Unit 7 Services and Urban Patterns

These flashcards cover key vocabulary terms related to urban patterns and services, fundamental for understanding urban geography.

Amenity

Something desirable that affects the location of people and services within urban models.

Filtering

The subdivision and renting by absentee landlords of large homes to successive waves of immigrants.

Gravity Model

This states that the optimal location of a service is related to the number of people in the area and inversely related to travel distance.

Urban Decay

The decline of an urban area due to the deterioration of its buildings and infrastructure.

Gentrification

The process of converting a neighborhood from low-income to middle-class.

Concentric Zone Model

Urban model describing social structures in expanding cities with a central business district.

Peripheral Model

An urban model that emphasizes the role of peripheral areas around a central city.

Threshold

The minimum number of people needed to support a service.

Hinterland

The market area surrounding a node from which customers are attracted.

Megacity

An urban area with more than 10 million people.

Global Alpha Cities

Cities that play an important role in global business services and are closely integrated into the global economy.

Urban Sprawl

The rapid expansion of a city into its surrounding areas.

Fragmentation

The division of urban areas into distinct districts.

Bid-Rent Theory

The model explaining how the price and demand for land changes as the distance from the CBD increases.

Suburbanization

The population shift from central urban areas to the suburbs.

Smart Growth

Urban planning approach that seeks to limit urban sprawl.

Decentralization

The distribution of functions and services across various urban nodes.

Service Industry

Economic activity that fulfills a human want or need.

Edge City

Outlying business districts that develop along the periphery of urban areas.

English-speaking workers

Labor in countries such as India, Malaysia, and the Philippines that has become part of outsourcing.