An area with distinct regulations and incentives to attract investment and industry.
Related terms
- Transit-oriented development
Compact, mixed-use development focused around public-transport nodes.
- Urban sprawl
Low-density, car-dependent expansion of a city into its periphery; Cairo's desert satellite cities and Lagos's outward growth are textbook cases with heavy inf…
- Urbanisation
The shift of population from rural to urban areas, a structural driver of real estate demand.
- Zoning
Regulation dividing land into areas with permitted uses and development limits.
- Agglomeration economies
The productivity benefits that arise when firms and people locate close together.
- Bid-rent gradient
The way land rents and prices decline with distance from a city's centre or key node; it explains why Cairo's New Administrative Capital or Riyadh's core comma…
- Central place theory
A model explaining the size and spacing of settlements by the market areas needed to support goods and services; useful for retail catchment and site selection…
- Consumer price index (CPI)
A measure of inflation tracking the price of a basket of consumer goods; leases and construction contracts are often indexed to CPI, and it drives real vs nomi…