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Miskatonic Jack 2's definitions

Anthropocene

The Earth's most recent epoch, one marked by an explosion in the human population along with all which will likely come with it:

-Deposits in the Earth's strata coming from such products & byproducts as plastics, concrete, asphalt, metal alloys, radioactive and other toxic wastes as well as everything else added by our modern industrial and post-industrial civilization.

-Climate change

-What will likely be the Earth's 6th largest mass extinction

In just two centuries, we humans have wrought such vast and unprecedented changes to our biosphere that we actually might be ushering in a new geological time interval, and will alter the planet for millions of years.
Zalasiewicz, Williams, Steffen and Crutzen contend that recent human activity, including stunning population growth, sprawling megacities and increased use of fossil fuels, have changed the planet to such an extent that we are entering what they call the Anthropocene (New Man) Epoch.

First proposed by Crutzen more than a decade ago, the term Anthropocene has provoked controversy. However, as more potential consequences of human activity -- such as global climate change and sharp increases in plant and animal extinctions -- have emerged, Crutzen's term has gained support. Currently, the worldwide geological community is formally considering whether the Anthropocene should join the Jurassic, Cambrian and other more familiar units on the Geological Time Scale.

-ScienceDaily
by Miskatonic Jack 2 November 14, 2010
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exurban

♦ Where people live who drive an hour to a well paying job.

♦ Where your neighbor's house is 100 ft from your own and both are 50 meters (164.041 feet) from the road.

♦ Where gated communities are built with 2 acre lots and the homeowners association is constantly in fear of non-conformity and people using that land to grow their own food as well as any landscape which is reverting to it's natural state.

♦ Where your neighborhood centers around a golf course and the closest retail is 4 miles (6.43737 km) away

♦ Where your zip code's tallest building rises 2 storeys and the population density never goes beyond 1,000 people per square mile.

♦ Where rich white people go in order to avoid ethnic minorities, same thing with their country clubs.

♦ Where the water table is irreversibly contaminated by all the lawn chemicals the residents use.

♦ Where the treeless lawn surrounding one's ranch house is used for parking, sports, and an area where one's many dogs and children can run wild and wreck havoc.

♦ Areas idealized by people like Frank Lloyd Wright and Joel Garreau (writer of Edge Cities).

♦ Areas reviled by people such as Paolo Soleri and James Howard Kunstler.
Land in exurban areas is used in the most wasteful, unsustainable and impractical ways. It's not at all uncommon for property owners to have a half acre of their spread paved over. I've even heard of aviation enthusiasts
by Miskatonic Jack 2 November 23, 2010
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Lowertown

A neighborhood of Paducah Kentucky that serves as it's Art's district. It borders downtown to the southwest. Thanks to the Artist Relocation Program, artists from places as far as Hawaii, San Fransisco and Paris France have settled there givinig the city of Paducah hope of having a rennaisance.
I'd move to Lowertown, but it's too close to the New Madrid Faultline.
by Miskatonic Jack 2 December 11, 2008
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ATV

Among the most ecologically destructive devices ever invented. They bring ruin to natural areas, destroying thousands of native plant and animal species, tear up cropland (in case you don't remember that's what keeps us from starving to death) and otherwise cause severe amounts of soil erosion (which in turn degrades the water quality and aquatic habitat). For these reasons they are especially attractive to rednecks and other irresponsable people.
Tax dollars are wasted repairing the damage caused by ATVs.
There have been cases of arguments where ATV riders have actually killed farmers & property owners.
ATVs will probably destroy our country, not that the evangelicals care. They don't think our planet will be around in another 20 years anyway.
by Miskatonic Jack 2 May 3, 2007
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MSA

Metropolitan Statistical Area

In the USA this refers to an urban cluster (continuously built up area,) or clusters of 50K people of more each, the county it (or they) sit in, as well as the counties (or townships in New England) where significant numbers of people commute to and from that county. It includes urban (high density,) suburban (lower density,) and exurban (rural nonfarm) areas, as well as farmland.
Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)

Definition: Geographical divisions, determined by the United States Office of Management and Budget, for the purposes of census data and other urban population calculations. The divisions are primarily based on urban areas, and tend to follow town or county borders. The MSAs can also be broken down into smaller “Metropolitan Divisions.” Previously called Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA).

-BusinessDictionary.com
by Miskatonic Jack 2 November 17, 2010
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neighborhood

An area walkable by any able bodied person which is tied together by some common thread. It could be architectural, historical, cultural, functional... a hill, lake, pond, ditch, creek, school, shopping district, tower or other landmark the neighborhood is centered around, or a neighborhood association.
__________'s neighborhood was built between 1925 and 1935 and is centered on Chimera Hill, which it is named after. It has large and growing New Guinea Papuan-American population.

The office is on the fourth floor of the _________ building in the Tannery District, a neighborhood bordered by the Downtown (the office tower district) to the north, the Glassmaking District to the northwest, the Recording District to the northeast, Chinatown to the east, Ukranian Village to the west, Little Haiti to the southwest and Little Saigon to the southeast
by miskatonic Jack 2 November 27, 2010
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ethnoburb

A particular area within an MSA but outside the central city where a particular ethnic group (nearly always an immigrant group) has decided to settle.
An ethnoburb is a suburban residential and business area in North America with a notable cluster of a particular ethnic minority population. The term was first coined in 1997 by Dr. Wei Li, then assistant professor of Geography and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut, in a paper examining the suburban Chinese population in Los Angeles (County,) California.1 Ethnoburbs emerge for a variety on reasons, in combination or as separate entities. These include significant changes in world politics and economy, policy changes in the United States' national policies, and demographic shifts in individual or in local connecting neighborhoods. These communities have substantial external connections to the globalised mainstream economy, leading to higher socioeconomic levels in its residents. An ethnoburb functions as a social hub and a place where immigrants may work and do business within their own networks. The formation of ethnoburbs also have an effect on the cultural and political characteristics of a city. In (MSA)s such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Vancouver, and Toronto, and in the San Gabriel Valley in California, for example, Chinese immigrants have built large houses and malls catering to Chinese businesses, changing the landscape of these and a significant number of smaller communities throughout the USA

-Wikipedia
by Miskatonic Jack 2 January 7, 2011
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