Population, Urbanization, and Environment

Question 1

Demography

Answer 1

Study of human population; analyzes size and composition of population and how and why people move from place to place

Question 2

Fertility

Answer 2

Incidence of childbearing in country’s population; demographers describe using crude birth rate

Question 3

Crude birth rate

Answer 3

of births given in year for every 1,000 people in population

Question 4

Mortality

Answer 4

Incidence of death in country’s population; demographers measure using both crude death rate and infant mortality rate

Question 5

Crude death rate

Answer 5

of deaths in given year for every 1,000 people in population

Question 6

Infant mortality rate

Answer 6

of deaths among infants under one year of age for each 1,000 live births in given year

Question 7

Life expectancy

Answer 7

Average life span of country’s population

Question 8

Through most of human history, families had many children because…

Answer 8

Children were a needed source of labor, birth control was unreliable and many children born didn’t survive to adulthood

Question 9

Basic idea behind demographic transition theory

Answer 9

Population patterns reflect society’s level of technological development

Question 10

Zero population growth refers to level of reproduction that…

Answer 10

Maintains population at steady state

Question 11

Urbanization has led to…

Answer 11

Expansion of suburbs, development of vast metropolitan regions, and development of megalopolis

Question 12

What is study of interaction of living organisms and natural environment?

Answer 12

Ecology

Question 13

Migration

Answer 13

Movement of people into and out of specified territory

Question 14

Age-sex pyramid

Answer 14

Graphic representation of age and sex of population; demographers use to show composition of population graphically and to project population trends

Question 15

Malthusian theory

Answer 15

-Prediction was flawed.
-first, By 1850, European birth rate began to drop, partly because children were becoming economic liability rather than asset and partly because people began using artificial birth control.
Second, Malthus underestimated human ingenuity: modern drip-irrigation techniques, advanced fertilizers and effective pesticides, increased farm production and saved vital resources far more than could have imagined
-has been criticized for ignoring role of social inequality in world abundance and famine.
-still offers important lesson: habitable land, clean water and fresh air are limited resources and greater economic productivity has taken heavy toll on natural environment . In addition, medical advances have lowered death rates, pushing up world population.
-Common sense tells us that no level of population growth can go on forever. People everywhere must become aware of the dangers of population increase
-historically, world population grew slowly, as high birth rates were offset by high death rates
-in late 1700s, Thomas Robert Malthus warned that growth would outpace food growth, resulting in social calamity

Question 16

Demographic transition theory

Answer 16

• Thesis that links population patterns to society’s level of technological development; claims that technological advances slow population increase
• suggests that key to population control lies in technology; instead of runaway population increase feared by Malthus, it sees technology slowing growth and spreading material plenty
• currently, world is gaining 86.6 million people each year, with 98% of this increase taking place in poor countries. World population is expected to reach about 9.55 billion by 2050
• linked to modernization theory, one approach to global development; modernization theorists are optimistic that poor counties will solve their population problems as they industrialize, but notably dependency critics, strongly disagree. Unless there’s redistribution of global resources, they maintain, our planet will become increasingly divided into industrialized p “haves”, enjoying low population growth, and no industrialized “have-nots”, struggling in vain to feed more and more people

Question 17

Zero population growth

Answer 17

Rate of reproduction that maintains population at steady level.

Question 18

Urbanization

Answer 18

• Concentration of population into cities
• in both Europe and US, early sociologists presented mixed view of urban living; rapid urbanization troubled Tonnies, and Wirth saw personal ties and traditional morality, lost in anonymous rush of city. Durkheim and Park emphasized urbanism’s positive face, pointing to more personal freedom and greater personal choice
• one problem with all these views is that they paint urbanism in broad strokes that overlook effects of class, race and gender. There are many kinds of urbanites-rich and poor, black and white, Anglo and Latino, women and men-all leading distinctive lives.
• as the Thinking About Diversity box explains, share of minorities in largest US cities increased sharply since 1990. We see social diversity most clearly in cities where various categories of people are large enough to form distinct, visible communities
• came to North America with European colonists
• by 1850, hundreds of new cities had been founded from coast to coast

Question 19

Suburbs

Answer 19

Urban areas beyond political boundaries of city

Question 20

Metropolis

Answer 20

Large city that socially and economically dominates urban area

Question 21

Megalopolis

Answer 21

Vast urban region containing # of cities and surrounding suburbs

Question 22

Gameinschaft

Answer 22

Type of social organization in which people are closely tied by kinship and tradition; typical of rural village and joins people in what amounts to primary group

Question 23

Gesellschaft

Answer 23

Type of social organization in which people come together only on basis of individual self-interest; typical of modern city and describes individuals motivated by own needs rather than by desire to help improve well-being of community

Question 24

Sex ratio

Answer 24

of males for every 100 females in nations population

Question 25

Urban ecology

Answer 25

Study of link between physical and social dimensions of cities

Question 26

Social area analysis

Answer 26

Investigates what people in particular neighborhoods have in common

Question 27

Urban ecology

Answer 27

• Change in distribution of urban residents or change in use of land
• the fact that many US cities are in crisis, with widespread poverty, high crime and barely functioning schools, seems to favor political economy model over urban ecology approach. But one criticism applies to both: both focus on US cities during limited period of history . Most of what we know about industrial cities doesn’t apply to preindustrial US towns in own past or to rapidly growing cities in many poor nations today.
• unlikely that any single model of cities can account for full range of urban diversity

Question 28

Natural areas

Answer 28

People and their related activities that have unplanned quality–which arise when people freely choose to congregate in locations where their needs are fulfilled

• constantly dissolved, formed and relocated
• these changes in land use involve urban ecological processes

Question 29

Neighborhoods

Answer 29

• Areas that may be either planned or unplanned-usually occur in family residence areas, where parents rear their children and where people experience daily personal contact with others in area
• constantly dissolved, formed and relocated
• these changes in land use involve urban ecological processes

Question 30

Centralization

Answer 30

Tendency of people to cluster at some pivotal point in city

Question 31

Decentralization

Answer 31

Tendency to move toward periphery of city

Question 32

Segregation

Answer 32

Concentration of certain types of people or land use within particular area

Question 33

Invasion-succession

Answer 33

• “Invade”-to move into area

- “succeed-when new group replaces dominant group in neighborhood or entire city

Question 34

Natural environment

Answer 34

Earths surface and atmosphere, including living organisms and natural environment

Question 35

Ecosystem

Answer 35

System composed of interaction of all living organisms and natural environment

Question 36

Environmental deficit

Answer 36

• Profound long-term harm to natural environment caused by humanity’s focus on short-term material affluence
• societies increase by focusing on short-term benefits and ignoring long-term consequences brought on by way of life
• more complex society’s technology, greater its capacity to alter natural environment
• 54% of solid waste we throw away ends of in land-fills, which are filling up and can pollute groundwater
• supply of clean water is already low in some parts of world. Industrial technology has caused decline in air quality
• rain forests help remove carbon dioxide from atmosphere and are home to large share of planets living species. Under pressure from development, worlds rain forests are now half original size and shrinking about 1% annually

Question 37

Hydroponic cycle

Answer 37

Earth naturally recycles water and refreshes land

Question 38

Acid rain

Answer 38

Falling precipitation made my acidic air pollution

Question 39

Rain forests

Answer 39

Regions of dense forestation, most of which circle globe close to equator

Question 40

Global warming

Answer 40

Rise in earths average temperature due to increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in atmosphere

Question 41

Environmental racism

Answer 41

Patterns of development that expose poor people, especially minorities, to environmental hazards

Question 42

Ecologically sustainable culture

Answer 42

Way of life that meets needs of present generation without threatening environmental legacy of future generations

Question 43

Net migration rate

Answer 43

• Difference between in-migration rate and out-migration rate
• in general, rich nations grow almost as much from immigration as from natural increase

Question 44

First urban revolution

Answer 44

• Began with appearance of cities about 10,000 years ago
• by about 2,000 years ago, cities emerged in most regions of world except North America
• preindustrial cities have low-rise buildings; narrow, winding streets; and personal social ties

Question 45

Second urban revolution

Answer 45

• began about 1750, as Industrial Revolution propelled rapid urban growth in Europe
• cities’ physical form changed as planners created wide, regular streets to facilitate commerce
• emphasis on business and increasing size of cities, made urban life more impersonal

Question 46

Ferdinand Tonnies

Answer 46

Built analysis on concepts of Gameinschaft and Gesellshaft

Question 47

Emile Durkheim

Answer 47

Agreed with much of Tonnies’s thinking but claimed that urbanites don’t lack social bonds; basis of social solidarity simply differs in 2 settings: mechanical & organic solidarity

Question 48

Mechanical solidarity

Answer 48

Social bonds based on common sentiments and shred moral values. This type of social solidarity is typical of traditional, rural life

Question 49

Organic solidarity

Answer 49

Social bonds based on specialization and interdependence; typical of modern, urban life

Question 50

George Simmel

Answer 50

Claimed that overstimulation of city life produced blaze attitude in urbanities

Question 51

Robert Park

Answer 51

At University of Chicago & claimed that cities permit greater social freedom

Question 52

Louis Wirth

Answer 52

Saw large, dense, heterogenous populations creating impersonal and self-interested, though tolerant, way of life

Question 53

Karl Marx

Answer 53

Analysis of conflict in city is echoed in urban political economy model

Question 54

Third urban revolution

Answer 54

• Now occurring in poor countries
• almost all global population increase is taking place in cities; of the 28 cities with population greater than 10 million, 19 are in low-or middle-income nations

Question 55

Environment

Answer 55

State of it is social issue because it reflects how human beings organize social life

Question 56

Logic-of-growth thesis

Answer 56

Supports economic development, claiming that people can solve environmental problems as they arise

Question 57

Limits-to-growth thesis

Answer 57

States that societies must curb development to prevent eventual environmental collapse