Untitled Flashcards Set

Census

An official count or survey of a population, typically recording various demographic details of individuals.

Disamenity Zones

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

Urbanization

The process of making an area more urban.

Blockbusting

The practice of persuading owners to sell property cheaply because of fear of people of another race or class moving into the neighborhood.

Urban Hierarchy

A ranking system of cities based upon the size of the population residing within statistical urban areas.

Boomburbs

Incorporated places in metropolitan areas in the US having more than 100,000 residents that are not the core cities in their metropolitan areas and have maintained double-digit rates of population growth over consecutive censuses between 1970-2000.

Edge City

An area with concentrated businesses, shopping, and entertainment outside of a traditional downtown area that has five million or more square feet of leasable office space, 600,000 or more of leasable retail space, has more jobs than bedrooms, is perceived by the population as one place, and was nothing like a city as recently as 30 years ago when it just had bedrooms and pastures.

Zoning Practices

Land use planning tool within urban areas used by local governments to designate spaces for specific types of economic activity like residential, industrial, and/or commercial activity.

Gentrification

The process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class tastes.

Greenbelts

A policy and land use zone designation in land use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land use surrounding or neighboring urban areas.

Rank-size Rule

Describes the distribution of population sizes and hierarchy in urban settlements in societies where the nth largest settlement's population is 1/n the largest settlement's population.

Gravity Model

Used to estimate the amount of interaction between two cities based upon their population and distance between them, where spatial interaction is directly related to the population and inversely related to the distance between them.

Exurbs

An area outside of a denser inner suburban area that has economic and commuting connections to the metro area, low housing density, and growth.

Suburbanization

The population shift from central urban areas into the suburbs resulting in suburban sprawl.

Zone of Abandonment

Areas within urban spaces that have been deserted for economic or environmental reasons.

Central Place Theory

Geography location theory that attempts to explain the number, size, and location of human settlements in a residential system.

Redlining

The refusal of providing a loan or insurance to a person because they live in an area deemed to be a poor financial risk.

Metacity

A very large metropolitan area with a population of more than 20 million people.

Megacity

A very large metropolitan area with a population of more than 10 million people.

Mixed Land Use

Zoning definitions that allow for land use that includes commercial, residential, and/or industrial in the same zone.

World City

A city which is a primary node in the global economic network.

Primate City

The largest city in a country with a disproportionately larger role in the urban hierarchy in terms of economic, political, and cultural influence, and with a population that is, at least, twice the next largest city.

New Urbanism

An urban planning and development approach based upon the principles of walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces.

Urban Sprawl

The uncontrolled expansion of urban areas characterized by low density housing tracts, continued expansion into farmlands and rural areas, and increased reliance on automobile transit.

Squatter Settlements

Collections of buildings where people have no legal rights to the land they build upon. Sometimes referred to colloquially as slums, favellas, shanty towns, barrios, Hoovervilles, etc.