unit 6

Action space: The geographical area that contains the space an individual interacts with on a daily basis. 

Beau Arts: This movement within city planning and urban design that stressed the marriage of older, classical forms with newer, industrial ones. Common characteristics of this period include wide thoroughfares, spacious parks, and civic monuments that stressed progress, freedom, and national unity. 

Blockbusting: As early as 1900, real estate agents and developers encouraged affluent white property owners to sell their homes and businesses at a loss by stoking fears that their neighborhoods were being overtaken by racial or ethnic minorities. 

Boomburb: A large, rapidly growing city that is suburban in character but resembles population totals or large urban cores. 

Borchert’s Epochs: According to the geographer John R. Borchert, American cities have undergone five major epochs, or periods, of development shaped by the dominant forms of transportation and communication at the time. These include the sail-wagon epoch (1790–1830), iron horse epoch (1830–1870), steel rail epoch (1870–1920), auto-air-amenity epoch (1920–1970), and satellite-electronic-jet propulsion and high-technology epoch (1970–present).

Central business district: The downtown or nucleus of a city where retail stores, offices, and cultural activities are concentrated; building densities are usually quite high; and transportation systems converge. 

Central-Place Theory: A theory formulated by Walter Christaller in the early 1900s that explains the size and distribution of cities in terms of a competitive supply of goods and services to dispersed populations. 

City Beautiful Movement: Movement in environmental design that drew directly from the Beaux Arts school. Architects from this movement strove to impart order on hectic, industrial centers by creating urban spaces that conveyed a sense of morality and civic pride, which many feared was absent from the frenzied new industrial world.

Colonial cities: Cities established by colonizing empires as administrative centers. Often they were established on already existing native cities, completely overtaking their infrastructures. 

Concentric-Zone Model: Model that describes urban environments as a series of rings of distinct land uses radiating out from a central core, or central business district. 

Edge cities: Cities that are located on the outskirts of larger cities and serve many of the same functions of urban areas, but in a sprawling, decentralized suburban environment. 

Environmental justice: According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” 

European cities: Cities in Europe that were mostly developed during the Medieval Period and that retain many of the same characteristics, such as extreme density of development with narrow buildings and winding streets, an ornate church that prominently marks the city center, and high walls surrounding the city center that provided defense against attack. 

Exurbanite: Person who has left the inner city and moved to outlying suburbs or rural areas. 

Feudal cities: Cities that arose during the Middle Ages and that actually represent a time of relative stagnation in urban growth. This system fostered a dependent relationship between wealthy landowners and peasants who worked their land, providing very little alternative economic opportunities. 

Forward capital: A capital city placed in a remote or peripheral area for economic, strategic, or symbolic reasons. 

Galactic City Model: A circular-city model that characterizes the role of the automobile in the post-industrial era. 

Gateway cities: Cities that, because of their geographic location, act as ports of entry and distribution centers for large geographic areas. 

Gentrification: The trend of middle- and upper-income Americans moving into city centers and rehabilitating much of the architecture but also replacing low-income populations, and changing the social character of certain neighborhoods. 

Ghettoization: A process occurring in many inner cities in which they become dilapidated centers of poverty, as affluent whites move out to the suburbs and immigrants and people of color vie for scarce jobs and resources. 

Great Migration: An early 20th-century mass movement of African Americans from the Deep South to the industrial North, particularly Chicago.

* * Agglomeration: The clustering of businesses and industries in a mutually beneficial way, leading to cost savings and increased productivity.

* Basic vs. Non-basic Industries:

* Basic industries: Export-oriented industries that bring money into a city (e.g., manufacturing, tourism).

* Non-basic industries: Service industries that primarily serve the local population (e.g., restaurants, retail).

* Bid-Rent Theory: A geographical economic theory that explains how land value and land use intensity decrease as distance from the central business district (CBD) increases.

* Brownfields: Former industrial or commercial sites where future use is affected by real or perceived environmental contamination.

* Counterurbanization: A demographic and social process whereby people move from urban areas to rural areas.

* Deindustrialization: The decline of industrial activity in a region or economy.

* Filtering (in housing): The process by which housing units transition from being occupied by higher-income to lower-income households over time.

* Food Deserts: Areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food.

* Greenbelts: Rings of open space maintained around cities to limit urban sprawl.

* Infrastructure: The basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.

* In-filling: The process of developing vacant or underutilized land within existing urban areas.

* Megacities: Cities with populations over 10 million people.

* Megalopolis: A chain of roughly adjacent metropolitan areas.

* Mixed-Use Development: Urban development that blends residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or industrial uses.

* Multiple Nuclei Model: A model of urban structure showing that cities have multiple centers of activity rather than a single CBD.

* Primate City: The largest city in a country that disproportionately dominates its economic, political, and cultural life and is significantly larger than the next largest city.

* Rank-Size Rule: A pattern of urban populations in a country where the nth largest city is approximately 1/n the size of the largest city.

* Redlining: A discriminatory practice in which financial institutions refuse to lend money or extend credit to borrowers in certain geographic areas, often based on race or ethnicity.

* Residential Segregation: The spatial separation of different groups of people (e.g., by race, ethnicity, income) within urban environments.

* Slums/Squatter Settlements: Informal settlements characterized by inadequate housing and poor infrastructure, often found on the periphery of cities in developing countries.

* Sprawl: The expansion of low-density urban development outwards from a city center.

* Suburbanization: The growth of residential areas on the outskirts of cities.

* Sustainable Urban Development: Urban development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

* Urban Hierarchy: A ranking of cities based on their size and functions.

* Urban Morphology: The study of the physical form and structure of urban places.

* Urban Renewal: Programs aimed at redeveloping blighted areas within cities, which can sometimes lead to displacement of existing populations.

* World Cities (Global Cities): Cities that serve as major centers for finance, trade, political influence, and culture, playing a key role in the global economy.