AP Human Geo: Ch. 12 Vocab

Agglomeration

A mass or collection of services clustered together in an area.

Business Services

A service that primarily meets the needs of other businesses, including professional, financial, and transportation services.

Central Place Theory

Walter Christaller’s 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. (Hexagons)

Consumer Services

A business that provides services primarily to individual consumers, including retail services and education, health, and leisure services.

“Coolness” Index

The cultural relevance of a city or a service

Economic Base

A community’s collection of basic businesses.

Food Desert

An area that has a substantial amount of low-income residents and has poor access to a grocery store.

Footloose Industry/Service

A service that can be placed in any location and be viable.

Gig Economy

A free market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations hire independent workers for short-term commitments.

Gravity Model

The model that gives a clearer understanding of the distribution and size of cities while also providing useful explanations of interactions among networks among cities.

Hinterland

(market area)

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

Hotelling’s Model of Spatial Competition

Suggests competitors, in trying to maximize sales, will seek to constrain each other's territory as much as possible which will therefore lead them to locate adjacent to one another in the middle of their collective customer base.

Informal Economy

Diversified set of economic activities, enterprises, jobs, and workers that are not regulated or protected by the state. The concept originally applied to self-employment in small unregistered enterprises. It has been expanded to include wage employment in unprotected jobs.

Market-Area Analysis

The process used to determine whether or not to locate a service in a particular place. The “gravity model” is one type.

Multiplier Effect

The introduction of a new industry or the expansion of existing industry in an area also encourages growth in other industrial sectors

Offshoring

States that offer low tax rates and privacy laws for wealthy corporations and individuals.

Outsourcing

To obtain goods or a service from a 3rd party in an outside or foreign state, especially in place of a domestic source.

Periodic Markets

A collection of individual vendors who come together to offer goods and services in a location on specified days.

Post-Industrial Society

The stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.

Primate City Rule

The largest settlement has more than twice as many people as the next largest settlement.

Public Services

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

Rank-Size Rule

When a county’s nth largest settlement is 1/n the population of the largest settlement.

Range

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

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.

Specialization

The process of concentrating on and becoming an expert in a particular subject or skill.

Threshold

The minimum number of people needed to support a service.

Urbanization

An increase in the percentage of the number of people living in urban settlements.