6.10 and 6.11 Vocabulary

Housing Discrimination

An attempt to prevent a person from buying or renting a property because of that person’s race, social class, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, or other characteristic. 

Redlining

Practice by which a financial institution such as a bank refuses to offer home loans on the basis of a neighborhood’s racial or ethnic makeup.

Blockbusting

A practice by real estate agents who would stir up concern that Black families would soon move into a neighborhood; the agents would convince White property owners to sell their houses at below-market prices.

Housing Affordability

Housing units that are affordable by that section of society.

Environmental Injustice

The ways in which communities of color and poor people are more likely to be exposed to environmental burdens such as air pollution or contaminated water.

Disamenity Zone

A high-poverty urban area in a disadvantaged location containing steep slopes, flood-prone ground, rail lines, landfills, or industry.

Zone of Abandonment

Area that has been largely deserted due to lack of jobs, declines in land value, and falling demand.

Squatter Settlement

An informal housing area beset with overcrowding and poverty that features temporary homes often made of wood scraps or metal sheeting.

Local Food Movement

Improve the food security of urban areas and help alleviate the negative effects of food deserts. They help combat environmental injustice and benefit cities by bringing fresh, nutritious food into disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Urban Renewal

The nationwide movement when U.S. cities were given massive federal grants to tear down and clear out crumbling neighborhoods and former industrial zones as a means of rebuilding their downtown.

Gentrification

The renovations and improvements conforming to middle-class preferences.

Urban Sustainability

Finding ways to ensure that cities continue to exist well into the future, so that the generations to come can benefit from the opportunities they provide.

Ecological Footprint

Impact of a person or community on the environment, expressed as the amount of land required to sustain the use of natural resources.

Remediation

Removing the contaminants in these sites, which reduces health and safety risks to nearby residents and opens the land up for new development. 

Redevelopment

The process of redeveloping a city area by destroying and rebuilding it.

Brownfields

Abandoned and polluted industrial site in a central city or suburb.

Urban Growth Boundary

A boundary that separates urban land uses from rural land uses by limiting how far a city can expand.

Farmland Protection Policy

Policies enacted by governments that protect farmland and prevent it from being sold into other use. Uses zoning to identify areas of agricultural land use.