Cities and Urban Land Use Patterns and Processes Part 1

Question 1

Ecumene

Answer 1

What the classical Greeks called the permanently inhabited portion of the earth’s surface, which is a variety of community types with a range of population densities.

Question 2

Rural

Answer 2

Farms and villages with low concentrations of people.

Question 3

Urban

Answer 3

Cities with high concentrations of people.

Question 4

Suburbs

Answer 4

Primarily residential areas near cities.

Question 5

Settlement

Answer 5

A place with a permanent human population.

Question 6

Urbanization

Answer 6

The process of developing towns and cities. This is an ongoing process that does not end once a city is formed.

Question 7

Percent Urban

Answer 7

An indicator of the proportion of the population that lives in cities and towns as compared to those that live in rural areas. This is a common statistic associated with regions, countries, and even continents.

Question 8

Site

Answer 8

Describes the characteristics at the immediate location – for example, physical features, climate, labor force, and human structures.

Question 9

Situation

Answer 9

Refers to the location of a place relative to its surroundings and its connectivity to other places.

Question 10

City-State

Answer 10

This historically consisted of an urban center (the city) and its surrounding territory and agricultural villages. It had its own political system and functioned independently from other city-states. These communities were often raided by other groups for their wealth. As a result, defense was a primary consideration, and military leaders evolved into political rulers, or kings.

Question 11

Urban Hearth

Answer 11

An area generally associated with defensible sites and river valleys in which seasonal floods and fertile soils allowed for an agricultural surplus.

Question 12

Urban Area

Answer 12

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

Question 13

City

Answer 13

A higher-density area with territory inside officially recognized political boundaries.

Question 14

Metropolitan Area

Answer 14

Sometimes called a metro area, this is a collection of adjacent cities economically connected, across which population density is high and continuous.

Question 15

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)

Answer 15

Another way to define a city. An MSA consists of at least 50,000 people, the county in which it is located, and adjacent counties that have a high degree of social and economic integration, or connection, with the urban core.

Question 16

Micropolitan Statistical Area

Answer 16

Cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants (but less than 50,000), the county in which they are located, and surrounding counties with a high degree of integration.

Question 17

Nodal Region

Answer 17

A focal point in a matrix of connections.

Question 18

Social Heterogeneity

Answer 18

The population of cities, as compared to other areas, contains a greater variety of people.

Question 19

Time-Space Compression

Answer 19

The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation system.

Question 20

Borchert’s Transportation Model

Answer 20

A model developed by geographer John Borchert used to describe urban growth based on transportation technology.

Question 21

Pedestrian Cities

Answer 21

Cities shaped by the distances people could walk.

Question 22

Streetcar Suburbs

Answer 22

Communities that grew up along rail lines.

Question 23

Suburbanization

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Sprawl

Answer 24

The rapid expansion of the spatial extent of a city. This occurs for numerous reasons: growth of suburbs, lower land costs in suburbs compared to inner cities, lower density single family housing, weak planning laws, and the continuing growth of car culture.

Question 25

Leap-Frog Development

Answer 25

Developers purchase land and build communities beyond the periphery of the city’s built area.

Question 26

Boomburbs

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

Edge Cities

Answer 27

Nodes of economic activity that have developed in the periphery of large cities. These usually have tall office buildings, a concentration of retail shops, relatively few residences, and are located at the junction of major transportation routes.

Question 28

Counter-Urbanization (Deurbanization)

Answer 28

The counter-flow of urban residents leaving cities.

Question 29

Exurbs

Answer 29

The prosperous residential districts beyond the suburbs.

Question 30

Reurbanization

Answer 30

Suburbanites return to live in the city.

Question 31

Megacities

Answer 31

Cities with a population of more than 10 million people.

Question 32

Metacities

Answer 32

Also called hypercities, these are defined in two ways: continuous urban area 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.

Question 33

Megalopolis

Answer 33

A chain of connected cities.

Question 34

Conurbation

Answer 34

An uninterrupted urban area made of towns, suburbs, and cities. The cities cross state boundaries and exceed the definition of a metropolitan area, which is focused on a single urban center. Although legally the major cities remain separate, they and their suburbs become a single region that takes on some characteristics of a single massive city.

Question 35

World Cities (Global Cities)

Answer 35

Cities that exert influence far beyond their national boundaries.

Question 36

Urban Hierarchy

Answer 36

A ranking based on influence or population size.

Question 37

Nodal Cities

Answer 37

Command centers on a regional and occasionally national level.

Question 38

Urban System

Answer 38

An interdependent set of cities that interact on the regional, national, and global scale.

Question 39

Rank-Size Rule

Answer 39

A rule that describes one way in which the sizes of cities within a region may develop. It states that the nth largest city in any region will be 1/n the size of the largest city. That is, that the rank of a city within an urban system will predict the size of the city. For example, the third-largest city in a system that exhibits the rank-size distribution would be approximately one-third the size of the largest city.

Question 40

Higher-Order Services

Answer 40

Services that are usually expensive, need a large number of people to support, and are only occasionally utilized.

Question 41

Lower-Order Services

Answer 41

Services that are usually less expensive than higher-order services, require a small population to support, and are used on a daily or weekly basis.

Question 42

Primate City

Answer 42

The largest city in an urban system has primacy or is a primate city if it is more than twice as large as the next largest city.

Question 43

Gravity Model

Answer 43

A model that states that larger and closer places will have more interactions than places that are smaller and farther from each other.

Question 44

Central Place Theory

Answer 44

A theory proposed by Walter Christaller to explain the distribution of cities of different sizes across a region. The model used consumer behavior related to purchasing goods and services to explain the distribution of settlements.

Question 45

Central Place

Answer 45

A location where people go to receive goods and services.

Question 46

Market Area

Answer 46

A zone that contains people who will purchase goods or services. It typically surrounds central places.

Question 47

Hexagonal Hinterlands

Answer 47

Walter Christaller chose to depict market areas as hexagonal hinterlands because this shape was a compromise between a square, in which people living in the corners would be farther from the central place, and a circle, in which there would be overlapping areas of service.

Question 48

Threshold

Answer 48

The size of population necessary for any particular service to exist and remain profitable.

Question 49

Range

Answer 49

The distance people will travel to obtain specific goods or services.