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Chapter 10 Reading the Urban Landscape Census
Data and Field Observation
Activity 1 Census Tract Data
Activity 2 Field Survey
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Learning OutcomesAfter completing the chapter,
you will be able to

• Use electronic data from the 2000 Census of
  Population and Housing.
• See a small geographic area within the larger
  urban context.
• Structure and sharpen field observation skills.

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Figure 10.1
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Figure 10.2
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Figure 10.3
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Figure 10.4
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Figure 10.5
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Figure 10.6
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Figure 10.7
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Figure 10.8
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Figure 10.9
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Figure 10.10
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Figure 10.11
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Figure 10.12
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Definitions of Key Terms

• Central Business District The downtown or
  nucleus of the urban area. It has the peak value
  intersection, the densest land use, the tallest
  buildings, and traditionally was the urban areas
  major concentration of retail, office, and
  cultural activity.
• Census Tract An areal unit defined and used by
  the Bureau of the Census for presentation of
  data. Census tracts incorporate roughly 4,000
  people, but considerable variation occurs.
• Concentric Ring Model A model that explains
  urban land use in a pattern of concentric rings
  around the city center.
• Edge Cities Suburban nodes of employment and
  economic activity featuring high-rise office
  space, corporate headquarters, shopping,
  entertainment, and hotels. Their physical layout
  is designed for automobile, not pedestrian,
  travel.

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• Gentrification The upgrading of inner-city
  neighborhoods and their resettlement by upwardly
  mobile professionals.
• Invasion and Succession When new immigrants to a
  city move into older housing near the city center
  and push earlier groups outward.
• Modernism As a worldview or philosophy, it is
  the belief in the preeminence of scientific
  rationality and the inevitability of human
  progress. As an architectural and urban planning
  movement, it emphasized function over form and
  universal models.
• Multiple Nuclei Model A model that explains
  urban land use as organized around several
  separate nuclei.
• Postmodernism As a worldview or philosophy, it
  rejects the notion that there are any universal
  models for how the world functions and what is
  best, and denies that any perspective, style, or
  subgroup has a monopoly on truth or beauty. As an
  architectural and urban planning movement, it
  emphasizes context, aesthetics, and mixing of
  land uses.

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• Sector Model A model that explains urban land
  use in pie-shaped sectors radiating outward from
  the city center.
• Slums Older, run-down inner-city neighborhoods
  populated by poor and disadvantaged populations.
• Suburbanization The process whereby growth in
  population and economic activity has been most
  intense at the fringes of urbanized areas.
• Urban Realm Suburban regions functionally tied
  to a mixed-use suburban downtown with relative
  independence from the CBD.
• Urban Underclass The disadvantaged population of
  inner-city slums that are persistently poor,
  plagued by a variety of social ills, and
  concentrated in neighborhoods where a majority of
  their neighbors are also persistently poor.