HUMAN GEO UNIT 6

Urbanization

Urbanization

Process of people moving to cities from the country side

Metacity

City with more than 20 million inhabitants

Globalization

Process in which people and economies in different parts of the world become interconnected

Agricultural Surplus

Producing more produce than needed

Socioeconomic stratification

A society’s categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors

First urban revolution

Very first cities that came into existence

Site factors

Physical elements of a location

Situational factors

Things that are going on around a place

Aqueducts

Tunnels that carry water to cities

Capitalism

Trade and industry owned by private citizens

Communism

State owns all land and means of production

Redevelopment

Revitalization of a place (Activities + government policies)

Edge City

Suburb where people have moved to live

Boomburb

When the population of a edge city begins to rapidly increase

Exurb

Furthest settlement outside of the CBD

World cities/ Global cities

Control center for global economy

Gated communities

Private communities away from the general public

Urban Systems

Connects a country’s biggest cities to each other (Highways, etc…)

Urban Hierarchy

Ranking system of cities based on population

Rank-size rule

The statistical relationship between the largest and next largest city (The second largest city has half the population as the first, etc…)

Primate city rule

When one city is the most populous and carries most of the weight

Central Place Theory

Urban theory that explains the number, size, and range of market services

Range

How far someone will go for a certain product

Threshold

Amount of customers needed to support a business

Gentrification

Wealthy residents moving into an area as it improves, which squeezes out poorer segments of the population

Zoning Regulations

Laws about how land can be used

Infrastructure

Social and organizational structures that are needed for a society to function

Smart growth policies

Policies that try to improve built environments to make them as sustainable as possible

New Urbanism

An approach to city planning that follows the European model of dense settlement, attractive architecture, housing diversity, and walking distance to services

Greenbelt

A zone of green land separating urban areas

Mortgage

A loan that is taken out to purchase a home

Housing discrimination

Preventing groups of people from obtaining loans and mortgages

Redlining

The practice of identifying high-risk neighborhoods on a city map and refusing to lend money to people who wanted to buy property there

Blockbusting

Realtors persuade white home owners in a neighborhood to sell their homes by convincing them that the neighborhood is declining due to black families moving in

White flight

Mass movement of whites to outlying suburbs

Affordability

The maximum price that a buyer can afford to pay for a house or apartment

Housing choice voucher program

Federal government provides this to assist very low income families, the elderly, and disabled with affordable, decent, safe, and sanitary housing

Social Controls

Formal or informal institutions that help maintain law and order in a place

Environmental injustice

When certain groups like poor people or recent immigrants carry a larger share of environmental risks and hazards than wealthy and long established groups

Environmental Racism

Areas that are inhabited by low income people of color are targeted for environmental contamination

Squatter settlements

Areas of degraded, seemingly temporary, inadequate, and often illegal housing

Disamenity

Lack of amenities like fresh water, electricity, and fresh food

Land tenure

The right to own or hold property and defines the ways in which rights to that property are managed

Inclusionary Zoning

Municipal and county planning ordinances that require a given share of new construction to be affordable for people with low to moderate incomes

Exclusionary Zoning

Attempts to keep low to moderate income people put of a neighborhood

NIMBYs

Activists who prevent the construction of affordable housing or other developments in their neighborhoods

Fiscal imbalance

When a government spends more than it receives in taxes

Fiscal zoning

Practice of regulating local land use to preserve and possibly enhance the local property tax base

Ecological footprint

Total amount of natural resources a place uses and its impact on the environment

Urban sustainability

A city using resources in a way that does not deplete them over the long term

Urban heat island

A mass of warm air generated by urban building materials and human activities

Urban risk divide

Disasters and disaster risk become urban phenomena as the world’s largest population becomes increasingly concentrated in large cities

Brownfields

Abandoned properties that were previously used for industrial or commercial purpose and are contaminated with hazardous pollutants

Brownfield Remediation

Idea of taking brownfields and cleaning them up so that they can be used again meaningfully

Phytoremediation

Using plants to clean up contaminated environments