Everything Else

Annexation is the process of legally adding land to a larger area (often a city or country). During World War II, land was conquered by force but the process is still considered annexation.

A hinterland is the hexagonal area of a central place's trade area based on Walter Christaller. He laid the groundwork for the central place theory with a set of assumptions that the land is flat and uniform with even distribution. The central place theory explains how and where central places such as towns and cities in the urban hierarchy should be functionally and spatially distributed with respect to one another.

Social area analysis is an analysis of urban areas with people of similar social qualities such as living standards, ethnic background, and life-style. It influences the kinds of jobs that can be found in each urban area.

World cities are cities that function at the global scale. They reach over state borders and serve as service centers of the world economy. New York, London, and Tokyo are a few examples of world cities. There are 10 Alpha, 20 Beta, and 35 Gamma world cities.

Primate cities, as defined by Mark Jefferson, are a country's leading city. It is characterized by being disproportionally large,most economically influential, and exceptionally expressive of the country's culture. Often, the primate city is the capital of the country. London and Paris are some primate cities.

Urban morphology is the layout of a city, its physical form and structure. It is related to cultural landscape.

Rank-size Rule is the idea that the population of the city/town will be inversely proportional to its rank in the urban hierarchy.

The Griffin-Ford model is a less known city model used to portray a Latin American city. The CBD extends from the center to an edge, the model has both rings and sectors.

Louis Wirth proposed that a city is a permanent settlement that is large in size, high in density, and greater in social heterogeneity due to large size and high density.

Underclass and Public Housing

As a way to renew urban areas, North American and European cities have started to construct new building from old buildings to create public housing for low-income residents. In exchange, the residents must pay 30% of their income. Though this was meant to be a good thing, public housing recently became demolished due to criticisms for destroying social cohesion of older neighborhoods and for reducing the supply of low-cost housing.

Because there has been no sure way of helping the inner-city residents, the residents are considered permanent underclass and are trapped in an unending cycle of economic and social problems. The people lack in job skills and are often homeless. Many residents resort to crime.

Blockbusting and Redlining

Blockbusting is a rapid change in racial composition of residential areas in American cities due to a mass out migration of white people (white flight). THis is caused by real estate agents that want to profit quickly. They stir up fear in white neighborhoods to get the people to move away and then encourage people of color to buy the properties that white people just left.

Redlining is an illegal act that banks engage in where they draw lines on a map to identify which areas they will refuse to loan money to. The families who want to fix up their homes in poor homes would have a hard time getting the money and adding to urban deterioration.

Squatter Settlements and McMansions

Squatter Settlements and McMansions are exact opposites, but both are found in a city. Squatter settlements are areas that develop when developing countries are unable to house the rapidly growing number of poor people and give them unwanted land to live in. Oftentimes, the location is a landfill or a steep hill, and the land does not belong to the people living on it.

McMansions are homes that are super sized and built upon lots of older houses. The original houses are torn down and a bigger, more modern house is built. This is similar to gentrification in that the value is raised; however, the original houses are torn down instead of preserved. Often times, the new house is much too large for the current lot and the older houses around it will be harder to sell since the new house dwarfs the neighborhood and destroys the character of the area.

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and Megalopolis

Metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is the area influenced by an urban settlement in a contemporary society, also known as the city's functional area. An MSA must include a central city with a population of at least 50,000, a county within which the city is located in, and adjacent counties with high population density and a large percent of residents working in the central city's county. By overlapping MSAs, megalopolises (megalopoli) form.

A megalopolis is a group of huge urban agglomerations that could coalesce into an enormous megacity in the future. An example would be the urban cluster from Boston to Washington D.C. with New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore in between.

Edge Cities and Urban Realm

Edge cities are cities where the core is located on the fringes of the city. This is the result of rapid growth in outer cities. Examples of edge cities include Tysons corner, Virginia and Irvine, California. They follow the urban realms model. Urban realm is used to describe the spatial components of a modern metropolis. Each downtown is an edge city.

Ancient Urbanization and Diffusion of City Life

Before cities, people lived in agriculture where the whole population focused on subsistence agriculture to get by. Two components were required in order for cities to form: agricultural surplus and social stratification. This allowed some of the labor force to focus on pursuits other than agriculture. The first urban revolution occurred independently in five separate hearths, Mesopotamia, Nile River Valley, Indus River Valley, Huang He River Valley, and Mesoamerica in this order.

Urbanization diffused to form other major urban areas. Ancient Greek created a global impact that diffused to the Roman Empire which in turn, diffused throughout Western Europe. Though the Roman Empire fell, Western Europe was then able to diffuse city life through colonialism and capitalism.

The second urban revolution followed the second agricultural revolution. It began in Great Britain to the European mainland. Due the industrialization, transportation changed significantly, and the majority of the world's people live in cities today.

Gentrification and Filtering

Gentrification is the rehabilitation of deteriorated and often abandoned housing of low-income inner-city residents. It occurs when middle-class people move into deteriorated inner-city neighborhoods. They fix up the houses which causes families of higher class to want to move into the area.


Filtering, on the other hand, leads to the abandonment of housing. Large houses built by the wealthy in the 1800s are divided by landlords into smaller dwellings for low-income families. This results in abandoned dwellings. Families with lower incomes tend to live here, and families with higher incomes try to avoid these areas caused by filtering.

Sector Model

-Developed in 1939 by land economist Homer Hoyt.
-City develops in a series of sectors, not rings with certain areas more attractive for different activities
-Center is the Central Business District and as the city grows, activities expand in a wedge, or sector, from the center
-Once district with "high-class" housing is established, the most expensive houses is built on the outer edge of that district further from the center
-Industrial and retailing activities develop in other sectors, as well as low-class and middle-class residential sectors
-Example of Chicago, Hoyt argued that the best housing is developed north from the CBD along Lake Michigan, while industry was located along the major rail lines and roads to the northwest, south, and southwest

Concentric Zone Model

-Created in 1923 by sociologist, E. W. Burgess
-City grows outward beginning with the Central Business District in the middle
-Second ring is the zone in transition where industry and poorer-quality housing is, Usually with new immigrants and small quarters and also rooming houses for single individuals
-Third ring is the zone of independent workers' homes with modest older houses occupied by the working class
-Fourth ring is the zone of better residences with more spacious houses for middle-class families
-Fifth and last zone is the commuter's zone with people who work in the center that chose to live in the suburbs

Multiple Nuclei Model

-Created by Chuancy Harris and Edward Ullman in 1945
-Recognizes that CBD is losing dominant position as single nucleus
-Several regions in city have their own nuclei
-Examples of the nuclei includes a port, university, or park
-Most realistic city model