APHUG - Unit 6

City

A relatively large, densely populated settlement with a much larger population than rural towns and villages; cities serve as important commercial, governmental, and cultural hubs for their surrounding regions

Urban

Relating to a city

Socioeconomic Stratification

The structuring of society into distinct socioeconomic classes, including leadership (for instance, a government or ruling class) that exercise control over goods and people

First Urban Revolution

The agricultural and socioeconomic innovations that led to the rise of the earliest cities

Urban Hearth Areas

Regions in which the world’s first cities evolved

Site

An absolute location of a place on Earth

Situation

The relative location of a place in reference to its surrounding features, or its regional position with reference to other places

Capitalism

An economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit rather than owned and run by the state

Communism

An economic and political system in which all property is publicly owned and managed

Second Urban Revolution

The industrial innovations in mining and manufacturing that led to increased urban growth

Redevelopment

A set of activities intended to revitalize an area that has fallen on hard times

Metropolis

A very large and densely populated city, particularly the capital or major city of a country or region

Urban Area

Any self-governing place in the United States that contains at least 2500 people

Urban Cluster

In the United States, an urban area with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants

Suburb

A populated area on the outskirts of a city

Urbanization Rate

The percentage of a nation’s population living in towns and cities

Suburbanization

The movement of people from urban core areas to the surrounding outskirts of a city

Sprawl

The tendency of cities to grow outward in an unchecked manner

Automobile City

Cities whose size and shape are dictated by and almost require individual automobile ownership

Decentralize

In an urban context, to move business operations from core city areas into outlying areas such as suburbs

Edge City

A concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment that developed in the suburbs, outside of a city’s traditional downtown or central business district

Boomburb/Boomburg

A place with more than 100,000 residents that is not a core city in a metropolitan area; a large suburb with its own government

Excurb

A semirural district located beyond the suburbs that is often inhabited by well-to-do families

World City

A world center of trade, finance, information, and migration

Gated Community

Privately governed and highly secure residential area within the bounds of a city; often has a fence or a gate surrounding it

Urban Hierarchy

A ranking of cities, with the largest and most powerful cities at the top of the hierarchy

Rank-Size Rule

The population of a settlement is inversely proportional to its rank in the urban hierarchy

Primate City

A city that is much larger than any other city in the country and that dominates the country’s economic, political, and cultural life

Central Place Theory

A model, developed by Walter Christaller, that attempts to understand why cities are located where they are

Central Place

A settlement that makes certain types of products and services available to consumers

Threshold

In central place theory, the number of people required to support businesses

Range

In central place theory, the distance people will travel to acquire a good

Gravity Model

The idea that the closer two places are, the more they will influence each other

Concentric Zone Model

A model of a city’s internal organization developed by E. W. Burgess that shows rings of factory production and different residential zones radiating outward from a central business district