Contemporary Urban Environments

• Accessibility - How easy it is to travel to a place or interact with an individual.
• Council Estate - Consisting only of social housing, with tenants on subsidised rent.
• Counter Urbanisation - An increase in the proportion of a population living within rural areas, due to migration from urban to rural regions.
• Cultural Enrichment - The addition of ideas, traditions and beliefs due to the arrival of new people. Cultural Erosion - The loss of a culture, resulting in a change in ideas or disregard for traditions.
• Culture - The way of life of a particular group of people at a particular time, generally customs and beliefs.
• Central Business District (CBD) - The centre of a city, containing a high density of businesses and TNC headquarters.
• Degeneration - The decline of a region over time, due to insufficient funds, outward migration and declining quality of life for residents.
• Deindustrialisation - A reduction in industrial capacity, leading to social and economic change within a region.
• Deprivation - Individuals’ lack basic services or objects they would expect to have in the 21st Century.
• Dereliction - The loss of industry or productivity of a land, leaving it abandoned. Diversity - Variation within a population, in their characteristics, background and behaviour.
• Elite Migrants - Migration due to an individual’s wealth or status, often investing in the host country through investment visas, property or business.
• Environmental Impact Assessment - The study of environmental impacts caused by large business projects.
• Environmental Regeneration - The focus of regeneration is to restore and maintain natural environments such as woodlands, beaches and national parks.
• Ethnicity - The cultural background of a group of people, often based on religion or country of origin.
• Gated Communities - Urban neighbourhoods surrounded by gates often to improve privacy and safety. They can add to segregation within a community.
• Hard Regeneration - Construction of new buildings and infrastructure and investment within a region.
• Internal Migration - The movement of people within a country.
• Inequality - Differences in income, well-being and wealth between individuals, communities and society.
• International Migration - The movement of people from one country to another.
• Leisure-led Regeneration - The focus of regeneration is to attract tourists or improve the social quality of life (sports & activities, attractions, etc.).
• Kuznet’s Curve - A graph describing environmental degradation as a country’s GDP per capita increases.
• Life-cycle Stage - The change in opinions and values at different stages of an individual’s life.
• Lived Experience - The contribution of experiences and opportunities to an individual’s views and values.
• Media - The publishing of information and production of entertainment (e.g. BBC, local newspapers, radio stations).
• Multicultural - The existence, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultural traditions within a single geographic area.
• Non-Agricultural Based Regeneration - The focus of regeneration is to produce revenue for rural businesses (e.g. Tea Rooms, Paintballing, Historic Attractions).
• Overheating - Increased demand for housing and the services of an area results in rising prices rather than increased output.
• Political Engagement - The willingness and ability of an individual to vote or join political parties or pressure groups.
• Pressure Group - Usually voluntary organisations, with the aim of persuading the public and changing government policy or authorities actions.
• Rebranding - Creating a new look or reputation for an area.
• Regional Disparity - The economic (or cultural) gap between different parts of a country.
• Perception - A person’s view of a place or issue based on feelings, experience and outside forces such as the media.
• Retail-led Regeneration - The focus of regeneration is to attract shops to high streets and markets, and to establish warehouses and logistical hubs for TNCs.
• Reimaging - Regeneration and rebranding specifically focussed on removing negative perceptions about a place.
• Rural Decline - Reduction in population in rural areas, leading to reduced services and government spending for that region.
• Rural-urban Continuum - A range of living spaces running from remotest peripheral rural villages to the CBD of the city.
• Segregation - The separation of a group from other groups this can be through force or voluntarily. Segregation can often occur due to housing strategies or regeneration projects.
• Sink Estates - Council estates that score badly on the Index of Multiple Deprivation.
• Spiral of Decline - Stages of rural decline that contribute to a positive feedback loop, with more and more outward migration and increasingly declining services.
• Stakeholder - An individual with interest and influence within their community (residents, local businesses, farmers, NGOs).