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Chapter 1 Vocabulary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| 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. |
| Transition Zone | Area of spatial change where the peripheries of two adjacent realms or regions join; marked by a gradual shift (rather than a sharp break) in the characteristics that distinguish these neighboring geographic entities from one another. |
| Physiographic Region | Region within which there prevails substantial natural-landscape homogeneity, expressed by a certain degree of uniformity in surface relief, climate, vegetation, and soils. |
| Continentality | Variation of the continental effect on air temps. in the interior portions of the world's landmasses. Greater the distance from the moderating influence of an ocean, greater the extreme in summer and winter temps. Continental interiors tend to be dry — |
| Continentality Cont. | — when the distance from the oceanic moisture sources becomes considerable. |
| Rain Shadow Effect | 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. |
| Federation | Country adhering to a political framework wherein a central gov. represents the various subnational entities within a nation-state where they have common interests — defense, foreign affairs, etc. — yet allows these various entities to retain their own — |
| Federation Cont. | — identities and to have their own laws, policies, and customs in certain spheres. |
| Aquifer | Underground reservoir of water contained within a porous, water-bearing rock layer. |
| Fossil Fuel | 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. |
| Urban System | Hierarchical network or grouping of urban areas within a finite geographic area, such as a country. |
| American Manufacturing Belt | North America's near-rectangular core area, whose corners are Boston, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Baltimore. |
| Distribution Center | Centralized focus of economic activity specializing in the distribution of goods, situated as a major hub on its regional transportation network. Atlanta, Georgia, with its outstanding highway, rail, and air-freight connections to the surrounding — |
| Distribution Center Cont. | — southeastern U.S., is a classic example. |
| Intermodal Connections | Facilities or activities related to the transfer of goods in transit from one transportation mode to another. EX.: Loading containers from a ship directly onto a truck or railcar. |
| Outer City | Non-central-city portion of the American metropolis; no longer “sub” to the “urb”, this outer ring was transformed into a full-fledged city during the late 20th century. |
| Deindustrialization | Companies relocate manufacturing jobs to other regions or countries with cheaper labor, leaving the newly-deindustrialized region to convert to a service economy while struggling with the accompanying effects of increased unemployment and meeting the — |
| Deindustrialization Cont. | — retraining needs of its workforce. |
| Central Business District (CBD) | Downtown heart of a central city; marked by high land values, a concentration of business and commerce, and the clustering of the tallest buildings. |
| Information Economy | New, increasingly dominant, postindustrial economy that is maturing in the most highly advanced countries of North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. Here, traditional industry is being eclipsed by a higher-technology productive complex focused on — |
| Information Economy Cont. | — information-related activities. |
| Global Positioning System (GPS) | Orbiting-satellite-based navigation system that provides locational and time information, anywhere on or near the Earth’s surface where there is an unobstructed line of sight to 4 or more GPS satellites. |
| Gentrification | Upgrading of an older residential area through private reinvestment, usually in the downtown area of a central city. Frequently, this involves the displacement of established lower-income residents, who cannot afford the heightened costs of living, and — |
| Gentrification Cont. | — conflicts are not uncommon as such neighborhood change takes place. |
| Neighborhood Effect | Impact of one’s neighborhood on an individual’s outlook, aspirations, socialization, and life chances. |
| Residential Geography | Spatial distribution of a residential population. The term is most often used by urban geographers to describe the clustering of various social groups into the neighborhoods that form the residential fabric of cities and suburbs. |
| Sunbelt | Popular name given to the southern tier of the United States, which is anchored by the mega-States of California, Texas, and Florida. Its warmer climate, superior recreational opportunities, and other amenities have been attracting large numbers of — |
| Sunbelt Cont. | — relocating people and activities since the 1960s; broader definitions of the Sunbelt also include much of the western United States, even Colorado and the coastal Pacific Northwest. |
| Migration | Change in residence intended to be permanent. |
| Electoral Geography | Spatial distribution of political preferences as expressed in voting behavior for political parties and/or candidates. The mapping of election results is the foundation of electoral geography. |
| Melting Pot | Traditional characterization of American society as a blend of numerous immigrant ethnic groups that over time were assimilated into a single societal mainstream. This notion always had its challengers among social scientists, and is now increasingly — |
| Melting Pot Cont. | — difficult to sustain given the increasing complexity and sheer scale of the U.S. ethnic mosaic in the 21st century. |
| First Nations | Name given Canada’s indigenous peoples of American descent, whose U.S. counterparts are called Native Americans. |
| World-City | Large city with particularly significant international (economic) linkages that also has a high ranking in the global urban system. Leading world-cities include London, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Paris. |
| Technopole | Planned techno-industrial complex (such as California’s Silicon Valley) that innovates, promotes, and manufactures the products of the postindustrial information economy. |
| Pacific Rim | Far-flung group of countries and components of countries (extending clockwise on the map from New Zealand to Chile) sharing the following criteria: they face the Pacific Ocean; they exhibit relatively high levels of economic development, — |
| Pacific Rim Cont. | — industrialization, and urbanization; their imports and exports mainly move across Pacific waters. |
| Tar Sands | Main source of oil from non-liquid petroleum reserves. The oil is mixed with sand and requires massive open-pit mining as well as a costly, complicated process to extract it. The largest known deposits are located in the northeast of Canada’s province — |
| Tar Sands Cont. | — of Alberta, and by most estimates these Athabasca Tar Sands constitute 1 of the largest oil reserves in the world. The high oil prices of recent years have led to greatly expanded production here, but the accompanying environmental degradation — |
| Tar Sands Cont. 2 | — caused by strip-mining and waste disposal has triggered a widening protest movement that may limit the exploitation of this resource. |
| Boreal Forests | Subarctic, mostly coniferous snowforest that blankets Canada south of the tundra that lines the Arctic shore; known as the taiga in Russia. |
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