Paper 2: Urban Environments (iGCSE Geo)

Accessibility

The degree of ease with which it is possible to reach a certain location from other locations; the degree of ease with which it is possible for people to obtain goods and services, such as housing and healthcare.

Brownfield Site

disused and derelict land in an urban area that is available for redevelopment.

Congestion

Acute overcrowding caused by high densities of traffic, businesses and people.

Counterurbanisation

The movement of population and economic activity away from urban areas to new towns, estates or a commuter town or village in the suburbs of the city as well as to rural areas.

Deprivation

When people lack what the rest of society considers 'normal' suchas good housing, reasonable incomes or access to healthcare.

Environmental Quality

An assessment of the air, water, noise and visual pollution

Ethnic group

A group of people sharing the same characteristics of race, nationality, language or religion.

Greenfield site

A plot of natural land, often in a rural or on the fringe of an urban area

that has not yet been subject to any building development.

Inner city

The part of the built-up area and close to the CBD, often characterised by old housing, poor services and brownfield sites.

Landuse

What types of buildings / economic activities exist in an area such as residential, retail or industrial.

Land value

The market value of a piece of land; what businesses or

individuals are prepared to pay for it (or rent it).

Mega‐city

A city with a population exceeding 10 million.

Planner

A decision maker whose job it is to decide how to use land e.g.

where to build roads, or houses. Planners often decide to conserve areas such as Greenfield sites by not allowing development.

Poverty

A condition where people are lacking in resources such as income, food, housing, basic services (clean water and sewage disposal) and access to education and healthcare.

Rebranding

Regeneration that also tries to give an area a new image.

Rebranded areas often have names and logos e.g. MediaCityUK in Salford.

Retail complex

A purpose built area for shopping (and often leisure), such as an out of town shopping centre or retail park.

Self‐help (housing)

When people in shanty towns / squatter settlements gradually

improve their own housing and surroundings. Often they are helped by an NGO.

Shanty town

An area of slum with makeshift and unsanitary housing, often occupied by squatters (no legal right to occupy). The houses are built with salvaged material and the area is built on hazardous grounds that were neglected by development

Social deprivation

The degree to which an individual or an area is deprived of

services, decent housing, adequate income and local employment.

Socio‐economic group

A group of people distinguished by employment, income and

social characteristics such as education and family status.

Social segregation

The clustering together of people with similar characteristics (class, wealth, ethnicity) into separate residential areas

Squatter Community

Similar to shanty towns where people with no legal right to the area live

Suburbanisation

The spread of low density, often detached or semidetached, housing around the edges of a city or town.

Urbanisation

The process of an increasing proportion of the population living in urban areas

Urban Managers

People who make decisions that affect urban areas, these include people such as planners, politicians and developers

Urban regeneration

The redevelopment of formerly run-down urban areas, often in the inner city through improvements to the environment, housing and employment opportunities

Urban re-imaging

changing the image of an urban area and the way people view it, regeneration to more upmarket places

What is the Burgess model?

Shows how land use and environmental quality changes as you move out from the CBD.

Four rings.

1) CBD - High-value retail, restaurants

2) Inner city - terraced housing, lower environmental quality

3) Outer city/suburbs - More green space, environmental quality improves

4) Rural-urban fringe - Detached housing, open space.

Urban Dilution

The expansion of city into the surrounding countryside due to transport links

Conurbanisation

When cities grow and merge together

Agglomeration

The beginning of settlements, often in good locations, for example near river crossings or natural resources, which begin to expand

Natural increase

Birth rate higher than the death rate. Younger population in urban areas has natural higher increase

Commuting

The daily movement from home to work, frequently from dormitory settlements

Multiplier Effect

A cycle for city growth in which successful cities create jobs so more people move there so more services are needed so there are more jobs made and the cycle repeats

Squatter Settlement

Illegal residence on makeshift land, high density, springs up where there are no houses, poor conditions.

World/Global City

Centers of economic, culture, and political activity that are strongly interconnected and together control the global systems of finance and commerce.

Dormitory Settlement

one where many commuters 'sleep' overnight but travel to work elsewhere during the day.

Rural-urban fringe

A zone of transition between the built-up area and the countryside, where there is often competition for land use. It is a zone of mixed land uses, from out of town shopping centres and golf courses to farmland and motorways.

Green Belt

A ring of land maintained as parks, agriculture, or other types of open space to limit the sprawl of an urban area.

Site and Service schemes

Local authorities provide a site for new building and set up basic services, but the rest is down to the new residents

Sustainable

Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Segregation

Living a part in clusters/groups, that share particular characteristics

marginal land

Land not wanted by the government, industry wealthy homeowners. It may be flood prone or too steep and therefore prone to landslides