Unit 6 Vocabulary

6.1 The Origin and Influence of Urbanization

Borchert’s Transportation Model:  the division of urban history into four periods (epochs).  Each epoch had profound effects on the local scale related to a city’s form (shape), size, density, and spatial arrangement.

City-State:  an urban area (the city) and its surrounding territory and agricultural villages.

Ecumene:  the portion of Earth’s surface with permanent human settlement.

Metropolitan Area (Metro Area):  a collection of adjacent cities economically connected across which population density is high and continuous.

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA):  in the United States, a region with at least one urbanized areas as its core.

Micropolitan Statistical Area:  in the United States, a region with one or more urban cluster of at least 10,000 people as its core.

Rural: areas containing farms and villages with low concentrations of people.

Pedestrian Cities:  cities shaped by the distances people could walk.

Percent Urban:  an indicator of the proportion of the population that lives in cities and towns as compared to those those that live in rural areas.

Streetcar Suburbs:  communities that grew up along rail lines.

Suburbs:  primarily residential areas near cities

Urban:  areas containing cities with high concentrations of people.

Urban Area:  defined as a central city plus land developed for commercial, industrial, or residential purposes and includes the surrounding suburbs.

Urban Hearth:  an area generally associated with defensible sites and river valleys in which seasonal floods and fertile soils allowed for an agricultural surplus.  Hearths include the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, the Nile River Valley, the Indus River Valley, and the Huang He floodplain.

Urbanization:  an ongoing process that does not end once a city is formed.

6.2 Cities Across The World

Boomburbs:  rapidly growing communities (over 10 percent per 10 years), have a total population of over 100,000 people, and are not the largest city in the metro area.

Conurbation:  an uninterrupted urban area made of towns, suburbs, and cities.

Counterurbanization (deurbanization):  the counterflow of urban residents leaving cities for rural areas.

Edge Cities:  nodes of economic activity that have developed on the periphery of large cities.  They usually have tall office buildings, a concentration of retail shops, relatively few residences, and are located at the junction of major transportation routes.

Exurbs:  the prosperous residential districts beyond the suburbs.

Leap-Frog Development:  when developers purchase land and build communities beyond the periphery of the city’s built area.

Megacities:  cities with a population of 10 million people.

Megalopolis:  a chain of connected cities.

Metacities:  continuous urban areas with a population greater than 20 million people and attributes of a network of urban areas that have grown together to form a larger interconnected urban system.

Reurbanization:  people returning from the suburbs to live in the city.

Sprawl:  the rapid expansion of the spatial extent of a city.

Suburbanization:  the process of people moving, usually from cities, to residential areas on the outskirts of cities.

6.3 Cities and Globalization

Urban hierarchy:  system of cities that are ranked based on influence or population size.

World (Global) Cities: cities that exert influence far beyond their national boundaries.

6.4 The Size and Distribution of Cities

Central Place Theory:  used to explain the distribution of cities of different sizes across a region.  The “central place” is defined as a location where people go to receive goods and services.

Gravity Model:  states that larger and closer places will have more interactions than places that are smaller and farther from each other.  This can be used to predict the flow of workers, shoppers, vacationers, migrants, as well as information.

Higher Order Services:  usually expensive, need a large number to support, and are only occasionally utilized.  Examples include major sports teams, large malls, and luxury car dealerships.

Lower Order Services:  less expensive than higher order services, require a small population to support, and are used on a daily or weekly basis.  Examples include gas stations and local grocery stores.

Market Area:  a zone that contains people who will purchase goods or services, surrounds each central place.

Primate City:  if the largest city in an urban system is more than twice the size of the next largest city.  A primate city is more developed than other cities in the system and disproportionately more powerful.

Range:  the distance people will travel to obtain specific goods or services.

Rank Size Rule:  states that the nth largest city in any region will be 1/n the size of the largest city.  For example the 5th largest city would be 1/5th the size of the largest city in that country.  

Threshold:  the size of a population necessary for any particular service to exist and remain profitable.  

Urban System:  an interdependent set of cities that interact on the regional, national, and global scale.

6.5 The Internal Structure of Cities

African City Model:  consisted of a traditional CBD, a colonial CBD, an informal economy zone, and informal settlements.

Bid-Rent Theory:  explains that land in the center of the city will have higher value than land farther away from the city’s center.

Central Business District (CBD):  the commercial heart of a city, usually located near the physical center of a city and the crossroads where the city was founded.

Concentric Zone Model:  describes a series of rings that surrounds a central business district.  Also known as the Burgess model.

Galactic City Model:  a model in which the original CBD became surrounded by a system of smaller nodes that mimicked its function.  As suburbs grew, they took on some CBD functions.  At key locations along transportation routes, people created mini-downtowns of hotels, malls, restaurants, and office complexes. Some of these nodes grew large enough to become edge cities.  

Griffin-Ford Model:  used to describe Latin American cities.  It places a two-part CBD at the center of the city-a traditional market center adjacent to a modern high-rise center.  Consisted of a commercial spine, a mall, the periferico, and disamenity zones.

Industrial/Commercial Zone:  the zone outside the central business district that is dedicated to industry.  May include manufacturing, warehousing, and transportation.

Multiple Nuclei Model:  Also known as the Harris & Ullman model.  This model studied changes in cities in the 1940s and suggested that functional zonation (the idea that portions of an urban are have specific and distinct purposes) occurred around multiple centers or nodes.  The characteristics of each node either attracted or repelled certain types of activities.

Residential Zone:  where people live.  Generally separated from the CBD and industrial zone either legally through government zoning or simply by choice of the inhabitants.

Sector Model:  Also known as the Hoyt Model.  While Burgess concentric zone model used land-use rings that grew outward from the CBD, the sector model describes how different types of land use and housing were all located near the CBD early in a city’s history.  Each grew outward as the city expanded, creating wedges, or sectors of land use rather than rings.

Southeast Asian City Model:  Also known as the McGee model describes the land use of many large cities in Southeast Asia, where the focus of the modern city is often a former colonial port zone.

6.6 Density and Land Use

Filtering:  the process of passing houses from one social group to another.

Inner City:  residential areas surrounding the CBD.

Residential Zones:  areas of a city devoted to where people live rather than to commercial or industrial functions.

Suburbanization of Business:  the movement of commerce out of cities to suburbs where rents are chapter and commutes for employees are shorter.

Urban Infill:  the process of increasing the residential density of an area by replacing open space and vacant housing with residences.

Urban Planning:  a process of promoting growth and controlling change in land use.

Zoning Ordinances:  regulations that define how property in specific geographic regions may be used.  

6.7 Infrastructure

Annexation:  the process of adding land to a city’s legally defined territory.

Incorporation:  the act of legally joining together to form a new city.

Infrastructure:  the facilities and systems that serve the population.  Elements include transportation features, communication, distribution systems (water, gas, electricity), social service buildings, entertainment venues, and open spaces.

Municipality:  refers to the local entity that is all under the same jurisdiction.

Public Transportation:  buses, subways, light rail, and trains that are operated by a government agency.

Unincorporated Areas:  populated regions that do not fall within the legal boundary of any city or municipality.

6.8 Urban Sustainability

Greenbelts:  areas of undeveloped land around an urban area, created to limit a city’s growth and preserve farmland.

Livability:  refers to a set of principles that supports sustainable urban designs.

Mixed Use Neighborhoods:  unlike the clear separation between residential and commercial uses created by zoning in most cities, these neighborhoods would have a mix of homes and businesses.

New Urbanism:  implementing smart growth policies into action within communities.

Slow Growth Cities:  cities that adopt policies to slow the outward spread of urban areas and place limits on building permits in order to encourage a denser, more compact city.

Smart Growth Policies:  used to combat urban sprawl and create a new vision for cities that are more sustainable and equitable.  Smart growth focuses on city planning and transportation systems of an urban region.

Sustainability:  using the earth’s resources while not causing permanent damage to the environment.

Transit Oriented Development (TOD):  locates mixed-use residential and business communities near mass transit stops, resulting in a series of more compact communities which decreases the need for automobiles.

Urban Infill:  the process of building up underused lands within a city.

6.9  Urban Data

Census Block:  in a densely populated urban area is often very small, consisting of a single block bounded by four streets.

Census Tracts:  contiguous geographic regions that function as the foundation of a census.

Population Composition:  the makeup of a population gathered by the census every ten years.

Quantitative Data:  information that can be counted, measured, or sequenced by numeric value.

Qualitative Data:  based primarily on surveys, field studies, photos, video, and interviews from people who provide personal perceptions and meaningful descriptions.

6.10  Challenges of Urban Changes

Blockbusting:  when people of an ethnic group sold their homes upon learning that members of another ethnic group were moving into the neighborhood that members of another ethnic group were moving into the neighborhood.

Eminent Domain:  allows the government to claim private property from individuals, pay them for the property, and then use the land for the public good.

Environmental Injustice/Environmental Racism:  the disproportionate exposure of minorities and the poor to pollution and its impacts, plus the unequal protection of their rights under the law.

Gated Communities:  the building of walled or fenced neighborhoods with limited access and entry points.

Gentrification:  the process of converting an urban inner-city neighborhood from a mostly low income, renter-occupied area to a predominately wealthier, owner occupied area of a city.

Ghettos:  areas of poverty occupied by a minority group as a result of discrimination.

Inclusionary Zoning:  offer incentives for developers to set aside a percentage of housing for low-income renters or buyers.

Informal Settlements:  densely populated areas built without coordinated planning and without sufficient public services for electricity, water, and sewage.

Land Tenure:  the legal protection of contracts to show ownership of the land or structures.

Racial Segregation:  occurs when people live in separate neighborhoods based on their ethnicity or race.

Redlining:  the process by which banks refuse loans to those who want to purchase and improve properties in certain urban areas.

Urban Renewal:  the policy that allowed governments to clear out the blighted inner-city slums, which usually displaced the residents to low income government housing complexes, and built new development projects.

Zones of Abandonment: areas of a city that have been deserted by their owners for either economic or environmental reasons.

6.11  Challenges of Urban Sustainability:

Brownfield:  consists of dilapidated buildings and polluted or contaminated soils.

Rush Hour:  the commuting periods in early morning and in late afternoon or early evening when many people travel to and from work, idling cars on roads increase and concentrate air pollutants in the city.

Suburban Sprawl:  the rapid spread of development outward from the inner city.

Urban Heat Island:  an area of a city warmer than surrounding areas due to the concentration of buildings and concrete.

Urban Redevelopment:  involves renovating a site within a city by removing the existing landscape and rebuilding from the ground up.

Urban Wildlife:  such as rats, raccoons, and pigeons can thrive in cities, but can spread diseases and be a nuisance to people.