AP Human: Unit 6- Vocab

Question 1

Boomburb

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Borchert’s Epochs

Answer 2

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 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).

Question 3

Central Buisiness District

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Concentric-Zone Model

Answer 4

Model that describes urban environments as a series of rings of distinct lands using radiating out from a central core, or central business district.

Question 5

Feudal Cities

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

Galactic City Model

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Gateway Cities

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Gentrification

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Hinterland

Answer 9

The market area surrounding an urban center, which that urban center serves

Question 10

Inner-City Decay

Answer 10

Those parts of large urban areas that lose significant portions of their populations as a result of change in industry or migration to suburbs. Because of these changes, the inner city loses its tax base and becomes a center of poverty

Question 11

Megacities

Answer 11

Cities, mostly characteristic of the developing world, where high population growth and migration have caused them to explode in population since World War II. All megacities are plagued by chaotic and unplanned growth, terrible pollution, and widespread poverty

Question 12

Megaloplis

Answer 12

Several, metropolitan areas that were originally separate but that have joined together to form a large, sprawling urban complex

Question 13

Metacities

Answer 13

Larger than megacities, metacities describe an urban region where multiple dense areas/cores are interspersed with suburbs and green spaces (and squatter settlements in the case of developing countries)

Question 14

Metropolitan

Answer 14

Area Within the United States, an urban area consisting of one or more whole country units, usually containing several urbanized areas, or suburbs, that all act together as a coherent economic whole

Question 15

Multiple-Nuclei Model

Answer 15

Type of urban form wherein cities have numerous centers of business and cultural activity instead of one central place

Question 16

Rank Size Rule

Answer 16

rule that states the population of any given town should be inversely proportional to its rank in the country’s heirarchy when the distribution of cities according to their sizes follows a certain pattern

Question 17

Urban Morphology

Answer 17

They physical form of a city or urban region

Question 18

Central Place Theory

Answer 18

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.