AP HUG Unit 6 part 1

Borchert's Transportation Model

describes how the growth and internal structure of North American cities have been shaped by five distinct stages of evolution, each defined by the dominant transportation technology of the era.

City

a nucleated, non-agricultural settlement that is multifunctional in nature and serves as a central hub for regional economic, political, and cultural activities.

City-state

an independent, self-governing political entity that consists of a single central city and its surrounding immediate territory, acting as both a city and a sovereign nation.

Central Place Theory

developed by Walter Christaller, is an economic geographical theory that explains the number, size, and location of human settlements in an urban hierarchy based on their capacity to provide goods and services to the surrounding population.

Central Business District

is the commercial and geographic heart of a city, characterized by high land values, a high density of vertical development, and a concentration of consumer and business services.

Clustered Rural Settlements

a primary residential pattern where families live in close proximity to one another, with agricultural fields surrounding the collection of houses and farm buildings.

Dispersed Rural Settlements

a physical layout characterized by isolated individual farms or dwellings that are scattered across the landscape rather than being grouped together in a central village.

Ecumene

the portion of Earth's surface occupied by permanent human settlement, reflecting the areas where environmental conditions support housing, agriculture, and economic structures.

Enclosure Movement

a historical process in Great Britain during the 1700s where communal grazing lands were fenced off into individually owned plots, forcing many small farmers to migrate to cities and providing the labor force for the Industrial Revolution.

Gravity Model

predicts that the optimal location of a service or the level of interaction between two cities is directly related to the size of their populations and inversely related to the distance between them.

Higher-order services

specialized functions with high thresholds and large ranges, such as cancer treatment centers or professional sports stadiums, that require a large population base to be profitable and are typically found only in major urban centers.

Lower-order services

basic, everyday functions with low thresholds and small ranges, such as gas stations or grocery stores, that require only a small local population to remain profitable and are found in almost every settlement.

Market Area

he surrounding geographic region from which a central place draws its customers for various goods and services.

Primate City

the largest settlement in a country that is more than twice as large as the second-ranking city and exerts overwhelming economic, social, and political dominance over the rest of the nation.

Range

the maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service or purchase a specific good.

Rank-size rule

a statistical pattern of settlements in a country where the nth largest city is approximately 1/n the population of the largest city.

site

the specific physical characteristics of a location, such as its climate, water sources, topography, soil quality, and elevation.

situation

refers to the location of a place relative to other places and its role within a larger regional or global network, emphasizing its accessibility and economic connectivity.

Settlement

a permanent collection of buildings and inhabitants where people live, work, and obtain resources, ranging in scale from a tiny rural hamlet to a massive metropolitan area.

Service

any activity that fulfills a human want or need and returns money to those who provide it, categorized primarily into consumer, business, and public sectors.

Threshold

the minimum number of people needed to support a service and keep it profitable.

Urban Hearth

a specific historical region where large-scale human settlements first independently developed, typically occurring in areas with fertile soil and reliable water sources that allowed for the transition from nomadic lifestyles to organized city life.

Urbanization

the ongoing process by which an increasing percentage of a population comes to live in cities and towns, often driven by the migration of people from rural areas in search of economic opportunities.

Urban Hierarchy

a ranking of settlements (hamlet, village, town, city, metropolis) based on their size, functional complexity, and the number of services they provide to the surrounding area.

Air and water quality

the scale of unusable to usable water and air in an area of a city. The water quality depends on the source and how it travels to the area in which it is disposed for use by an individual.

Bid-rent theory

geographical economic theory that refers to how the price and demand on real estate changes as the distance towards the Central Business District (CBD) increases. The closer land is to the CBD, the more competition there will be for land, since business wish to maximize profit.

Counterurbanization

the process of people moving away from urban areas to smaller settlements and rural areas.

Ecological footprint

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

Farmland protection policies

policies enacted by governments that protect farmland and prevent it from being sold into other use.

Infillling

building on empty parcels of land within a checkerboard pattern of development.

Infrastructure

the underlying framework of services and amenities needed to facilitate productive activity.

Linear settlement patterns

linear settlements comprise buildings clustered along a road, river, or dike to facilitate communications.

Long lot survey

distinct regional approach to land surveying found in the Canadian Maritimes, parts of Quebec, Louisiana, and Texas whereby land is divided into narrow parcels stretching back from rivers, roads, or canals.

Low density housing

there is a smaller density of dwellings per unit area or property. You will find less congestion and more privacy.

Medium density housing

this could be a subdivision or urban neighborhood.

High density housing

the highest density of residents per unit area of land.
This is nosiest and most congested area.

Metes and bounds system

a system of land surveying east of the Appalachian Mountains. It is a system that relies on descriptions of land ownership and natural features such as streams or trees. Because of the imprecise nature of metes and bounds surveying, the U.S. Land Office Survey abandoned the technique in favor of the rectangular survey system.

Reurbanization

movement of people back into an area that has been previously abandoned. It is usually a government’s initiative to counter the problem of inner city.

Satellite city

when an established town near a very large city grows into a city independent of the larger one.

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.

Sustainable design initiatives

sustainable design: communities use smart growth and green building to create neighborhoods that are economically thriving and environmentally responsible.

Township and range system

a rectangular land division scheme designed by Thomas Jefferson to disperse settlers evenly across farmlands of the U.S. interior.