UPDATED ACTUAL Exam Questions and
CORRECT Answers
Turbine Square - CORRECT ANSWER - Civic spaces organized around a pinwheel
arrangement of streets.
Garden City Concept - CORRECT ANSWER - Ebenezer Howard's attempt to combine the
best of city and country living in his town-country idea. First put forth in 1898.
Satellite Towns - CORRECT ANSWER - Smaller towns dependent on larger towns nearby for
business.
Cite Industrielle - CORRECT ANSWER - Proposed by Tony Garnier in 1917. A city plan that
included separate zones for residential, public, industrial, and agricultural uses, linked by
separated circulation paths for vehicles and pedestrians. One of the first plans to emphasize the
idea of zoning.
Gridiron Street System - CORRECT ANSWER - Regularly planned public open spaces and
uniform spacing and setback of buildings. The city of Philadelphia (established in 1682), along
with many other early towns, used this planning system.
Ward - CORRECT ANSWER - A plot of land about 600ft square.
Township - CORRECT ANSWER - A six mile by six mile piece of land.
Section - CORRECT ANSWER - Townships are divided into 36 1-mile square pieces of land.
New Town Concept - CORRECT ANSWER - Started in Great Britain in the 1940's, it is an
extension of the idea that entirely new communities can be built away from the crowding and
ugliness of existing cities.
New Urbanism - CORRECT ANSWER - A more recent planning philosophy that attempts to
counter the many undesirable aspects of city development, including suburban sprawl, reliance
on the automobile, environmental deterioration, housing segregation, loss of farmland, and
single-use development.
Expanding Grid - CORRECT ANSWER - A pattern of urban development where the city
begins at the junction of two major roads and is methodically laid out in a grid.
Star Pattern - CORRECT ANSWER - A pattern of urban development where the city grows
out of a dense urban core, with development following the radiating spokes of main highways
and mass transit routes out of the center.
,Satellite Pattern - CORRECT ANSWER - A pattern of urban development where a large dense
urban core is surrounded by other major urban areas. The areas are linked to the city in the center
by major highways.
Beltway - CORRECT ANSWER - A circular road system that connects satellite areas by
making it possible to travel between them without going through the city in the center
Field Pattern - CORRECT ANSWER - A pattern of urban development that has no central
focus or apparent overall organization scheme.
Megalopolis - CORRECT ANSWER - A form of urban development where two or more
major urban centers near each other grow together as the space between is developed.
Imageability - CORRECT ANSWER - The quality of a physical environment that evokes a
strong image in the mind of a given observer. Can be a natural feature or a prominent building or
structure.
Path - CORRECT ANSWER - A way of circulation along which people customarily,
occasionally or potentially move. May be a street, pedestrian walkway, railroad, transit line, or
river.
Edge - CORRECT ANSWER - A linear element that forms a boundary between two districts
or that breaks continuity. Could be a shoreline, a line of buildings against a park, a wall, or a
similar feature.
District - CORRECT ANSWER - A two-dimensional area perceived as having some
identifying character that distinguishes it from the surrounding city. Can be perceived from the
inside, or can be identified as an element of the city from the outside.
Node - CORRECT ANSWER - A focal point or center of interest that people can enter. Could
be an intersection of paths, a place where the mode of transportation changes, a plaza or public
square, or a center of a district.
Landmark - CORRECT ANSWER - Similar to a node in that it is a reference point, but it is
viewed from the exterior and may or may not be entered. Could be a tower, monument, building,
or natural feature.
Superblock - CORRECT ANSWER - A concept that minimizes the impact of the car on
housing and allows the development of pedestrian circulation and park space within the block.
Planned Unit Development (PUD) - CORRECT ANSWER - Each large parcel of land is
designed to have a mix of uses - residential, commercial, recreational, and open space - and is
designed with a variety of lot sizes and densities.
Transit-Oriented Development - CORRECT ANSWER - Construction that takes place in areas
surrounding transit stops; it usually includes a relatively high density of living units, commercial
development, and other support services.
, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) - CORRECT ANSWER -
Inspired by the concepts of defensible space.
Catchment Area - CORRECT ANSWER - The geographical region of land development that
is dependent on or affected by some surrounding base of population.
Neighborhood - CORRECT ANSWER - A relatively small area in which a number of people
live and share similar needs and desires in housing, social activities, and other aspects of day-to-
day living.
Public Facilities - CORRECT ANSWER - Include such places as schools, shops, fire stations,
places of worship, post offices, and recreational centers.
Proxemics - CORRECT ANSWER - Deals with issues of spacing between people,
territoriality, organization of space, and positioning of people in the space, as related to the
culture of which they are apart.
Behavior Setting - CORRECT ANSWER - A place with defined boundaries in which a
standing pattern of behavior occurs at a particular time; the place may also contain objects that
support the behavior.
Territoriality - CORRECT ANSWER - Refers to the need to lay claim to the spaces we
occupy and the things we own.
Local Street - CORRECT ANSWER - Roads that have the lowest capacity and provide direct
access to building sites.
Collector Street - CORRECT ANSWER - Connect local streets with large arterial streets.
Intersections with local streets may be controlled with stop signs, while intersections with arterial
streets will be controlled with stop lights.
Arterial Street - CORRECT ANSWER - Major, continuous circulation routes that carry large
amounts of traffic on two or three lanes.
Expressway - CORRECT ANSWER - Limited access roads designed to move large volumes
of traffic between, through, and around population centers.
Tangent - CORRECT ANSWER - A straight section of a road.
Macroclimate - CORRECT ANSWER - The overall climate of a region and is reflected in the
weather data available from the National Weather Service.
Microclimate - CORRECT ANSWER - The site-specific modification of the macroclimate by
such features as land slope, trees and other vegetation, bodies of water, and buildings.
Albedo - CORRECT ANSWER - The fraction of the radiant energy received on a surface that
is reflected and is expressed as a number from zero to 1.0. Aka. Solar Reflectance (SR)