ENVS Final Exam Definitions

Agglomeration

The clustering of people, firms, and economic activities that provide benefits. Example: Finance firms cluster in London and New York. Key: Alfred Marshall.

Blasé attitude (Simmel)

Emotional detachment many develop to cope with constant stimuli. Example: People in Berlin’s centre ignore noise and crowds. Key: Georg Simmel.

Capitalism

Economic system based on private ownership, wage labour, and profit-driven markets. Example: Wall Street drives global capitalism. Key: Karl Marx, David Harvey.

10 criteria for urban civilization (Childe)

Ten traits defining early cities (population, specialists, surplus, rulers, state, monuments, writing, science, imports, art). Example: Ur had writing and stored surplus. Key: V. Gordon Childe.

City Beautiful Movement

Planning movement promoting beautification and monumental design. Example: Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair. Key: Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted.

Concentric Zone Model

Model showing cities grow in rings from the CBD outward. Example: Chicago historically displayed urban rings. Key: Ernest Burgess, Robert Park.

Deindustrialization

Decline of industrial and manufacturing jobs. Example: Detroit lost major auto manufacturing. Key: Saskia Sassen; Bluestone & Harrison.

Developmentalism

Idea that societies move linearly from “traditional” to “modern.” Example: Lagos labeled “developing” vs. London as “modern.” Key: Rostow; critiques by Jennifer Robinson.

Environmental racism (Pulido)

Racialized groups face disproportionate exposure to environmental harm. Example: Industry near Latino neighborhoods in East LA. Key: Laura Pulido.

Externality

A cost or benefit affecting someone who did not choose it. Example: LA industrial pollution impacts nearby residents. Key: Alfred Marshall, Arthur Pigou.

Fordism

Mass production using assembly lines and standardized wages. Example: Ford’s Detroit factories. Key: Henry Ford, Antonio Gramsci.

Functional zoning

Separation of land uses (residential, commercial, industrial). Example: Suburban Toronto separates housing from industrial areas. Key: Le Corbusier.

Garden City (Howard)

Planned cities with greenbelts, mixed uses, and self-contained communities. Example: Letchworth Garden City. Key: Ebenezer Howard.

Global city

City serving as a command point in global finance and economic networks. Example: New York City. Key: Saskia Sassen.

Industrial district (Marshall)

Cluster of interconnected firms that compete and cooperate. Example: Emilia-Romagna’s small-firm networks. Key: Alfred Marshall.

Methodological nationalism

Assuming the nation-state is the natural unit of analysis, ignoring global flows. Example: Treating Canadian migration as strictly national. Key: Ulrich Beck, Nina Glick Schiller.

Modernism / High modernism

Belief in rational planning and standardized knowledge to design ideal societies. Example: Brasília’s modernist plan. Key: James C. Scott, Le Corbusier.

Neoliberalism

Policies promoting free markets, privatization, and flexible labour. Example: Thatcher-era London privatized housing. Key: Milton Friedman, David Harvey; critiques by Linda Peake.

Networks

Interconnected flows between people, places, and institutions. Example: Global airline routes linking major cities. Key: Manuel Castells.

Ordinary cities (Robinson)

Framework treating all cities as equally important. Example: Johannesburg and London as “ordinary.” Key: Jennifer Robinson.

Redlining

Discriminatory loan denial to racialized neighborhoods. Example: 1930s Chicago HOLC maps. Key: Richard Rothstein.

Settler city (Hugill)

City built through settler colonial dispossession. Example: Toronto built on Indigenous territories. Key: David Hugill.

Settler colonialism

Structure where settlers permanently replace Indigenous populations. Example: Settlement of the Canadian Prairies. Key: Patrick Wolfe, Eve Tuck, K. Wayne Yang.

Sticky places (Markusen)

Manufacturing sites that stay fixed even when capital becomes mobile. Example: Rust Belt cities. Key: Ann Markusen.

Time-space compression

Processes that speed interactions up, making distances feel smaller. Example: Air travel connecting New York and Tokyo quickly. Key: David Harvey.

Mechanical Solidarity

Social cohesion from similarity, shared beliefs, and collective consciousness. Example: A small village where everyone farms and follows the same traditions.

Organic Solidarity 

Social cohesion from interdependence and specialized roles in complex societies. Example: A modern city where people rely on doctors, teachers, transit workers, etc.