Unit 6: Urban Land Use and Services Flashcards
Basic Industries
Industries that sell their products or services primarily to consumers outside of the settlement.
Business services
Services that primarily meet the needs of other business - office supply stores are a good example.
Central Business District (CBD)
The area of a city where retail and office activities are clustered; a majority of commercial and financial activities at the highest order agglomerate here.
Central Place
A market center for the exchange of services by people attracted from the surrounding areas.
Central Place Theory
A theory that explains the distribution of services, based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services; larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements and provide services for a larger number of people who are willing to travel farther.
City-state
A sovereign state comprising a city and its hinterland; a state the size of a city.
Clustered rural settlement
A rural settlement pattern in which houses and farm buildings of each family are situated close to each other and fields surround the settlement.
Consumer services
Businesses, including retail and personal services, that provide their services primarily to individuals.
Dispersed rural settlement
A rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms and houses in which families are far apart from one another.
Economic base
A community’s collection of basic and non-basic industries.
Enclosure movement
The process of consolidating small landholdings into larger farms in England during the 18th C.
Employment structure
How the workforce is divided up between three main employment sectors - primary, secondary, tertiary.
Gravity Model
A model that holds that the potential use of a service at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel to reach the service.
Informal Sectors
Areas of the economy that operate outside of the control of governance. Sometimes called grey economy.
Hinterland (Market Area)
The area surrounding a central place, from which people are attracted to use the place’s goods and services.
Nonbasic industries
Industries that sell their products primarily to consumers in the community, support basic industries.
Office park
An area where a number of office buildings are built together on the landscape.
Personal services
Services that provide for the well-being and personal improvement of individual consumers.
Primate City
The largest settlement in a country; has at least twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement and a disproportionate influence on economic, political, and/or cultural activities in a country.
Primate City Rule
A pattern of settlements in a country such that the largest settlement has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement and influence over economic, political, and/or cultural activities in a country.
Public services
Services offered by the government to provide security and protection for citizens and businesses.
Range
The maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service.
Rank-size rule
A pattern of settlements in a country, such that the nth largest settlement is 1/n of the population of the largest settlement.
Service
An activity that fulfills a human want or need and returns money to those who provide it.
Settlement
A permanent collection of buildings and inhabitants.
Threshold
The minimum number of people needed to support the service.
Transportation and Information Services
Services that diffuse and distribute services.
Underemployment
The under-use of a worker due to a job that does not use the worker’s skills, is part time, or leaves the worker idle.
Annexation (Municipal)
The act of acquiring territory by conquest or occupation. Applied at the urban level, the process where a municipality expands its boundaries into adjacent areas not already incorporated into the municipality.
Barriadas
Squatter settlements found in the periphery of Latin American cities.
Bid-rent Theory
Theory that holds that there is an inverse relationship between prices and real estate demand and the distance from the CBD.
Blockbusting
Practice where real estate agents convince white homeowners to sell their homes at low prices for fear of black or minority families that are soon moving into the neighborhood.
CBD (Central Business District)
The heart of a central city marked by high land values, a concentration of high order businesses, commerce, and services, and the clustering of the tallest buildings (high rises/skyscrapers)
Census tract
Small subdivisions containing between 2500 and 8000 persons as areas of relatively uniform population characteristics, economic status, and living conditions as delineated by the US Census Bureau.
Centrality
The functional dominance of cities within an urban system.
Centralization
The process by which activities are organized around a central city.
City
A conglomeration of people and buildings clustered together to serve as a center of politics, culture, and economics.
Cityscape
The unique application of landscapes to an urban area; includes the skyscrapers and highrises typical of a city’s skyline.
Colonial city
City established by colonizing empires as administrative centers. Often established on top of already existing native cities, completely overtaking their infrastructures.
Commercialization
Marketing of a product; The transformation of a city into an area attractive to residents and tourists alike in terms of economic activity.
Commuter Zone
The outer most ring of the Concentric Zone Model that represents people who choose to live in residential suburbs and take a daily commute to the CBD for work.
Concentric Zone Model
Urban model that holds that patterns of settlement form rings of various activities that surround a central city.
Council of government
A cooperative agency consisting of representatives of local governments in metropolitan areas in the US.
Counterurbanization
Net migration from urban to rural areas in MDCs.
Decentralization
The social process in which population and industry moves from urban centers to outlying districts.
Density gradient
The change in density in an urban area from the center to the periphery. More dense in the urban center and less dense on the periphery.
Disamenity sector
The poorest parts of an urban environment that are, in extreme cases, not connected to city services and infrastructure and are controlled by gangs or drug lords.
Early city locations
River valleys - Mesopotamia (Ur), Egypt, China
Edge city
A large node of office and retail activities on the edge of an urban area. Typical of more modern forms of urbanization.
Emerging cities
City currently without much population but increasing in size at a fast rate. Chicago from 1800 to 1850. Houston from 1990 to 2010.
Favela
The name given to a slum in a Brazilian city.
Female-based household
Households dominated by a woman either because of shifting economic roles of women or social norms of divorce and single-parenting (typical of MDCs).
Festival landscape
Areas designed in urban planning to serve as sites for concerts, festivals, and other forms of informal social interaction.
Filtering
A process of change in the use of a house, from single-family owner, to rental properties as wealthy families leave the area and less wealthy families move in. End of process would be total abandonment of property by owners.
Gateway city
Cities that act as ports of entry and distribution centers for large geographic areas because of their geographic location. (Ellis Island, NY City; St. Louis and westward expansion).
Gentrification
The pattern of middle- and upper-income Americans moving into city centers and rehabilitating architecture, but also displacing low-income, minority populations resulting in a change to the social character of neighborhoods.
Ghetto
Originally an area set aside for the geographic isolation of Jewish populations. Used today to describe poor, densely populated urban areas composed of minority populations in America.
Ghettoization
Process of inner city dilapidation and concentration of poverty as affluent whites move to suburbs and minorities vie for scarce jobs and resources.
Global city
Megacities that emphasize global impact as centers of economic, political, and social power.
Great cities
A city with a population of more than 1 million.
Greenbelt
A ring of land maintained as parks, agricultural, or other types of open space to limit the sprawl of an urban area.
Hydraulic civilization
Cultures that have agricultural system that is dependent upon large-scale government-manged waterworks (sewage, piping, water treatment, etc.)
Indigenous city
A center of population, commerce, and culture that is native to a country.
In-filling
The use of vacant land and property within a built-up area for further construction or development.
Infrastructure
Basic facilities and services serving a country, city, or area, such as transportation, communication, power, schools, water systems, etc.
Inner city
Residential, urban neighborhoods that surround the CBD.
Invasion and succession
Process in urban ecology that states that new immigrants to a city move to and dominate or take over areas or neighborhoods occupied by older immigrant groups.
Lateral commuting
Commute between two suburbs rather than to the CBD.
Medieval cities
Cities that existed in European middle ages; dominated by church, palace, or castle as the central place.
Megacities
A recognized metropolitan area with a total population in excess of 10 million people.
Megalopolis (conurbation)
A large, sprawled urban complex with contained open, nonurban land, created through the spreading and joining of separate metropolitan areas. (Boswash).
Metropolitan statistical area (MSA)
A central city of at least 50,000, the county in which the city is located, and adjacent counties meeting a number of functional connections to the central city (like economic, transit, etc.)
Micropolitan statistical area
A central city of at least 10,000 but below 50,000, the county in which the city is located, and adjacent counties meeting a number of functional connections to the central city (like economic, transit, etc.).
Multiple Nuclei Model
Urban model that holds that the structures of a city and its social groups are arranged around a collection of nodes of activity.
Neighborhood
A section of residential areas that can be distinguished from one another.
Peak land value intersection
The region within a settlement with the greatest land value and commerce.
Peripheral model
North American urban model that holds that the urban area consisting of an inner city is surrounded by residential and business areas tied together by a beltway or ring road.
Planned communities
Communities and neighborhoods that are planned from the beginning of the construction process.
Postindustrial city
A city in which economic transition has occurred from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy.
Postmodern urban landscape
Attempts to reconnect people to place through architecture, including the preservation of historical buildings, the re-emergence of mixed land uses, and connections among developments.
Public housing
Housing owned by the government; in the US, rented to low-income residents where rents are set at 30% of the family’s income.
Racial steering
Real estate practices where agents guide prospective home buyers towards or away from certain neighborhoods based on their race.
Redlining
Process where banks draw lines on a map and refuse to provide mortgage or improvement loans within the boundary.
Restrictive covenants
Provisions in a property deed preventing sale to a person of a particular race or religion.
Rush (peak) hour
The four 15 minute periods in the morning and evening with the heaviest volumes of traffic.
Sector model
Urban model that states that the internal structure of a city in which social groups are arranged form sectors or wedges radiating out from the CBD.
Segregation
The separation or isolation of a race, class, or group within society.
Settlement forms (nucleated)
Compact, closely packed settlement.
Settlement forms (dispersed)
Much lower density of population with wide spacing of individual homesteads.
Settlement forms (elongated)
Linear patterns that are typical of settlements along rivers or streams with long lots behind homes.
Shopping mall
Business establishment consisting of a complex of shops of leading merchandisers in a centralized building.
Slum (shantytown)
A heavily populated urban area characterized by substandard housing and squalor.
Smart growth
Legislation and regulation that seeks to limit urban sprawl.
Social structure
Social organization based on establishment patterns of social interactions between groups.
Specialization
Separation of tasks within a system (urbanization allows for greater specialization in business).
Squatter settlement
An area within a city in a less developed country in which people illegally establish residence on land that they do not own or rent.
Street patterns (grid)
Streets arranged in grid patterns with perpendicular and parallel structures.
Street patterns (dendritic)
Fewer streets organized based on the amount of traffic each is intended to carry.
Suburb
Residential areas on the outskirts of a city or large town.
Suburbanization
Term describing the growth of areas on the outskirts of cities.
Symbolic landscape
Landscapes with significant meanings beyond what the area simply looks like. (Jerusalem is a holy site and holds symbolic meaning because of ties to religion).
Tenement
An apartment building, especially one meeting minimum standards of sanitation, safety or maintenance upkeep.
Town
An urban area that is smaller than a city.
Underclass
A group in society prevented from participating in material benefits of a MDC because of a variety of social and economic characteristics. A subset of the poor removed from the formal labor market and economic activity.
Urbanization
An increase in the percentage and number of people living in an urban settlement.
Urban growth rate
Analysis of the rate of growth of an urban area based on NIR and immigration patterns.
Urban function
Activities that give a place position on the urban hierarchy.
Urban hearth area
Same as “early cities.” Locations where urbanization first occurred.
Urban heat island
The idea that urban locations have warmer temperatures than surrounding rural areas because of the absorption of heat in concrete structures.
Urban hierarchy
A ranking of settlements according to their size and economic functions.
Urban hydrology
Study of water in urban areas including treatment (pollution) and distribution.
Urban morphology
The study of the physical forms and structure of urban places.
Urbanized population
Populations that live in urban areas.
Urban renewal
Process in which cities identify blighted inner-city neighborhoods, acquire the properties from private owners, relocate residents and businesses, clear the site, build new roads and utilities, and turn the land over to private developers.
Urban sprawl
The unrestricted growth in many urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with littler concern for urban planning.
World City
Most important centers of economic wealth and power in the urban hierarchy.
Zone in transition
Area of mixed commercial and residential land uses surrounding the CBD; mixture of growth, change, and decline.
Zoning Laws (ordinances)
Dividing an area into zones or sections reserved for different purposes such as residence and business and industry. Legal restrictions on land use that determine what type of buildings and economic activities are allowed to take place in certain areas. In the United States, these are typically created at the local level and differentiate residential, retail, and industrial land usage.
New Urbanism
Form of urban growth designed to limit sprawl through mixed-use development consisting of variable residential types for low, middle, and high income, walk-ability to commercial zones. (Eat, work, live, play).
