HGAP
CBD (central business district)
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.
Qualitative data
Information describing color, odor, shape, or some other physical characteristic.
Quantative data
Data that can be measured in numbers.
Megacity
City with more than 10 million people.
Metacity
A conurbation with more than 20 million people.
Range
The maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service.
Site
The physical character of a place.
Situation
The location of a place relative to other places.
Boomburgs
Rapidly growing suburbs
City
An urban settlement that has been legally incorporated into an independent, self-governing unit.
Zone of abandonment
Areas that have been deserted in a city for economic or environmental reasons.
Where most of the growth in the world's population will occur for the next few decades (and for the last few decades)
Periphery and semi-periphery
Redlining
A process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries.
Metropolitan area
A major population center made up of a large city and the smaller suburbs and towns that surround it.
Megalopolis
A region in which several large cities and surrounding areas grow together.
Zone of disamenity
An inward, narrowing sectoral extension of peripheral squatter settlements, consists of undesirable land along highways, railroads, riverbanks, etc; people here are so poor they live in the open and lack basic infrastructure.
Urban renewal
Program in which cities identify blighted inner-city neighborhoods, acquire the properties from private members, relocate the residents and businesses, clear the site, build new roads and utilities, and turn the land over to private developers.
Transit-oriented development
Development that attempts to focus dense residential and retail development around stops for public transportation, a component of smart growth.
New Urbanism
Outlined by a group of architects, urban planners, and developers from over 20 countries, an urban design that calls for development, urban revitalization, and suburban reforms that create walkable neighborhoods with a diversity of housing and jobs.
Infrastructure
The basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.
Consequences of sprawl
Traffic, environmental damage, loss of historic treasures, loss of agricultural land
Central Place Theory
A theory that explains the distribution of services, based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services; larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements and provide services for a larger number of people who are willing to travel farther.
Automobile-oriented development
Many suburbs follow this form of development, where the area is laid out in such a way that it makes it almost impossible to travel in the urban space without an automobile (more common in the United States).
Challenges of Urbanization
High population density, inadequate infrastructure, lack of affordable housing, flooding, pollution, slum creation, crime, congestion and poverty.
Most important cities in the world
New York, London, Tokyo