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Geography 107
Introduction to Human Geography
California State University,
Northridge
What is Geography
• Geography is a subject.
• Geography is a discipline.
– Geographers use a set of methodologies.
– Geographers have an epistemology.
– Geographers ask, “Where?” when they want
to know “Why?”
• Geography is what geographers do.
• Anything that takes place can be studied
from a geographic perspective.
What’s wrong with Geography?
• The “Mother of all Disciplines”…
• Ancient history
• Encyclopedia of every place…
Environmental Determinism.
• Flawed notion that culture is a direct
response to the dictates of climate and
topography.
• Popular during the 1800s-1920s.
• Has some ugly potentialities and
undermined the success of Geography as
a discipline.
How this course works
• The most important thing for you to learn
is how to think…epistemology and
methodology.
• You will be introduced to a series of
subjects (politics, language, ethnicity,
industry, etc.)
• You will be shown how geographers
understand these topics and how spatial
thinking can be applied.
Some preliminaries…
• Background vocabulary and some basic
skills are in order…
Place is important
• Location
– Position
– Description
• Site
– Physical characteristics
– Attributes
• Situation
– Relative location
– Comparisons
– Significance of location
Region
• Several different types of regions…or
groupings of places.
– Formal
– Functional
– Vernacular
Functional Region
• Has a concentrated center and fuzzy
boundaries and is based frequently on
economic linkages, communication and
transportation ties.
• “Core and Periphery”
• KTLA, a Los Angeles TV station has a
functional region…
• “LA” is a functional region that extends
outward to include suburbs...
Functional Region: TV Markets
Formal Regions
• Formal regions are defined by some
characteristic.
• The characteristic may be absolute, or
simply “predominate”
Formal Region: Election
• All the people who have an address in
California can vote as “Californians”.
Formal
Region:
German
Speakers
• Note the German
heartland is both
Protestant and
German speaking,
but the periphery
is Catholic and
more likely to
include other
languages.
Formal Region: Rural America
• figure
Vernacular Region
• A region perceived to exist by people living
within it, or by outsiders.
• An outgrowth of a sense of belonging
• Probably an outgrowth of a need to
exclude others as well.
• Powerful emotionally
• Hard to characterize systematically
• “SoCal” is a vernacular region…
Vernacular Regions
• “Dixie” is
another
word for
the the
southern
US, but
exactly
where is
“The
South”?
Where? Where!
• “Where?”, is the most important question
geographers ask.
• Where things are give us important clues
about why they are as they are.
• Historians tend to ask “When?”…and
focus on chronology.
• Geographers focus on chorology…or more
commonly “distribution”
Properties of Distribution
• Density – measurement
– Number of objects
– Land area
• Concentration
– Clustering
– Dispersal
• Pattern
–
–
–
–
Irregular
Linear
Rectangular
Grid
• Cholera map…
Payday Lenders vs. Doughnut Shops
• Which industry do
you think is more
concentrated in the
San Fernando
Valley?
• If one industry is
concentrated spatial
and the other is not,
what inferences can
we draw about the
competitive nature
of each industry?
Connectivity
• Spatial interaction
• Characteristics spread through diffusion
Health and Medical Questions?
_
Diffusion
• Characteristic spreads
across space and time
• Hearth - locations and
nodes
• Relocation diffusion –
physical movement
• Expansion diffusion
– Hierarchical
– Contagious
– Stimulus
Figure 1.9.2
Diagram of Diffusion Patterns
Environmental Determinism
• Flawed notion that culture is a direct
response to the dictates of climate and
topography.
• Popular during the 1800s-1920s.
• Has some ugly potentialities and
undermined the success of Geography as
a discipline.
Environmental Possibilism
• People are the primary architects of
culture, although the environment gives us
options that we may choose to follow or
ignore.
Environmental Possibilism?
• figure
Environmental Possibilism?
• figure
Environmental Perception
• This school argues that perception of the
environment is most important.
• Ignorance is as important as knowledge
• Geomancy or Feng Shui
• Natural hazards and hazard zones
Hazard Location
• Figure
Hazard Location: Malibu
• figure
Humans as modifiers of the earth
• Opposite of environmental determinism.
• Argue that it is humans that are in the
drivers seat in this relationship.
Earth Modification
• figure
Cultural Integration
• Cultures are complex wholes
• Cultures are integrated systems
• Each cultural aspect is dependent on
others
• Example: religion and politics and
economics and race and …
• Cultural determinism is a danger
Social Science
• Scientific method applied to people
• Laws are sought which explain humans
spatial behavior
• According to the text, space (geometric
space) is a key concept in this modernist
approach.
• Model building is common
• Economic determinism is a danger
• Some progress made in accounting for
geographic variation.
Humanistic geography
• Place and place meaning
• Humanistic views and subjectivity
• This is an area of geography that is very
much like English, history or art
appreciation.
Postmodernism
• Multiple definitions of postmodernism
• Critical Theory and Cultural Studies
Cultural Landscape
•
•
•
•
The built and humanized landscape
Landscapes tell of the culture
Can be “read” like a text
Three principal aspects of cultural
landscape
– Settlement patterns
– Land-division patterns
– Architecture
Landscape
• Consider the parking structure across from
Sierra Hall. What does it suggest about
the culture that built it?
• What symbolic values does it have?
• What is not said?
Conclusion
• Example: the American log house