Summer Course - Urban Flashcards
(29 cards)
CBD
The downtown of a central city, marked by high land values, a concentration of business and commerce, and the clustering of the tallest buildings; the central nucleus of commercial land use in a city.
Central Place Theory
A theory that seeks to explain the relative size and spacing of towns and cities as a function of people’s shopping behavior.
Christaller, Walter
German geographer who in the early 1930s first formulated central-place theory as a series of models designed to explain the spatial distribution of urban centers. Crucial to his theory is the fact that different goods and services vary both in threshold and in range.
Counterurbanization
The net loss of population from cities to smaller towns and rural areas.
Favela
The Brazilian equivalent of a shanty town, which are generally found on the edge of the city. They have electricity, but often not formally. They are constructed from a variety of materials, ranging from bricks to garbage. The most infamous ones are located in Rio de Janeiro.
Gentrification
the invasion of older, centrally located working-class neighborhoods by higher-income households seeking the character and convenience of less expensive and well-located residences.
Hinterland
The sphere of economic influence of a town or city.
Infrastructure
(Ofixed social capital) the underlying framework of services and amenities needed to facilitate productive activity.
Megacities
A very large city characterized by both primacy and high centrality within its national economy.
Megalopolis/Conurbation
A large, sprawled urban complex with contained open, nonurban land, created through the spread and joining of separate metropolitan areas; When capitalized, the name applied to the continuous functionally urban area of coastal northeastern United States from Maine to Virginia.
Primate City
A city of large size and dominant power within a country; a country’s largest city, ranking atop the urban hierarchy, most expressive of the national culture, and usually (but not always) the capital city as well.
Rank-Size Rule
In a model urban hierarchy, the idea that the population of a city or town will be inversely proportional to its rank in the hierarchy.
Redlining
A practice by banks and mortgage companies of not providing loans for property or improvement of property.
Shantytown
Unplanned slum development on the margins of cities, domesticated by crude dwellings and shelters mad mostly of scrap wood, iron, and even pieces of cardboard.
Slum
A district of a city or town which is usually inhabited by the very poor or socially disadvantaged;
can be found in large cities around the world; now interchangeable with ghetto, however, a ghetto refers
to a neighborhood based on shared ethnicity; different from favelas or shantytowns in that they consist of
permanent housing rather than less-durable shacks of cardboard or corrugated iron or newspaper.
Suburbanization
Movement of upper and middle-class people from urban core areas to the surrounding outskirts to escape pollution as well as deteriorating social conditions. In North America, the process began
in the early nineteenth century and became a mass phenomenon by the second half of the twentieth century.
Threshold
In central-place theory, the size of the population required to make provision of services economically feasible.
Range
In central place theory, the average maximum distance people will travel to purchase a good or service.
Urban Sprawl
Unrestricted growth in many American urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning.
World City
Cities that have influence globally- financial centers, stock markets, multinational corporation headquarters.
Urban Hearths
Areas where cities first developed- usually near river valleys with fertile soil and seasonal flooding which allowed for agricultural surpluses.
Brownfield
Former Industrial locations that have pollution and contamination issues.
Gated Communities
Restricted neighborhoods or subdivisions, often literally fenced in, where entry is limited to residents and their guests.
New Urbanism
Goal is to limit sprawl, increase affordability of housing, and create walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.
