Mid-Term 2 Review Questions
Geography 101
Spring Semester 2007
David Snyder
The following are a set of questions for you to answer on your own to prepare you for the mid-term exam. Answers to the questions can be found in the Knox & Marston textbook, the course lectures and the following assigned readings: Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia and the Dying Towns of the Rural Plains article. Writing out answers to these questions in full sentences or paragraphs is a good way to organize your thoughts and will help you to retain the information. Be as thorough as possible and pay attention how many of these topics tie together to explain the overall picture of what we see across the human landscape.
The exam will be a mixture of multiple choice, short answer and short essay questions, as well as a take-home question. I do my best to ensure that all exam questions are covered by a reasonably decent answer to one of the questions below.
Urbanization
1. Why did early towns develop? How did early merchant capitalism contribute to urban growth? How did industrialization contribute to urban growth in the core? How did colonialism and imperialism contribute to urban growth in the periphery?
2. What is meant by agglomeration? How does it play a role in the development of a city?
3. What are primary, secondary, and tertiary economic sectors? How might each of these attract people to a given location? Why is a city’s basic economic sector important? What is the multiplier effect?
4. Explain some reasons for the locations of pre-industrial cities, industrial cities and post-industrial cities. How has geographic inertia contributed to the fact that some pre-industrial cities are still thriving in their locations, even if the need for that location is no longer relevant?
5. Describe central place theory and how it explains urban locations across the landscape.
6. How might accidents of geography create functional differences between cities?
7. What are primate cities and what is meant by centrality?
8. What are megacities and what is meant by overurbanization?
9. How have patterns of urbanization in the core changed since the Industrial Revolution? How have some cities dealt with changes in these patterns?
10. In terms of technology, human behavior and economics, why have suburbs formed across the urban landscape in the core?
11. How does David Brooks (Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia) associate the growth of suburbs with the peculiarities of American culture?
12. Despite the growth of suburbs and exurbs, rural towns far from urban areas are often losing population. Why might this be? (see the Dying Towns of the Rural Plains article).
Urban Geography
1. Why do most cities develop a concentric pattern of land use, with land near the center fulfilling different purposes than land further from the center?
2. What is meant by the terms, congregation and segregation, and why might they occur in cities? In what ways might they alter the landscape of a city?
3. What are the differences between enclaves, ghettos and colonies?
4. How did early urban planning arise? What were some of its results?
5.
What were the ideas behind Garden Cities and
6. How did the International Style of architecture arise? What are its characteristics? Name some examples. Which buildings on the main UAA campus reflect this style?
7. What are some modern trends in urban planning? Why did these trends develop?
8. Why are ‘packaged landscapes’ growing in popularity for urban living?
9. What is postmodern design? Which building on the main UAA campus reflects this style?
10. Describe the general urban patterns that most North American cities experience and why they occur. Issues to contemplate include:
a. the development of central business districts
b. gentrification
c. colonization by immigrants
d. the development of inner cities and the formation of a permanent underclass
e. fiscal crises and infrastructural problems
f. suburban patterns of development, including the concept of the galactic metropolis, edge cities and exurbs
g. suburban issues, such as traffic, fiscal issues, land use, and increased energy consumption
i. potential future trends in North American cities.
11. Describe the general urban patterns that most European cities experience and why they occur. Issues to contemplate include:
a. the historical influences of
b. the influence of violent conflict
c. the influence of the pre-industrial past
d. less dependence on the automobile compared to
e. the greater influence of socialist policies compared to
12. Describe the general urban patterns that most Islamic cities experience and why they occur. Issues to contemplate include:
a. the influence of the Qur’an as a guide for urban planning and living
b. the influence of climate in urban design and architecture
c. the role of the suq (bazaar)
13. Describe the general urban patterns that most cities in the Periphery experience and why they occur. Issues to contemplate include:
a. the social dualism that results from extreme wealth distribution
b. the existence of shantytowns and the problems that people living their might experience
c. the role of the informal economy
d. environmental issues caused by unregulated urban settlements
e. infrastructural problems facing many peripheral cities