(2025 Edition) Barron’s AP Human Geography Terms - Unit 6

[THESE ARE THE EXACT DEFINITIONS FROM THE TEXTBOOK UNLESS IN PARENTHESIS] Remember, when defining: Can I define these terms in my OWN WORDS? Can I give an example(s) for each term (if possible)? If you cannot, ask your tutor, teacher, or resources for help.

ACTION SPACE

The geographical area that contains the space an individual interacts with on a daily basis.

BEAUX ARTS

The movement within city planning and urban design that stressed the marriage of older, classical forms with newer, industrial ones. Common characteristics of this period include wide thorough-fares, spacious parks, and civic monuments that stressed progress, freedom, and national unity.

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.

BOOMBURB

A large, rapidly growing city that is suburban in character but resembles population totals of large urban cores.

BORCHERT'S EPOCHS

According to the geographer John R. Borchert, American cities have undergone five major epochs, or periods, of development shaped by the dominant forms of transportation and communication at the time. These include the sail-wagon epoch (1790-1830), iron horse epoch (1830-1870), seel rail epoch (1870-1920), auto-air-amenity epoch (1920-1970), and satellite-electronic-jet propulsion and high-technology epoch (1970-present).

CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT

The downtown or lucleus of a city where retail stores, offices, and cultural activities are concentrated; building densities are usually quite high; and transportation systems converge.

CENTRAL PLACE THEORY

A theory formulated by Walter Christaller in the early 1900s that explains the size and distribution of cities in terms of a competitive supply of goods and services to dispersed populations.

CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT

Movement in environmental design that drew directly from the Beaux Arts school. Architects from this movement strove to impart order on hectic industrial centers by creating urban spaces that conveyed a sense of morality and civic pride, which many feared was absent from the frenzied new industrial world.

COLONIAL CITIES

Cities established by colonizing empires as administrative centers. Often they were established on already existing native cities, completely overtaking their infrastructures.

CONCENTRIC ZONE MODEL / BURGESS MODEL

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

EDGE CITIES

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

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

According to the US

EUROPEAN CITIES

Cities in Europe that were mostly developed during the Medieval Period and that retain many of the same characteristics, such as extreme density of development with narrow buildings and winding streets, an ornate church that prominently marks the city center, and high walls surrounding the city center that provided defense against attack.

EXURBANITE

Person who has left the inner city and moved to outlying suburbs or rural areas.

FEUDAL CITIES

Cities that arose during the Middle Ages and that actually represent a time of relative stagnation in urban growth. This system fostered a dependent relationship berween wealthy landowners and peasants who worked their land, providing very little alternative economic opportunities.

FORWARD CAPITAL

A capital city placed in a remote or peripheral area for economic, strategic, or symbolic reasons.

GALACTIC CITY MODEL

(Developed by Chauncey Harris) A circular-city model that characterizes the role of the automobile in the postindustrial era.

GATEWAY CITIES

Cities that, because of their geographic location, act as ports of entry and distribution centers for large geographic areas.

GENTRIFICATION

The trend of middle and upper-income Americans moving into city centers and rehabilitating much of the architecture but also replacing low-income populations, and changing the social character of certain neighborhoods.

GHETTOIZATION

A 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.

GREAT MIGRATION

An early 20th-century mass movement of African Americans from the Deep South to the industrial North, particularly Chicago.

HINTERLAND

The market area surrounding an urban center, which that urban center serves.

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Period characterized by the rapid social and economic changes in manufacturing and agriculture that occurred in England during the late 18th century and rapidly diffused to other parts of the developed world.

INNER-CITY DECAY

Those parts of large urban areas that lose significant portions of their populations as a result of change in industry or migration to suburbs. Because of these changes, the inner city loses its tax base and becomes a center of poverty.

ISLAMIC CITIES

Cities in Muslim countries that owe their structure to their religious beliefs. Islamic cities contain mosques at their center and walls guarding their perimeter. Open-air markets, courtyards surrounded by high walls, and dead-end streets, which limit foot traffic in residential neighborhoods, also characterize Islamic cities.

LATIN AMERICAN CITIES / GRIFFIN-FORD MODEL

Cities in Latin America that owe much of their structure to colonialism, the rapid rise of industrialization, and continual rapid increases in population. Similar to other colonial cities, they also demonstrate distinctive sectors of industrial or residential development radiating out from the central business district, where most industrial and financial activity occurs.

MEDIEVAL CITIES

Cities that developed in Europe during the Medieval Period and that contain such unique features as extreme density of development with narrow buildings and winding streets, an ornate church that prominently marks the city center, and high walls surrounding the city center that provided defense against attack.

MEGACITIES

Cities, mostly characteristic of the developing world, where high population growth and migration have caused them to explode in population since World War II. All megacities are plagued by chaotic and unplanned growth, terrible pollution, and widespread poverty.

MEGALOPOLIS

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

METACITIES

Larger than megacities, metacities describe an urban region where multiple dense areas/ cores are interspersed with suburbs and green spaces (and squatter settlements in the case of developing countries).

METROPOLITAN AREA

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

MODERN ARCHITECTURE

Point of view, wherein cities and buildings are thought to act like well-oiled machines, with little energy spent on frivolous details or ornate designs. Efficient, geometrical structures made of concrete and glass dominated urban forms for half a century while this view prevailed.

MULTIPLE-NUCLEI MODEL / HARRIS AND ULLMAN MODEL

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

NEW URBANISM

A movement in urban planning to promote mixed-use commercial and residential development and pedestrian-friendly, community-oriented cities. New urbanism is a reaction to the sprawling, automobile-centered cities of the mid-20th century.

NODE

Geographical center of activity. A large city, such as Los Angeles, has numerous nodes.

POSTMODERN ARCHITECTURE

A reaction in archi-rectural design to the feeling of sterile alienation that many people get from modern architecture. Postmodernism uses older, historical styles and a sense of lightheartedness and eclecticism. Buildings combine pleasant-looking forms and playful colors to convey new ideas and to create spaces that are more people-friendly than their modernist predecessors.

PRIMATE CITY

A country's leading city, with a population that is disproportionately greater than other urban areas within the same country.

RANK-SIZE RULE

Rule that states that the population of any given town should be inversely proportional to its rank in the country's hierarchy when the distribution of cities according to their sizes follows a certain pattern.

SECTOR MODEL / HOYT’S MODEL

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

SEGREGATION

The process that results from suburban-iation when affluent individuals leave the city center for homogeneous suburban neighborhoods. This process isolates those individuals who cannot afford to consider relocating to suburban neighborhoods and must remain in certain pockets of the central city.

SQUATTER SETTLEMENTS

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

SUBURBS

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

URBAN-GROWTH BOUNDARIES

Geographical boundaries placed around a city to limit suburban growth within that city.

URBAN MORPHOLOGY

The physical form of a city or urban region.

URBAN REVITALIZATION

The process occurring in some urban areas experiencing inner-city decay that usually involves the construction of new shopping dis-tricts, entertainment venues, and cultural attractions to entice young urban professionals back into the cities, where nightlife and culture are more accessible.

URBAN SPRAWL

The process of expansive suburban development over large areas spreading out from a city, in which the automobile provides the primary source of transportation.

WHITE FLIGHT

The abandonment of cities by 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 projects.

WORLD CITIES

Centers of economic, cultural, and political activity that are strongly interconnected and together control the global systems of finance and commerce.