CH 1

Urbanisation = Increase in proportion of total population living in urban areas

Urban growth = Increase in population of towns & cities
Urbanism = Extension of social / behavioural characteristics of urban living across society as a
whole
Urbanisation cycle =
Megacities = Metropolitan area with a total population in excess of 10 million people
Metacities = A metacity is a heterogeneous, dynamic urban region composed of multiple dense
centers, intervening suburbs, embedded green spaces, and diffuse boundaries between traditional
cities, suburbs, and exurbs.
Urban bias = A political economy argument according to which economic development is hampered
by groups who, by their central location in urban areas, are able to pressure governments to protect
their interests.
Primate city =
Polarisation reversal =
Demographic transition =
Differential urbanisation =
Migration =
Urban explosion =
Industrialisation =
Economic development =
Suburbanisation = Movement of people, offices, factories, shops away from centre into suburbs
Counter urbanisation = Movement of people away from cities and town to villages and small towns
in the country side
Re-urbanisation = Movement of people back into the central area of a city after it has had a period of
decline
Agglomeration =
Exurbanisation = This is when suburbanisation wave reaches its greatest extent
City-region = Area focused on the major employment centre in a region and encompassing the
surrounding areas, for which it acts as the primary high-order service centre

Conurbation = Built up area created by the coalescence of once-separate urban settlements. While
there is a degree of dominance by the largest city, the other urban places also have their own
functional linkages
Urban field = Similar to conurbation, but used in the US. A core urban area and hinterland of
population at least 300,000 with an outer limit of 2 hours driving time. More spatially extensive than
conurbations as they are based on higher levels of personal mobility
Megapolis = Urbanised areas of the north-eastern seaboard of the USA encompassing a population of
40 million
Megalopolitan urban system = Urban unit with a minimum population of 25 million
Ecumenopolis = A projected urbanised world or universal city by the end of the 21st century