Chapter 14 Vocab

Question 1

Deomography

Answer 1

The study of the size, composition, growth (or shrinkage), and distribution of human population

Question 2

Malthus theorem

Answer 2

An observation by Thomas Malthus that although the food supply increases arithmetically population grown geometrically

Question 3

Exponential growth curve

Answer 3

A pattern of growth in which numbers double during approximately equal intervals, showing a steep acceleration in later stages

Question 4

Demographic transition

Answer 4

A three-stage historical process of change in the size of populations: first, high birth rates and high death rates; second, high birth rates and low death rates; third, low birth rates and low death rates; a fourth stage of population shrinkage in which deaths outnumber births has made its appearance in the Most Industrialized Nations

Question 5

Population shrinkage

Answer 5

The process by which a country’s population becomes smaller because its birth rate and immigration are too low to replace those who die and emigrate

Question 6

Population pyramid

Answer 6

A graph that represents the age and sex of a population

Question 7

Demographic variables

Answer 7

The three factors that change the size of a population: fertility, mortality, and net migration

Question 8

Fertility rate

Answer 8

The number of children that the average woman bears

Question 9

Fecundity

Answer 9

The number of children that women are capable of bearing

Question 10

Crude birth rate

Answer 10

The annual number of live births per 1,000 population

Question 11

Crude death rate

Answer 11

The annual number of deaths per 1,000 population

Question 12

Net migration rate

Answer 12

The difference between the number of immigrants and emigrants per 1,000 population

Question 13

Basic demographic equation

Answer 13

The growth rates equals births minus deaths plus net migration

Question 14

Growth rate

Answer 14

The net change in a population after adding births, subtracting deaths and either adding or subtracting net migration; can result in a negative number

Question 15

Zero population

Answer 15

Women bearing only enough children to reproduce the population

Question 16

City

Answer 16

A place in which a large number of people are permanently based and do not produce their own food

Question 17

Urbanization

Answer 17

The process by which an increasing proportion of a population lives in cities and has a growing influence on the culture

Question 18

Metropolis

Answer 18

A central city surrounded by smaller cities and their suburbs

Question 19

Megalopolis

Answer 19

An urban area consisting of at least two metropolises and their many suburbs

Question 20

Megacity

Answer 20

A city of 10 million or more residents

Question 21

Megaregion

Answer 21

A merging of megacities and nearby populated areas into an even larger mass of people

Question 22

Metropolitan statistical area (MSA)

Answer 22

A central city and the urbanized counties adjacent to it

Question 23

Edge city

Answer 23

A large clustering of service facilities and residential areas near highway intersections that provides a sense of place to people who live, shop, and work there

Question 24

Gentrification

Answer 24

Middle-class people moving into a rundown area of a city, displacing the poor as they buy and restore homes

Question 25

Suburbanization

Answer 25

The migration of people from the city to the suburbs

Question 26

Suburb

Answer 26

A community adjacent to a city

Question 27

Human ecology

Answer 27

Robert Park’s term for the relationship between people and their environment (such as land and structures): also known as urban ecology

Question 28

Invasion-succession cycle

Answer 28

The process of one group of people displacing another group whose radical-ethnic or social class characteristics differ from their own

Question 29

Alienation

Answer 29

Marx’s term for workers’ lack of connection to the product of their labor; caused by workers being assigned repetitive tasks on a small part of a product, which leads to a sense of powerlessness and normlessness; others use the term in the general sense of not feeling apart of something

Question 30

Redlining

Answer 30

A decision by the officers of a financial institution not to make loans in a particular area

Question 31

Disinvestment

Answer 31

The withdrawal of investments by financial institutions, which seals the fate of the urban area

Question 32

Deindustrialization

Answer 32

The process of industries moving out of a country or region

Question 33

Urban renewal

Answer 33

The rehabilitation of a rundown area, which usually results in the displacement of the poor who are living in that area

Question 34

Enterprise zone

Answer 34

The use if economic incentives in a designated area to encourage investment