Key vocab

geography

Tributaries

Small streams of a bigger river

Bridging points

Connecting two sides of a major resource route or sink for easier access

High order goods

luxury items that are not daily purchases (ex. cars)

Low order goods

items that are consumed for connivence

Hierarchy

The order of a settlement by the type, importance and frequency of their types

Defensive settlements

Difficult to attack as seated on a hilltop of island

Hill-foot settlements

Sheltered settlements with flat land for building or farming

Gap settlements

Lower settlements with sheltered land between two hills

Wet point settlement

Settlements close to water in a dry area

Dry point settlement

Settlements on high, dry areas close to wet land like marshes and flooding rivers

Route center settlements

Settlements that are the focus/center of routes (roads) from surrounding areas

Bridging point settlements

Settlements where bridges can be built over rivers

Site

Actual land the settlement is built on (ex. dry/wet/bridging point)

Situation

The position of a settlement in relation to its surrounding area (ex. close to main roads or airports, route center settlements)

Sphere of influence

The area served by a settlement or business

Function

Often refers to a dominant industry activity or use of building/space

Land use

Dominant pattern of use for an area or district of a settlement (ex. commercial/residential zone)

Spontaneous settlements

The process of unplanned urban growth through people building informal houses and slums

Urbanization

The movement of people to a town or city

Urban sprawl

The outward growth of a settlement

Small settlements

Scattered settlements through rural areas

Villages

Low-quality, local facilities like grocers, pubs, post offices

Towns

Middle-quality, international and local facilities like supermarkets, buses and trains.

Cities

High quality, international facilities like airports and luxury goods

Capital cities

Has the wides range of services with central banks and government buildings

Nodality

Degree of connectivity a site has to other sites

Urban rural fringe

The margin of an urban place where it meets the countryside

Counter-urbanization

People move from urban areas to rural areas

Immigrant populations

Labour shortages in some industry sectors has created government policies aimed at immigration. In order to benefit from social networks, ethnic communities tend to cluster in urban areas. Commercial and cultural services, sensitive to these communities, grow over time further increasing the arrival of ethnic minority groups

Gentrification

Wealthier individuals and enterprises move into an area, modernizing the neighborhood and attracting services for higher income groups. Rent rises accordingly and rises low income groups out, concentrating them elsewhere.

Urban regeneration

Either through private or public investment, it targets higher income groups to increase housing and business rents in the area (similar to gentrification)

Re-urbanization

The movement of people back into an area that has been previously abandoned. It is usually a government initiative to counter the problems of inner city decline

De-industrialization

The reduction of industrial activity or capacity in a region or economy.

Discriminating urban policies

Ethnic groups encounter many institutional challenges which makes it difficult for them to integrate in society. These challenges include restrictive access to education, employment and housing as well as unfair policing and judicial systems. Some cities have biased policies that directly favor one ethnic group over another.

Mosaic neighborhoods

Neighborhoods where immigrant populations dominate

Rainbow towns

Towns with a diversity of ethnicities- diverse and approachable

Adressism

Discrimination based on one’s address

Sink estates

Government housings with high levels of crime and other social problems

Elite ghettos

Gated communities

Favelas, slums, shanty towns

Spontaneous and temporary structures

Ghettos

low-income housing (usually apartments)

Conurbation

connection to urban areas

Ghost towns

Towns that were built and never populated

New towns

strategy to repopulate people away from clustered and overpopulated cities

Sub-urbanization

Movement from central city to suburbs

Brown field

Space that’s been abandoned or never populated with infrastructure already in place but not well

Green field

Open spaces of (green) land that can be used to build from scratch

Green belt

Protected natural areas that is left between urban areas to prevent excessive urban sprawl