AP HUG Unit 6 Vocabulary Terms

Urban Area: A geographic area with a high population density and infrastructure of built environments.

Urbanization: The process by which rural areas develop into urban areas, with increasing population and infrastructure.

Central Business District (CBD): The commercial and business center of a city, often characterized by high-density development and tall buildings.

Threshold: The minimum number of people required to support a particular service or business.

Range: The maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service.

Gentrification: The process of renovating and improving a district so that it conforms to middle-class taste, often displacing lower-income residents.

Megacity: A very large city with a population of over 10 million people.

Forward Capital: A symbolically relocated capital city, often to promote economic development or political power in a particular area.

Edge City: A significant concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside the traditional downtown area in what had previously been a suburban residential or rural area.

Suburbanization: The process of population movement from within cities to the rural-urban fringe.

Metacity: A city with a population of over 20 million people.

Rank Size Rule: A pattern of settlements in a country, such that the nth largest settlement is 1/n the population of the largest settlement.

Primate City Rule: A pattern of settlements in a country where the largest city has more than twice the population of the second largest city.

Urban Renewal: The redevelopment of areas within a large city, typically involving the clearance of slums.

Megalopolis: A very large, heavily populated urban complex, often formed by the merging of multiple cities and their suburbs.

Squatter Settlement: An area within a city in a less developed country in which people illegally establish residences on land they do not own or rent.

Slum Upgrading: Improving the conditions of slum areas by providing basic services, legalizing land, and other improvements.

World City: A city that serves as an important node in the global economic system, often with significant influence in finance, politics, culture, and trade.

New Urbanism: An urban design movement promoting walkable neighborhoods with a range of housing and job types.

Urban Sprawl: The uncontrolled expansion of urban areas.

Commercial Land: Land designated for business activities, including retail, office, and service industries.

Residential Land: Land designated for housing.

Central Place Theory: A theory that seeks to explain the number, size, and location of human settlements in an urban system.

Agglomeration: The clustering of productive activities and people for mutual advantage.

White Flight: The phenomenon of white people moving out of urban areas, particularly those with significant minority populations, and into suburban areas.

Redlining: The discriminatory practice of denying services, typically financial, to residents of certain areas based on their race or ethnicity.