| Question |
Answer |
| Action space | The geographical area that contains the space an individual interacts with on a daily basis. |
| Beaux arts | This movement within city planning and urban design that stressed the marriage of older, classical forms with newer, industrial ones. Common characteristics of this period include wide thoroughfares, spacious parks, and civic monuments. |
| Central business district | Downtown or Nucleus of a city where retail stores, offices and cultural activites are concentrated; high building densities; transporation systems converge. |
| Central place theory | A theory formulated by Walter Christaller in the early 1900's that explains the size and distribution of cities in terms of a competitive supply of goods and services to dispersed populations |
| City Beautiful movement | Movement in environmental design from the beaux arts school. Architects strolve to impart order on hectic, industrial centers by creating urban spaces conveying a sense of morality and civic pride, which many feared was absent from the industrial world. |
| Colonial city | Cities established by colonizin empires ad administrative centers. Often they were established on already existing native cities, completely overtaking their infrastructures. |
| Concentric zone model | Model that describes urban environments as a series of rings of distinct land uses radiating out from a central core, or central business district. |
| Edge city | Cities that are located on the outskirts of larger cities and serve many of the same functions of urban areas, but in a sprawling, decentralized suburban environment. |
| European cities | Cities in Europe that were mostly developed during the Medieval Period and that retain many of the same characteristics such as dence develop. w/ narrow buildings; winding streets; ornate church at city center; high walls outside city 4 defense. |
| Exurbanite | Person who has left the inner city and moved to outlying suburbs or rural areas. |
| Feudal city | Cities arose during Middles Ages, represent stagnation in urban growth. Dependant relationship between wealthy landowners and landworking peasants. Few other economic opports. |
| Gateway city | Cities that, because of the geographic location, act as ports of entry and distribution centers for large geographic areas. |
| Gentrification | Trend of middle- and upper-income Americans moving into city centers and rehabilitating much of the architecture but also replacing low-income populations, and changing the social character of certain neighborhoods. |
| Ghettoization | A process occurring in many inner cities in which they become dilapidated centers of poverty, as affluent whites move out to the suburbs and immigrants and people of color vie for scarce jobs and resources. |
| Hinterland | The market area surrounding an urban center, which that urban center serves. |
| Industrial Revolution | Period characterized by the rapid social and economic changes in manufacturing and agriculture that occurred in England during the late 1700's and rapidly diffused to other parts of the developed world. |
| Inner city decay | Those parts of large urban areas that lose significant portions of their poulations due to change in industry or migration to suburbs. Therefore, the inner city loses its tax base and becomes a center of poverty. |
| Islamic cities | Cities in Muslim countries where their structure is due to religious beliefs. Ex. :mosques at center, walls guarding city, open-air markets, courtyards, dead-end streets limiting walking in residential areas. |
| Latin American cities | Structure due to colonialism, rapid rise of industrialization and population. Demonstrate destinctive sectors of industrail or residential dev. radiating out from the central business district, where most industrial and financial activity occurs. |
| Medieval cities | Developed in Europe during Medieval Period which contain features like; extreme density of development w/ narrow buildings and winding streets, ornate church at city center, high walls surrounding the city center for defense against attack. |
| Megalopolis | Several, metropolitan areas that were originally separate but that have joined together to form a large, sprawling urban complex. |
| Metropolitan area | Within US, an urban area consisting of one or more whole county units, usually containing several urbanized areas, or suburbs, that all act together as a coherent economic whole. |
| Modern architecture | Point of view, wherein cities and buildings are thought to act like well-oiled machines, with little energy spent on frivolous details or ornate designs. Efficient, geometrical structures of concrete and glass dominated urban forms for 1/2 centry. |
| Multiple nuclei model | Type of urban form wherein cities have numerous centers of business and cultural activity instead of one central place. |
| Node | Geographical centers of activity. A large city, such as Los Angeles, has numerous nodes. |
| Postmodern Architecture | Uses older, historical styles and a sense of lightheartedness and eclecticism. Combine pleasant-looking forms and playful colors to convey new ideas and create more people-friendly spaces than the modernist. |
| Primate city | A country's leading city, with a population that is disproportionately greater than other urban areas within the same country. |
| Rank-size rule | Rule stating the population of any given town should be inversely proportional to its rank in the country's hierarchy when the distribution of cities according to their sizes follows a certain pattern. |
| Sector model | A model or urban land use that places the central business district in the middle with wedge-shaped sectors radiating outwards fromt he center along transportation corridors. |
| Segregation | Results from suburbanization when affluent individuals leave city center for homogenous suburban neighborhoods. This process isolates those who can't afford relocating and must remain in certain pockets of the central city. |
| Squatter settlements | Residential developments characterized by extreme poverty that usually exist on land just outside of cities that is neither owned nor rented by its occupants. |
| Suburb | Residential communities, located outside of city centers, that are usually relatively homogeous in terms of population. |
| Urban growth boundary | Geographical boundaries placed around a city to limit suburban growth within a city. |
| Urban morphology | The physical form of a city or urban region. |
| Urban revitalization | Process occurring in some urban areas experiencing inner city decal involving construction of new shopping districts, entertainment venues, cultural attractions to entice young urban professionals back to cities for accessible nightlife and culture. |
| Urban sprawl | The process of expansive suburban development over large areas spreading out from a city, in which the automobile provides the primary source of transporation. |
| World City | Centers of economic, culture, and political activity that are strongly interconnected and together control the global systems of finance and commerce. |
| Megacities | Cities, mostly characteristics of the developing world, where high population growth and migration have caused them to explode in population since WWII. They are plagued by chaotic and unplanned growth, terrible pollution, and widespread poverty. |
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