Gated community

a residential community surrounded by walls, fences, gates, water and/or natural barriers so as to restrict entry and access. These are typically (though not exclusively) affluent communities, and represent a key way whereby groups of people can seclude themselves from others in the metropolis.

Place

specific sites in cities, and sometimes the whole ensemble of cities, that are shaped by human beings and shape the lives of human beings. They are sites of human identity, security and community.

Place attachment

the emotional connections that people feel toward specific places such as buildings, neighborhoods or cities

Private space

spaces to which access is restricted by those who own the property

Privatization (of space) 

the shift in ownership of spaces from public to private, in corporations, managment companies, and homeowners' associations, typically in efforts to reduce access to places

Space

Geographic entities with distinct shapes, scales, and other properties that set the stage for certain kinds of human activities.

Tourist spaces

highly controlled areas that cater specifically to the experiential, consumption, service, and aesthetic demands of tourists

Urban enclaves

settlements and communities created by new immigrants to a country.

the theory developed by Ernest Burgess and Robert Park that claimed that all metropolitan areas develop in terms of a set of circular areas radiating out from the center of the city whose inhabitants tend to be similar and distinctive from those inhabitants in other spatially distinctive parts or rings of the city. Two such zones, for example, are those of the warehouse district and the zone of commuters

Gemeinschaft 

the term invented by Ferdinand Tönnies to refer to community. It depicts the close and intimate relationships between people as compared to those relationships that are fleeting and impersonal

Gesellschaft 

the term invented by Ferdinand Tönnies to refer to society. It refers to the partial and impersonal relationships that grow out of modern society and is the opposite of close and intimate relationships

Human ecology

the view originally developed by Robert Park and his colleagues which proposed that change in cities could be construed in terms of the rivalries among different population groups. It drew on ideas from ecology and used the imagery of Charles Darwin to characterize the ongoing struggle for dominance of groups in cities.

Sentiment

Walter Firey’s term for a set of attachments people have to places, whether aesthetic, historical or familial.

Social space

the ways whereby the spatial patterns as well as areas of cities are shaped, and influenced, by their residents.

Symbolism

In Walter Firey’s conception, what a place represents as compared to other places.

Urbanism as a way of life

the view of the city proposed by Louis Wirth. It suggested that life in the city was impersonal and anonymous, and drew on some of the ideas of Georg Simmel.

Urban renewal 

 large scale government funded efforts to remake older areas of cities. The structures that were removed usually included slum housing, thus effectively displacing poor residents of color, while new structures included highways, sports stadiums, convention centers, office buildings, and a small amount of low income housing.

Uneven growth of the city

refers to the unequal spatial development of cities, with older portions often sitting idle and left to decline, while newer growth occurs in the outer rings of the city. An extension of Karl Marx’s ideas by David Harvey, intended to show how urban growth inevitably produces both inequalities and injustice.

Global city

term invented by Saskia Sassen to refer to those major cities in the world in which the most powerful and influential institutions are located, such as investment banks, insurance companies, and real estate firms that make these cities controlling nodes of the global economy. It refers specifically to New York, London and Tokyo, with a more recent and wider reference to such cities as Mumbai, Shanghai, Mexico City, Sao Paulo and a few others.

Multiple nuclei 

the claim that metropolitan areas consist of different centers rather than a single center, and that such centers, like a shopping district, may themselves attract and sustain new residential developments. It represents an alternative view of the metropolis, often associated with Los Angeles, to that of the concentric zone theory that was developed and based upon the city of Chicago

Natural areas of the metropolis

those specific spaces in the metropolis where distinctive groups of people and/or organizations congregate, for example, the downtown or specific ethnic neighborhoods.

Edge city

ournalist Joel Garreau‘s term for clusters of development at the urban periphery that include substantial commercial as well as residential land uses. Edge cities are typically located along major transportation routes, especially Interstate highways.

Redlining

the systematic denial of mortgages and other forms of lending in minority communities.

Restrictive covenants 

agreements prohibiting the sale of property to members of racial, ethnic or religious minorities.

Sprawl 

the extensive growth and spread of people as well as institutions across metropolitan areas. It is particularly evident in the period after World War II as more and more people moved out of central cities and into suburban and fringe areas of the metropolis.

Deindustrialization

the movement of industrial enterprises out of older metropolitan areas during the period after World War II.

Globalization

the growing integration of firms and countries across the world, along with the compression of space and time such that information about events in one part of the world can rapidly be transmitted to and have consequences in other parts. It is especially evident today in financial markets, manufacturing and human migration.

Megalopolis

a highly dense population site, stretching across thousands of acres of land, and connecting people and enterprises in different cities and towns. The term originally was invented by Jean Gottman to describe the area in the United States that ran from Boston to Washington, D.C.

Postmodern metropolis 

a post-industrial characterized city of social fragmentation

Postmodernism

the movement in contemporary scholarship that emphasizes the fragmentation and de- centering both in intellectual thought as well as in material projects. It is evident, among other things, in many of the recent architectural additions to cities.

Urban Fragmentation 

the proliferation of municipalities and other government units within a metropolitan area. It often complicates political efforts to furnish services at a regional or metropolitan level of government.

Hypersegregated 

Massey and Denton’s term for ghetto neighborhoods that are highly segregated and isolated (see the measures in Box 8.3), clustered close together, spatially concentrated, and located in the center of the city. These areas provide residents with the least amount of exposure to affluent or majority-group individuals and places.

Social mobility

The capacity of a group or individual to move from one social class to another, for instance, moving up from the working class to the middle class. Upward mobility is common and desirable, but downward mobility also occurs.

Integration

Exists when groups with different social statuses live or work together. In the context of cities, this refers to the degree to which different racial/ethnic groups or social classes live in the same areas.

Culture of poverty

a term invented by the anthropologist, Oscar Lewis, to describe the cultural traits of people who are impoverished and live together in dense settlements. Lewis came under attack later by sociologists like William Julius Wilson who believed that it was the economy, and, in particular, the absence of regular and stable employment that led to the lifestyles as well as problems characterizing poor communities, especially those of African-Americans. The debate, about whether it is the absence of structural opportunities or the presence of a set ofparticular cultural traits, continues to animate the analysis and discussion of many scholars of poverty today.

Deinstitutionalization

a shift from large, state-run mental health facilities to smaller community-based facilities, accompanied by an increase in the number of mentally ill not receiving formal treatment.

Gentrification

 the redevelopment of older residential and/or industrial districts of the metropolis that brings more wealth into an area. Many older industrial cities have resort to gentrification in recent years as a way of enhancing themselves and add to their tax base. In most cases, it appears that gentrification leads to the displacement of older and poorer residents, but newer research suggests that this might not always be true.

Informal economy

work that is not formally recorded or taxed. This may include babysitting or repair work that is done for cash, ―off the books,‖ or illicit activities such as drug dealing, prostitution, or selling stolen goods.

Institutional ghettos 

highly segregated neighborhoods where social organization closely corresponds to that of the larger society.