Cities and Urban Land Use Patterns and Processes Part 3 Flashcards
Sustainability
Using the earth’s resources while not causing permanent damage to the environment.
Smart Growth Policies
Policies designed by urban planners and policymakers to combat urban sprawl and create a new vision for cities that are more sustainable and equitable. Smart growth focuses on city planning and transportation systems of an urban region.
Greenbelts
Areas of undeveloped land around an urban area.
Slow-Growth Cities
Cities that adopt policies to slow the outward spread of urban areas and place limits on building permits in order to encourage a denser, more compact city.
New Urban Design
A group of developers in the 1990s created this set of strategies to put smart growth into action within communities. Some strategies of new urbanism include creating human-scale neighborhoods (designed for optimum human use), reclaiming neglected spaces, giving access to multiple modes of transportation, increasing affordable housing, and creating mixed-use neighborhoods.
Mixed-Use Neighborhoods
These neighborhoods have a mix of homes and businesses and are vibrant, livable, and walkable. Homes include a variety of sizes and price ranges to create a socially diverse community.
Urban Infill
The process of building up underused lands within a city.
Transit-Oriented Development (TOD)
This concept locates mixed-use residential and business communities near mass transit stops, resulting in a series of more compact communities which decreases the need for automobiles.
Livability
A set of principles that supports sustainable urban designs. Livable communities have affordable and equitable housing, access to employment and community services, multiple and accessible transportation modes, and social and civic engagement.
Quantitative Data
Information that can be counted, measured, or sequenced by numeric value.
Population Composition
In addition to showing where people live, this gives a description of people’s income, age, gender, ethnicity, race, family size, and other details.
Census Tracts
Contiguous geographic regions that function as the foundation of a census.
Census Block
In a densely populated urban area, these are often very small, consisting of a single block bounded by four streets. In suburban and rural areas, because of their lower population densities, a census block typically covers a larger area.
Qualitative Data
Data based primarily on surveys, field studies, photos, video, and interviews from people who provide personal perceptions and meaningful descriptions.
Redlining
The process by which banks refuse loans to those who want to purchase and improve properties in certain urban areas.
Racial Segregation
In housing, this occurs when people live in separate neighborhoods based on their ethnicity or race.
Blockbusting
When people of an ethnic group sold their homes upon learning that members of another ethnic group were moving into the neighborhood.
Ghettos
Areas of poverty occupied by a minority group as a result of discrimination.
Inclusionary Zoning
Practices that offer incentives for developers to set aside a percentage of housing for low-income renters or buyers.
Scattered Site
In this approach to alleviate the problems of public housing, the city or government provided rental assistance for individuals to disperse public housing throughout the area.
Urban Renewal
A policy that allowed governments to clear out the blighted inner-city slums, which usually displaced the residents to low-income government housing complexes, and built new development projects.
Eminent Domain
A legal concept that allows the government to claim private property from individuals, pay them for the property, and then use the land for the public good.
Gentrification
The process of converting an urban inner-city neighborhood from a mostly low-income, renter-occupied area to a predominately wealthier, owner-occupied area of a city.
Informal Settlements
Densely populated areas built without coordinated planning and without sufficient public services for electricity, water, and sewage.
Land Tenure
The legal protection of contracts to show ownership of the land or structures.
Zones of Abandonment
Areas of a city that have been deserted by their owners for either economic or environmental reasons.
Environmental Injustice (Environmental Racism)
The disproportionate exposure of minorities and the poor to pollution and its impacts, plus the unequal protection of their rights under the law.
Gated Communities
Walled or fenced neighborhoods with limited access and entry points.
Urban Canyons
Streets lined with tall buildings.
Urban Heat Island
An area of a city warmer than surrounding areas.
Urban Wildlife
Organisms that live in urban environments, such as rats, raccoons, and pigeons.
Rush Hour
A time during which the commuting periods in early morning and in late afternoon or early evening when many people travel to and from work. During this time, idling cars on roads increase, and concentrate air pollutants in the city.
Suburban Sprawl
A rapid spread of development outward form the inner city.
Ecological Footprint
The impact of human activity on the environment.
Brownfields
Visual reminders on the landscape of how the centers of cities have changed over time. They typically consist of dilapidated buildings and polluted or contaminated soils.
Urban Redevelopment
A process that involves renovating a site within a city by removing the existing landscape and rebuilding form the ground up.
