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Vocab: North America
Term | Definition |
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Borderland | General term for a linear zone that parallels a political boundary. The most dynamic of these areas, such as those lining the U.S.-Mexico border, are marked by significant cultural and economic interaction across the boundary that separates them. |
Physiographic regions | A region within which there prevails substantial natural-landscape homogeneity, expressed by a certain degree of uniformity in surface relief, climate, vegetation, and soils. |
Rain shadow effect | The relative dryness in areas downwind of mountain ranges resulting from orographic precipitation, wherein moist air masses are forced to deposit most of their water content as they cross the highlands. (Great Plains) |
Fossil fuel | The energy resources of coal, natural gas, and petroleum (oil), so named collectively because they were formed by the geologic compression and transformation of tiny plant and animal organisms. |
American Manufacturing Belt | North America's near-rectangular core area, whose corners are Boston, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Baltimore. |
Outer city | The non-central-city portion of the American metropolis. |
Deindustrialization | The process by which companies relocate manufacturing jobs to other regions or countries with cheaper labor, leaving the newly-deindustrialization region to convert to a service economy. |
Gentrification | The upgrading of an older residential area through private reinvestment, usually in the downtown area of a central city. |
Sunbelt | The popular name given to the southern tier of the United States, which is anchored by the mega-States of California, Texas, and Florida. |
Melting Pot | Traditional characterization of American society as a blend of numerous immigrant ethnic groups that over time were assimilated into a signal societal mainstream. |
First Nations | Name given to Canada's indigenous people of American descent, whose U.S. counterparts are called Native Americans. |
Devolution | The process whereby regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government. (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland governed themselves while staying part of the U.K.) |
Central Business District (CBD) | The downtown heart of a central city; marked by high land values, a concentration of business and commerce, and the clustering of the tallest buildings. |
Technopole | A planned techno-industrial complex (such as California's Silicon Valley) that innovates, promotes, and manufactures the products of the postindustrial information economy. |
World-city | A large city with particular significant international (economic) linkages that also has a high ranking in the global urban system. |