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Chapter 1
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. |
Transition zone | An 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 | A region within which there prevails substantial natural-landscape homogeneity, expressed by a certain degree of uniformity in surface relief, climate, vegetation, and soils. |
Continentality | The variation of continental affect on interior portions of the worlds landmass air temperatures. Greater distance from moderating influence of oceans, greater the Xtreme in summer winter temperatures. Continental interiors need oceanic moisture. |
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. |
Federation | A country adhering political framework in a central government represents various subnational entities in a nation-state they have common interests defense, foreign affairs, allows various entities to retain theiridentities&to have lawspoliciescustoms. |
Aquifer | An underground reservoir of water contained within a porous, water-bearing rock layer. |
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. |
Urban system | A 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 economic activity,in the distribution of goods, situated as a major hub on its regional transportation network. Atlanta, Georgia, outstanding highway, rail, and air-freight connections to surrounding southeastern United States |
Intermodal connections | Facilities and activities related to the transfer of goods in transit from one transportation mode to another (e.g., the loading of containers from a ship directly onto a truck or railcar). |
Outer city | The 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 twentieth century. |
Deindustrialization | companies relocate manufacturing jobs to other regions/countries w cheaper labor, leaving the newly-deindustrialized region go to service economy struggling with accompanying effects of increased unemployment and meeting the retraining needs of workforce. |
Center 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. |
Information economy | increasingly dominant, postindustrial economy that is maturing in the most advanced countries North America, Europe,and the Pacific Rim. traditional industry is being changed by technologyproductive complex focused on information-related activities. |
GPS (Global Positioning System) | The 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 four or more GPS satellites. |
Gentrification | The upgrading of an older residential by private reinvestment, In downtown area of a central city.this involves the displacement of established lower-income residents, who cant afford the costs of living, conflicts Common change occurs |
Neighborhood effect | The impact of one’s neighborhood on an individual’s outlook, aspirations, socialization, and life chances. |
Residential geography | The 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 | southern United States, anchored by California, Texas, and Florida. warmer climate, superior recreational opportunities, Amenities attracting numbers of relocating people, actions; Sunbelt western United States,Colorado,coastal Pacific Northwest. |
Migration | A change in residence intended to be permanent |
Electoral geography | The 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 American society blends immigrant ethnic groups that assimilated into asingle societal mainstream. notion had its challengers among social scientists,increasingly difficult to keep, complexity, scale US ethnic mosaic in twenty-first century. |
First Nations | Name given Canada’s indigenous peoples of American descent, whose U.S. counterparts are called Native Americans. |
World-City | A 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 | A 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, component of countries share following criteria,face the Pacific Ocean, relatively high levels of economic development, industrialization, and urbanization; their imports and exports mainly move across Pacific waters. |
Tar Sands | main source of oil,non-liquid petroleum reserves. oil mixed w sand, requires open-pit mining,costly, hard to take out.biggest deposits northeast of Canada’s Alberta Tar Sands one of largest oil reserves world. high oil prices recent got larger |
Boreal Forest | The 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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