APHG Unit 7: Urban Patterns and Processes

Affordability

The cost or price of something.

African City Model

Characterized by three distinct CBDs, mining and industry on outskirts, ethnic neighborhoods reflecting tribal/ethnic identities.

Air Quality

Measured using AQI to determine levels of pollutants within the air and associated health concerns.

Bid-rent Theory

A geographic economic theory that refers to how the price and demand for real estate changes as the distance from the CBD increases. It states that different land users will compete with one another for land close to the city center, which leads to variations in the distribution of types of economic uses of land.

Blockbusting

The practice of persuading owners to sell property cheaply because of fear of people of another race or class moving into the neighborhood.

Boomburbs

Incorporated places in metropolitan areas in the US having more than 100,000 residents that are not the core cities in their metropolitan areas and have maintained double-digit rates of population growth over consecutive censuses between 1970-2000.

Brownfields

A former industrial or commercial site where future use is affected by real or perceived environmental contamination.

Burgess Concentric Zone Model

Characterized by zones radiating outward in rings from a centrally located CBD.

Census

An official count or survey of a population, typically recordingvarious demographic details of individuals.

Christaller's Central Place Theory

Geography location theory that attempts to explain the number, size, and location of human settlements in a residential system.

City Government

A form of local, public administration which exists within the lowest teir of administration within a state.

City Infrastructure

The transportation, water/sewer, technology, and communication networks that provide quality of life and serve as a basis for economic activity for residents and businesses.

Climate Change

A shift in global or regional climate patterns resulting from increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

County Government

A form of local, public administration which exists above the level of city administration but below that of states/provinces.

de facto segregation

Segregation that exists as fact, whether by right (law) or not.

Decentralization

The movement of departments of an organization away from a single administrative center to other locations.

Disamenity Zones

The very poorest parts of cities that in extreme cases are not connected to regular city services or infrastructure and are controlled by gangs and/or drug lords.

Ecological Footprint

The impact of a person or a community on the environment, expressed as the amount of land required to sustain their use of natural resources.

Edge City

An area with concentrated businesses, shopping, and entertainment outside of a traditional downtown area that has five million or more square feet of leasable office space, 600,000 or more of leasable retail space, has more jobs than bedrooms, is perceived by the population as one place, and was nothing like a city as recently as 30 years ago when it just bedrooms and pastures.

Energy Use

The use of various forms of energy within industry, transportation, and buildings including electricity, heating and cooling, and transportation fuels.

Exurbs

An area outside of a denser inner suburban area that has economic and commuting connections to the metro area, low housing density, and growth.

Farmland Protection Policies

Acts and laws enacted to discourage federal activities that would convert farmland to nonagricultural purposes in areas defined as prime, unique, or farmlands of statewide or local importance.

Field Observation (Fieldwork)

Collection of raw data outside of laboratory, library, or workplace that includes qualitative methods like informal interviews, direct observations, participation in the life of groups, collective discussions, and so on.

Functional Fragmentation of Government

A system of governance whereby many numbers of governmental units in a given area administer their respective regions well.

Gravity Model

Used to estimate the amount of interaction between two cities based upon their population and distance between them, where spatial interaction (like migration, movement of goods, etc.) is directly related to the population and inversely related to the distance between them.

Greenbelts

A policy and land use zone designation in land use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land use surrounding or neighboring urban areas.

Harris & Ullman Multiple Nuclei Model

Characterized by the growth of an outlying, separate, distinct CBD or business zone that attracts growth in proximity.

Galactic City Model (Peripheral Model)

Characterized by decentralization of commercial urban landscape, growth of edge cities, and tied together by a beltway or ring road.

Gentrification

The process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class tastes.

Housing Density

Provides definitions of the level of density of housing units used with land-use planning of city and county administration.

Hoyt Sector Model

Characterized by a CBD and variations in land use that radiate from the CBD in wedge shaped patterns that follow along traditional modes of transportation associated with land use.

Infilling (Land recycling)

In urban planning, the rededication of land in an urban environment, usually open-space, to new construction.

Latin American City Model

Characterized by a CBD and market area connected by a spine of commercial activities surrounded by radial sectors of varying residential uses and, at the periphery, squatter settlements.

Megacities

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

Metacities (hypercity)

A very large metropolitan area with a population of more than 20 million people.

Mixed Land Use

Zoning definitions that allow for land use that includes commercial, residential, and/or industrial in the same zone.

Travel Narratives

Written accounts focusing on the connection between the traveler and the traveled spaces.

Neigborhoood Government

Typically a council whose purpose is to promote citizen participation in local governance but who lack legislative power of their own.

New Urbanism

An urban planning and development approach based upon the principles of walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces.

Periphery

The outer limits or edge of an area, the periphery in nearly all cities of the world have the poorest inhabitants except within North America, where wealthier suburban regions exist.

Primate City

The largest city in a country with a disproportionately larger role in the urban hierarchy in terms of economic, political, and cultural influence and with a population that is, at least, twice the next largest city.

Rank-Size Rule

Describes the distribution of population sizes and hierarchy in urban settlements in societies where the nth largest settlement's population is 1/n the largest settlement's population.

Redlining

The refusal of providing a loan or insurance to a person because they live in an area deemed to be a poor financial risk.

Sanitation

Conditions relating to public health and the provision of clean drinking water and adequate sewage disposal.

Site

The actual location of a settlement on Earth and includes the physical characteristics of the landscape specific to the area (landforms, climate, vegetation, water access, soil quality, etc.)

Situation

The location of a place based on its relation to other places. For example, St. Louis being situated along the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, serving as an inland port and gateway city connecting east and west during westward expansion.

Slow-growth Cities

Metropolitan areas that are experiencing low levels of population growth or population decline and the associated policy problems with such decline.

Smart-growth Policies

Principles directed at sustainable community growth that provides a wide range of transportation and housing choices, prioritizing infilling and redevelopment in existing communities over the development of greenbelts, farmlands, or natural lands.

Southeast Asian City Model

Characterized by port zones, a colonial commercial zone, and wedge shaped industrial and residential sectors with a squatter settlement at the periphery.

Sprawl

The uncontrolled expansion of urban areas characterized by low density housing tracts, continued expansion into farmlands and rural areas, and increased reliance on automobile transit.

Squatter Settlements

Collections of buildings where people have no legal rights to the land they build upon. Sometimes referred to colloquially as slums, favellas, shanty towns, barrios, Hoovervilles, etc.

State Government

The second teir of administration within the US between Federal level and county level administration.

Suburbanization

The population shift from central urban areas into the suburbs resulting in suburban sprawl.

Sustainable Design Initiatives

Seeks to reduce negative impacts on the environment, and improve health and comfort of building occupant with objectives like reduction of consumption of non-renewable resources, minimization of waste, and creation of healthy, productive environments.

Tranportation-oriented Development

A type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business, and leisure space within walking distance of public transportation.

Urban Growth Boundaries

A regional boundary set in an attempt to control urban sprawl by mandating that the area inside the boundary be used for urban development and the areas outside be preserved in its natural state or used for agriculture.

Urban Hierarchy

A ranking system of cities based upon the size of the pouplation residing within statistical urban areas.

Urban Sustainability

The promotion and enabling of long-term well-being of people through efficient use of natural resources and production of wastes within a city region while simultaneously improving livability through social amenities, economic opportunity, and health.

Urbanization

The process of making an area more urban.

Walkability

A measure of how friendly an area is to pedestrian walking spaces.

Water Quality

Refers to the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological characteristics of water.

World Cities(Global City)

A city which is a primary node in the global economic network.

Zone of Abandonment

Areas within urban spaces that have been deserted for economic or environmental reasons.

Zoning Practices

Land use planning tool within urban areas used by local governments to designate spaces for specific types of economic activity like residential, industrial, and/or commercial activity.

Leap Frog Development

a pattern of urban sprawl where developers skip over undeveloped land to build new developments further away from the existing urban area, leaving large gaps of vacant land between the city and the new development

Hinterlands

In "central place theory" the outlying towns and small communities that rely on the central city for goods and services.

Megalopolis

refers to a very large, continuously urbanized region where several metropolitan areas have grown together, essentially forming one giant urban area with a shared transportation system, economy, and ecology; it's considered a "supercity" made up of multiple connected cities and their suburbs