Cambridge International A-Level Geography - Settlement

Rural

belonging to or relating to life in the countryside, in contrast to an urban lifestyle.

Rural landscape

A mental or visual picture of countryside scenery which is difficult to define as rural areas are constantly changing and vary from place to place.

Rural population

People living in the countryside in farms, isolated houses, hamlets and villages. Under some definitions small market towns are classed as rural.

Gentrification

The in-migration of people from higher socioeconomic groups into areas where the existing population is generally of a lower socio-economic group compared to the newcomers.

Green belt

An area of open land retained round a city or town over which there are wide-ranging planning restrictions upon development.

Key village

A village designated to be developed in terms of the goods and services available to its own population and the population of a designated surrounding area.

Rural depopulation

The decrease in population of rural areas, whether by out-migration or by falling birth rates as young people move away, usually to urban areas.

Urbanisation of poverty

The increasing concentration of poverty in urban areas in developing countries due at least partly to high levels of rural-urban migration.

Urban hierarchy

The grouping together of urban areas into distinctive levels of functional importance. Settlements at the top of the hierarchy have larger populations, a wider range of functions and more extensive market areas than settlements lower down the hierarchy.

Town

A centre of population and business that is the next step up the urban hierarchy from a village.

Village

A group of houses and other buildings such as a church, a school and some shops. A village is larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town, usually ranging from a few hundred people to a few thousand.

Metropolitan village

A village which has been transformed into a commuter settlement because of its proximity to a large urban area.

Hamlet

A very small rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village. It lacks a church and usually all other services.

LEDCs

Less Economically Developed Countries

MEDCs

More Economically Developed Countries.

Urban revolution

A major change in the form and growth of settlements due to significant technological advance.

Urbanisation

The process whereby an increasing proportion of the population in a geographical area lives in urban settlements.

Urban growth

The absolute increase in physical size and total population of urban areas.

Cycle of urbanisation

The stages of urban change from the growth of a city to counterurbanisation through to reurbanisation.

Suburbanisation

The outward growth of towns and cities to engulf surrounding villages and rural areas.

Counterurbanisation

The process of population decentralisation as people move from large urban areas to smaller urban settlements and rural areas.

Reurbanisation

When, after a clear period of decline, the population of a city, in particular the inner area, begins to increase again.

Land use zoning

A mapping exercise by local government that decides how land should be used (housing, industry, health, education, etc.) in the various parts of a town or city.

Urban redevelopment

The complete clearance of existing buildings and site infrastructure and construction of new buildings, often for a different purpose, from scratch.

Urban renewal

Keeping the best elements of the existing urban environment (often because they are safeguarded by planning regulations) and adapting them to new usages.

Infrastructure

Refers to the built facilities, generally publicly funded, that are required in order to serve a community's developmental and operational needs. The infrastructure includes such things as roads and water and sewer systems.

Cumulative causation

The process whereby impulses to economic growth are self-reinforcing, resulting in an upward cycle of economic development.

Residential mosaic

The complex pattern of different residential areas within a city reflecting variations in socio-economic status which are mainly attributable to income.

Accessibility

The relative ease with which a place can be reached from other locations.

Global (world) city

A city that is judged to be an important modal point in the global economic system. The concentration of high-level services in a global city attracts investment and migration from many parts of the world.

CBD (Central Business District)

The commercial and geographical heart of a city.

Concentric zone

A region of an urban area, circular in shape, surrounding the CBD and possibly other regions of a similar shape, that has common land use/socio-economic characteristics.

Functional zonation

The pattern of land uses in an urban area whereby distinctive retail, office, manufacturing and residential zones can be recognised.

Zone in transition (twilight zone)

The area just beyond the CBD that is characterised by a mixture of residential, industrial and commercial land use, tending towards deterioration and blight. The poor quality and relatively cheap cost of accommodation makes this part of the urban area a focus for in-migrants, resulting in a rate of population change higher than in other parts of the urban area.

Bid-rent

The decreasing accessibility from the centre of an urban area, with corresponding declining land values, allowing (in theory) an ordering of land uses related to rent affordability.

Sector

A section of an urban area in the shape of a wedge, beginning at the edge of the CBD and gradually widening to the periphery.

Urban density gradient

The rate at which population density and / or the intensity of land use falls off with increasing distance from the centre of the city.

Deindustrialisation

The long-term absolute decline of employment in manufacturing.

Post-industrial city

A city whose economy is dominated by services and new high-tech industries.

Constrained location theory

Identifies the problems encountered by manufacturing firms in congested cities, particularly in the inner areas.

Rural-urban fringe

The boundary zone where rural and urban land uses meet. It is an area of transition from agricultural and other rural land uses to urban use.

Key workers

Mainly public sector professional or semiprofessional workers (e.g. teachers, nurses, police officers, etc.) whose presence is seen as vital to the safe and efficient functioning of the urban economy. The problem in London is that their salaries are modest in relation to the high cost of living in the capital and as a result these occupations have problems recruiting and retaining staff.

Residential segregation

the division of an urban area into districts of low-, medium- and high-income housing.

Spatial competition

The competition for space by different land uses in various parts of an urban area

Slums

Run-down areas of a city characterised by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security.

Favelas

A Brazilian term for an informal, shanty-type settlement. It generally involves the illegal occupation of land by squatters.

Corticos

Refers to decaying formal housing, mainly in the inner city.

Human development index

A composite index of development devised by the United Nations in 1990 incorporating (a) life expectancy, (b) educational attainment and (c) GDP per capital at purchasing power parity.

Self-help housing initiatives

A partnership between communities and local government whereby local government frequently supplies building materials and the community supplies the labour.

Shanty town (squatter settlement)

An area of slum housing constructed from makeshift materials and lacking in amenities such as water supply, sewerage and electricity. Shanty towns often develop spontaneously and illegally (as squatter settlements) in LEDC cities.

Soft infrastructure

Covers housing, education, health, leisure and other associated facilities. These are the social aspects of urban infrastructure.

Hard infrastructure

Refers to transportation, communication, sewage, water and electric systems, etc.

Quality of life

A term that sums up all the factors that affect a person's general well being and happiness.

Deprivation

Defined by the Department of the Environment as when 'an individual's well being falls below a level generally regarded as a reasonable minimum for Britain today'.

Social exclusion

The process whereby certain groups are pushed to the margins of society and prevented from participating fully by virtue of their poverty, low education or inadequate life skills. This distances them from job, income and education opportunities as well as social and community networks.

In situ urbanisation

A process that occurs when rural settlements transform themselves into urban or quasi-urban entities with very little movement of population.