online glossary for Urban Social Geography, an Introduction

This is an electronic transcription of the glossary found at the end of the 4th edition of Urban Social Geography, An Introduction, a book by Paul Knox and Steven Pinch published by Pearson Education copyright ©2000. This glossary is presented here for my personal use and for the use of fellow students who have also already purchased the textbook. Permission granted by the kind folks at Pearson Education.

Each of the following letters is a link to the first entry that begins with that letter.
Note: the hyperlinks may not work in some older browsers.

[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

Ableist geography: Geographical studies that assume people are able-bodied, thereby ignoring the problems faced by those with disabilities. Such studies contribute to the continuing oppression of the disabled.
accumulation: A term associated with Marxian theory to refer to the processes by which capital is acquired. The term alludes to a system in which the ownership of wealth and property is highly concentrated and not just to a system based on profit-making.
action (or activity) space: A term used in behavioural studies of residential mobility to indicate the sum of all the areas in a city with which people have direct contact. See awareness space, aspiration region.
aestheticization (of everyday life): Originally used to denote situations where issues of class conflict were obscured by appeals to high art. Now used in a broader sense to indicate the increasing importance of signs or appearances in everyday life. Especially applied to processes of consumption and material objects (including buildings) which are seen as indicating the social position of the user. See also exchange value, use value, positional good, symbolic capital.
agency: The capacity of people to make choices and take actions to affect their destinies. Often played down in structuralism and deterministic theories. Also termed human agency. Contrast with economic determinism. See reflexivity.
ageographia: Sorkin's term to indicate that the postmodern city may be likened to a theme park centred around Disney-like simulations. See Disneyfication, hyperreality, postmodernism, simulacra.
alienation: A term used generally to indicate the ways in which people's capacities are dominated by others. Used in Marxist theory to indicate the loss of control that workers have over their labour and the things they make in a capitalist mode of production.
alterity: A term used in postcolonial theory to indicate a culture that is radically different from and totally outside that to which it is opposed. Disputed by those who argue that all cultures evolve in relation to one another. See hybridity.
ambivalence: A term used in postcolonial theory to describe the mixture of attraction and repulsion that characterizes the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. It is argued that all colonial relationships are ambivalent because the colonizers do not want to be copied exactly. Imitation can lead to mimicry. Ambivalence tends to decentre power since it can lead to hybridity on the part of those in power.
androcentrism: An approach that privileges men and downplays women. See feminism, sexism.
anomie: A situation in which people are less affected by conventions and established social norms. Often associated with the isolation of urban life. See Gesellschaft.
anti-essentialism: Rejection of the idea that there is some underlying essence to phenomena such as truth or natural identity. The opposite of essentialism.
appropriation: The taking over of elements of imperial culture by postcolonial societies. See ambivalence, hybridity, mimicry.
areal differentiation: Another term for residential differentiation (or sociospatial differentiation). May also be used in a general sense to refer to areas with commercial or industrial activity rather than just the social fabric of cities.
aspiration region (or space): A term used in behavioural studies of residential mobility to indicate the areas of a city to which a potential mover aspires -- the product of both action space and awareness space.
asset sales: The sale of publicly owned organisations (such as utilities) and assets (such as public housing) to the private sector. See privatization.
assimilation: The process whereby a minority group is incorporated into the wider society (or charter group). Can be behavioural assimilation or structural assimilation. May explain degrees of segregation.
'asylum-without-walls': Another term for the service-dependent ghetto.
authenticity: The idea that there is a pure, basic, culture. Disputed by the notion of ambivalence. Used in postmodern theory to distinguish 'reality' from copies of the real known as simulacra . See also hybridity.
authority constraint: A term used within Hagerstrand's time-geography to indicate the influence of laws and customs upon daily lives. See capability constraint, coupling constraint.
awareness space: All the areas of a city of which a person or household has knowledge resulting from both direct contact (action space) and indirect sources of information (e.g. newspapers, estate agents). See aspiration region.

balkanization: A metaphor for the administrative subdivision of U.S. cities into numerous local governments. Also known as metropolitan fragmentation.
banlieue: Poor-quality suburban areas of French cities occupied by immigrants. Also termed bidonvilles.
behavioural approach: An approach which examines people's activities and decision-making processes within their perceived worlds. See behaviouralism.
behavioural assimilation: The process whereby a minority group adopts the culture of the wider society (or charter group). Contrast with structural assimilation.
behaviouralism: An approach in psychology which recognizes that human responses to stimuli are mediated by social factors. Contrast with behaviourism.
behaviourism: An early approach to psychology that examined the responses of people to particular stimuli. Tended to ignore mediation by social factors. See behaviouralism.
'betweenness' (of place): The argument that the character of regions is dependent upon the subjective interpretations of people living within these areas, as well as the perceptions of those living outside. See place, social constructionism.
bidonvilles: Poor-quality suburban areas of French cities occupied by immigrants. More recently termed banlieue.
binaries: Two-fold categorizations that succeed in dividing people and concepts (e.g. male/female, healthy/sick, sane/mad, heterosexual/homosexual, true/false, reality/fiction, authentic/fake). Can lead to exclusion or objectification.
biological analogy: The application of ideas from the plant and animal world to the study of urban residential patterns. See Chicago school, human ecology, social Darwinism.
biotic forces: A term used by the Chicago school to indicate the competitive economic forces within cities that lead to residential differentiation and segregation. See biological analogy, social Darwinism.
'blockbusting': The practice undertaken by some estate agents of introducing black purchasers into predominantly white areas in the hope that the latter will sell-up and move out at deflated prices, thereby enabling the agents to resell the properties to new black families at higher prices.
borderlands: Geographical and metaphorical spaces on the margin of dominant cultures where new hybrid forms of identity can emerge. See hybridity, liminal space, heterotopia, third space.
bunker architecture: Buildings designed to exclude certain sections of society. See gated communities, scanscape.

California School: The group of scholars who have interpreted the contemporary urban forms of Los Angeles as emblematic of city structures in a postmodern or post-Fordist society. Also termed the Los Angeles school. May also refer to the explanations for industrial agglomeration derived from transaction cost analysis and regulation theory. See new industrial spaces.
capability constraint: A term used in Hagerstrand's time-geography to indicate physical and biological constraints on daily activity. See authority constraint, coupling constraint.
Cartesian approach: The argument developed by Enlightenment philosopher Rene Descartes that the observer can be separated from the observed. See 'god trick'.
casualization: The increasing use of various non-core workers such as part-timers, temporary and agency workers. Also termed numerical flexibility.
centralization: The spatial regrouping of activities into larger units. May refer to reductions in numbers of service units of the welfare state or movements back into central cities. Contrast with decentralization.
charter group: The majority group within the dominant culture of a society.
Chicago School: The group of sociologists working in Chicago in the early part of the twentieth century. Noted for their studies of urban subcultures and the application of ideas from the plant and animal world to the study of residential patterns (known as human ecology). May also refer to a group of economists based in Chicago in the late twentieth century advocating monetarist economic policies.
circuit of production: The process of capitalist exploitation (also known as accumulation) in which capital or money (M) is invested in commodities (C) and labour power (LP) and the means of production (MP) to produce more commodities (C') which are then sold to acquire more money (M') in the form of profits. See time-space compression.
citizenship: The relationship between individuals and the community and/or the state.
civic boosterism: Attempts by local governments to develop their local economies by attracting inward investment and through partnerships with private sector sources of capital. Also termed civic entrepreneurialism. See coalition building, growth coalitions, governance.
civic entrepreneurialism: See civic boosterism.
civil society: All the elements of society outside government including private-sector businesses, the family and the voluntary sector.
class: Material differences between groups of people.
classical Marxism: The ideas formulated by Karl Marx in the nineteenth century. Contrast with neo-Marxism.
clustering: The tendency for people with similar attributes such as class or ethnicity to live close to each other in cities. May also be termed segregation and residential differentiation. In extreme cases may constitute a ghetto. Also applied to geographical agglomerations of firms. See new industrial spaces.
coalition building: Formal and informal interest groups in cities combining to achieve political objectives. Linked to regime theory. See growth coalitions.
cognitive distance: A measure of the perceived (rather than just physical) distance that people feel from features in an urban area taking account of mental maps and the symbolic features of the environment.
collective consumption: Usually refers to goods and services provided by the public sector. Less often refers to services that, literally, have been consumed by a group of people in a collective manner (such as a lecture). The term originated in a neo-Marxist (or Marxian) theory formulated by Manuel Castells which argues that there are certain services that are crucial for the maintenance of capitalism but that are too expensive for provision by individual capitalist enterprises and therefore require provision through non-market means via the public sector. The theory also attempts to define cities as essentially places for the consumption of public services -- a notion which has been much criticized. See neo-Marxism, public goods.
colonial discourse: The social practices and attitudes associated with colonialism. See discourse, imperialism, postcolonial theory.
colonialism: The rule of one territory by another country through the creation of new settlements. The product of imperialism. See postcolonial theory.
colony: A territory ruled by another country. Also used in an urban context to indicate a minority residential cluster that is a temporary phenomenon before the group is integrated into the wider society. Contrast with enclave, ghetto.
commercialization: The tendency for publicly-owned organizations to behave like private-sector companies (such as through the imposition of user charges). Also termed proprietarization. See also corporatization.
commodification: The use of private markets rather than public-sector allocation mechanisms to allocate goods and services. Also termed recommodification and marketization.
commodification (of culture): The ways in which local cultural forms are being supplanted by mass produced cultural forms. See McDonaldization.
commodity fetishism: The obsession of people with the acquisition of consumer goods. The term recognizes that these material objects not only have use value but also have symbolic value which reinforce social status or lifestyle. A key element of post-Fordist society. See aestheticization.
community: A much-used term with little specific meaning but usually refers to a social group characterized by dense networks of social interaction reflecting a common set of cultural values. Often, but not necessarily, geographically concentrated. See 'ethnic village', Gemeinschaft, neighbourhood.
community action: Political movements based in a local area usually defending a residential district against the intrusion of unwanted activities (sometimes termed community-defined politics, or 'turf' politics). See externality.
community care: Care for the needy in local communities either in small decentralized facilities or in private households -- both supported by teams of community-based professionals. Associated with deinstitutionalization . A policy much criticized for inadequate funding and resources -- hence the term care 'in' the community but not 'by' the community.
'community lost': The argument that urbanization has destroyed community life. Contrast with 'community saved', 'community transformed'.
community politics: See community action.
'community saved': The argument that communities still exist in urban areas. See 'ethnic village'. Contrast with 'community lost', Gesellschaft.
'community transformed': The argument that new forms of community life have been created in suburban areas.
competitive tendering: A process through which contracts are awarded on the basis of competitive (usually secret) bidding by a variety of agencies according to specified criteria such as cost, quality and flexibility. See contracting-in.
compositional theory: A theory that examines the impacts of ethnicity, kinship, neighbourhood and occupation on behaviour in residential areas of cities. Similar to subcultural theory. Contrast with behaviourism.
concentric zone model: Burgess's idealized model of city structure based on Chicago in the 1920's in which social status increases in a series of concentric zones leading out from the city centre. See Chicago School, human ecology. Contrast with sectoral model.
congregation: The residential clustering of an ethnic minority through choice (rather than involuntary segregation brought about by structural constraints and discrimination).
consumption: The purchase and utilization of goods and services. See commodity fetishism.
contextual theory: A broad trend in social analysis characterized by a desire to understand the settings or contexts within which human behaviour takes place. These approaches seek to understand how people are influenced by, but at the same create, these contexts. See situatedness, structuration theory.
contracting-in: A situation in which a contract is won by a subdivision of the parent organization putting the work up for tender. See market testing.
contracting-out: A situation in which one organization contracts with another external organization for the provision of a good or service. Often associated with competitive tendering but this need not be the case. May also be termed subcontracting or distancing. See also market testing.
contractualization: The use of contracts to govern the relationships between organizations and subdivisions within organizations. Increasingly used to allocate public services to private-sector companies, voluntary organizations or internal departments within the public sector. See contracting-in, contracting-out, internal markets.
corporatism: Forms of social organization in which certain interest groups, usually certain sectors of business and organized labour, have privileged access to government. Characterized by collaboration to achieve economic objectives. See neo-corporatism, welfare corporatism.
corporatization: An extreme form of commercialization in which publicly owned organizations behave in an identical manner to private-sector companies.
corporeality: A term that recognizes that bodily images are not just the result of biological differences but are socially constructed through various signs and systems of meaning. Contrast with essentialism.
counter-culture: A subculture that is opposed to the dominant values in a society. See counter-site, heterotopia.
counter-site: A space which is outside of the mainstream of society and reflects a counter-culture . See heterotopia.
coupling constraint: A term used in Hagerstrand's time-geography to indicate the constraint on human activity resulting from the need to interact on a face-to-face basis with other people. See authority constraint, capability constraint.
creative cities: Cities characterized by innovation in both manufacturing and services resulting from collective learning through interactions of diverse people in overlapping social and economic networks. See also new industrial spaces.
creolization: Originally used to denote the racial intermixing and cultural exchange of indigenous peoples with colonizers but also used to denote cultural mixing. See hybridity.
crowding theory: The idea that high-density living in urban areas leads to strains and tensions which can lead to aggression, withdrawal and high rates of mental and physical illness. An approach that tends to ignore the mediating effects of culture upon human behaviour. See behaviourism, determinist theory.
cultural capital: Ways of life and patterns of consumption that make people distinct and appear superior or dominant. See positional good. Also used to indicate skills and knowledge (as distinct from economic capital). Also termed human capital.
cultural imperialism: A term used by Iris Young to indicate the way in which society asserts that certain types of behaviour are 'natural' by marking out certain types of non-conforming behaviour as 'other', 'deviant' and 'non-natural'. See othering.
cultural industries: Industries in 'creative' spheres such as performing arts, design, advertising, entertainment, media and publishing. The term is also used in a theory that argues that cultural elements such as popular films, music and books have become mass produced in the same way as consumer goods such as cars.
cultural mode of production: The thesis that issues of culture have become dominant in the contemporary economies through factors such as the rise of the cultural industries; the aestheticization of material objects; and the use of notions of culture in modern management practices.
cultural myopia: The tendency to assume that the arrangements within a nation or culture are the only set of possible arrangements or that these are a superior approach to social organization.
cultural politics: A term that indicates that issues of culture are not just concerned with aesthetics, taste and style, but also involve issues of power and material rewards bound up with competing 'ways of life'. See identity politics.
cultural studies: A complex set of developments in social analysis which pay attention to the complexity of cultural values and meanings. See culture and 'cultural turn'.
cultural transmission: The idea that values and norms are transmitted from one generation to the next in local subcultures. See culture of poverty, neighbourhood effect, subculture, transmitted deprivation.
'cultural turn': The tendency for many social sciences to pay greater attention to issues of culture. Also termed the linguistic turn because of the attention given to language and the ways in which ideas are represented. See poststructuralism, deconstruction.
culture: This may be broadly interpreted as 'ways of life'. It consists of the values that people hold, the rules and norms they obey and the material objects they use. Also commonly regarded as systems of shared meanings (see discourses).
culture of poverty: The argument that poverty results from a distinctive culture. Closely related to the notion of transmitted deprivation.
culture of property: The ways in which a housing market in a nation or region is socially constructed by social institutions and social behaviour related to factors such as class and ethnicity.
cyberspace: A term devised by William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer and now used in a very broad sense to indicate developments in the sphere of advanced telecommunications. Similar to telematics.

dasein: A term used within structuration theory to indicate the time-span of people's lives. Contrast with durée and longue durée.
decentralization: The movement of first people and later employment and services out of inner-city areas into suburban districts and then into more distant commuter hinterlands beyond city limits. May also refer to the fragmentation and geographical dispersal of organizational structures within manufacturing, services and the public sector. May be associated with devolution but the two policies are distinct. See deconcentration, delegation, edge cities, tapering.
decision rules: The criteria used by bureaucrats (usually but not necessarily in the public sector) to allocate resources in cities. Used to simplify decisions which have to be made frequently, they may not be made explicit. Also termed eligibility rules. See managerialism, social gatekeepers, 'street-level' bureaucrats.
deconcentration: Another name for decentralization. See delegation, devolution.
deconstruction: A form of analysis which examines the various discourses represented by various forms of representation (known as texts). These meanings are regarded as continually changing through the interactions of the reader/viewer and the text in question.
de facto territories: Areas that may be defined by reference to factors such as common interests or lifestyles (rather than just in legal terms). Contrast with de jure territories.
defederalization: The devolution of responsibilities for welfare policies from federal government to states in the United States. Associated with capped budgets and a series of policies known as workfare. See decentralization, 'hollowing out', post-welfare state.
defensible space: The argument that recent housing developments lack spaces that people can identify with, survey or exert control over.
dehospitalization: A term preferred by some to deinstitutionalization in recognition of the fact that community-based care can involve small institutional settings. See community care.
deindustrialization: The decline in manufacturing activity both in terms of jobs and contribution to national output. See post-industrial cities.
deinstitutionalization: The closure of institutions providing long-term care for needy groups and their replacement by various alternative forms of care including purpose-built or converted smaller facilities and care within private households by families supported by teams of community-based professionals such as nurses, doctors and social workers. See community care, rationalization, reinstitutionalization, self-provisioning, domestication.
de jure territories: Geographical areas defined according to the law (i.e. with legal powers as in political and administrative regions). Contrast with functional urban areas. See jurisdictional partitioning.
delegation: A form of decentralization in which certain functions and managerial responsibilities are delegated to neighborhood offices but where local autonomy tends to be severely restricted by central responsibility for expenditure and targets. Contrast with deconcentration, devolution.
demunicipalization: Attempts by central governments to reduce the powers and responsibilities of local governments. Applied especially to the sale of local authority housing in the United Kingdom in combination with restrictions on new public-sector housing construction. See governance, ghettoization, residualization.
deregulation: Policies designed to increase competition by breaking up state monopolies and introducing a number of private agencies to provide goods and services. May also be applied to the deregulation of labour markets through policies to erode workers' rights and to increase labour flexibility. See commodification, marketization.
design determinism: Studies of the impact of the physical environment and architectural design upon human behaviour. See behaviourism, crowding theory, defensible space.
deskilling: Strategies to reduce the skill levels and knowledge required in particular occupations.
determinist theory: An approach which draws upon behaviourist notions to argue that city living affects behaviour. See Gesellschaft, 'psychological overload'.
deterritorialization: The destabilized nature of identity and meaning within post-modern society. See deconstruction.
deviant subgroup: A group within society that has values and norms substantially different from the majority population. May be expressed in residential differentiation. Also termed deviant subculture. See culture.
devolution: The subdivision of organizations into separate units each with their own budgets. Usually associated with devolution of responsibilities and with enhanced performance monitoring of the units. See also decentralization.
dialectic: A form of reasoning or analysis involving the use and possible reconciliation of opposites. See sociospatial dialectic.
Diaspora (diasporic group): The movement, either voluntarily or forced, or people from their homeland to a new territory.
différence: A term that recognizes the ways in which differences among categories are socially constructed in relation to one another. See binaries. Contrast with essentialism.
disciplinary regimes: Processes through which social control is exercised: socialization, the construction of dominant discourses and surveillance. See disciplinary society.
disciplinary society: A society in which control is exercised through socialization processes as manifest in schools, hospitals and factories. See interpellation, micropowers.
discourses: Sets of meanings that are indicated by various texts which form a way of understanding the world. See deconstruction.
discursive practices: The words, signs, symbols and ideas that are used to represent material practices .
disfigured city: The city that is unplanned and inhabited by deprived groups. Contrast with figured city.
Disneyfication: The conscious creation of the 'theme park' city characterized by a superficial veneer of culture and often a sanitized view of history which ignores social conflict. See imagineering, simulacra.
distance-decay effect: The tendency for those who live furthest away from the sources of goods and services to consume them less often. This is usually attributed to the increased travel costs or the increased time involved in visiting the source of supply. Also known as tapering.
distanciation: The tendency for interactions and communications between people to be stretched across time and space through the use of books, newspapers, telephones, faxes and the Internet. Also termed space-time distanciation.
distancing: Another term for contracting-out -- a situation when one organization contracts with another external organization for the provision of a good or service.
domestic economy: Work done within households (either informally by the family or other members of the household or formally through directly purchased services). See domestication, self-provisioning.
domestication: The use of family and household labour. This strategy has been forced upon some households (and usually women within them) through the run-down of state provision. See community care.
dominance: A term used by the Chicago School to indicate the process whereby certain land uses and types of people come to dominate particular parts of cities. Also used in a general sense to indicate unequal power relations. See human ecology.
double hermeneutic: The need for researchers to be aware of their own values as well as those of the people they are studying. See hermeneutics, situatedness.
dual cities: Large metropolitan centres characterized by disparities in wealth and status and/or a trend towards increasing social inequality. See global cities, social polarization.
durée: A term used within structuration theory to indicate the time span of daily routines. See dasein, life-world, longue durée.

[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

ecocentric approach: Various types of ecological movement united by a belief that environmental problems can be addressed only by a fundamental change in the capitalist system involving greater decentralized participatory democracy. Contrast with technocentric approach.
ecological approach: A term used to denote spatial or geographical analysis of cities. May also refer to human ecology, the application of ideas concerning the distribution of plants and animals to the study of urban social geography. See Chicago School.
ecological fallacy: The potential mistakes that can arise when making inferences about individuals from data based on aggregate information (such as for residential areas within cities). See individualistic fallacy.
ecological modernization: See technocentric approach.
economic determinism: Theories that attempt to relate social changes directly to underlying economic changes in society and that play down the ability of people to make decisions to affect their destinies. Contrast with voluntarism .
economic status: The name frequently given to one of the main dimensions of urban residential structure as shown by factorial ecology -- variations in the extent of wealth. See ethnic status, family status, social rank.
economies of scale: Factors that cause the average cost of a commodity to fall as the scale of output increases. There are two main types: external economies of scale and internal economies of scale. A crucial part of Fordism.
economies of scope: Factors that make it cheaper to produce a range of commodities rather than to produce each of the individual items on their own. See external economies of scope and internal economies of scope. A crucial part of post-Fordism.
edge cities: A term coined by the journalist Joel Garreau to describe recent urban developments outside large metropolitan areas characterized by decentralized nodes of offices and shopping malls. See decentralization, exopolis.
eligibility rules: The criteria used by social gatekeepers to determine who has access to scarce resources in cities. These may be explicit or tacit. Usually applied to public officials such as housing managers but may also be applied to the private sector (e.g. estate agents and bankers). Also called decision rules.
elsewhereness: The tendency for shops and other places within cities to copy images from other places in other times. See placelessness, simulacra.
embeddedness: The notion that economic behaviour is not determined by universal values that are invariant (as in neo-classical economics) but is intimately related to cultural values that may be highly specific in time and space. Also termed social embeddedness. See culture, situatedness.
embodied knowledge: Ideas and concepts that attempt to avoid the mind/body division of the Cartesian approach and recognize that knowledge emerges from people in particular contexts. Also termed local knowledge. See embeddedness, situatedness.
embodiment: The process through which the body is socially constructed through wider systems of meaning. See corporeality, embodied knowledge.
embourgeoisement thesis: The argument that working-class people moving into suburban areas adopt middle-class lifestyles based around consumption and the nuclear family. See commodity fetishism.
empowerment zones: An urban regeneration policy in the United States characterized by collaboration between public bodies, private enterprises and community groups. See enterprise zones.
enabling state: A key element of the new mode of governance and urban entrepreneurialism in which the direct role of the state is reduced and replaced by greater partnership between government and business interests. See coalition building, contracting-out, 'hollowing out', regime theory.
enclave: The name for a residential cluster of an ethnic minority that is a long-term phenomenon, although generally not as segregated as a ghetto. Contrast with colony.
enlightenment project (movement): The broad trend in Western intellectual thought, beginning in the Renaissance, which attempted to analyze and control society through principles of scientific analysis and rational thought. See Cartesian approach, modernism, social engineering.
enterprise zones: Zones in which special incentives such as tax exemptions or reduced planning regulations are used to encourage economic development.
environmental conditioning: The argument that people's behaviour is strongly influenced by their social environment. Often applied to explain the lack of social and intellectual skills of those brought up in environments lacking in sensory stimulation. See behaviouralism, cultural transmission. Contrast with behaviourism.
essentialism: The notion that there are basic, unvarying, elements that determine, or strongly affect, the behaviour of people and social systems (e.g. the idea that there are inherent differences in the behaviour of men and women, or basic immutable laws of economics that govern capitalist societies). Contrast with anti-essentialism . See also social constructionism.
ethnic group: A minority group whose members share a distinctive culture. This is conceptually different from the notion of a racial group but in practice the two are intimately linked. See ethnicity.
ethnic status: The name frequently given to one of the main dimensions of urban residential structure as shown by factorial ecology --variations in the extent of ethnicity. See family status, social rank.
'ethnic village': A minority group that exhibits residential differentiation within a city and a distinctive culture characterized by dense social networks.
ethnicity: The culture and lifestyle of an ethnic group, often manifest in a distinctive residential area of a city. Contrast with racial group. See ghetto.
ethnocentrism: The assumption that one culture is superior to others. Usually applied to Western assumptions of technological and moral superiority. Called Eurocentrism when European culture is seen as superior.
ethnography: The study of culture, especially the values and norms of minority ethnic groups. Often linked to qualitative research methods such as participant observation and semi- or unstructured questionnaires.
exchange value: The amount which a commodity such as housing can command on the market. Related to, but conceptually different from, use value.
exclusion: Social processes whereby certain kinds of people are prevented from gaining access to various types of resources (including public services). These may be non-material resources such as prestige. See eligibility rules, social closure.
exclusionary closure: Another name for processes whereby powerful groups exclude other groups from wealth, status, and power. May be called social closure.
exclusionary zoning: Planning policies that restrict certain types of activity and people from moving into a local government area. See purified communities.
'exit' option: A strategy of out-migration from an area in the wake of a problem. Contrast with 'loyalty' and 'voice' options.
exopolis: Ed Soja's term to describe the idea (or discourse) of the city as an 'inside-out' metropolis characterized by edge cities. See postmodern global metropolis.
expressive interaction: Secondary relationships involving some intrinsic satisfaction (such as joining a sports club). Contrast with instrumental interaction.
extensive regime of accumulation: A phase of capitalist development during which profits were enhanced primarily through increasing the amount of output and expanding the scale of the market, rather than through increasing the productivity of workers. A key concept in certain forms of regulation theory. Contrast with the intensive regime of accumulation and flexible accumulation.
external economies of scale: Factors that reduce the cost of production when the industry to which the firm belongs is large (e.g. the development of specialist suppliers, services and skilled workers). These factors apply irrespective of the size of the individual firm. Contrast with internal economies of scale.
external economies of scope: Economies of scope that arise when the industry to which the firm belongs is large (i.e. there are a large number of producers). Contrast with internal economies of scope.
externality: An unpriced effect resulting from activities in cities. May be a benefit received by those who have not directly paid for it, or a cost (or disbenefit) incurred by those who have not been compensated. Also termed a spillover and third-party effect. May lead to free-riders.
externalization (of production): The tendency for firms to subcontract work to other organizations (also termed vertical disintegration). Usually interpreted as a response to increasing market volatility and technological change as well as a desire to reduce costs. Also related to declining internal economies of scale.

'fabric' effect: A situation in which the physical structure of the housing market has an impact on the distribution of a social group in a city. Usually applied to the impact of cheaper accommodation on the location of ethnic minorities.
factor analysis: A multivariate quantitative technique used to summarize the main patterns in a complex set of data. Technically very similar to principal components analysis. See factorial ecology.
factorial ecology: The application of factor analysis and principal components analysis to the study of residential patterns in cities. See ecological approach, human ecology.
family status: The name frequently given to one of the main dimensions of urban residential structure as shown by factorial ecology -- variations in the extent of nuclear family lifestyles. See ethnic status and social rank.
feminism: A broad social movement advocating equal rights for men and women. Also various forms of academic analysis that attempt to expose the diverse processes that lead women to be oppressed. See gender, patriarchy, sexism.
feminist geography: Geographical analysis that is committed to achieving equal rights for men and women by exposing existing and past inequalities between the sexes.
feminization: The increasing numbers and influence of women in certain spheres of life. Usually applied to the workplace.
festival retailing: Shopping complexes characterized by 'spectacular' elements. See commodity fetishism , spectacle.
fetishizing: Exaggerating the importance of a particular theory, principle, concept or factor in social analysis (such as overemphasizing the role of 'space' in isolation of social processes). Used originally to indicate ways of obscuring class conflict. See commodity fetishism.
figured city: The city that is planned and organized for the affluent. Contrast with disfigured city . See also revanchist city.
filtering: The thesis argued by Homer Hoyt that the primary motor behind residential mobility is the construction of new dwellings for the wealthy, thereby leading to out-migration of the more affluent from older properties and their occupation by persons of lower social class. See sectoral model. Contrast with invasion model of residential mobility.
fiscal imbalance: Disparities between the needs of urban areas and the available resources to meet these needs. Commonly associated with central or inner city local governments in U.S. cities. See suburban exploitation thesis.
fiscal mercantilism: Attempts by local governments to increase local revenues by attracting lucrative taxable land uses. Similar to civic boosterism and civic entrepreneurialism.
fiscal stress: See fiscal imbalance.
flanerie: The act of being a flaneur.
flaneur: A leisurely stroller observing the bustle of city life. Also applied to those who browse through the Internet. See gaze.
flexibilization: A set of policies designed to increase the capacity of firms to adjust their outputs to variations in market demand and, or, to reduce the costs of production. May be applied to forms of industrial organization and to labour practices as well as to both private- and public-sector bodies. See also functional flexibility, numerical flexibility.
flexible accumulation: The idea that the intensive regime of accumulation has been replaced by a new regime in which the prime emphasis is upon flexibility of production. See also regulation theory, post-Fordism, flexibilization, flexible specialization.
flexible specialization: The idea that mass production using unskilled workers is being replaced by batch production of specialized products in small companies using skilled workers. Has similarities with the concept of post-Fordism in regulation theory but is highly voluntarist in approach and is less concerned with matching industrial change to wider economic forces. See voluntarism.
forces of production: The technological basis of a particular mode of production. See also social relations of production.
Fordism: A system of industrial organization established by Henry Ford in Detroit at the beginning of the twentieth century for the mass production of automobiles. In regulation theory the concept refers to a regime of accumulation which was dominant after the Second World War based on Keynesianism, mass production and the welfare state.
'fortress cities': Cities characterized by social inequality, crime, violence and protective strategies in local neighbourhoods designed to exclude groups regarded as dangerous. See gated communities, social polarization, 'scanscape', surveillance.
free-riders: Those who obtain benefits in cities that they have not directly paid for. See externality , suburban exploitation thesis.
functional flexibility: The capacity of firms (and public-sector organizations) to deploy the skills of their employees to match the changing tasks required by variations in workload.
functionalism: A type of reasoning incorporated, either explicitly or implicitly, into a great deal of social theory that is characterized by a number of limitations including: attributing 'needs' to social systems; assuming that social systems are functionally ordered and cohesive; assuming teleology in social systems (i.e. that events can only be explained by movement towards some pre-ordained end); assuming effects as causes; and assuming empirically unverified or unverifiable statements as tautological statements (i.e. true by definition). May also be used to refer to a form of managerial philosophy that advocates the subdivision of organizations around particular tasks and responsibilities.
functionalist sociology: An approach to social theory, of which the sociologist Talcott Parsons was the principal exponent, that attempts to explain social phenomena in terms of their function in maintaining society. See functionalism, system.
functional urban areas: Cities or urban areas defined as geographical agglomerations of people predominantly engaged in non-agricultural occupations who are integrated by overlapping journey-to-work patterns. May not correspond with de jure territories.

galactic metropolis: Another term for the postmodern city in which urban areas are spread around like stars, rather than forming a single, easily identifiable, centre. See postmodernism, postmodern global metropolis.
gated communities: Residential areas of cities with protective measures such as barriers, fences, gates and private security guards designed to exclude social groups deemed undesirable and dangerous. See fortress cities, purified communities, panopticon, 'scanscape', spaces of exclusion.
gay ghetto: A residential area of a city characterized by a high concentration of gay people. See ghetto, ghettoization.
gaze: The surveillance, scrutiny and analysis of peoples and places by observers (traditionally men). Often linked to the idea that these observers can provide a privileged, objective, value-free description of the world. Known as the imperial gaze when linked with colonialism. See also Cartesian approach, mimetic approach. Disputed by social constructionism.
Gemeinschaft: Tight-knit social relationships based around family and kin which Tönnies argued were manifest in traditional agrarian environments. Contrast with Gesellschaft.
gender: Social, psychological and cultural differences between men and women (rather than biological differences of sex). See feminism, heteropatriarchy, patriarchy, sexism.
gender roles: 'Masculine' and 'feminine' ways of performing that are derived from gender. See performativity.
genius loci: The idea that there is a unique 'spirit' of a place, sometimes captured in novels, poetry and painting.
gentrification: The renovation and renewal of run-down inner-city environments through an influx of more affluent persons such as middle-class professionals. Has led to the displacement of poorer citizens. Associated with the development of gay areas in some cities.
geographical imagination: The need for geographers to understand the diversity of cultural values of those they study in different places (and to recognize the influence of their own values upon the frameworks they use to represent these people). See contextual theory, situatedness.
gerrymandering: The manipulation of the boundaries of electoral subdivisions to gain political advantage.
Gesellschaft: Loose-knit social relationships between people which Tönnies argued were manifest in urbanized environments. Contrast with Gemeinschaft.
ghetto: The geographical concentration of social groups. Tends to imply a high degree of involuntary segregation. Usually applied to ethnic minorities but may also refer to older people, gays and lesbians, single parents or those who are mentally ill. See colony, enclave, service-dependent ghetto.
ghettoization: Social trends and public policies that lead to geographical concentrations of social groupings, including deprived groups, elderly people, single parents, mentally ill people or ethnic minorities, often in public-sector or social housing estates. The term usually implies involuntary clustering. See residualization, demunicipalization.
global cities: Cities with a substantial presence of activities such as producer (i.e. business) services that are connected with the global financial economy (e.g. New York, London, Paris). Characterized by conspicuous consumption and social polarization.
globalization: The tendency for economies and national political systems to become integrated at a global scale. Also the tendency for the emergence of a global culture (i.e. universal trends that, it is argued, are sweeping through all nations). See global cities.
global-local nexus: The relationships (and tensions) between forces of globalization and the distinctive features of local areas (e.g. the desire of transnationals to manufacture at a global level yet be sensitive to the needs of particular local markets).
glocalization: The ways in which developments in particular places are the outcome of both local and global forces. See globalization, global-local nexus.
'god trick': A term used by Donna Haraway to draw attention to the assumption of value-free neutrality incorporated into many scientific studies of society (i.e. the capacity to see 'everything from nowhere'). Disputed in social constructionism. See situatedness, poststructuralism.
Golden Age (of Fordism): The period from 1945 until the mid-1970's when Fordism was at its height in Western economies. Also known as the 'Long Boom' (of Fordism).
governance: All the methods by which societies are governed. The term is used to indicate the shift away from direct government control of the economy and society via hierarchical bureaucracies towards indirect control via diverse non-governmental organizations. Associated with the demise of local government. May also be termed urban governance. See 'hollowing out', quango, quasi-state.
grands ensembles: Large-scale, high density and typically high-rise developments of social housing in suburban areas of French cities.
growth coalitions: Partnerships of private and public-sector interests that implement strategies to enhance the economic development of cities and regions, largely through attracting inward investment, mostly from the private sector but also from public funds. Also termed civic boosterism and civic entrepreneurialism. See regime theory. Coalitions may also be anti-growth. See exclusionary zoning.

habitus: The term coined by the social theorist Pierre Bourdieu to indicate the culture associated with people's life-world which involves both material and discursive elements.
hegemonic discourse: The prevailing ideology, or dominant set of ideas, in society. See discourses, hegemony.
hegemony: Domination through consent, largely induced by hegemonic discourse, that shapes people's attitudes. See interpellation. May be reflected in the iconography of landscapes and buildings.
heritage landscapes: Older elements of city structure that have been preserved through renovation or conversion to new uses.
hermeneutics: Theories that examine the complexity of people's views, ideas and subjective interpretations of the world around them.
heteropatriarchal environment: An area in which the values of patriarchy and heterosexuality are dominant (i.e. most parts of cities).
heteropatriarchy: A term which recognizes that the system of patriarchy is dominated by heterosexual values.
heterotopia: A term used by Michel Foucault to denote spaces comprising many diverse cultures outside, and in opposition to, the mainstream of society. Sometimes called a counter-site. May also be used in a general sense to refer to the culture of postmodernism. See also alterity, borderlands, liminal space, spaces of resistance, third space.
historical materialism: The philosophy that underpins classical Marxism which argues that there is a material base -- the means of production -- that is the foundation of all social action.
'hollowing out': The transfer of powers from the nation-state to political units at other levels such as the supranational or subnational level. May also refer to the transfer of powers at the local government level to private-sector organizations rather than other political jurisdictions. Also used to refer to the contracting-out of activities by private corporations. See governance.
homeland: The geographical space to which a national or ethnic group feels that it naturally belongs. Often associated with diasporic groups who long for return to their place of origin. May also be used to denote the family home as a place of safety and retreat.
homosexuality: Mutual emotional and physical attraction between people of the same sex. The term is resisted by many gays and lesbians because it stems from the period when same sex attraction was seen as a social disease. See queer .
housing associations: The not-for-profit voluntary sector of housing provision in the United Kingdom.
housing submarkets: Distinctive types of housing in localized areas of cities which, through various institutional mechanisms, tend to be inhabited by people of a particular type (e.g., in terms of class, age or ethnicity). See culture of property, fabric effect, managerialism.
human agency: Another term for agency. See voluntarism.
human ecology: The application of ideas from the plant and animal worlds to the study of residential patterns in cities. An approach of the Chicago School.
humanism: The idea that people share a common humanity (i.e. similar characteristics which can explain human behaviour). Disputed by discourse theory.
hybridity: A term used in postcolonial studies to indicate the new forms that are created by the merging of cultures. Linked in the past with imperialist notions of racial superiority (which were considered to be undermined by racial interbreeding) but now alludes to the fact that identities are not stable but full of ambivalence. Criticized for assuming that cultures can mix in an unproblematic manner through a process of assimilation. See liminal space, third space. Also termed synergy, transculturation.
hyperreality: Sets of signs within forms of representation such as advertising which have internal meanings with each other, rather than with some underlying reality. May also be thought of as copies that become more important than, or take on separate meanings from, the originals they represent. See simulacra.
hyperspace: An environment dominated by hyperreality (such as Disneyland).

[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

icon: An image, landscape, building or other material artefact that symbolizes cultural meanings. See iconography.
iconography: The study of signs known as icons. Similar to semiology but is especially concerned with landscapes. May reflect dominant power relations and the hegemony in society.
ideal type: A notion derived from ideal type analysis which attempts to simplify and exaggerate key elements of reality for the sake of conceptual and analytic clarity.
identity(ies): The elements that make up the view that people take of themselves (e.g. class, race, age, place, etc.). In cultural studies identity is seen as the unstable product of discourse -- hence use of the plural term identities. Contrast with essentialism. See also interpellation, subjectivity.
identity politics: Political action based around particular identities. Often used to refer to political action other than class conflict (e.g. gay rights or disability action groups). May be related to place. See community action.
ideological superstructure: Sets of institutions such as schools and the family that reinforce ideas that serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful. These are distinguished from the underlying economic base. Also termed state apparatuses. See relative autonomy.
ideology: Ideas which support the interests of the wealthy and powerful. May also be used in a general sense to refer to any belief system.
imaginative geographies: The way in which we project our own attitudes and beliefs in representations of people and places. See geographical imagination.
imagined communities: A term coined by Benedict Andersen to describe the discourses used to construct senses of national identity.
imagineering: The conscious creation of places with characteristics similar to other places (as in Disneyland). Often seen as the creation of a superficial veneer or facade of culture. See Disneyfication, elsewhereness, McDonaldization, placelessness, simulacra.
imperialism: The actions and attitudes of a country that dominates distant territories. Often associated with dominant metropolitan centres. Contrasts with colonialism.
impersonal competition: An idea emerging from the Chicago School of human ecology referring to the economic processes that distribute people into residential areas of differing wealth and status.
index of dissimilarity: A quantitative measure of the extent to which a minority group is residentially segregated within a city. See segregation.
individualistic fallacy: The potential mistakes that can arise when attempting to make inferences about groups of people (such as in residential neighbourhoods) based on information for individuals. Contrast with the ecological fallacy.
industrial cities: Cities of the type that emerged in the nineteenth century dominated by manufacturing activity (sometimes called 'smokestack cities'). Contrast with post-industrial cities.
informal economy: Economic activity that is unrecorded (also known as the 'hidden' economy).
information economy: The growing importance of knowledge (both scientific, technical and fashion-related) in contemporary economies. See aestheticization.
informational city: Manuel Castells's term for the city structures associated with the information economy. See cyberspace, space of flows.
instanciation: The idea that the social structures do not exist 'out there' independently of people but are continually created by people through their everyday interactions. See structuration theory, recursiveness.
instrumental interaction: Secondary relationships designed to achieve a particular objective, such as joining a business organization. Contrast with expressive interaction .
instrumentalism: The theory that both the central and local state serve the interests of capitalist ruling classes, who are represented by the upper-class social background of key politicians, law-makers, bureaucrats and officials. Contrast with pluralism.
intensification: Increases in labour productivity through managerial and organizational changes.
intensive regime of accumulation: A period of history during which profits were enhanced through increasing the efficiency with which inputs to the production system were used. Also termed Fordism. See regulation theory, regime of accumulation.
intentionality: The idea that physical objects (including buildings) have no intrinsic meanings in themselves but only take on meanings in relation to their intended use.
internal economies of scale: Factors that lower the cost of production for a firm, irrespective of the size of the industry to which the firm belongs. These factors usually involve high levels of output which lead to the possibility of specialist machines that can increase rates of productivity and which thereby help to recoup the costs of installing such machinery. Contrast with external economies of scale. See also Fordism.
internal economies of scope: Factors that lower the cost of production when the number of products made within the firm increases. When internal economies of scope begin to decline they can lead to vertical disintegration as firms take advantage of external economies of scope. See new industrial spaces.
internal markets: Attempts to introduce market mechanisms within public-sector organizations by dividing them up into separate units for the purchase and supply of services and by establishing various contracts and trading agreements between these agencies.
interpellation: The discourses that shape the view that people take of themselves (e.g. as in regard to concepts of citizenship). Used in conjunction with Marxian notions of hegemonic discourse. See state apparatuses, subjectivity.
intersubjectivity: The shared sets of meanings that people have about themselves (and where they live) resulting from their everyday experience. See life-world.
intertextuality: The continually changing meanings that result from the interactions between the reader/observer and the text. Part of a form of analysis known as deconstruction . Contrast with mimetic approach.
invasion: A concept derived from the study of plants and animals used by the Chicago School of human ecology to refer to the process whereby a new social group may begin to 'invade' a residential district. Contrast with filtering. See also succession.
inverse-care law: The idea that welfare services such as healthcare are poorest in the most needy areas. Evidence is contradictory so this is a tendency rather than a law. See race preference hypothesis, territorial justice, underclass.
investment and technical change: Capital investment in new forms of machinery and equipment. Often associated with employment loss.

joint supply: The idea that some goods and services have characteristics such that if they can be supplied to one person, they can be supplied to all other persons at no extra cost. See theory of public goods .
jurisdictional partitioning: The subdivision of nation states into political and administrative units with responsibility for the allocation of goods and services. See balkanization, de jure territories .

keno capitalism: A model of city structure derived from Los Angeles which consists of a random set of elements (hence the analogy with random cards drawn in the game of keno). The antithesis of the centralized industrial city. See postmodern global metropolis, exopolis.
Keynesianism: A set of policies underpinning the welfare state in the 1950s and 1960s. The objective was to manage economies by countering the lack of demand in recessions through government spending -- hence the term 'demand management'. This approach was undermined by inflation and high unemployment in the 1970s. A key element of Fordism.
Keynesian welfare state (KWS): A welfare state underpinned by Keynesian demand-management policies. Also characterized by universal benefits, citizens' rights and increasing standards of provision through the social wage. See also Keynesianism, welfare statism.

labour theory of value: Karl Marx's explanation for the creation of value in capitalist societies. The idea that the value of products should not reflect their exchange value in markets but their use value -- the amount of socially necessary labour that goes into their production. See surplus value.
laissez-faire: The ideology that underpinned many capitalist societies in the nineteenth century which argued that the state should not intervene in the operation of private markets. See New Right .
late capitalism: The idea that capitalism has reached a phase that is fundamentally different from previous eras characterized by globalization, mass consumption of diverse products and a culture of postmodernism involving moral relativism. Sometimes equated with flexible accumulation or post-Fordism.
late modernism: Anthony Giddens's interpretation of the cultural and political practices associated with postmodernism. Rather than constituting a rupture with the modernism of the past, Giddens sees the contemporary period as a late stage of modernism characterized by a high degree of reflexivity among both intellectuals and citizens. Also characterized by militarism and surveillance.
legitimizing agent: An institution that makes the capitalist system acceptable through promulgating certain ideas and/or by acting in a particular fashion (e.g. through the provision of social housing or ideas of citizenship in education). See hegemony, hegemonic discourse, ideology, local state.
liberalism: A set of ideas that underpins the Western democracies. Characterized by a belief in the value of the individual whose rights should not be subordinated to those of society as a whole; tolerance for opposing views; and a belief in equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes. See also neo-liberalism, libertarianism, New Right.
libertarianism: A form of New Right theory which argues that, apart from preserving property rights, the state should leave individuals free to do whatever they wish.
life-world: The routine patterns of everyday life. The concept is closely linked with phenomenology and focuses upon the cultural meanings that people ascribe to the spaces that they inhabit. See habitus, time-geography.
liminal space: An in-between space or territory in which cultures mix and interact to create new hybrid forms. See ambivalence, borderlands, heterotopia, hybridity, paradoxical space, third space.
linguistic turn: Another term for the cultural turn in social science denoting the increased attention paid to language and issue of representation.
local economic trading systems (LETS): Groups of people in a local area involved in economic activity using a system of credit based around the exchange of goods and services instead of the national currency.
local knowledge: Another name for embodied knowledge. See situatedness.
local state: Another term for local government. Also associated with a Marxian theory which interprets local governments as serving to maintain the capitalist system and the class interests behind it. See functionalism.
locales: Distinctive settings or contexts in which interactions between people take place. See structuration theory, recursiveness.
locality studies: A type of study undertaken predominantly by geographers in Britain in the 1980s which attempted to examine how global forces interacted with the characteristics of local areas.
logocentrism: The belief in a world composed of a central inner meaning and logic.
'long boom' (of Fordism): The period after the Second World War between 1945 and the mid-1970s when, according to regulation theory, there was in the Western economies a relatively harmonious matching of production and consumption. See Fordism, regime of accumulation.
longue durée: A term used in structuration theory to indicate the time-span over which social institutions such as the family and legal system evolve. See dasein, durée.
Los Angeles School: Another term for the California School. See also postmodern global metropolis.
'loyalty' option: A strategy of resignation and inactivity in the face of a problem. Contrast with 'exit' and 'voice' options.

[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

malapportionment: Electoral subdivisions of unequal size. See gerrymandering.
managerialism: A type of analysis that focuses upon the influence of managers upon access to scarce resources and local services. Also known as urban managerialism. These managers are also known as social gatekeepers and 'street-level' bureaucrats. See eligibility rules.
manipulated city hypothesis: The argument that coalitions of private interests can operate through legal and institutional frameworks in cities to achieve favourable resource allocations. See coalition building, growth coalitions, parapolitical structure, regime theory.
margins: Areas on the fringes of a dominant region. May also be used metaphorically to indicate cultures on the fringes of dominant cultures where new hybrid identities are being formed. See borderlands, hybridity.
marketization: Transferring the allocation of goods and services from non-market to market principles. See internal markets, commodification.
market testing: A process whereby various external organizations are invited to bid for contracts by an organization wishing to test the efficiency of its own internal division in supplying the good or service in question. See contracting-in, contracting-out.
Marxian theory: see neo-Marxism.
masculinism: An approach that privileges and represents as normal the activities of men.
materialization: Restructuring a service into a physical form which can be bought, sold and transported.
material practices: Flows of money, goods and people across space to facilitate accumulation and social reproduction.
'McDonaldization': A term coined by G. Ritzer to indicate the ways in which processes of mass consumption are eroding cultural differences throughout the world. See globalization.
megacities: Manuel Castells' term for large cities in which some people are connected up to global information flows whilst others are disconnected and 'information poor'.
megalopolis: Jean Gottman's term for multi-city, multi-centred, urban regions.
mental map: The mental images that people form of areas. See cognitive distance.
merit goods: Goods and services that are regarded as so desirable they cannot be left to private markets and are allocated by the public sector. The reason for this is that the benefits to the community exceed those to the individual, so that the latter will tend to consume too little for the common good.
mestiza: A term denoting both geographical and metaphorical spaces on the margins of dominant cultures where new hybrid forms of identity can emerge. See also borderlands, heterotopia, hybridity, liminal space, third space .
metanarrative: A theory or conceptual framework that purports to be a superior way of looking at the world providing privileged insights. Also known as a totalizing narrative. See also postmodernism, deconstruction.
metropolitan fragmentation: The administrative subdivision of U.S. cities into numerous local governments. Also known as balkanization and jurisdictional partitioning.
micropowers: Everyday interactions through which social control becomes exercised. See disciplinary regimes, recursiveness.
mimetic approach: The idea that writing and other forms of representation are mirrors that reflect the world around us. Contrast with social constructionism.
mimicry: A term used in postcolonial theory to indicate the copying of the culture of the dominant group by a colonized people. May lead to an undermining of authority through the development of hybridity and mockery. See ambivalence, liminal space, third space.
minority group: A subgroup of society that is characterized by factors such as race, religion, nationality, or culture.
mixed economies of welfare: A system in which welfare needs are met by a diverse set of agencies including the voluntary and private sectors rather than exclusively by the state. Also termed welfare pluralism.
mode of production: The way in which productive activity in society is organized (e.g. socialist or capitalist). It comprises the forces of production and the social relations of production. It also involves methods of social reproduction , the social division of labour and the technical division of labour.
mode of regulation: An idea central to regulation theory that asserts that conflicts within a capitalist society are mediated by various types of norms, rules and regulations which are manifest in various types of legislation and institutions. See also regime of accumulation.
modernism: A mode of thinking characterized by a belief in universal progress through scientific analysis together with the notion that social problems can be solved by the application of rational thought. See enlightenment project, social engineering.
modernity: The period in which modernism was the dominant mode of thinking beginning in the late eighteenth century (the Age of Enlightenment) and lasting until the late twentieth century.
monumental architecture: Architectural forms that symbolize power and authority. See iconography, monuments.
monuments: Elements of the landscape that have symbolic meaning, usually for national and ethnic groups (e.g. war memorials).
morphogenesis: Processes that create and reshape the physical fabric of urban form.
morphological regions: Areas characterized by distinctive land uses, buildings and landscapes. See morphogenesis .
multiculturalism: Public policies that support the right of ethnic groups to maintain their distinctive cultures rather than become part of the dominant culture of the society.
multinationals: Companies engaged in production and marketing in more than one country. Sometimes regarded as synonymous with transnationals although the latter has a slightly different meaning.
multiple deprivation: A situation where people are deprived in respect of a number of attributes such as income, housing, healthcare and education. See territorial social indicators.
multiple nuclei model: Harris and Ullman's model of urban city structure characterized by decentralization and no overall pattern. See also edge cities, exopolis, keno capitalism . Contrast with concentric zone model and sectoral model.
multiplex city: A metaphor based on the theatre or the cinema to indicate cities characterized by numerous webs of social and economic interaction, only some of which meet in creative ways and some of which remain isolated or disconnected.
municipal socialism: A form of local government which emerged in Victorian cities between 1850 and 1910 concerned to extend the scope of public services.

natural areas: An idea formulated by the Chicago School of human ecology which asserts that certain areas of cities have a natural tendency to reflect a particular type of land use or social grouping. See dominance.
neighbourhood: Territories containing people of broadly similar demographic, economic and social characteristics but without necessarily displaying elements of close community interaction. See community.
neighbourhood effect: The hypothesis that residential environments both influence and reflect local subcultures. See cultural transmission.
neo-classical economics: Attempts to update the ideas of the classical economists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Characterized by a belief in the value of market mechanisms. The approach tends to focus upon microlevel individual market problems rather than wider economic issues. It looks for universal, unchanging principles of human economic behaviour and tends to ignore the social context of economic activity. Contrast with embeddedness and situatedness.
neo-corporatism: Corporatist forms of social organization designed to increase the competitiveness of the economy. See Schumpeterian workfare state. Contrast with neo-liberalism and neo-statism.
neo-Fordism: Various strategies designed to overcome the problems inherent in the Fordist regime of accumulation but without fundamentally transforming it. This may be regarded as a transition period until a new regime of accumulation emerges. See Fordism, regulation theory, mode of regulation.
neo-liberalism: Strategies to make economies competitive by various types of New Right policy including privatization and deregulation. Contrast with neo-corporatism and neo-statism. (May sometimes be referred to as neo-classical liberalism.)
neo-Marxism: Attempts to upgrade classical Marxist theories in the light of developments in social theory and society in the twentieth century. Also termed Marxian and post-Marxist theories.
neo-pluralism: Attempts to update pluralism in the wake of extensive criticism.
neo-statism: Direct state intervention to achieve international competitiveness. Contrast with neo-corporatism and neo-liberalism.
new industrial spaces: The geographical concentration of firms involved in dense networks of subcontracting and collaboration. Often related to innovative firms in sectors such as electronics and biotechnology. Also termed 'industrial districts' (although the latter term is often applied to small districts within cities). May be linked with flexible specialization and post-Fordism.
New Right: A set of ideas that share a common belief in the superiority of market mechanisms as the most efficient means of ensuring the production and distribution of goods and services.
New social movements: See social movements and identity politics .