farm buildings of each family are situated close to each other and fields surround the settlement.

Combined Statistical Area (CSA)

In the United States, two or more contiguous core based statistical areas tied together by commuting patterns.

Concentric Zone Model

Model that describes urban environments as a series of rings of distinct lands using radiating out from a central core, or central business district.

Consumer Services

Businesses that provide services primarily to individual consumers, including retail services and personal services.

Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA)

In the United States, the combination of all metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan statistical areas.

Council of Government

A cooperative agency consisting of representatives of local governments in a metropolitan area in the United States.

Density Gradient

Density change in an urban area.

Dispersed Rural Settlement

A rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms rather than clustered villages.

Economic Base

A community's collection of basic industries.

Ecumene

Inhabited land, refers to land where people have made their permanent home, and to all work areas that are considered occupied and used for agricultural or any other economic purpose.

Edge City

Cities that are located on the outskirts of larger cities nd serve many of the same functions of urban areas, but in sprawling, decentralized suburban environment.

Enclosure Movement

The process of consolidating small landholdings into smaller number of larger farms in England during the eighteenth century.

Filtering

Process of subdivision of houses and occupancy by successive waves of lower-income people.

Food Desert

Urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. Instead of supermarkets and grocery stores, these communities may have no food access or are served only by fast food restaurants and convenience stores that offer few healthy, affordable food options.

Gentrification

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

Ghettoization

Process occurring in many inner cities in which they become dilapidated centers of poverty, as affluent whites move out to the suburbs and immigrants and people of color vie for scarce jobs and resources.

Gravity Model

A model that holds that the potential use of a services at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel to reach the service.

Greenbelt

A ring of land maintained as parks, agricultural, or other types of open space to limit the sprawl of an urban area.

Hamlet

A tiny settlement consisting of a small number of residential and work buildings with possibly some other low-order functions such as a general store, service station or sports oval.

Harris, C.D & Ullman, E.L.

Authors of the Multiple-Nuclei Model.

Hinterland (Market Area)

The area surrounding a central place, from which people are attracted to use the place's goods and services.

Hoyt, Homer

Author of the Sector Model.

Iron-Horse Epoch

Period dominated by steam-powered railroad, provided nation-wide transportation system, New York primate city by 1850.

Megalopolis

Several, metropolitan areas that were originally separate but that have joined together to form a large, sprawling urban complex.

Metropolis

The largest single urban settlement in a state (often the capital) or district. They not only have large populations, but also offer a broad range of high-order functions such as state government, legal and administrative services.

Metropolitan area

Within the United States, an urban area consisting of one or more whole country units, usually containing several urbanized areas, or suburbs, that all act together as a coherent economic whole.

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)

Area studied using a method created by the US Bureau of the Census that measures the functional area of a city.

Micropolitan Statistical Area (uSA)

Smaller urban areas that the census has designated to include in part of their measure.

Multiple-Nuclei Model

Type of urban model wherein urban areas have numerous centers of business and cultural activity instead of one central place.

Nonbasic Industries

Industries that sell their products primarily to consumers in the community.

Peripheral Model

Model which describes how an urban area consists of an inner city surrounded by large suburban residential and business areas tied together by a beltway or ring road.

Primary Census Statistical Area (PCSA)

In the United States, all of the combined statistical areas plus all of the remaining metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan statistical areas.

Primate City

The largest settlement in a country, if it has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement.

Primate City Rule

A pattern of settlements in a country, such that the largest settlement has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement.

Public Housing

Housing provided to low-income households, who pay 30% of their income as rent for the housing.

Public Services

Services offered by the government to provide security and protection for citizens and businesses.

Range (of a service)

The maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service.

Rank Size Rule

A pattern of settlements in a country, such that the nth largest settlement is 1/n of the population of the largest settlement.

Redlining

Drawing of lines on a map to identify areas in which banks will refuse to loan money.

Rush hour

The four consecutive 15-minute periods in the morning and evening with the heaviest volumes of traffic.

Sail-Wagon Epoch

Period of expansion with primitive overland and waterway circulation - leading cities northeastern ports heavily oriented to European overseas trade - Hinterlands barely accessible.

Sector Model

A model or urban land use that places the central business district in the middle with wedge shaped sectors radiating outwards from the center along transportation corridors.

Service

Any activity that fulfills a human want or need and returns money to those who provide it.

Settlement

A permanent collection of buildings and inhabitants.

Smart Growth

Legislation and regulations to limit suburban sprawl and preserve farmland.

Social Area Analysis

Statistical analysis used to identify where people of similar living standards, ethnic background, and life style live within an urban area.

Sprawl

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

Squatter Settlement

Residential developments, characterized by extreme poverty that usually exist on land just outside of cities that is neither owned nor rented by its occupants.

Steel-Rail Epoch

Period with full establishment of national metropolitan system, increasing scale of manufacturing, rise of steel and automobile industries.

Suburbs

Residential communities, located outside of city centers, which are usually relatively homogeneous in terms of population.

Threshold

The minimum number of people needed to support the service.

Town

An urban settlement that is smaller than a city but larger than a village, generally offer residents low order functions such as grocery shops, cafes, service stations and schools.

Underclass

A group in society prevented from participating in the material benefits of a more developed society because of a variety of social and economic characteristics.

Urban Renewal

Something under which cities identify blighted inner-city neighborhoods, acquire the properties from private owners, relocate the residents and businesses, clear the site, and build new roads and utilities.

Urbanization

The movement of people to, and the clustering of people in, towns and cities- a major force in every geographic realm today.

Urbanized Area

In the United States, a central city plus its contiguous built-up suburbs.

Village

A small settlement with a residential population and a small number of low-order services.

White Flight

The abandonment of cities affluent or middle class white residents. White flight was particularly problematic during the mid-20th century because it resulted in the loss of tax revenues to cities, which led to inner city decay. This process reversed itself somewhat during the 1990s and 2000s with urban revitalization.

Wirth, Louis

American sociologist who pioneered in the study of urban problems.

World Cities

Dominant city in terms of its role in the global political economy. Not the world's biggest city in terms of population or industrial output, but rather centers of strategic control of the world economy.

Zone of Transition

Second ring of the concentric zone model, which surrounds the CBD, in the concentric zone model. This place typically contains industry and poor-quality housing.

Zoning Ordinance

A law that limits the permitted uses of land and maximum density of development in a community.