For the first time in human history, this major demographic milestone occurred in 2007.
What is the global urban population exceeding the rural population?
This key term describes the outward expansion of urban settlements into surrounding countryside, leading to citywide de-densification.
What is urban sprawl?
This French geographer popularized the term "megalopolis" in 1961 when studying the northeastern United States
Who is Jean Gottmann?
this term refers to the way countries are linked together through trade, travel, communication, and culture.
What is globalization?
A city with a population exceeding this threshold is officially classified as a "megacity".
What is 10 million inhabitants?
According to the urbanization PowerPoint, what are the two main causes driving urban growth globally?
What are rural-urban migration and high rates of natural increase in cities?
What critical global resource is threatened when urban sprawl eats up the world's most intensively cultivated land?
What is global food supplies / agricultural land?
What are the two specific criteria defined by Gottmann for a true megalopolis?
What are a polynuclear structure and manifold concentration?
According to UN global trade data in your textbook, which region is currently the fastest-growing trading region in the world?
What is the Asia-Pacific region?
What is the name of Mumbai's most famous large informal settlement/slum frequently studied in geography courses?
What is Dharavi?
In high-income countries (MEDCs), roughly what percentage of the population typically lives in urban areas?
What is over 60% (and up to 83% in some MEDCs)?
In this major American automotive city visited by Swilling, 70,000 out of 300,000 buildings currently stand empty and derelict due to suburbanization and factory closures.
What is Detroit?
Extending from Boston to Washington, D.C., this massive urban area houses about 17% of the U.S. population on just 2% of its land.
What is the BosWash Corridor?
Explain the trade theory of "comparative advantage".
What is countries specializing in producing and exporting goods they produce most efficiently and cost-effectively, while trading for other goods?
How does the underground rap scene help Murad and other young people in the film deal with their daily struggles and lack of formal job opportunities?
What is giving them a powerful voice to express their lives, share their challenges, and find an alternative path to success?
Using Lee's Migration Model from your notes, provide one example of a "push" factor and one example of a "pull" factor.
What are push factors (e.g., poverty, crop failure, lack of farming jobs due to mechanization) and pull factors (e.g., better jobs, healthcare, education, or higher standards of living)?
Compare how slum-dwellers are geographically distributed in Indian cities versus African cities according to the readings.
What is Indian slum-dwellers largely living within core urban areas (where poor and middle classes mix), whereas African slum-dwellers mostly live in expanding settlements on city peripheries?
Give two examples of major global economic, political, or cultural institutions housed within the BosWash megalopolis.
What are Wall Street / New York Stock Exchange, the United Nations HQ, the White House, or Ivy League universities?
What is a tariff, and what is its primary protectionist purpose in international trade?
What is a tax on imports used by governments to protect domestic industries from foreign competition?
Besides crowded housing and poverty, what major seasonal weather event brings heavy rains that cause severe flooding and sanitation issues in Mumbai's slums like Dharavi?
What are the monsoons (or seasonal heavy rains)?
Contrast the current urbanization rate and future trajectory of low-income countries (LICs/LEDCs) in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia with high-income countries.
What is LICs/LEDCs having lower current urban populations (~40–50%) but the fastest growth rates (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa growing at 3.6% annually), whereas MEDCs are already highly urbanized with slowing rates of urban growth?
How is Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) tackling rapid urban growth sustainably, with support from Chinese expertise?
What is building a light-rail system, encouraging high-density multi-storey apartments around transit stations, and investing in public housing in the urban core?
How do high-speed transit links like Amtrak’s Acela Express reinforce the operational concept of a megalopolis?
What is by connecting independent metropolitan nuclei rapidly, enabling heavy economic, labor, and passenger flows across state lines?
According to UNCTAD data, how do FDI inflows to developed economies compare to developing economies?
What is FDI flows to developed economies fluctuating or falling, while flows to developing economies remain stable,with developing nations receiving nearly twice as much FDI as they initiate?
In Gully Boy, Murad lives in a crowded informal settlement while other parts of Mumbai feature glittering skyscrapers.What term do geographers use to describe a city sharply divided between extreme wealth and extreme poverty?
What is a "dual city" (or social inequality)?