| ISTEA | Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. Landmark legislation for balanced federal highway funding and the predecessor to TEA-21. | "Increasing Physical Activity Through Community Design: A Guide for Public Health Practioners," National Center for Bicycling and Walking, May 2002, Page 31. |
| Iconography | The identity of a region as expressed through its cherished symbols; its particular cultural landscape and personality. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 605-606. |
| Immigrant | A person migrating into a particular country or area; an in-migrant. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Infrastructure | The foundations of a society; urban centers, communications, farms, factories, mines, and such facilities as schools, hospitals, postal services, and police and armed forces. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Inheritance tax | A tax imposed on a person who inherits property from another (unlike an estate tax, which is imposed on the decedent’s estate). There is no federal inheritance tax, but some states provide for one (though it is deductible under the federal estate tax). | Black’s Law Dictionary – Deluxe Seventh Edition; West Publishing Company; St. Paul; 1999; page 1470. |
| Insular | Having the qualities and properties of an island. Real islands are not alone in possessing such properties of isolation: an oasis in the middle of a desert also has qualities of insularity. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Intermontane | Literally, "between mountains." The location can bestow certain qualities of natural protection or isolation to a community. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Internal migration | Migration flow within a nation-state, such as ongoing westward and southward movements in the United States and eastward movement in the Soviet Union. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| International migration | Migration flow involving movement across international borders. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Irrigation | The artificial watering of croplands. In Egypt's Nile Valley, basin irrigation is an ancient method that involved the use of floodwaters that were trapped in basins on the floodplain and released in stages to augment rainfall. Today's perennial irrigation requires the construction of dams and irrigation canals for year-round water supply. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Isobar | A line connecting points of equal atmospheric pressure. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Isohyet | A line connecting points of equal rainfall total. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Isolation | The condition of being geographically cut off or far removed from mainstreams of thought and action. It also denotes a lack of receptivity to outside influences, caused at least partially by inaccessibility. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Isoline | A line connecting points of equal value. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Isotherm | A line connecting equal points of temperature. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Juxtaposition | Contrasting places in close proximity to one another. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Land alienation | One society or culture group taking land from anther. In Subsaharan Africa, for example European colonialists took land from indigenous Africans and put it to new uses, fencing it off and restricting settlement. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Land trust | A private, nonprofit conservation organization formed to protect natural resources such as productive farm and forest land, natural areas, historic structures and recreational areas. Land trusts purchase and accept donations of conservation easements. They educate the public about the need to conserve land, and some provide land use and estate planning services to local governments and individual citizens. | American Farmland Trust, Farmland Information Center, Fact Sheet, Glossary, September, 1998 http://www.farmlandinfo.org/fic/tas/tafs-gloss.html. |
| Landlocked | An interior country or state that is surrounded by land. Without coasts, a landlocked state is at a disadvantage in a number of ways -- in terms of access to international trade routes, and in the scramble for possession of areas of the continental shelf and control of the exclusive economic zone beyond. | De Blij, H. J., and Perter O. Muller; Geography - Regions and Concepts; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore; 1992; page 606. |
| Land-use planning | The deliberate, systematic development of real estate through methods such as zoning, environmental impact studies, and the like. | Black’s Law Dictionary – Deluxe Seventh Edition; West Publishing Company; St. Paul; 1999; page 884. |
| Leasehold | A leasehold is like the freehold title in that it is exclusive and enforceable and can be transferable and divisible, but it is of limited duration. | Hartwick, John M., and Nancy D. Olewiler. "The Economics of Natural Resource Use," page 8. Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1986. |
| Limited development | The concept of limited development is not new. For years, landowners have been selling off a few lots to meet their financial needs. What is new is the concept of protecting the rest the property from future development by selling a few carefully selected lots rather than subdividing an entire property.
More innovative limited development plans include restrictions on the location and number of home sites, enforced by Conservation Easements. Under this arrangement, a landowner can generate more income with fewer home sites because the value of each site increases when the land around it is protected forever. Often times, a portion of the tax liability from the sale of a protected home site can be offset by using a conservation easement as the device for restricting development. In cases where there are several home sites, the landowner can sell them all at once or one by one as income is needed. Unlike conventional subdivision, this process allows landowners to realize a return from their property and at the same time safeguard some of its natural assets. Whether the landowner decides to sell one or ten home sites, all lots should be chose so they do not interfere with the property's scenic or natural resources, or in the case of a farm or ranch, traditional operations. |
http://www.sonoran.org/library/terms/limited.html; accessed October 30, 2001 |
| Local government | A city government, county government, or city-county government. If the subdivision you are connected with is in an incorporated town or city, then it's the city government you need to deal with. If the subdivision you are concerned with is not within any incorporated city or town, then it's the county government that you need to deal with. If you have consolidated government, all subdivision proposals go to the city-county government. | "Getting the Growth You Want (Part One): A citizen's guide to subdivisions and smart growth," by the Montana Smart Growth Coalition, and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Montana Smart Growth Coalition , 1st printing, September 2002, Page 31. |
| Local Public Agency (LPA) | The way in which federal legislation refers to the governmental agency designated as the one responsible for administering the federal programs for urban renewal. LPA's could be the local governing body, a housing authority, or a separate urban renewal authority, depending on the desires of the policymakers in the community. | Smith, Herbert H., "The Citizen's Guide to Planning." American Planning Association, Chicago and New York, page 162, 1979. |
| Local subdivision | Rules adopted by a local government that outline how subdivisions are to be approved and/or denied. Local subdivision regulations vary from place to place, but all such regulations have to comply with minimum standards set by the state. | "Getting the Growth You Want (Part One): A citizen's guide to subdivisions and smart growth," by the Montana Smart Growth Coalition, and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Montana Smart Growth Coalition , 1st printing, September 2002, Page 31. |