Download People to know: Carl Sauer: cultural landscape Thomas Malthus

People to know:
• Carl Sauer: cultural landscape
• Thomas Malthus: population growth faster than food supply would mean disaster
• Rostow: stage of economic development
• Wallerstein: core-periphery model
• Von Thunen: location theory for agriculture
• Weber: location theory for industry/manufacturing
• Christaller : central place theory
• Burgess: Concentric urban model
• Hoyt: Sector: urban model
• Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman : multiple nuclei urban model
Carl Sauer: cultural landscape
Thomas Malthus: population growth faster than food supply
Rostow: stage of economic development
• US economist Walter Rostow, argued that countries would progress through five stages
Strength of the Modernization model:
• Over the long term, all countries are capable of development.
• It has proved to works for some countries: Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan (Asian Dragons) the
American South, Czech Republic, Ireland
Rostow’s model did not account for regional constraints
Wallerstein: core-periphery model
• Immanuel Wallerstein, a leading advocate of the approach characterizes the world system as a set of
mechanisms which redistributes resources from the periphery to the core.
• Dependency School of Thought/Model (1970s). Sees low development levels as being a result of the LDCs
economic dependency on the MDCs.
Dependency real world strategies.
• Invest and improve human welfare (education, health, food, water, and shelter needs).
• redistribute capital in more even manner (socialism)
• a bottom-up strategy
• import substitution: an LDC tries to develop its own industries instead of importing manufactured goods from
the MDCs
• nationalization: To convert from private to governmental ownership and control (natural resources)
• high import tariffs (to protect infant home-grown industries)
• Self sufficiency (economic independence)
•
Von Thunen’s Agricultural Model
A land use model used to explain the importance of proximity to the market in the choice of crops on commercial
farms(this created a concentric pattern: circles sharing the same centers)
• Because farmers must pay to transport their produce to the market, and these costs are directly proportional to
distance, the profit for each product declines as a straight line with increasing distance from the market
• Weber’s least cost theory accounted for the location of a manufacturing plant in terms of the owner’s desire to
minimize three categories of costs.
1. Transportation
2. Labor
3. Agglomeration
Weber's model attempts to explain industrial location.
Weber used locational triangles to illustrate the impact of transport costs on industrial location.
A. Transporting raw materials cost the same as the finished product
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B. Transporting raw materials costs less than finished product
(maybe finished product delicate/more packaging)
C. Transporting raw materials costs more than finished product (loss in bulk)
D. More of raw material from R2 needed than R1
CARL Sauer: Cultural Landscape
Malthus: Malnutrition
Malthus: too many mouths to feed
Rostow: Stages of development
Wallerstein: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Von Thunen: Vons Transportation
Weber: Spiderman spins webs for man=manufacturing
Christaller: Christ has a central place in Christians hearts
Burgess: Bulls eye
Hoyt: Hot
Sector Model=Sexy model
Harris Ullman: Harris and Ullman have multiple partners
AP Human Course Outline
I Geography: Its Nature and Perspective
II Population
III Culture Patterns and Processes
IV Political Organization of Space
V Agricultural and Rural Land Use
VI Industrialization and Economic Development
VII Cities and Urban Land Use
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16%
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I Geography: Its Nature and Perspective
The course introduces students to the importance of spatial organization—the location of places, people, and
events, and the connections among places and landscapes—in the understanding of human life on Earth.
Students learn how to use and interpret maps. They also learn to apply mathematical formulas, models, and
qualitative data to geographical concepts.
small scale maps: the place being mapped looks small on the map (i.e. a world map) but has a large denominator
(making it a small number)
Large scale maps: local area
(the place being mapped looks fairly large compared to what is shown on a world map for example a stadium)
Just as ½ is larger than 1/10, 1:10,000 is larger than 1:10,000,000
Reading Maps
First look at Title, which describes the purpose of the map
Next look at the legend. This is where the content is explained.
Orient yourself by identifying principal features (major roads, cities, etc)
Isoline: a line that connects places of equal data value
(air pollution or religion)
Isoline maps: show changes in the variable being mapped across a surface by lines that connect points of equal value
Topographic maps are isoline maps
Cartogram: space is distorted to emphasize a particular attribute
Dot maps: use a dot to represent the occurrence of some variable in order to depict variation in density in a given
area
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Cloropleth Map: ranked classes of some variable are depicted with colors for predefined zones (counties, states,
countries)
Students learn how to use and interpret maps. They also learn to apply mathematical formulas, models, and
qualitative data to geographical concepts.
 Natural increase
 Dependency ratio
 Net migration
Von thunen and Weber graphs
Geographic concepts emphasized throughout the course are:
 location,
 place,
 scale,
 pattern,
 regionalization,
 and globalization.
These concepts are basic to students’ understanding of spatial interaction and spatial behavior,
the dynamics of human population growth and movement,
patterns of culture,
economic activities,
political organization of space,
and human settlement patterns, particularly urbanization.
Geography is also considered the study of place and space
Space or location is the where
Place: meaningful human associations with a location.
Human nature has a need to identify with a place and to differentiate ourselves through that place. Place suggests
qualities of distinctiveness and identity with a location.
sense of place: feelings evoked among people as a result of the experiences and memories that they associate with a
place
Places exert a strong influence on people’s physical wellbeing, and their opportunities.
Living in a small town dominated by petrochemical industries, for example, means a higher probability than
elsewhere of being exposed to air and water pollution.
Geographic concepts emphasized throughout the course are:
location,
place,
scale,
pattern, (Created from a process)
regionalization,
and globalization.
the dynamics of human population growth and movement,
Countries move through stages with modernization
Decline birthrate follows death rate
Declining birthrate follows improved women rights
Aging population follows
Birth Rate - Death Rate = Natural Increase
or Annual Percentage Increase
Correlating economic, demographic and social indicators show that different indicators of development are
associated with each other TQ
Gender Empowerment Index
Migration is affected by stage of DTM
Migration to richer regions
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Where does the UK receive most of its immigrants from?
Chain Migration: Migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality
previously migrated there
reduces level of uncertainty
ties to family and friends at the destination
patterns of culture,
more regionalization
loss of folk cultures, religions, language
The language of industry dominates over local languages. English, Mandarin, Spanish etc.
Ethnicities tend to congregate
Ethnicities tend to assimilate after migrating
economic activities,
Percentage of sectors change as countries develop.
structure of a population
Von Thunen’s Agricultural Model
A land use model used to explain the importance of proximity to the market in the choice of crops on commercial
farms(this created a concentric pattern: circles sharing the same centers)
Many of these topics overlap: development, urbanization, migration etc.
agglomeration is used to describe the benefits that firms obtain when locating near each other.
agglomeration is central to the explanation of how cities increase in size and population;
This concentration of economic activity in cities is the reason for the existence of them and they can persist and
grow throughout time, only if their advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
Excessive agglomeration leads to diseconomies:
crowding
Traffic/circulation problems (resulting in increased transport costs and loss of efficiency)
high rents
rising wages
inflation (perhaps driven by strong demand for scarce housing)
a general decay of infrastructure because of intense use
Etc.
Deglomeration occurs when companies and services leave because of increased costs of excessive concentration.
(diseconomies)
It is this tension between agglomeration and diseconomies that allows cities to grow, but keeps them from
becoming too large.
political organization of space,
States are devolving by ethnicity
Supranationalism is occurring: states are working together economically
human settlement patterns, particularly urbanization.
As agriculture improves, people move to cities
In LDCs interregional migration is often from rural areas to squatter settlements outside large urban areas.
US cities are less dense as distance increases from city center.
In the US the middle class moves out of the inner city to suburbs,
the older interior becomes blighted
Some blighted areas decrease in value so middle class move in and gentrify.
Gentrification is huge in Europe too
Walter Christaller formulated the
Central place theory: A theory that explains the distribution of services, based on the fact that settlements serve as
centers of market areas for services.
larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements
larger settlements provide services for a larger number of people who are willing to travel farther.
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towns and cities (central places) tend to be arranged in clear, orderly hierarchies
Under ideal circumstances (on flat plains, with good transportation in every direction),with hexagonal-shaped
market areas of different sizes arranged around different-sized places
rank-size rule: a statistical regularity in city-size distributions of cities and regions.
The relationship is such that the nth largest city in a country or region is 1/n the size of the largest city in that
country or region.
Geographic concepts emphasized throughout the course are:
location,
place,
scale,
pattern,
regionalization,
and globalization.
the dynamics of human population growth and movement,
patterns of culture,
loss of folk culture regionalization more in Culture section of review
economic activities,
primary sector: economic activities that are concerned directly with natural resources of any kind (agriculture,
mining, fishing, and forestry)
Subsistence Agriculture: food produced for direct consumption of the growers and families (periphery)
Shifting cultivation is globally distributed in the tropics and subtropics, especially in the rainforests of :
Inequality in economic development often has a regional dimension
political organization of space,
human settlement patterns, particularly urbanization.
Geographic concepts emphasized throughout the course are:
location,
place,
scale,
pattern,
regionalization,
and globalization.
the dynamics of human population growth and movement, medical revolution, birth control, international migration
patterns of culture, English as a lingua franca, diffusion of Christianity and Islam
economic activities, green revolution, JIT, call centers, outsourcing,
political organization of space, UN, WTO, trading blocs, federalism, NGO
and human settlement patterns, particularly urbanization. LDCs continued urbanization, increase in shanty towns
(not in MDCs)
A significant outcome of the course is students’ awareness of the relevance of academic geography to everyday life
and decision making. This combination of the academic and the applied gives students a sophisticated view of the
world.
Explain the epidemiologic transition stages.
Discuss the two strategies that have been successful in reducing birth rates?
II. Population
An understanding of the ways in which the human population is organized geographically provides AP students with the
tools they need to make sense of cultural, political, economic, and urban systems. Thus, many of the concepts and
theories encountered in this part of the course crosscut with other course modules. In addition, the course themes of
scale, pattern, place, and interdependence can all be illustrated with population topics.
For example, students may analyze the distribution of the human population at different scales: global, continental,
national, state or province, and local community.
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Explanations of why population is growing or declining in some places and not others center on understanding the
processes of fertility, mortality, and migration.
In stressing the relevance of place context, for example, students may assess why fertility rates have dropped in some
parts of the developing world but not in others,
Developed countries usually have a much lower fertility rate due to greater
wealth
education
urbanization
birth control is understood and easily accessible, and affordable.
In MDCs costs are often high because of education, clothing, feeding, and social amenities.
longer periods of time spent getting higher education often mean women have children later in life.
Female labor participation rate also has substantial negative impact on fertility.
In undeveloped countries on the other hand,
families desire children for their labor and as caregivers for their parents in old age.
Fertility rates are also higher due to the lack of access to contraceptives
generally lower levels of female education,
and lower rates of female employment in industry.
And how age-sex structure vary from one country to another.
Net migration
Explanations of why population is growing or declining in some places and not others center on understanding the
processes of fertility, mortality, and migration.
Analysis of refugee flows, immigration, internal migration, and residential mobility helps students appreciate the
interconnections between population phenomena and other topics.
residential mobility
These include work-related factors, such as a job transfer, job loss or looking for work, and wanting to be closer to work.
Housing factors include wanting to own a home, rather than rent, seeking a better home or better neighborhood, or
wanting cheaper housing. Additional mobility factors include attending college, changes in marital status, retirement, or
health-related moves.
Population mobility has implications ranging from changes in Congressional representation, impact on local economic
growth, housing markets, and demand for local services.
Environmental degradation may prompt rapid out-migration and urbanization, in turn creating new pressures on the
environment.
Refugee flows may be magnified when groups have no access to political power because of the way boundaries have
been drawn.
Rapid immigration to certain parts of the world fosters regional differences in industrial employment and political
sentiment toward foreigners.
Rapid immigration to certain parts of the world fosters regional differences in industrial employment
and political sentiment toward foreigners.
This part of the course also aids in our understanding of contemporary growth trends by considering how models of
population change, including the demographic and epidemiological (morality) transitions.
epidemiological transition of mortality into 3/4 phases, in the last of which chronic diseases replace infection as the
primary cause of death.
The developments of modern healthcare, and medicine like antibiotics, drastically reduces infant mortality rates and
extends average life expectancy which,
The Age of Pestilence and Famine: Where mortality is high and fluctuating, precluding sustained population growth, with
low and variable life expectancy, vascillating between 20 and 40 years.
The Age of Receding Pandemics: Where mortality progressively declines, with the rate of decline accelerating as
epidemic peaks decrease in frequency. Average life expectancy increases steadily from about 30 to 50 years. Population
growth is sustained and begins to be exponential.
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The Age of Degenerative and Man-Made Diseases: Mortality continues to decline and eventually approaches stability at
a relatively low level. Life expectancy rises and exceeds 50 years, with fertility becoming the crucial factor in population
growth.
Demographic momentum is the phenomenon of continued population increase despite reduced reproductive rates.
Even in the face of extreme measures aimed at lowering reproductive rates, the population will continue to grow due to
a large proportion of its population entering its reproductive years.
For example, when China first introduced its one-child policy, population growth continued regardless.
Even though the number of children born reduced dramatically, the sheer number of maturing youth was significant. In
1979 when the one-child policy entered into force, the number of people becoming adults was based on the number of
births around 1950s, not 1979.
As a result, the Chinese population maintained the same momentum of increase as for the past 20 years. It is only now
that the Chinese population has reached a somewhat stabilized population growth.
It takes many years for the large population base of today to work itself upward into older age groups where deaths
typically occur.
This part of the course also aids in our understanding of contemporary growth trends by considering how models of
population change,
Given these kinds of understandings, students are in a position to evaluate the role, strengths, and weaknesses of major
population policies.
issues of demographics arise in societies where sex selection is common.
A society may exhibit a widespread bias towards having children of a specific gender, either due to cultural biases or
economic concerns (e.g. male children may be more employable in the future and thus provide more financial support).
China's gender imbalance is further increased by the One Child Policy, although applicable only in most urban
populations.
In these nations, a lack of opportunity for many men to marry is believed to be producing
increases in crime,
demand for prostitution,
mass emigration,
and the selling of brides
For example, how might increasing the education levels of females lead to lower fertility?
III. Cultural Patterns and Processes
Understanding the components and regional variations of cultural patterns and processes is critical to human
geography. In this section of the course, students begin with the concept of culture.
They learn how geographers assess the spatial and place dimensions of cultural groups as defined by language, religion,
race, ethnicity, and gender, in the present as well as the past.
For example, students learn to distinguish between languages and dialects; ethnic and universalizing religions; and
popular and folk cultures, and to understand why each has a different geographic pattern.
FOLK CULTURE: a rural homogenous group retaining the traditional way of life
1. Much variation from Place to Place
(Spatial Variation)
2. Little variation from Time to Time (Temporal Variation)
3. Little variation from Person to Person (The “culture” decides.)
4. Communal (Individualism is frowned upon)
5. Isolated
6. Highly Immobile
7. Strong Attachment to Places
8. Resistant to Change (infrequently and slowly)
9. Conservative
10. Cohesive
11. Strong Interpersonal Relationships
12. Strong Extended Family Structure
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13. Strong Religious Institutions (to maintain order)
14. Dependent on Local Resources
(self-sufficient, subsistence economy prevails)
15. Customized Production (handmade goods)
16. Generalized Professions
(Relatively little division of labor. Rather, each person performs a variety of tasks, although duties may differ between
the genders)
17. Losing Ground
Popular Culture: a large heterogeneous group open to change
1. Little variation from Place to Place (Spatial Variation)
2. Much variation from Time to Time (Temporal Variation)
3. Much variation from Person to Person (The “individual” decides.)
4. Individualistic
5. Interdependent
6. Highly Mobile
7. Weak Attachment to Places
8. Constantly Changing (progress, fads)
9. Progressive
10. Fragmented
11. Weak Interpersonal Relationships
(Relationships are more numerous but less personal, contractual relationships)
12. Weak Extended Family Structure
13. Strong Secular Institutions
(police, army, and courts, take the place of family and church in maintaining order) (science challenges religion for
dominance in our daily lives)
14. Dependent on Distant Resources
15. Mass Production (factories)
16. Specialized Professions (A distinct division of labor, with a highly specialized professions and jobs)
17. Gaining Ground
A central concern is to comprehend how cultural patterns are represented at a variety of geographic scales
Students learn that the concept of region is central to the spatial distribution of cultural attributes.
3 Types of Regions
1. Uniform Regions (or formal regions) -Areas with distinctive characteristics and/or similar landscapes
These characteristics may be:
• economic
• cultural (religion, language, etc)
• Agricultural (corn belt or wheat belt)
Formal Region definition #2- all members legally share a characteristic Example: a city, state, or country (every one living
in Canada has to follow their laws)
2. Functional region: defined by a node of activity and distance decay from center
Examples:
Newspaper, mall, a university, cell phone coverage
3. Vernacular (or perceptual) region: a region perceived to exist by its inhabitants.
The geographies of language and religion are studied to illustrate processes of cultural diffusion and cultural differences.
When languages are depicted as leaves on trees, the branches represent language branches, the trunk language families
What are the following 3 countries language family, branch, and language?
Russia
Mexico
United Kingdom
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Draw the following language family regions on the map:
Altaic
Afro-Asiatic
Niger Congo
Sino-Tibetan
Indo-European
The most widely spoken Indo-European language is English (book says something else)
language branch: a collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago.
Differences are not that extensive or as old as with language families.
The four most frequently spoken branches of Indo-European Family include Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Romance and
Germanic.
For example, students learn to distinguish between languages and dialects; ethnic and universalizing religions; and
popular and folk cultures, and to understand why each has a different geographic pattern.
Dialects can be usefully defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible". British
linguists distinguish dialect from accent, which refers only to pronunciation.
American English is a dialect.
English is a the language part of the Western Germanic group, the Germanic branch of the Indo-European Family.
For example, students learn to distinguish between languages and dialects; ethnic and universalizing religions; and
popular and folk cultures, and to understand why each has a different geographic pattern.
Universalizing Religions
attempt to appeal to people throughout the world
individual historical founder
message diffused widely
followers widely distributed (exception Buddhism)
holidays based on events in founder’s life
Biggest examples Christianity, Islam,
and Buddhism
Ethnic Religions:
· meaning to people in a particular place
· highly concentrated in place of origin
· followers highly clustered (seldom diffuses)
· holidays based on local climate and agricultural calendar
· do not convert people
· unknown origin
Hinduism is largest ethnic religion: 80% of the Indians or 900 million people
Polytheistic
FR Why is Judaism considered an Ethnic Religion?
Major holidays are based on events in the agricultural calendar of the religion’s homeland in present-day Israel
2 holiest days Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur come in the autumn (hope for crops being planted)
Passover (date it begins every year) derived from farmers making an offering (barley) of the first fruits to God in the
spring
How is Judaism’s geography different from other ethnic religions?
Judaism is an exception to ethnic religions in that more Jews practice Judaism outside its place of origin and Judaism is
widely distributed.
Chinese folk religion comprises the religion practiced in much of China for thousands of years, which included ancestor
worship and drew heavily upon concepts and beings within Chinese mythology. It is estimated that there are at least 394
million adherents to Chinese folk religion worldwide.
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Animism and folk religions
Animism: certain inanimate objects possess spirits and souls (ethnic)
These spirits live in rocks and rivers, mountain peaks, heavenly bodies, forests and swamps.
Sub-Saharan African is the greatest surviving stronghold of animism both in terms of numbers of adherents and in
percentage of total population.
(esp. Mozambique and Madagascar)
An important emphasis of the course is the way culture shapes human environment- relationships. For example, religion
can influence environmental perception and modification.
Religion and the Environment
Religious ideas may be responsible for some of the changes people make in the physical environment
Religious Perspectives on Nature
Judeo-Christian-perspective: the earth was created especially for humans, who are separate from and superior to the
natural world. (teleology) TQ
Believing that the Earth was given to humans for their use, early Christian thinkers adopted the view that humans were
God’s helpers in finishing the task of creation, human modifications of the environment were God’s work
Christians are more likely to consider floods, droughts, and other natural disasters to be preventable and may take steps
to overcome the problem by modifying the environment.
cultivating the land
draining wetlands
clearing forests
building cities
dams, etc.
Some Christians regard natural disasters as punishment for sins
animistic perspective: humans are extensions of animate and inanimate nature.
animistic principal goal is to mediate between people and the spirit-infested forces of nature.
Shamans are said to treat ailments/illness by mending the soul. Alleviating traumas affecting the soul/spirit restores the
physical body. The shaman also enters supernatural dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the
community.
Adherents of ethnic religions do not attempt to transform the environment to the same extent.
God/gods can be placated through prayer and sacrifice
Taoist perspective: nature should be valued for its own sake, not for how it might be exploited.
Doaist believe humans should try to live in harmony with nature by balancing the opposite forces of nature, called yin
and yang
Diffusion is a key concept in understanding how cultural traits (for example, agricultural practices and language) move
through time and space to new locations.
Diffusion
Spatial diffusion: the way that things spread through space and over time.
Hearth: The source area of any innovation. The source area from which an idea, crop, artifact, or good is diffused to
other areas.
Diffusion seldom occurs in a random way jumping all over the map, rather statistical probability.
Types of Cultural Diffusion:
1. Contagious Diffusion: from a center outward, as the ripples which result from a stone thrown into a still pond; a form
of expansion diffusion
(snowballing of an idea or innovation)
2. Hierarchical Diffusion: associated with a hierarchy of places, i.e., big places first (e.g., cities) no matter how far apart,
then down the hierarchy to smaller places (e.g., towns) and rural areas; a form of expansion diffusion
Large cities have more interactions with other people and places and the people in larger cities tend to be more diverse,
wealthier, and more accustomed to change (willing to adopt new technologies and practices).
3. Relocation Diffusion: often associated with migrants who take their cultural traits with them over long distances
(often followed by expansion diffusion)
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•
Spanish and Catholicism to Latin America
•
Blues to Chicago
•
Protestantism
Hinduism
Barriers to Diffusion
•
physical (oceans, lakes, and mountain ranges)
•
cultural (language, religion, development/economic)
Writing system did not diffuse from Mexico to Peru
•Seeds, Writing, and metallurgy didn’t diffuse to Sub Saharan Africa or Australia
•
cultural (language, religion, development/economic)
For example, students learn to distinguish between languages and dialects; ethnic and universalizing religions; and
popular and folk cultures, and to understand why each has a different geographic pattern.
Diffused at different times?
In Europe, Asia, and Africa languages were created first along with traditional religions. Univeralizing religions diffused,
and currently popular culture.
In the Western hemisphere religion and language were brought by different Europeans (relocation diffusion)
Students also come to understand how culture is expressed in landscapes, and how landscapes in turn represent cultural
identity.
Cultural Landscape - The visible human imprint on the land.
Culture + Time + Natural Landscape = Cultural Landscape
Carl Sauer (Berkeley) tried to understand different cultures by focusing on their built landscapes
Sauer argued that landscapes should provide the focus for the scientific study of geography because they reflect the
outcome, over time, of the interdependence of physical and human factors in the creation of distinctive places and
regions.
Built environments enable the geographer to interpret cultural values, tastes, and sets of beliefs.
religious icons
house types
designs of cities.
For example, both folk and contemporary architecture are rich and readily available means of comprehending cultures
and changes in landscapes.
Nation State Section
Nation or nationality: a group of people sharing a common cultural identity (religion, language, history, art, and/or
political identity) tied to a place through legal status and tradition.
The Japanese (not Japan), Tibetans,
State: An area organized into an independent political unit (country)
Necessary components to qualify as a full-fledged state:
1. has a defined territory
2. has an organized economy (regulates foreign/domestic trade)
3. provides public services and police power
4. Sovereignty (control over its internal affairs)
5. external recognition
6. a permanent residence population
Nation-State: A state that has the same boundaries as a nation. (relatively rare, no perfect example but a lot of good
ones), most European countries,
Nation-states in Europe were formed by drawing boundaries.
Denmark is a good example of a nation-state because nearly all Danes speak Danish and live in Denmark.
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Nation-States in Europe include:
Multinational State: a country that has more than one nation.Example: Canada, China, Rwanda,(and every other country
in Africa with the exception of Egypt)
The UK is also a multinational state. The English, Scottish, and Welsh are all nations within the state of the United
Kingdom. TQ
Other countries in Europe that are multi-national states include:
All other countries in Asia are multinational states. Great examples would be India, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Indonesia.
Ethnic Groups in Afghanistan include: Pashtun, Hazara, Tajik, Uzbek and Baluchi.
Irredentism: a movement to reunite a nation’s homeland when part of it is contained within another state.
IV. Political Organization of Space
This section of the course introduces students to the nature and significance of political organization of territory at
different scales. Students learn that political patterns reflect ideas about how Earth’s surface should be organized and
affect a wide range of activities and understandings.
The course gives primary attention to the political geography of the modern state or country. Students are
introduced to the different forces that shaped the evolution of the contemporary world political map, including the
rise of the nation-states in Europe
Most theories see the nation state as a 19th-century European phenomenon, facilitated by developments such as
mass literacy and the early mass media
The idea of a nation-state is associated with the rise of the modern system of states, often called the "Westphalian
system" in reference to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). The balance of power, which characterises that system,
depends for its effectiveness upon clearly defined, centrally controlled, independent entities, whether empires or
nation states, which recognise each other's sovereignty and territory. The Westphalian system did not create the
nation-state, but the nation-state meets the criteria for its component states (assuming that there is no disputed
territory).
Some nation-states, such as Germany or Italy, came into existence at least partly as a result of political campaigns by
nationalists, during the 19th century. In both cases, the territory was previously divided among other states, some of
them very small. The sense of common identity was at first a cultural movement
Influence of colonialism.
Students also learn about the basic structure of the political map and the inconsistencies between maps of political
boundaries and maps of ethnic, economic, and environmental patterns.
Students also learn about the basic structure of the political map and the inconsistencies between maps of political
boundaries and maps of ethnic, economic, and environmental patterns.
Other Examples??????/
France and Germany (Rhine),
Romania and Bulgaria (Danube)
Rainforest: Brazil and north and west countries
Landlocked countries are typically poor because it affects the ability of some countries to participate in the global
economy. Examples: Bolivia, Nepal, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Central Africa Republic
In addition, students consider some of the forces that are changing the role of individual countries in the modern
world, including ethnic separatism, devolution, supranationalism, economic globalization, the emergence of regional
economic blocs, and the need to confront environmental problems that cross national boundaries.
In addition, students consider some of the forces that are changing the role of individual countries in the modern
world, including ethnic separatism, devolution, supranationalism, economic globalization, the emergence of regional
economic blocs, and the need to confront environmental problems that cross national boundaries.
In addition, students consider some of the forces that are changing the role of individual countries in the modern
world, including ethnic separatism, devolution, supranationalism, economic globalization, the emergence of regional
economic blocs, and the need to confront environmental problems that cross national boundaries.
In addition, students consider some of the forces that are changing the role of individual countries in the modern
world, including ethnic separatism, devolution, supranationalism, economic globalization, the emergence of regional
economic blocs, and the need to confront environmental problems that cross national boundaries.
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This part of the course also focuses on political units above, below, and beyond the state. For example, at the scale
above the state, attention is directed to regional integration schemes and alliances, such as NATO, the European
Union, and NAFTA.
At the scale below the state, students are introduced to the ways in which electoral districts, municipal boundaries,
and ethnic territories affect political, social, and economic processes.
How many electoral college votes are there?
Congressional representatives in the United States is fixed at 435 (House of Representatives).
How many electoral college votes are there?
538
House + Senate + DC
435+100+3
reapportionment: the process of allocating electoral seats to geographical areas
redistricting: the defining and redefining of territorial district boundaries
gerrymandering: the practice of redistricting for partisan purposes
At the scale below the state, students are introduced to the ways in which electoral districts, municipal boundaries,
and ethnic territories affect political, social, and economic processes.
The government's definition of poverty is based on total income received. For example, the poverty level for 2011
was set at $22,350 (total yearly income) for a family of four.[5]] There remains some controversy] over whether the
official poverty threshold over- or understates poverty.
Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) indicate that in the 1990s, nearly 1 in every 4 white families
received an inheritance after the death of a parent, while only about 1 in every 20 African American families
inherited in this manner.
The amount for whites averaged nearly $144,652 while the black families averaged, $41,985.
white individuals benefit from assets which exist above and beyond income.
This can include inheritance, payment of college, down payments on homes, child care, etc.
For example, the Federal Reserve Bank noted that the average inheritance plus financial gifts for the average white
family in 2001 was $20,685; the average African American legacy was around $2,000.[9]
Native Americans suffer from disproportionately high levels of poverty. Despite the expanse of land which includes
many natural resources, Native Americans have the highest poverty rates in America at 25.7%.
They also suffer from low education levels and high levels of chronic diseases.
In 1999, among Native Americans, the average median home value was $81,000 which is only 2/3 that of white.
Some point to unfair federal policies that unjustly extract newly acquired resources from tribal land which could
augment wealth.[9]
In 2001, the average Latino family was only worth $11,458.
In 2003, only 13.6% of Latino families made earnings of $80,000 or more in comparison to 34% of white families.[9]
While some argue that Asians represent the most successful minority, wealth remains unequally distributed across
this demographic.[9] Asians and Pacific Islanders represent a challenging demographic because they are the only
racial category in the United states that has high concentrations in both the top economic quintiles and the lowest
economic quintiles. Because of these factors, the data for Asians is often skewed and not representative. The term
Asian American encompasses many different groups of Asians including Cambodians, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian,
and others. Looking across groups, Cambodians have the lowest rates of homeownership, business ownership, and
income.[9]
In addition, students study how particular policies affect the spatial organization of cultural and social life, as in the
case of racial segregation.
Racial segregation is most pronounced in housing.
Although people of different races may work together, they are still very unlikely to live in integrated
neighborhoods. This pattern differs only by degree in different metropolitan areas.[52]
Redlining has helped preserve segregated living patterns for blacks and whites in the United States because
discrimination motivated by prejudice is often contingent on the racial composition of neighborhoods where the
loan is sought and the race of the applicant. Lending institutions have been shown to treat black mortgage
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applicants differently when buying homes in white neighborhoods than when buying homes in black neighborhoods
in 1998.[53]
Massey and Denton propose that the fundamental cause of poverty among African Americans is segregation. This
segregation has created the inner city black urban ghettos that create poverty traps and keep blacks from being able
to escape the underclass. These neighborhoods have institutionalized an inner city black culture that is negatively
stigmatized and purports the economic situation of the black community. The use of black English vernacular as a
variant of the English language has made it extremely difficult for black children in the educational system as well as
other African Americans on the job market. This language that has arisen from residential segregation has crippled
children of these neighborhoods because they cannot easily transition between standard English school work and
books to the black English vernacular that they use in their homes and with their friends.[2] Racial segregation or
separation can lead to social, economic and political tensions.[52]
Geographically, residential segregation splits communities between the black inner city and white suburbs. This
phenomenon is due to white flight where whites actively leave neighborhoods because of a black presence. There
are more than just geographical consequences to this, as the money leaves and poverty grows, crime rates jump and
businesses leave and follow the money. This creates a job shortage in segregated neighborhoods and perpetuates
the economic inequality in the inner city. With the wealth and businesses gone from inner city areas, the tax base
decreases, which hurts funding for education. Consequently those that can afford to leave the area for better
schools leave decreasing the tax base for educational funding even more. Any business that is left or would consider
opening doesn’t want to invest in a place nobody has any money but has a lot of crime, meaning the only things that
are left in these communities are poor black people with little opportunity for employment or education."[54]
Today, many whites are willing, and are able, to pay a premium to live in a predominantly white neighborhood.
Equivalent housing in white areas commands a higher rent.[55] By bidding up the price of housing, many white
neighborhoods again effectively shut out blacks, because blacks are unwilling, or unable, to pay the premium to buy
entry into white neighborhoods. While some scholars maintain that residential segregation has continued—some
sociologists have termed it "hypersegregation" the US Census Bureau has shown that residential segregation has
been in overall decline since 1980.[56]
Through study of these matters, students understand the importance of the political organization of territory in the
contemporary world.
In particular, then, modern political geography often considers:
How and why states are organized into regional groupings, both formally (e.g. the European Union) and informally
(e.g. the Third World)
The relationship between states and former colonies, and how these are propagated over time, for example through
neo-colonialism
The relationship between a government and its people
The relationships between states including international trades and treaties
The functions, demarcations and policings of boundaries
The influence of political power on geographical space
The study of election results (electoral geography)
V. Agriculture and Rural Land Use
This section of the course explores four themes: the origin and spread of agriculture;
1. Southwest Asia (Mesopotamia) also called The Fertile Crescent (1st)
the characteristics of the world’s agricultural regions;
reasons why these regions function the way they do;
pastoralism: the breeding and herding of animals for food (milk), shelter, and clothing.
Practiced in cold and dry climates where subsistence agriculture is impracticable:
deserts
savannas (grasslands)
steppes (lightly wooded, grassy plains)
Parts of North Africa and the savannas of Central and Southern Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
Subsistence Agriculture: food produced for direct consumption of the growers and families (periphery)
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commercial agriculture: a system in which farmers produce crops and animals primarily for sale has dominated the
twentieth century (core)
the impact of agricultural change on the quality of life and the environment.
Shifting cultivation is globally distributed in the tropics and subtropics, especially in the rainforests of :
Advantages of shifting cultivation:
Feeds population (more productive than hunting and gathering)
Low cost
Disadvantages of shifting cultivation:
Requires a lot of land
Can’t feed a large population
Soil loses fertility
Low crop yields
negative impact on the environment (If too large of a population density)
The Impact of Agriculture on the Environment
soil erosion
Desertification:
deforestation
soil and water pollution (herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers)
elimination of some plant and animal species
What is the difference between environmental determinism and possiblism?
Students first examine centers where domestication originated and study the processes by which domesticates spread.
The spread of food production tended to occur more rapidly along east–west axes than along north–south axes, mainly
because locations at the same latitudes required less evolutionary change or adaptation of domesticates than did
locations at different latitudes.
Although agriculture arose in several parts of the world, Eurasia gained an early advantage due to the greater
availability of suitable plant and animal species for domestication.
In particular, Eurasia had the best collection of plants and animals suitable for domestication – barley, wheat, rice,
goats, sheep, pigs, chickens and cattle provided food, leather, and clothing.
In contrast, Native American farmers had to struggle to develop maize as a useful food from its probable wild
ancestor, but it provides few nutrients and must be planted one by one – an extremely cumbersome task.
It should be noted that as they grew agricultural surpluses in about 1000 AD, they created more dense and
specialized settlements.
Eurasians had wheat and barley, which are high in fiber and nutrients and can be sown en masse with just a toss of
the hand. They generated food surpluses which supported greater population growth. Such growth led to larger
workforces and more inventors, artisans, etc. Grains can also be stored for longer periods of time unlike tropical
crops such as bananas.
Eurasia as a whole domesticated 13 species of large animals (over 100 lb); South America just one (counting the
llama and alpaca as breeds within the same species); the rest of the world none at all.
Sub-Saharan Africans had mostly wild mammals, whereas Eurasians chanced to have the most docile large animals
on the planet: horses and camels that are easily tamed for human transport; but their biological relatives zebras are
untameable.
Africans, developing alongside large mammals, had available lions, leopards etc.
Eurasia's dense populations, high levels of trade, and living in close proximity to livestock resulted in widespread
transmission of diseases, including from animals to humans. Natural selection forced Eurasians to develop immunity
to a wide range of pathogens. When Europeans made contact with America, European diseases (to which they had
no immunity) ravaged the indigenous American population, rather than the other way around (the "trade" in
diseases was a little more balanced in Africa and southern Asia: endemic malaria and yellow fever made these
regions notorious as the "white man's grave";
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The European diseases –decimated indigenous populations so that relatively small numbers of Europeans could
maintain their dominance.
Maybe the environment can determine certain outcomes even if culture makes many things possible.
What is the Columbia Exchange?
When Europeans made contact with America, European diseases (to which they had no immunity) ravaged the
indigenous American population, rather than the other way around (the "trade" in diseases was a little more
balanced in Africa and southern Asia: endemic malaria and yellow fever made these regions notorious as the "white
man's grave";
The European diseases –decimated indigenous populations so that relatively small numbers of Europeans could
maintain their dominance.
Extensive activity??
The course next examines Earth’s major agricultural production regions. Extensive activity (fishing, forestry, nomadic
herding, ranching, shifting cultivation)
Extensive Agriculture: Large-area farms or ranches with low inputs of labor per acre and low output per acre.
Parts of North Africa and the savannas of Central and Southern Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
The course next examines Earth’s major agricultural production regions. Extensive activity (fishing, forestry, nomadic
herding, ranching, shifting cultivation)
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation.
Horticulture usually refers to gardening on a smaller scale, while agriculture refers to the large-scale cultivation of
crops
Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and
genetic engineering, plant biochemistry.
The work involves fruits, berries, nuts, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, and turf.
Horticulturists work to improve crop yield, quality, nutritional value, and resistance to insects, diseases, and
environmental stresses.
and intensive activity (plantation agriculture, mixed crop/livestock systems, market gardening, horticulture, factory
farms) are examined,
as are settlement patterns and landscapes typical of each major agriculture type.
A place where farm buildings, and homes are found close together is a clustered rural settlement.
Most people in the world live in clustered rural settlement.
The rural settlement pattern of dispersed settlements is thought to be more efficient for more developed countries.
The most significant anticipated benefit of the enclosure movement was to promote agricultural efficiency.
The most significant impact on the rural landscape of Great Britain's enclosure movement was to encourage a
dispersed rural settlement pattern.
as are settlement patterns and landscapes typical of each major agriculture type.
In addition, students learn about land survey systems, environmental conditions, and cultural values that created
and sustain the patterns.
In addition, students learn about land survey systems, environmental conditions, and cultural values that created
and sustain the patterns.
In addition, students learn about land survey systems, environmental conditions, and cultural values that created
and sustain the patterns.
Many family farms are consolidated by corporations.
A family farm is a farm owned and operated by a family, and passed down from generation to generation. The family
farm is viewed as a lifestyle to be preserved for tradition's sake.
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•
The beneficiaries of the subsidies have changed as agriculture in the United States has changed. In the 1930s,
about 25% of the country's population resided on the nation's 6,000,000 small farms. By 1997, 157,000 large
farms accounted for 72% of farm sales, with only 2% of the U.S. population residing on farms.
• Explanations for the location of agricultural activities are another major concern. Von Thünen’s land use model,
and the distribution of crops and animals are also emphasized.
• The need for increased food supplies
Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it.
• Worldwide around 852 million people are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty, while up to 2 billion
people lack food security intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty.
• Six million children die of hunger every year - 17,000 every day.
•
Increased farming for use in biofuels world oil prices at more than $100 a barrel, global population growth
,climate change, loss of agricultural land to residential and industrial development, and growing consumer
demand in China and India are claimed to have pushed up the price of grain.
• The Guardian reports that in 2007 approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. If
current trends of soil degradation continue in Africa, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its
population by 2025.
• Water deficits, which are already spurring heavy grain imports in numerous smaller countries, may soon do the
same in larger countries, such as China or India. The water tables are falling in scores of countries (including
Northern China, the US, and India) due to widespread overpumping using powerful diesel and electric pumps.
Other countries affected include Pakistan, Iran, and Mexico. This will eventually lead to water scarcity and
cutbacks in grain harvest. Even with the overpumping of its aquifers, China has developed a grain deficit,
contributing to the upward pressure on grain prices. Most of the three billion people projected to be added
worldwide by mid-century will be born in countries already experiencing water shortages.
• The need for increased food supplies and the capacity to increase food production concludes this section.
Continued improvements in agricultural practices and land management, hopefully will allow us to both increase yields
and minimize some of the negative effects of agriculture. Some areas that hold much promise include:
• better pest management,
• water-conserving irrigation,
• conservation tillage,
• and development of new crops through breeding or genetic modification
VI. Industrialization and Economic Development
• Economic activity has a spatial character influenced by the interaction of several factors, including natural
resources, culture, politics, and history in specific places.
• By dividing economic activities into key sectors, students can appreciate why natural resources have different
values for different societies,
• and how places and regions acquire comparative advantages for development.
• In economics, the law of comparative advantage says that two countries (or other kinds of parties, such as
individuals or firms) can both gain from trade if, in the absence of trade, they have different relative costs for
producing the same goods. Even if one country is more efficient in the production of all goods (absolute
advantage), it can still gain by trading with a less-efficient country, as long as they have different relative
efficiencies.
• In this section of the course, students learn about the geographic elements of industrialization and
development, including the Industrial Revolution.
What was the Industrial Revolution?
• The Industrial Revolution was a fundamental change in the way goods were produced, from human labor to
machines
• The more efficient means of production and subsequent higher levels of production triggered far-reaching
changes to industrialized societies
•
The Industrial Revolution began in England (Great Britain) around 1750.
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Why the Industrial Revolution Started in England
• Communications Revolution
• Transportation
• Before the Industrial Revolution
– Canal barges pulled by mules
– Ships powered by sails
– Horse-drawn wagons, carts, and carriages
• After the Industrial Revolution
– Trains
– Steamships
– Trolleys
– Automobiles
• Transportation Revolution
• Developments
 Mass production of goods
 Increased numbers of goods
 Increased diversity of goods produced
 Development of factory system of production
 Rural-to-urban migration
 People left farms to work in cities
 Development of capitalism
 Financial capital for continued industrial growth
• The cottage industry or domestic system involved manufacturing in the home.
Domestic system could not keep up with demand
• Factory System
 Replaced the domestic system of production
 Faster method of production
 Workers concentrated in a set location
• Began to mass produce items
• lower prices
• Students need to understand how models of economic development, such as Rostow’s stages of economic
growth, Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory,
• and Millennium Development
• Goals help to explain why the world is described as being divided into a more well developed core and a lessdeveloped periphery.
• The course also includes a comparison of location theories,
Location theory is concerned with the geographic location of economic activity. Location theory addresses the
questions of what economic activities are located where and why.
• Location theory rests on the assumption that agents act in their own self interest. Thus firms choose locations
that maximize their profits and individuals choose locations that maximize their utility.
• The bid rent theory is a geographical economic theory that refers to how the price and demand for real estate
changes as the distance from the CBD increases. It states that different land users will compete with one
another for land close to the city center. This is based upon the idea that retail establishments wish to maximize
their profitability, so they are much more willing to pay more money for land close to the CBD and less for land
further away from this area. This theory is based upon the reasoning that the more accessible an area (i.e., the
greater the concentration of customers), the more profitable.
• Land users all compete for the most accessible land within the CBD. The amount they are willing to pay is called
"bid rent". The result is a pattern of concentric rings of land use, creating the Concentric zone model.
• It could be assumed that, according to this theory, the poorest houses and buildings will be on the very outskirts
of the city, as that is the only place that they can afford to occupy. However, in modern times this is rarely the
case, as many people prefer to trade off the accessibility of being close to the CBD, and move to the edges of the
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settlement, where it is possible to buy more land for the same amount of money (as Bid Rent states). Likewise,
lower income housing trades off greater living space for greater accessibility to employment. For this reason low
income housing in many North American cities, for example, is often found in the inner city, and high income
housing is at the edges of the settlement.
•
such as those by Weber and von Thünen, which stress resource and market dependence,
• with accounts of economic globalization, which accent time– space compression and the new international
division of labor.
• Time-space compression often refers to technologies that seem to accelerate or elide spatial and temporal
distances, including technologies of communication (telegraph, telephones, Internet), travel (rail, cars, trains,
jets) and economics (the need to overcome spatial barriers, open up new markets, speed up production cycles,
and reduce the turn-over time of capital).
• with accounts of economic globalization, which accent time– space compression and the new international
division of labor.
• As an example, students study the reasons why some Asian economies achieved rapid rates of growth in the
1980s while most sub-Saharan African economies experienced decline.
List Forces affecting the rate of economic development
• Pass out handout
External forces affecting the rate of economic development:
• culture contact played a significant role in economic development. For countries that were colonized by
European powers, colonization brought mixed blessings. On one hand, many resources were exported at very
low prices with few direct benefits for the colony. On the other hand, transport and other infrastructure were
often built. Of course, the infrastructure was designed to help the colonial power rather than the local
population, and so railways (to take one example) were often built to the sites of mines or other resources
rather than to centers of population. Notwithstanding these problems, culture contact inevitably brings new
ideas to a country, some of which may be beneficial in speeding economic development.
• Trade between countries allows countries to exchange resources and products it has in abundance for other
goods that it lacks. In this way, trade helps most countries to advance, presuming the terms of trade are
negotiated fairly for all parties.
• Japan lacks most natural resources, but through trade it has overcome these shortcomings and has developed
economically to a very high level.
• Financial flows into a country can help economic development by providing funds for investment that the
country itself lacks. These funds allow factories to be built and resources to be developed, providing
employment and taxation revenue for the government that can be used to provide services and build
infrastructure elsewhere in the country. Of course, unless the financial flow is a gift in the form of aid, overseas
investors always demand a profit on their investments, so the other side of financial flows is the outflow of
profits and interest payments. By the early 2000s, the need to repay debt on borrowings and the profits on
investments meant that the net flow of money in the world was from LEDCs to MEDCs.
• When foreign investment occurs in a country, it is often accompanied by an inflow of new technology, leading to
technological change, new techniques and ways of doing things. Provided that the technology is appropriate for
the country, this usually helps to encourage economic development.
• Transnational corporations can play an important role in LEDCs these days. Like colonization, they can be a
mixed blessing for LEDCs, and indeed some people believe that transnational corporations are a new form of
colonialism in which corporations rather than countries oppress less powerful groups of people, but do so
economically rather than politically. Benefits that transnational corporations can bring to LEDCs include the
investment funds and the new technology.
• Bilateral (between two countries) and multilateral (between several countries) trade agreements can assist the
economic development of countries within the agreement, but may slow the economic development for
countries outside the agreement.
• One of the most successful multilateral agreements for promoting economic development has been the
formation of the European Union. The European Union has resulted from a series of multilateral agreements
over a period of more than half a century.
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•
Other significant multilateral agreements include NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Association) and
ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations).
Internal forces affecting the rate of economic development:
• Infrastructure refers to the services and facilities needed to support productive activities, and as well as
transport, examples include telecommunications, electricity, water, port facilities and other public services. It is
a general principle that countries with a high level of infrastructure will develop more rapidly than countries that
do not have these facilities, everything else (such as political systems, levels of corruption etc) being equal.
• The political systems and planning mechanisms in a country also influence the rate of economic development.
As a generalization, economies with open policies towards trade and investment (such as Hong Kong, South
Korea, the United States and Australia) have faster and more stable economic growth than economies with
closed or less transparent political systems (such as North Korea, Russia and Saudi Arabia).
• Rapid population growth is considered by some people to slow down economic development, although opinions
differ on this point. Malthusians (believe there are too many people) argue that each extra person is a
consumer, taking a share from a fixed pool of resources.
• On the other hand, some argue that each extra person is a productive resource that produces more than it
consumes.
• There is no clear correlation between the rate of population growth and the rate of economic development.
• At first sight, we would expect that availability of natural resources would significantly affect the rate of
economic development. We would expect that the more natural resources a country possesses, the faster would
be its rate of economic growth. In fact, there are examples of wealthy countries with very few natural resources
(such as Japan, Hong Kong and the Netherlands) as well as wealthy countries with abundant resources (such as
USA, Germany, Canada and Australia).
• Similarly, there are poor countries with abundant natural resources, such as Papua New Guinea, Myanmar,
Venezuela and Nigeria — such countries either do not have the finance to develop the resources or corruption is
so great that the rate of economic development is impeded.
• Internal capital formation means the ability of a country to find its own funds to invest in development projects.
People in LEDCs typically earn low incomes, forcing them to spend a large proportion of their income on basic
necessities such as food, clothing and shelter. This leaves very little surplus for savings, and therefore banks
have very little funds available for investment.
• This creates a cycle of impoverishment, known as the Vicious Cycle of Poverty. In summary, low incomes lead to
low investment, which lead to low levels of savings, which lead to low levels of productivity, which perpetuate
low incomes. Unless some way can be found to break the vicious cycle of poverty, it becomes self-perpetuating.
• In cases where the vicious cycle of poverty is broken successfully, the foundation of sustainable economic
development is usually agriculture.
• In LEDCs, a large proportion of the population are farmers. Therefore, if development is to have an impact on
most of the population, it must have an impact on the agricultural sector of the economy.
A sound farming sector is needed:
• to provide a food surplus to feed city dwellers
• to provide surplus labor for growing manufacturing and service sectors of the economy
• to enlarge exports
• In addition, students need to understand patterns of economic growth and decline in North America.
• This part of the course also addresses contemporary issues surrounding economic activity. For example,
countries, regions, and communities must confront new patterns of economic inequity that are linked to
geographies of interdependence in the global economy.
• Communities also face difficult questions regarding use and conservation of resources and the impact of
pollution on the environment and quality of life.
• Students study the impact of deindustrialization,
• Students study the impact of deindustrialization, the disaggregation of production,
• Disaggregate: to divide into parts
• the development of commodity chains,
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•
•
A commodity chain is a sequential process used by firms to gather resources, transform them into goods or
commodities and, finally, distribute them to consumers. In short, it is the connected path from which a good
travels from producers to consumers. Commodity chains can be unique depending on the product types or the
types of markets. Different stages of a commodity chain can also involve different economic sectors or be
handled by the same business
and the rise of consumption and leisure activities.
VII. Cities and Urban Land Use
• The course divides urban geography into two subfields. The first is the study of systems of cities, focusing on
where cities are located and why they are there.
• This involves an examination of such topics as the current and historical distribution of cities;
• the political, economic, and cultural functions of cities;
• reasons for differential growth among cities;
• and types of transportation and communication linkages among cities.
• Theories of settlement geography, such as Christaller’s central place theory, the rank size rule, and the gravity
model are also introduced.
• The gravity model of migration is a model in urban geography derived from Newton's law of gravity, and used to
predict the degree of interaction between two places.
• Newton's law states that: "Any two bodies attract one another with a force that is proportional to the product of
their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them."
• When used geographically, the words 'bodies' and 'masses' are replaced by 'locations' and 'importance'
respectively, where importance can be measured in terms of population numbers, gross domestic product, or
another appropriate variables.
• The gravity model of migration is therefore based upon the idea that as the importance of one or both of the
location increases, there will also be an increase in movement between them. The farther apart the two
locations are, however, the movement between them will be less. This phenomenon is known as distance decay.
• Reilly's law of retail gravitation states that larger cities will have larger spheres of influence than smaller ones,
meaning people travel farther to reach a larger city.
• . Quantitative information on such topics as population growth, migration fields, zones of influence, and job
creation are used to analyze changes in the urban hierarchy.
• The second subfield focuses on the form, internal structure, and landscapes of cities and emphasizes what cities
are like as places in which to live and work.
• Students are introduced to such topics as the analysis of patterns of urban land use, racial and ethnic
segregation, types of intracity transportation, architectural traditions, and cycles of uneven construction and
development.
• Students’ understanding of cities as places is enhanced by both quantitative data from the census and
qualitative information from narrative accounts and field studies.
• Students also study models of internal city structure: for example, the Burgess concentric zone model, the Hoyt
sector model, and the Harris–Ullman multiple nuclei model.
• Topics such as economic systems, culture, architectural history, and the evolution of various transportation
technologies in different parts of the world can be useful in the analysis of spatial patterns and landscapes
evident in cities.
• While much of the literature in urban geography focuses on the cities of North America, comparative
urbanization is an increasingly important topic. The study of European, Islamic, East and South Asian, Latin
American, and sub-Saharan African cities serves to illustrate how differing economic systems and cultural values
can lead to variations in the spatial structures and landscapes of urban places.
• Students also examine current trends in urban development that are affecting urban places, such as the
emergence of edge cities, new urbanism, and the gentrification of neighborhoods.
New Urbanism: Dense, residential neighborhoods within walking distance of schools, green-space, and a
downtown plaza (offices, shops and restaurants.) TQ
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1. Mixed-Use Development: development designed to include multiple land uses, such as residential, retail,
educational, recreational, industrial, or offices, in order to minimize the need for travel outside of the
development.
2. housing opportunities for a range of household types, family size and incomes
3. walkable neighborhoods
Difference between smart growth and new urbanism?
gentrification: the invasion of older, centrally located working-class neighborhoods by higher-income
households seeking the character &convenience of less-expensive & well-located residences.
Gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire property in low income and
working class communities.
Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size decreases in the
community, which sometimes results in the eviction of lower-income residents because of increased rents,
house prices, and property taxes.
Taxes paid to the city go up, and the cost of police, fire and welfare services go down.
Often old industrial buildings are converted to residences and shops. In addition, new businesses, catering to a
more affluent base of consumers, move in, further increasing the appeal to more affluent migrants and
decreasing the accessibility to the poor.
life course approach: an attempt to try and understand a persons life within a historic, social and cultural
context.
The life course approach examines an individual's life history and sees for example how early events influence
future decisions and events such as marriage and divorce, engagement in crime, or disease incidence.
In particular, the approach focuses on the connection between individuals and the historical and socioeconomic
context in which these individuals lived.
In addition, students evaluate urban planning design initiatives and community actions, such as those that
reduce energy use and protect the environment, that will shape cities in the future.
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