Urban Geography Terms

1. Urban Geography Terms 2007

2. annexation • Legally adding land area to a city in the US

3. barridas

4. Basic industries • Industries that sell their products or services primarily to consumers outside the settlement • As opposed to non-basic industries, industries that sell their products or services primarily to consumers within the city

5. Bid rent theory • a geographical theory that refers to how the price and demand on land changes as the distance towards the CBD (Central Business District) increases.

6. blockbusting • A process by which real estate agents convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices because of the fear that black families will soon move into the neighborhood

7. Census tract • An area delineated by the US Bureau of the Census for which statistics are published; in urbanized areas, census tracts correspond roughly to neighborhoods

8. Central business district • The area of the city where retail and office activities are clustered

9. Central place • A market center for the exchange of services by people attracted from the surrounding area

10. Central place theory • The 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

11. centrality • The strength of an urban center in its capacity to attract producers and consumers to its facilities; a city’s reach into the surrounding region

12. Walter Christaller • German, laid the groundwork for the Central Place Theory

13. Colonial city • A city that was deliberately established or developed as an administrative or commercial center by colonial or imperial powers

14. commercialization

15. Commuter zone

16. Concentric zone model • A model of the American central city that suggests the existence of five concentric land use rings arranged around a common center

17. conurbation • General term used to identify large, multimetropolitan complexes formed by the coalescence of two or more major urban areas • Megalopolis

18. Counter urbanization • Net migration from urban to rural areas in more developed countries

19. decentralization • To distribute the administrative functions or powers of (a central authority) among several local authorities

20. deindustrialization • a relative decline in industrial employment

21. Economic base • A communities collection of basic industries

22. Edge city • A large node of office and retail activities on the edge of an urban area

23. Employment structure • The number of people in a region employed in basic and nonbasic jobs • Basic: Industries that sell their products or services primarily to consumers outside the settlement • Non basic: industries that sell their products or services primarily to consumers within the city

24. entrepot • A place, usually a port city where goods are imported, stored, and transshipped; a break of bulk point

25. Ethnic neighborhood • a neighborhood, district, or suburb which retains some cultural distinction from a larger, surrounding area

26. favela • A shantytown or slum, especially in Brazil

27. Festival landscape

28. filtering

29. Gateway city • A city that serves as a link between one country or region and others due to its physical situation

30. gentrification • The rehabilitation of deteriorated, often abandoned housing of low-income inner city residents

31. ghetto • An urban region marked by particular ethnic, racial, religious and economic properties • Usually but not always a low income area

32. Gravity model • A mathematical prediction of the interaction of places, relative to population size and the distance between them

33. greenbelt • A ring of land maintained as parks, agriculture, or other types of open space to limit the sprawl of an urban area

34. High-tech corridor • Areas along or near major transportation arteries that are devoted to research, development and sale of high technology products • Silicon Valley, US

35. hinterland • The sphere of economic influence of a town or city • ‘country behind’

36. Hydraulic civilization • any culture having an agricultural system that is dependent upon large-scale government-managed waterworks

37. Indigenous city

38. In-filling

39. Informal sector • Economic activities that take place beyond official record, not subject to formalized systems of regulation

40. infrastructure • The underlying framework of services and amenities needed to facilitate productive activity

41. Invasion and succession • A process of neighborhood change whereby one social or ethnic group succeeds another

42. Lateral commuting • Suburb to suburb commuting

43. Market area • The area surrounding a central place, from which people are attracted to use the place’s goods and services • hinterland

44. Medieval cities

45. megacities • A very large city characterized by both primacy and high centrality within its national economy

46. MSA • Metropolitan statistical area • In the US a central city of at least 50,000 people, the county in which the city is located, and adjacent counties

47. Multiple nuclei model • A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a collection of nodes of activities

48. Multiplier effect • Expansion of economic activity caused by the growth or introduction of another activity • New basic industry job will create jobs directly or indirectly in the non basic sector

49. neighborhood

50. Office park