Field guide

The ideas this game is built on, in the language you will see on the AP Human Geography exam.

Smart growth

A planning approach that concentrates growth in compact, walkable, transit-served centers instead of spreading it across the countryside. Its core principles: mix land uses, build compactly, create a range of housing choices, make walkable neighborhoods, preserve open space and farmland, direct development toward existing communities, provide transportation choices, and involve residents in decisions.

Urban sprawl

Low-density, car-dependent development that spreads outward from a city. It consumes farmland and habitat, lengthens commutes (higher vehicle miles traveled), and forces governments to extend roads, water and sewer lines far beyond where they already exist.

Greenfield

Land that has never been built on: farms, pastures, forests. Cheap and easy to build on, which is exactly why sprawl favors it.

Brownfield

Previously developed land, usually industrial or commercial, that is abandoned or underused and may be contaminated. Reusing it costs more up front (assessment and cleanup) but recycles land, reuses existing streets and pipes, and removes a hazard from a neighborhood. The orange and purple dots on the map are real sites from EPA's Cleanups in My Community database.

Superfund site

The most seriously contaminated sites in the country, managed under the federal Superfund program. Sites on the National Priorities List (NPL) require long, expensive cleanup before reuse.

Infill development

Building on vacant or underused parcels inside an already built-up area. The opposite of building at the edge.

Greyfield

An economically obsolete but not contaminated site, such as a dead shopping mall with its ocean of parking. A prime infill target.

Mixed-use and "missing middle" housing

Mixed-use buildings put shops, offices and homes in the same structure or block. Missing middle housing (duplexes, townhomes, small apartment buildings) sits between single-family houses and big apartment towers and lets neighborhoods add people gently.

Transit-oriented development (TOD)

Dense, walkable, mixed-use development within about a half mile (800 m) of a rail or bus rapid transit station. In the game, housing near a station you build earns a compact-growth bonus.

Environmental justice

The principle that no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of environmental harms, and that all people deserve meaningful participation in decisions. Historically, polluting facilities and highways were disproportionately sited in low-income communities and communities of color, often the same neighborhoods redlined decades earlier. The shaded tracts on the map show real poverty rates from the American Community Survey; the game treats tracts at or above 20% as high-need.

LULU

A "locally unwanted land use": something a region needs but no neighborhood wants nearby, such as a logistics warehouse, a landfill or a highway. Where LULUs end up is an environmental justice question.

NIMBY

"Not in my backyard": opposition by residents to development near them, whether a warehouse or an apartment building. Wealthier neighborhoods are usually better at winning these fights.

Food desert

An area, typically low-income, where residents lack easy access to a full-service grocery store. Placing a grocery in a high-need tract earns an equity bonus.

Gentrification and displacement

When new investment in a lower-income neighborhood raises rents and property values, long-time residents can be priced out. Affordable-housing requirements are one tool cities use in response.

How the game classifies a site

Distance to downtown comes from the downtown pin (3 km and 10 km rings). A site within 300 m of an EPA record counts as a brownfield and adds cleanup cost. The poverty rate comes from the Census tract you clicked in. Whether land is developed is your call from the imagery, so look carefully.