Terms & Definitions Flashcards
Differential Urbanisation
The theory that states that large, intermediate and small cities go through successive periods of fast and slow growth in a cycle of development.
Urbanisation Cycle
The primate city phase ➡️ the intermediate city phase ➡️ the small city phase.
Polarisation Reversal
Slowing growth in a primate city accompanied with a growth of intermediate sized centres near the primate city.
Urban Bias
The flow of public money being largely concentrated within towns and cities as government employees are predominantly urban dwellers.
Metacities
An urban agglomeration of over 20 million people.
Million Cities
Cities with 1million or more people residing there.
Megacities
A giant metropolis with a population of at least 7 million by the year 2000.
Hollowing out of the State
Globalisation has led to the supranational and local scales becoming more important loci of economic and political power than the nation-state.
Global Perspective
An acknowledgment of the importance of macro-scale structural forces in urban development, while recognising the reciprocal relationship between global and local forces.
Trigger Factors
Factors which contribute or initiate contemporary urban change.
E.g.
➡️ Demography; if a city is older or younger due to mortality or fertility rates.
➡️ Politics; a socialist city intended to bring national economic development etc…
➡️ Society; ideas towards birth control for instance can determine whether a city has a higher or lower rate of fertility.
➡️ Culture; if a culture is largely towards an idea of, for example materialism, then consumption plays a major role in lives of people.
➡️ The Environment; if there is more ocean pollution due to waste outputs, more coastal defences are put in place to reduce the damage to the other water ways causing the urban city to change.
Globalisation
A complex of relation economic, political, and cultural processes that have served to increase the interconnectedness of social life in the contemporary world.
Glocalisation
The process by which development in particular places are the outcome of both global and local forces.
Spatial Scale
The different levels at which global forces are operating at.
Demographic Transition
A general model describing the evolution of levels of fertility and mortality in a country over time.
Conventional Housing
Constructed through the medium of recognised formal institutions eg) banks and planning authorities, in accordance with legal practices and standards. Industrial production that uses wage labour, is capital intensive and uses sophisticated technologies.
Non-Conventional Housing
Does not comply with established procedures, is usually constructed outside of institutions and the formal banking industry, is in frequent contravention of existing legislation and is almost always unacceptable to prevailing middle class standards.
Squatter Settlements
The occupation of land without the permission of the owner or the erection/occupation of a building in contravention of existing legislation. Their status is strict legally which provides the government with justification if any action is required.
Possessor-occupier
The name given to households that live in shelters of which they are de facto not de jure owner occupiers. They could be illegally occupying the land on which they have built their house or through an illegal subdivision.
Slums
Legal permanent dwellings that have become substandard through age, neglect, subdivision. Develop due to inadequate maintenance from landlords, rental legislation or internal subdivision
Free-rent Tenants
Also known as sharers, they are permitted to occupy a dwelling with the owner or tenant. They are typically the children or employees of the owner. They are ‘disguised renters’ and make in-kind contributions through domestic work.
Security of Tenure
To develop into a recognised suburb there needs to be a high level of confidence that land will be retained and consolidate their dwelling. They are protected from involuntary removal.
Micro-finance
Often operate through NGOs this involves lending small amounts of capital that can be rotated once paid off.
Infiltration
Slower establishment of settlements by squatters that is not organised.
Pirate Subdivison
Where owners of peri-urban land illegally divide their land into buildings for buildings and sell them.
Slums of Hope
Future prospects are brighter than the present. Slum dwellers are optimistic for their future and this influences their current actions.
Slums of Despair
Slums are characterised as marginal and lock slum dwellers into a cycle of poverty where future prospects are bleak. Little actions is taken to change their existing circumstances.
Eviction
Forcible relocation of urban populations resulting in loss of main source of income and are faced with having to rebuild housing, community networks and livelihoods.
