APHUG Unit 6: Urban/Cities

Annexation

Legally adding land area to a city in the United States.

Central Business District (CBD)

The area of a city where retail and office activities are clustered.

City

An urban settlement that has been legally incorporated into an independent, self-governing unit.

Concentric zone model

A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are spatially arranged in a series of rings.

Housing Density

amount of housing units per some geographic measurement (/acre). Low, Medium, High

Edge city

A large node of office and retail activities on the edge of an urban area.

Filtering

A process of change in the use of a house, from single-family owner to abandonment.

Gentrification

A process of converting an urban neighborhood from a predominantly low-income renter-occupied area to a predominantly middle-class owner-occupied area. (think positives and negatives)

Informal Settlement

An area within a city in a less developed country in which people illegally establish residences on land they do not own or rent and erect homemade structures.

Megalopolis

A continuous urban complex in the northeastern United States.

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)

In the US, an urbanized area of at least 50,000 population, the country within which the city is located, and adjacent counties meeting one of several tests indicating a functional connection to the central city.

Micropolitan Statistical Area (uSA)

An urbanized area of between 10,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, the country in which it is located, and adjacent counties tied to the city.

Multiple nuclei model

A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a collection of nodes of activities.

Peripheral model

A model of North American urban areas consisting of an inner city surrounded by large suburban residential and business areas tied together by a beltway or ring road.Housing owned by the government; in the United States, it is rented to low-income residents, and the rents are set at 30 percent of the families' incomes.

Public housing

Housing owned by the government; in the United States, it is rented to low-income residents, and the rents are set at 30 percent of the families' incomes.

Redlining

A process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries.

Sector model

A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a series of sectors, or wedges, radiating out from the central business district (CBD).

Smart growth

Legislation and regulations to limit suburban sprawl and preserve farmland.

Sprawl

Development of new housing sites at relatively low density and at locations that are not contiguous to the existing built-up area.

Suburb

A residential area situated within an urban area but outside the central city.

Sustainable Development

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

Underclass

A group in society prevented from participating in the material benefits of a more developed society because of a variety of social and economic characteristics.

Urban area

A dense core of census tracts, densely settled suburbs, and low-density land that links the dense suburbs with the core.

Zoning ordinance

A law that limits the permitted uses of land and maximum density of development in a community.

rank-size rule

A pattern of settlements in a country, such that the nth largest settlement is 1/n the population of the largest settlement.

(be able to calculate ranked cities based off number ones population)

White Flight

A social racial movement of middle class whites away from old city centers to newly formed suburbs.

Brownfields

abandoned polluted industrial sites in central cities, many of which are today being cleaned and redeveloped

Bid rent theory

geographical economic theory that refers to how the price and demand on real estate changes as the distance towards the Central Business District (CBD) increases.

Central Place Theory

A 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.

US population density

spatial patterns of population in the united states, aggregated by region

Edge City

A large node of office and retail activities on the edge of an urban area.

Washington DC Zoning Code

In 1899, U.S. congress passed the Height of Buildings Act, preventing buildings from rising above 110 feet. The point of the law was to preserve the city's look by maintaining the visible prominence of the many government monuments. Over a century later, the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol are among the city's tallest buildings.

ecological footprint

Total amount of functioning ecosystem needed both to provide the Resources of human population use and to absorb the waste that population generates.

threshhold

The minimum number of people needed to support the service

range

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

commuter

a person who travels from home to work and back

world city

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

Texas and the census

Texas is showing population growth across the sate, however its established urban centers (DFQ, Houston, SA, Austin) are growing as a faster rate.