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Chapter 1
North America
Term | Definition |
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Borderland | Linear zone that parallels a political boundary. They are marked by significant cultural and economic interaction across the boundary that separates them. |
Transition Zone | An area of spatial change where the peripheries of two adjacent realms or regions join; marked by a gradual shift (rather than a sharp break) |
Physiographic region | A region within which there prevails substantial natural-landscape homogeneity, expressed by a certain degree of uniformity in surface relief, climate, vegetation, and soils. |
Continentality | The greater the distance from the moderating influence of an ocean, the greater the extreme in summer and winter temperatures. |
Rain shadow effect | The relative dryness in areas downwind of mountain ranges resulting from orographic precipitation. |
Federation | A country adhering to a political framework yet allows these various entities to retain their own identities and to have their own laws, policies, and customs in certain spheres. |
Aquifer | An underground reservoir of water contained within a porous, water-bearing rock layer. |
Fossil Fuel | The energy resources of coal, natural gas, and petroleum (oil), |
.Urban System | A hierarchical network or grouping of urban areas within a finite geographic area, such as a country. |
American Manufacturing Belt | North America’s near-rectangular core area, whose corners are Boston, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Baltimore. |
Distribution Center | A centralized focus of economic activity specializing in the distribution of goods, situated as a major hub on its regional transportation network. |
Intermodal connections | Facilities and activities related to the transfer of goods in transit from one transportation mode to another (e.g., the loading of containers from a ship directly onto a truck or railcar). |
Outer city | The non-central-city portion of the American metropolis; no longer “sub” to the “urb,” this outer ring was transformed into a full-fledged city during the late twentieth century. |
Deindustrualization | Companies relocate manufacturing jobs to other regions or countries with cheaper labor |
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 |
Information economy | The new, increasingly dominant, postindustrial economy that is maturing in the most highly advanced countries of North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. |
GPS (Global Positioning System) | The orbiting-satellite-based navigation system that provides locational and time information. |
Gentrification | The upgrading of an older residential area through private reinvestment, usually in the downtown area of a central city. |
Neighborhood effect | The impact of one’s neighborhood on an individual’s outlook, aspirations, socialization, and life chances. |
Residential geography | The spatial distribution of a residential population. |
Sunbelt | The popular name given to the southern tier of the United States, which is anchored by the mega-States of California, Texas, and Florida. |
Migration | A change in residence intended to be permanent. |
Electoral geography | The spatial distribution of political preferences as expressed in voting behavior for political parties and/or candidates. |
Melting pot | Traditional characterization of American society as a blend of numerous immigrant ethnic groups that over time were assimilated into a single societal mainstream. |
First Nations | Name given Canada’s indigenous peoples of American descent, whose U.S. counterparts are called Native Americans. |
World-City | A large city with particularly significant international (economic) linkages that also has a high ranking in the global urban system. |
Technopole | A planned techno-industrial complex (such as California’s Silicon Valley) that innovates, promotes, and manufactures the products of the postindustrial information economy. |
Pacific Rim | they face the Pacific Ocean; they exhibit relatively high levels of economic development, industrialization, and urbanization; their imports and exports mainly move across Pacific waters. |
Tar sands | The main source of oil from non-liquid petroleum reserves. The oil is mixed with sand and requires massive open-pit mining as well as a costly, complicated process to extract it. |
Boreal forest | The subarctic, mostly coniferous snowforest that blankets Canada south of the tundra that lines the Arctic shore; known as the taiga in Russia |