APHG Unit 7 - Urban Geography

First Urban Revolution

First Urban Revolution

The innovation of the city, which occurred independently in five [six] separate hearths. (Mesopotamia, the Nile River Valley, the Indus River Valley, the Huang He/Wei Valleys, Mesoamerica, and Peru).

Rank-Size Rule

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

Christaller's Central Place Theory

A geographic model of the sizes and location patterns of settlements that serve as central locations for selling goods and services to hexagonal-shaped market areas.

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).

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 Cities

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 the loci of economic activity at the urban fringe (extensive amounts of office and retail space, few residential areas, modern buildings, less than 30 years old).

Exurbs

Communities that arise farther out than the suburbs and are typically populated by residents of high socioeconomic status.

Galactic City

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

Megacity

A city with a population of over 10 million people.

Metacity

Sprawling areas with a population of over 20 million people .

Shantytowns

Unplanned slum development on the margins of cities, dominated by crude dwellings and shelters made mostly of scrap wood, iron, and even pieces of cardboard.

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.

Squatter 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.

Favela

A slum community in a Brazilian city.

Zoning Laws

Legal restrictions on land use that determine what types of building and economic activities are allowed to take place in certain areas.

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, redlining 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.

Gentrification

A process of converting an urban neighborhood from a predominantly low-income renter-occupied area to a predominantly middle-class owner-occupied area.

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.

Greenbelts

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

Slow Growth Cities

Urban communities where the planners have put into place smart growth initiatives to decrease the rate at which the city grows horizontally to avoid the adverse effects of sprawl.

World City (Global City)

Dominant city in terms of its role in the global political economy. Not the world's biggest city in terms of population or industrial output, but rather centers of strategic control of the world economy.

Infrastructure

Fundamental facilities and systems serving a country, city, or area, as transportation and communication systems, power plants, and schools.

Brownfields

Contaminated industrial or commercial sites that may require environmental cleanup before they can be redeveloped or expanded.

Urbanization

The proportion of a country's population living in urban places. Additionally, the movement of people to, and the clustering of people in, towns and cities is a major force in every geographic realm today. The expanding city absorbs the rural countryside and transforms it into suburbs, in the case of cities in the developing world, this also generates peripheral shantytowns.

Primate Cities

A country's largest city that is more than twice the size of the next largest city and has significant social, political, and economic influence.

Concentric Ring City Model (Burgess)

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

Sector City Model (Hoyt)

A structural model of the American city that suggests that the 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 City Model (Ullman and Harris)

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 centers.

Latin American City Model (Griffin and Ford)

Blends traditional Latin American culture with the forces of globalization. The CBD is dominant; it is divided into a market sector and a modern high-rise sector. The elite residential sector is on the extension of the CBD in the "spine". The end of the spine of elite residency is the "mall" with high-priced residencies. The further out, less wealthy it gets. The poorest residents are on the outer edge.

Sub-Saharan African City Model (De Blij)

The Europeans created prominent urban centers including ports along the coast. Africa also has certain cities that are neither traditional nor colonial such as South Africa's major urban centers that are mostly Western, with elements of European and American models, including high-rise central business districts and suburbs. Due to the diversity of its cities, it is complicated to develop a model for this area.

Southeast Asian City Model (McGee)

The focal point of the city is the colonial port zone combined with the large commercial district that surrounds it. There is no formal CBD, but separate clusters of elements of the CBD surrounding the port zone: the government zone, the Western commercial zone, the alien commercial zone, and the mixed land-use zone with misc. economic activities.

Threshold

The minimum market size needed to support a business or service.

Low Order Central Place Function

A business or service that has a small range and threshold.

High Order Central Place Function

A business or service that has a large range and threshold.

Central Business District (CBD)

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

Zone of Spine

The elite residential sector and the extension of the CBD. The end of the area of elite residency is the "mall" with high-priced residencies.

Zone of Maturity

Area close to the middle of the concentric zone model where middle class families reside, they generally maintain their homes well enough to keep them from deteriorating.

Zone of In Situ Accretion

A transitional area for Latin American cities that is between the zone of maturity and the zone of peripheral squatter settlements.

Peripheral Squatter Settlements

Unskilled, impoverished people that have migrated to the city.

Bid-Rent Theory

A geographical economic theory to how the price and demand on real estate changes as the distance towards the CBD increases.