unit 6: economic geography Flashcards
Acid Rain
acidified rainwater severely damages plant and animal life, caused by oxides of sulfur and nitrogen that are released into the atmosphere when coal, oil, and natural gases are burned in manufacturing zones
Agglomeration
manufacturing plants/businesses that benefit from close proximity because they share skilled-labor pools and tech and financial amenities
Aquifers
subterranean, porous, water-holding rocks that provide millions of wells with steady flows of water
basic industries
sell outside the local region to bring money into the region
Biodiversity
biological diversity, total variety of plant and animal species in a particular place
BPO
business product outsourcing, a US co. pays a co. abroad to complete a project (US Co. pays Indian Co. to program something)
Break-of-bulk point
location along a transport route where goods must be transferred from one carrier to another
Climate Change
change in global or regional climate patterns, temperatures are mostly rising (global warming)
Commodity chain
series of links connecting the many places of production and distribution and resulting in a commodity that is then exchanged on the world market
Commodity chain
series of links connecting the places of production and distribution that results in a commodity that is exchanged on the world market
Containerization
a method of shipping freight in relatively uniform, sealed, movable containers whose contents do not have to be unloaded at each point of transfer
Deforestation
the clearing and destruction of forests to harvest wood for consumption, clear land for agricultural uses, and make way for expanding settlement frontiers
Deindustrialization
companies move industrial jobs to other regions with cheaper labor, region has to switch to a service economy
Dependency theory
critiques the modernization model, based on the idea that certain types of political and economic relations (especially colonialism) between countries of the world have created arrangements that both control and limit the extent to which regions can develop
Dollarization
when a poorer country ties the value of its currency to that of a wealthier country, or when it abandons its currency and adopts the wealthier country’s currency as its own
Economies of scale
increasing production of a good so that the average cost of the good declines
EPZs2
- export processing zones, zones established by many countries in the periphery/semiperiphery where they offer favorable tax, regulatory, and trade arrangements to attract foreign trade and investment
- most in US, China, Pakistan, Philippines
Externalities
transaction cost savings collected from locating within an agglomeration, effects that are external to any one firm, but internal to the cluster as a whole
Flexible production
components of goods are made in different places around the globe and then brought together as needed to meet consumer demand
footloose industries
not tied to a particular location, mostly in quaternary sector because very involved with technology (credit card company doesn’t interact face-face)
Fordist production and limitations
- form of mass production in which each worker is assigned one specific task to perform repeatedly, efficient, saves costs, named after Henry Ford
- Limitations: uses lots of space, many bad parts could be put into cars that end up going to waste, not as good quality
formal economy
The “legal” economy that governments tax and monitor
Global division of labor
corporations can draw from labor markets around the world, made possible by the compression of time and space through new communication/transportation tech
Global sourcing
practice of sourcing from the global market for goods and services across geopolitical boundaries
GNP
gross national product, the total value of all goods and services produced by a country’s economy in a given year (all goods produced by corporations/people of a country-inside or outside the country)
Growth pole
an urban center with certain attributes that, if augmented by a measure of investment support, will stimulate regional economic development in its hinterland
High-technology corridor
area along or near major transportation arteries that are devoted to research, development and sale of high tech products, developed because of the networking and synergistic advantages of concentrating high tech enterprises in close proximity to one another (Silicon Valley)
Hinterland
area of economic production that is located inland and is connected to the world by a port
horizontal integration
buying other companies at the same stage of the production processes, allows production of wider range of products. (Media companies own tv, radio, web sites so they can reduce to cost by spreading it among many markets)
industry life cycle3
- infancy (led by start-up companies located where the new tech was invented),
- maturity (competition increases, production becomes mass-produced, industry consolidates to few successful large firms, widespread markets, production decentralized)
- decline (tech is eclipsed by something new, costs decrease to stay competitive, less efficient plants are closed)