Introduction to Human Geography

Lecture Outline

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 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.

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”

Diffusion!

The Jedi Major

Padawan Learners must learn to:

See as a Jedi

landscape interpretation

Think as a Jedi – epistemology

Use the force! Ask: “Where?”

Work as a Jedi

(GIS – light sabers)

Communicate as a Jedi

(cartography)

How this course works

The most important thing for you to learn is how to think…to develop epistemology and methodology.

You will be introduced to a series of subjects (politics, language, ethnicity, industry, etc.)

You will be shown how geographers “see” and understand these topics and how spatial thinking is applied to solve problems.

How this book is organized

Each chapter has a topic (politics, religion, ethnicity, etc.)

Each chapter has the following sections:

Region (Where is it?)

Migration/Diffusion (How’d it get there?)

Cultural Ecology (What’s the interaction with nature?)

Cultural Integration (How does it affect other things?)

Landscape (What does it look like as you drive by?)

Functional Region: TV Markets

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.

Vernacular Regions

“Dixie” is another word for the southern US, but exactly where is “The South”?

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?

Diffusion

Diffusion is how people, ideas, the flu, music styles, etc. move from a hearth at the core outward to the periphery.

Different styles of diffusion:

Hierarchical & Reverse-hierarchical

Contagious diffusion

Relocation diffusion

Stimulus (partial diffusion)

Barriers, including time and space intervene

Diffusion:
Health and Medical Questions?

Humans and Environment

Geographers are also very interested in how the natural environment affects our cultural behaviors (and vice verse)

In the book, this relationship is called “Cultural Ecology”

Soils of Alabama

Soils in the blue color are particularly productive, especially for cotton.

Cotton Production: 1860

Note the relationship between cotton production and soil type in Alabama

Voting for Obama/McCain 2008

Do you see the relationship between soils-agriculture-politics?

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?

Consider these Landscapes

Environmental Determinism? NO!

figure

Environmental Possibilism?

Earth Modification

figure

Hazard Location: Malibu

figure

Conclusion

Example: the American log house

Geography of Folk Culture

Lecture Outline

California State University, Northridge

What is Folk Culture?

Popular

large and ever changing mass of people

division of labor

money based economy

police and army maintain order

heterogeneity and individualism

Folk

traditional ways

often rural

cohesive and homogenous

little labor specialization

family maintains order

subsistence economy

Is it so simple to tell?

Exactly what is folk and what is popular is sometimes “a distinction without a difference”.

Consider “Old School” Hip Hop

What is the role of space and place?

Local is __________

What? - Cultural Features

Material Culture-things that can be touched and tasted (artifacts).

Non-material-things that can’t be seen, touched or tasted such as, songs or folk tales (mentifacts).

Some Geographers study nothing but folk material items.

Raked Cemetery (fig)

Folk Culture Regions

Defined on the basis of their individual cultural elements.

Included among these traits are:

Foodways

Song, dance and stories

Holidays, celebrations

Housing stock

American Folk Regions (fig)

Folk Food Regions

Geography of “spiciness” – Why?

Do any folk food regions still exist in the United States?

What would be a regional specialty for Southern California?

Why do many areas with hot climates have spicy cuisines? Pick the one that is INCORRECT.

A. It is easy to grow hot peppers in hot climates.

B. In hot climates, spoilage is common and pickling with peppers helps prevent spoilage.

C. In hot climates, sweating helps cool you down. Hot peppers make you sweat.

D. In hot climates, spicy peppers help cover the taste of spoiled food.

Folk Medicine

Roots, barks and fruits of plants used to cure ailments.

Still preserved in parts of Appalachia, Indian reservations and the Hispanic borderlands.

Also in the Asian culture groups.

Digging for Roots (fig)

Why dig?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - State wildlife officers have identified dozens of ginseng harvesting violations in their effort to protect the medicinal herb.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says officers have uncovered over 60 violations involving more than 30 people. No one has been charged.

Ron Rogers, wildlife law-enforcement supervisor for central Ohio, says the state regulates ginseng to discourage over-harvesting, preserve the wild plants and allow them to reach maturity.

Last year, 3,626 pounds of ginseng were legally harvested in Ohio's mature woodlands. The dried roots sell for $400 a pound.

Potential violations include digging ginseng without landowner permission, off-season collecting or possession, failure to maintain accurate records and failure to certify ginseng prior to export.

Geophagy

Dirt and clay eating

Still practiced in Africa and some parts of the American South.

Why?

Parasites, nutrition, religion.

Distribution of Geophagy (fig)

Geophagy: US Southland

http://whitedirt.samsbiz.com/

Folk Music

Folk music is that music that is produced largely for local consumption.

Profit motive is low.

Often uses homemade, or modest instrumentation (or none)

Often reflects the peculiarities of the local culture, local performance venues and even local climate conditions.

In class, which of these music genres was called “folk”.

A. Opera

B. Heavy Metal

C. Old School (early) Hip Hop

D. Disco

Lining Out – Folk Style Gospel

The “lining out” style of church singing is an ancient folk singing style brought from the British Isles to the United States.

It has long since died out in New England where it was once most popular.

It can still be found in two types of places:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jByWbxIg7OI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNOIY5lqepA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o0NoCAHpvg

Diffusion of Yankee Folk Singing (fig)

Why is it “here and not there”

Still most popular in the Upland South and among black churches. Why?

Camp meetings and Yankee teachers.

Why has this style diminished in the source area?

Why did it not spread to South Louisiana, or Southern California?

Cultural Integration in Folk Geography

Many folk practices are accepted into the larger world, and sometimes money is earned.

Popular culture frequently derived from folk materials.

Folk cultures also absorb popular culture

Example: Mountain Moonshine

Came with the Scots-Irish in the 1700s

Enjoyed much popularity during the prohibition era.

Often most popular in devout Baptist/Methodist areas and in dry counties.

Good money maker-much better than corn!

What is the geographic factor?

Major bust in July 2000 in Carolinas, TN.

Stock car racing and Moonshiners?

Whiskey and Fast Cars (fig)

Map of Moonshine Busts (fig)

Country & Western Music

We got bof’ kinds of music hyear...

Derived from Scots-Irish roots.

Fiddle heavy-bagpipe substitute?

Stayed in the mountains for decades

Mixed with African elements

Role of Ralph Peer and WSM.

Popularized, electrified and homogenized by Nashville.

Example: Bluegrass

Bill Monroe

Scottish Church singing

Mountain Jazz

Arnold Shultz and Uncle Pen

Place oriented

Voice pitch and sexual mores?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2XT9u7iw9o&feature=related

Bluegrass Hometowns (fig)

Folk Landscapes

Folk architecture is a good indicator of past folk life activity.

Structures built from collective memory.

Functional and often specific to natural conditions

Folk Ecology and Building Materials (fig)

Thatch (fig)

Mud/Log

Dirt/Thatch (fig)

Grasslands and Mountains

Folk Housing in North America

Little new folk construction today

Balloon framing, professional design emerges in the 1850s….Sears & Robuck Houses

Still many survive

Building Materials

A sure clue to folk architecture is the local source materials.

Buildings made from distant materials are rarely of folk origins.

Bricks, grass, wood, sod, stone

Climate influences choice of materials

Adobe houses of the Southwest

Floor Plan

The floor plan of a house is another clue to its folk origins.

Many times the exterior of a house has been redone making it hard to determine its folk past.

Certain floor plans are common in certain regions of the United States.

Other clues

Consider the shape and pitch of the roof

Placement of the chimney (s)

Number and location of doors and windows.

Design of the porch…if there is one.

Which of these is a clue your house is NOT a folk house?

A. It’s made of entirely local materials

B. The walls were built with 2x4 boards.

C. The house is well designed for the local climate.

D. It was built in 1820.

Main North American Styles

Yankee –

New England, Upper Great Lakes States

Midwestern /Mid Atlantic –

Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland.

Upland South - Appalachia

Lowland South – “Black South”

Southwest – Adobes (Texas- California)

French

Yankee

Found mostly in New England and the Great Lakes region of the Midwest.

Features typically include:

Large central chimney

Rooms arranged around central chimney

Steeply pitched roofs

Symmetry is important

Frequent style references to Greece/Rome

New England Large

Yankee-New England Large (fig)

Yankee – New England Large (fig)

Yankee – New England Large (fig)

Yankee – Cape Cod

Similar floor plan to the New England Large.

Story and a half.

Side door.

Yankee – Cape Cod

Yankee - Saltbox

Similar floor plan

Roofline extends over an additional row of rooms across rear of home.

Yankee - Saltbox

Yankee -Upright and Wing (fig)

Demonstrates the infusion of popular culture (style) into the more purely functional folk house (type).

This house is in some ways a New England Large, turned sideways, so the gabled end faces the street to give it a Classical Appearance, which became popular in the early 1800.

Later becomes fully “Greek Revival”

Yankee- Upright and Wing (fig)

Yankee -Upright and Wing (fig)

Midwest / Mid Atlantic

The Midwest and Mid Atlantic states have only two, similar house types.

Both are one room deep and two rooms wide

Both have gable end chimneys

Both have central hallways

Hall and Parlour

The I house

Named because of the states it was common in…

Book explanation is wrong.

Most common house among farmers in the middle states

Carolina – I House

Illinois – I House

Upland South

The Upland South is the “hillbilly” south, or the part that was not dominated by plantation agriculture.

Scots-Irish and Germanic influences are primary.

The “pen” is the single room cabin. All other configurations build from the single pen.

Upland South – Cabin and Porch (fig)

Upland South – Saddlebag

Upland South- Saddle Bag

Upland South -Dogtrot (fig)

Lowland South

The old plantation South

African and Caribbean influences are evident

Rare to find middle class housing. Why?

Lowland South-Shotgun (fig)

Lowland South – Charleston House

What type of house is this?

A. Cape Cod

B. Saddlebag

C. I house

D. New England Large

Where might you find this house?

A. Maine

B. California

C. Indiana

D. Tennessee

Other Regional Specialties

In some regions, the ethnic heritage of the local population remained dominant because there was less influence from other ethnicities or nationalities.

They remain distinct today.

Lowland South – Creole Cottage

Pennsylvania Dutch
Forebay Barn (fig)

North American Styles (fig)

Pennsylvania Dutch- Forebay Barn (fig)

Quebec House (fig)

Value of a porch?

A folk house’s porch design may offer clues to it utility in a variety of climate types.

This house did not have a porch.

Study Guide

http://www.csun.edu/~sg4002/courses/107/107_study_folk.html

THE GEOGRAPHY of POPULAR CULTURE

Chapter Outline

Introduction

Recall from last chapter the differences between Popular Culture and Folk Culture

If “folk culture” was defined in geographic terms as “local culture for local people”, then popular culture could be defined as..?

Popular Culture and Place

Has Pop Culture destroyed place?

Ed Relph-argues that the world is increasingly characterized by “placelessness”

Have you been to a location that is “placeless”?

Homogeneity of place

Place Product Packaging

Holiday Inn / McDonalds

Why would franchising, and the construction of expectation be valuable to travelers, tourists?

Niche Places/Lifestyle Clusters

The opposite of placelessness

Perhaps communication and transportation have made more specialized places.

Weiss- “America has become increasingly fragmented”

Robbin – “lifestyle clusters”

What was this?

Clicker Question:

The fact that you recognized the last building as a Taco Bell is proof of what concept?

A. Placelessness

B. Lifestyle Cluster

C. Place Product Packaging

Food and Drink Consumption

Name some instances of “placelessness” when it comes to food and drink

Name some instances of regional specialties

Are regional specialties dying out or getting stronger?

Utah?

California

Wisconsin?

Wine

Popular as well as folk food custom

Environmental and geographic constraints

Location provides distinctive quality

What pattern is obvious on this map?

Carolina’s Cheerwine (fig)

Carolina Bar-B-Q

Served on a bun

Served off-the-bone

Vinegar and tomato based

Often with red cole slaw

Carolina Bar B Q Sauce (fig)

Folk ways spilling into popular culture.

Why pork and not beef bar b q in the Carolinas?

Where would beef bar b que be more popular?

Other factors in the style of BBQ?

Popular Music

The consumption of music varies from place to place.

The production of music varies from place to place.

Why Memphis – Rock n’ Roll?

Why did so many of the early stars of the rock n’ roll era come from Memphis?

What cultural factors were in situ in 1955 that made Memphis an ideal location?

The invention of magnetic tape a decade earlier made recording music cheap and accessible to more people. What parallels are there today?

Why Seattle - Grunge?

Why did the city of Seattle have very few bands in the national spotlight from 1970 to 1990, and then suddenly experience an explosion of popularity?

What was the role of Seattle’s isolation on the ability of local bands to secure record contracts?

What was the role of isolation in the creation of the grunge subculture?

Which of the following statements is incorrect?

A. Both Seattle and Memphis had isolated musical cultures

B. Both Seattle and Memphis had many talented musicians.

C. Both Seattle and Memphis created musical innovations.

Why Bronx – Hip Hop?

See folk culture notes…

A different kind of isolation from Seattle

Different cultural inputs

Sports

Regions of the country have differing tastes in sport.

Certain regions of country are especially productive in terms of athletes.

Who produces the most football players?, Basketball?, Hockey? Baseball?

Who watches what sports most closely?

Sports (fig)

Sports Regions

Clothing and Fashion

Many clothing options have roots in the environmental and/or folk cultural traditions of other countries.

Occupation or work clothes

Some have jumped into popular culture.

Which of the following states would you most likely find folks playing sports non-competitively?

New York

California

North Dakota

Utah

Blue Jeans

Once exclusively the pants of the working class; popularized in ______ during the _______ _______ by Levi Strauss.

Have become an international symbol of America, and a value system.

Malls

Consider the shopping mall and how it uses place to sell clothing.

Can you think of a company that sells a “place” as it tries to sell clothes?

What places are highly desirable?

What is it about those places that make them desirable?

“Where” are they selling?

Exclusivity? Escape? Where can you get that?

Could this be the place?

Where about these guys?

Where?

Place Imagery

Place image is a highly manipulatable and highly contestable notion.

Advertisers use it heavily

Realtors

Chambers of Commerce

Others?

Beauty Pageants

Popularized in Atlantic City during the 1920s

A beauty queen belt can be discerned stretching from Mississippi to Utah

What do you supposed are the causal factors behind this pattern?

The Beauty Belt (fig)

What might account for the relationship between football fandom and beauty pageant success?

A. Poverty

B. Gender Roles

C. Race/ethnicity

D. Religious values

Vernacular Culture Regions

Defined: regions perceived to exist.

Such regions often overlap and have poorly defined borders.

In what region of the country do we live?

Where is Dixie?

Where is “So Cal”?

Where is “the Midwest”?

How would you delimit such a region?

Phone Book Regions (fig)

Diffusion of Classical Place Names

Demonstrates an abiding fascination with all things Greek and Roman during the 19^th Century

Classical Revival Architecture (fig)

What does this building “say”?

A. Democracy

B. Persistence (lasts a long time)

C. Style (at least in 1830)

D. All of these

Language and the Landscape: Linguistic Geography

Introduction

Language is a powerful shaper of who we are, commonly considered the central core of cultural identity.

Where is this evident in a recent “cultural war”?

“Illegal Alien vs. __________?”

Geolinguistics is a growing subdiscipline in geography.

In the last decade, cultural theory has increasingly argued that language and the control of systems of meaning as the primary source of political power.

Some Definitions

What is a language?

Language families are large and old

Language branches are smaller and formed more recently

Language groups are more closely related and aren’t that old

Language Tree

Leaves are languages

Language families are depicted as trunks.

Groups and Branches are in between.

Chart

Note the large percentage of Indo-European speakers.

Includes?

What about Sino-Tibetan?

Map of Languages

Language Families- West

Indo-European Speakers Worldwide

Note the main groups.

English is closely related to what other language?

Germanic Languages

Share both common words and structural similarities.

Romance Languages

Evolved from Latin

Notice the gray patches on the map.

To what do they correspond?

Indo-Iranian Languages

More speakers than other branches.

Very confusing mix of languages and alphabets.

Dravidian?

Hindi

Which of the following languages is LEAST related to English?

A. German

B. Farsi

C. Hindi

D. French

English

Why is English so widespread?

Technology

English is used for a variety of technical and legal matters world wide.

It’s also good for business!

How did it get this way?

Preservation

Many languages are becoming extinct.

Canada?

United States?

What language was resurrected from the dead?

Quebecois

Two separatist referenda failed during the last 20 years.

Arête!

Quebec City (Ville de Quebec?)

The irony of the sign?

Basque

What do you know about this linguistic minority here in California?

Spanglish

The US has a number of linguistic challenges as well.

Difficult to preserve culture without language.

Difficult to enter mainstream without language.

Irony?

LA!

How does the size of Los Angeles permit this phenomena?

LA!

The challenge and beauty of living in Los Angeles represented on a sign in Northridge.

Bladerunner?

Which language is nearly extinct in South Louisiana?

A. French Creole

B. Cajun French

C. Cajun Spanish

D. Gullah/Geechy French

Dialects

What is a dialect?

What is an accent?

In addition to region, what other factors contribute to dialect?

English Dialects in the United States

Three major dialects are spoken by three major subcultural groups.

Northern

Midland

Southern

Consider the various expressions for “highway”

What other words or terms are used in one part of the country but not in others?

Major US Dialect Regions (fig)

Massive Dialect Map

http://aschmann.net/AmEng/#SmallMapCanada

Linguistic Isoglosses (fig)

(fig)

Pop vs. Soda

Another Version

http://www.popvssoda.com/

A website where you once could vote…

An outstanding data collection device.

Or based on tweets:

http://blog.echen.me/2012/07/06/soda-vs-pop-with-twitter/

Are there other terms that you can think of that you could set up a website about?.

Ebonics

Partly a variant of the Southern Dialect

Many Southerners now speaking Midland English.

Center of a controversy in early 1990s when Oakland school board suggested Ebonics a “language”.

Partly a pidginized English

Why is this geographic?

Ebonics

Multiple Varieties of Ebonics-not just slang

Pulpit Ebonics: the linguistic style of the black churches

Sports Ebonics: the linguistic style of black athletes

Musical Ebonics: the linguistic style of black musicians and singers.

Consider “the dozens” and Hip Hop

Georgia’s Gullah Islanders

Cultural Ecology of Language

The way we speak is also affected by the natural environment in which we live.

Dialects and languages face many of the same barriers other cultural practices do.

Diffusion Barrier (fig)

Tangiers, Virginia

http://youtu.be/AIZgw09CG9E

Gullah Islands

http://youtu.be/rCYBf-1yHmI?t=27s

Appalachian Mountains

http://youtu.be/03iwAY4KlIU?t=4s

Louisiana Swamp

http://youtu.be/BRXcpBIteEM?t=28s

American Plains

http://youtu.be/5tbsiqaqh_4

L.A. Dialect?

What sort of “accent” do Los Angelenos have?

What would account for the dialect of Los Angeles?

Culturo-Linguistic Integration

Language is an important indicator of the health, status and changing nature of wider cultural issues.

Politics, economics, social and cultural movement are all reflected in the linguistic changes of a society

How Does a Language Achieve Dominance
or Die Out?

A. Technology (military)

B. Social Morale

-Doesn’t always happen (Greek, Chinese)

C. The Economic Development Model

-migration out (clearance)

-migration in (changeover).

D. Language and Religion

Do rainforest languages even have a term for “desert”?

Language and Power

-language is a powerful tool in the maintenance of political arrangements (on both sides of the coin)

Consider the evolution of the term “mugging” in the British press.

Linguistic Landscapes

Toponyms (place names)

-serve as reminders of migration patterns, ethnicity and religion.

-lots of places have Indian names

-what place names in California serve as indicators of past political arrangements?

-can you you name any?

Toponyms as Clue to the Past (fig)

Linguistic Landscape of PA (fig)

Penn-German Forebay Barn (fig)

What American term did British newspapers begin using in the late 1970s, that sparked British fears about crime?

A. Rolling

B. Mugging

C. Pillaging

D. Busking

“Center” and duplicate names (fig)

If you drove into a town called “Woodstock Center”, the first house you would see would most like be a(n):

A. Saltbox

B. Dog Trot

C. Shotgun

D. I-house

American landscape Project

https://picasaweb.google.com/AmericanLandscapeProject

ETHNIC GEOGRAPHY

Chapter Outline
California State University, Northridge

Introduction

How do you define “ethnic”?

How does one become “ethnic”? (birth-migration)

The census is partly responsible for creating ethnic identities

Host Culture

What does “race” mean then?

What does “nationality” mean?

Geography matters

Place Makes Race

If there was not the friction of distance, races and ethnicities would not develop.

Without spatially enforced separation erosion of ethnicity and racial identity occurs.

Maintaining Ethnicity

The Good and The Bad

Keep alive cultural traditions and maintain group cohesion

Family, kinship, courtship, friendship

Recreation, political power, business

Suspicion, distrust, clannishness and violence

Q: According to lecture, scientific evidence now suggests which of the following is not a valid method of grouping people:

A. Ethnicity

B. Race

C. Nationality

D. Religion

Merge now...

Acculturation -adoption of enough host culture ways to blend in economically and socially

Assimilation - complete blending and loss of distinctive ethnic traits.

Marriage the most effective assimilative tool

Groups may choose not to assimilate

Groups may not be permitted to assimilate.

Chinatown (fig)

Ethnic Regions

Ethnic Groups arrange themselves or are arranged in a variety of patterns on the landscape that can be mapped.

They may be large, covering many states as “ethnic homelands”

They may be small, comprising just few blocks as an ethnic neighborhood or ghetto.

American Ethnic Regions (fig)

Ethnic Homelands (fig)

Francophone Louisiana (fig)

Ethnic Islands

Much smaller than a “homeland”

May be only a county or town

Often rural

All over the upper Midwest

Midwestern Ethnic Island (fig)

Ethnic Island Landscapes (fig)

Ethnic Substrate

Is akin to an extinct ethnic homeland or a huge assimilated ethnic island.

The German feel to the upper Midwest is an example.

No one really seems too German, but there is a lot of beer and brats.

Why would such a place die out?

Q: More Americans self-report this as their ethnic heritage than any other:

A. English

B. French

C. Mexican

D. German

Ethnic Neighborhoods and Ghettos

Ghetto vs. Ethnic Neighborhood

Ancient history and globality

Difficulties with definition

Slums vs. ghetto

Discriminatory housing practices include redlining, steering and block busting

Suburban Ghettos?

Ethnicities in Los Angeles

Whites are now a minority-majority in Los Angeles at 40% of the population and inhabit the edges.

Blacks in South LA

Latinos in East LA

Asians are scattered in various locations

Black Ghettos

The most well known of American ghettos are reserved for African Americans

The oldest are in the Deep South and are characterized by close integration among whites and blacks – “Early Southern”

After the Civil War, the “Classic Southern” version evolves and is more segregated and features the “across the tracks” ghetto

Northern ghettos are concentrated near the Central Business District in the “inner city”.

Western ghettos generally trend along a transportation corridor.

Black Migration

Though the South still has many blacks, millions left.

Why?

Clarksdale, Miss.

Route 61

Chicago

Black Ghetto Typology (fig)

Detroit (fig)

Charlotte (fig)

Houston (fig)

Why live in a ghetto?

Support

Defense and Safety

Preservation

Attack

Who are our “Ethnics”?

In 1840s- Germans, Chinese and Irish came in large numbers

Italians, Poles, and Eastern European Jews came in the latter half of the 19thc

Intra-American migration brought Blacks and hillbillies into the city

Later still: Puerto Ricans and other Latin Americans, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.

Cities have Ethnic “specialties”

New York and ____________

Miami and _____________

DC and ___________________

Providence and __________________

Boston and _______________

Little Havana (fig)

There goes the neighborhood…

Most ethnic neighborhoods grow and change. Eventually they lose their character and acquire a new one.

Invasion Succession (fig)

We’re not the only ones…

Each country has a different ethnic mix. It is what makes for the national character of a country.

One of the main reasons that the United States, Canada and Mexico are different is our different ethnic mixes.

There are also different emphases on acculturation.

Melting Pot vs. Salad Bowl

Canadian cooking?

Cultural Diffusion and Ethnicity

Migration is what makes many “ethnic”

chain migration

channelized migration

return migration

Chain Migration (fig)

Ethnic Ecology

Cultural Preadaptation

Ethnic Environmental Perception

maladaptation

Doctrine of First Effective Settlement

Q: Where is the largest source of migrants to the California today?

A. Latin America

B. Europe

C. Asia

D. Africa

Ethnic Ecology (fig)

Ethnicity and Business Activity

Different groups have different levels of entrepreneurial spirit.

Some groups who remain poor are not necessarily lazy, but may not prioritize life toward business

Ethnicity and Business
or Morality? (fig)

Ethnicity and Type of Employment

Ethnicities often specialize in a handful of business practices.

Irish and __________

Chinese and __________

Koreans and ____________

Italians and _____________

Jews and ____________

others?

Ethnicity and Employment (fig)

Ethnic Food Regions (fig)

Ethnicity and Disease (fig)

Ethnic Landscapes

There are a great variety of clues to the ethnicity (current or vestigal) of any location

Houses, cemetery markers, recreational amenities

Ethnic Settlement Patterns

The layout of towns and villages often recall an ethnic past or present

Germanic Landscape Values (fig)

German or Scots-Irish? (fig)

Urban Ethnic Landscapes

Some of the easiest places to see these items is in the city, but frequently you can be fooled because of the rapid ethnic turnover of cities.

Sal’s Pizzeria

Water Street

Color preferences

Urban Ethnic Landscapes (fig)

Hispanic Mural (fig)

We’re Proud of Our Heritage...

Please Spend lots of money in our quaint overpriced shoppes.

Political Geography

Lecture Outline

Political Culture Regions

What is territoriality?

Are we humans territorial by nature?

How much like animals are we?

What evidence speaks of our territoriality?

Gang Graffiti

Upper Middle Class and Working Class neighborhoods

US – Mexico Border

Countries fence others out as well…or try.

Or to keep people in…

Relic Boundaries (fig)

Othering

Politics is an expression of how people’s territoriality plays out spatially. Our territory gives us a sense of who we are….and who “others” are.

Othering

Jigsaw Globe

There are approximately 190 countries in the world.

Africa has about 50 of them.

Europe has about 50.

Many hundreds more possible as nations demand self-determination.

Boundaries – Old School Geopolitics

Compact and round countries have less trouble with unity than oddly shaped countries.

Enclaves, Peneclaves, Exclaves.

Prorupt countries

Archipelagos

Marchlands (define “march”)

Buffer States and Satellites

Natural, Ethnographic, Geometric and Relic

Country Shapes (fig)

Azerbaijan-Armenia (fig)

Strategies for Dividing Power

Unitary governments

France

Federal governments

Switzerland, Canada

Semiautonomous regions

Hong Kong

Which system does the United States employ?

One World Government?

Supranational organizations, such as the United Nations, NATO; and treaties, such as NAFTA, challenge territoriality.

Some fear them…

Other countries complain that the US manipulates such organizations to their own benefit.

Electoral Geography

Voting patterns can be mapped and they show very interesting patterns, some of which hold up for many decades.

Red vs. Blue

The characterization of presidential elections with maps has misled many into thinking the country was divided in a way that it may not be.

Red vs. Blue

Note that these now commonly accepted colors are opposite the traditional scheme where red was associated with the political left.

Suggests political polarity.

By County

Cartogram by County

Does a much better job of showing urban population

Purple vs. Violet

White?

Purple vs. Violet

Purple vs. Violet in a Cartogram by County

NPR Animation of Electoral Politics

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378/a-campaign-map-morphed-by-money?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20121104

What does the Red vs. Blue electoral map incorrectly suggest?

A. That we are really a multi-polar society

B. That we have no political centrists

C. That the conservatives are largely in the South

D. That the liberals are largely on the coasts.

Elazar’s American Political Regions

Traditionalistic

Laws based on tradition

Moralistic

Laws based on moral imperatives

Individualistic

Individual rights over group needs

Which Region?

Diffusion of Recycling Programs (fig)

Elazar’s Political Subcultures (fig)

Figure

Social Conservatives and Libertarians

Note that Social Conservatives are not in the same location as the “less-government” conservatives.

Cartoon

Geography of Marital Privacy

figure

Gay vs. Cousin Marriage Laws

Partly humorous, but also offers a glimpse into the relationship between politics, religion and tradition.

Note the patterns in the Southeast and Southwest.

Which state doesn’t fit its own pattern?

In Las Vegas, almost everything is legal. It’s following which of these political traditions?

A. Traditionalistic (Social Conservative)

B. Moralistic (Good Government)

C. Hedonistic (Everything goes!)

D. Individualistic (Libertarian)

Functional Electoral Regions

Redistricting

Every 10 years electoral districts must be redrawn.

Gerrymandering

The practice of constructing electoral districts that favor one party/race/religion/etc. over another

Gerrymandering (fig)

Gerrymandered Louisiana

District created to ensure a black representative in Congress

Is ethnicity a sufficient issue to create such a boundary?

Gerrymandering

Note the two hypothetical maps on the right.

See how the electoral boundaries of this “town” can be manipulated to change the outcome of an election.

According to lecture, which of the following is the most unfortunate outcome gerrymandering for everyone is:

A. It keeps minorities from getting votes in congress

B. It helps extremists get elected.

C. It ensure imcumbents get re-elected

D. All of the above.

Diffusion of Suffrage (fig)

Religion and Politics

In many parts of the world, religion is a good indicator of party affiliation.

Many countries in Europe have parties with names like “Christian Democrats”

In the United States, conservative religious groups have entered into a precarious alliance with the Republican party in the last 20 years.

Abortion is the key issue, but others are hidden

Balkanization

What is balkanization?

What causes it?

“shatterbelt”

Other than the Balkans, what other part of the world has Balkan-like potential?

There will….

Be a test question over the previous slide.

Were you awake?

Did you understand any of that?

Afghanistan

Pashtun

Baluch

Tajik

Uzbek

Turkmen

Brahul

Hazara

Pashai

Nuristani

Political Imprint on Economic Geography

Some borders are easier to see because of various governmental policies that encourage differing economic pursuits.

Borders are economically disruptive-NAFTA

US-Canadian Border (fig)

US-Mexico Border
(fig)

Which side is which?

Political Landscapes

Politics are expressed on the landscape in a variety of fashions.

Some are blatant, some are less obvious.

Government Building

How do we know that government buildings ought to look like this?

What are we referencing with this style?

Fair Trial Here?

Here?

The Impress of Central Authority

The evidence of a strong central government is everywhere!

Patterns of highways, rail, communication lines

Suppression of internal borders

Military bases

Central Authority

National Iconography on the Landscape

National symbols are easy to find.

What sort of national symbolism do we have in the US?

Statues, flags, eagles, monuments, etc.

What is their function?

Do they tell the whole story?

National Iconography

Whose story is being told?

Whose story is not being told?

Stone Mountain

How does this monument to the Confederacy speak to Black people who visit?

Why do / don’t we build these?

Vietnam Memorial

Geography of Religion

Lecture Outline

Introduction

Religion can be defined as a set of beliefs and practices through which people seek mental and physical harmony with the powers of the universe, through which they attempt to influence and accommodate the awesome forces of nature, life and death

Or…

Put more simply

Religion is a means by which many people make sense of their world and cope with life’s issues.

Can be wonderful and can be a source of great conflict.

Two Kinds of Religion

Proselytic
-- go out and seek new members

generally want to convert the
entire world

Christianity, Islam

Ethnic
-do not seek converts, must be born into these religions

many tribal religions, Hinduism, Judaism

World Religious Regions (fig)

World Religions – Pie Chart

Christianity

-World’s largest faith in area and adherents

Eastern Christians

-Includes Greek and Eastern Orthodox

Western Christians

-Catholics

-Protestants

Other Christians

-Coptics, Maronites, Nestorians

-The Armenian Church

American Christianity

Bible Belt Baptists

Mormon West

Catholic Borderlands

Lutheran Upper Midwest

Mixed Midwest

American Religion Regions (fig)

Divergence or Convergence?

The American West and religious proliferation. Why?

Some suggest a homogenization of American religion.

Roger Stump (book) suggests an increasing regionalization of American religion.

If you moved to Minnesota, your neighbors are likely to be:

A. Baptists

B. Catholics

C. Lutherans

D. Mormons

And…they’d be more like the other Minnesota Christians in terms of their beliefs than they would Hank Hill from Texas.

Islam (fig)

Islam

Monotheistic

Mostly across Northern Africa, Southwest Asia and into Southeast Asia

Shares many commonalties with Judaism and Christianity

Muhammad is the main prophet

The Koran is the Holy Text of Islam

Five Pillars

Ramadan

Daily prayer (five times)

Pilgrimage to Mecca

Statement of Faith

Alms giving

Two Major Sects

1. Shiite

-smaller in number of the two groups

-dominate in Iran and southern Iraq

-strong fundamentalist movement during the 1980s

2. Sunni

-Covers much of the Arabic speaking
Muslim world

-Also includes Indonesia

-Orthodox

Mosque in Eastern Europe (fig)

US Muslims

1.5 to 7 million American Muslims

(hard to count obviously)

Racially and ethnically diverse

American Black Muslims

Immigrants (new and old)

Mostly urban

Judaism

Also monotheistic, parent faith of Christianity and Islam (?)

Suffered a diaspora, therefore has many regional subgroups.

Sephardim in the Mediterranean lands

Ashkenazim in Europe (now US)

1/3 of Jews worldwide killed during holocaust

14 million Jews. Half in USA

Hinduism

Polytheistic and Ethnic (today)

about 750 million adherents

tied to the caste system

believe in reincarnation

many local forms

Bathing in the Ganges (fig)

Hindu Temple in Malibu

Sikhism

Sikhs -Adi Granth

-attempt at reconciling Islam and Hinduism

-in the Punjab and Southern California

-19 million or so, 500,000 in the US.

Buddhism

Broke away from Hinduism 2500 years ago

founded by Prince Siddhartha (Buddha)

Widespread in Asia

Many composite faiths as conversion spread

Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism

Lamaism is popular in Tibet and Mongolia

500 million adherents?

2 to 6 million in the United States, behind perhaps only Christianity and Judaism?

Mostly West Coast.

Los Angeles Temple

Wat Thai Of Los Angeles, originally known as "Theravada Buddhist Center", is the largest Thai Theravada Buddhist Temple in the United States.
8225 Coldwater
Canyon Ave
North Hollywood

Monk at the feet of Buddha (fig)

Four Noble Truths

Life is full of suffering

Desire is the cause of suffering

Elimination of suffering requires the quelling of desire

An eight-fold path can lead one to the quelling of desire

Nirvana -a state of peace and calm reached by few is attained by those able to successfully navigate the path.

Animism

Thousands of versions

100 million adherents

Economic Geography

Lecture Outline

Two Great Revolutions

The first agricultural revolution…the domestication of plants

The Industrial Revolution

urbanization, transportation, philosophy, science, demography revolutions

The Information Revolution?

Three Types of Industry

Primary - extractive

Secondary - manufacturing

Tertiary – retailing and services

Some authors also include as subsections of tertiary

Quaternary – information sector, research

Quinary – Government

(teaching, police, government activity)

Primary Industry

extractive industries of all sorts

Farming, drilling, mining

“from the ground”

sometimes spurs on manufacturing

frequently environmentally destructive

sometimes controlled by outsiders

What is one of Los Angeles’ primary industries?

Los Angeles

Primary Landscapes- Open Pit Mine (fig)

Primary Landscapes-
Chemical Fields (fig)

Primary Landscapes- Potash Mine Slag Pile (fig)

Primary Industry-Oil Drilling (fig)

Oil Spill (fig)

Rainforest Destruction (fig)

Primary Landscape? (fig)

Secondary Industry

Essentially the processing of products produced by primary industries.

Frequently considered synonymous with manufacturing

Value added

Shows core and periphery patterns and may lead to uneven development

Regions specialize in types of manufacturing.

Name a secondary industry in Los Angeles

LA Manufacturing

Primary and Secondary Centers- West (fig)

Good jobs, but often with pollution
(fig)

Secondary and Tertiary Landscapes (fig)

Acid Rain’s Effects (fig)

US Environmental Pollution (fig)

Tertiary Industry

Service sector

Now much more important in the United States than before 1970

Includes retail, research, transportation, communication, utilities, tourism, etc.

Multiplier leakage & increasing concentration of power and wealth

Bifurcation of service sector

Retail Site Location

Some students get jobs locating the “next McDonalds” or helping decide which stores go with which others in the mall.

Essentially involves mapping and analyzing demographic, traffic and shopping patterns.

Excellent earning potential.

Tourism

Tourism is world’s largest business

It’s a “basic industry”

Well spread, but often suffers from multiplier leakage

Seacoasts, mountains, rural areas benefit

Las Vegas, Yosemite, Big Sur

Historical and cultural locations also big

Los Angeles

Industrial Landscapes? (fig)

Tourism-West (fig)

Tourism-East (fig)

Q: Multiplier leakage is a problem with which of the following local businesses?

A. The Northridge Medical Center

B. A local farmer’s market

C. Rite-Aid Pharmacy

D. Taco Llama #5

Quaternary Industry

Subsection of the service sector

“services required by producers”

trade, wholesaling, retailing, advertising, banking, legal, insurance, real estate

information production & management

major growth sector today

Quaternary Industry

High skill labor

Locate near major universities

Amenity seeking

“silicon landscapes”

Richard Florida’s thesis

High quality of life, not low taxes, is key to the promotion of new economy jobs.

US Manufacturing Zones and Technopoles (fig)

Industrial Site Location

Alfred Weber: the father of industrial location theory, a career path that can be very lucrative.

Site location considerations include:

Land

Capital

Labor Costs

Labor Skill

worker productivity also considered

Markets

Materials

Q: According to Richard Florida, locations high taxes actually help attract good paying jobs. Which location is an example?

A. Silicon Valley, California

B. Atlanta, Georgia

C. Lexington, Kentucky

D. Boise, Idaho

The Industrial Revolution

Where did the industrial revolution begin?

Why there? Where in the US?

England with cottage & guild industries during the 1700s

Early products were crafted by machines powered by inanimate sources.

What is an example of an inanimate source?

Textiling, metallurgy, mining industries were early to capitalize on machine power.

Markets and Materials

Some industries need to locate close to their market, especially if their product is bulk gaining.

Some industries have a raw materials orientation, particularly when they are producing bulk reducing commodities.

Some industries need to be close to others, and produce agglomeration economics

Can you think why? Examples?

Bud and Miller Plants

Westward Steel

Bulk reducing

Note the westward migration of steel production in the US.

What factors account for this movement?

Automobile Production

Bulk gaining activity

Michigan/Detroit losing share

What factors account for the location patterns?

Where locally did there once exist a car factory?

Chevy Plants – 1950s vs. 2008

Local loser?

Loss pattern?

Delivery - Transportation

Ship, rail, truck, or air?

Depends on perishability, bulk and distance

Longer-distance transport is cheaper per mile due to loading labor (short haul penalty)

Trucks short-distance; trains longer

Boats very long; cost per mile very low

Air most expensive; speedy, high-value

Saint Louis – Break of Bulk

Break-of-Bulk Points

Costs rise each time products are transferred – labor costs

Break-of-Bulk – a location where transfer among transportation modes is possible

Temporary warehousing

Multiple mode may be cheaper

Seaports and airports

Intermodal / containerization

Just-in-Time Delivery

Delivered when needed without warehousing

No inventory

What implications for workers in such plants?

Can you think of another instance of “just in time delivery” that affects you, perhaps when you are shopping?

Industries on the Move

Movement has accelerated since 1970

What is a footloose industry?

What types of industry are less likely to move?

What is effect on wages and benefits?

NAFTA

Hourly Wages

Q: Footloose industries tend to have which qualities?

A. Low wages

B. Job insecurity

C. Poor Benefits

D. All of these

NAFTA

What has been the effect of NAFTA on the textiling industry?

Which states have fared worst?

The Political Element

Politics also effects industrial location.

Many defense industries are sited with political and strategic priorities in mind

Industrial location is often affected by regulatory climate

Tax and tariff policies also affect industrial site location

Environmental Factors in Industrial Location

There is some measure of environmental concern creeping into industrial site location.

Some companies avoid locations with environmental regulation.

Some companies seek those locations.

Industrialization and Cultural Change

Industrialization is the most potent ingredient in cultural change over the last 200 years.

Modernism, as a philosophy and way of life is intimately tied to industrialization

PROGRESS!!!

Agricultural Geography

Lecture Outline

Introduction

Effective agricultural practice is the taproot of civilization.

Without agricultural surplus, urbanization and industrialization is not possible.

Political and military power is often rooted in the ability to produce agricultural surpluses.

Subsistence Farming

Most of the world’s farmers plant only enough for themselves and their family.

Many of these subsistence systems are sustainable.

Some are not.

In some parts of Asia and Africa 80% of the people are subsistence farmers.

What percent of US workers are farming?

Agricultural Regions

Defined by the type of crops grown, the style of labor and the use of land.

fig

figure

Shifting Cultivation
(Slash and Burn, Swidden, Milpa)

Mostly in the tropical and equatorial areas of Latin America and Africa. Some in the rainforests of Southeast Asia.

Required because of the poor soils of the rainforests, but very energy efficient.

A “land rotation” system. Requires few, supports few. Fallow periods must be maintained.

Sustainable, Healthy. Intertillage is common.

fig

Paddy Rice Farming

Mostly found in South/Southeast Asia

Flooded rice fields.

Supports many, requires many.

Double cropping (single, double grain)

Intercropping

Green Revolution technologies

Implications for economics, culture and standardized math scores?

Fig: Paddy Rice Terrace-Bali Indonesia

Peasant Grain, Root, and Livestock Farming

Where it is really dry, ranching and dry land grains are the agricultural practices.

Where it is wetter, root crops, like manioc/cassava are staples.

Nutritionally unbalanced.

Unaffected by green revolution technologies.

Sorghum and Millet

Cassava (manioc/yuca)

Sweet Potato Field-New Guinea

Mediterranean Agriculture

Almost non existent in subsistence form.

Specialized crops that include?

Now similar to market gardening.

Where in the U.S.?

Who settled this part of the US?

What is the controlling variable?

Mediterranean Agriculture-Crete Greece

Nomadic Herding

Practiced in very dry areas of Africa and Asia, but dying out.

Also in parts of frozen world.

Africans raise cattle, Asians raise water buffalo…Others?

Characterized by the constant search for food for livestock.

Who else were nomadic herders?

Nomadic Herding-Kurdistan

Commercial Agricultural Systems

Marked by profit seeking farmers

Characterizes much of 1^st World Farming

Can produce enormous food surpluses

Can wreak environmental havoc

Frequently come with intense social injustices in the Third World

Plantation Agriculture

Commercial agriculture that focuses on non-staple, export-oriented crops at the expense of traditional agricultural systems and food crops.

Developed in the Americas, exported to Africa and Asia.

Tends to be coastal.

Plantation Agriculture

Socially and economically unjust. Becoming more so as labor is replaced by machinery.

Coffee, Sugar Cane, Bananas, Tea, Cacao, Tobacco and Spices

Plantation Sign-Costa Rica

Welcome to Freehold Plantation: Where labor harmony reigns...

Tea Plantation-Papua New Guinea

Banana Plantation

We are the world!

Recorded to help Ethiopians suffering through famine in the mid-1980s.

We thought it was drought, but it was in reality war and capitalism.

Juan Valdez

Plantation agriculture and mono cropping are prone to wild market swings, competition and ecological disaster.

American Response

The Iran Contra affair of the mid-1980s also points to the challenges of changing the agricultural / land used policies in the Third World.

It’s why many of you are here.

Q: It rains here every day! What’s for dinner?

A. Rice and Fish

B. Corn, Squash and Beans

C. Steak and bread

D. Cheese and goat meat.

Von Thunen’s Model

Von Thunen in Practice-Uruguay

Grand Central Market: LA

More profitable than farming?

Market (Truck)Gardening

Mostly in the first world

Generally specialized for urban markets

Dependent upon seasonal (immigrant) labor

New Jersey, Michigan, California

Where in California?

What crops are “local”?

Perishables: Truck Gardening

Commercial Livestock Fattening

Hogs and Cattle brought in for fattening

In areas of the Great Plains of the US

Much of the corn and soybeans grown in the US goes to feed cattle.

Is this efficient?

Expansion of production areas in environmentally sensitive rainforest.

Feedlot – San Joaquin Valley

Commercial Grain Farming

Much of the grain grown in the US is grown to feed livestock. Efficiency?

Where is the corn belt; wheat belt; rice belt in the United States?

Are there international competitors?

Suitcase farming

Agribusiness vs. the family farmer

What grain? Where?

Wheat Harvesting-Kansas?

Commercial Dairying

Also near large urban areas. Upstate New York, Wisconsin, New England.

Butter, Cheese or Milk?

Depends on where your cows are and markets are.

Where in California?

Also employs the feedlot system

Chino, California

San Joaquin Valley

Upstate New York

Dairying: Vermont

Livestock Ranching

Cattle and Sheep ranching

US and Canada (Beef) also in the Pampas of South America

Sheep ranching popular in Australia, NZ, Argentina and South Africa

South of Bakersfield

Hay Farming

Urban Agriculture

Big city people also have tiny little farms or backyard plots, especially in the Third World.

A very important source of food in China.

Becoming more prevalent in the US as “localvores” demand locally grown food.

Cultural Integration in Agriculture

What we grow and eat is dependent upon many things:

A. Culture (Dietary Preferences)

B. Politics

C. Economics

Agricultural Landscapes

Cadastral and Field Patterns

Different strategies for dividing land, each with different political aims and outcomes; each with different ecological costs and benefits.

Land survey patterns

Metes and Bounds

Characterized by irregular patterns on the land.

Created in a nearly random pattern by surveyors, land speculators and buyers.

Can be found in much of the 13 original colonies, except in New England where they had a village farms system.

Township and Range

Devised in the US by Thomas Jefferson who wanted to promote democracy through equitable distribution of land.

(6)40 acres and a mule ideology…

Found in much of the US west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Not particularly environment-friendly.

Dominates landscapes in the Midwest.

Cadastral Systems

What cadastral system?

What Cadastral System?

A symbol of Jeffersonian Democracy on a rural landscape

Longlots

Found in many regions of Europe and introduced into North America by the French.

Provides access to transportation (esp. rivers) for each.

Egalitarian as well.

Longlots-Montreal

What US River is that?

Longlots-Germany

Question

What cadastral pattern is this?

What political value is represented by this pattern?

Which president is most associated with this?

Match this to a city name:

Urban Geography

Lecture Outline

Acropolis (fig)

Where is this?

What is it’s name?

What’s the significance?

Cities

Why do cities form?

What are the necessary preconditions behind the rise of cities?

the Agricultural Revolutions

industrial Revolutions

Rise of Cities

Why cities?

Single-Factor and Multiple-Factor Models for the Rise of Cities

Technical (e.g., irrigation)

Defense

Religious

Political

Beer, Others

Defining Cities

How do know when you are in city?

Hamlet

Village

Town

City

Big City

Think about what amenities a city has that a town does not.

Trouble with counting populations

First world and Third World patterns

World Cities

Edge Cities

Term coined by Joel Garreau to describe peripheral areas of the city where people now increasingly work, play and live. Functionally similar to older center cities, but less dense and planned around the automobile.

Can you think of local edge cities?

Problems? Most of them are linked to transportation.

Edge City Landscape (fig)

Edge City Landscape: New York City (fig)

The Ecology of Urban Location

Where cities are located are key indicators of their original purpose.

Each city’s original purpose is a product of its location and the possibilities afforded by that location.

Site and Situation

Site refers to a set of factors that deal with a location’s advantages or disadvantages at that place.

Situation refers to a set of factors that deal with a location’s advantages or disadvantages relative to other places.

Singapore

New York

San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego

Defensive Sites (fig)

Mt. St. Michel and Paris (fig)

Trade-Route Sites (fig)

What city is this?

What has been it’s great advantage? Changed?

Christhaller’s Central Place Theory

describes the pattern of cities in space. It relies upon the following notions:

Threshold-size of population

Range-distance for good

Hinterland-trade area

Order of a good and order of a place

Central Place Theory

Higher order goods have a greater range, need smaller threshold

These facts build urban hierarchies

Regional metropolises are at the top of the hierarchy

Market villages are at the bottom.

Requires an “all things held equal” clause

Central Place Theory 1 (fig)

Central Place Theory 2 (fig)

Central Place Theory (fig)
with transportation routes

Satellite Image of Central Places (fig)

Urban Culture Regions

A. Social Regions

Socioeconomic traits

Ethnographic traits

Census Tracts, Block Groups

Census Tracts, Berkeley

Neighborhoods

Small social region where people share values and interact daily

May lead to a reduction in social conflict.

Territoriality?

Social cohesion in face of diversity

Implication of permanence of residence

Derelict D.C. (fig)

The Burbs (fig)

Homelessness

Unknown number of homeless

Three million?

Census debate in congress

Multiple problems of homelessness

Reagan’s legacy

Shelters, Los Angles (fig)

Cultural Diffusion in the City

There are constantly at work forces that work to collapse the city around the CBD and there are others at work that tend to spread the city out.

What you see in each city is a result of this contest.

A. Centralization

1. Economic and Social Advantages

Accessibility

Transportation routes

Agglomeration (residence)

Historical momentum

Prestige

B. Decentralization

Clearly the most powerful of the forces since 1945

Many cities have been hollowed out by the forces of decentralization, which are the same forces driving forth suburbanization.

Investment capital moving from one to other.

Uneven development

The Decentralized City (fig)

Socioeconomic Factors

Accessibility is now greater in suburbs.

Agglomeration economies in suburbs.

Taking advantage of the diseconomies of scale and location of the inner city.

Some terms

Bedroom Communities

Lateral Commuters

How’d it happen?

Federal Highway Acts 1916/1954

FHA established in 1937

GI Bill 1944

FHA practices

Housing Act of 1937

Red Lining and Restrictive Covenants

Other government actions

The Costs of Decentralization

Massive loss of investment and inner city capital.

Sprawl

Checkerboard vs. Gap Toothed

In filling legislation

Sprawl (fig)

Gentrification

Counter action to suburbanization

Often began by alternative lifestyle crowd

Has had major impact on some downtown areas and their residents

How does it work?

Economics

Rent Gap Theory

The downtown areas become so devalued that investors now think these areas have a good risk to return potential.

Overall shift in the economic structure of the United States: Post-Modernity.

Demographics

The baby boomers frequently delayed entry into parenthood, but felt unsure about moving into the suburbs without children.

Status of historical areas difficult to erase.

Proximity to new economy jobs in downtown area

Nightlife for those in courtship life cycle.

Politics and Taxes

Some cities have actively encouraged gentrification through systems of tax breaks and other development incentives in order to prop up flagging downtown economies.

Rainbow Neighborhoods

Gays, Bisexuals and a variety of Bohemian types frequently led the charge into gentrification.

Access to amenities catering to alternative lifestyles.

Defensive strategy.

Where else to go?

Cost of Gentrification

Tax boost often small or non-existent

Displacement of lower income residents

Ethnic tensions

See Focus Box

Society Hill (fig)

The Cultural Ecology of the City

A. The Urban Ecosystem

B. The Urban Geologic Environment

C. Urban Weather and Climate

D. Urban Hydrology

E. Urban Vegetation

Urban Heat Island (fig)

Dust Dome-Cincinnati (fig)

Green Space-NYC (fig)

Models of the City

A. Concentric Zone Model

B. Sector Model

C. Multiple Nuclei Model

D. Feminist Critiques

E. Apartheid and Post apartheid cities

F. Soviet and Post-Soviet cities

G. Latin American Model

Chicago (fig)

Concentric Zone Model (fig)

What Zone? (fig)

Sector Model (fig)

Multiple Nuclei Model (fig)

Latin America Model (fig)

Boston (fig)

Urban Landscapes

Urban Landscapes reveal much about the processes of the city.

A. Themes in Cityscape Study

1. Landscape dynamics

Where is the city changing most?

Where is change not occurring?

2. The City as Palimpsest

The city landscape can be read as if it were an old parchment, containing bits and pieces of former text un-erased by the passage of time.

Good clues to the former life of a city.

What is saved and what is lost underscores the value system of the culture.

3. Symbolic Cityscapes

There are lots of symbolic, metaphorical meanings lodged in the landscape of the city.

Think of skyscrapers, historic landscapes.

Landscapes act upon us. They help maintain social order.

How do these meanings get created?

Meinig’s Three Symbolic Landscapes:

New England Village

Main St. USA

California Suburb

New England Village (fig)

The New Urban Landscape

Shopping Malls-an interior experience, that is made to appear exterior.

Location: on the interstate near suburbs

Forms changing over the years

Malls serve multiple functions, including social ones.

The Mall (fig)

Office Parks: Atlanta (fig)

Office Parks

Out on the edge of town, they have replaced some of the functions of the CBD

Cheaper, more accessible, convenient.

Horizontal, not vertical.

“Park”

Homogenous

High Tech Corridors

Edge City Office Park (fig)

Gated Community (fig)

Master Planned Communities

The totally-planned neighborhood

Social engineering?

Multiple regulations

Scary as hell?

Quincy Market-Festival (fig)

Festival Setting

Frequently part of a gentrification or urban renewal effort

Surround natural or historical amenities

Staging the “spectacular”

Fake and consumptive

May stand next to grinding poverty, but seemingly unaware of it.

Militarized Space

Consciously planned areas that are designed to separate the unsavory elements of society from the “nice” people.

Gated downtown areas, removal of park benches, spikes for fire hydrants, elevated walkways, etc.

Hyper segregation of class and race.

Reduction of truly public spaces

Internet?

Dade, Co Library (fig)