AP Human Geography, Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes Concepts (W/O Images)

Urbanization

The massive rural-urban migration leading to the mass development of cities and an industrial society due to various push and pull factors.

Megacity

A metropolitan area with a total population exceeding a regional number of 10,000,000.

Metacity

A massive, urban sprawling agglomeration exceeding a regional number of 20,000,000.

Suburb

A low-density, residential or mixed use area located on the outskirts of its economically dependent city that acts as the bridge between rural and urban land.

Edge City

A concentration of business, retail, and entertainment for jobs located on the outer edge of a larger city, typically located at major highway intersections or beltways.

Exurb

A low-density, prosperous residential community on the outskirts of suburbs, is economically dependent on a major city, and includes a rural feel.

Boomburb

A rapidly growing, master-planned suburban city exceeding a number of 100,000 that isn't the major city of its urban center.

World City

A major urban center that is a primary node in the global economic, cultural, and political network, that exerts influence far beyond its national boundaries.

Rank-Size Rule

A mathematical formula stating that a country's nth largest city is 1/n the size of the largest city, in terms of population.

Primate City

A city more than twice as large as the next largest city in a country and is extremely influential over the nation's economic, social, and political culture.

Gravity Model

A theoretical framework introduced by Jan Tinbergen in 1962 predicting the level of interaction between two places factoring population and distance.

Infill

The process of developing construction and infrastructure on abandoned parcels of land in suburban to urbanized areas intended to revive a population but reduce urban sprawl.

New Urbanism

A urban-design development that develops diverse communities, mixed-use, walkable paths, and more to combat suburban sprawl.

Central Place Theory

A theoretical framework developed by Walter Christaller in 1933 that explains the spatial arrangement of hierarchical settlements due to services they each provide, measured by threshold and range.

Concentric Zone Model

A theoretical framework developed by Ernest Burgess in 1923 that explains the spatial arrangement of urban land use with rings from a central business district (CBD).

Hoyt-Sector Model

A theoretical framework developed by economist Homer Hoyt in 1939 that explains the spatial arrangement of urban land use with five sectors from a central business district (CBD), factoring direction and transportation routes.

Multiple Nuclei Model

A theoretical framework introduced by Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman in 1945 arguing that cities develop around several distinct nodes/nuclei rather than about a CBD.

Galactic City Model

A theoretical framework developed by Chauncy Harris in 1960 that explains a post-industrial city that has a CBD decentralized by edge cities as nodes connected by a beltway, emphasizing the dependence on car transportation.

Latin American City Model

A theoretical framework developed by Ernest Griffin and Larry Ford in 1980 that shows the spatial arrangement of residential classes based on the CBD and market with circles and sectors, a spine transporting high-quality goods and services and a periférico with disamenity zones.

S.E. Asian City Model

A theoretical framework developed by T.G. McGee in 1967 that shows a port zone introducing the influence of Western commerce into Alien commerce categorized by Asians, the spatial arrangement of residential classes, and market and industrial productivity at the peripheral zone.

African City Model

A theoretical framework developed by Harm de Blij in 1962 emphasizing the effect of European colonialism with multiple CBDs dictated by colonization, traditional-style, the market, and the segregated spatial arrangement of ethnic neighborhoods, and low-quality life with squatter settlements at the peripheral areas.

Mixed Land Use

An urban-designed motive that mixes business, residential, commercial, institutional, and cultural purposes within a single area.

Walkability

The measure of how safe an area is for pedestrians to access by walking in close proximity to amenities, categorized by mixed land use, friendly infrastructure, and an interconnected walking network.

Greenbelt

A protected, undeveloped parcel of land that is a ring, typically located around an urban center to prevent urban sprawl and encourage infill.

Slow-Growth City

An urban-planned movement where the city government intentionally restricts expansion by policy to limit urban sprawl and preserve the city's site.

Redlining

A discriminatory, biased delimitation practice where financial institutions draw red lines in areas where they refuse or limit loans, mortgages, and insurance.

Blockbusting

A manipulative real-estate tactic where agents induced fear that minority groups would move in so White homeowners would sell their properties at prices below market level and agents inflate prices for the properties later toward the minority groups to maximize profit.

Disamenity Zone

A high poverty, underdeveloped area located on marginalized land that lacks basic necessity and infrastructure.

Squatter Settlement

Informal and illegally built residential households by rural to urban migrants on land they don't own that has poor structure.

Gentrification

The process in which middle-high class residents move to deteriorated inner-city housing to increase property value and tax bases, resulting in the displacement of the original inhabitants.

Brownfield

An abandoned, dormant, and unutilized industrial/commercial property that is complicated to revive due to environmental contamination.

Urban Growth Boundary

A boundary that is demarcated between rural and urban land, used to control urban sprawl.