APHUG - Unit 6 Vocabulary

Central Business District

Central Business District

The downtown heart of a central city, the _____ is marked by high land values, a concentration of business and commerce, and the clustering of the tallest buildings.

Synekism

The possibility of change that results from people living together in cities.

Urban

The entire built-up, nonrural area and its population, including the most recently constructed suburban appendages.

City

Conglomeration of people and buildings clustered together to serve as a center of politics, culture, and economics.

Agricultural Village

A relatively small, egalitarian village, where most of the population was involved in agriculture.

Agricultural Surplus

One of two components, together with social stratification, that enable the formation of cities; agricultural production in excess of what the producer needs for his or her own sustenance and that of his or her family and that is then sold for consumption by others.

Social Stratification

One of two components, together with agricultural surplus, which enables the formation of cities; the differentiation of society into classes based on wealth, power, production, and prestige.

First Urban Revolution

The innovation of the city, which occurred independently in five separate hearths.

Mesopotamia

Region of great cities (e.g. Ur and Babylon) located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; chronologically the first urban hearth, dating to 3500 BCE, and founded in the Fertile Crescent.

Nile River Valley

Chronologically the second urban hearth, dating to 3200 BCE.

Indus River Valley

Chronologically the third urban hearth, dating to 2200 BCE.

Secondary Hearth

An area to which an innovation diffuses and from which the innovation diffuses more broadly.

Site

The internal physical attributes of a place, including its absolute location, its spatial character, and physical setting.

Situation

The external locational attributes of a place; its relative location or regional position with reference to other nonlocal places.

Urban Morphology

The study of the physical form and structure of urban places.

Rank Size Rule

In a model urban hierarchy, the idea that the population of a city or town will be inversely proportional to its rank in the hierarchy.

Central Place Theory

Theory proposed by Walter Christaller that explains how and where central places in the urban hierarchy should be functionally and spatially distributed with respect to one another.

Primate City

A country’s largest city—ranking atop the urban hierarchy—most expressive of the national culture and usually (but not always) the capital city as well.

Functional Zonation

The division of a city into different regions or zones (e.g. residential or industrial) for certain purposes or functions (e.g. housing or manufacturing)

Central City

The urban area that is not suburban; generally, the older or original city that is surrounded by newer suburbs.

Suburb

A subsidiary urban area surrounding and connected to the central city. Many are exclusively residential; others have their own commercial centers or shopping malls.

Suburbanization

Movement of upper- and middle-class people from urban core areas to the surrounding outskirts to escape pollution as well as deteriorating social conditions (perceived and actual). In North America, the process began in the early nineteenth century and became a mass phenomenon by the second half of the twentieth century.

Edge City

A term introduced by American journalist Joel Garreau in order to describe the shifting focus of urbanization in the United States away from the Central Business District (CBD) toward new loci of economic activity at the urban fringe. These cities are characterized by extensive amounts of office and retail space, few residential areas, and modern buildings (less than 30 years old).

Galactic City

A modern city in which the old downtown plays the role of a festival or recreational area, and widely dispersed industrial parks, shop- ping centers, high-tech industrial spaces, edge-city downtowns, and industrial suburbs are the new centers of economic activity.

Megacity

Cities with 10 million or more residents.

Disamenity Sector

The very poorest parts of cities that in extreme cases are not even connected to regular city services and are controlled by gangs or drug lords.

Zoning Laws

Legal restrictions on land use that determine what types of building and economic activities are allowed to take place in certain areas. In the United States, areas are most commonly divided into separate zones of residential, retail, or industrial use.

Redlining

A discriminatory real estate practice in North America in which members of minority groups are prevented from obtaining money to purchase homes or property in predominantly white neighborhoods. The practice derived its name from the red lines depicted on cadastral maps used by real estate agents and developers. Today, _____ is officially illegal.

Blockbusting

Rapid change in the racial composition of residential blocks in American cities that occurs when real estate agents and others stir up fears of neighborhood decline after encouraging people of color to move to previously white neighborhoods. In the resulting outmigration, real estate agents profit through the turnover of properties.

Commercialization

The transformation of an area of a city into an area attractive to residents and tourists alike in terms of economic activity.

Gentrification

The rehabilitation of deteriorated, often abandoned, housing of low-income inner-city residents.

Urban Sprawl

Unrestricted growth in many American urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning.

New Urbanism

Outlined by a group of architects, urban planners, and developers from over 20 countries, an urban design that calls for development, urban revitalization, and suburban reforms that create walkable neighborhoods with a diversity of housing and jobs.

Urbicide

The deliberate killing of a city, as happens, for example, when cities are targeted for destruction during wars.

Spaces of Consumption

Areas of a city, the main purpose of which is to encourage people to consume goods and services; driven primarily by the global media industry.

Concentric Zone Model

A structural model of the American central city that suggests the existence of five concentric land-use rings arranged around a common center.

Sector Model

A structural model of the American city that suggests that low-rent and other types of areas can extend from the central business district to the city’s outer edge, creating zones that are shaped like a piece of pie.

Multiple Nuclei Model

A structural model of the American city that suggests a decline in significance of the central business district and the concomitant rise in significance of regions within metropolitan areas with their own nuclei.