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The Human Mosaic

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The Human Mosaic A Cultural Approach to Human Geography

Eleventh Edition

Mona Domosh Dartmouth College

Roderick P. Neumann Florida International University

Patricia L. Price Florida International University

Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov University of Texas at Austin

W. H. Freeman and Company New York

Senior Acquisitions Editor: Marc Mazzoni

Developmental Editors: Lisa Samols and Michael Zierler

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2008942560

ISBN-13: 978-1-4292-1426-1 ISBN-10: 1-4292-1426-0

©2010 by W. H. Freeman and Company All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First printing

W. H. Freeman and Company 41 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10010 Houndmills, Basingstoke RG21 6XS, England

www.whfreeman.com

Contents in Brief

1. Human Geography: A Cultural Approach 1

2. Many Worlds: Geographies of Cultural Difference 31

3. Population Geography: Shaping the Human Mosaic 65

4. Speaking about Places: The Geography of Language 107

5. Geographies of Race and Ethnicity: Mosaic or Melting Pot? 139

6. Political Geography: A Divided World 177

7. The Geography of Religion: Spaces and Places of Sacredness 215

8. Agriculture: The Geography of the Global Food System 255

9. Geography of Economies: Industries, Services, and Development 293

10. Urbanization: The City in Time and Space 325

11. Inside the City: A Cultural Mosaic 357

12. One World or Many? The Cultural Geography of the Future 401

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Chapter 1

Human Geography: A Cultural Approach 1

What Is a Cultural Approach to Human Geography? 2

How to Understand Human Geography 4 Themes in Human Geography 5

Region 6 Mobility 10 Globalization 14 Nature-Culture 16 Cultural Landscape 20

Subject to Debate: Human Activities and Global Climate Change 21

Global Spotlight: “Reading” Globalization in a Medieval Square 24

Practicing Geography: Denis Cosgrove 26 Conclusion 26 Doing Geography: Space, Place, and Knowing

Your Way Around 27 Seeing Geography: Aboriginal Topographical

Painting of Arnhem Land 28

Chapter 2

Many Worlds: Geographies of Cultural Difference 31

Many Cultures 32 Region 34

Material Folk Culture Regions 34 Is Popular Culture Placeless? 35 Popular Food and Drink 37 Popular Music 38 Indigenous Culture Regions 38 Vernacular Culture Regions 40

Mobility 40 Diffusion in Popular Culture 40 Advertising 42 Communications Barriers 42 Diffusion of the Rodeo 43 Blowguns: Diffusion or Independent

Invention? 44 Globalization 45

From Difference to Convergence 45 Difference Revitalized 45

Place Images 45 Subject to Debate: Mobile Identities: Questions

of Culture and Citizenship 46 Nature-Culture 46

Indigenous Ecology 46 Local Knowledge 47

Global Spotlight: Indigenous Cultures Go Global 48 Global Economy 48 Folk Ecology 49 Gendered Nature 49

Practicing Geography: Gregory Knapp 50 Nature in Popular Culture 51

Cultural Landscape 52 Folk Architecture 52 Folk Housing in North America 52 Folk Housing in Sub-Saharan Africa 54 Landscapes of Popular Culture 56 Leisure Landscapes 57 Elitist Landscapes 57 The American Popular Landscape 59

Conclusion 59 Doing Geography: Self-Representation

of Indigenous Culture 60 Seeing Geography: American Fathers and

Daughters 63

Chapter 3

Population Geography: Shaping the Human Mosaic 65

Region 66 Population Distribution and Density 66 Patterns of Natality 68 The Geography of Mortality 69 The Demographic Transition 70 Age Distributions 74

Subject to Debate: Female: An Endangered Gender? 76 Geography of Gender 79 Standard of Living 81

Mobility 81 Migration 81 Diseases on the Move 87

Globalization 89

Contents

Preface xiii

Population Explosion? 89 Global Spotlight: The Geography of HIV/AIDS 90

Or Creativity in the Face of Scarcity? 91 The Rule of 72 92 Population Control Programs 93

Nature-Culture 94 Environmental Influence 94 Environmental Perception and Population

Distribution 94 Population Density and Environmental

Alteration 95 Cultural Landscape 96

Rural Settlement Patterns 97 Historical Factors Shaping the Cultural-

Demographic Landscape 99 Political and Economic Factors Shaping the

Cultural-Demographic Landscape 99 Gender and the Cultural-Demographic

Landscape 101 Practicing Geography: Rachel Silvey 101 Conclusion 102 Doing Geography: Public Space, Personal Space:

Too Close for Comfort? 103 Seeing Geography: Street in Kolkata, India 104

Chapter 4

Speaking about Places: The Geography of Language 107

Region 109 Language Families 109

Global Spotlight: Texting and Language Modification 114

Mobility 115 Indo-European Diffusion 115 Austronesian Diffusion 117 Religion and Linguistic Mobility 117 Language’s Shifting Boundaries 117

Globalization 121 Technology, Language, and Empire 121

Subject to Debate: Imposing English 122 Practicing Geography: Allan Pred 124

Language Proliferation: One or Many? 124 Language and Cultural Survival 125

Nature-Culture 127 Habitat and Vocabulary 127 The Habitat Helps Shape Language Areas 127 The Habitat Provides Refuge 127

Cultural Landscape 130 Messages 130

Toponyms 131 Generic Toponyms of the United States 132 Toponyms and Cultures of the Past 132

Conclusion 133 Doing Geography: Toponyms and Roots of Place 135 Seeing Geography: Aquí se habla Spanglish 136

Chapter 5

Geographies of Race and Ethnicity: Mosaic or Melting Pot? 139

Subject to Debate: Racism: An Embarrassment of the Past, or Here to Stay? 142

Region 144 Ethnic Homelands and Islands 144 Ethnic Neighborhoods and Racialized

Ghettos 147 Recent Shifts in Ethnic Mosaics 150

Global Spotlight: Selena Crosses the Line 152 Mobility 156

Migration and Ethnicity 156 Simplification and Isolation 158

Globalization 159 A Long View of Race and Ethnicity 159 Race and European Colonization 159 Indigenous Identities in the Face

of Globalization 161 Nature-Culture 162

Cultural Preadaptation 162 Habitat and the Preservation of Difference 163 Environmental Racism 164

Cultural Landscape 166 Urban Ethnic Landscapes 166

Practicing Geography: Daniel Arreola 168 The Re-Creation of Ethnic Cultural

Landscapes 169 Ethnic Culinary Landscapes 170

Conclusion 171 Doing Geography: Tracing Ethnic Foodways

Through Recipes 172 Seeing Geography: American Restaurant

Neon Signs 174

Chapter 6

Political Geography: A Divided World 177

Region 177 A World of States 177 Political Boundaries in Cyberspace 183 Supranational Political Bodies 184

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Electoral Geographical Regions 185 Red States, Blue States 185 Islamic Law in Nigerian Politics 189

Mobility 190 Movement Between Core and Periphery 190 Mobility, Diffusion, and Political Innovation 191 Politics and Migration 191

Global Spotlight: The Condition of Transnationality 193

Globalization 193 Practicing Geography: Katharyne Mitchell 194

The Nation-State 194 Ethnic Separatism 194

Subject to Debate: The End of the Nation-State? 195 The Cleavage Model 197 An Example: The Sakha Republic 197 Political Imprint on Economic Geography 200

Nature-Culture 201 Chain of Explanation 201 Geopolitics 202 The Heartland Theory 203 Geopolitics Today 203 Warfare and Environmental Destruction 205

Cultural Landscape 206 Imprint of the Legal Code 206 Physical Properties of Boundaries 206 The Impress of Central Authority 208 National Iconography on the Landscape 209

Conclusion 210 Doing Geography: The Complex Geography

of Congressional Redistricting 210 Seeing Geography: Are These Border Fences

or Walls? 212

Chapter 7

The Geography of Religion: Spaces and Places of Sacredness 215

Subject to Debate: Religious Fundamentalism 218 Region 219

Judaism 219 Christianity 219 Islam 223 Hinduism 225 Buddhism 226 Taoic Religions 227 Animism/Shamanism 227

Mobility 229 The Semitic Religious Hearth 229 The Indus-Ganges Hearth 231

The East Asian Religious Hearth 231 Religious Pilgrimage 232

Globalization 234 The Rise of Evangelical Protestantism

in Latin America 234 Religion on the Internet 234 Religion’s Relevance in a Global World 235

Nature-Culture 237 Appeasing the Forces of Nature 237 The Impacts of Belief Systems on Plants

and Animals 238 Ecotheology 240

Cultural Landscape 242 Religious Structures 242 Faithful Details 244 Landscapes of the Dead 246 Sacred Space 248

Conclusion 248 Global Spotlight: Moving Faith 249 Practicing Geography: Kenneth Foote 250 Doing Geography: The Making of Sacred Spaces 251 Seeing Geography: Parking Lot Shrine 252

Chapter 8

Agriculture: The Geography of the Global Food System 255

Region 255 Swidden Cultivation 255 Paddy Rice Farming 258 Peasant Grain, Root, and Livestock Farming 259 Plantation Agriculture 259 Market Gardening 260 Livestock Fattening 261 Grain Farming 262 Dairying 263 Nomadic Herding 263 Livestock Ranching 264 Urban Agriculture 265 Farming the Waters 265 Nonagricultural Areas 267

Mobility 267 Origins and Diffusion of Plant

Domestication 267 Locating Centers of Domestication 267 Pets or Meat? Tracing Animal Domestication 268 Modern Mobilities 268 Labor Mobility 270

Globalization 271 Local-Global Food Provisioning 271

Contents ix

Practicing Geography: Karl Zimmerer 272 The von Thünen Model 273 Can the World Be Fed? 275 The Growth of Agribusiness 276

Global Spotlight: The Global Chicken 276 Food Fears 278

Nature-Culture 279 Technology over Nature? 279 Sustainable Agriculture 280 Intensity of Land Use 280 The Desertification Debate 280 Environmental Perception by Agriculturists 281 Don’t Panic, It’s Organic 283 Green Fuels from Agriculture 283

Subject to Debate: Can Biofuels Save the Planet? 284

Cultural Landscape 285 Survey, Cadastral, and Field Patterns 285 Fencing and Hedging 287

Conclusion 288 Doing Geography: The Global Geography of

Food 288 Seeing Geography: Reading Agricultural

Landscapes 290

Chapter 9

Geography of Economies: Industries, Services, and Development 293

Region 293 Mobility 297

Origins of the Industrial Revolution 297 Diffusion of the Industrial Revolution 298 The Locational Shifts of Secondary Industry 298 The Locational Shifts of Service Industries 302

Globalization 305 Labor Supply 305

Practicing Geography: Amy Glasmeier 305 Global Spotlight: A Day in the Life of a Back-Office

Worker in India 306 Markets 307 Governments and Globalization 308

Subject to Debate: Is Free Trade Fair Trade? 309 Economic Globalization and Cultural

Change 310 Nature-Culture 311

Renewable Resource Crises 311 Global Spotlight: Women, Men, and Work in the

Maquiladoras 311

Acid Rain 313 Global Climate Change 314 Ozone Depletion 314 Radioactive Pollution 315 Environmental Sustainability 315

Cultural Landscape 316 Conclusion 321 Doing Geography: The Where and Why of What You

Wear 321 Seeing Geography: Factories in Guangdong

Province, China 322

Chapter 10

Urbanization: The City in Time and Space 325

Region 325 Patterns and Processes of Urbanization 326 Impacts of Urbanization 328 Central-Place Theory 329

Mobility 331 Origin and Diffusion of the City 332 Models for the Rise of Cities 332 Urban Hearth Areas 333 The Diffusion of the City from

Hearth Areas 336 Rural-to-Urban Migration 338

Globalization 338 Global Cities 338

Global Spotlight: One Family’s Tale 339 Globalizing Cities 339

Nature-Culture 340 Practicing Geography: Kris Olds 341

Site and Situation 341 Urbanization and Sustainability 344 Natural Disasters 345

Cultural Landscape 346 Globalizing Cities in the Developing

World 346 Subject to Debate: Can Urbanization Be

Environmentally Sustainable? 347 Latin American Urban Landscapes 348 Landscapes of the Apartheid and

Postapartheid City 350 Landscapes of the Socialist and

Postsocialist City 351 Conclusion 353 Doing Geography: Connecting Urban Population

Growth with Globalization 353 Seeing Geography: Rio de Janeiro 354

x Contents

Chapter 11

Inside the City: A Cultural Mosaic 357

Region 357 Downtowns 357 Residential Areas 358 Homelessness 360 Models of the Internal Structure of American and

Canadian Cities 361 Practicing Geography: Susan Hanson 365 Mobility 366

Centralization 366 Suburbanization and Decentralization 367 Gentrification 370

Subject to Debate: Can Gentrification Be Socially Just? 373

Globalization 373 New Ethnic Neighborhoods 373 A Global Urban Form? 375

Global Spotlight: Spaces of Inclusion and Exclusion: Urban Ethnic Enclaves 375

Nature-Culture 377 Urban Weather and Climate 378 Urban Hydrology 378 Urban Vegetation 378

Cultural Landscape 379 Ways of Reading Cityscapes 380 Landscape Histories of American, Canadian, and

European Cities 382 The New Urban Landscape 393

Conclusion 396 Doing Geography: Reading “Your” Urban

Landscape 396 Seeing Geography: Chinatown, New York City 398

Chapter 12

One World or Many? The Cultural Geography of the Future 401

Region 402 The Uneven Geography of Development 402

One Europe or Many? 403 Glocalization 404 The Geography of the Internet 405

Subject to Debate: The Internet: Global Tool for Democracy or Repression? 406

Mobility 407 The Information Superhighway 407 New (Auto)Mobilities 407 The Place(s) of the Global Tourist 409

Global Spotlight: China’s New Car Culture 411 Globalization 412

A Deeper Look at Globalization 412 History, Geography, and the Globalization

of Everything 412 Globalization and Its Discontents 413

Practicing Geography: Susan Mains 414 Blending Sounds on a Global Scale 415

Nature-Culture 416 Sustainable Futures 416 Think Globally, Act Locally 417

Cultural Landscape 418 Globalized Landscapes 418 Striving for the Unique 418 Wal-Martians Invade Treasured Landscape! 419 Protecting Europe’s Rural Landscape 419

Conclusion 420 Doing Geography: Interpreting the Imagery

of Globalization 420 Seeing Geography: Global Reach 422

Glossary 425

Index 435

Contents xi

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Geography is a diverse academic discipline. It concerns place and region and employs diverse methodologies from the social sciences, humanities, and earth sciences. Geographers deal with a wide range of subjects, from spatial patterns of human occupancy to the interaction between people and their environments. The geographer strives for a holistic view of the Earth as the home of humankind.

Because the world is in constant flux, geography is an ever-changing discipline. Geographers necessarily consider a wide range of topics and view them from several different perspectives. They continually seek new ways of looking at the inhabited Earth. For example, the rise of feminist per- spectives has enabled geographers to see the world anew by pointing out that the spaces we use every day are shaped and used differently because our societies are profoundly structured by gender roles. Another example is the impor- tance of globalization to our world today. This has led ge- ographers to new and incisive engagements with concepts such as transnationalism and postcolonialism. Every revi- sion of an introductory text such as The Human Mosaic re- quires careful attention to such changes and innovations ongoing in the dynamic field that is human geography.

The Five Themes The Human Mosaic has always been built around five themes. In this new edition, we have modified some of these themes to reflect changes both in the discipline of human geogra- phy and in the world. The five themes we explore in this book are region, mobility, globalization, nature-culture, and cultural landscape. These five themes are introduced and explained in the first chapter and serve as the frame- work for the 11 topical chapters that follow. Each theme is

applied to a variety of geographical topics: demography, language, ethnicity, politics, religion, agriculture, industry, the city, and types of culture. This thematic organization allows students to relate to the most important aspects of human geography at every point in the text. As instructors, we have found that beginning students learn best when provided with a precise and useful framework, and the five- themes approach provides such a framework for under- standing human geography. A small icon accompanies each theme as a visual reminder to students when these themes recur throughout the book. They will see:

Region

Mobility

Globalization

Nature-Culture

Cultural Landscape

In our classroom experience, we have found the the- matic framework to be highly successful. Our region theme appeals to students’ natural curiosity about the differences among places. Mobility conveys the dynamic aspect of peo- ple and place particularly relevant to this age of incessant and rapid change. Students acquire an appreciation for how people and cultural traits move (or do not move) from place to place. The topics employed to illustrate the con- cepts of mobility include many examples to which college students can relate, for instance, reggae and rap music, computer technology and the Internet, and the impact of globalization on consumer goods around the world. Global- ization permits students to understand the complex pro- cesses that link the various economies, cultures, and societies around the world. An understanding of globaliz- ing processes is necessary for explaining how those linkages

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Preface

can create economic and cultural similarities as well as dis- parities. Nature-culture addresses the complicated relation- ship between culture and the physical environment. With today’s complex and often-controversial relationship be- tween the natural environment and our globalizing world, both the tensions and the alliances that arise in regard to this relationship are now at the forefront of this theme. Last, the theme of cultural landscape heightens students’ awareness of the visible character of places and regions.

New to the Eleventh Edition Key Chapter Changes In response to instructor input from the tenth edition of The Human Mosaic, population geography is now the third chap- ter in the book. Students are now exposed to the patterns and movements of human settlement before examining so- ciocultural topics such as language, ethnicity, and religion.

Chapters 10 and 11, which consider cities from various perspectives, have been reorganized. Chapter 10 (“Urban- ization: The City in Time and Space”) examines the pro- cesses of urbanization. On a completely different scale of analysis, Chapter 11 (“Inside the City: A Cultural Mosaic”) considers in more detail the patterns inside of cities. As part of this new schema, material on the history of urban form has been moved into Chapter 11 under the subsec- tion “Landscape Histories of American, Canadian, and European Cities.”

New Features The use of pedagogical features and boxes has been stream- lined, and a new feature has been added: Subject to De- bate. In this feature, which appears in every chapter, students are presented with several sides of a controversial topic and are asked to form an educated opinion. Students will try to answer the following questions:

• How do human activities affect the Earth’s climate?

• How do transplanted cultures become a part of or reshape the culture of their new homes?

• Are females an endangered gender?

• Should learning and speaking English be imposed on all residents of the United States?

• Will racism persist as long as cultural differences exist in the world?

• Does globalization mean the end of the nation-state?

• What is religious fundamentalism?

• Are biofuels the answer to the current resource crisis?

• Does free trade benefit some groups more than others?

• Can urban areas become environmentally sustainable?

• Can gentrification of urban areas benefit everyone?

• How is the Internet used to promote democracy and to suppress free speech?

New Topics In addition to completely updated information and data in the text and figures throughout the book, you will find a number of new examples, concepts, and discussions in the eleventh edition:

• A broad view of the concept of globalization (Chapter 1)

• The diffusion of disease in human history, including cholera, HIV/AIDS, and SARS (Chapter 3)

• The dynamics of language dominance on the Internet (Chapter 4)

• The red state/blue state phenomenon in the United States, accompanied by several eye-popping new figures (Chapter 6)

• Discussions of the Taoic religions alongside the major monotheistic religions throughout all five themes (Chapter 7)

• Timely topics, such as aquaculture, labor mobility, organic food, food safety and biofuels (Chapter 8)

xiv Preface

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Female: An Endangered Gender? Does the simple fact of being female expose a person to demographic peril? In most societies, women are viewed as valuable, even powerful, particularly as mothers, nurturers, teachers, and spiritual leaders. Yet in other important ways, to be female is to be endangered. We will consider this controversial idea with an eye to how demographics and culture closely shape one another.

Many cultures demonstrate a marked preference for males. The academic term describing this is androcentrism; you may know it as patriarchy, male bias, or simply sexism. Whether a preference for males is a feature of all societies has been disputed. Some societies pass along forms of their wealth, property, and prestige from mother to daughter, rather than exclusively from father to son. This is rare, however, and it is clear that the roots of cultural preference for males are historically far-reaching and widespread. In most societies, positions of economic, political, social, and cultural prestige and power are held largely by men. Men typically are considered to be the heads of households. Family names tend to pass from father to son, and with them, family honor and wealth. In traditional societies, when sons marry, they usually bring their wives to live in

an unborn baby. Puneet Bedi, a New Delhi gynecologist, remarked, “I can tell you that no pregnant woman would suffer if the ultrasound test were banned. Right now it is used to save 1 out of 20,000 fetuses and kill 20 out of every 200 because [it reveals that the baby] is the wrong gender”

This “little emperor” poses with his grandparents. (Dennis Cox, LLC.)

• A stronger focus on economic development, including Rostow’s model of economic development and its failings (Chapter 9)

• The future of geography as a result of globalization (Chapter 12)

Media and Supplements The eleventh edition is accompanied by a media and sup- plements package that facilitates student learning and en- hances the teaching experience.

Student Supplements eBook The eBook allows instructors and students access to the full textbook online anywhere, anytime. It is also available as a download for use offline. The eBook text is fully searchable and can be annotated with note-taking and highlighting features. Students can copy and paste from the eBook text to augment their own notes, and important sections can be printed. For more information, visit www.coursesmart.com.

Atlas Rand McNally’s Atlas of World Geography, ISBN: 1-4292-2980-2

Available packaged with the textbook, with the textbook and Student Study Guide, or with the textbook and Exploring Human Geography with Maps, second edition.

Mapping Exercise Workbook Exploring Human Geography with Maps, second edition, by Margaret Pearce, Ohio University, and Owen Dwyer, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, ISBN: 1-4292-2981-0

This full-color workbook introduces the student to the di- verse world of maps as fundamental tools for exploring

and presenting ideas in human geography. It directly ad- dresses the concepts of The Human Mosaic, chapter by chapter, and it includes activities accessible through The Human Mosaic Online at www.whfreeman.com/jordan11e.

The NEW edition provides:

• Nine new activities featuring current topics suggested by geography instructors

• Web and text updates for all other activities • An instructor’s guide to help integrate Exploring Human

Geography with Maps into curriculum • Assessment questions for instructors which draw from

both The Human Mosaic and Exploring Human Geography with Maps, further incorporating map-reading skills into the classroom

• PowerPoint slides with maps from the text and information from the instructor’s guide to help in lectures

Study Guide Student Study Guide, by Michael Kukral, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, ISBN 1-4292-2976-4

The new and updated Student Study Guide provides a tre- mendous learning advantage for students using The Human Mosaic. This best-selling supplement contains updated prac- tice tests, chapter learning objectives, key terms, and sec- tions on map reading and interpretation. A highly integrated manual, the Student Study Guide supports and enhances the material covered in The Human Mosaic and guides the student to a clear understanding of cultural geography.

Self-Study on the Web The Human Mosaic Online: www.whfreeman.com/jordan11e

The companion web site serves as an online study guide. The core of the site includes a range of features that en- courage critical thinking and assist in study and review:

• Web activities from Exploring Human Geography with Maps, second edition

• Web links to important and informative geographical sites

• Maps for note-taking and study

• Over 260 videos, covering key topics in geography. All are 2–6 minutes long and are accompanied by multiple- choice questions that can be automatically graded and entered into a gradebook.

Instructor Supplements Presentation Instructor’s Resource CD-ROM and Web Site (www.whfreeman.com/jordan11e), ISBN 1-4292-2982-9

Both resources contain all the text images available in JPEG format and as Microsoft PowerPoint™ slides for use in

Preface xv

classroom presentations. Images have been optimized for high-quality projection in large classrooms. The Instructor’s Resource CD-ROM also contains chapter-by-chapter Microsoft Word™ test bank files that can be easily modified by the instructor.

Overhead Transparencies, ISBN 1-4292-2977-2

A convenient set of 100 key maps and figures from the text- book optimized for high-quality projection in classroom presentation.

Course Management All instructor and student resources are also available via WebCT and Blackboard to enhance your course. W. H. Free- man and Company offers a course cartridge that populates your course web site with content tied directly to the book.

Assessment Test Bank, by Ray Sumner, Long Beach City College; Jose Javier Lopez, Minnesota State University; Roxane Fridirici, California State University–Sacramento; and Douglas Munski, University of North Dakota

The newly revised Test Bank is available on the Instructor’s Resource CD-ROM. The Test Bank is carefully designed to match the pedagogical intent of the textbook and to include questions from basic memorization to comprehension of concepts. It contains more than 1000 test questions (multiple choice and true/false). The files are provided as chapter-by- chapter Microsoft Word files that are easy to edit and print.

Acknowledgments No textbook is ever written single-handedly or even “double-handedly.” An introductory text covering a wide range of topics must draw heavily on the research and help of others. In various chapters, we have not hesitated to mention a great many geographers on whose work we have relied. We apologize for any misinterpretations or oversim- plifications of their findings that may have resulted because of our own error or the limited space available.

Many geographers contributed advice, comments, ideas, and assistance as this book moved from outline through draft to publication from the first edition through the tenth. We would like to thank those colleagues who contributed their helpful opinions during the revision of the eleventh edition:

Paul C. Adams, University of Texas, Austin W. Frank Ainsley, University of North Carolina,

Wilmington Brad A. Bays, Oklahoma State University Sarah Osgood Brooks, Central Michigan University Kimberlee J. Chambers, Sonoma State University

Wing H. Cheung, Palomar Community College Carolyn A. Coulter, Atlantic Cape Community College Jeff R. DeGrave, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire Christine Drake, Old Dominion University Owen Dwyer, IUPUI James D. Ewing, Florida Community College, Jacksonville Maria Grace Fadiman, Florida Atlantic University David Albert Farmer, Wilmington College Kim Feigenbaum, Santa Fe Community College Charles R. Gildersleeve, University of Nebraska, Omaha M. A. Goodman, Grossmont College Jeffrey J. Gordon, Bowling Green State University Richard J. Grant, University of Miami Joshua Hagen, Marshall University Daniel J. Hammel, University of Toledo Ellen R. Hansen, Emporia State University Deryck Holdsworth, Pennsylvania State University Ronald Isaac, Ohio University Brad Jokish, Ohio University Edward L. Kinman, Longwood University Marti L. Klein, Saddleback College Jennifer Kopf, West Texas A&M John C. Kostelnick, Illinois State University William G. Laatsch, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay Paul R. Larson, Southern Utah University Michael Madsen, Brigham Young University, Idaho Edris Montalvo, Texas State University, San Marcos Karen M. Morin, Bucknell University David J. Nemeth, University of Toledo James W. Newton, University of North Carolina,

Chapel Hill Stephen M. O’Connell, Oklahoma State University Kenji Oshiro, Wright State University Darren Purcell, University of Oklahoma Steven Schnell, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania Emily Skop, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs Ray Sumner, Long Beach City College David A. Tait, Rogers State University Thomas A. Terich, Western Washington University Benjamin F. Timms, California Polytechnic

State University Elisabeth S. Vidon, Indiana University Timothy M. Vowles, Colorado State University Henry Way, University of Kansas John Western, Syracuse University

We would also like to thank those colleagues who offered helpful comments during the preparation of earlier editions:

Jennifer Adams, Pennsylvania State University; W. Frank Ainsley, University of North Carolina, Wilmington; Christopher Airriess, Ball State University; Nigel Allan, University of California, Davis; Thomas D. Anderson,

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Preface xvii

Bowling Green State University; Timothy G. Anderson, Ohio Wesleyan University; Patrick Ashwood, Hawkeye Community College; Nancy Bain, Ohio University; Timothy Bawden, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire; Brad Bays, Oklahoma State University; A. Steele Becker, University of Nebraska, Kearney; Sarah Bednarz, Texas A&M University; Gigi Berardi, Western Washington University; Daniel Borough, California State University, Los Angeles; Patricia Boudinot, George Mason University; Wayne Brew, Montgomery County Community College; Michael J. Broadway, Northern Michigan University; Scott S. Brown, Francis Marion University; Craig S. Campbell, Youngstown State University; Merel J. Cox, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona; Marcelo Cruz, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay; Christina Dando, University of Nebraska, Omaha; Robin E. Datel, California State University, Sacramento; James A. Davis, Brigham Young University; Richard Deal, Western Kentucky University; Lorraine Dowler, Pennsylvania State University; Matthew Ebiner, El Camino College; D. J. P. Forth, West Hills Community College; Carolyn Gallaher, American University; Jeffrey J. Gordon, Bowling Green State University; Charles F. Gritzner, South Dakota State University; Sally Gros, University of Oklahoma, Norman; Qian Guo, San Francisco State University; Jennifer Helzer, California State University, Stanislaus; Andy Herod, University of Georgia; Elliot P. Hertzenberg, Wilmington College; Cecelia Hudleson, Foothill College; Ronald Isaac, Ohio University; Gregory Jean, Samford University; Brad Jokisch, Ohio University; James R. Keese, California Polytechnic State University; Artimus Keiffer, Wittenberg University; Edward L. Kinman, Longwood University; Marti L. Klein, Saddleback College; Vandara Kohli, California State University, Bakersfield; Debra Kreitzer, Western Kentucky University; Olaf Kuhlke, University of Minnesota, Duluth; Michael Kukral, Ohio Wesleyan University; Hsiang-te Kung, Memphis University; William Laatsch, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay; Paul R. Larson, Southern Utah University; Ann Legreid, Central Missouri State University; Peter Li, Tennessee Technological University; Ronald Lockmann, California State University, Dominiquez Hills; Jose Javier Lopez, Minnesota State University; Jesse O. McKee, University of Southern Mississippi; Wayne McKim, Towson State University; Douglas Meyer, Eastern Illinois University; Klaus Meyer-Arendt, Mississippi State University; John Milbauer, Northeastern State University; Cynthia A. Miller, Syracuse University; Glenn R. Miller, Bridgewater State College; Don Mitchell, Syracuse University; Karen Morin, Bucknell University; James Mulvihill, California State University, San Bernardino; Douglas Munski, University of North Dakota; Gareth A. Myers, University of Kansas; Michael G. Noll, Valdosta State University; Ann M. Oberhauser, West Virginia University; Thomas Orf,

Prestonburg Community College; Brian Osborne, Queen’s University; Kenji Oshiro, Wright State University; Bimal K. Paul, Kansas State University; Eric Prout, Texas A&M University; Virginia M. Ragan, Maple Woods Community College; Jeffrey P. Richetto, University of Alabama; Henry O. Robertson, Louisiana State University, Alexandria; Robert Rundstrom, University of Oklahoma; Norman H. Runge, University of Delaware; Stephen Sandlin, California State University, Pomona; Lydia Savage, University of Southern Maine; Steven M. Schnell, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania; Andrew Schoolmaster, III, University of North Texas; Cynthia S. Simmons, Michigan State University; Emily Skop, University of Texas, Austin; Christa Smith, Clemson University; Anne K. Soper, Indiana University; Roger W. Stump, State University of New York, Albany; Jonathan Taylor, California State University, Fullerton; Thomas Terich, Western Washington University; Thomas M. Tharp, Purdue University; Ralph Triplette, Western Carolina University; Daniel E. Turbeville, III, Eastern Washington University; Ingolf Vogeler, University of Wisconsin; Philip Wagner, Simon Fraser State University; Barney Warf, Florida State University; Barbara Weightman, California State University, Fullerton; W. Michael Wheeler, Southwestern Oklahoma State University; David Wilkins, University of Utah; Douglas Wilms, East Carolina State University; and Donald Zeigler, Old Dominion University.

Our thanks also go to various staff members of W. H. Freeman and Company whose encouragement, skills, and suggestions have created a special working environment and to whom we express our deepest gratitude. In particular, we thank Marc Mazzoni, senior acquisitions editor for geog- raphy; Lisa Samols, developmental editor par excellence; Michael Zierler, developmental editor; Scott Guile, senior marketing manager; Jane O’Neill, project editor; Diana Blume, art director; Susan Timmins, illustration coordina- tor; Bianca Moscatelli, photo editor; Paul Rohloff, project manager; Philip McCaffrey, managing editor; Ellen Cash, vice president of production; and Beth McHenry, media and supplements editor. We owe thanks to several other people who worked assiduously to ensure the overall quality of our writing and of our photographic choices: Francine Almash, Katherine Evancie, and Sandro Vitaglione, copyeditors; Kirsten Kite, indexer; Christina Micek, photo researcher; and Karen Osborne, proofreader. The beneficial influence of all these people can be detected throughout the book.

And, finally, we dedicate this book to Denis Cosgrove (featured in Practicing Geography, Chapter 1) and Allan Pred (featured in Practicing Geography, Chapter 4). To- gether their scholarship made possible an enlivened and enriched human geography, one in which economy, cul- ture, and politics were inextricably linked. This new edi- tion of The Human Mosaic is indebted to their work.

Mona Domosh is professor of geogra- phy at Dartmouth College. She earned her PhD at Clark University. Her re- search has examined the links between gender ideologies and the cultural for- mation of large American cities in the nineteenth century, particularly in re-

gard to such critical but vexing distinctions as consumption/ production, public/private, masculine/feminine. She is currently engaged in research that takes the ideological as- sociation of women, femininity, and space in a more post- colonial direction by asking what roles nineteenth-century ideas of femininity, masculinity, consumption, and “white- ness” played in the crucial shift from American nation- building to empire-building. Domosh is the author of American Commodities in an Age of Empire (2006); Invented Cities: The Creation of Landscape in 19th-Century New York and Boston (1996); the coauthor, with Joni Seager, of Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geographers Make Sense of the World (2001); and the coeditor of Handbook of Cultural Geography (2002).

Roderick P. Neumann is professor of geography in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. He studies the complex interactions of culture and

nature through a specific focus on national parks and natural resources. In his research, he combines the ana- lytical tools of cultural and political ecology with land- scape studies. He has pursued these investigations through historical and ethnographic research mostly in East Afri- ca, with some comparative work in North America and Central America. His current research explores interwo- ven narratives of nature, landscape, and identity in the European Union, with a particular emphasis on Spain. His scholarly books include Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihoods and Nature Preservation in Africa (1998), Making Political Ecology (2005), and The Commercialization of Non-Timber Forest Products (2000), the latter coauthored with Eric Hirsch.

Patricia L. Price is associate professor of geography at Florida International University. She earned her PhD at the University of Washington. Connecting the long-standing theme of humanistic scholarship in geography to more re- cent critical approaches best describes

her ongoing intellectual project. From her initial field re- search in urban Mexico, she has extended her focus to the border between Mexico and the United States and, most re- cently, to south Florida as a borderland of sorts. Her most recent field research is on comparative ethnic neighbor- hoods, conducted with colleagues and graduate students in Phoenix, Chicago, and Miami, and funded by the National Science Foundation. Price is the author of Dry Place: Land- scapes of Belonging and Exclusion (2004) and coeditor (with Tim Oakes) of The Cultural Geography Reader (2008).

Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov was the Walter Prescott Webb Professor in the Depart- ment of Geography at the University of Texas, Austin. He earned his PhD at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. A specialist in the cultural and histori- cal geography of the United States,

Jordan-Bychkov was particularly interested in the diffusion of Old World culture in North America that helped produce the vivid geographical mosaic evident today. He served as president of the Association of American Geographers in 1987 and 1988 and received an Honors Award from that or- ganization. He wrote on a wide range of American cultural topics, including forest colonization, cattle ranching, folk architecture, and ethnicity. His scholarly books include The European Culture Area: A Systematic Geography, fourth edition (with Bella Bychkova Jordan, 2002), Anglo-Celtic Australia: Colonial Immigration and Cultural Regionalism (with Alyson L. Grenier, 2002), Siberian Village: Land and Life in the Sakha Re- public (with Bella Bychkova Jordan, 2001), The Mountain West: Interpreting the Folk Landscape (with Jon Kilpinen and Charles Gritzner, 1997), North American Cattle Ranching Fron- tiers (1993), The American Backwoods Frontier (with Matt Kaups, 1989), American Log Building (1985), Texas Graveyards (1982), Trails to Texas: Southern Roots of Western Cattle Ranching (1981), and German Seed in Texas Soil (1966).

About the Authors

The Human Mosaic

Why is it difficult for most of us to interpret this image as a map?

1 Human Geography

A Cultural Approach

Most of us are born geographers. We are curious about the distinctive charac-ter of places and peoples. We think in terms of territory and space. Take alook outside your window right now. The houses and commercial buildings, streets and highways, gardens and lawns all tell us something interesting and pro- found about who we are as a culture. If you travel down the road, or on a jet to another region or country, that view outside your window will change, sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically. Our geographical imaginations will push us to look and think and begin to make sense of what is going on in these different places, environ- ments, and landscapes. It is this curiosity about the world—about how and why it is structured the way it is, what it means, and how we have changed it and continue to change it—that is at the heart of human geography. You are already geographers; we hope that our book will make you better ones.

If every place on Earth were identical, we would not need geography, but each is unique. Every place, however, does share characteristics with other places. Geog- raphers define the concept of region as a grouping of similar places, or of places with similar characteristics. The existence of different regions endows the Earth’s surface with a mosaiclike quality. Geography as an academic discipline is an outgrowth of both our curiosity about lands and peoples other than our own and our need to come to grips with the place-centered element within our souls. When professional, academic geographers consider the differences and similarities among places, they want to understand what they see. They first find out exactly what variations exist among regions and places by describing them as precisely as possible. Then they try to decide what forces made these areas different or alike. Geographers ask what? where? why? and how?

Our natural geographical curiosity and intrinsic need for identity were long ago reinforced by pragmatism, the practical motives of traders and empire builders who wanted information about the world for the purposes of commerce and conquest. This concern for the practical aspects of geography first arose thousands of years ago among the ancient Greeks, Romans, Mesopotamians, and Phoenicians, the greatest traders and empire builders of their times. They cataloged factual information about locations, places, and products. Indeed, geography is a Greek word meaning literally “to describe the Earth.” Not content merely to chart and describe the world, these ancient geographers soon began to ask questions about why cultures and environ- ments differ from place to place, initiating the study of what today we call geography.

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Aboriginal painting of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. (Penny Tweedie/Corbis.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 28 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

2 Chapter 1 Human Geography

A particular culture is not a static, fixed phenomenon, and it does not always govern its members. Rather, as geog- raphers Kay Anderson and Fay Gale put it, “culture is a process in which people are actively engaged.” Individual members can and do change a culture, which means that ways of life constantly change and that tensions between opposing views are usually present. Cultures are never inter- nally homogeneous because individual humans never think or behave in exactly the same manner.

A cultural approach to human geography, then, stud- ies the relationships among space, place, environment, and culture. It examines the ways in which culture is expressed and symbolized in the landscapes we see around us, includ- ing homes, commercial buildings, roads, agricultural pat- terns, gardens, and parks. It analyzes the ways in which language, religion, the economy, government, and other cultural phenomena vary or remain constant from one place to another and provides a perspective for understand- ing how people function spatially and identify with place and region (Figure 1.1).

In seeking explanations for cultural diversity and place identity, geographers consider a wide array of factors that cause this diversity. Some of these involve the physical envi- ronment: terrain, climate, natural vegetation, wildlife, vari- ations in soil, and the pattern of land and water. Because we cannot understand a culture removed from its physical set- ting, human geography offers not only a spatial perspective but also an ecological one.

Many complex forces are at work on cultural phenom- ena, and all of them are interconnected in very compli-

Figure 1.1 Two traditional houses of worship. Geographers seek to learn how and why cultures differ, or are similar, from one place to another. Often the differences and similarities have a visual expression. In what ways are these two structures—one a

What Is a Cultural Approach to Human Geography? Human geography forms one part of the discipline of geog- raphy, complementing physical geography (which deals with the natural environment). Human geography exam- ines the relationships between people and the places and spaces in which they live using a variety of scales ranging from the local to the global. Human geographers explore how these relationships create the diverse spatial arrange- ments that we see around us, arrangements that include homes, neighborhoods, cities, nations and regions. A cul- tural approach to the study of human geography implies an emphasis on the meanings, values, attitudes, and beliefs that different groups of people around the world lend to and derive from places and spaces. To understand the scope of a cultural approach to human geography, we must first discuss the various meanings of culture.

There are many definitions of culture, some broad and some narrow. For the purposes of this book, we define cul- ture as learned, collective human behavior, as opposed to innate, or inborn, behavior. Learned similarities in speech, behavior, ideology, livelihood, technology, value systems, and society form a way of life common to a group of peo- ple. Culture, defined in this way, involves a means of com- municating these learned beliefs, memories, perceptions, traditions, and attitudes that serves to shape behavior. As geographers, we tend to be interested in how these various aspects of culture take shape in particular places, environ- ments, and landscapes.

Catholic church in Honduras and the other a Buddhist temple in Laos—alike and different? (Left: Rob Crandall/Stock Connection/Alamy; Right: Peter Adams/Alamy.)

What Is a Cultural Approach to Human Geography? 3

cated ways. The complexity of the forces that affect culture can be illustrated by an example drawn from agricultural geography: the distribution of wheat cultivation in the world. If you look at Figure 1.2, you can see important areas of wheat cultivation in Australia but not in Africa, in the United States but not in Chile, in China but not in South- east Asia. Why does this spatial pattern exist? Partly it results from environmental factors such as climate, terrain, and soils. Some regions have always been too dry for wheat cul- tivation. The land in others is too steep or infertile. Indeed, there is a strong correlation between wheat cultivation and midlatitude climates, level terrain, and good soil.

Still, we should not place exclusive importance on such physical factors. People can modify the effects of climate through irrigation; the use of hothouses; or the develop- ment of new, specialized strains of wheat. They can conquer slopes by terracing, and they can make poor soils produc- tive with fertilization. For example, farmers in mountainous parts of Greece traditionally wrested an annual harvest of wheat from tiny terraced plots where soil had been trapped behind hand-built stone retaining walls. Even in the United

States, environmental factors alone cannot explain the curi- ous fact that major wheat cultivation is concentrated in the semiarid Great Plains, some distance from states such as Ohio and Illinois, where the climate for growing wheat is better. The human geographer knows that wheat has to sur- vive in a cultural environment as well as a physical one.

Ultimately, agricultural patterns cannot be explained by the characteristics of the land and climate alone. Many factors complicate the distribution of wheat, including peo- ple’s tastes and traditions. Food preferences and taboos, often backed by religious beliefs, strongly influence the choice of crops to plant. Where wheat bread is preferred, people are willing to put great efforts into overcoming physical surroundings hostile to growing wheat. They have even created new strains of wheat, thereby decreasing the environment’s influence on the distribution of wheat culti- vation. Other factors, such as public policies, can also encourage or discourage wheat cultivation. For example, tariffs protect the wheat farmers of France and other Euro- pean countries from competition with more efficient Amer- ican and Canadian producers.

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Figure 1.2 Areas of wheat production in the world today. These regions are based on a single trait: the importance of wheat in the agricultural system. This map tells us what and where. It raises the question of why. What causal forces might be at work to produce this geographical distribution of wheat farming?

4 Chapter 1 Human Geography

This is by no means a complete list of the forces that affect the geographical distribution of wheat cultivation. The distribution of all cultural elements is a result of the constant interplay of diverse factors. Human geography is the disci- pline that seeks such explanations and understandings.

How to Understand Human Geography Generally speaking, there are three different perspectives geographers have taken in regard to studying and under- standing the complexity of the human mosaic. Each of these perspectives brings a different emphasis to studying the diversity of human patterns on the Earth.

Spatial Models Some geographers seek patterns and regu- larities amidst the complexity and apply the scientific method to the study of people. Emulating physicists and chemists, they devise theories and seek regularities or uni- versal spatial principles that apply across cultural lines, explaining all of humankind. These principles ideally become the basis for laws of human spatial behavior.

Space—a term that refers to an abstract location on a map—is the word that perhaps best connotes this approach to cultural geography (see Doing Geography at the end of the chapter).

Social scientists face a difficult problem because, unlike physical scientists, they cannot limit the effects of diverse factors by running experiments in controlled laboratories. One solution to this problem is the technique known as model building. Aware that many causal forces are involved in the real world, they set up artificial situations to focus on one or more potential factors. Torsten Hägerstrand’s dia- grams of different ways that ideas and people move from one place to another are examples of spatial models. Some model-building geographers devise culture-specific models to describe and explain certain facets of spatial behavior within specific cultures. They still seek regularities and spa- tial principles but within the bounds of individual cultures. For example, several geographers proposed a model for Latin American cities in an effort to stress similarities among them and to understand why cities are formed the way they are (Figure 1.3). Obviously, no actual city in Latin

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Ford developed the model diagrammed here to help describe and explain the processes at work shaping the cities of Latin America. In what ways would this model not be applicable to cities in the United States and Canada? (After Griffin and Ford, 1980: 406.)

Figure 1.3 A generalized model of the Latin American city. Urban structure differs from one culture to another, and in many ways the cities of Latin America are distinctive, sharing much in common with one another. Geographers Ernst Griffin and Larry

Themes in Human Geography 5

America conforms precisely to their uncomplicated geo- metric plan. Instead, they deliberately generalized and sim- plified so that an urban type could be recognized and studied. The model will look strange to a person living in a city in the United States or Canada, for it describes a very different kind of urban environment, based in another culture.

Sense of Place Other geographers seek to understand the uniqueness of each region and place. Just as space identi- fies the perspective of the model-building geographer, place is the key word connoting this more humanistic view of geography. The geographer Yi-Fu Tuan coined the word topophilia, literally “love of place,” to describe people who exhibit a strong sense of place and the geographers who are attracted to the study of such places and peoples. Geog- rapher Edward Relph tells us that “to be human is to have and know your place” in the geographical sense. This per- spective on cultural geography values subjective experi- ence over objective scientific observation. It focuses on understanding the complexity of different cultures and how those cultures give meaning to and derive meaning from particular places. For example, many geographers are interested in understanding how and why certain places continue to evoke strong emotions from people, even though those people may have little direct connec- tion with those places. Denis Cosgrove (see Practicing Geography on page 26) has studied why Venice continues to stir people’s imaginations, people as diverse as tourists from Japan and farmers from Iowa, despite the fact that the city hasn’t held any political or economic power in hundreds of years, and the cultures out of which it was formed have long since ceased to exist. However, some geographers are interested in the opposite kind of places—ordinary places—and ask how and why people become attached to and derive meaning from their local neighborhoods or communities, and how those meanings can often come into conflict with each other. Many of the debates that you see in newspapers and hear about on the evening news—debates about the construction of a new high-rise building or the location of a highway, for exam- ple—can only be understood by examining the meanings and values different groups of people give to and derive from particular places.

Power and Ideology Cultures are rarely if ever homoge- neous. Often certain groups of people have more power in society, and their beliefs and ways of life dominate and are considered the norm, whereas other groups of people with less power may participate in alternative cultures. These divisions are often based on gender, economic class, racial categories, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. The social hier- archies that result are maintained, reinforced, and chal-

lenged through many means. Those means can include such things as physical violence, but often social hierarchies are maintained in ways far more subtle. For example, some geographers study ideology—a set of dominant ideas and beliefs—in relationship to place, environment, and land- scape in order to understand how power works culturally. For example, most nations maintain a set of powerful beliefs about their relationships to the land, some holding to the idea that there is a deep and natural connection between a particular territory and the people who have inhabited it. These ideas often form part of a national iden- tity and are expressed so routinely in poems, music, laws, and rituals that people accept these ideas as truths. Many American patriotic songs, for example, express the idea that the country naturally spreads from “sea to sea.” Yet immigrants to that culture and country, and people who have been marginalized by that culture, may hold very dif- ferent ideas of identity with the land. Native Americans have claims to land that far predate those of the U.S. gov- ernment and would argue against an American national identity that includes a so-called natural connection to all the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Uncovering and analyzing the connections between ideology and power, then, are often integral to the geographer’s task of understanding the diversity within a culture.

These different approaches to thinking about human geography are both necessary and healthy. These groups ask different questions about place and space; not surpris- ingly, they often obtain different answers. The model- builders tend to minimize diversity through their search for universal causal forces; the humanists examine diversity among cultures and strive to understand the unique; those who look to power and ideology focus on diversity and con- testation within cultures. All lines of inquiry yield valuable findings. We present all of these perspectives throughout The Human Mosaic.

Themes in Human Geography Our study of the human mosaic is organized around five geo- graphical concepts or themes: region, mobility, globalization, nature-culture, and cultural landscape. We use these themes to organize the diversity of issues that confront human geog- raphy and have selected them because they represent the major concepts that human geographers discuss. Each of them stresses one particular aspect of the discipline, and even though we have separated them for purposes of clarity, it is important to remember that the concepts are related to each other. When discussing the theme of mobility, for example, we will inevitably bring up issues related to globalization, and vice versa. These themes give a common structure to each chapter and are stressed throughout the book.

6 Chapter 1 Human Geography

Region

Phrased as a question, the theme of region could be “How are people and their traits grouped or arranged geograph- ically?” Places and regions provide the essence of geogra- phy. How and why are places alike or different? How do they mesh together into functioning spatial networks? How do their inhabitants perceive them and identify with them? These are central geographical questions. A region, then, is a geographical unit based on characteristics and func- tions of culture. Geographers recognize three types of regions: formal, functional, and vernacular.

Formal Regions A formal region is an area inhabited by people who have one or more traits in common, such as language, religion, or a system of livelihood. It is an area, therefore, that is relatively homogeneous with regard to one or more cultural traits. Geographers use this concept to map spatial differences throughout the world. For exam- ple, an Arabic-language formal region can be drawn on a map of languages and would include the areas where Ara- bic is spoken, rather than, say, English or Hindi or Man- darin. Similarly, a wheat-farming formal region would include the parts of the world where wheat is a major crop (look again at Figure 1.2).

The examples of Arabic speech and of wheat cultiva- tion represent the concept of formal region at its simplest level. Each is based on a single cultural trait. More com- monly, formal regions depend on multiple related traits (Figure 1.4). Thus, an Inuit (Eskimo) culture region might be based on language, religion, economy, social organiza- tion, and type of dwellings. The region would reflect the spatial distribution of these five Inuit cultural traits. Dis- tricts in which all five of these traits are present would be part of the culture region. Similarly, Europe can be subdi- vided into several multitrait regions (Figure 1.5).

Formal regions are the geographer’s somewhat arbi- trary creations. No two cultural traits have the same dis- tribution, and the territorial extent of a culture region depends on what and how many defining traits are used (see Figure 1.5). Why five Inuit traits, not four or six? Why not foods instead of (or in addition to) dwelling types? Consider, for example, Greeks and Turks, who differ in language and religion. Formal regions defined on the basis of speech and religious faith would separate these two groups. However, Greeks and Turks hold many other cultural traits in common. Both groups are monotheistic, worshipping a single god. In both groups, male supremacy and patriarchal families are the rule. Both enjoy certain folk foods, such as shish kebab. Whether Greeks and Turks are placed in the same formal region or in different

Figure 1.4 An Inuit hunter with his dogsled team. Various facets of a multitrait formal region can be seen here, including the clothing, the use of dogsleds as transportation, and hunting as a livelihood system. (Bryan and Cherry Alexander Photography/Alamy.)

Themes in Human Geography 7

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8 Chapter 1 Human Geography

means that culture changes continually throughout an area and that every inhabited place on Earth has a unique com- bination of cultural features. No place is exactly like another.

Does this cultural uniqueness of each place prevent geographers from seeking explanatory theories? Does it doom them to explaining each locale separately? The answer must be no. The fact that no two hills or rocks, no two planets or stars, no two trees or flowers are identical has not prevented geologists, astronomers, and botanists from formulating theories and explanations based on generalizations.

Functional Regions The hallmark of a formal region is cul- tural homogeneity. Moreover, it is abstract rather than con- crete. By contrast, a functional region need not be culturally homogeneous; instead, it is an area that has been organized to function politically, socially, or economically as one unit. A city, an independent state, a precinct, a church diocese or parish, a trade area, a farm, and a Fed- eral Reserve Bank district are all examples of functional regions. Functional regions have nodes, or central points where the functions are coordinated and directed. Exam- ples of such nodes are city halls, national capitals, precinct voting places, parish churches, factories, and banks. In this sense, functional regions also possess a core-periphery con- figuration, in common with formal regions.

Many functional regions have clearly defined borders. A metropolitan area is a functional region that includes all the land under the jurisdiction of a particular urban gov- ernment (Figure 1.6). The borders of this functional region may not be so apparent from a car window, but they will be clearly delineated on a regional map by a line

Figure 1.6 Aerial view of Denver. This image clearly illustrates the node of a functional region—here, the dense cluster of commercial buildings—that coordinates activities throughout the area that surrounds it. Can you identify the border of this functional region? Why or why not? (Jim Wark/Airphoto.)

ones depends entirely on how the geographer chooses to define the region. That choice in turn depends on the specific purpose of research or teaching that the region is designed to serve. Thus, an infinite number of formal regions can be created. It is unlikely that any two geographers would use exactly the same distinguishing criteria or place cultural boundaries in precisely the same location.

The geographer who identifies a formal region must locate borders. Because cultures overlap and mix, such boundaries are rarely sharp, even if only a single cultural trait is mapped. For this reason, we find border zones rather than lines. These zones broaden with each addi- tional trait that is considered because no two traits have the same spatial distribution. As a result, instead of having clear borders, formal regions reveal a center or core where the defining traits are all present. Moving away from the cen- tral core, the characteristics weaken and disappear. Thus, many formal regions display a core-periphery pattern. This refers to a situation where a region can be divided into two sections, one near the center where the particular attributes that define the region (in this case, language and religion) are strong, and other portions of the region further away from the core, called the periphery, where those attributes are weaker.

In a real sense, then, the human world is chaotic. No matter how closely related two elements of culture seem to be, careful investigation always shows that they do not cover exactly the same area. This is true regardless of what degree of detail is involved. What does this chaos mean to the human geographer? First, it tells us that every cultural trait is spatially unique and that the explanation for each spatial variation differs in some degree from all others. Second, it

Themes in Human Geography 9

distinguishing one jurisdiction from another. Similarly, each state in the United States and each Canadian province is a functional region, coordinated and directed from a capital, with government control extended over a fixed area with clearly defined borders.

Not all functional regions have fixed, precise borders, however. A good example is a daily newspaper’s circulation area. The node for the paper would be the plant where it is produced. Every morning, trucks move out of the plant to distribute the paper throughout the city. The newspaper may have a sales area extending into the city’s suburbs, local bedroom communities, nearby towns, and rural areas. There its sales area overlaps with the sales territories of competing newspapers published in other cities. It would be futile to try to define exclusive borders for such an area. How would you draw a sales area boundary for the New York Times? Its Sunday edition is sold in some quantity even in

California, thousands of miles from its node, and it is pub- lished simultaneously in different cities.

Functional regions generally do not coincide spatially with formal regions, and this disjuncture often creates problems for the functional region. Germany provides an example (Figure 1.7). As an independent state, Germany forms a functional region. Language provides a substantial basis for political unity. However, the formal region of the German language extends beyond the political borders of Germany and includes part or all of eight other indepen- dent states. More important, numerous formal regions have borders cutting through German territory. Some of these have endured for millennia, causing differences among northern, southern, eastern, and western Germans. These contrasts make the functioning of the German state more difficult and help explain why Germany has been politically fragmented more often than unified.

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Figure 1.7 East versus west and north versus south in Germany. As a political unit and functional culture region, Germany must overcome the disruptions caused by numerous formal regions that tend to make the sections of Germany culturally different. Formal and functional regions rarely coincide spatially. How might these sectional contrasts cause problems for modern Germany?

10 Chapter 1 Human Geography

Vernacular Regions A vernacular region is one that is per- ceived to exist by its inhabitants, as evidenced by the wide- spread acceptance and use of a special regional name. Some vernacular regions are based on physical environ- mental features. For example, there are many regions called simply “the valley.” Wikipedia lists more than 30 dif- ferent regions within the United States and Canada that are referred to as such, places as varied as the Sudbury Basin in Ontario and the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. In the 1980s, “the valley” became synonymous with the San Fer- nando Valley in Southern California (Figure 1.8) and became associated with a type of landscape (suburban), a person (a white, teenage girl, called the “valley girl”), and a way of speaking (“valspeak”). Other vernacular regions find their basis in economic, political, or historical charac- teristics. Vernacular regions, like most regions, generally lack sharp borders, and the inhabitants of any given area may claim residence in more than one such region. They vary in scale from city neighborhoods to sizable parts of continents.

At a basic level, the vernacular region grows out of peo- ple’s sense of belonging and identification with a particular region. By contrast, many formal or functional regions lack this attribute and, as a result, are often far less meaningful for people. You’re more likely to hear people say, “we’re fighting to preserve ‘the valley’ from further urban devel- opment,” than to see people rally under the banner of

“wheat-growing areas of the world”! Self-conscious regional identity can have major political and social ramifications.

Reflecting on Geography What examples can you think of that show how identification with a vernacular region is a powerful political force?

Vernacular regions often lack the organization neces- sary for functional regions, although they may be centered around a single urban node, and they frequently do not dis- play the cultural homogeneity that characterizes formal regions.

Mobility

The concept of regions helps us see that often similar or related sets of elements are grouped together in space. Equally important in geography is understanding how and why these different cultural elements move through space and locate in particular settings. Regions them- selves, as we have seen, are not stable but are constantly changing as people, ideas, practices, and technologies move around in space. Are there some patterns to these movements? These questions define our second theme, mobility.

One important way to study mobility is through the concept of diffusion. Diffusion can be defined as the move-

Figure 1.8 The San Fernando Valley. Referred to locally as “the valley,” the San Fernando Valley is located in the northwestern area of Los Angeles. Despite its reputation as a white, suburban area, portions of the valley are densely populated, and the area is home to a wide range of peoples from many different backgrounds. Can you think of other examples of regions that are locally known as “the valley”? (Robert Landau/drr.net.)

Themes in Human Geography 11

ment of people, ideas, or things from one location outward toward other locations where these items are not initially found. Through the study of diffusion, the human geogra- pher can begin to understand how spatial patterns in cul- ture emerged and evolved. After all, any culture is the product of almost countless innovations that spread from their points of origin to cover a wider area. Some innova- tions occur only once, and geographers can sometimes trace a cultural element back to a single place of origin. In other cases, independent invention occurs: the same or a very similar innovation is separately developed at different places by different peoples.

Types of Diffusion Geographers, drawing heavily on the research of Hägerstrand, recognize several different kinds of diffusion (Figure 1.9). Relocation diffusion occurs when individuals or groups with a particular idea or practice migrate from one location to another, thereby bringing the idea or practice to their new homeland. Religions fre- quently spread this way. An example is the migration of Christianity with European settlers who came to America. In expansion diffusion, ideas or practices spread through- out a population, from area to area, in a snowballing process, so that the total number of knowers or users and the areas of occurrence increase.

Expansion diffusion can be further divided into three subtypes. In hierarchical diffusion, ideas leapfrog from one important person to another or from one urban cen- ter to another, temporarily bypassing other persons or rural territories. We can see hierarchical diffusion at work in everyday life by observing the acceptance of new modes of dress or foods. For example, sushi restaurants originally diffused from Japan in the 1970s very slowly because many people were reluctant to eat raw fish. In the United States, the first sushi restaurants appeared in the major cities of Los Angeles and New York. Only gradually throughout the 1980s and 1990s did sushi eating become more common in the less urbanized parts of the country. By contrast, contagious diffusion involves the wavelike spread of ideas in the manner of a contagious disease, moving throughout space without regard to hierarchies. Hierarchical and con- tagious diffusion often work together. The worldwide spread of HIV/AIDS provides a sobering example of how these two types of diffusion can reinforce each other. As you can see from Figure 1.10, HIV/AIDS diffused first to urban areas (hierarchical diffusion) and from there spread outward (contagious diffusion). Sometimes a spe- cific trait is rejected but the underlying idea is accepted, resulting in stimulus diffusion. For example, early Siber- ian peoples domesticated reindeer only after exposure to

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Figure 1.9 Types of cultural diffusion. These diagrams are merely suggestive; in reality, spatial diffusion is far more complex. In hierarchical diffusion, different scales can be used, so that, for example, the category “very important person” could be replaced by “large city.”

the domesticated cattle raised by cultures to their south. The Siberians had no use for cattle, but the idea of domes- ticated herds appealed to them, and they began domesti- cating reindeer, an animal they had long hunted.

If you throw a rock into a pond and watch the spread- ing ripples, you can see them become gradually weaker as they move away from the point of impact. In the same way, diffusion becomes weaker as a cultural innovation moves away from its point of origin. That is, diffusion decreases with distance. An innovation will usually be accepted most thoroughly in the areas closest to where it originates. Because innovations take increasing time to spread out-

12 Chapter 1 Human Geography

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Figure 1.10 Diffusion of HIV/AIDS in Ohio. As you can see from this map, HIV/AIDS spread through both hierarchical and contagious diffusion processes. Do you think a similar pattern is evident at the national scale? At the global scale? (Source: Gould, 1993.)

ward, time is also a factor. Acceptance generally decreases with distance and time, producing what geographers call time-distance decay. Modern mass media, however, have greatly accelerated diffusion, diminishing the impact of time-distance decay.

In addition to the gradual weakening or decay of an innovation through time and distance, barriers can retard its spread. Absorbing barriers completely halt diffusion, allow- ing no further progress. For example, in 1998 the fundamen- talist Islamic Taliban government of Afghanistan decided to abolish television, videocassette recorders, and videotapes, viewing them as “causes of corruption in society.” As a result,

the cultural diffusion of television sets was reversed, and the important role of television as a communication device to facilitate the spread of ideas was eliminated.

Extreme examples aside, few absorbing barriers exist in the world. More commonly, barriers are permeable, allow- ing part of the innovation wave to diffuse through but act- ing to weaken or retard the continued spread. When a school board objects to students with tattoos or body pierc- ings, the principal of a high school may set limits by man- dating that these markings be covered by clothing. However, over time, those mandates may change as people get used to the idea of body markings. More likely than not, though, some mandates will remain in place. In this way, the principal and school board act as a permeable barrier to cultural innovations.

Reflecting on Geography The Internet has certainly made the diffusion of many forms of cultural change much more rapid. Some scholars have argued that, in fact, the Internet has eliminated barriers to diffusion. Can you think of examples where this is true? Untrue?

Although all places and communities hypothetically have equal potential to adopt a new idea or practice, diffu- sion typically produces a core-periphery spatial arrange- ment, the same pattern observed earlier in our discussion of regions (see Figure 1.5). Hägerstrand offered an explana- tion of how diffusion produces such a regional configura- tion. The distribution of innovations can be random, but the overlap of new ideas and traits as they diffuse through space and time is greatest toward the center of the region and least at the peripheries. As a result of this overlap, more innova- tions are adopted in the center, or core, of the region.

Some other geographers, most notably James Blaut and Richard Ormrod, regard the Hägerstrandian concept of dif- fusion as too narrow and mechanical because it does not give enough emphasis to cultural and environmental variables and because it assumes that information automatically pro- duces diffusion. They argue that nondiffusion—the failure of innovations to spread—is more prevalent than diffusion, a condition Hägerstrand’s system cannot accommodate. Similarly, the Hägerstrandian system assumes that innova- tions are equally beneficial to all people throughout geo- graphical space. In reality, susceptibility to an innovation is far more crucial, especially in a world where communication is so rapid and pervasive that it renders the friction of dis- tance almost meaningless. The inhabitants of two regions will not respond identically to an innovation, and the geog- rapher must seek to understand this spatial variation in receptiveness to explain diffusion or the failure to diffuse. Within the context of their culture, people must perceive some advantage before they will adopt an innovation.

Diffusion provides a useful, yet limited, way of thinking about mobility because it emphasizes movement from a

Themes in Human Geography 13

core to a periphery. In today’s world, however, we see many other examples of mobility, such as the almost instant com- munication about new ideas and technologies through computers and other digital media, the rapid movement of goods from the place of production to that of consump- tion, and the seemingly nonstop movement of money around the globe through digital financial networks. These types of movements through space do not necessarily follow the pattern of core-periphery but instead create new and different types of patterns. The term circulation might bet- ter fit many of these forms of mobility because this term implies an ongoing set of movements with no particular center or periphery. Other types of mobilities, such as large-scale movements of people between different regions, can be best thought of as migrations from one region or country to another through particular routes. In today’s globalizing world, with better and faster communication and transportation technologies, many migrants more eas- ily maintain ties to their homelands even after they have migrated, and some may move back and forth between their home countries and those to which they have migrated. Scholars refer to these groups of people as transnational migrants (Figure 1.11). We will discuss much more about these different patterns of mobility—diffusion, circulation, and migration—in the rest of the book.

Figure 1.11 Demonstrations in Hamburg, Germany, against the deportation of immigrants. Many migrant-worker groups are fighting to maintain rights of transnational migrants who would like to be able to live, work, and move freely between their home countries and those that currently provide work for them. (Vario Images GmbH & Co.KG/Alamy.)

Human Development Index

14 Chapter 1 Human Geography

Globalization

How and why are different cultures, economies, and soci- eties linked around the world? And given all these new link- ages, why are there so many differences that exist between different groups of people in the world? The modern tech- nological age, in which improved worldwide transport and communications allow the instantaneous diffusion of ideas and innovations, has accelerated the phenomenon called globalization. This term refers to a world increasingly linked, in which international borders are diminished in importance and a worldwide marketplace is created. This interconnected world has been created from a set of fac- tors: faster and more reliable transportation, particularly the jet plane; the almost-instantaneous communication that computers, phones, faxes, and so on have allowed; and the creation of digital sources of information and media,

such as the Internet. Thus, globalization in this sense is a rather recent phenomenon, dating from the late twentieth century. Yet we know that long before that different countries and different parts of the world were linked. For example, in early medieval times overland trade routes con- nected China with other parts of Asia, the British East India Company maintained maritime trading routes between England and large portions of South Asia as early as the sev- enteenth century, and religious and political wars in Europe and the Middle East brought different peoples into direct contact with each other. Some geographers refer to such moments as early global encounters and suggest they set the background for contemporary globalization. Begin- ning in the early twentieth century, but strengthening in the 1970s with new and advanced communication tech- nologies, encounters between different cultures began to take place not face-to-face but rather mediated through

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Themes in Human Geography 15

technologies such as telephones, film, computer, and the Internet. These new media forms allowed those encounters to happen at any time, in many different places, and all at the same time. This new sense of interlinked and sponta- neous communication between different peoples around the world is what most people mean by globalization.

These increasingly linked economic, political, and cul- tural networks around the world might lead many to believe that different groups of people around the globe are becoming more and more alike. In some ways this is true, but what these new global encounters have enabled is an increasing recognition of the differences between groups of people, and some of those differences have been caused by globalization itself. Some groups of people have access to advanced technologies, more thorough health care, and education, whereas others do not. Even within our own neighborhoods and cities we know that there are

people who are less able to afford these things. If we mapped certain indicators of human well-being on a global scale, such as life expectancy, literacy, and standard of liv- ing, we would find quite an uneven distribution. Figure 1.12 shows us that different cultures around the world have different access to these types of resources. These differ- ences are what scholars mean when they refer to stages of development. In Figure 1.12, you can see that there are regions of the world that have a fairly high Human Devel- opment Index (HDI) and those that have a relatively low HDI. Scholars often refer to these two types of regions as developed (relatively high HDI) and developing (relatively low HDI). This inequitable distribution of resources is referred to as uneven development. We will be discussing much more about development in Chapters 3 and 9.

Globalization helps make us aware of these uneven developments and contributes to some of them. How does

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this happen? Globalization can be thought of as both a set of processes that are economic, political, and cultural in nature, and as the effects of those processes. For example, economic globalization refers to the interlinked networks of money, production, transportation, labor, and con- sumption that allow, say, the parts of an automobile to be manufactured in several countries, assembled in yet another, and then sold throughout large portions of the world. These economic networks and processes in turn have significant and often uneven effects on the economies of different countries and regions. Some regions gain employment, whereas others lose jobs; some consumers are able to afford these cars because they are less expensive, whereas other potential consumers who have become unemployed cannot afford to purchase these cars. These global economic processes and effects are in turn linked to politics and culture. In other words, globalization entails not only certain processes and effects but also the relationships between these things. For exam- ple, those countries that were chosen by the automobile manufacturer as sites of production might see the stan- dard of living of those countries’ populations improve, leading to greater consumer markets, better communica- tion and media, and often changing political sensibilities. And these changing political ideas in turn will shape eco-

nomic decisions and so on. Globalization, therefore, involves looking at complex interconnections between a set of related processes and their effects.

Culture, of course, is a key variable in these interactions and interconnections. In fact, as we have just suggested, globalization is occurring through cultural media, for exam- ple, in films, on television, and on the Internet (Figure 1.13). In addition, if we consider culture as a way of life, then globalization is a key shaper of culture and in turn is shaped by it. Some scholars have suggested that globalizing processes and an increase in mobility will work to homoge- nize different peoples, breaking down culture regions and eventually producing a single global culture. Other scholars see a different picture, one where new forms of media and communication allow local cultures to maintain their dis- tinct identities, reinforcing the diversity of cultures around the world. Throughout The Human Mosaic, we will return to these issues, asking and considering the complex role of cul- ture and cultures in an increasingly global world.

Nature-Culture

The themes of region, mobility, and globalization help us understand patterns, movements, and interconnections that characterize the ways that people create spatial patterns on

16 Chapter 1 Human Geography

Figure 1.13 Global culture on the streets of Moscow. A karaoke bar (a much globalized Japanese cultural form) occupies the storefront of a Soviet-era building on the Arbat (a main street) in downtown Moscow; the building is now almost hidden behind an advertisement for the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Meanwhile, an advertisement for a Spanish festival drapes across the street. (Courtesy of Mona Domosh.)

the Earth. Our fourth theme, nature-culture, adds a different dimension to this analysis; it focuses our attention literally on how people inhabit the Earth, their relationships to the phys- ical environment. This theme helps us investigate how groups of people interact with the Earth’s biophysical envi- ronment and examine how the culture, politics, and economies of those groups affect their ecological situation and resource use. Human geographers view the relationship between people and nature as a two-way interaction. People’s cultural values, beliefs, perceptions, and practices have eco- logical impacts, and ecological conditions in turn influence cultural perceptions and practices. The human geographer must study the interaction between culture and environment to understand spatial variations in culture.

The term ecology was coined in the nineteenth century to refer to a new biological science concerned with study- ing the complex relationships among living organisms and their physical environments. Geographers borrowed this term in the mid-twentieth century and joined it with the term culture in order to delineate a field of study—cultural ecology—that dealt with the interaction between culture and physical environments. Later, another concept, the ecosystem, was introduced to describe a territorially bounded system consisting of interacting organic and inor- ganic components. Plant and animal species were said to be adapted to specific conditions in the ecosystem and func- tioned to help keep the system stable over time.

It soon became clear, however, that human cultural interactions with the environment were far too complex to be analyzed with concepts borrowed from biology. Further- more, the idea that groups of people interacted with their ecosystems in isolation from larger-scale political, economic, and social forces was difficult to defend. We can readily observe, for example, that trade goods come into communi- ties, agricultural commodities flow out, money circulates, taxes are collected, and people migrate in and out for work. So geographers now use the term nature-culture to refer to the complex interactions among all these variables and to reflect the fact that studies of local human-environment relations need to include political, economic, and social forces oper- ating on national, and even global, scales.

The theme of nature-culture, the meeting ground of cul- tural and physical geographers, has traditionally provided a focal point for the academic discipline of geography. In fact, some geographers have proposed that the theme of geogra- phy is nature-culture, that the study of the intricate relation- ships between people and their physical environments unites cultural and physical geography to form the entire academic discipline. Although few accept this narrow definition of geography, most will agree that an appreciation of the com- plex people-environment relationship is necessary for con- cerned citizens of the twenty-first century.

Through the years, human geographers have devel- oped various perspectives on the interaction between

humans and the land. Four schools of thought have devel- oped: environmental determinism, possibilism, environ- mental perception, and humans as modifiers of the Earth.

Environmental Determinism During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many geographers accepted environmental determinism: the belief that the physical environment is the dominant force shaping cultures and that humankind is essentially a passive product of its physi- cal surroundings. Humans are clay to be molded by nature. Similar physical environments produce similar cultures.

For example, environmental determinists believed that peoples of the mountains were predestined by the rugged ter- rain to be simple, backward, conservative, unimaginative, and freedom loving. Dwellers in the desert were likely to believe in one God but to live under the rule of tyrants. Temperate cli- mates produced inventiveness, industriousness, and democ- racy. Coastlands pitted with fjords produced great navigators and fishers. Environmental determinism had serious conse- quences, particularly during the time of European colonization in the late nineteenth century. For example, many Europeans saw Latin American native inhabitants as lazy, childlike, and prone to vices such as alcoholism because of the tropical cli- mates that cover much of this region. Living in a tropical cli- mate supposedly ensured that people didn’t have to work very hard for their food. Europeans were able to rationalize their colonization of large portions of the world in part along cli- matic lines. Because the natives were “naturally” lazy and slow, the European reasoning went, the natives would benefit from the presence of the “naturally” stronger, smarter, and more industrious Europeans who came from more temperate lands.

Determinists overemphasize the role of environment in human affairs. This does not mean that environmental influ- ences are inconsequential or that geographers should not study such influences. Rather, the physical environment is only one of many forces affecting human culture and is never the sole determinant of behavior and beliefs.

Possibilism Since the 1920s, possibilism has been the favored view among geographers. Possibilists claim that any physical environment offers a number of possible ways for a culture to develop. In this way, the local environment helps shape its resident culture. However, a culture’s way of life ultimately depends on the choices people make among the possibilities that are offered by the environment. These choices are guided by cultural heritage and are shaped by a particular political and economic system. Possibilists see the physical environment as offering opportunities and lim- itations; people make choices among these to satisfy their needs. Figure 1.14 provides an interesting example: the cities of San Francisco and Chongqing both were built on similar physical terrains that dictated an overall form, but differing cultures lead to very different street patterns, architecture, and land use. In short, local traits of culture

Themes in Human Geography 17

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Themes in Human Geography 19

and economy are the products of culturally based decisions made within the limits of possibilities offered by the environment.

Most possibilists think that the higher the technologi- cal level of a culture, the greater the number of possibilities and the weaker the influences of the physical environment. Technologically advanced cultures, in this view, have achieved some mastery over their physical surroundings. Geographers Jim Norwine and Thomas Anderson, how- ever, warn that even in these advanced societies “the quan- tity and quality of human life are still strongly influenced by the natural environment,” especially climate. They argue that humankind’s control of nature is anything but supreme and perhaps even illusory. One only has to think of the devastation caused by the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean to underscore the often-illusory charac- ter of the control humans think they have over their physi- cal surroundings.

Environmental Perception Another approach to the theme of nature-culture focuses on how humans perceive nature. Each person and cultural group has mental images of the physical environment, shaped by knowledge, ignorance, experience, values, and emotions. To describe such mental images, human geographers use the term environmental perception. Whereas the possibilist sees humankind as hav- ing a choice of different possibilities in a given physical set- ting, the environmental perceptionist declares that the choices people make will depend more on what they per- ceive the environment to be than on the actual character of the land. Perception, in turn, is colored by the teachings of culture.

Some of the most productive research done by geogra- phers who are environmental perceptionists has been on the topic of natural hazards, such as flooding, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, insect infestations, and droughts. All cultures react to such hazards and catastro- phes, but the reactions vary greatly from one group to another. Some people reason that natural disasters and risks are unavoidable acts of the gods, perhaps even divine retribution. Often they seek to cope with the hazards by pla- cating their gods. Others hold government responsible for taking care of them when hazards yield disasters. In West- ern culture, many groups regard natural hazards as prob- lems that can be solved by technological means. In the United States, one of the most common manifestations of this belief has been the widespread construction of dams to prevent flooding. This belief in the use of technology to mitigate the impacts of natural hazards was sorely tested in the United States during Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005, when the numerous dams and levees that had been built to keep floodwaters out of the city of New Orleans failed (Figure 1.15). More than 1800 people lost their lives as a result, and tens of thousands of people were left home-

less, calling into question the belief that natural disasters can be avoided through technology.

In virtually all cultures, people knowingly inhabit hazard zones, especially floodplains, exposed coastal sites, drought- prone regions, and the environs of active volcanoes. More Americans than ever now live in areas likely to be devastated by hurricanes along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and atop earthquake faults in California. How accurately do they per- ceive the hazard involved? Why have they chosen to live there? How might we minimize the eventual disasters? The human geographer seeks the answers to such questions and aspires, with other geographers, to mitigate the inevitable disasters through such devices as land-use planning.

Perhaps the most fundamental expression of environ- mental perception lies in the way different cultures see nature itself. We must understand at the outset that nature is a culturally derived concept that has different meanings to different peoples. In the organic view, held by many tra- ditional groups, people are part of nature. The habitat pos- sesses a soul, is filled with nature-spirits, and must not be offended. By contrast, most Western peoples believe in the mechanistic view of nature. Humans are separate from and

Figure 1.15 Post-Katrina New Orleans. The dams and levees built along the Mississippi River as it enters the Gulf of Mexico were unable to stop the flooding waters of Hurricane Katrina from inundating many portions of the city. (U.S. Coast Guard/Getty Images.)

20 Chapter 1 Human Geography

hold dominion over nature. They see the habitat as an inte- grated system of mechanisms governed by external forces that can be rendered into natural laws and understood by the human mind.

Humans as Modifiers of the Earth Many human geogra- phers, observing the environmental changes people have wrought, emphasize humans as modifiers of the habitat. This presents yet another facet of the theme of nature- culture. In a sense, the human-as-modifier school of thought is the opposite of environmental determinism. Whereas the determinists proclaim that nature molds humankind, and possibilists believe that nature presents possibilities for people, those geographers who study the human impact on the land assert that humans mold nature.

In addition to the deliberate modifications of the Earth through such activities as mining, logging, and irrigation, we now know that even seemingly innocuous behavior, repeated for millennia, for centuries, or in some cases for mere decades, can have catastrophic effects on the environment. Plowing fields and grazing livestock can eventually denude regions (Figure 1.16). The use of certain types of air condi- tioners or spray cans apparently has the potential to destroy the planet’s very ability to support life. And the increasing release of fossil-fuel emissions from vehicles and factories— what are known as greenhouse gases—is arguably leading to global warming, with potentially devastating effects on the Earth’s environment (see Subject to Debate). Clearly, access to energy and technology is the key variable that controls the magnitude and speed of environmental alteration. Geogra- phers seek to understand and explain the processes of envi-

ronmental alteration as they vary from one culture to another and, through applied geography, to propose alter- native, less destructive modes of behavior.

Human geographers began to concentrate on the human role in changing the face of the Earth long before the present level of ecological consciousness developed. They learned early on the fact that different cultural groups have widely different outlooks on humankind’s role in changing the Earth. Some, such as those rooted in the mechanistic tradition, tend to regard environmental mod- ification as divinely approved, viewing humans as God’s helpers in completing the task of creation. Other groups, organic in their view of nature, are much more cautious, taking care not to offend the forces of nature. They see humans as part of nature, meant to be in harmony with their environment (for more on this topic, see Chapter 7).

Gender differences can also play a role in the human modification of the Earth. Ecofeminism, a term derived from a book by Karen Warren, maintains that because of socialization, women have been better ecologists and envi- ronmentalists than men. (We should not forget that the modern environmental preservation movement grew in no small part out of Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring.) Traditionally, women—as childbearers, gardeners, and nur- turers of the family and home—dealt with the daily chores of gaining food from the Earth, whereas men—as hunters, fishers, warriors, and forest clearers—were involved with activities that were more associated with destruction. Regardless of whether we agree with this rather determin- istic and essentializing viewpoint (understanding gender differences as biologically determined rather than cultur- ally constructed), we can see that in many situations through time, and around the globe, women and men have had different relationships to the natural world.

Cultural Landscape

What are the visible expressions of culture? How are peo- ples’ interactions with nature materially expressed? What do regions actually look like? These questions provide the basis of our fifth and final theme, cultural landscape. The human or cultural landscape is comprised of all the built forms that cultural groups create in inhabiting the Earth—roads, agri- cultural fields, cities, houses, parks, gardens, commercial buildings, and so on. Every inhabited area has a cultural landscape, fashioned from the natural landscape, and each uniquely reflects the culture or cultures that created it (Figure 1.17). Landscape mirrors a culture’s needs, values, and attitudes toward the Earth, and the human geographer can learn much about a group of people by carefully observ- ing and studying the landscape. Indeed, so important is this visual record of cultures that some geographers regard landscape study as geography’s central interest.

Figure 1.16 Human modification of the Earth includes severe soil erosion. This erosion could have been caused by road building or poor farming methods. The scene is in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. How can we adopt less destructive ways of modifying the land? (Michael Nichols/National Geographic.)

Themes in Human Geography 21

Why is such importance attached to the human land- scape? Perhaps part of the answer is that it visually reflects the most basic strivings of humankind: shelter, food, and clothing. In addition, the cultural landscape reveals peo- ple’s different attitudes toward the modifications of the Earth. It also contains valuable evidence about the origin, spread, and development of cultures because it usually

preserves various types of archaic forms. Dominant and alternative cultures use, alter, and manipulate landscapes to express their diverse identities.

Aside from containing archaic forms, landscapes also convey revealing messages about the present-day inhabitants and cultures. According to geographer Pierce Lewis, “the cul- tural landscape is our collective and revealing autobiography,

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Human Activities and Global Climate Change One of the most important and vexing scientific and political issues of the early twenty-first century is understanding the causes of recent global climate change and deciding what policies to pursue to mitigate its effects. It’s also an issue that human geographers, with their emphasis on understanding nature-culture relationships, are well prepared to discuss. Most atmospheric scientists agree that there has been a precipitous warming of global climate since the mid-twentieth century that has brought with it a host of other environmental alterations, but not all agree about the causes of these changes. The main issue is the degree to which human activities are involved in this climate change.

According to a report by the National Academies of the United States (a joint body comprised of the National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council), the Earth’s temperatures are rising. Since the early twentieth century, the surface temperature of the Earth has risen 1.4°F, with the greatest amount of increase occurring since 1978 (9 degrees). Global climate, of course, is always changing; we have all heard of the ice ages that occurred thousands of years ago, when large glaciers covered much of North America, Europe, and Asia. What is critical today, however, is the degree to which scientists have been able to correlate global warming trends with the rise in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is one of several greenhouse gases that keep radiative energy (and therefore warmth) trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. It occurs naturally in the atmosphere but is also released when fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas are burned. Changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, therefore, lead to changes in the Earth’s temperature. Changes in temperature, in turn, lead to other changes in the environment, such as the melting of glacial caps and the rising of sea levels. These are significant and large-scale impacts, with potentially catastrophic effects.

To what degree are our activities—particularly our energy demands that lead to the burning of fossil fuels—

responsible for this climate change? This is where the real debate starts. Some scientists are wary of pointing the finger at carbon dioxide emissions as the primary culprit, arguing along several lines that it is far from certain whether human activities have had such impacts on the Earth’s climate; some are critical of the data itself that show increases in surface temperature; some believe that the recent fluctuation in climate is far more a natural occurrence than one induced by humans; and some believe that the Earth’s atmospheric and climatic systems are simply so complex that it is premature to isolate one factor. Yet there is growing worldwide consensus that human activities—particularly our reliance on the burning of fossil fuels—are the primary factors responsible for the recent global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of scientists from many different countries, concluded that because of the rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, by 2100 average temperatures on the surface of the Earth are estimated to rise between 2.5°F and 10.4°F above 1990 levels. The question for this group of scientists is not what is causing these changes but what to do about it. The first step, these scientists argue, is to find ways to decrease levels of carbon dioxide released by looking to new technologies and alternative energy sources. But because the changes in climate are already occurring, the second step is finding ways to deal with the effects of global warming.

Geography is a discipline well suited to dealing with this debate because, as we have seen, one of the primary sets of issues it deals with is understanding nature-culture relationships. Figuring out to what degree, how, and why human activities interact with our physical environment is clearly the heart of what is being disputed here. As geographers, we also know that different cultures interact with the environment differently, and have varied beliefs and ideas about the role of science in explaining physical phenomena. How might these differences affect people’s conclusions about the causes and significance of global climate change? How are your ideas about global climate change impacted by your position within the world?

22

Figure 1.17 Terraced cultural landscape of an irrigated rice district in Yunnan Province, China. In such areas, the artificial landscape made by people overwhelms nature and forms a human mosaic on the land. Why is rice cultivated in such hilly areas in Asia, whereas in the United States rice farming is confined to flat plains? (Stone.)

reflecting our tastes, values, aspirations, and fears in tangible forms.” Cultural landscapes offer “texts” that geographers read to discover dominant ideas and prevailing practices within a culture, as well as less dominant and alternative forms within that culture. This “reading,” however, is often a very difficult task, given the complexity of cultures, cultural change, and recent globalizing trends that can obscure local histories (see Global Spotlight).

Reflecting on Geography As we will learn throughout this book, landscapes are often created from more than one set of cultural values and beliefs, oftentimes in conflict with each other. How then can we “read” conflict into the landscape, when it appears so natural and unified? What sort of information would we need?

Geographers have pushed the idea of “reading” the landscape further in order to focus on the symbolic and ide- ological qualities of landscape. In fact, as geographer Denis Cosgrove has suggested (see Practicing Geography on page 26), the very idea of landscape itself was ideological, in that its development in the Renaissance served the interests of the new elite class for whom agricultural land was valued not for its productivity but for its use as a visual subject. Land, in other words, was important to look at as a scene, and the actual workings that were necessary for agriculture were thus hidden from these views. If you go to an art museum, for example, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find in the Italian Renaissance room any landscape paintings that depict agricultural laborers (Figure 1.18).

Figure 1.18 Landscape triptych panel by Fra Angelico, fifteenth century. Notice the depiction of the beautiful and orderly agricultural landscape outside the city walls but the absence of people actually doing the work to maintain that order. Why aren’t the laborers depicted? (Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis.)

23

Figure 1.19 Yokohama at dusk. This skyline is a powerful symbol of the economic importance of the world’s largest city, Tokyo-Yokohama. What landscape form best symbolizes your town/city? (Jose Fuste Raga/Corbis.)

Closer to home, we need only to look outside our win- dows to see other symbolic and ideological landscapes. One of the most familiar and obvious symbolic landscapes is the urban skyline. Composed of tall buildings that normally house financial service industries, it represents the power and dominance of finance and economics within that cul- ture (Figure 1.19). However, other cities are dominated by tall structures that have little to do with economics but more with religion. In medieval Europe, for example, cathedrals and churches rose high above other buildings, symbolizing the centrality and dominance of Catholicism in this culture.

Even the most mundane landscape element can be interpreted as symbolic and ideological. The typical, middle-class, suburban, American or Canadian home, for example, can be interpreted as an expression of a dominant set of ideas about culture and family structure (Figure 1.20). These homes are often comprised of a liv- ing room, dining room, kitchen, and bedrooms, all sep- arated by walls. The cultural assumptions built into this division of space include the assumed value of individual privacy (everyone has his or her own bedroom); the idea that certain functions should be spatially separate from others (cooking, eating, socializing, sleeping); and the notion that a family is comprised of a mother, father, and

Figure 1.20 American ranch house. The horizontally expansive ranch is a common house form in the United States and Canada. Can you think of other countries where ranch houses are also common? (Courtesy of Brad Bays.)

children (indicated by the “master” bedroom and smaller “children’s” bedrooms). Thus, even the most common of landscapes can be seen as symbolic of a particular culture and built from ideological assumptions.

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT “Reading” Globalization in a Medieval Square Visitors to Warsaw in 2002 would no doubt have toured Market Square in the center of the city’s Old Town. Here, apparently surrounded by seventeenth- and eighteenth- century buildings, they could shop in market stalls and sit down for coffee at outdoor, umbrella-covered tables, basking in the feel of medieval history. “Reading” the landscape around them, however, would have been a difficult task. Some of the buildings were obscured, draped in large swaths of fabric displaying advertisements for mobile phones and fast food. Even if they could have seen the buildings, however, their readings would have been incomplete at best. Weren’t they sitting in an authentic late-medieval market square? Well, sort of. Almost all the buildings on the square had been destroyed by bombing in World War II. When the square was reconstructed in the 1950s, the government decided it should be rebuilt not as it was in 1939, but instead to resemble a “pure” mercantile square of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with no “modern” buildings included. So, in 2002, they were sitting in a square built in the 1950s to resemble what the government thought it looked like in late-medieval times—a newly remodeled version of a 1950s, socialist vision of the mercantile past. On top of this, its recent restoration had been funded by Western companies, which were now advertising their wares on the buildings. Here’s how design historian David Crowley describes it:

Warsaw today has the atmosphere of a city where commercial interests have the upper hand, even in those parts so strongly weighted with national meaning. International corporations wish to be seen as the patrons of Warsaw’s revival, drawing prestige by association with it traditional core. Citibank no doubt gained some prestige in the eyes of potential clients in the city when they sponsored the apparent reconstruction of the facade of the former Town Hall. In similar spirit, restoration work

on the Old Town and Royal Castle—sacred spaces in the city’s mythology—was funded in summer 2002 by Western European and North American corporations. In return for their gifts, they were given permission to drape colossal billboards across these buildings. The picturesque facades that make up the western and northern sides of the Old Town Square—the central attraction of the city to its small tourist trade—were almost obscured by spectacular inducements to buy shampoo and mobile phones. At the same time the southern elevation of the Royal Castle became a frame for a long advertisement for instant coffee.*

*Crowley, David. 2003. Warsaw. London: Reaktion Books.

Market Square in Warsaw. Most tourists dining in the outdoor cafés don’t realize that the historical buildings surrounding them were actually built in the 1950s, not the 1650s. Can you think of other examples of tourists being “fooled” by the apparent authenticity of buildings? (Carmen Redondo/Corbis.)

As we have seen, the physical content of the cultural landscape is both varied and complex. To better study and understand these complexities, geographical studies focus on three principal aspects of landscape: settlement forms, land-division patterns, and architectural styles. In the study of settlement forms, human geographers describe and explain the spatial arrangement of buildings, roads, and other features that people construct while inhabiting an area. One of the most basic ways in which geographers cat- egorize settlement forms is to examine their degree of nucleation, a term that refers to the relative density of land- scape elements. Urban centers are of course very nucle-

ated, whereas rural, farming areas tend to be much less nucleated, what geographers call dispersed. Another common way to think about settlement forms is the degree to which they appear standardized and planned, such as the grid form of much of the American West (Figure 1.21), ver- sus the degree to which the forms appear to be organic, that is, to have been built without any apparent geometric plan, such as the central areas of most European cities. Thinking about settlement forms in terms of these two basic categories helps geographers begin their analysis of the relationships between cultures and the landscapes they produce.

24 Chapter 1 Human Geography

Land-division patterns indicate the uses of particular parcels of land and as such reveal the way people have divided the land for economic, social, and political uses. Within a particular nucleated settlement form—a city, for

example—you can see different patterns of land use. Some areas are devoted to economic uses, others to residential, political (city hall, for example), social, and cultural uses. Each of these areas can be further divided. Economic uses can include offices for financial services, retail stores, ware- houses, and factories. Residential areas are often divided into middle-class, upper-class, and working-class districts and/or are grouped by ethnicity and race (see Chapter 11). Such patterns of course vary a great deal from place to place and culture to culture, as we will see throughout this book. One of the best ways to glimpse settlement and land-division pat- terns is through an airplane window. Looking down, you can see the multicolored abstract patterns of planted fields, as vivid as any modern painting, and the regular checkerboard or chaotic tangle of urban streets.

Perhaps no other aspect of the human landscape is as readily visible from ground level as the architectural style of a culture. Geographers look at the exterior materials and dec- oration, as well as the layout and design of the interiors. Styles tend to vary both through time, as cultures change, and across space, in the sense that different cultures adopt and invent their own stylistic detailing according to their own par- ticular needs, aesthetics, and desires. Thus, examining archi- tectural style is often useful when trying to date a particular landscape element or when trying to understand the partic- ular values and beliefs that cultures may hold. In North Amer- ican culture, different building styles catch the eye: modest white New England churches and giant urban cathedrals, hand-hewn barns and geodesic domes, wooden one-room schoolhouses and the new windowless school buildings of urban areas, shopping malls and glass office buildings. Each tells us something about the people who designed, built, or inhabit these spaces. Thus, architecture provides a vivid record of the resident culture (Figure 1.22). For this reason,

Themes in Human Geography 25

Figure 1.21 The town of Westmoreland in the Imperial Valley of California. It’s difficult to find a more regularized, geometric land pattern than this. Why do you think much of the American West was divided into these rectangles? (Jim Wark/Airphoto.)

Figure 1.22 Architecture as a reflection of culture. This log house, near Ottawa in Canada, is a folk dwelling and stands in sharp contrast to the professional architecture of the Toronto skyline. What conclusion might a perceptive person from another

culture reach (considering the “virtues” of height, durability, and centrality) about the ideology of the culture that produced the Toronto landscape? (Left: Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov; Right: Photodisc.)

26 Chapter 1 Human Geography

cultural geographers have traditionally devoted considerable attention to examining architecture and style in the cultural landscape.

Conclusion As we have seen and will continue to see, the interests of human geographers are diverse. It might seem to you, con- fronted by the various themes, subject matter, viewpoints, and methodologies described in this chapter, that geogra- phers run off in all directions, lacking unity of purpose. What does a geographer who studies architecture have in common with a colleague who studies the political and cul- tural causes of environmental degradation? What interests do an environmental perceptionist and a student of diffu- sion share? Why do scholars with such apparently different interests belong in the same academic discipline? Why are they all geographers?

The answer is that regardless of the particular topic the human geographer studies, she or he necessarily touches on several or all of the five themes we have discussed. The

themes are closely related segments of a whole. Spatial pat- terns in culture, as revealed by maps of regions, are reflected in and expressed through the cultural landscape, require an ecological interpretation, are the result of mobility, and are inextricably linked with globalization.

As an example of how the various themes of human geography overlap and intertwine, let us look at one ele- ment of architecture that most North Americans will be familiar with: the ranch-style, single-family house (see Fig- ure 1.20). This house type is defined by its one-story height and its linear form. These houses are found throughout much of the United States and to a lesser extent in Canada, though they are rare in other countries. They are obviously part of the cultural landscape, and their spatial distribution constitutes a formal region that can be mapped.

Geographers who study such houses also need to employ the other themes of human geography to gain a complete understanding. They can use the concept of dif- fusion to learn when and by what routes this building style emerged and diffused and what barriers hindered its diffu-

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Denis Cosgrove (1948—2008)

When cultural geographer Denis Cosgrove rode the bus through West Los Angeles on his way to work at UCLA, or when he took his Sunday walks through the greenspaces of London, as he did often in the summer months on his visits to his former hometown, he was “practicing”

geography. As he said, “the world/landscape around me is a primary source of questions . . . life is a field course.”

Cosgrove, who was the Humboldt Chair of Geography at UCLA and one of the most prominent cultural geographers in the English-speaking world, explored, through a series of scholarly articles and books (for some of these, see Ten Recommended Books on a Cultural Approach to Human Geography at the end of this chapter), the relationships between landscape and culture in Renaissance Italy, nineteenth-century England, and twentieth-century America. His fascination with these places and times, and his enthusiasm for the study of geography in general, began early, when he was a child in Liverpool, England. His walks were important then, too. “Being raised in a great port city where our Sunday walks were often along the docks, seeing great cargo ships with words like Montevideo and Cape Town and Lagos on their

sterns . . . and being given a globe at the age of eight and seeing dotted lines crossing the oceans to these same places with ‘Distance to Liverpool’ printed on these steamship routes . . . made me realize that I lived in a place that mattered on the globe.”

More recently, Cosgrove found himself working as much inside as out, often in archives, looking at historical documents and closely reading maps and other images that express relationships between particular cultures and their landscapes. For example, in one project Cosgrove explored how the development of aerial views in the twentieth century—both air photos and drawings—“was a uniquely appropriate way of making sense of the new landscapes emerging then in the American West.” To make this rather abstract idea more concrete, he focused his study on a particular person who was a newspaper artist in Los Angeles in the mid-twentieth century. Focusing on one person, he said, allowed him “to make contact with a life in the world with all its complexity and use it to make more general points about how geographies come about.” His approach was based more in the humanities than in the social sciences, interpretative instead of explanatory. And, above all, it involved “a great respect for the role of imagination (my own and others’) in the ways that we shape the world.”

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Geography on the Internet 27

sion. In this particular case, geographers would be led back to the early years of the twentieth century when the first suburban houses were built outside of urban centers. In this case, land was relatively inexpensive, allowing for a house type that occupied a wide expanse of space. What’s more, they would learn that a dominant design motif in the United States in the early twentieth century was based on the notion that buildings should fit in with their natural sur- roundings instead of dominate them. As a result, low-slung housing styles like the ranch house were particularly popu- lar. Further, the geographer would need an ecological interpretation of the ranch house. What materials were required to build such a house? Did the style vary in the dif- ferent climatic and ecological regions in which such houses were built? Finally, the human geographer would want to know how the use of ranch houses was related to globaliza- tion. Did economic changes in the world raise the standard of living, leading people to accept ranch houses? Did changes in technology lead to more elaborate houses? Why did it become the quintessential house type in post–World War II America, featured in many of its popular TV shows? Do these humble structures possess a symbolism related to traditional American values and virtues? Thus, the geogra- pher interested in housing is firmly bound by the total fab- ric of human geography, unable to segregate a particular topic such as ranch houses from the geographical whole. Region, cultural landscape, nature-culture relationships, mobility, and globalization are interwoven.

In this manner, the human geographer passes from one theme to another, demonstrating the holistic nature of the discipline. In no small measure, it is this holism—this broad, multithematic approach—that distinguishes the human geographer from other students of culture. We believe that, by the end of the course, you will have gained a new perspective on the Earth as the home of humankind.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

Space, Place, and Knowing Your Way Around We started this chapter by saying that most of us are born geographers, with a sense of and curiosity about the places and spaces around us. Think, for example, of the place you call home. You are probably familiar enough with its streets and buildings and greenspaces, and with the people who inhabit these spaces, to make connections among them— you know how to “read” the place. There are many other places, however, where this is not the case. Most of you have had the experience of going somewhere new, where it is difficult to find your way around, literally and metaphorically. Many of you, for example, are attending a college or university far from home, whereas others have experienced the disorienting feeling of moving from one

home to another, whether across town or across continents. How did you find your way? How did the “strange” space become a familiar place?

This activity requires you to draw on your own experiences to understand two fundamental concepts in human geography: space and place. Geographers tend to use the term space in a much more abstract way than place— as a term that describes a two-dimensional location on a map. Place, however, is a less dry term, one that is used to describe a location that has meaning. Your college campus, for example, may have been simply an abstract space located on a map when you applied to the school, yet now it is a place because you have filled it with your own meanings.

Drawing on your own experiences, pick one particular space that for you has become a place. First, identify what you knew about this space beforehand and how you knew this (for example, perhaps you looked up the place in an atlas or saw it in a movie). Second, in narrative form, describe the process whereby that space became a place for you. Third, identify in what ways you learned how to “read” this place. In other words, how did you learn to see this particular location as a three-dimensional, meaningful place that is different from what you knew of it as a “space”? Fourth, use your experiences to discuss the following questions: Do you have to live in a place to really “know” it? Must one experience a space for it to become a place?

Geography on the Internet You can learn more about the discipline of geography and the subdiscipline of human geography on the Internet at the follow- ing web sites:

American Geographical Society http://www.amergeog.org/ America’s oldest geographical organization, with a long and dis- tinguished record; publisher of the Geographical Review.

Association of American Geographers http://www.aag.org/ The leading organization of professional geographers in the United States. This site contains information about the discipline, the association, and its activities, including annual and regional meetings.

National Geographic Society http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ An organization that has, for more than a century, served to pop- ularize geography with active programs of publishing and televi- sion presentations prepared for the public.

28 Chapter 1 Human Geography

Royal Geographic Society/Institute of British Geographers http://www.rgs.org/ Explore the activities of these allied British organizations, whose collective history goes back to the Age of Exploration and Discov- ery in the 1800s . . . and don’t forget to visit The Human Mosaic Online at http://www.whfreeman.com/jordan/index.htm

Sources Anderson, Kay, and Fay Gale. 1999. Cultural Geographies. Mel-

bourne: Pearson Education. Blaut, James M. 1977. “Two Views of Diffusion.” Annals of the Asso-

ciation of American Geographers 67: 343–349. Carson, Rachel. 1962. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Gould, Peter. 1993. The Slow Plague: A Geography of the AIDS Pan-

demic. Cambridge: Blackwell.

Griffin, Ernst, and Larry Ford. 1980. “A Model of Latin American City Structure.” Geographical Review 70: 397–422.

Hägerstrand, Torsten. 1967. Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process. Allan Pred (trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lewis, Peirce. 1983. “Learning from Looking: Geographic and Other Writing About the American Cultural Landscape.” Amer- ican Quarterly 35: 242–261.

Norwine, Jim, and Thomas D. Anderson. 1980. Geography as Human Ecology? Lanham, Md.: University Press of America.

Ormrod, Richard K. 1990. “Local Context and Innovation Diffu- sion in a Well-Connected World.” Economic Geography 66: 109–122.

Relph, Edward. 1981. Rational Landscapes and Humanistic Geogra- phy. New York: Barnes & Noble.

Staudt, Amanda, Nancy Huddleston, and Sandi Rudenstein. 2006. Understanding and Responding to Climate Change, a Report Pre- pared by the National Research Council based on National Academies’ Reports. Washington, D.C., National Academy of Science.

SEEING GEOGRAPHY Aboriginal Topographical Painting of Arnhem Land

Why is it difficult for most of us to interpret this image as a map?

As the title indicates, this is an Aboriginal painting that depicts a portion of Arnhem Land, which is located in the northeast corner of the Northern Territory, Australia. Like all maps, it is a two-dimensional rendering of three- dimensional space. In other words, it is an attempt to represent land and location on a flat surface. All cultures devise certain symbols that allow for these representations to be understood. On United States Geological Survey (USGS) maps, for example, a standardized set of symbols represent such things as roads, rivers, and cities. Similarly,

this map is filled with symbols that represent such features as watering holes (the circular figures) and community sites (the curved figures).

As we’ve learned throughout this chapter, different cultures create and experience landscapes differently. Here we can see that different cultures also represent their landscapes differently. This image is part of a long tradition of Australian Aboriginal topographic representations that reflect their particular culture and their views of the lands they occupy. In general, these representations are religious in nature, depicting myths about the sites and travels of ancestors. Most of these myths concern a spiritual identification between people and their lands. Hence, these maplike representations are not meant as objective measurements of land, as in degrees of longitude and latitude, or miles and kilometers. Instead, they communicate meanings about the sacred relationships between people and their physical environments.

To most Western eyes, then, these images do not look like maps because we neither recognize the symbols that Aboriginal peoples use to translate three-dimensional spaces into two dimensions nor think of maps as meaningful in and of themselves. Most likely, Western maps would look very odd to Aboriginal eyes. One of the goals of studying human geography, as we will see throughout this book, is to appreciate this diversity—this mosaic—of relationships between peoples and the places they inhabit, shape, and represent.

Aboriginal painting of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia.

Journals in Human Geography 29

Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1974. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Warren, Karen J. (ed.). 1997. Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Ten Recommended Books on a Cultural Approach to Human Geography (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Anderson, Kay, Mona Domosh, Steve Pile, and Nigel Thrift (eds.). 2003. Handbook of Cultural Geography. London: Sage Publica- tions. An edited collection of essays that push the boundaries of cultural geography into such subdisciplines as economic, social, and political geography.

Blunt, Alison, Pyrs Gruffudd, Jon May, Miles Ogborn, and David Pinder (eds.). 2003. Cultural Geography in Practice. London: Arnold Publishing. An edited collection of essays that take a very practical view of what it mean to actually conduct research in the field of cultural geography.

Cosgrove, Denis. 1998. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. The landmark study that outlines the relationships between the idea of landscape and social and class formation in such places as Italy, England, and the United States.

Cosgrove, Denis, and Stephen Daniels (eds.). 1990. The Iconogra- phy of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. An important collection of essays that foregrounds an ideological reading of landscape.

Foote, Kenneth E., Peter J. Hugill, Kent Mathewson, and Jonathan M. Smith (eds.). 1994. Re-Reading Cultural Geography. Austin: University of Texas Press. A beautifully compiled representative collection of some of the best works in American cultural geog- raphy at the end of the twentieth century, and a useful com- panion to the book edited by Wagner and Mikesell.

Goudie, Andrew. 2000. The Earth Transformed: An Introduction to Human Impacts on the Environment, 5th ed. Cambridge, Mass.:

MIT Press. A fine introduction to the theme of cultural ecology—in particular, habitat modification—as viewed by a British geographer.

Mitchell, Don. 1999. Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction. New York: Blackwell. An introductory text on cultural geography that emphasizes the material and political elements of the discipline.

Radcliffe, Sarah (ed.). 2006. Culture and Development in a Globaliz- ing World: Geographies, Actors, and Paradigms. London: Rout- ledge. A series of essays that provides case studies from around the world showing the various ways that culture and economic development are integrally related.

Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1974. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. A Chinese-born geographer’s innovative and imaginative look at people’s attachment to place, a central concern of the cultural approach to human geography.

Wagner, Philip L., and Marvin W. Mikesell (eds). 1962. Readings in Cultural Geography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. A classic collection, edited by two distinguished Berkeley-trained cultural geographers, presenting the subdiscipline as it was in the mid-twentieth century and developing the device of five themes.

Journals in Human Geography Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Volume 1 was pub-

lished in 1911. The leading scholarly journal of American geographers.

Cultural Geographies (formerly known as Ecumene). Volume I was published in 1994.

Journal of Cultural Geography. Published semiannually by the Department of Geography, Oklahoma State University, Stillwa- ter, Okla. Volume 1 was published in 1980.

Progress in Human Geography. A quarterly journal providing critical appraisal of developments and trends in the discipline. Vol- ume 1 was published in 1977.

Social and Cultural Geography. Volume 1 was published in 2000 by Routledge, Taylor, & Francis Ltd. in Great Britain.

What makes one father-daughter pair so very different from the other?

2 Many Worlds

Geographies of Cultural Difference

31

No matter where we live, if you look carefully you will be reminded constantlyof how important the expression of cultural identity is to people’s daily lives.The geography of cultural difference is evident everywhere—not only the in the geographic distribution of different cultures but also in the way that difference is created or reinforced by geography. For example, in the United States, the history of legally enforced spatial segregation of “whites” and “blacks” has been important in establishing and maintaining cultural differences between these groups.

In Chapter 1 we noted that human geographers are interested in studying the geographic expression of difference both among and within cultures. For example, using the concept of formal region, we can identify and map differences among cul- tures. This sort of analysis is usually done on a very large geographic scale such as a continent or even the entire world. But geographers are also interested in analyses at smaller scales. When we look closer at a formal culture region, we begin to see that differences appear along racial, ethnic, gender, and other lines of distinction. Sometimes groups within a dominant culture become distinctive enough that we label them subcultures. These can be the result of resistance to the dominant cul- ture or they can be the result of a distinct religious, ethnic, or national group form- ing an enclave community within a larger culture.

In this chapter, we are going to explore the geographies of cultural difference using three broad categories of classification: folk, popular, and indigenous cultures. Popular culture, as we will see, is synonymous with mass culture and so, by defini- tion, is the dominant form of cultural expression. Folk and indigenous are, to a large degree, distinguished in relation to popular culture. The term difference implies a relationship and a set of criteria for comparison and assessment. That is, cultures are defined relationally.

Two American father-daughter couples. (Left: Richard T. Nowitz/Corbis; Right: Rob Gage/FPG International.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 63 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

But what does it mean to speak of “geographies” in the plural? Isn’t there only one “geography”? The plural form emphasizes that there is no single way of seeing the land and the landscape. Recall from Chapter 1 our discussion on the concept of subjective experience in the sense of place, which emphasizes the multiplicity of meanings versus a single, universally shared meaning. Cultural geography studies have shown, for example, that women and men often experience the same places in different ways. A certain street corner or tavern might be a comfortable and famil- iar hangout for men but a threatening or uncomfortable zone that women avoid. To speak of geographies, then, is to go beyond the idea of a single, objectively

32 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

Québec French

Acadian French

Yankee

Upper Canadian

Pennsylvanian

Upland Southern

Mexican

Highland Hispanic

Mormon

Mountain Western

African-American

Plains Ranch

Ukrainian

Figure 2.1 Folk cultural survival regions of the United States and southern Canada. All are now in decay and retreat, and no true folk cultures survive in North America.

plural form. Specifically, they began thinking about “Euro- pean culture” in relation to other cultures around the world. As Europe industrialized and urbanized in the nine- teenth century, a new term was invented, folk culture, to distinguish traditional ways of life in rural spaces from new, urban, industrial ones. Thus, folk culture was defined and made sense only in relation to an urban, industrialized cul- ture. Urban dwellers began to think—in increasingly romantic and nostalgic terms—of rural spaces as inhabited by distinct folk cultures.

The word folk describes a rural people who live in an old-fashioned way—a people holding onto a lifestyle less influenced by modern technology. Folk cultures are rural, cohesive, largely self-sufficient groups that are homoge- neous in custom and ethnicity. In terms of nonmaterial cul- ture, folk cultures typically have strong family or clan structures and highly localized rituals. Order is maintained through sanctions based in religion or the family, and inter- personal relationships are strong. In material cultural terms, most goods are handmade, and a subsistence econ- omy prevails. Individualism is generally weakly developed in folk cultures, as are social classes.

In the poorer countries of the underdeveloped world, some aspects of folk culture still exist, though few if any peoples have been left untouched by the forces of global- ization. In industrialized countries, such as the United States and Canada, unaltered folk cultures no longer exist, though many remnants can be found (Figure 2.1).

observable world and raise new questions about the differ- ent meanings that people give to places and landscapes; how these relate to their sense of self and belonging; and how, in multicultural societies, we deal with these different meanings politically and socially. As we explore folk, indige- nous, and popular cultures in this chapter, we need to keep in mind the multiple subjectivities that operate both within and among cultures.

Many Cultures Cultures are classified using many different criteria. The concept of culture includes both material and nonmaterial elements. Material culture includes all objects or “things” made and used by members of a cultural group: buildings, furniture, clothing, artwork, musical instruments, and other physical objects. The elements of material culture are visible. Nonmaterial culture includes the wide range of beliefs, values, myths, and symbolic meanings that are trans- mitted across generations of a given society. Cultures may be categorized and geographically located using criteria based on either or both of these features.

Let’s explore how these criteria are used to identify, cat- egorize, and graphically delineate cultures. According to literary critic and cultural theorist Raymond Williams, cul- ture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language. In the late eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries, people began to speak of “cultures” in the

Many Cultures 33

Folk geography, a term coined by Eugene Wilhelm, may be defined as the study of the spatial patterns and ecology of these traditional groups.

Popular culture, by contrast, is generated from and concentrated mainly in urban areas (Figure 2.2). Popular material goods are mass-produced by machines in facto- ries, and a cash economy, rather than barter or subsis- tence, dominates. Relationships among individuals are more numerous but less personal than in folk cultures, and the family structure is weaker. Mass media such as film, print, television, radio, and, increasingly, the Inter- net are more influential in shaping popular culture. Peo- ple are more mobile, less attached to place and environment. Secular institutions of authority—such as the police, army, and courts—take the place of family and church in maintaining order. Individualism is strongly developed.

Another major category is indigenous culture. A sim- ple definition of indigenous is “native” or “of native origin.” In the modern world of sovereign nation-states, the word has acquired much greater cultural and political mean-

ings. In fact, the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 (Article 1.1) presents a legal definition that recognizes indigenous peoples as comprising a distinct culture. According to the ILO, indigenous peoples are self-identified tribal peoples whose social, cultural, and economic conditions distin- guish them from the national society of their host state. Indigenous peoples are regarded as descending from peo- ples present in the state territory at the time of conquest or colonization. Although they may share some of the material and nonmaterial characteristics of folk cultures, their histories (and geographies) are quite distinct. Indige- nous cultures are, in effect, those peoples who were colo- nized—mostly, but not exclusively—by European cultures and are now minorities in their homelands. This definition is applied globally, suggesting that indigenous cultures worldwide share common traits and face similar perils and opportunities. The United Nations helped focus global attention on indigenous cultures when it declared 1995–2004 to be the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People.

Figure 2.2 Popular culture is reflected in every aspect of life, from the clothes we wear to the recreational activities that occupy our leisure time. (Left: Scott Olson/Getty Images; Right: Mikhael Subotzky/Corbis.)

34 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

In most cases, folk and indigenous cultures can be thought of as subcultures in relation to a dominant popu- lar culture. In reality, none of these categories is homoge- neous. We can use our five themes—region, mobility, globalization, nature-culture, and cultural landscape—to study geographies of cultural difference.

Region How do cultures vary geographically? Some cultures exhibit major material and nonmaterial variations from place to place with minor variations over time. Others dis- play less difference from region to region but change rapidly over time. For this reason, the theme of culture region is particularly well suited to the study of cultural dif- ference. Formal culture regions can be delineated on the basis of both material and nonmaterial elements.

Material Folk Culture Regions Although folk culture has largely vanished from the United States and Canada, vestiges remain in various areas of both countries. Figure 2.1 shows culture regions in which the material artifacts of 13 different North American folk cul- tures survive in some abundance, but even these artifacts

Figure 2.3 A multilevel barn with projecting “forebay,” central Pennsylvania. Every folk culture region possesses distinctive forms of traditional architecture. Of Swiss origin, the forebay barn is one of the main identifying material traits of the Pennsylvanian folk culture region. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 2.4 A “scraped-earth” folk graveyard in east Texas. The laborious removal of all grass from such cemeteries is an African- derived custom. Long ago, this practice diffused from the African-American folk culture region to Euro-Americans in the southern coastal plain of the United States to become simply a “southern” custom. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

are disappearing. Each region possesses many distinctive relics of material culture.

For example, the strongly Germanic Pennsylvanian folk culture region features an unusual Swiss-German type of barn, distinguished by an overhanging upper-level “forebay” on one side (Figure 2.3). In contrast, barns are usually attached to the rear of houses in the Yankee folk region, which is also distinguished by an elaborate traditional grave- stone art, featuring “winged death heads.” The Upland South is noted in part for the abundance of a variety of distinctive house types built using notched-log construction. The African-American folk region displays such features as the “scraped-earth” cemetery, from which all grass is laboriously removed to expose the bare ground (Figure 2.4); the banjo, an instrument of African origin; and head kerchiefs worn by women. Grist windmills with sturdy stone towers and pétanque, a bowling game played with small metal balls, among other traits characterize the Québec French folk region. The Mormon folk culture is identifiable by distinctive hay derricks and clustered farm villages conforming to a checkerboard street pattern. The western plains ranch folk culture produced such material items as the “beef wheel,” a windlass used during butchering (Figure 2.5). These exam- ples of material artifacts are only a few of the many that sur- vive from various folk regions.

Region 35

Figure 2.5 “Beef wheel” in the ranching country of the Harney Basin in central Oregon. This windlass device hoists the carcass of a slaughtered animal to facilitate butchering. Derived, as was much of the local ranching culture, from Hispanic Californians, the beef wheel represents the folk material culture of ranching. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 2.6 Placelessness exemplified: scenes almost anywhere, developed world. Guess where these three photos on the right were taken. The answers are provided at the end of the chapter. (See also Curtis, 1982. Photos, from top to bottom: Donald Dietz/Stock Boston, Inc.; David Frazier/Photo Researchers; Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Is Popular Culture Placeless? Superficially at least, popular culture varies less from place to place than does folk culture. In fact, Canadian geogra- pher Edward Relph goes so far as to propose that popular culture produces a profound placelessness, a spatial stan- dardization that diminishes regional variety and demeans the human spirit. Others observe that one place seems pretty much like another, each robbed of its unique character by the pervasive influence of a continental or even worldwide popular culture (Figure 2.6). When com- pared with regions and places produced by folk culture, rich in their uniqueness (Figure 2.7), the geographical face of popular culture often seems expressionless. The greater

36 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

mobility of people in popular culture weakens attachments to place and compounds the problem of placelessness. Moreover, the spread of McDon- ald’s, Levi’s, CNN, shopping malls, and much else further adds to the sense of placelessness.

But is popular culture truly regionless and place- less? Many cultural geographers are more cautious about making such a sweeping generalization. The geographer Michael Weiss, for example, argues in his book The Clustering of America that “American society has become increasingly fragmented” and identifies 40 “lifestyle clusters” based on postal zip codes. “Those five digits can indicate the kinds of magazines you read, the meals you serve at dinner,” and what politi- cal party you support. “Tell me someone’s zip code and I can predict what they eat, drink, drive—even think.” The lifestyle clusters, each of which is a formal culture region, bear Weiss’s colorful names—such as “Gray Power” (upper-middle-class retirement areas), “Old Yankee Rows” (older ethnic neighborhoods of the Northeast), and “Norma Rae–Ville” (lower- and middle-class southern mill towns, named for the Sally Field movie about the tribulations of a union orga- nizer in a textile manufacturing town) (Figure 2.8).

Figure 2.7 Retaining a sense of place: a hill town in Cappadocia Province, Turkey. This town, produced by a folk culture, exhibits striking individuality. How can you tell that this is not a popular culture landscape? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

”Gray Power”

”Old Yankee Rows”

”Norma Rae–Ville”

Figure 2.8 Three examples of the 40 lifestyle clusters in U.S. popular culture. Patterns of consumption within popular culture shift regionally, resulting in “lifestyle clusters.” For a description of each lifestyle, see the text. Are these regions accurately described? What would you change?

Region 37

Old Yankee Rowers, for example, typically have high school educations, enjoy bowling and ice hockey, and are three times as likely as the average American to live in row houses or duplexes. Residents of Norma Rae–Ville are mostly nonunion factory workers, have trouble earning a living, and consume twice as much canned stew as the national average. In short, a whole panoply of popular subcultures exist in America and the world at large, each possessing its own belief system, spokespeople, dress code, and lifestyle.

Reflecting on Geography Do you live in a “placeless” place, in “nowhere U.S.A.”? If not, how is a distinctive regional form of popular culture reflected in your region?

Popular Food and Drink A persistent formal regionalization of popular culture is vividly revealed by what foods and beverages are consumed, which varies markedly from one part of a country to another and throughout different parts of the world. The highest per capita levels of U.S. beer consumption occur in the West, with the notable exception of Mormon Utah. Whiskey made from corn, manufactured both legally and

illegally, has been a traditional southern alcoholic bever- age, whereas wine is more common in California.

Foods consumed by members of the North American popular culture also vary from place to place. In the South, grits, barbecued pork and beef, fried chicken, and hamburg- ers are far more popular than elsewhere in the United States, whereas more pizza and submarine sandwiches are consumed in the North, the destination for many Italian immigrants.

The spread of global brands such as Coca-Cola and Ken- tucky Fried Chicken would seem to indicate increasing homogenization of food and beverage consumption. Yet many studies show that such brands have different meanings in dif- ferent places around the world. Coca-Cola may represent modernization and progress in one place and foreign domi- nation in another. Sometimes multinational corporations have to change their foods and beverages to suit local cultural preferences. For example, in Mumbai, India, McDonald’s has had to add local-style sauces to its menus. Rather than a sim- ple one-way process of “Americanizing” Indian food prefer- ences, local consumers are “Indianizing” McDonald’s.

Fast food might seem to epitomize popular culture, yet its importance varies greatly even within the United States (Figure 2.9). The stronghold of the fast-food industry is the American South; the Northeast has the fewest fast-food

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Figure 2.9 Fast-food sales as a share of total restaurant sales, by state, 1997. What does this illustration suggest about the claim that regional cultures in America are collapsing into a national culture? (From Restaurant Business. See also Roark, 1985.)

38 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

restaurants. Such differences undermine the geographical uniformity or placelessness supposedly created by popular culture. Music provides another example.

Popular Music Popular culture has spawned many different styles of music, all of which reveal geographical patterns in levels of accep- tance. Elvis Presley epitomized both popular music and the associated cult of personality. Even today, a generation after his death, he retains an important place in American pop- ular culture.

Elvis also illustrates the vivid geography of that culture. In the sale of Presley memorabilia, the nation reveals a split

personality. The main hotbeds of Elvis worship lie in the eastern states, whereas the King of Rock and Roll is largely forgotten out West. Although it raises more questions than it answers, Figure 2.10 leaves no doubt that popular culture varies regionally.

Indigenous Culture Regions Concentrations of indigenous peoples are generally in areas with few roads or modern communications systems, such as mountainous areas, vast arid and semiarid regions, or large expanses of forest or wetlands. These concentrations consti- tute indigenous culture regions. Worldwide, large concentra- tions of indigenous populations exist outside of the strong

Highest: “The King lives!“

Propensity of Households to Purchase Elvis Memorabilia, Ranked in Quintiles

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Figure 2.10 Purchases of Elvis Presley memorabilia, 1990s. The hotbeds of Elvis adoration lie mainly in the eastern United States, whereas most westerners can take him or leave him. What cultural factors might underlie this “fault line” in the geography of popular culture?(Redrawn, based on data collected by Bob Lunn of DICI, Bellaire, Texas, and published by Edmonson and Jacobson, 1993.)

Region 39

influence of national cultures and the effective control of gov- ernments located in faraway capital cities. National control by a central government is often weakened by minimal infrastruc- ture, rough topography, or harsh environmental conditions.

The so-called Hill Tribes of South Asia are a good exam- ple. Mountain ranges, including the Chittagong Hills, the Assam Hills, and the Himalayas, surround the fertile valleys and deltas around which the ancient South Asian Hindu and Islamic civilizations were centered. Various indigenous peoples occupy these highland regions, which are remote from the lowland centers of authority and culturally distinct from them (Figure 2.11). A series of indigenous culture regions ringing the valleys of South Asia thus exists, occu- pied by what the British colonial authorities referred to as Hill Tribes. Most of these peoples practice some version of swidden agriculture, which involves multiyear cycles of for- est clearing, planting, and fallowing (see Chapter 8). Most hold Christian or animist beliefs and speak languages dis- tinct from those spoken in the lowlands. A similar pattern of highland indigenous culture regions can also be identified in the countries of Southeast Asia, such as Myanmar and Thailand, where indigenous peoples such as the Shan and Karen have populations in the millions.

Indigenous culture regions also persist in Central and South America. There is a distinct Mayan culture region that encompasses parts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Hon- duras (Figure 2.12). Concentrations of Mayan speakers are

Figure 2.11 A Murong tribesman with his children in the indigenous culture region of Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts. (Shehzad Noorani/Peter Arnold.)

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Figure 2.12 The Mayan culture region in Middle America. The ancient Mayan Empire collapsed centuries ago, but its Mayan-speaking descendents continue to occupy the region today. In many cases Mayan communities, after centuries of political and economic marginalization, are today actively struggling to have their land rights recognized by their respective governments.

40 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

mental maps of the people. Such regions vary greatly in size, from small districts covering only part of a city or town to huge, multistate areas. Like most other geograph- ical regions, they often overlap and usually have poorly defined borders.

Almost every part of the industrialized Western world offers examples of vernacular regions based in the popular culture. Figure 2.14 shows some sizable vernacular regions in North America. Geographer Wilbur Zelinsky compiled these regions by determining the most common name for businesses appearing in the white pages of urban telephone directories. One curious feature of the map is the sizable, populous district—in New York, Ontario, eastern Ohio, and western Pennsylvania—where no regional affiliation is perceived. Using a different source of information, geogra- pher Joseph Brownell sought to delimit the popular “Mid- west” in 1960 (Figure 2.15). He sent out questionnaires to postal employees in the midsection of the United States, from the Appalachians to the Rockies, asking each whether, in his or her opinion, the community lay in the “Midwest.” The results identified a vernacular region in which the res- idents considered themselves midwesterners. A similar sur- vey done 20 years later, using student respondents, revealed a core-periphery pattern for the Midwest (see Figure 2.15). As befits an element of popular culture, the vernacular region is often perpetuated by the mass media, especially radio and television.

Mobility Do elements of folk culture spread through geographical space differently from those of popular culture? Whereas folk culture spreads by the same models and processes of dif- fusion as popular culture, diffusion operates more slowly within a folk setting. The relative conservatism of such cul- tures produces a resistance to change. The Amish, for exam- ple, as one of the few surviving folk cultures, are distinctive today simply because they reject innovations that they believe to be inappropriate for their way of life and values.

Diffusion in Popular Culture Before the advent of modern transportation and mass com- munications, innovations usually required thousands of years to complete their areal spread, and even as recently as the early nineteenth century the time span was still mea- sured in decades. In regard to popular culture, modern transportation and communications networks now permit cultural diffusion to occur within weeks or even days. The propensity for change makes diffusion extremely impor- tant in popular culture. The availability of devices permit- ting rapid diffusion enhances the chance for change in popular culture.

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Figure 2.13 The indigenous culture region of the Andes, including Quechua- and Aymara-speaking peoples. This is the core of the ancient Inca Empire, where today many of the indigenous peoples speak their mother language rather than Spanish. (Adapted from de Blij and Muller, 2004.)

especially common in rugged highlands and tropical forests. In South America, another concentration of indigenous peo- ples exists in sections of the Andes Mountains. This area con- stituted the geographic core of the Inca civilization, which thrived between A.D. 1300 and 1533 and incorporated several major linguistic groups under its rule. Today, up to 55 per- cent of the national populations of Andean countries, such as Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, are indigenous. On the slopes and in the high valleys of the Andes, Quechua and Aymara speakers constitute an overwhelming majority, signifying an indigenous culture region (Figure 2.13).

Vernacular Culture Regions A vernacular culture region is the product of the spatial perception of the population at large—a composite of the

Mobility 41

Hierarchical diffusion often plays a greater role in pop- ular culture than in folk culture or indigenous culture because popular society, unlike folk culture, is highly strat- ified by socioeconomic class. For example, the spread of McDonald’s restaurants—beginning in 1955 in the United

States and, later, internationally—occurred hierarchically for the most part, revealing a bias in favor of larger urban mar- kets (Figure 2.16). Further facilitating the diffusion of pop- ular culture is the fact that time-distance decay is weaker in such regions, largely because of the reach of mass media.

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Figure 2.14 Some vernacular regions in North America. Cultural geographer Wilbur Zelinsky mapped these regions on the basis of business names in the white pages of metropolitan telephone

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directories. Why are names containing “West” more widespread than those containing “East”? What might account for the areas where no region name is perceived? (Adapted from Zelinsky, 1980a: 14.)

42 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

Sometimes, however, diffusion in popular culture works differently, as a study of Wal-Mart revealed. Geographers Thomas Graff and Dub Ashton concluded that Wal-Mart ini- tially diffused from its Arkansas base in a largely contagious pattern, reaching first into other parts of Arkansas and neigh- boring states. Simultaneously, as often happens in the spatial spread of culture, another pattern of diffusion was at work, one Graff and Ashton called reverse hierarchical diffusion. Wal-Mart initially located its stores in smaller towns and mar- kets, only later spreading into cities—the precise reverse of the way hierarchical diffusion normally works. This combina- tion of contagious and reverse hierarchical diffusion led Wal- Mart to become the nation’s largest retailer in only 30 years.

Advertising The most effective device for diffusion in popular culture, as Zelinsky suggests, confronts us almost every day of our lives. Commercial advertising of retail products and ser- vices bombards our eyes and ears, with great effect. Using

the techniques of social science, especially psychology, advertisers have learned how to sell us products we do not need. The skill with which advertising firms prepare com- mercials often determines the success or failure of a prod- uct. In short, popular culture is equipped with the most potent devices and techniques of diffusion ever devised.

Commercial advertising is limited in its capacity to overcome all spatial and cultural barriers to homogeniza- tion. Cases from international advertising are illustrative. When England-based Cadbury decided to market its line of chocolates and confectionaries in China, the company was forced to change its advertising strategy. Unlike much of Europe and North America, China had no culture of impulse buying and no tradition of self-service. Cadbury had to change the names of its products, eschew mass mar- keting, focus on a small group of high-end consumers, and even change product content.

Place of product origin is also extremely important in trying to advertise and market internationally. Sometimes place helps sell a product—think of New Zealand wool or Italian olive oil—and sometimes it is a hindrance to sales. There are many examples of products having negative asso- ciations among consumers because the country of origin has a tarnished international reputation. A good example is South Africa’s advertising efforts during the era of apartheid when consumer boycotts of the country’s prod- ucts were common. South African industries had to sup- press references to country of origin in their advertising in order to market their product internationally.

Communications Barriers Although the communications media create the potential for almost instant diffusion over very large areas, this can be greatly retarded if access to the media is denied or lim- ited. Billboard, a magazine devoted largely to popular music, described one such barrier. A record company executive complained that radio stations and disk jockeys refused to play “punk rock” records, thereby denying the style an equal opportunity for exposure. He claimed that punk devotees were concentrated in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and London, where many young people had found the style reflective of their feelings and frustrations. With- out access to radio stations, punk rock could diffuse from these centers only through live concerts and the record sales they generated. The publishers of Billboard noted that “punk rock is but one of a number of musical forms which initially had problems breaking through nationally out of regional footholds,” for Pachanga, ska, pop/gospel, “women’s music,” reggae, and “gangsta rap” experienced similar difficulties. Similarly, Time Warner, a major distrib- utor of gangsta rap music, endured scathing criticism from the U.S. Congress in 1995 because of potentially offensive

Figure 2.16 Another McDonald’s opens in Moscow. McDonald’s, which first spread to Moscow in about 1987, has always preferred hierarchical diffusion. Of all McDonald’s outlets worldwide today, about 45 percent are located in foreign countries, almost always in large cities. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Mobility 43

or deleterious aspects of this genre. This eventually led the company to sell the subsidiary label that recorded this form of rap. To control the programming of radio and television, or media distribution generally, is to control much of the diffusionary apparatus in popular culture. The diffusion of innovations ultimately depends on the flow of information.

Government censorship, as opposed to mere criticism, also creates barriers to diffusion, though of varying degrees of effectiveness. In 1995, the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran, opposed to what it perceived as the corrupting influences of Western popular culture, outlawed television satellite dishes in an attempt to prevent citizens from watch- ing programs broadcast in foreign countries. The Taliban government of Afghanistan went even further, banning all television sets. Control of the media can greatly control people’s tastes in, preferences in, and ideas about popular culture. Even so, repressive regimes must cope with a pro- liferation of communication methods, including fax machines and the Internet. So pervasive has cultural diffu- sion become that the insular, isolated status of nations is probably no longer attainable for very long, even under totalitarian conditions.

Although newspapers are potent agents of diffusion in popular culture, they also act as selective barriers, often reinforcing the effect of political boundaries. For example, between 20 and 50 percent of all news published in Cana- dian newspapers is of foreign origin, whereas only about 12

percent of all news appearing in U.S. papers comes from foreign areas. This pattern suggests that newspaper readers living within U.S. borders are less exposed to world events than those within Canada’s.

Reflecting on Geography Because Canadian newspapers devote so much more coverage to international stories than U.S. newspapers, are Americans more provincial than Canadians as a result?

Diffusion of the Rodeo Barriers of one kind or another usually weaken the diffu- sion of elements of popular culture before they become ubiquitous. The rodeo provides an example. Rooted in the ranching folk culture of the American West, it has never completely escaped that setting (Figure 2.17).

Like so many elements of popular culture, the modern rodeo had its origins in folk tradition. Taking their name from the Spanish rodear, “to round up,” rodeos began sim- ply as roundups of cattle in the Spanish livestock ranching system in northern Mexico and the American Southwest. Anglo-Americans adopted Mexican cowboy skills in the nineteenth century, and cowboys from adjacent ranches began to hold contests at roundup time. Eventually, some cowboy contests on the Great Plains became formalized, with prizes awarded.

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Figure 2.17 Origin and diffusion of the American commercial rodeo. Derived originally from folk culture, rodeos evolved through formal cowboy contests and Wild West shows to emerge, in the late 1880s and 1890s, in their present popular culture form. The border between the United States and Canada proved no barrier

to the diffusion, although Canadian rodeo, like Canadian football, differs in some respects from the U.S. type. What barriers might the diffusion have encountered?(Sources: Frederickson, 1984; Pillsbury, 1990b.)

44 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

The transition to commercial rodeo, with admission tickets and grandstands, came quickly as an outgrowth of the formal cowboy contests. One such affair, at North Platte, Nebraska, in 1882, led to the inclusion of some rodeo events in a Wild West show at Omaha in 1883. These shows, which moved by railroad from town to town in the manner of circuses, were probably the most potent agent of early rodeo diffusion. Within a decade of the Omaha event, commercial rodeos were being held independently of Wild West shows in several towns, such as Prescott, Arizona. Spreading rapidly, commercial rodeos had appeared throughout much of the West and parts of Canada by the early 1900s. At Cheyenne, Wyoming, the famous Frontier Days rodeo was first held in 1897. By World War I, the rodeo had also become an institution in the provinces of western Canada, where the Calgary Stampede began in 1912.

Today, rodeos are held in 36 states and three Canadian provinces. The state of Oklahoma’s annual calendar of events lists no fewer than 98 scheduled rodeos. Rodeos have received the greatest acceptance in the popular cul- ture found west of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers (see Figure 2.17). Absorbing and permeable barriers to the dif- fusion of commercial rodeo were encountered at the

border of Mexico, south of which bullfighting occupies a dominant position, and in the Mormon culture region cen- tered in Utah.

Blowguns: Diffusion or Independent Invention? Often the path of past diffusion of an item of material cul- ture is not clearly known or understood, presenting geog- raphers with a problem of interpretation. The blowgun is a good example. A hunting tool of many indigenous peoples, it is a long, hollow tube through which a projectile is blown by the force of one’s breath. Geographer Stephen Jett mapped the distribution of blowguns, which he discovered were used in societies in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, all the way from the island of Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa, to the Amazon rain forests of South America (Figure 2.18).

Indonesian peoples, probably on the island of Borneo, appear to have first invented the blowgun. It became their principal hunting weapon and diffused through much of the equatorial island belt of the Eastern Hemisphere. How, then, do we account for its presence among Native American groups in the Western Hemisphere? Was it independently

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Flat Polar Quartic equal area projection

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Continuous occurrence Isolated occurrence

Figure 2.18 Former distribution of the blowgun among Native Americans, South Asians, Africans, and Pacific Islanders. The blowgun occurred among folk cultures in two widely separated areas of the world. Was this the result of independent invention

or cultural diffusion? What kinds of data might one seek to answer this question? Compare and contrast the occurrence in the Indian and Pacific oceans’ lands to the distribution of the Austronesian languages (see Chapter 4). (Source: Jett, 1991: 92–93.)

Globalization 45

invented by Native Americans? Was it brought to the Ameri- cas by relocation diffusion in pre-Columbian times? Or did it spread to the New World only after the European discov- ery of America? We do not know the answers to these ques- tions, but the problem presented is one common to cultural geography, especially when studying the traditions of nonlit- erate cultures, which precludes the use of written records that might reveal such diffusion. Certain rules of thumb can be employed in any given situation to help resolve the issue. For example, if one or more nonfunctional features of blow- guns, such as a decorative motif or specific terminology, occurred in both South America and Indonesia, then the logical conclusion would be that cultural diffusion explained the distribution of blowguns.

Globalization Does globalization homogenize cultural difference? This is the crux of the issue for geographers and other social sci- entists. As we look for evidence in real world examples, we find that the answer is less than straightforward.

From Difference to Convergence Globalization is most directly and visibly at work in popular culture. Increased leisure time, instant communications, greater affluence for many people, heightened mobility, and weakened attachment to family and place—all attri- butes of popular culture—have the potential, through interaction, to cause massive spatial restructuring. Most social scientists long assumed that the result of such global- izing forces and trends, especially mobility and the elec- tronic media, would be the homogenization of culture, wherein the differences among places are reduced or elim- inated. This assumption is called the convergence hypothe- sis; that is, cultures are converging, or becoming more alike. In the geographical sense, this would yield placeless- ness, a concept discussed earlier in the chapter.

Impressive geographical evidence can be marshaled to support the convergence hypothesis. Wilbur Zelinsky, for example, compared the given names of people in various parts of the United States for the years 1790 and 1968 and found that a more pronounced regionalization existed in the eighteenth century than in the mid-twentieth century. The personal names that the present generation of parents bestows on children vary less from place to place than did those of our ancestors two centuries ago.

Difference Revitalized Globalization, we should remember, is an ongoing process or, more accurately, set of processes. It is incomplete and its outcome far from predetermined. Geographer Peter Jack- son is a strong proponent of the position that cultural dif-

ferences are not simply obliterated under the wave of glob- alization. For Jackson, globalization is best understood as a “site of struggle.” He means that cultural practices rooted in place shape the effects of globalization through resis- tance, transformation, and hybridization. In other words, globalization is not an all-powerful force. People in differ- ent places respond in different ways, rejecting outright some of what globalization brings while transforming and absorbing other aspects into local culture. Rather than one homogeneous globalized culture, Jackson sees multiple local consumption cultures.

Local consumption culture refers to the consumption practices and preferences—in food, clothing, music, and so on—formed in specific places and historical moments. These local consumption cultures often shape globalization and its effects. In some ways, globalization revitalizes local difference. That is, people reject or incorporate into their cultural practices the ideas and artifacts of globalization and in the process reassert place-based identities. The cases of international advertising discussed in the previous sec- tion will help illustrate.

Jackson suggests that the introduction of Cadbury’s chocolate into China is more than simply another sign of globalization. He argues that the case “demonstrates the resilience of local consumption cultures to which transna- tional corporations must adapt.” In cases where companies’ products are negatively associated with their place of origin, such as exports from apartheid South Africa, the global ambitions of multinational companies can be thwarted. “Local” circumstances thus can make a difference to the outcomes of globalization.

Local resistance to globalization often takes the form of consumer nationalism. This is when local consumers avoid imported products and favor locally produced alter- natives. India and China, in particular, have a long history of resisting outside domination through boycotts of imported goods. Jackson discusses a recent case in China in which Chinese entrepreneurs invented a local alternative to Kentucky Fried Chicken called Ronhua Fried Chicken Company. The company uses what it claims are traditional Chinese herbs in its recipe, delivering a product more suit- able to Chinese cultural tastes.

Place Images The same media that serve and reflect the rise of personal preference—movies, television, photography, music, adver- tising, art, and others—often produce place images, a sub- ject studied by geographers Brian Godfrey and Leo Zonn, among others. Place, portrayer, and medium interact to produce the image, which, in turn, colors our perception of and beliefs about places and regions we have never vis- ited. The focus on place images highlights the role of the collective imagination in the formation and dissolution of

46 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

culture regions. It also explores the degree to which the image of a region fits the reality on the ground. That is, in imagining a region or place, oftentimes certain regional characteristics are stressed whereas others are ignored (see Subject to Debate).

The images may be inaccurate or misleading, but they nevertheless create a world in our minds that has an array of unique places and place meanings. Our decisions about tourism and migration can be influenced by these images. For example, through the media, Hawaii has become in the American mind a sort of earthly paradise peopled by scant- ily clad, eternally happy, invariably good-looking natives who live in a setting of unparalleled natural beauty and idyllic cli- mate. People have always formed images of faraway places. Through the interworkings of popular culture, these images proliferate and become more vivid, if not more accurate.

Nature-Culture How is nature related to cultural difference? Do different cultures and subcultures differ in their interactions with the physical environment? Are some cultures closer to nature than others? People who depend on the land for their

livelihoods—farmers, hunters, and ranchers, for example— tend to have a different view of nature from those who work in commerce and manufacturing in the city. Indeed, one of the main distinctions between folk culture and popular cul- ture is their differing relationships with nature.

Indigenous Ecology Many observers believe that indigenous peoples possess a very close relationship with and great deal of knowledge about their physical environment. In many cases, indige- nous cultures have developed sustainable land-use practices over generations of experimentation in a particular envi- ronmental setting. As a consequence, academics, journal- ists, and even corporate advertisers often portray indigenous peoples as defenders of endangered environ- ments, such as tropical rain forests. It was not always this way. Especially during the height of European colonialism, indigenous populations (then considered colonial sub- jects) were often accused of destroying the environment. The then-common belief that indigenous land-use prac- tices were destructive helped Europeans justify colonialism by claiming they were saving colonial subjects from them- selves. In hindsight, it is easy to see that this belief was

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Mobile Identities: Questions of Culture and Citizenship One of the most dynamic features of cultural difference in the world today is mobility. So-called diaspora communities have sprung up around the globe. Some of these communities have arisen quite recently and are historically unprecedented, such as the movement of Southeast Asians into U.S. cities in the late twentieth century. Some are artifacts of European colonialism, such as the large populations of South Asians in England or West and North Africans in Europe. Others are deeply historical and express a centuries-old interregional linkage, such as the contemporary movement of North Africans into southern Spain.

The movement and settlement of large populations of migrants have raised questions of belonging and exclusion. How do transplanted populations become English, French, or Spanish, not only in terms of citizenship but also in terms of belonging to that culture? Some observers have argued that diaspora populations find ways to blend symbols from their cultures of origin with those of their host cultures. Thus, people find a sense of belonging through a process of cultural hybridization. Other observers point to long-standing situations of cultural exclusion. In 2005, in France, for example, riots broke out

in more than a dozen cities in suburban enclaves of West African and North African populations. The reasons for the riots are complex. However, many observers pointed out that underprivileged youth of African decent feel excluded from mainstream French culture, even though many are second- and third-generation French citizens.

The debate over how to address questions of citizenship and cultural belonging is played out in many venues. In terms of policy, the French, for example, emphasize cultural integration, whereas Britain and the United States promote multiculturalism. But many questions remain about the effectiveness of state policies toward diaspora cultures. Do the geographic enclaves of Asian and African diaspora populations in the former colonial capitals of Europe reflect an effort by migrants to retain a distinct cultural identity? Or do they reflect persisting racial and ethnic prejudices and efforts to segregate “foreigners”? Is it a combination of factors? How long does it take an Asian immigrant community to become “English” or West Africans to become “French”? One generation? Two? Never? Does the presence of Asians and Africans make the landscape of England and France appear less “English” or less “French”? Why or why not?

Nature-Culture 47

related to now-discredited European ideas of the racial infe- riority of colonized peoples.

Debate continues today, with some observing that, although indigenous cultures may once have lived sustain- ably, globalization is making their knowledge and practices less useful. That is, globalization introduces new markets, new types of crops, and new technologies that displace existing land-use practices. Others note that it is impossible to generalize about sustainability in indigenous cultures because the way indigenous peoples use their environ- ments varies from place to place and the people are inter- nally heterogeneous. A key discussion centers on the role of indigenous peoples in conserving global biodiversity. In part, this reflects the reality that indigenous peoples often occupy territories that Western scientists view as critical to global biodiversity conservation (Figure 2.19). For exam- ple, 85 percent of national parks and other protected areas in Central America and 80 percent in South America have resident indigenous populations. There is also close geo- graphic correspondence between indigenous territories and tropical rain forests not only in Latin America but also in Africa and Southeast Asia. Tropical rain forests, although they cover only 6 percent of the Earth’s surface, are esti- mated to contain 60 percent of the world’s biodiversity. With the rise of genetic engineering, conservationists and

corporations alike view tropical forests as in situ gene banks. As multinational biotechnology companies look to the tropics for genetic resources for use in developing new medicines or crop seeds, indigenous peoples are increas- ingly vocal about their proprietary rights over the biodiver- sity of their homelands (see Global Spotlight) .

Faced with these issues, cultural geographers generally emphasize the continued importance of indigenous knowl- edge for environmental management and of indigenous land-use practices for sustainable development. Initially, geographers focused on the adaptive strategies of indige- nous cultures in relation to ecological conditions. For exam- ple, some studied the social norms and land-use practices that helped some cultures adapt to periodic drought. Later, they came to realize that externally generated political and economic forces were just as important in shaping nature- culture relationships. A look at the work of a few key cultural geographers will illustrate the implications of this idea.

Local Knowledge Much of the interest in indigenous perceptions and practices falls under the rubric of indigenous technical knowledge (ITK). This is a concept that anthropologists and geogra- phers developed to describe the detailed local knowledge

Concentrations of indigenous peoples

Concentrations of high biological diversity

Figure 2.19 The global congruence of cultural and biological diversity. Conservationists are aware that many of the world’s most biologically diverse regions are occupied by indigenous

cultures. Many suggest, therefore, that cultural preservation and biological preservation should go hand in hand. (Adapted from IDRC, 2004.)

48 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

about the environment and land use that is part of many indigenous cultures. Geographer Paul Richards, for exam- ple, suggested that ITK is, in many cases, superior to Western scientific knowledge and, therefore, should be considered in environmental management and agricultural planning. For example, in his study of West African cultures, Indigenous Agricultural Revolution, Richards documented the subtle and extensive knowledge about local soils, climate, and plant life. This local-scale knowledge provides the foundation for peo- ple to experiment with new crops and agricultural tech- niques, while also allowing them to adjust successfully to changing social and environmental conditions.

Global Economy ITK is place-based. It is produced in particular places and environments through a process of trial and error that often spans generations. Thus, these local systems of knowl- edge are highly adapted to local conditions. Increasingly,

however, the power of ITK is weakened through exposure to the economic forces of globalization. Sometimes the global economy applies such pressure to local subsistence economies that they become ecologically unsustainable. Subsistence economies are those that are oriented primar- ily toward production for local consumption, rather than the production of commodities for sale on the market. When an indigenous society organized for subsistence pro- duction begins producing for an external market, social, ecological, and economic difficulties often ensue.

Geographer Barney Nietschmann’s classic study of the indigenous Miskito communities living along the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua showed how external mar- kets can undermine local subsistence economies. Miskito communities had developed a subsistence economy founded on land-based gardening and the harvesting of marine resources, including green turtles. Marine resources were harvested in seasons in which agriculture was less demanding. The value of green turtles increased

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT Indigenous Cultures Go Global The world’s indigenous peoples often interact with globalization in interesting ways. On the one hand, new global communications systems, institutions of global governance, and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are providing indigenous peoples with extraordinary networking possibilities. Local indigenous peoples around the world are now linked in global networks that allow them to share strategies, rally international support for local causes, and create a united front to defend cultural survival. On the other hand, globalization brings the world to formerly isolated cultures. Global mass communications introduce new values, and multinational corporations’ search for new markets and new sources of gas, oil, genetic, forest, and other resources can threaten local economies and environments.

Both aspects of indigenous peoples’ interactions with globalization were evident at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico, in 2003. Indigenous peoples’ organizations from around the world gathered for the conference, hosted by the Mayan community in nearby Quintana Roo. Though not officially part of the conference, they came together there to strategize ways to forward their collective cause of cultural survival and self-determination, gain worldwide publicity, and protest the WTO’s vision of globalization. One outcome of this meeting was the International Cancún

Declaration of Indigenous Peoples (ICDIP), a document that is highly critical of current trends in globalization.

According to the ICDIP, the situations of indigenous peoples globally “has turned from bad to worse” since the establishment of the WTO. Indigenous rights organizations claim, “our territories and resources, our indigenous knowledge, cultures and identities are grossly violated” by international trade and investment rules. The document urges governments worldwide to make no further agreements under the WTO and to reconsider previous agreements. The control of plant genetic resources is a particularly important concern. Many indigenous peoples argue that generations of their labor and cumulative knowledge have gone into producing the genetic resources that transnational corporations are trying to privatize for their own profit. The ICDIP asks that future international agreements ensure “that we, Indigenous Peoples, retain our rights to have control over our seeds, medicinal plants and indigenous knowledge.”

Globalization is clearly a critical issue for indigenous cultures. Some argue that globalization, because it facilitates the creation of global networks that provide strength in numbers, may ultimately improve indigenous peoples’ efforts to control their own destinies. The future of indigenous cultural survival ultimately will depend on how globalization is structured and for whose benefit.

Nature-Culture 49

dramatically when companies moved in to process and export turtle products (meat, shells, leather). They paid cash and extended credit so that the Miskito could har- vest turtles year-round instead of seasonally. Subsistence production in other areas suffered as labor was directed to harvesting turtles. Turtles became scarce, so more labor time was required to hunt them in a desperate effort to pay debts and buy food. Ultimately, the turtle population was decimated and the subsistence produc- tion system collapsed.

This study might sound like yet another tragic story of “disappearing peoples” or a “vanished way of life,” but it didn’t end there. Nietschmann continued his research with Miskito communities into the 1990s (he died in 2000), discovering, among other things, that the Miskito people did not disappear but continued to defend their cultural autonomy in the face of great external pressures from globalization. They responded to the collapse of their resource base by creating, in 1991, in cooperation with the Nicaraguan government, a protected area as part of a local environmental management plan. They were supported in this endeavor by academics, international conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the Nicaraguan government. Known as the Cayos Miskitos and Franja Costera Marine Biological Reserve, it encompasses 5019 square miles (13,000 square kilometers) of coastal area and offshore keys with 38 Miskito communities. Through this program, the Miskito were able to regulate and control their own exploitation of marine resources while reducing pressures from outsiders. This is an ongo- ing experiment. Miskito communities continue to struggle with outsiders for control over their land and resources in the reserve. There are hopeful signs, however, that the gov- ernment is cooperating in this struggle and that both the natural resource base and the Miskito people will benefit from this project.

The Miskito case demonstrates the resiliency of indigenous cultures, the limits of ITK, and the potency of global economic forces. It reflects recent studies of the cul- tural and political ecology of indigenous peoples, such as those conducted by geographer Anthony Bebbington. Bebbington conducted research among the indigenous Quichua populations in the Ecuadorian Andes to assess how they interact with modernizing institutions and prac- tices. He found that, although the Quichua people often possess extensive knowledge about local farming and resource management, ITK alone is not sufficient to allow them to prosper in a global economy. For example, there is little indigenous knowledge about the way international markets work and thus little understanding of how to price and market their own produce. As a consequence, they have sought the support and knowledge of government agencies, the Catholic Church, and NGOs. He further

found that indigenous Quichua communities use outside ideas and technologies to promote their own cultural sur- vival, attempting, in essence, to negotiate their interac- tions with globalization on their own terms. (For more information on other research in the Quichua region, see Practicing Geography.)

Reflecting on Geography Contrary to their current popular image, indigenous cultures do cause environmental damage. Can you think of an example?

Folk Ecology As with indigenous cultures, ideas persist about the partic- ular abilities of folk cultures to sustainably manage the environment. Although the attention to conservation varies from culture to culture, folk cultures’ close ties to the land and local environment enhance the environmen- tal perception of folk groups. This becomes particularly evident when they migrate. Typically, they seek new lands similar to the one left behind. A good example can be seen in the migrations of Upland Southerners from the moun- tains of Appalachia between 1830 and 1930. As the Appalachians became increasingly populous, many Upland Southerners began looking elsewhere for similar areas to settle. Initially, they found an environmental twin of the Appalachians in the Ozark-Ouachita Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas. Somewhat later, others sought out the hollows, coves, and gaps of the central Texas Hill Coun- try. The final migration of Appalachian hill people brought some 15,000 members of this folk culture to the Cascade and Coast mountain ranges of Washington State between 1880 and 1930 (Figure 2.20).

Gendered Nature We stressed in Chapter 1 and earlier in this chapter that cul- tures are heterogeneous and that gender is one of the prin- cipal areas of difference within places and regions. Geographers and other social scientists have documented significant differences between men’s and women’s rela- tionships with the environment. This observation holds for popular, folk, and indigenous cultures. Ecofeminism is one way of thinking about how gender influences our interac- tions with nature. This concept, however, might seem to suggest that there is something inherent or essential about men and women that makes them think and behave in par- ticular and different ways toward the environment. Although cultural geographers would argue against such essentialism, few would disagree that gender is an impor- tant variable in nature-culture relations.

Diane Rocheleau’s work on women’s roles in the man- agement of agroforestry systems is illustrative. Agroforestry

50 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Gregory Knapp

“As a Berkeley student in the 1960s, I was surrounded by folks who thought they had straightforward answers to the world’s problems. I was one of them, too, for a while.” So recalls Professor Gregory Knapp, whose early undergraduate studies were shaped by his participation in Berkeley street protests.

Moving on from the Berkeley scene, he dropped out and began his search for a greater understanding of the world’s complexities.

His journey led him eventually to discover two things that have shaped his life ever since: the discipline of geography and a love of fieldwork. “My defining experience was a three-month field course through Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala in 1976,” he explains. “By the end of the trip I had fallen in love with the region’s natural and cultural diversity. I’ve retained a love of fieldwork, as well as an appreciation for originality and creativity, ever since.” He returned to Berkeley, finished his degree, and went on to study geography at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned his doctorate after conducting research in the Andes.

He continues today to conduct research in the indigenous Quichua region of the Ecuadorian Andes, further fueling his enthusiasm for fieldwork. For Professor Knapp, the “ability to explore new landscapes, follow up on surprising juxtapositions, and talk late into the night about

what local people find important is incredibly stimulating! These days, I find a lot of concern for ‘sustainability,’ for the children retaining their heritage along with an ability to pursue a livelihood. I think geographers have a lot to contribute in this area.”

In the field, he tries to balance a variety of research methods. A long-term perspective is important, which means repeated visits to sites over the years and close attention to archival materials. Diversity matters, too, and it is important to gather views across ethnic, gender, and class lines. Overall, “probably the most important method in a region like the Andes is open-ended conversation.”

His recent accidental discovery of unpublished information has led to a new line of research on religion in the Quichua region. This discovery raises an important question: Although Christian missionaries are everywhere, why do some people convert and others do not? “The patterns of conversion are an important part of the human mosaic, and the patterns are turning out to be surprising in this region.” He also continues to update his work on cultural and political ecology in the Andes. In particular, he is studying the “role of irrigation in providing a flexible adaptive strategy for regional folk cultures that are no longer ‘indigenous’ in self-definition but that are not in any simple way homogenized or national either.”

Reflecting his undiminished enthusiasm for exploration and sense of wonder regarding natural and cultural diversity, he offers a bit of advice for students of cultural geography everywhere: “It is always a good idea to follow up on the surprising and unexpected. We live in an amazing and ultimately unpredictable world.”

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systems are farming systems that combine the growing of trees with the cultivation of agricultural crops. Agroforestry is practiced by folk and indigenous cultures across the trop- ical world and has been shown to be a highly productive and ecologically sustainable practice. It is common in these production systems for men and women to have very dis- tinct roles. Generally, for example, women are involved in seeding, weeding, and harvesting, whereas men take responsibility for clearing and cultivation. Gender differ- ences also often exist between the types of crops men and women control and in the marketing of produce.

After conducting studies for many years first in East Africa and later in the Dominican Republic, Rocheleau

was able to derive general themes regarding the way human-environment relations are gendered not only in agroforestry systems but also in many rural and urban environments. Together with two colleagues, she identi- fied three themes: gendered knowledge, gendered envi- ronmental rights, and gendered environmental politics. First, because women and men often have different tasks and move in different spaces, they possess different and even distinct sets of knowledge about the environment. Second, men and women have different rights, especially with regard to the ownership and control of land and resources. Third, for reasons having to do with their responsibilities in their families and communities, women

Nature-Culture 51

are often the main leaders and activists in political move- ments concerned with environmental issues. Taken together, these themes suggest that environmental plan- ning or resource management schemes that do not address issues of gendered ecology are likely to have unin- tended consequences, some of them negative for both women and environmental quality.

Nature in Popular Culture Popular culture is less directly tied to the physical environ- ment than folk and indigenous cultures, which is not to say that it does not have an enormous impact on the environ- ment. Urban dwellers generally do not draw their liveli- hoods from the land. They have no direct experience with farming, mining, or logging activities, though they could not live without the commodities produced from those activities. Gone is the intimate association between people and land known by our folk ancestors. Gone, too, is our direct vulnerability to many environmental forces, although the security is more apparent than real. Because popular culture is so tied to mass consumption, it can have enor- mous environmental impacts, such as the production of air and water pollution and massive amounts of solid waste. Also, because popular culture fosters limited contact with

and knowledge of the physical world, usually through recre- ational activities, our environmental perceptions can become quite distorted.

Popular culture makes heavy demands on ecosystems. This is true even in the seemingly benign realm of recre- ation. Recreational activities have increased greatly in the world’s economically affluent regions. Many of these activ- ities require machines, such as snowmobiles, off-road vehi- cles, and jet skis, that are powered by internal combustion engines and have numerous adverse ecological impacts ranging from air pollution to soil erosion. In national parks and protected areas worldwide, affluent tourists in search of nature have overtaxed protected environments and wildlife and produced levels of congestion approaching those of urban areas (Figure 2.21).

Such a massive presence of people in our recreational areas inevitably results in damage to the physical environ- ment. A study by geographer Jeanne Kay and her students in Utah revealed substantial environmental damage done by off-road recreational vehicles, including “soil loss and long-term soil deterioration.” One of the paradoxes of the modern age and popular culture seems to be that the more we cluster in cities and suburbs, the greater our impact on open areas; we carry our popular culture with us when we vacation in such regions.

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Figure 2.20 The relocation diffusion of Upland Southern hill folk from Appalachia to western Washington. Each dot represents the former home of an individual or family that migrated to the Upper Cowlitz River basin in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State between 1884 and 1937. Some 3000 descendants of these migrants lived in the Cowlitz area by 1940. What does the high degree of clustering of the sources of the

migrants and subsequent clustering in Washington suggest about the processes of folk migrations? How should we interpret their choices of familiar terrain and vegetation for a new home? Why might members of a folk society who migrate choose a new land similar to the old one? (After Clevinger, 1938: 120; Clevinger, 1942: 4.)

52 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

Cultural Landscape Do folk, indigenous, and popular cultures look different? Do different cultures have distinctive cultural landscapes? The theme of cultural landscape reveals the important dif- ferences within and between cultures.

Folk Architecture Every folk culture produces a highly distinctive landscape. One of the most visible aspects of these landscapes is folk architecture. These traditional buildings illustrate the theme of cultural landscape in folk geography.

Folk architecture springs not from the drafting tables of professional architects but from the collective memory of groups of traditional people (Figure 2.22). These build- ings—whether dwellings, barns, churches, mills, or inns— are based not on blueprints but on mental images that change little from one generation to the next. Folk archi- tecture is marked not by refined artistic genius or spectac- ular, revolutionary design but rather by traditional, conservative, and functional structures. Material composi- tion, floor plan, and layout are important ingredients of folk architecture, but numerous other characteristics help classify farmsteads and dwellings. The form or shape of the

roof, the placement of the chimney, and even such details as the number and location of doors and windows can be important classifying criteria. E. Estyn Evans, a noted expert on Irish folk geography, considered roof form and chimney placement, among other traits, in devising an informal classification of Irish houses.

The house, or dwelling, is the most basic structure that people erect, regardless of culture. For most people in nearly all folk cultures, a house is the single most important thing they ever build. Folk cultures as a rule are rural and agricultural. For these reasons, it seems appropriate to focus on the folk house.

Folk Housing in North America In the United States and Canada, folk architecture today is a relict form preserved in the cultural landscape. For the most part, popular culture, with its mass-produced, com- mercially built houses, has so overwhelmed the folk tradi- tions that few folk houses are built today, yet many survive in the refuge regions of American and Canadian folk cul- ture (see Figures 2.1, 2.22).

Yankee folk houses are of wooden frame construction, and shingle siding often covers the exterior walls. They are built with a variety of floor plans, including the New England “large” house, a huge two-and-a-half-story house built

Figure 2.21 Traffic jam in Yellowstone National Park at the height of the summer tourist season. (Klein/ Hubert/Peter Arnold.)

Cultural Landscape 53

around a central chimney and two rooms deep. As the Yan- kee folk migrated westward, they developed the upright-and- wing dwelling. These particular Yankee houses are often massive, in part because the cold winters of the region forced most work to be done indoors. By contrast, Upland South- ern folk houses are smaller and built of notched logs. Many houses in this folk tradition consist of two log rooms, with either a double fireplace between, forming the saddlebag house, or an open, roofed breezeway separating the two rooms, a plan known as the dogtrot house (Figure 2.23). An example of an African-American folk dwelling is the shotgun house, a narrow structure only one room in width but two,

three, or even four rooms in depth. Acadiana, a French- derived folk region in Louisiana, is characterized by the half- timbered Creole cottage, which has a central chimney and built-in porch. Scores of other folk house types survive in the American landscape, although most such dwellings now stand abandoned and derelict.

Reflecting on Geography The relicts of folk cultural landscapes can be found in most parts of North America. Should we strive to preserve those relicts, such as folk houses? Why or why not?

Upper Canadian “Ontario“ farmhouse

Upland Southern log “saddlebag“ house,

front view

Upland Southern log “dogtrot“ house

African-American “shotgun“ house

Acadian “Creole“ cottage

Yankee “upright and wing“ Yankee “Cape Cod“ Yankee New England “Large“

Québec French farmhouse

Door to cellar

Bell-cast roof

Summer kitchen wing

Balcony- porch

Dormer windows

Figure 2.22 Selected folk houses. Six of the 13 folk culture regions of North America are represented (see Figure 2.1). (After Glassie, 1968; Kniffen, 1965.)

Figure 2.23 A dogtrot house, typical of the Upland Southern folk region. The distinguishing feature is the open-air passageway, or dogtrot, between the two main rooms. This house is located in central Texas. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

54 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

Figure 2.24 Four folk houses in North America. Using the sketches in Figure 2.22 and the related section of the text, determine the regional affiliation and type of each of these houses. The answers are provided at the end of the chapter. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Canada also offers a variety of traditional folk houses (see Figure 2.22). In French-speaking Québec, one of the common types consists of a main story atop a cellar, with attic rooms beneath a curved, bell-shaped (or bell-cast) roof. A balcony-porch with railing extends across the front, sheltered by the overhanging eaves. Attached to one side of this type of French-Canadian folk house is a summer kitchen that is sealed off during the long, cold winter. Often the folk houses of Québec are built of stone. To the west, in the Upper Canadian folk region, one type of folk house occurs so frequently that it is known as the Ontario farm- house. One-and-a-half stories in height, the Ontario farm- house is usually built of brick and has a distinctive gabled front dormer window.

The interpretation of folk architecture is by no means a simple process (Figure 2.24). Folk geographers often work for years trying to “read” such structures, seeking

clues to diffusion and traditional adaptive strategies. The old problem of independent invention versus diffusion is raised repeatedly in the folk landscape, as Figure 2.25 illus- trates. Precisely because interpretation is often difficult, however, geographers find these old structures challenging and well worth studying. Folk cultures rarely leave behind much in the way of written records, making their landscape artifacts all the more important in seeking explanations.

Folk Housing in Sub-Saharan Africa Throughout East Africa and southern Africa, rural family homesteads take a common form. Most consist of a com- pound of buildings called a kraal, a term related to the Eng- lish word corral and used across the region. The compound typically includes a main house (or houses in polygamous cultures), a detached building in the rear for cooking, and smaller buildings or enclosures for livestock.

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Cultural Landscape 55

All construction is done with local materials. Small, flexible sticks are woven in between poles that have been driven into the ground to serve as the frame. Then a mix- ture of clay and animal dung is plastered against the woven sticks, layer by layer, until it is entirely covered. Dried tall grasses are tied together in bundles to form the roof. In a recent innovation, rural people who can afford the expense have replaced the grass with corrugated iron sheets. In some societies the dwellings are round, in others square or rectangular. You can often tell when you have entered a dif- ferent culture region by the change in house types.

One of the most distinctive house types is found in the Ndebele culture region of southern Africa, which stretches from South Africa north into southern Zim- babwe. In the rural parts of the Ndebele region, people are farmers and livestock keepers and live in traditional kraals. What makes these houses distinctive is the Ndebele custom of painting brightly colored designs on the exte- rior house walls and sometimes on the walls and gates sur- rounding the kraal (Figure 2.26). The precise origins of this custom are unclear, but it seems to date to the mid- nineteenth century. Some suggest that it was an assertion

Figure 2.26 Ndebele village in South Africa. Although the origins and meaning of Ndebele house painting are debated, there is no question that the paintings create a visually distinct cultural landscape. (Ariadne Van Zandbergen/Alamy.)

Figure 2.25 Two polygonal folk houses. (a) A Buriat Mongol yurt in southern Siberia, near Lake Baikal. (b) A Navajo hogan in New Mexico. The two dwellings, almost identical and each built of notched logs, lie on opposite sides of the world, among unrelated folk groups who never had contact with each other.

Such houses do not occur anywhere in between. Is cultural diffusion or independent invention responsible? How might a folk geographer go about finding the answer? (Part a, Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov; Part b, Courtesy of Stephen C. Jett.)

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56 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

of cultural identity in response to their displacement and domination at the hands of white settlers. Others point to a religious or sacred role.

What is clear is that the custom has always been the purview of women, a skill and practice passed down from mother to daughter. Many of the symbols and patterns are associated with particular families or clans. Initially, women used natural pigments from clay, charcoal, and local plants, which restricted their palette to earth tones of brown, red, and black. Today many women use com- mercial paints—expensive, but longer lasting—to apply a range of bright colors, limited only by the imagination. Another new development is in the types of designs and symbols used. People are incorporating modern machines such as automobiles, televisions, and airplanes into their designs. In many cases, traditional paints and symbols are blended with the modern to produce a synthetic design of old and new. Ndebele house painting is developing and evolving in new directions, all the while continuing to sig- nal a persistent cultural identity to all who pass through the region.

Landscapes of Popular Culture Popular culture permeates the landscape of countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, including everything from mass-produced suburban houses to golf courses and neon-lit strips. So overwhelming is the pres- ence of popular culture in most American settlement land- scapes that an observer must often search diligently to find visual fragments of the older folk cultures. The popular landscape is in continual flux, for change is a hallmark of popular culture.

Few aspects of the popular landscape are more visu- ally striking than the ubiquitous commercial malls and strips on urban arterial streets, which geographer Robert Sack calls landscapes of consumption (see Figure 2.6). In an Illinois college town, two other cultural geographers, John Jakle and Richard Mattson, made a study of the evolution of one such strip. During a 60-year span, the street under study changed from a single-family residential area to a commercial district (Figure 2.27). The researchers sug- gested a five-stage model of strip evolution, beginning with the single-family residential period, moving through stages of increasing commercialization, which drives owner- residents out, and culminating in stage 5, where the resi- dential function of the street disappears and a totally commercial landscape prevails. Business properties expand so that off-street parking can be provided. Public outcries over the ugliness of such strips are common. Even land- scapes such as these are subject to interpretation, however, for the people who create them perceive them differently. For example, geographer Yi-Fu Tuan suggests that a com- mercial strip of stores, fast-food restaurants, filling sta- tions, and used-car lots may appear as visual blight to an

outsider, but the owners or operators of the businesses are very proud of them and of their role in the community. Hard work and high hopes color their perceptions of the popular landscape.

1979

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1919

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Sanitarium

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Athletic Field

Business District CHAMPAIGN

Figure 2.27 The evolution of a commercial strip in Champaign- Urbana, Illinois, 1919–1979. Popular culture reshaped a landscape. Is the older or newer landscape “better”? Why?(Adapted from Jakle and Mattson, 1981: 14, 20.)

Cultural Landscape 57

Perhaps no landscape of consumption is more reflective of popular culture than the indoor shopping mall, numerous examples of which now dot both urban and suburban land- scapes. Of these, the largest is West Edmonton Mall in the Canadian province of Alberta. Enclosing some 5.3 million square feet (493,000 square meters) and opened in 1986, West Edmonton Mall employs 23,500 people in more than 800 stores and services, accounts for nearly one-fourth of the total retail space in greater Edmonton, earned 42 percent of the dollars spent in local shopping centers, and experienced 2800 crimes in its first nine months of operation. Beyond its sheer size, West Edmonton Mall also boasts a water park, a sea aquar- ium, an ice-skating rink, a miniature golf course, a roller coaster, 21 movie theaters, and a 360-room hotel. Its “streets” feature motifs from such distant places as New Orleans, repre- sented by a Bourbon Street complete with fiberglass ladies of the evening. Jeffrey Hopkins, a geographer who studied this mall, refers to this as a “landscape of myth and elsewhereness,” a “simulated landscape” that reveals the “growing intrusion of spectacle, fantasy, and escapism into the urban landscape.”

Leisure Landscapes Another common feature of popular culture is what geogra- pher Karl Raitz labeled leisure landscapes. Leisure landscapes are designed to entertain people on weekends and vacations; often they are included as part of a larger tourist experience. Golf courses and theme parks such as Disney World are good examples of such landscapes. Amenity landscapes are a related landscape form. These are regions with attractive nat- ural features such as forests, scenic mountains, or lakes and rivers that have become desirable locations for retirement or vacation homes. One such landscape is in the Minnesota

North Woods lake country, where, in a sampling of home ownership, geographer Richard Hecock found that fully 40 percent of all dwellings were not permanent residences but instead weekend cottages or vacation homes. These are often purposefully made rustic or even humble in appearance.

The past, reflected in relict buildings, has also been incorporated into the leisure landscape. Most often, collec- tions of old structures are relocated to form “historylands,” often enclosed by imposing chain-link fences and open only during certain seasons or hours. If the desired bit of visual his- tory has perished, Americans and Canadians do not hesitate to rebuild it from scratch, undisturbed by the lack of authen- ticity—as, for example, at Jamestown, Virginia, or Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Normally, the history parks are put in out-of-the-way places and sanitized to the extent that people no longer live in them. Role-playing actors sometimes prowl these parks, pretending to live in some past era, adding “elsewhenness” to “elsewhereness.”

Elitist Landscapes A characteristic of popular culture is the development of social classes. A small elite group—consisting of persons of wealth, education, and expensive tastes—occupies the top economic position in popular cultures. The important geo- graphical fact about such people is that because of their wealth, desire to be around similar people, and affluent lifestyles, they can and do create distinctive cultural land- scapes, often over fairly large areas.

Daniel Gade, a cultural geographer, coined the term elitist space to describe such landscapes, using the French Riviera as an example (Figure 2.28). In that district of southern France, famous for its stunning natural beauty

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Figure 2.28 The distribution of elitist or hedonistic cultural landscape on the French Riviera. What forces in the popular culture generate such landscapes? (Adapted from Gade, 1982: 22.)

58 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

and idyllic climate, the French elite applied “refined taste to create an aesthetically pleasing cultural landscape” char- acterized by the preservation of old buildings and town cores, a sense of proportion, and respect for scale. Building codes and height restrictions, for instance, are rigorously enforced. Land values, in response, have risen, making the Riviera ever more elitist, far removed from the folk culture and poverty that prevailed there before 1850. Farmers and fishers have almost disappeared from the region, though one need drive but a short distance, to Toulon, to find a working seaport. It seems, then, that the different social classes generated within popular culture become geograph- ically segregated, each producing a distinctive cultural landscape (Figure 2.29).

America, too, offers elitist landscapes. An excellent example is the gentleman farm, an agricultural unit oper- ated for pleasure rather than profit (Figure 2.30). Typically, affluent city people own gentleman farms as an avocation, and such farms help to create or maintain a high social standing for those who own them. Some rural landscapes in America now contain many such gentleman farms; perhaps most notable among these places are the inner Bluegrass Basin of north-central Kentucky, the Virginia Piedmont west of Washington, D.C., eastern Long Island in New York, and parts of southeastern Pennsylvania. Gentleman farmers

Figure 2.29 The cultural landscape of the affluent in Port of Fontvieille, Monaco. The huge yachts and Mediterranean residences are out of reach for all but the world’s wealthiest. (Sergio Pitamitz/Age Fotostock.)

Figure 2.30 Gentleman farm in the Kentucky Bluegrass region near Lexington. Here is “real” rural America as it should be (but never was). (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Conclusion 59

engage in such activities as breeding fine cattle, racing horses, or hunting foxes.

Geographer Karl Raitz conducted a study of gentleman farms in the Kentucky Bluegrass Basin, where their concen- tration is so great that they constitute the dominant feature of the cultural landscape. The result revealed an idyllic scene, a rural landscape created more for appearance than for function. Raitz provided a list of visual indicators of Ken- tucky gentleman farms: wooden fences, either painted white or creosoted black; an elaborate entrance gate; a fine hand-painted sign giving the name of the farm and owner; a network of surfaced, well-maintained driveways and pas- ture roads; and a large, elegant house, visible in the dis- tance from the public highway through a lawnlike parkland dotted with clumps of trees and perhaps a pond or two. So attractive are these estates to the eye that tourists travel the rural lands to view them, convinced they are seeing the “real” rural America, or at least rural America as it ought to be.

Reflecting on Geography Can you think of other types of landscapes of popular culture to go with consumption, leisure, and elitist landscapes?

The American Popular Landscape In an article entitled “The American Scene,” geographer David Lowenthal attempted to analyze the cumulative visi- ble impact of popular culture on the American country- side. Lowenthal identified the main characteristics of popular landscape in the United States, including the “cult of bigness”; the tolerance of present ugliness to achieve a supposedly glorious future; emphasis on individual features at the expense of aggregates, producing a “casual chaos”; and the preeminence of function over form.

The American fondness for massive structures is reflected in edifices such as the Empire State Building, the Pentagon, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, and Salt Lake City’s Mormon Temple. Americans have dotted their cultural landscape with the world’s largest of this or that, perhaps in an effort to match the grand scale of the physi- cal environment, which includes such landmarks as the Grand Canyon, the towering redwoods of California, and the Rocky Mountains.

Americans, argues Lowenthal, tend to regard their cul- tural landscape as unfinished. As a result, they are “predis- posed to accept present structures that are makeshift, flimsy, and transient,” resembling “throwaway stage sets.” Similarly, the hardships of pioneer life perhaps precondi- tioned Americans to value function more highly than beauty and form. The state capitol grounds in Oklahoma City are adorned with little more than oil derricks, standing

above busy pumps drawing oil and the wealth that comes with it from the Sooner soil—an extreme but revealing view of the American landscape (Figure 2.31).

In summary, American popular culture seems to have produced a built landscape that stresses bigness, utilitarian- ism, and transience. Sometimes these are opposing trends, as in the case of many of the massive structures previously cited, which are clearly built to last. Sometimes the trends mesh, as in the recent explosion of “big box” retail chains. These giant retail buildings are no more than oversized metal sheds that one can easily imagine being razed overnight to be replaced by the next big thing.

Conclusion In this chapter we have just scratched the surface of the complex nature of the geography of multiculturalism. Using the cases of folk, popular, and indigenous cultures, we learned that there are many ways of perceiving and being in the landscape. We have also seen how each of these cultural categories is in turn internally heteroge- neous, with significant differences occurring among gen- der, class, and ethnic groups. Religion, often a defining element of cultural difference, is also vitally important. Chapter 7 is devoted to this major cultural trait.

Figure 2.31 Oil derrick on the Oklahoma state capitol grounds. The landscape of American popular culture is characterized by such functionality. The public and private sectors of the economy are increasingly linked in the popular culture. Is criticism of such a landscape elitist and snobbish? (See also Robertson, 1996. Photo courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

60 Chapter 2 Many Worlds

DOING GEOGRAPHY

Self-Representation of Indigenous Culture The world has been witnessing the reassertion of indigenous culture after 500 years of marginalization. For centuries, the roar of dominant national cultures drowned out indigenous peoples’ voices. As a result, members of dominant national cultures—academics, missionaries, government officials, and journalists—have been largely responsible for writing about the histories and cultures of indigenous peoples. This has begun to change as some indigenous groups have prospered economically and as the indigenous rights movement gains increasing support worldwide. Today, more and more indigenous peoples have taken charge of representing themselves and their cultures to the outside world by building museums, producing films, hosting conferences, and creating web sites.

This exercise requires you to study carefully one of these platforms for cultural expression: self-produced indigenous peoples’ web sites. First, you will need to do a little background research on the names and locations of major indigenous cultures. You can use the web sites listed at the end of this chapter to help you get started. Second, it is important to verify that the web sites you are studying are self-produced. Confirm that the site is produced by a tribal or indigenous organization, not by an external NGO, national government, corporation, or university. Third, think about how you are going to analyze the content of the web site in order to draw conclusions about the self- representation of indigenous cultures.

Here are a few suggestions and possibilities. Try to focus on questions of geography: How do indigenous groups speak about their relationship to the land and the environment? What do they say about territorial claims and homelands? What roles do maps play on the web sites? What are their ideas on biodiversity conservation and bioprospecting (the search for genetic resources and other biological resources)? Think about possibilities for comparison. For example, how does what you learn from self-produced web sites compare to what you knew from other sources or from your own beliefs and assumptions? Are there regional differences in terms of the quantity and content of web sites? Do you find common themes across or within regions? Are there indigenous cultures that produce contrasting or competing representations? (For example, do some indigenous cultures have more than one self-generated web site and do those sites present different ideas?) What major issues and challenges does the site highlight and how do these relate to globalization?

Cultures on the Internet You can learn more about the main categories of culture discussed in the chapter on the Internet at the following web sites:

American Memory, Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov A project of the Library of Congress that presents a history of American popular culture, complete with documentation and maps.

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage http://www.folklife.si.edu/center/about_us.html A research and educational unit of the Smithsonian Institution promoting the understanding and continuity of diverse, contem- porary grassroots cultures in the United States and around the world. The center produces exhibitions, films and videos, and educational materials.

Cultural Survival http://www.cs.org/ The interactive web site of Cultural Survival, an organization that promotes the human rights and goals of indigenous peoples. Many timely indigenous cultural issues and important links can be found here.

First Peoples Worldwide http://www.firstpeoplesworldwide.org/ This group promotes an indigenous-controlled international organization that advocates for indigenous self-governance and culturally appropriate economic development.

Manchester Institute for Popular Culture, Manchester, U.K. http://www.mmu.ac.uk/h-ss/mipc/ This site is dedicated to the academic study of popular culture, based at the Manchester Metropolitan University.

Native Lands http://www.nativelands.org/ Native Lands deals with biological and cultural diversity in Latin America. It is very involved in mapping projects to help secure indigenous territorial claims and protect tropical forests.

Popular Culture Association http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~pcaaca/ A multidisciplinary organization dedicated to the academic dis- cussion of popular culture, where activities of the association are discussed.

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Roark, Michael. 1985. “Fast Foods: American Food Regions.” North American Culture 2(1): 24–36.

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Rocheleau, D., B. Thomas-Slayter, and E. Wangari (eds.). 1996. Feminist Political Ecology: Global Issues and Local Experiences. New York: Routledge.

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Rooney, John F., Jr., and Paul L. Butt. 1978. “Beer, Bourbon, and Boone’s Farm: A Geographical Examination of Alcoholic Drink in the United States.” Journal of Popular Culture 11: 832–856.

Rooney, John F., Jr., and Richard Pillsbury. 1992. Atlas of American Sport. New York: Macmillan.

Sack, Robert D. 1992. Place, Modernity, and the Consumer’s World: A Rational Framework for Geographical Analysis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Scott, Damon. In progress. “The Gay Geography of San Fran- cisco.” PhD dissertation. University of Texas at Austin.

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Tuan, Yi-Fu. Topophilia. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974.

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Wilhelm, Eugene J., Jr. 1968. “Field Work in Folklife: Meeting Ground of Geography and Folklore.” Keystone Folklore Quarterly 13: 241–247.

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Zelinsky, Wilbur. 1974. “Cultural Variation in Personal Name Pat- terns in the Eastern United States.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 60: 743–769.

Zelinsky, Wilbur. 1980a. “North America’s Vernacular Regions.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70: 1–16.

Zelinsky, Wilbur. 1980b. “Selfward Bound? Personal Preference Patterns and the Changing Map of American Society.” Economic Geography 50: 144–179.

Zonn, Leo (ed.). 1990. Place Images in Media: Portrayal, Experience, and Meaning. Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Ten Recommended Books on Geographies of Cultural Difference (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan) Burgess, Jacquelin A., and John R. Gold (eds.). 1985. Geography,

the Media, and Popular Culture. New York: St. Martin’s Press. The geography of popular culture is linked in diverse ways to the communications media, and this collection of essays explores facets of that relationship.

Carney, George O. (ed.). 1998. Baseball, Barns and Bluegrass: A Geography of American Folklife. Boulder, Colo.: Rowman & Little- field. A wonderful collection of readings that, contrary to the title, span the gap between folk and popular culture.

Ensminger, Robert F. 1992. The Pennsylvania Barn: Its Origin, Evo- lution, and Distribution in North America. Baltimore: Johns Hop- kins University Press. A common American folk barn, part of the rural cultural landscape, provides geographer Ensminger with visual clues to its origin and diffusion; a fascinating detec- tive story showing how geographers “read” cultural landscapes and what they learn in the process.

Glassie, Henry. 1968. Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the East- ern United States. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Glassie, a student of folk geographer Fred Kniffen, considers the geographical distribution of a wide array of folk culture items in this classic overview.

Jackson, Peter, and Jan Penrose (eds.). 1993. Constructions of Race, Place, and Nation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. An edited collection that examines the way in which the ideas of racial and national identity vary from place to place; rich in empirical research.

Jordan, Terry G., Jon T. Kilpinen, and Charles F. Gritzner. 1997. The Mountain West: Interpreting the Folk Landscape. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Reading the folk landscapes of the American West, three geographers reach conclusions about the regional culture and how it evolved.

Price, Patricia. 2004. Dry Place: Landscapes of Belonging and Exclu- sion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Price explores the narratives that have sought to establish claims to the dry lands along the U.S.–Mexico border, demonstrating how stories can become vehicles for reshaping places and cul- tural identities.

Skelton, Tracey, and Gill Valentine (eds.). 1998. Cool Places: Geo- graphies of Youth Cultures. London: Routledge. The engaging essays in Cool Places explore the dichotomy of youthful lives by addressing the issues of representation and resistance in youth culture today. Using first-person vignettes to illustrate the wide- ranging experiences of youth, the authors consider how the media have imagined young people as a particular community with shared interests and how young people resist these stereo- types, instead creating their own independent representations of their lives.

Weiss, Michael J. 1994. Latitudes and Attitudes: An Atlas of Ameri- can Tastes, Trends, Politics, and Passions. New York: Little, Brown. Using marketing data organized by postal zip codes, Weiss reveals the geographical diversity of American popular culture.

Zelinsky, Wilbur. 1992. The Cultural Geography of the United States, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. This revised edi- tion of a sprightly, classic book, originally published in 1973, reveals the cultural sectionalism in modern America in the era of popular culture, with attention also to folk roots.

Journals in Geographies of Cultural Difference Indigenous Affairs. A quarterly journal published by the Interna-

tional Working Group for Indigenous Affairs thematically focused on issues of indigenous cultures. Volume 1 was pub- lished in 1976.

Answers 63

Journal of Popular Culture. Published by the Popular Culture Asso- ciation since 1967, this journal focuses on the role of popular culture in the making of contemporary society. See in particu- lar Volume 11, No. 4, 1978, a special issue on cultural geogra- phy and popular culture.

Material Culture: Journal of the Pioneer America Society. Published twice annually, this leading periodical specializes in the subject of the American rural material culture of the past. Volume 1 was published in 1969, and prior to 1984 the journal was called Pioneer America.

Answers Figure 2.6 The scenes were taken in the following unplaces: McDon- ald’s in Tokyo, Wendy’s in Idaho, and Pampas Grill in Finland.

Figure 2.24 (a) French-Canadian farmhouse, Port Joli, Québec; (b) New England “large” house, New Hampshire; (c) Yankee “upright-and-wing” house, Massachusetts; (d) shotgun house, Alleyton, Texas.

SEEING GEOGRAPHY American Fathers and Daughters

Here we see two father-daughter couples walking hand in hand down the street. They both live in the United States. But they also live in different worlds: folk and popular.

How can we tell? Well, the clothes they wear provide perhaps the main clue. The father and daughter on the left belong to the Amish religion, which has rejected most modern inventions and fads, retaining instead the folk lifestyle of the preindustrial age. Their clothing differs little from that of their ancestors in Pennsylvania two centuries ago. They are farmers rather than city dwellers. You can be sure that they will not get in a car and drive home because they still prefer horse-drawn buggies.

The couple on the right is dressed very differently and clearly belongs to the popular culture. They may be going for a pizza or going to board a subway for home. The father appears to be a businessperson, and he certainly is not a farmer accustomed to working in fields with a horse-drawn plow.

And how do we know all this about their parallel, separate worlds? Mainly through the theme of cultural landscape. The clothing people wear can best be regarded as part of the visible culture—in other words, the landscape.

Two American father-daughter couples.

What makes one father-daughter pair so very different from the other?

Would you feel comfortable walking here? If not, why not?

3 Population Geography

Shaping the Human Mosaic

A street scene in the large city of Kolkata, India. (Jayanta Shaw/Reuters.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 104 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

65

One of the most important aspects of the world’s human population is its demo-graphic characteristics, such as age, gender, health, mortality, density, andmobility. In fact, many cultural geographers argue that familiarity with the spa- tial dimensions of demography provides a baseline for the discipline. Thus, popula- tion geography, or geodemography, provides an ideal topic to launch our substantive discussion of the human mosaic.

The most essential demographic fact is that more than 6.5 billion people inhabit the Earth today. But numbers alone tell only part of the story of the delicate balance between human populations and the resources on which we depend for our survival, comfort, and enjoyment. Think of the sort of lifestyle you may now enjoy or aspire to in the future. Does it involve driving a car? Eating meat regularly? Owning a spa- cious house with central heating and air conditioning? If so, you are not alone. In fact, these “Western” consumption habits have become so widespread that they may now be more properly regarded as universal. But satisfying these demands requires using a wide range of nonrenewable resources—fossil fuels, extensive farmlands, and fresh water among them—whose consumption ultimately limits the number of people the Earth can support. Indeed, it has been argued that if Western lifestyles are adopted by a significant number of the globe’s inhabitants, then our current population of 6.5 billion is already excessive and will soon deplete or contaminate the Earth’s life-support systems: the air, soil, and water we depend on for our very survival. Although we may think of our geodemographic choices, such as how many children we will have or what to eat for dinner, as highly individual ones, when aggre- gated across whole groups they can have truly global repercussions.

As we do throughout this book, we approach our study using the five themes of cultural geography. The demographics of human populations, their size, age, gen- der compositions, and spatial distribution, are discussed under the regional theme. Population mobility and the related movement of diseases that affect populations are discussed next. Population debates are considered under the theme of global- ization. Although population is experienced locally and policies affecting popula- tion are typically set at the national level, the size and impact of human populations involve a debate that is most commonly pitched at the global scale. Next, the theme of nature-culture reveals that the ways in which we interpret the natural world and adapt it to our needs are deeply entwined with demographic practices. We close with

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graphic characteristics of populations, and why and how they change over time, gives us important clues to their cul- tural characteristics.

Population Distribution and Density If the 6,600,000,000 inhabitants of the Earth were evenly distributed across the land area, the population density would be about 112 persons per square mile (43 per square kilometer). However, people are very unevenly distributed, creating huge disparities in density. Greenland, for exam- ple, has 0.1 person per square mile (0.04 per square kilo- meter), whereas Bangladesh has 2300 persons per square mile (890 per square kilometer) (Figure 3.1).

Population Density

a consideration of the demographic cultural landscape, which reveals both the overt and subtle ways that popula- tion geography is expressed in the world around us.

Region In what ways do demographic traits vary regionally? How is the theme of culture region expressed in terms of popula- tion characteristics? The principal characteristics of human populations—their densities, spatial distributions, age and gender structures, the ways they increase and decrease, and how rapidly population numbers change—vary enor- mously from place to place. Understanding the demo-

Figure 3.1 Population density in the world. Try to imagine the diverse causal forces— physical, environmental, and cultural—that have been at work over the centuries to produce this complicated spatial pattern. It represents the most basic cultural geographical distribution of all. (Sources: Population Reference Bureau; Statistical Abstract of the United States; United Nations Population Information Network; World Population Data Sheet.)

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If we consider the distribution of people by continents, we find that 72.7 percent of the human race lives in Eurasia— Europe and Asia. The continent of North America is home to only 7.9 percent of all people, Africa to 13.2 percent, South America to 5.7 percent, and Australia and the Pacific islands to 0.5 percent. When we consider population distri- bution by country, we find that 21 percent of all humans reside in China, 17 percent in India, and only 4.6 percent in the third-largest nation in the world, the United States (Table 3.1). In fact, one out of every 50 humans lives in only one valley of one province of China: the Sichuan Basin.

For analyzing data, it is convenient to divide population density into categories. For example, in Figure 3.1, one end of the spectrum contains thickly settled areas having 250 or

more persons per square mile (100 or more per square kilo- meter); on the other end, largely unpopulated areas have fewer than 2 persons per square mile (less than 1 per square kilometer). Moderately settled areas, with 60 to 250 persons per square mile (25 to 100 per square kilometer), and thinly settled areas, inhabited by 2 to 60 persons per square mile (1 to 25 per square kilometer), fall between these two extremes. These categories create formal demo- graphic regions based on the single trait of population den- sity. As Figure 3.1 shows, a fragmented crescent of densely settled areas stretches along the western, southern, and eastern edges of the huge Eurasian continent. Two-thirds of the human race is concentrated in this crescent, which contains three major population clusters: eastern Asia, the

68 Chapter 3 Population Geography

Indian subcontinent, and Europe. Outside of Eurasia, only scattered districts are so densely settled. Despite the image of a crowded world, thinly settled regions are much more extensive than thickly settled ones, and they appear on every continent. Thin settlement characterizes the north- ern sections of Eurasia and North America, the interior of South America, most of Australia, and a desert belt through North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula into the heart of Eurasia.

As geographers, there is more we want to know about population geography than simply population density. For example, what are people’s standards of living and are they related to population density? Some of the most thickly populated areas in the world have the highest standards of living—and even suffer from labor shortages (for example, the major industrial areas of western Europe and Japan). In other cases, thinly settled regions may actually be severely overpopulated relative to their ability to support their pop- ulations, a situation that is usually associated with marginal agricultural lands. Although 1000 persons per square mile (400 per square kilometer) is a “sparse” population for an industrial district, it is “dense” for a rural area. For this rea- son, carrying capacity—the population beyond which a given environment cannot provide support without becom- ing significantly damaged—provides a far more meaning- ful index of overpopulation than density alone. Oftentimes, however, it is difficult to determine carrying capacity until the region under study is near or over the limit. Sometimes, the carrying capacity of one place can be expanded by drawing on the resources of another place. Americans, for example, consume far more food, products, and natural resources than do most other people in the world: 26 per- cent of the entire world’s petroleum, for instance, is con-

sumed in the United States (Figure 3.2). The carrying capacity of the United States would be exceeded if it did not annex the resources—including the labor—of much of the rest of the world.

A critical feature of population geography is the demo- graphic changes that occur over time. Analyzing these gives us a dynamic perspective from which we can glean insights into cultural changes occurring at local, regional, and global scales. Populations change primarily in two ways: people are born and others die in a particular place, and people move into and out of that place. The latter refers to migration, which we will consider later in this chapter. For now we discuss births and deaths, which can be thought of as additions to and subtractions from a population. They provide what demographers refer to as natural increases and natural decreases.

Patterns of Natality Births can be measured by several methods. The older way was simply to calculate the birthrate: the number of births per year per thousand people.

More revealing is the total fertility rate, or TFR, which is measured as the average number of children born per woman during her reproductive lifetime, which is consid- ered to be from 15 to 49 years of age. The TFR is a more useful measure than the birthrate because it focuses on the female segment of the population, reveals average family size, and gives an indication of future changes in the popu- lation structure. A TFR of 2.1 is needed to produce an even- tually stabilized population, one that does not increase or decrease. Once achieved, this condition is called zero pop- ulation growth.

TABLE 3.1 The World’s 10 Most Populous Countries, 2006 and 2050

Largest Countries Population in 2006 Largest Countries Population in 2050 in 2006 (in millions) in 2050 (estimated, in millions)

China 1,314 India 1,808 India 1,095 China 1,424 United States 300 United States 420 Indonesia 245 Nigeria 357 Brazil 188 Indonesia 313 Pakistan 166 Bangladesh 280 Bangladesh 147 Pakistan 278 Russia 143 Brazil 228 Nigeria 132 Democratic Republic of Congo 203 Japan 127 Mexico 148

(Source: U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base, 2006.)

Region 69

The TFR varies markedly from one part of the world to another, revealing a vivid geographical pattern (Figure 3.3). In southern and eastern Europe, the average TFR is only 1.3. Every country with a TFR of 2.0 or lower will even- tually experience population decline. Bulgaria, for exam- ple, has a TFR of 1.2 and is expected to lose 38 percent of its population by 2050. Interestingly, the Chinese Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao report TFRs of only 0.98 and 1.03, respectively, the lowest in the world as of 2007.

By contrast, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest TFR of any sizable part of the world, led by Niger with 7.38 and Mali with 7.37. Elsewhere in the world, only Afghanistan and Yemen, both in Southwest Asia, can rival the sub-Saharan African rates. However, according to the World Bank, during the past two decades TFRs have fallen in all sub- Saharan African nations.

The Geography of Mortality

Another way to assess demographic change is to analyze death rates: the number of deaths per year per 1000 peo- ple. Of course, death is a natural part of the life cycle, and

there is no way to achieve a death rate of zero. But geo- graphically speaking, death comes in different forms. In the developed world, most people die of age-induced degenerative conditions, such as heart disease, or from mal- adies caused by industrial pollution of the environment. Many types of cancer fall into the latter category. By con- trast, contagious diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and diarrheal diseases are a leading cause of death in poorer countries. Civil warfare, inadequate health services, and the age structure of a country’s population will also affect its death rate.

The highest death rates occur in sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest world region and most afflicted by life-threatening diseases and civil strife (Figure 3.4 on pages 72–73 illustrates the geography of HIV/AIDS). In general, death rates of more than 25 per 1000 people are uncommon today. The world’s highest death rate as of 2007—slightly more than 30 per 1000 people—was found in Swaziland, in southern Africa, and is the result in great part because of the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate there, which is nearly 40 percent among the adult population in Swaziland. By contrast, the American tropics generally have rather low death rates, as does the desert belt across North Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia. In these regions, the predominantly young

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Figure 3.2 From where does U.S. oil come? The United States has domestic oil resources, but they cannot fully supply the domestic demand, so oil is imported from other areas of the world. The United States consumes 26 percent of all the oil produced in the world. (Source: Adapted from Montero, 2002.)

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population depresses the death rate. Compared to Swazi- land, Ecuador’s death rate of only 4 per 1000 seems quite low. Because of its older population structure, the average death rate in the European Union is 10 per 1000. Australia, Canada, and the United States, which continue to attract young immigrants, have lower death rates than most of Europe. Canada’s death rate, for instance, is slightly less than 8 people per 1000.

The Demographic Transition All industrialized, technologically advanced countries have low fertility rates and stabilized or declining populations,

having passed through what is called the demographic tran- sition (Figure 3.5). In preindustrial societies, birth and death rates were both high, resulting in almost no popula- tion growth. Because these were agrarian societies that depended on family labor, many children meant larger workforces, thus the high birthrates. But low levels of pub- lic health and limited access to health care, particularly for the very young, also meant high death rates. With the com- ing of the industrial era, medical advances and improve- ments in diet set the stage for a drop in death rates. Human life expectancy in industrialized countries soared from an average of 35 years in the eighteenth century to 75 years or more at present. Yet birthrates did not fall so quickly, lead-

Figure 3.3 The total fertility rate (TFR) in the world. The TFR indicates the average number of children born to women over their lifetimes. A rate of 2.1 is needed to produce a stable population over the long run; below that, population will decline. Fast growth is associated with a TFR of 5.0 or higher. (Sources: Population Reference Bureau; Statistical Abstract of the United States; United Nations Population Information Network; World Population Data Sheet; United Nations Population Division.)

Fertility Rate

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ing to a population explosion as fertility outpaced mortal- ity. In Figure 3.5, this is shown in late stage 2 and early stage 3 of the model. Eventually, a decline in the birthrate fol- lowed the decline in the death rate, slowing population growth. An important reason leading to lower fertility lev- els involves the high cost of children in industrial societies, particularly because childhood itself becomes a prolonged period of economic dependence on parents. Finally, in the postindustrial period, the demographic transition pro- duced zero population growth or actual population decline (Figures 3.5 and 3.6 on pages 74–75).

Achieving lower death rates is relatively cost effective, historically requiring little more than the provision of safe

drinking water and vaccinations against common infectious disease. Less death tends to be uncontroversial and fast act- ing, demographically speaking. Getting birthrates to fall, however, can be far more difficult, especially for a govern- ment official who wants to be reelected. Birth control, abor- tion, and challenging long-held beliefs about family size can prove quite controversial, and political leaders may be reluc- tant to legislate for them. Indeed, the Chinese implementa- tion of its one child per couple policy (see Subject to Debate on page 76) probably would never have been possible in a country with a democratically elected government. In addi- tion, because it involves changing a cultural norm, the idea of smaller families can take three or four generations to take

72 Chapter 3 Population Geography

Adult HIV/AIDS Cases

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Figure 3.4 The geography of HIV/AIDS, shown as the percent of adults (ages 15 to 49) with HIV/AIDS in 2005–2006. The quality of data gathering varies widely from one country to another and is particularly poor in Africa and most of Asia. (Sources: Population Reference Bureau and UNAIDS.)

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Figure 3.5 The demographic transition as a graph. The “transition” occurs in several stages as the industrialization of a country progresses. In stage 2, the death rate declines rapidly, causing a population explosion as the gap between the number of births and deaths widens. Then, in stage 3, the birthrate begins a sharp decline. The transition ends when, in stage 4, both birth and death rates have reached low levels, by which time the total population is many times greater than at the beginning of the transformation. In the postindustrial stage, population decline eventually begins.

Region 73

hold. Increasing educational levels for women is closely asso- ciated with falling fertility levels, as is access to various con- traceptive devices (Figure 3.7 on page 77).

The demographic transition is a model that predicts trends in birthrates, death rates, and overall population lev- els in the abstract. Yet, like many models used by demogra- phers, it is based on the historic experience of western Europe: it is Eurocentric. It does a good job of describing pop- ulation patterns over time in Europe, as well as in other wealthy regions. However, it has several shortcomings. First is the inexorable stage-by-stage progression implicit in the model. Have countries or regions ever skipped a stage, or regressed? Certainly. The case of China shows how policy, in

this case government-imposed restrictions on births, can fast- forward an entire nation to stage 4 (see Subject to Debate). War, too, can occasion a return to an earlier stage in the model by increasing death rates. For instance, Angola and Sierra Leone are two African countries with recent histories of conflict and with some of the highest death rates in the world: 25 per 1000 and 23 per 1000, respectively. In other cases, wealth has not led to declining fertility. Thanks to oil exports, residents of Oman enjoy relatively high average incomes; but fertility, too, remains high at nearly 6 children per woman in 2007. Indeed, the Population Reference Bureau has pointed to a “demographic divide” between coun- tries where the demographic transition model applies well

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74 Chapter 3 Population Geography

and others—mostly poorer countries or those experiencing widespread conflict or disease—where birth and death rates do not necessarily follow the model’s predictions.

Age Distributions Some countries have overwhelmingly young populations. In a majority of countries in Africa, as well as some countries in Latin America and tropical Asia, close to half the population is younger than 15 years of age (Figure 3.8 on pages 78–79). In Uganda, for example, 51 percent of the population is younger than 15 years of age. In sub-Saharan Africa, 44 per- cent of all people are younger than 15. Other countries,

generally those that industrialized early, have a preponder- ance of middle-aged people in the over 15–under 65 age bracket. A growing number of affluent countries have remarkably aged populations. In Sweden, for example, fully 17 percent of the people have now passed the traditional retirement age of 65. Many other European countries are not far behind. A sharp contrast emerges when Europe is compared with Africa, Latin America, or parts of Asia, where the average person never even lives to age 65. In Mauritania, Niger, Afghanistan, Guatemala, and many other countries, only 2 to 3 percent of the people have reached that age.

Countries with disproportionate numbers of old or young people often address these imbalances in inno-

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Figure 3.6 Annual population increase. The change is calculated as the difference between the number of births and deaths in a year, taken as a percentage of total population. Migration is not considered. Note the contrast between tropical areas and the middle and upper latitudes. In several places, countries with a very slow increase border areas with extremely high growth. (Sources: Population Reference Bureau; Statistical Abstract of the United States; United Nations Population Information Network; World Population Data Sheet.)

Region 75

vative ways. Italy, for example, has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, with a TFR of only 1.3. In addi- tion, Italy’s population is one of the oldest in the world; 18.6 percent of its population is age 65 or older. As a result of both its TFR and age distribution, Italy is pro- jected to have its population shrink by 10 percent between 2004 and 2050.

Given that the Italian culture does not embrace the institutionalization of the growing ranks of their elderly, and faced with the reality that more Italian women than ever work outside the home and thus few adult women are willing or able to stay at home full time to care for their elders, Italians have gotten creative. Elderly Italians can

apply for adoption by families in need of grandfathers or grandmothers. One such man, Giorgio Angelozzi, recently moved in with the Rivas, a Roman family with two teenagers. Angelozzi said that Marlena Riva’s voice reminded him of his deceased wife, Lucia, and this is what convinced him to choose the Riva family. Dagmara Riva, the family’s teenage daughter, says that Mr. Angelozzi has helped her with Latin studies and that “Grandpa is a per- son of great experience, an affectionate person. We’re very happy we invited him to live with us” (adapted from D’Emilio, 2004).

Age structure also differs spatially within individual countries. For example, rural populations in the United

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76 Chapter 3 Population Geography

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Female: An Endangered Gender? Does the simple fact of being female expose a person to demographic peril? In most societies, women are viewed as valuable, even powerful, particularly as mothers, nurturers, teachers, and spiritual leaders. Yet in other important ways, to be female is to be endangered. We will consider this controversial idea with an eye to how demographics and culture closely shape one another.

Many cultures demonstrate a marked preference for males. The academic term describing this is androcentrism; you may know it as patriarchy, male bias, or simply sexism. Whether a preference for males is a feature of all societies has been disputed. Some societies pass along forms of their wealth, property, and prestige from mother to daughter, rather than exclusively from father to son. This is rare, however, and it is clear that the roots of cultural preference for males are historically far-reaching and widespread. In most societies, positions of economic, political, social, and cultural prestige and power are held largely by men. Men typically are considered to be the heads of households. Family names tend to pass from father to son, and with them, family honor and wealth. In traditional societies, when sons marry, they usually bring their wives to live in their parents’ house and are expected to assume economic responsibility for aging parents.

For all of these reasons, in many places a cultural premium is placed on producing male children. Because couples often can choose to have more children, having a girl first is usually not a problem. However, in countries that have enacted strict population control programs, couples may not be given the chance to try again for a male child. This has resulted in severe pressures on couples to have boys in some countries, particularly in China and India. In both of these countries, female- specific infanticide or abortion has resulted in a growing gender imbalance. Ultrasound devices are now available even to rural peasants in China that allow gender identification of fetuses. About 100,000 such devices were in use as early as 1990 in China, and by the middle of that decade there were 121 males for every 100 females among children two years of age or younger.

The sex ratio in China is radically changing, and a profound gender imbalance already exists there. In India, too, there were only 927 girls for each 1000 boys in 2001. Earlier, that ratio had dropped from 962 in 1981 to 945 in 1991, a trend that is obviously continuing. Ultrasound devices, far from their intended use of detecting fetal anomalies, are being used instead to determine the sex of

an unborn baby. Puneet Bedi, a New Delhi gynecologist, remarked, “I can tell you that no pregnant woman would suffer if the ultrasound test were banned. Right now it is used to save 1 out of 20,000 fetuses and kill 20 out of every 200 because [it reveals that the baby] is the wrong gender” (quoted in Girish, 2005).

The cultural ramifications of such male-heavy populations are potentially profound. Throughout Asia, as countries such as Nepal and Vietnam join India and China’s gender imbalance, marriageable-age men are increasingly unable to find female partners. Social analysts speculate that this will lead to human trafficking and violence against women. In China, the policy of one child per couple has resulted in the so-called “four-two-one” problem. This refers to the fact that the generational structure of many families now reflects four grandparents, two parents, and a single male child. This places enormous pressures on the shoulders of the male child to care for aging parents and grandparents. It also encourages parents and grandparents to lavish all of their attention, wealth, and hopes on the only child. For some families, this has led to the “little emperor syndrome,” whereby the male heir becomes spoiled, unable to cope independently, and even obese.

As you consider this predicament, do you think that families are somewhat justified in emphasizing having a boy at all costs? How can governments, societies, and families address the negative impacts of these policies on women and girls? Could the United States ever face such a situation?

This “little emperor” poses with his grandparents. (Dennis Cox, LLC.)

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States and many other countries are usually older than those in urban areas. The flight of young people to the cities has left some rural counties in the midsection of the United States with populations whose median age is 45 years or older. Some warm areas of the United States have become retirement havens for the elderly; parts of Arizona and Florida, for example, have populations far above the average age. Communities such as Sun City near Phoenix, Arizona, legally restrict residence to the elderly (Figure 3.9). In Great Britain, coastal districts have a much higher proportion of elderly than does the interior, suggesting that the aged often migrate to seaside locations when they retire.

A very useful graphic device for comparing age char- acteristics is the population pyramid (Figure 3.10 on page 80). Careful study of such pyramids not only reveals the past progress of birth control but also allows geographers to predict future population trends. Youth-weighted pyra-

mids, those that are broad at the base, suggest the rapid growth typical of the population explosion. What’s more, broad-based population pyramids not only reflect past births but they also show that future growth will rely on the momentum of all of those young people growing into their reproductive years and having their own families, regardless of how small those families may be in contrast to earlier generations. Those population pyramids with more of a cylindrical shape represent countries approach- ing population stability or those in demographic decline. A quick look at a country’s population pyramid can tell volumes about its past, as well as its future. How many dependent people—the very old and the very young—live there? Has the country suffered the demographic effects of genocide or a massive disease epidemic (Figure 3.11 on page 81)? Are significantly more boys than girls being born? These questions and more can be explored at a glance using a population pyramid.

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Figure 3.7 The geography of contraception in the modern world, as measured by the percentage of women using devices of any sort. Contraception is much more widely practiced than abortion, but cultures differ greatly in their level of acceptance. Several different devices are included. (Source: World Population Data Sheet.)

78 Chapter 3 Population Geography

Figure 3.9 Residents of Sun City, Arizona, enjoy the many recreation opportunities provided in this planned retirement community, where the average age is 75 years old. (A. Ramey/PhotoEdit Inc.)

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Figure 3.8 The world pattern of youth and old age. Some countries have populations with unusually large numbers of elderly people; others have preponderantly young populations. What issues might be associated with either situation? (Sources: Population Reference Bureau; Statistical Abstract of the United States; United Nations Population Information Network; World Population Data Sheet.)

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Geography of Gender Although the human race is divided almost evenly between females and males, geographical differences do occur in the sex ratio: the ratio between men and women in a population (Figure 3.12 on pages 82–83). Slightly more boys than girls are born, but infant boys have slightly higher mortality rates than do infant girls. Recently settled areas typically have more males than females, as is evident in parts of Alaska, northern Canada, and tropical Australia. At the latest census, males constituted 53 percent of Alaska’s inhabitants. By con- trast, Mississippi’s population was 52 percent female, reflect- ing in part the emigration of young males in search of better economic opportunities elsewhere. Some poverty-stricken

parts of South Africa are as much as 59 percent female. Pro- longed wars reduce the male population. And, in general, women tend to outlive men. The population pyramid is also useful in showing gender ratios. Note, for instance, the larger female populations in the upper bars for both the United States and Sun City, Arizona, in Figure 3.10.

Beyond such general patterns, gender often influences demographic traits in specific ways. Often, gender roles— culturally specific notions of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman—are closely tied to how many children are produced by couples. In many cultures, women are considered more womanly when they produce many offspring. By the same token, men are seen as more

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manly when they father many children. Because the raising of children often falls to women, the spaces that many cul- tures associate with women tend to be the private family spaces of the home. Public spaces such as streets, plazas, and the workplace, by contrast, are often associated with men. Some cultures go so far as to restrict where women and men may and may not go, resulting in a distinctive geography of gender, as Figure 3.13 illustrates (see also See- ing Geography). Falling fertility levels that coincide with higher levels of education for women, however, have resulted in numerous challenges to these cultural ideas of male and female spaces. As more and more women enter the workplace, for instance, ideas of where women should and should not go slowly become modified. Clearly, gender is an important factor to consider in our exploration of population geography (see also Subject to Debate).

Standard of Living Various demographic traits can be used to assess standard of living and analyze it geographically. Figure 3.14 on pages 84–85 is a simple attempt to map living standards using the infant mortality rate: a measure of how many children per 1000 population die before reaching one year of age. Many experts believe that the infant mortality rate is the best sin- gle index of living standards because it is affected by many different factors: health, nutrition, sanitation, access to doc- tors, availability of clinics, education, ability to obtain med- icines, and adequacy of housing. A vivid geographical pattern is revealed by the infant mortality rate.

Another good measure of quality of life is the United Nations HDI, or Human Development Index, which com- bines measures of literacy, life expectancy, education, and wealth (see Figure 1.12 on pp. 14–15). The highest possible score is 1.000, and the two top-ranked countries in 2008 were Iceland and Norway.

Examination of the HDI reveals some surprises. If all countries spent equally on those things that improve their HDI rankings, such as education and health care, then we would expect the wealthiest countries to place first on the list. According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States ranked 4th among 177 nations in wealth as measured by the gross domestic product, or GDP, per capita in 2006. Yet it ranked 12th in the world on the HDI. Compare this to Barbados, which ranked 41st by GDP per capita but came in much higher on the HDI at 31st. Why did Barbados rank higher in living standards than its mon- etary wealth would indicate, whereas the United States ranked lower? We would have to conclude that the govern- ment of Barbados places a relative priority on spending for education and health care, whereas the government of the United States does not.

Even more striking is the low standing of the United States when the Human Poverty Index, or HPI, is used. The HPI measures social and economic deprivation by examin- ing the prevalence of factors such as low life expectancy, illiteracy, poverty, and unemployment. Among the world’s high-income countries, the United States ranks near the bottom, with only Italy and Ireland having larger numbers of deprived peoples.

Mobility How does demography relate to the theme of mobility? After natural increases and decreases in populations, the second of the two basic ways that population numbers are altered is the result of the migration of people from one place to another, and it offers a straightforward illustration of relocation diffusion. When people migrate, they some- times bring more than simply their culture; they can also bring disease. The introduction of diseases to new places can have dramatic and devastating consequences. Thus, the spread of diseases is also considered as part of the theme of mobility because disease has a direct bearing on population geography.

Migration Humankind is not tied to one locale. Homo sapiens most likely evolved in Africa, and ever since, we have proved

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remarkably able to adapt to new and different physical envi- ronments. We have made ourselves at home in all but the most inhospitable climates, shunning only such places as ice-sheathed Antarctica and the shifting sands of the Ara- bian Peninsula’s “Empty Quarter.” Our permanent habitat extends from the edge of the ice sheets to the seashores, from desert valleys below sea level to high mountain slopes. This far-flung distribution is the product of migration.

Early human groups moved in response to the migra- tion of the animals they hunted for food and the ripening seasons of the plants they gathered. Indeed, the agricultural revolution, whereby humans domesticated crops and ani- mals, and accumulated surplus food supplies, allowed

human settlements to stop their seasonal migrations. But why did certain groups opt for long-distance relocation? Some migrated in response to environmental collapse, others in response to religious or ethnic persecution. Still others—probably the majority, in fact—migrated in search of better opportunities. For those who migrate, the process generally ranks as one of the most significant events of their lives. Even ancient migrations often remain embedded in folklore for centuries or millennia (Figure 3.15 on page 86).

Kennewick Man Although some human migrations are well documented, others remain shrouded in mystery or myth. The oft-repeated tale of the European settlement of the

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Figure 3.13 Segregated beach. This portion of the beachfront along the Israeli city of Tel Aviv allows women and men to bathe on separate days. Young children of both genders accompany their mothers, whereas older boys visit with their fathers. Gender-based segregation is important for Israel’s orthodox Jews. (Courtesy of Patricia L. Price.)

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Americas in the sixteenth century as the first real trans- Atlantic contact is an example of the latter. This account has recently come under sharp scrutiny.

In 1996, two college students were watching the annual hydroplane races from the banks of the Columbia River in eastern Washington State when they stumbled across a skull. Thinking it might be evidence from a murder, they called the police. Investigation uncovered the skeletal remains of a man, but he was no recent murder victim. Instead, forensic tests revealed that he had lived some 9300 years ago. The students had found the oldest and most complete human remains in North America.

He was dubbed Kennewick Man because he had been discovered in the vicinity of the city of Kennewick, Wash- ington. But from where did he come? U.S. law says that

human remains dated before the time of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in 1492 are automatically assumed to be of Native American origin, even if no direct link to modern peoples can be established. But reconstruction of the remains suggested that Kennewick Man was much taller and thinner than most Native Americans at that time. Furthermore, his rounded skull and high-bridged, large nose gave him a distinctly European look when the reconstruction of his facial features was completed.

Could Europeans have had a presence in North Amer- ica long before the arrival of Columbus? Many scholars think so. Certainly Viking explorers, among them Leif Eriks- son, probably came ashore at Newfoundland (in present- day Canada) about A.D. 1000. But claiming a European origin for Kennewick Man has proven to be controversial.

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If Kennewick Man was not of Native American origin, the legal basis for Native American claims to land might be challenged. Yet according to the creation stories of one Native American tribe, the Umatilla, they have always lived in the Tri-Cities area of eastern Washington, where Kennewick Man was found. Local Native Americans have invoked the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990, which would allow the remains to be handed over to them for reburial. Sci- entists, however, wish to study the remains of Kennewick Man further for clues to the early settlement of the Americas.

Today, the remains of Kennewick Man are housed in the Burke Museum on the University of Washington cam- pus in Seattle. An ongoing legal struggle over amend-

ments to NAGPRA ensues. Clearly, much more than the fate of some old bones is at stake.

The Decision to Move Migration takes place when people decide that moving is preferable to staying and when the difficulties of moving seem to be more than offset by the expected rewards. In the nineteenth century, more than 50 million European emigrants left their homelands in search of better lives. Today, migration patterns are very different (Figure 3.16). Europe, for example, now predominantly receives immigrants rather than sending out emigrants. International migration stands at an all-time high, much of it labor migration associated with the process of globaliza- tion. About 160 million people today live outside the coun- try of their birth.

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Historically, and to this day, forced migration also often occurs. The westward displacement of the Native American population of the United States; the dispersal of the Jews from Palestine in Roman times and from Europe in the mid-twentieth century; the export of Africans to the Americas as slaves; and the Clearances, or forced removal of farmers from Scotland’s Highlands to make way for large-scale sheep raising, provide depressing examples. Today, refugee movements are all too common, prompted mainly by despotism, war, ethnic persecution, and famine. Recent decades have witnessed a worldwide flood of refugees: people who leave their country because of per- secution based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or political opinion (note that economic persecution does

not fall under the definition of refugee). Perhaps as many as 16 million people who live outside their native country are refugees.

Every migration, from the ancient dispersal of humankind out of Africa to the present-day movement toward urban areas, is governed by a host of push-and-pull factors that act to make the old home unattractive or unliv- able and the new land attractive. Generally, push factors are the most central. After all, a basic dissatisfaction with the homeland is prerequisite to voluntary migration. The most important factor prompting migration throughout the thousands of years of human existence is economic. More often than not, migrating people seek greater prosperity through better access to resources, especially land. Both

Acalhuacan (“Place of canoes”),

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Figure 3.15 Segments of an Aztec codex, depicting the prehistoric migration of the ancient Aztecs from an island, possibly in northwestern Mexico, to another island in a lake at the site of present-day Mexico City, where they founded their capital, Tenochtitlán. Clearly, the epic migration was a central event in their collective memory. (After de Macgregor, 1984: 217.)

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Minor migration stream Figure 3.16 Major and minor migration flows today. Why have these flows changed so profoundly in the past hundred years? (Source: Population Reference Bureau.)

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forced migrations and refugee movements, however, chal- lenge the basic assumption of the push-and-pull model, which posits that human movement is the result of choices.

Diseases on the Move Throughout history, infectious disease has periodically deci- mated human populations. One has only to think of the vivid accounts of the Black Death episodes that together killed one-third of medieval Europe’s population to get a sense of how devastating disease can be. Importantly for cultural geo- graphers, diseases both move in spatially specific ways and occasion responses that are spatial in nature (Figure 3.17).

The spread of disease provides classic illustrations of both expansion and relocation diffusion. Some diseases are noted for their tendency to expand outward from their points of origin. Commonly borne by air or water, the viral pathogens for contagious diseases such as influenza and cholera spread from person to person throughout an affected area. Some diseases spread in a hierarchical diffu- sion fashion, whereby only certain social strata are exposed. The poor, for example, have always been much more exposed to the unsanitary conditions—rats, fleas, excre- ment, and crowding—that have occasioned disease epi- demics. Other illnesses, particularly airborne diseases, affect all social and economic classes without regard for human hierarchies: their diffusion pattern is literally contagious.

Indeed, disease and migration have long enjoyed a close relationship. Diseases have spread and relocated thanks to human movement. Likewise, widespread human migrations have occurred as the result of disease outbreaks.

When humans engage in long-distance mobility, their diseases move along with them. Thus, cholera—a water- borne disease that had for centuries been endemic to the Ganges River region of India—broke out in Calcutta in the early 1800s. Because Calcutta was an important node in Britain’s colonial empire, cholera quickly began to relocate far beyond India’s borders. Soldiers, pilgrims, traders, and travelers spread cholera throughout Europe, then from port to port across the world through relocation diffusion, making cholera the first disease of global proportions.

Early responses to contagious diseases were often spa- tial in nature. Isolation of infected people from the healthy population—known as quarantine—was practiced. Some- times only the sick individuals were quarantined, whereas at other times households or entire villages were shut off from outside contact. Whole shiploads of eastern European immigrants to New York City were routinely quarantined in the late nineteenth century. Another early spatial response was to flee the area where infection had occurred. During the time of the plague in fourteenth-century Europe, some healthy individuals abandoned their ill neighbors, spouses, and even children. Some of them formed altogether sepa- rate communities, whereas others sought merely to escape the city walls for the countryside.

Targeted spatial strategies could be enacted once it became known that some diseases spread through specific means. The best-known example is John Snow’s 1854 map- ping of cholera outbreaks in London, illustrated in Figure 3.18, which allowed him to trace the source of the infection to one water pump. Thanks to his detective work, and the development of a broader medical understanding of the

Figure 3.17 Fleeing from disease. This woodcut, which was printed in 1630, depicts Londoners leaving the pestilent city in a cart. In 1665–1666, London experienced the so-called “Great Plague,” an outbreak of bubonic plague that killed one-fifth of the city’s population. (Bettmann/CORBIS.)

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role of germs in the spread of disease, cholera was under- stood as a waterborne disease that could be controlled by increasing the sanitary conditions of water delivery.

The threat of deadly disease is hardly a thing of the past. Today, geographers play vital roles in understanding

the diffusion of HIV/AIDS, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), and the so-called bird flu in order to better address outbreaks and halt the spread of these global scourges. By mapping the spread of these contemporary diseases, understanding the pathways traveled by their car-

Figure 3.18 Mapping disease. This map was constructed by London physician John Snow. Snow was skeptical of the notion that “bad air” somehow carried disease. He interviewed residents of the Soho neighborhood to construct this map of cholera cases and used it to trace the outbreak to the contaminated Broad Street pump. Snow is considered to be a founder of modern epidemiology. (Courtesy of The John Snow Archive.)

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riers, and developing appropriate spatial responses, it is hoped that mass epidemics and disease-related panics can be avoided (see Global Spotlight).

Globalization How much is enough? How much is too much? One of the great debates today involves the population of the Earth. How many people can the Earth support? Should humans limit their reproduction, and who should decide? There are no precise numbers here, but these questions are so hotly contested because addressing them in a conscientious way may well determine the long-term fate of the human race.

Population Explosion? One of the fundamental issues of the modern age is the population explosion: a dramatic increase in world popula- tion since 1900 (Figure 3.19). The crucial element trigger- ing this explosion has been a steep decline in the death rate, particularly for infants and children, in most of the world, without an accompanying universal decline in fertil- ity. At one time in traditional cultures, only two or three off-

spring in a family of six to eight children might live to adult- hood, but when improved health conditions allowed more children to survive, the cultural norm encouraging large families persisted.

Until very recently, the number of people in the world has been increasing geometrically, doubling in shorter and shorter periods of time. It took from the beginning of human history until A.D. 1800 for the Earth’s population to grow to 1 billion people. But from 1800 to 1930, it grew to 2 billion, and in only 45 more years it doubled again (Figure 3.20). The overall effect of even a few population doublings is astonishing. As an illustration of a simple geo- metric progression, consider the following legend. A king was willing to grant any wish to the person who could sup- ply a grain of wheat for the first square of his chessboard, two grains for the second square, four for the third, eight for the fourth, and so on. To cover all 64 squares and win, the candidate would have had to present a cache of wheat larger than today’s worldwide wheat crop. Looking at the population explosion in another way, it is estimated that 61 billion humans have lived in the entire 200,000-year period since Homo sapiens originated. Of these, 6.6 billion (roughly 10 percent) are alive today. One of every 10 humans who ever lived on Earth is alive today. If we were

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Figure 3.20 World population doubling timeline. This graph illustrates the ever-faster doubling times of the world’s population. Whereas accumulating the first billion people took all of human history until about A.D. 1800, the next billion took slightly more than a century to add, the third billion took only 30 years, and the fourth took only 15 years. (Adapted from Sustainablescale.org.)

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT The Geography of HIV/AIDS Some of the most compelling issues facing the planet today know no boundaries. Global warming, overpopulation, and the spread of disease all transcend national borders. In this Global Spotlight, we will focus on the worldwide rise and spread of HIV/AIDS. During 2007–2008, when this edition of The Human Mosaic was revised, it was estimated that nearly 40 million adults and 2.5 million children worldwide were living with HIV and that during 2007, 2.5 million new HIV cases arose and 2.1 million deaths occurred from AIDS. Although 95 percent of HIV/AIDS cases occur in the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the tragic impacts of this disease are not spatially limited. Because of migration, global economic interdependence, and the possibility of political, demographic, and environmental collapse in particularly affected regions, HIV/AIDS is everybody’s concern.

Several theories exist to explain the origin of HIV in humans and its subsequent diffusion. Today, a fair amount of controversy still surrounds the subject. Edward Hooper’s theory is intriguing. He claims that an experimental polio vaccine was made using chimpanzee tissue and was widely administered by health officials between 1957 and 1960 in what was then the Belgian-ruled part of tropical Africa— today the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Burundi, and Rwanda. The earliest recorded cases of AIDS all occurred in or near places where the vaccine had been given (see the accompanying map).

Most experts reject Hooper’s idea, believing instead that the transferal of HIV-1 from chimpanzees may have occurred as early as 1930. The earliest documented case, in

1959, was contracted by a man living in Kinshasa on the Congo River. In 1999, an international team of researchers funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reported their belief that HIV-1 was introduced into the human population when hunters became exposed to the infected blood of chimpanzees. The chimpanzee subspecies is found in Gabon and surrounding countries (see map). The researchers believe that cross-species transmission from chimpanzees to humans occurred independently at least three times. The researchers caution that further incidences of cross-species transmission are possible because the trade in bushmeat—chimpanzees and other animals that are hunted and consumed by humans— continues in western equatorial Africa.

The disease then apparently diffused throughout central and western Africa, following transport routes and greatly facilitated by the rapid urbanization of the region. Among those infected, it seems, were Haitians who came from the West Indies to the newly independent Republic of Congo (later renamed Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo) to fill civil service posts in the early 1960s. Those who became infected probably took HIV back with them to their Caribbean nation. Europeans visiting central Africa also became infected and then brought the disease to their homelands.

The first AIDS cases in the United States were documented in the early 1980s among male homosexuals, initially leading the disease erroneously to be labeled Gay- Related Immuno Deficiency (GRID). However, the majority of HIV infections worldwide are transmitted

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to consider only those humans who survived into adult- hood, the proportion alive today would come closer to one in five!

Some scholars foresaw long ago that an ever-increasing global population would eventually present difficulties. The most famous pioneer observer of population growth, the English economist and cleric Thomas Malthus, published An Essay on the Principle of Population—known as the “dismal essay”—in 1798. He believed that the human ability to mul- tiply far exceeds our ability to increase food production. Consequently, Malthus maintained that “a strong and con- stantly operating check on population” will necessarily act as a natural control on numbers. Malthus regarded famine, disease, and war as the inevitable outcome of the human population’s outstripping the food supply (Figure 3.21). He

wrote, “Population, when unchecked, increases in a geomet- rical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.”

The adjective Malthusian entered the English language to describe the dismal future Malthus foresaw. Being a cleric as well as an economist, however, Malthus believed that if humans could voluntarily restrain the “passion between the sexes,” they might avoid their otherwise miserable fate.

Or Creativity in the Face of Scarcity? But was Malthus right? From the very first, his ideas were controversial. The founders of communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, blamed poverty and starvation on

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heterosexually. As of 2003, women accounted for nearly 50 percent of those living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, while constituting 57 percent of cases in sub-Saharan Africa.

Understanding the spread of disease is the focus of medical and population geographers, subfields of geography that have significant cultural dimensions. In order to fully comprehend why diseases spread in certain ways, for instance, it is necessary to understand why and how people move. Although one might expect all diseases

to spread exclusively by contagious diffusion, in fact they spread through all types of diffusion. Relocation diffusion—in the forms of tourism, long-distance truck transportation in Africa, and the temporary migration of Haitian civil servants to the Congo—apparently played a role in the spread of HIV. Hierarchical diffusion is implicit in the tendency of HIV to gain footholds in urban areas and to be spread by people affluent enough to participate in international tourism.

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the evils of capitalist society. Taking this latter view might lead one to believe that the miseries of starvation, war- fare, and disease are more the result of maldistribution of the world’s wealth than of overpopulation. Indeed, severe food shortages in 2008 in several regions point to pre- cisely this issue of inequitable food distribution and its catastrophic consequences.

Malthus did not consider that when faced with conun- drums such as scarce food supplies, human beings are highly creative. This has led critics of Malthus and his modern-day followers to point out that although the global population has doubled three times since Malthus wrote his essay, food supplies have doubled five times. Scientific innovations such as the green revolution have led to food increases that have far outpaced population growth (see Chapter 8). Other mea- sures of well-being, including life expectancy, air quality, and average education levels, have all improved, too. Some of Malthus’s critics, known as cornucopians, argue that human beings are, in fact, our greatest resource and that attempts to curb our numbers misguidedly cheat us out of geniuses who could devise creative solutions to our resource shortages. Modern-day followers of Malthus, known as neo-Malthusians, counter that the Earth’s support systems are being strained beyond their capacity by the widespread adoption of waste- ful Western lifestyles.

At the beginning of the new millennium, the fact is that the world’s population is growing more slowly than before.

The world’s TFR has fallen to 2.8; one demographer has declared that “the population explosion is over”; and Figure 3.19 depicts a leveling-off of global population at about 11 billion by the year 2100, suggesting that the world’s current “population explosion” is merely a stage in a global demographic transition. Relatively stable popula- tion totals worldwide, however, mask the population declines and aging of the population structure already underway in some regions of the world.

It is difficult to speculate about the state of the world’s population beyond the year 2050. What is clear, however, is that the lifestyles we adopt will affect how many people the Earth can ultimately support. In particular, whether wealthy countries continue to use the amount of resources they cur- rently do, and whether developing countries decide to fol- low a Western-style route toward more and more resource consumption, will bear greatly on whether we have already overpopulated the planet.

The Rule of 72 A handy tool for calculating the doubling time of a popula- tion is called the Rule of 72: take a country’s rate of annual increase, expressed as a percent, and divide it into the num- ber 72. The result is the number of years a population, growing at a given rate, will take to double.

For example, the natural annual growth of the United States expressed as a percent in 2007 was 0.6 percent. Divid- ing 72 by 0.6 equals 120, which means that the population of the United States will double every 120 years. This does not factor in the relatively high levels of immigration expe- rienced by the United States, which will cause its popula- tion to double faster than every 120 years.

What about countries with faster rates of growth? Con- sider Guatemala, which is growing at 2.8 percent per year. Doing the math, we find that Guatemala’s population is doubling every 25.7 years!

Percentages such as 0.6 or 2.8 don’t sound like such high rates. If we were discussing your bank account rather than the populations of countries, you would hope that your money would double more quickly than every 25 years! (Incidentally, you can apply the Rule of 72 to your bank account or to any other figure that grows at a steady annual rate.) You may be tempted to say, “Look, there are only 12 million people in Guatemala, so it doesn’t really matter if its population is doubling quickly. What really mat- ters is that at an annual increase of 1.7 percent, India’s 1 bil- lion people will double to 2 billion in 42 years, and China’s 1.3 billion will double as fast as the U.S. population—every 120 years—but that will add another 1.3 billion to the world’s population, more than four times what the United States will add by doubling!”

Q ua

nt ity

Time

Population

Resources

tl

Figure 3.21 Malthus’s dismal equation. Thomas Malthus based his theory of population growth on the simple notion that resources (food) grow in a linear fashion, whereas population grows geometrically. Beyond time t l, population outstrips resources, resulting in famine, conflict, and disease.

Globalization 93

This assessment is partly right and partly wrong, depending on your vantage point. Viewed at the global scale, it does indeed make a significant difference when China’s or India’s population doubles. But if you are a res- ident of Guatemala or an official of the Guatemalan gov- ernment, a doubling of your country’s population every 25 years means that health care, education, jobs, fresh water, and housing must be supplied to twice as many people every 25 years. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the scale at which population questions are asked is vital for the answers that are given.

Population Control Programs Though the debates may occur at a global scale, most popu- lation control programs are devised and implemented at the national level. When faced with perceived national security threats, some governments respond by supporting pronatal- ist programs that are designed to increase the population. Labor shortages in Nordic countries have led to incentives for couples to have larger families. Most population pro- grams, however, are antinatalist: they seek to reduce fertility. Needless to say, this is an easier task for a nonelected govern- ment to carry out because limiting fertility challenges tradi- tional gender roles and norms about family size.

Although China certainly is not the only country that has sought to limit its population growth, its so-called “one-child policy” provides the best-known modern example. Mao Zedong, the longtime leader of the People’s Republic of

China (1949–1976), did not initially discourage large families in the belief that “every mouth comes with two hands.” In other words, he believed that a large population would strengthen the country in the face of external political pres- sures. He reversed his position in the 1970s when it became clear that China faced resource shortages as a result of its bur- geoning population. In 1980, the one child per couple policy was adopted. With it, Chinese authorities sought not merely to halt population growth but, ultimately, to decrease the national population. All over China today one sees billboards and posters admonishing the citizens that “one couple, one child” is the ideal family (Figure 3.22). Violators face huge monetary fines, cannot request new housing, lose the rather generous benefits provided to the elderly by the government, forfeit their children’s access to higher education, and may even lose their jobs. Late marriages are encouraged. In response, between 1970 and 1980, the TFR in China plum- meted from 5.9 births per woman to only 2.7, then to 2.2 by 1990, 2.0 by 1994, and 1.7 in 2007 (see Figure 3.3).

China achieved one of the greatest short-term reduc- tions of birthrates ever recorded, thus proving that cultural changes can be imposed from above, rather than simply waiting for them to diffuse organically. In recent years, the Chinese population control program has been less rigidly enforced as economic growth has eroded the government’s control over the people. This relaxation has allowed more couples to have two children instead of one; however, the rise of economic opportunity and migration to cities have led some couples voluntarily to have smaller families.

Figure 3.22 Population control in the People’s Republic of China. China has aggressively promoted a policy of “one couple, one child” in an attempt to relieve the pressures of overpopulation. These billboards convey the government’s message. Violators— those with more than one child—are subject to fines, loss of job

and old-age benefits, loss of access to better housing, and other penalties. How effective would such billboards be in influencing people’s decisions? Why is one of the signs in English? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

94 Chapter 3 Population Geography

Because of China’s population size, its actions will greatly affect the global context as well as its own national one (see Subject to Debate for a discussion of the gender implica- tions of strict population control policies).

Reflecting on Geography Would a global population control policy be desirable, or even feasible?

Nature-Culture The reasons that human populations are so diverse are often cultural. Though the differences may have started out as adaptations to given physical conditions, when repeated from generation to generation these patterns become woven tightly into the cultural fabric of places. Thus, demo- graphic practices such as living in crowded settlements or having large families may well have deep roots in both nature and culture.

Environmental Influence Local population characteristics are often influenced in a possibilistic manner by the availability of resources. In the middle latitudes, population densities tend to be greatest where the terrain is level, the climate is mild and humid, the soil is fertile, mineral resources are abundant, and the sea is accessible. Conversely, population tends to thin out with excessive elevation, aridity, coldness, ruggedness of ter- rain, and distance from the coast.

Climatic factors influence where people settle. Most of the sparsely populated zones in the world have, in some respect, “defective” climates from the human viewpoint (see Figure 3.1). The thinly populated northern edges of Eurasia and North America are excessively cold, and the belt from North Africa into the heart of Eurasia matches the major desert zones of the Eastern Hemisphere. Humans remain creatures of the humid and subhumid tropics, subtropics, or midlatitudes and have not fared well in excessively cold or dry areas. Small populations of Inuit (Eskimo), Sami (Lapps), and other peoples live in some of the less hospitable areas of the Earth, but these regions do not support large populations. Humans have proven remarkably adaptable, and our cultures contain strategies that allow us to live in many different physical environments, but perhaps, as a species, we have not entirely moved beyond the adaptive strategies that suited us so well to the climatic features of sub- Saharan Africa, where we began.

Humankind’s preference for lower elevations is espe- cially true for the middle and higher latitudes. Most moun- tain ranges in those latitudes stand out as sparsely populated regions. By contrast, inhabitants of the tropics often prefer

to live at higher elevations, concentrating in dense clusters in mountain valleys and basins (see Figure 3.1). For example, in tropical portions of South America, more people live in the Andes Mountains than in the nearby Amazon lowlands. The capital cities of many tropical and subtropical nations lie in mountain areas above 3000 feet (900 meters) in elevation. Living at higher elevations allows residents to escape the humid, hot climate and diseases of the tropic lowlands. In addition, these areas were settled because the fertile volcanic soils of these mountain valleys and basins were able to sup- port larger populations in agrarian societies.

Humans often live near the sea. The continents of Eurasia, Australia, and South America resemble hollow shells, with the majority of the population clustered around the rim of each continent (see Figure 3.1). In Australia, half the total population lives in only five port cities, and most of the remainder is spread out over nearby coastal areas. This preference for living by the sea stems partly from the trade and fishing opportunities the sea offers. At the same time, continental interiors tend to be regions of climatic extremes. For example, Australians speak of the “dead heart” of their continent, an interior land of excessive dry- ness and heat.

Disease also affects population distribution. Some dis- eases attack valuable domestic animals, depriving people of food and clothing resources. Such diseases have an indirect effect on population density. For example, in parts of East Africa, a form of sleeping sickness attacks livestock. This particular disease is almost invariably fatal to cattle but not to humans. The people in this part of East Africa depend heavily on cattle, which provide food, represent wealth, and serve a religious function in some tribes. The spread of a disease fatal to cattle has caused entire tribes to migrate away from infested areas, leaving those areas unpopulated.

Environmental Perception and Population Distribution Perception of the physical environment plays a major role in a group’s decision about where to settle and live. Differ- ent cultural groups often “see” the same physical environ- ment in different ways. These varied responses to a single environment influence the distribution of people. A good example appears in a part of the European Alps shared by German- and Italian-speaking peoples. The mountain ridges in that area—near the point where Switzerland, Italy, and Austria border each other—run in an east-west direc- tion, so that each ridge has a sunny, south-facing slope and a shady, north-facing one. German-speaking people, who rely on dairy farming, long ago established permanent set- tlements some 650 feet (200 meters) higher on the shady slopes than the settlements of Italians, who are culturally tied to warmth-loving crops, on the sunny slopes. This

Nature-Culture 95

example demonstrates how contrasting cultural attitudes toward the physical environment and land use affect settle- ment patterns.

Sometimes, the same cultural group changes its per- ception of an environment over time, with a resulting redis- tribution of its population. The coalfields of western Europe provide a good case in point. Before the industrial age, many coal-rich areas—such as the Midlands of Eng- land, southern Wales, and the lands between the headwa- ters of the Oder (or Odra) and Vistula rivers in Poland—were only sparsely or moderately settled. The development of steam-powered engines and the increased use of coal in the iron-smelting process, however, created a tremendous demand. Industries grew up near the Euro- pean coalfields, and people flocked to these areas to take advantage of the new jobs. In other words, once a techno- logical development gave a new cultural value to coal, many sparsely populated areas containing that resource acquired large concentrations of people.

Recent studies indicate that much of the interregional migration in the United States today is prompted by a desire for a pleasant climate and other desirable physical environmental traits, such as beautiful scenery. Surveys of immigrants to Arizona revealed that its sunny, warm cli- mate is a major reason for migration. An attractive envi- ronment provided the dominant factor in the growth of the population and economy of Florida. The most desir- able environmental traits that serve as stimulants for American migration include (1) mild winter climate and mountainous terrain, (2) a diverse natural vegetation that includes forests and a mild summer climate with low humidity, (3) the presence of lakes and rivers, and (4) nearness to the seacoast. Different age and cultural

groups often express different preferences, but all are influenced by their perceptions of the physical environ- ment in making decisions about migration.

Reflecting on Geography What is your ideal climate? Do you now live in a place with such a climate? If not, do you eventually intend to migrate for this reason?

Population Density and Environmental Alteration People modify their habitats through their adaptive strate- gies. Particularly in areas where population density is high, radical alterations often occur. This can happen in fragile environments even at relatively low population densities because, as discussed earlier in this chapter, the Earth’s car- rying capacity varies greatly from one place to another and from one culture to another.

Many of our adaptive strategies are not sustainable. Pop- ulation pressures and local ecological crises are closely related. For example, in Haiti, where rural population pres- sures have become particularly severe, the trees in previously forested areas have been stripped for fuel, leaving the sur- rounding fields and pastures increasingly denuded and vul- nerable to erosion (Figure 3.23). In short, overpopulation relative to resource availability can precipitate environmental destruction—which, in turn, results in a downward cycle of worsening poverty, with an eventual catastrophe that is both ecological and demographic. Thus, many cultural ecologists believe that attempts to restore the balance of nature will not succeed until we halt or even reverse population growth, although they recognize that other causes are at work in eco- logical crises.

Figure 3.23 Overpopulation and deforestation. This aerial photograph depicts the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Both nations share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Population pressures in Haiti, on the left side of the photograph, have led to deforestation; the Dominican Republic is the greener area to the right. The political border is also an environmental border. (NASA.)

96 Chapter 3 Population Geography

The worldwide ecological crisis is not solely a function of overpopulation. A relatively small percentage of the Earth’s population controls much of the industrial technol- ogy and consumes a disproportionate percentage of the world’s resources each year. Americans, who make up less than 5 percent of the global population, account for about 25 percent of the natural resources consumed globally each year. New houses built in the United States in 2002 were, on average, 38 percent bigger than those built in 1975, despite a shrinking average household size. If everyone in the world had an average American standard of living, the Earth could support only about 500 million people—only 8 percent of the present population. As the economies of

large countries such as India and China continue to surge, the resource consumption of their populations is likely to rise as well because the human desire to consume appears to be limited only by the ability to pay for it.

Cultural Landscape What are the many ways that demographic factors are expressed in the cultural landscape? Population geogra- phies are visible in the landscapes around us. The varied den- sities of human settlements and the shapes these take in different places provide clues to the intertwined cultural and

Village green or

commons

(a) Irregular clustered village

(b) Street village (c) Green village

(d) Isolated farmsteads, unit-block farms (e) Hamlet (f) Row village, long-lot farms

(g) Checkerboard village (h) Loose irregular village

Farmsteads (house and buildings, farmyard garden)Property lines

Roads and streets Cropland and pasture

Figure 3.24 Rural settlement landscapes. The way individual farmers choose to locate their farmsteads leads to a general settlement pattern on the land. In some areas, farmsteads are scattered and isolated. In areas where farmsteads are grouped, there are several possible patterns of clustering.

Cultural Landscape 97

demographic strategies enacted in response to diverse local factors. These clues are evident wherever people have set- tled, be it urban, suburban, or rural. Less visible, but no less important, factors are also at work on and throughout the cultural landscape. Politics, economics, and gender relations provide three examples of the larger power relations that can shape the cultural-demographic landscape. We open this final part of the chapter by examining rural settlement pat- terns, which illustrate how demographics, culture, and the landscape conspire to create a variety of settlements.

Rural Settlement Patterns Differing densities and arrangements of population are revealed, at the largest scale, by maps showing the distribu- tion of dwellings. These differences in the cultural landscape can be illustrated by using the example of rural settlement types. Farm people differ from one culture to another, one place to another, in how they situate their dwellings, produc- ing greatly varied rural cultural landscapes. They range from tightly clustered villages on the one extreme to fully dis- persed farmsteads on the other, as shown in Figure 3.24.

Farm Villages In many parts of the world, farming people group themselves together in clustered settlements called farm villages. These tightly bunched settlements vary in size from a few dozen inhabitants to several thousand. Con- tained in the village farmstead are the house, barn, sheds, pens, and garden. The fields, pastures, and meadows lie out in the country beyond the limits of the village, and farmers must journey out from the village each day to work the land.

Farm villages are the most common form of agricul- tural settlement in much of Europe, in many parts of Latin America, in the densely settled farming regions of Asia (including much of India, China, and Japan), and among the sedentary farming peoples of Africa and the Middle East. These compact villages come in many forms. Most are irregular clusterings—a maze of winding, narrow streets and a jumble of farmsteads (see Figures 3.24a and 3.25). Such irregular clustered farm villages developed organi- cally over centuries, without any orderly plan to direct their growth. Other types of farm villages are very regular in their layout, revealing the imprint of planned design. The street village, the simplest of these planned types, consists of farm- steads grouped along both sides of a single, central street, producing an elongated settlement (see Figures 3.24b and 3.26). Street villages are particularly common in eastern Europe and much of Russia. Another type, the green vil- lage, consists of farmsteads grouped around a central open place, or green, which forms a commons (see Figure 3.24c). Green villages occur throughout most of the plains areas of northern and northwestern Europe, and English immigrants laid out some such settlements in colonial New England. Also regular in layout is the checkerboard village, based on a gridiron pattern of streets meeting at right angles (see Figure 3.24g). Mormon farm villages in Utah are of this type, and checkerboard villages also dominate most of rural Latin America and northeastern China.

Why do so many farm people settle together in villages? Historically, the countryside was unsafe, threatened by rov- ing bands of outlaws and raiders. Farmers could better defend themselves against such dangers by grouping

Figure 3.25 Two irregular clustered villages. The village on the left with adjacent irrigated grain fields is near Gonggar in southeastern Tibet. The village nestles against a hill, and much of it is built on land unfit for cultivation. The village shown on

the right is in northern Switzerland. Although halfway around the world from the village in Tibet, it also shows the irregular plan. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

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Figure 3.26 Street village beside the great Siberian river Lena in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), part of Russia. Farmsteads lie along a single street, creating an elongated settlement. One can distinguish Russian ethnic villages in Sakha by this form. In this way, the cultural landscape reveals the ethnicity of the inhabitants. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 3.27 A truly isolated farmstead, in the Vestfjörds district of northwestern Iceland. This type of rural settlement dominates almost all lands colonized by Europeans migrating overseas. Iceland was settled by Norse Vikings a thousand years ago. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

together in villages. In many parts of the world, the popu- lations of villages have grown larger during periods of inse- curity and shrunk again when peace returned. Many farm villages occupy the most easily defended sites in their vicin- ity, what geographers call strong-point settlements.

In addition to defense, the quality of the environment helps determine whether people settle in villages. In deserts and in limestone areas where the ground absorbs moisture quickly, farmsteads are built around the few sources of water. Such wet-point villages cluster around oases or deep wells. Conversely, a superabundance of water—in marshes, swamps, and areas subject to floods—often prompts people to settle in villages on available dry points of higher elevation.

Various communal ties strongly bind villagers together. Farmers linked to one another by blood relationships, reli- gious customs, communal landownership, or other similar bonds usually form clustered villages. Mormon farm villages in the United States provide an excellent example of the clustering force of religion. Communal or state own-

ership of the land—as in China and parts of Israel— encourages the formation of farm villages.

Isolated Farmsteads In many other parts of the world, the rural population lives on dispersed, isolated farmsteads, often some distance from their nearest neighbors (see Fig- ure 3.24d). These dispersed rural settlements grew up mainly in Anglo-America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa—that is, in the lands colonized by emigrating Europeans. But even in areas dominated by village settlements—such as Japan, Europe, and parts of India— some isolated farmsteads appear (Figure 3.27).

The conditions encouraging dispersed settlement are precisely the opposite of those favoring village develop- ment. These include peace and security in the countryside, eliminating the need for defense; colonization by individ- ual pioneer families rather than by socially cohesive groups; private agricultural enterprise, as opposed to some form of communalism; and well-drained land where water is read-

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ily available. Most dispersed farmsteads originated rather recently, dating primarily from the colonization of new farmland in the past two or three centuries.

Reflecting on Geography What challenges might a settlement pattern of isolated farmsteads present for the people who live there?

Historical Factors Shaping the Cultural-Demographic Landscape The rural settlement forms described previously give geog- raphers a chance to “read” the cultural landscape. In doing so, we must always be cautious, looking for the subtle as well as the overt, and not form conclusions too quickly.

For example, the Mayas of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico reside in checkerboard villages, a rural settlement landscape that is both suggestive and potentially misleading (Figure 3.28). Before the Spanish conquest in the late 1400s, Mayas lived in wet-point villages of the irregular clus- tered type, situated alongside cenotes—natural sinkholes that provided water in a land with no surface streams. The Spaniards destroyed these settlements, replacing them with checkerboard villages. Wide, straight streets accommo- dated the wheeled vehicles of the European conquerors.

Superficially, the checkerboard landscape suggests the cultural victory of the Spaniards. Looking more closely, however, shows that, in fact, Mayan culture prevailed. Even today, many Mayas make little use of wheeled vehicles in vil- lage life, and many of the Spaniards’ “streets” merely make way for Mayan footpaths that wind among boulders and outcroppings of bedrock. Irregularities in the checker- board, coupled with a casual distribution of dwellings, suggest Mayan resistance to the new geometry. Spanish- influenced architecture—flat-roofed houses of stone, the town hall, a church, and a hacienda mansion—remain largely confined to the area near the central plaza. The Catholic church stands on the very place where an ancient Mayan temple had been. A block away, the traditional Mayan pole huts with thatched, hipped roofs prevail, echoed by cookhouses of the same design. Indian influence increases markedly with distance from the plaza.

The dooryard gardens surrounding each hut are full of traditional native plants—such as papayas, bananas, chili peppers, nuts, yucca, and maize—with only a few citrus trees to reveal Spanish influence. In the same yards, each care- fully ringed with dry rock walls, as in pre-Columbian times, pigs descended from those introduced by the conquerors share the ground with the traditional turkeys of the Maya and apiaries for indigenous stingless bees. Occasionally, the Mayan language is heard, although Spanish prevails. So does Catholicism, but the absence of huts around the once- sacred cenote suggests a lingering pagan influence.

Political and Economic Factors Shaping the Cultural-Demographic Landscape The political mosaic of the world is linked inextricably to population geography. Governmental policies often influence the fertility rate, as we have seen in the case of China. Forced or involuntary migration, too, is usually the result of political forces. These have become particu- larly common in the past century or so, usually to achieve ethnic cleansing—the removal of unwanted minorities in nation-states. Ethnic cleansing is an age-old practice. It has happened most recently in the Balkans (in southeast- ern Europe) and in the African nation of Sudan’s Darfur region. In Darfur, the Sudanese government has backed Arab militias known as Janjaweed. In 2003, when the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups, who have histori- cally farmed in Darfur, organized to demand more repre- sentation in the Sudanese government, and when Arab pastoralists were driven into the lands of the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa because of drought and desertification in their own lands, this historic conflict escalated. The Jan- jaweed have systematically exterminated thousands and forced millions more into refugee camps or to flee to nearby Chad.

Governments also restrict voluntary migration. Most countries, in fact, have laws restricting immigration into their countries. Two independent countries, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, share the tropical Caribbean island of Hispaniola in the West Indies. Haiti, which supports 638 persons per square mile (246 per square kilometer), is far more densely settled than the Dominican Republic, which has only 450 persons per square mile (174 per square kilo- meter) (see Figure 3.23). Haiti is also poorer and has expe- rienced considerable political turmoil, presenting many Haitians with powerful push factors to migrate. Govern- ment restrictions, however, make migration from Haiti to the Dominican Republic difficult and also help maintain the different population densities. If Hispaniola were one country, its population would be more evenly distributed over the island.

Economic conditions—which are often deeply entwined with political factors—also influence the demo- graphic landscape in profound ways. The process of indus- trialization during the past 200 years has caused the greatest voluntary relocation of people in world history. Within industrial nations, people moved from rural areas to cluster in manufacturing regions (see Chapter 10). Agri- cultural changes have also influenced population density. For example, the complete mechanization of cotton and wheat cultivation in mid-twentieth-century America allowed those crops to be raised by a much smaller labor force. As a result, profound depopulation occurred, to the extent that many small towns serving these rural inhabi- tants ceased to exist.

PLAZA

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H IG

H W

AY

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convent

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hacienda

S

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S

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Laid out as street, but used only as footpath; obstructions such as boulders make wheeled vehicles impossible

Foot trails to nearby cornfields

Dry rock walls enclosing farmsteads and outlying gardens

Mayan oval-shaped pole huts, with detached kitchen

Dwellings

Town hall

School

Stores and corn mill Flat-roofed, Spanish-style buildings

Figure 3.28 A hypothetical modern Mayan checkerboard farm village in Yucatán Province, Mexico. Spanish influence—seen in the grid pattern, plaza, church, hacienda, and flat-roofed buildings—weakens with distance from the center, and the rigid checkerboard masks a certain irregularity of farmstead layout.

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A cenote is a large, deep sinkhole filled with water, and these natural pools served a major religious function among the Mayas before Christianity came. (Source: Composite of 1987 field observations by Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov in some 15 villages east and southeast of Mérida.)

Cultural Landscape 101

Gender and the Cultural-Demographic Landscape Gender often interacts with other factors to influence geo- demographic patterns and migrations (see Practicing Geography and Subject to Debate). For example, together gender, race, and nationality can create situations in which

women from specific countries are viewed as desirable immigrants. In nineteenth-century America, Irish female immigrants were considered to be highly reliable employ- ees and often found work as domestic servants.

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Rachel Silvey

Many of the geographers profiled in the Practicing Geography sections chose geography after considering a number of other possibilities. Rachel Silvey, a geodemographer at the University of Toronto in Canada, is certainly no exception. “I came to geography somewhat circuitously,” she says. In fact, her story combines

the process of choosing a major with the love of travel that seems to be so common for our profiled geographers. “As an undergraduate student, I chose geography as a field when I realized it would permit long-term international research projects and when it became clear that my research couldn’t be squeezed into the compartments of other disciplinary homes.”

Professor Silvey’s research focuses on Indonesia. She has interviewed women who work in the multinational factories that exist throughout the developing world, where labor costs are low. She was particularly interested in how these women’s relationships with their families were reshaped as they migrated for work reasons and left their villages behind.

Today, Professor Silvey is working on two related projects. The first is an analysis of the role of religion in the lives of people who shift their homes between Jakarta and Los Angeles. Such people are crafters of transnational landscapes and identities. Professor Silvey is particularly interested in finding out more about how the Islamic identities of these people help to shape, and at the same time challenge, some of the gender rules established in transnational migrant communities. Her second project brings Bangladesh into the picture. Both Indonesia and Bangladesh are Muslim countries with relatively large and dense populations. In this project, Professor Silvey is exploring inequalities in people’s social networks, especially those inequalities that have to do with gender and economic standing, in order to understand how these are reflected in the health of people in rural areas who do not migrate. Professor Silvey says, “Geography allows me to make connections among the wide range of social and

political issues that other disciplines seem to divide up into arbitrary disciplinary pieces. As a geographer, I’m able to continue to spend time doing fieldwork in Indonesia, and this allows me to deepen my relationships with people in the migrant communities to which I’ve returned every couple years since 1995.”

Most of Professor Silvey’s time in the field involves interviewing people at length about their own perceptions of migration, gender, and development. These in-depth ethnographic portraits of people living their lives in places provide a complement, and sometimes a corrective, to what Professor Silvey sees as the “lower-resolution analyses of migration that are produced by spatial demographers.” A mainstay of ethnographic research methods is participant observation, whereby the researcher shares the day-to-day lives of those he or she is researching. “I live with migrants and factory workers and involve myself in their everyday activities. These grounded experiences give me a sense of the meanings of particular positioned migrant subjectivities.” Professor Silvey also uses large-scale demographic data sets, among them the Indonesian census and the Indonesian Family Life Survey, to provide background information and a context for her micro-level work.

Not surprisingly, Professor Silvey identifies doing international fieldwork as one of the most enjoyable parts of her job as a practicing geographer. “I enjoy spending time in Indonesia, speaking the language there, and learning about people’s conceptions of gender, history, culture, and geographic change.” She also points to teaching as an exciting part of her job. Professor Silvey notes that what she learns as a participant observer in the field not only forms the backbone of her scholarly research but it also provides her teaching with great firsthand material. “The narratives and images that I collect during my fieldwork also allow me to effectively teach students about the place- and person-specific dimensions of the migration process.” Professor Silvey believes that one of the best parts of teaching human geography is that “the subject matter encourages students’ active engagement with contemporary global issues.”

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102 Chapter 3 Population Geography

For several decades now, women from the Philippines have migrated to Hong Kong to work as domestic servants, doing chores for and looking after the children of the fam- ilies who hire them (Figure 3.29). Wages in Hong Kong are much higher than back home in the Philippines, prompt- ing the migration. However, working conditions can be far from ideal, involving hard physical labor and long hours. Reports of abuse of Filipina servants by their employers are numerous. If a servant is fired, she will be deported if she cannot find another job quickly. The stress of long separa- tions from husbands and children back in the Philippines has led to the breakup of families.

Some of these women become coerced into Asia’s booming sex industry, as well. Geographer James Tyner has studied migration from the Philippines to Japan. Incredi- bly, 93 percent of this migration consists of female “enter- tainers.” In part, poverty in the Philippines provided the push factor in this movement. Tyner also points to more complex pull factors, such as the stereotypical view held by Japanese men in which Filipinas are seen as highly desir- able, exotic sex objects but also culturally inferior and thus “willing victims” who gladly become prostitutes. Thus, the gendered landscape becomes an attraction for other sorts of human mobility than work-related migration: in this case, sex tourism.

Conclusion In our study of population geography, we have seen that humankind is unevenly distributed over the Earth. Spatial variations in fertility, death rates, rates of population change, age groups, gender ratios, and standards of living also exist: these patterns can be depicted as demographic culture regions. The principles of mobility prove useful in analyzing human migration and also help explain the spread of factors influencing demographic characteristics such as disease.

Population geography proves particularly intriguing when scale is taken into account. Although most geodemo- graphic issues are experienced locally, and policies shaping them are usually set at the national level, the important debates about the world’s population are truly global in nature.

The theme of nature-culture shows how the natural environment and people’s perception of and engagement with it influence demographic factors. Nature-culture inter- actions shape the spatial distribution of people and some- times help guide migrations. We also found that population density is linked to the level of environmental alteration and that overpopulation can have a destructive impact on the environment.

Figure 3.29 Filipina domestic servants in Hong Kong. On Sunday, their day off, these women congregate in covered walkways and other public spaces. They exchange gossip, play cards, cut each other’s hair, and relax. (Courtesy of Patricia L. Price.)

The cultural landscape expresses visually, as well as in more subtle ways, the relations of power that shape societies with regard to their demographic characteristics. How peo- ple distribute themselves over the Earth’s surface finds a vivid expression in the cultural landscape. In addition, his- tory, politics, economics, and gender relations have demo- graphic expressions in the cultural landscape.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

Public Space, Personal Space: Too Close for Comfort? Culture can condition people to accept or reject crowding. Personal space—the amount of space that individuals feel “belongs” to them as they move about their everyday business—varies from one cultural group to another. As the Seeing Geography section for this chapter notes, different people seem to require different amounts of personal space. One’s comfort zone varies with social class, gender, ethnicity, the situation at hand, and what one has grown accustomed to over one’s life. Some Arabs, for example, consider it appropriate and even polite to be close enough for another to smell his or her breath during conversation. Those from cultures that have not developed a high tolerance for personal contact might experience such closeness as intrusive. Americans conducting business in Japan are often surprised at the level of physical closeness expected in their dealings. Such closeness might well be interpreted as overstepping one’s bounds, literally, in the United States!

In this exercise, you will gather some data on the amount of personal space needed by those around you. Observe and record your findings, and discuss them in class as a group.

The first part of this exercise involves observing your professors as they lecture in class. Is your class a large one that meets in a lecture hall? If so, where does your professor sit or stand in relation to the students? Does the professor have his or her own designated space in the classroom? Where is it located, and how big is it? Does the professor ever step outside of it? How does this professor’s use of space compare to that of other professors you have, and why do you think this is so? If you have a smaller class, compare the use of space by that professor. Is it different from the behavior of the professors in large lecture halls? Under what circumstances, if any, do your professors get close to students, and how close do they get?

The second part of this exercise involves noting how close you can get to same-gender friends. Strike up a conversation with a friend standing next to you. Discreetly move closer and closer to your friend until he or she moves away or says something about your proximity. How much

space separated you when this happened? What do you think would happen if you tried this with a stranger? With a friend or a stranger of a different gender? With a friend or a stranger from a different culture?

Did all your classmates have similar experiences, or were your findings notably different? Are all students in your class from similar economic or ethnic backgrounds? If not, that may explain some of the differences that emerge. In what ways do planners and architects take personal space preferences into account when they design cities, streets, buildings, homes, and classrooms?

Population Geography on the Internet You can learn more about population geography on the Internet at the following web sites:

Population Reference Bureau, Inc., Washington, D.C. http://www.prb.org This organization is concerned principally with the issues of over- population and standard of living. The “World Population Data Sheet” provides up-to-date basic demographic information at a glance, and the “Datafinder” section has a wealth of images on all aspects of global population for use in presentations and reports. Some of the maps in this chapter were adapted from PRB maps.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees http://www.unhcr.org This United Nations web site provides basic information about refugee situations worldwide. The site includes regularly updated maps showing refugee locations and populations, and photos of refugee life.

U.S. Census Bureau Population Clocks http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html Check real-time figures here for the population of the United States and the population of the world. The main website, http://www.census.gov, hosts the most important and compre- hensive data sets available on the U.S. population.

World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland http://www.who.int/en Learn about the group that distributes information on health, mortality, and epidemics as it seeks to improve health conditions around the globe. The “Global Health Atlas” allows you to create detailed maps from WHO data.

Worldwatch Institute, Washington, D.C. http://www.worldwatch.org This organization is concerned with the ecological consequences of overpopulation and the wasteful use of resources. It seeks sus- tainable ways to support the world’s population and brings atten- tion to ecological crises.

Sources de Macgregor, María T. de Gutiérrez. 1984. “Population Geogra-

phy in Mexico,” in John J. Clarke (ed.), Geography and Popula- tion. Oxford: Pergamon.

Sources 103

104 Chapter 3 Population Geography

A street scene in the large city of Kolkata, India.

SEEING GEOGRAPHY Street in Kolkata, India

Do you need your “personal space”? Most Americans and Canadians do. If so, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India, is a place you might want to avoid. The photo was taken in March 2001, on the day the Indian government announced that the country’s population had well exceeded 1 billion and that 181 million had been added to India’s population between the censuses of 1991 and 2001. West Bengal state, where Kolkata is located, has the highest population density in the country.

Why do people form such dense clusters? The theme of cultural interaction would tell us of push factors that encourage people to leave their farms and move to the city. Some can no longer make a living or feed their families with the food provided by the tiny plots of land they work.

Others are forced off the land by landlords who want to convert their farms to use mechanized Western methods of agriculture that use far less labor (see Chapter 8). But cultural interaction also tells us of pull factors exerted by cities such as Kolkata—the hope or promise of better- paying jobs, the encouragement of friends and relatives who came to the city earlier, or the greater availability of government services. And so, pushed and pulled, they come to the teeming, overcrowded city, to jostle and elbow their way through the streets.

But it is not only cities in the developing world that become so dense. If you have ever visited, or lived in, Manhattan, New York, you are all too familiar with dense crowds of people. In fact, there are some who grow up in these environments and find that the relative solitude of rural areas verges on terrifying. They prefer the bustle of activity and the sounds of the city, and they feel at home in a crowd.

Being a woman is another reason that you might feel uncomfortable in this Kolkata street environment. Notice the nearly complete lack of women in this crowd. Many societies have strict norms that dictate where women, and men, may and may not go. Harassment or even violence may be the result of violating these norms.

The study of the size and shape of people’s envelopes of personal space is called proxemics. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall, whose book The Hidden Dimension is listed in Ten Recommended Books on Population Geography at the end of the chapter, is the founder of this science. Urban planners, architects, psychologists, and sociologists, as well as geographers, use proxemics to explain why some people need more space than others and how this varies culturally.

Would you feel comfortable walking here? If not, why not?

D’Emilio, Frances. 2004. “Italy’s Seniors Finding Comfort with Strangers,” Miami Herald, 30 October, pp. 1A, 2A.

Girish, Uma. 2005. “For India’s Daughters, a Dark Birth Day,” Christian Science Monitor, 9 February. Available online at http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0209/p11s01-wosc.html.

Gould, Peter. 1993. The Slow Plague: A Geography of the AIDS Pan- demic. Oxford: Blackwell.

Hooper, Edward. 1999. The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS. Boston: Little, Brown.

Malthus, Thomas R. 1989 [1798]. An Essay on the Principle of Popu- lation. Patricia James (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Montero, David. 2002. “Charting the World’s Oil,” Frontline/ World, Colombia—The Pipeline War. Available online at http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/colombia/oila.html.

Paul, Bimal K. 1994. “AIDS in Asia.” Geographical Review 84: 367–379. Shannon, Gary W., Gerald F. Pyle, and Rashid L. Bashshur. 1991.

The Geography of AIDS: Origins and Course of an Epidemic. New York: Guilford.

Tyner, James A. 1996. “Filipina Migrant Entertainers.” Gender, Place and Culture 3: 77–93.

World Bank, “Statistics in Africa.” Available online at http:// www.worldbank.org/afr/stats.

World Population Data Sheet. 2007. Washington, D.C.: Population Reference Bureau.

Ten Recommended Books on Population Geography (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Castles, Stephen, and Mark J. Miller. 1998. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, 2nd ed. New York: Guilford. A global perspective on migrations, why they occur, and the effects they have on different countries, in an age of an unprecedented volume of migration. Explores how migration has led to the formation of ethnic minorities in numerous countries as well as its impact on domestic politics and economics.

Hall, Edward T. 1966. The Hidden Dimension. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. This is the classic study of proxemics conducted by an anthropologist. Hall argues that culture, above all else, shapes our criteria for defining, organizing, and using space.

Johnson, Steven. 2006. The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. New York: Riverhead Books. In this gripping historical narrative, physician John Snow’s tracing of the Soho cholera outbreak of 1854 is placed in the larger context of the history of science and urbanization.

Mann, Charles C. 2006. 1491. New York: Vintage. This highly read- able account of the American landscape on the eve of Euro- pean conquest challenges long-held notions. Contending that the indigenous population of the Americas was in fact much larger and well-off than assumed, Mann paints a picture of a preconquest landscape that was culturally rich, technologically sophisticated, and environmentally compromised.

Meade, Melinda S., and Robert J. Earickson. 2005. Medical Geogra- phy, 2nd ed. New York: Guilford. Surveys the perspectives, the- ories, and methodologies that geographers use in studying human health; a primary text that undergraduates can readily understand.

Newbold, K. Bruce. 2007. Six Billion Plus: World Population in the Twenty-First Century, 2nd ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Lit- tlefield. The impact of increased global population levels across the next century is assessed with respect to interaction with environmental, epidemiological, mobility, and security issues.

Newman, James L. 1997. The Peopling of Africa: A Geographic Inter- pretation. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Explores the role of genetic background, language, occupation, and religion as well as differing natural and human environmental circumstances in the peopling of Africa before the arrival of European colonialists.

Roberts, Brian K. 1996. Landscapes of Settlement. London: Rout- ledge. Discusses the role and significance of rural settlements, drawing from global case studies. Outlines the formation of dif- ferent spatial arrangements at the farmstead, hamlet, and vil- lage scales.

Seager, Joni, and Mona Domosh. 2001. Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geographers Make Sense of the World. New York: Guilford. A highly readable account of why paying attention to gender is crucial to understanding the spaces in which we live and work.

Tone, Andrea. 2002. Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America. New York: Hill & Wang. This social history of birth control in the United States details the fascinating relationship between the state and the long-standing attempts of men and women to limit their fertility.

Journals in Population Geography Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography. Published

by the Carfax Publishing Co., P.O. Box 2025, Dunnellon, Fla. 34430. Volume 1 appeared in 1994.

Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. Vol- ume 1 was published in 1996.

Journals in Population Geography 105

Aquí se habla Spanglish. What does this sign tell you about who uses the commercial space in this city?

4 Speaking about Places

The Geography of Language

Spanglish gas station sign in New York City. (The Photo Works.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 136 for an in-depth analysis of the question on this photo.

107

Language is one of the primary features that distinguishes humans from otheranimals. Many animals, including dolphins, whales, and birds, do indeed com-municate with one another through patterned systems of sounds, movements, or scents and other scent- and taste-based chemicals. Some nonhuman primates have been taught to use sign language to communicate with humans. In turn, we have attempted to translate animal noises into words in human languages, with results that vary across cultures (Figure 4.1). However, the complexity of human lan- guage, its ability to convey nuanced emotions and ideas, and its importance for our existence as social beings set it apart from the communication systems used by other animals. In many ways, language is the essence of culture. It provides the single most common variable by which different cultural groups are identified and by which groups assert their unique identity. Language not only facilitates the cultural diffu- sion of innovations but it also helps to shape the way we think about, perceive, and name our environment. Language, a mutually agreed-on system of symbolic commu- nication, offers the main means by which learned belief systems, customs, and skills pass from one generation to the next.

One of our first and most long-lasting ties to place is forged through language. The ability to name, or rename, a place is a key step in claiming a place as one’s own, as shown, for example, by Figure 4.2, a political map of Antarctica. Notice how many places are named after Antarctic explorers and monarchs of countries that claim portions of the continent: the Ross Sea and Ross Ice Shelf are named after James Clark Ross, the English explorer who charted much of Antarctica’s coastline, and Queen Maud Land is named after Norway’s Queen Maud. Interestingly, Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who gave Queen Maud Land its name in 1939, took part in an earlier trip that highlights the importance of language. In 1898, Amundsen was part of an ill-fated expedition to locate the magnetic South Pole when his ship became stuck in the ice for more than one year. Several of Amund- sen’s shipmates, including men from Poland, Romania, Norway, the United States, and Belgium, went insane. This was not only because of the long winter nights and the cold weather but, in great part, language differences among the men became their biggest problem. They simply could not understand one another!

108 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

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Figure 4.1 Translating animal sounds. Although a cat obviously sounds the same in any part of the world, the speakers of different human languages render that sound in diverse ways. This chart shows how the sounds of various animals “translate”

English Indonesian Japanese Greek

Dog bow-wow gonggong wanwan gav Cat meow ngeong nyaa niaou Bird tweet-tweet kicau chunchun tsiou tsiou Rooster cock-a-doodle-doo kikeriku kokekokkoo ki-kiriki

into different human languages. (Compiled using information from a project by Dr. Catherine N. Ball in Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics, titled “Sounds of the World’s Animals.”)

Region 109

Reflecting on Geography Today, long-distance travel, for example space exploration and transoceanic trade, is still undertaken by crews formed from many nations. Do you think these people encounter the same problems those on the Amundsen voyage did? What might be different, language-wise, for today’s travelers?

Most cultural groups have their own distinctive form of speech, either a separate language or a dialect. Because lan- guages vary spatially and tend to form spatial groupings, they reinforce the sense of place through the linguistic regions they form. Different types of mobility have helped shape the contemporary linguistic map, as languages relo- cate through human movement or adapt to the needs of their users. The many languages spoken on Earth today may well have evolved from a common tongue, and we may return to sharing a common language some day as global- ization encourages linguistic dominance, particularly of English. Yet when the speakers of a language die out, so does their culture; thus, preserving linguistic diversity is a global concern. Clearly, the specific physical habitats in which languages evolve shape their vocabularies. Moreover, the environment can guide the migrations of linguistic groups or provide refuges for languages in retreat. Thus, the nature-culture theme is central to understanding the geography of language. Finally, the cultural landscape is lit- erally shaped by such linguistic acts as naming, writing, and speaking. Power relations are reflected in the cultural land- scape, in this case, by who is heard and who is silenced.

Region What is the geographical patterning of languages? Do vari- ous languages provide the basis for formal and functional culture regions? The spatial variation of speech is remark- ably complicated, adding intricate patterns to the human mosaic (Figure 4.3). Because language is such a central component of culture, understanding the spatiality of lan- guage, and how and why its patterns change over time, pro- vides a particularly valuable window into cultural geography more generally. The logical place to begin our geographical study of language is with the regional theme.

Separate languages are those that cannot be mutually understood. In other words, a monolingual speaker of one language cannot comprehend the speaker of another. Dialects, by contrast, are variant forms of a language where mutual comprehension is possible. A speaker of English, for example, can generally understand that language’s var- ious dialects, regardless of whether the speaker comes from Australia, Scotland, or Mississippi. Nevertheless, a dialect is distinctive enough in vocabulary and pronunciation to

label its speaker as hailing from one place or another, or even from a particular city. About 6000 languages and many more dialects are spoken in the world today.

When different linguistic groups come into contact, a pidgin language, characterized by a very small vocabulary derived from the languages of the groups in contact, often results. Pidgins primarily serve the purposes of trade and commerce: they facilitate exchange at a basic level but do not have complex vocabularies or grammatical structures. An example is Tok Pisin, meaning “talk business.” Tok Pisin is a largely English-derived pidgin spoken in Papua New Guinea, where it has become the official national language in a country where many native Papuan tongues are spo- ken. Although New Guinea pidgin is not readily intelligible to a speaker of Standard English, certain common words such as gut bai (“good-bye”), tenkyu (“thank you”), and hau- mas (“how much”) reflect the influence of English. When pidgin languages acquire fuller vocabularies and become native languages of their speakers, they are called creole languages. Obviously, deciding precisely when a pidgin becomes a creole language has at least as much to do with a group’s political and social recognition as it does with what are, in practice, fuzzy boundaries between language forms.

Another response to the need for speakers of different languages to communicate with each other is the elevation of one existing language to the status of a lingua franca. A lingua franca is a language of communication and com- merce spoken across a wide area where it is not a mother tongue. The Swahili language enjoys lingua franca status in much of East Africa, where inhabitants speak a number of other regional languages and dialects. English is fast becoming a global lingua franca (see Global Spotlight on page 114). Finally, regions that have linguistically mixed populations may be characterized by bilingualism, which is the ability to speak two languages with fluency. For exam- ple, along the U.S.-Mexico border, so many residents speak both English and Spanish (with varying degrees of fluidity) that bilingualism in practice—even if not in policy—means there is no need for a lingua franca.

Language Families One way in which geolinguists often simplify the mapping of languages is by grouping them into language families: tongues that are related and share a common ancestor. Words are simply arbitrary sounds associated with certain meanings. Thus, when words in different languages are alike in both sound and meaning, they may well be related. Over time, languages interact with one another, borrowing words, imposing themselves through conquest, or organi- cally diverging from a common ground. Languages and their interrelations can thus be graphically depicted as a

110 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

tree with various branches (Figure 4.4). This classification makes the complicated linguistic mosaic a bit easier to comprehend.

Indo-European Language Family The largest and most wide- spread language family is the Indo-European, which is spo- ken on all the continents and is dominant in Europe, Russia, North and South America, Australia, and parts of southwest- ern Asia and India (see Figure 4.3). Romance, Slavic,

Germanic, Indic, Celtic, and Iranic are all Indo-European subfamilies. These subfamilies are in turn divided into indi- vidual languages. For example, English is a Germanic Indo- European language. Seven Indo-European tongues, including English, are among the 10 most spoken languages in the world as classified by number of native speakers (Table 4.1).

Comparing the vocabularies of various Indo-European tongues reveals their kinship. For example, the English

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word mother is similar to the Polish matka, the Greek meter, the Spanish madre, the Farsi madar in Iran, and the Sin- halese mava in Sri Lanka. Such similarities demonstrate that these languages have a common ancestral tongue.

Sino-Tibetan Family Sino-Tibetan is another of the major lan- guage families of the world and is second only to Indo-Euro- pean in numbers of native speakers. The Sino-Tibetan region extends throughout most of China and Southeast Asia (see

Figure 4.3). The two language branches that make up this group, Sino- and Tibeto-Burman, are believed to have a common origin some 6000 years ago in the Himalayan Plateau; speakers of the two language groups subsequently moved along the great Asian rivers that originate in this area. “Sino” refers to China and in this context indicates the various languages spoken by more than 1.3 billion peo- ple in China. Han Chinese (Mandarin) is spoken in a vari- ety of dialects and serves as the official language of China.

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112 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

The nearly 400 languages and dialects that make up the Burmese and Tibetan branch of this language family border the Chinese language region on the south and west. Other East Asian languages, such as Vietnamese, have been heavily influenced by contact with the Chinese and their languages, although it is not clear that they are linguistically related to Chinese at all.

Afro-Asiatic Family The third major language family is the Afro-Asiatic. It consists of two major divisions: Semitic and Hamitic. The Semitic languages cover the area from the

Arabian Peninsula and the Tigris-Euphrates river valley of Iraq westward through Syria and North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. Despite the considerable size of this region, there are fewer speakers of the Semitic languages than you might expect because most of the areas that Semites inhabit are sparsely populated deserts. Arabic is by far the most wide- spread Semitic language and has the greatest number of native speakers, about 235 million. Although many different dialects of Arabic are spoken, there is only one written form.

Hebrew, which is closely related to Arabic, is another Semitic tongue. For many centuries, Hebrew was a “dead”

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Figure 4.4 Linguistic family tree. Shown here are the relationship between the main “branches” of the linguistic family tree and a detailed image of one branch of that tree. (Adapted from Ford.)

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language, used only in religious ceremonies by millions of Jews throughout the world. With the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, a common language was needed to unite the immigrant Jews, who spoke the languages of their many dif- ferent countries of origin. Hebrew was revived as the offi- cial national language of what otherwise would have been a polyglot, or multilanguage, state (Figure 4.5). Amharic, a third major Semitic tongue, today claims 18 million speak- ers in the mountains of East Africa.

Smaller numbers of people who speak Hamitic lan- guages share North and East Africa with the speakers of Semitic languages. Like the Semitic languages, these tongues originated in Asia but today are spoken almost exclusively in Africa by the Berbers of Morocco and Algeria, the Tuaregs of the Sahara, and the Cushites of East Africa.

Other Major Language Families Most of the rest of the world’s population speak languages belonging to one of six

TABLE 4.1 The 10 Leading Languages in Numbers of Native Speakers*

Speakers Language Family (in millions) Main Areas Where Spoken

Han Chinese (Mandarin) Sino-Tibetan 885 China, Taiwan, Singapore Hindi/Urdu Indo-European 426 Northern India, Pakistan Spanish Indo-European 358 Spain, Latin America,

southwestern United States English Indo-European 343 British Isles, Anglo-America,

Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Philippines, former British colonies in tropical Asia and Africa

Arabic Afro-Asiatic 235 Middle East, North Africa Bengali Indo-European 207 Bangladesh, eastern India Portuguese Indo-European 176 Portugal, Brazil, southern Africa Russian Indo-European 167 Russia, Kazakhstan, parts of Ukraine

and other former Soviet republics Japanese Japanese and Korean 125 Japan German Indo-European 100 Germany, Austria, Switzerland,

Luxembourg, eastern France, northern Italy

*“Native speakers” means mother tongue. (Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2000; World Almanac Books, 2001.)

Figure 4.5 Sign in Arab Quarter of Nazareth. Many of Israel’s cities are home to diverse populations. This child- care center sign reflects Israel’s polyglot population, with its English, Arabic, and Hebrew wording. (Courtesy of Patricia L. Price.)

114 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

Though English may dominate the Internet (see Figure 4.13 on page 125), much of what comes across our computer and cell phone screens isn’t a readily recognizable form of English. As with the diffusion of spoken English to far-flung regions of the British Empire, the English language that is spread via electronic correspondence is subject to significant modification. E- mailing, instant messaging, and text messaging Standard English on cell phones requires a lot of typing, and text is notoriously deficient in conveying emotions when compared to the spoken word. For these reasons, users often use abbreviations and symbols to shorten the number of keystrokes used, to add emotional punctuation to their correspondence, and to make electronic communication hard to monitor by those who don’t understand the language (particularly parents and teachers!).

English is an alphabetic writing system, where letters represent discrete sounds that must be strung together to form a word’s complete sound. A second major writing system is syllabic, where characters represent blocks of word sounds. This type of writing is prevalent throughout the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and includes Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, and Thai. The third form of writing is logographic, with characters representing entire words. Chinese is the only major language in this category.

English-speaking texters quickly learn to take shortcuts around the lengthiness inherent to alphabetic writing systems. The simplest and most commonly used shortcut involves using acronyms instead of whole words to convey common phrases. POS (parent over shoulder), AFK (away from keyboard), VBG (very big grin), LOL (laughing out loud), and GMTA (great minds think alike) are some examples of this technique. Another shortcut involves using characters that sound like words. For example, the number “8” can substitute for the word or sound “ate,” so “h8” is “hate,” and “i 8” is “I ate.” In the first example, a syllabic approach to writing is used because “8” condenses the syllable “ate” into one character. Another technique involves using symbols to substitute for entire words. Using “8” for the word “ate” is an example of this technique, called Rebus writing, where a symbol is used for what it sounds like as opposed to what it stands for. As your instructor for this class will likely confirm, such abbreviations and symbols have even worked their way into term papers at the college level, much to the consternation or delight of language scholars.

The use of symbols such as and ♥, which are called pictograms, or word pictures, is similar to Chinese writing and has resulted in a vast lexicon of pictograms as well as simpler symbol groupings used to convey entire words, ideas, and emotions in a compact and often humorous form:

:-) (user is smiling or joking)

:-@ (user is screaming or cursing)

:-# (well, shut my mouth!)

are some examples. Although the meaning of these symbols is understood by speakers of many languages because of their ubiquity, non-English languages also employ their own symbol combinations. In Korean, for instance, ^̂ is used instead of :) to convey a smiling face and -_- is used instead of :( to depict a sad face. In Chinese, the number “5” is pronounced in a way that resembles crying, so “555” is the Chinese texter’s way of conveying sadness.

Spoken and written English are quickly picking up these cyberspeech patterns with expressions such as PITA, which is used to indicate that someone is a “pain in the ass” without actually saying so, and GTG, which is uttered instead of the marginally longer sounds “got to go” for which this acronym stands. As speakers of non-English languages become more heavily involved in texting-based activities, their spoken and written languages also doubtlessly will become modified.

(Sidney Harris/ScienceCartoonsPlus.com.)

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT Texting and Language Modification

Mobility 115

remaining major families. The Niger-Congo language fam- ily, also called Niger-Kordofanian, which is spoken by about 325 million people, dominates Africa south of the Sahara Desert. The greater part of the Niger-Congo culture region belongs to the Bantu subgroup. Both Niger-Congo and its Bantu constituent are fragmented into a great many differ- ent languages and dialects, including Swahili. The Bantu and their many related languages spread from what is now southeastern Nigeria about 4000 years ago, first west and then south in response to climate change and new agricul- tural techniques (Figure 4.6).

Flanking the Slavic Indo-Europeans on the north and south in Asia are the speakers of the Altaic language family, including Turkic, Mongolic, and several other subgroups. The Altaic homeland lies largely in the inhospitable deserts, tundra, and coniferous forests of northern and central Asia. Also occupying tundra and grassland areas adjacent to the

Slavs is the Uralic family. Finnish and Hungarian are the two more widely spoken Uralic tongues, and both enjoy the status of official languages in their respective countries.

One of the most remarkable language families in terms of distribution is the Austronesian. Representatives of this group live mainly on tropical islands stretching from Mada- gascar, off the east coast of Africa, through Indonesia and the Pacific islands, to Hawaii and Easter Island. This longi- tudinal span is more than half the distance around the world. The north-south, or latitudinal, range of this lan- guage area is bounded by Hawaii and Taiwan in the north and New Zealand in the south. The largest single language in this family is Malay-Indonesian, with 58 million native speakers, but the most widespread is Polynesian.

Japanese and Korean, with about 200 million speakers combined, probably form another Asian language family. The two perhaps have some link to the Altaic family, but even their kinship to each other remains controversial and unproven.

In Southeast Asia, the Vietnamese, Cambodians, Thais, and some tribal peoples of Malaya and parts of India speak languages that constitute the Austro-Asiatic family. They occupy an area into which Sino-Tibetan, Indo-European, and Austronesian languages have all encroached.

Mobility How did the mosaic of languages and dialects come to exist? How is the spatial patterning of language changing today? Different types of cultural diffusion have helped shape the linguistic map. Relocation diffusion has been extremely important because languages spread when groups, in whole or in part, migrate from one area to another. Some individual tongues or entire language fami- lies are no longer spoken in the regions where they origi- nated, and in certain other cases the linguistic hearth is peripheral to the present distribution (compare Figures 4.3 and 4.7). Today, languages continue to evolve and change based on the shifting locations of peoples and on their needs, as well as on outside forces.

Indo-European Diffusion According to a widely accepted new theory, the earliest speakers of the Indo-European languages lived in southern and southeastern Turkey, a region known as Anatolia, about 9000 years ago (Figure 4.7). According to the so- called Anatolian hypothesis, the initial diffusion of these Indo-European speakers was facilitated by the innovation of plant domestication. As sedentary farming became adopted throughout Europe, a gradual and peaceful expansion diffusion of Indo-European languages occurred.

Phase I: Second millennium B.C.

Phase II: First millennium B.C.

Phase III: First millennium A.D.

Figure 4.6 Bantu expansionism. The Bantu and their many languages spread from what is today southeastern Nigeria to the west and south. (Adapted from Mark Dingemanse/Wikipedia.)

116 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

As these people dispersed and lost contact with one another, different Indo-European groups gradually devel- oped variant forms of the language, causing fragmentation of the language family. The Anatolian hypothesis has been criticized by scholars who note that specific terms related to animals, particularly horses, as opposed to agriculture, link Indo-European languages to a common origin. The so- called Kurgan hypothesis places the rise of Indo-European languages in the central Asian steppes only 6000 years ago,

positing that the spread of Indo-European languages was both swifter and less peaceful than those who subscribe to the Anatolian hypothesis. No one theory has been defini- tively proven to be correct.

What is more certain is that in later millennia, the diffu- sion of certain Indo-European languages—in particular Latin, English, and Russian—occurred in conjunction with the territorial spread of great political empires. In such cases of imperial conquest, relocation and expansion diffusion

A.D. 900

Indo-European source

Prehistoric diffusion

Later diffusion

Austronesian source

Diffusion

Afro-Asiatic source

Diffusion

Niger-Congo source

Diffusion

Selected language families in retreat refuges

Presumed area of Nostratic speech, 12,000 B.C.

BASQUE

URALIC

1500s–1900s

7000 B.C.

6000 B.C. 1500 B.C. ?

DRAVIDIAN

1st MILLENN IUM A

.D.

2500 B.C.

AUSTRO- ASIATIC

1800s 1600

s

KHOISAN

Figure 4.7 Origin and diffusion of four major language families in the Eastern Hemisphere. The early diffusion of Indo-European speech to the west and north probably occurred in conjunction with the diffusion of agriculture from the Middle Eastern center, as did the early spread of the Afro-Asiatic family. All such origins,

lost in time, are speculative. As these and other groups advanced, certain linguistic families retreated to refuges in remote places, where they hold out to the present day. Sources, dates, and routes are mostly speculative. (Sources: Krantz, 1988; Renfrew, 1989.)

Mobility 117

were not mutually exclusive. Relocation diffusion occurred as a small number of conquering elite came to rule an area. The language of the conqueror, implanted by relocation dif- fusion, often gained wider acceptance through expansion diffusion. Typically, the conqueror’s language spread hierar- chically—adopted first by the more important and influen- tial persons and by city dwellers. The diffusion of Latin with Roman conquests, and Spanish with the conquest of Latin America, occurred in this manner.

Austronesian Diffusion One of the most impressive examples of linguistic diffusion is that of the Austronesian languages, 5000 years ago, from a presumed hearth in the interior of Southeast Asia that was completely outside the present Austronesian culture region. From here, it is theorized, speakers of this language family first spread southward into the Malay Peninsula (see Figure 4.7). Then, in a process lasting perhaps several thou- sand years and requiring remarkable navigational skills, they migrated through the islands of Indonesia and sailed in tiny boats across vast, uncharted expanses of ocean to New Zealand, Easter Island, Hawaii, and Madagascar. If agriculture was the technology permitting Indo-European diffusion, sailing and navigation provided the key to the spread of the Austronesians.

Most remarkable of all was the diffusionary achievement of the Polynesian people, who form the eastern part of the Austronesian culture region. Polynesians occupy a triangular realm consisting of hundreds of Pacific islands, with New Zealand, Easter Island, and Hawaii at the three corners (Fig- ure 4.8). The Polynesians’ watery leap of 2500 miles (4000 kilometers) from the South Pacific to Hawaii, a migration in outrigger canoes against prevailing winds into a new hemi- sphere with different navigational stars, must rank as one of the greatest achievements in seafaring. No humans had pre- viously found the isolated Hawaiian Islands, and the Polyne- sian sailors had no way of knowing ahead of time that land existed in that quarter of the Pacific.

The relocation diffusion that produced the remarkable present distribution of the Polynesian languages has long been the subject of controversy. How, and by what means, could a traditional people have achieved the diffusion? Geolinguists Michael Levison, Gerard Ward, and John Webb answered these questions by developing a computer model incorporating data on winds, ocean currents, vessel traits and capabilities, island visibility, and duration of voyage. Both drift voyages, in which the boat simply floats with the winds and currents, and navigated voyages were considered.

After performing more than 100,000 voyage simula- tions, they concluded that the Polynesian triangle had probably been entered from the west, from the direction of the ancient Austronesian hearth area, in a process of “island hopping”—that is, migrating from one island to

another one visible in the distance. The core of eastern Polynesia was probably reached in navigated voyages, but once this was attained, drift voyages easily explain much of the internal diffusion. According to Levison and his col- leagues, a peripheral region, the “outer arc from Hawaii through Easter Island to New Zealand,” could be reached only by means of intentionally navigated voyages: truly astonishing and daring feats (see Figure 4.8).

In carrying out their investigation, Levison and his col- leagues employed the themes of region (present distribu- tion of Polynesians) and nature-culture (currents, winds, visibility of islands) to help describe and explain the work- ings of a third theme, mobility.

Religion and Linguistic Mobility Cultural interaction creates situations in which language is linked to a particular religious faith or denomination, a linkage that greatly heightens cultural identity. Perhaps Arabic provides the best example of this cultural link. It spread from a core area on the Arabian Peninsula with the expansion of Islam. Had it not been for the evangelical suc- cess of the Muslims, Arabic would not have diffused so widely. The other Semitic languages also correspond to par- ticular religious groups. Hebrew-speaking people are of the Jewish faith, and the Amharic speakers in Ethiopia tend to be Coptic, or Eastern, Christians. Indeed, we can attribute the preservation and recent revival of Hebrew to its active promotion by Jewish nationalists who believe that teaching and promoting Hebrew to diasporic Jews facilitates unity.

Certain languages have even acquired a religious status. Latin survived mainly as the ceremonial language of the Roman Catholic Church and Vatican City. In non-Arabic Muslim lands, such as Iran, where people consider them- selves Persians and speak Farsi, Arabic is still used in reli- gious ceremonies. Great religious books can also shape languages by providing them with a standard form. Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible led to the standardization of the German language, and the Koran is the model for written Arabic. Because they act as common points of fre- quent cultural reference and interaction, great religious books can also aid in the survival of languages that would otherwise become extinct. The early appearance of a hym- nal and the Bible in the Welsh language aided the survival of that Celtic tongue, and Christian missionaries in diverse countries have translated the Bible into local languages, helping to preserve them. In Fiji, the appearance of the Bible in one of the 15 local dialects elevated it to the dom- inant native language of the islands.

Language’s Shifting Boundaries Dialects, as well as the language families discussed previ- ously, reveal a vivid geography. Their boundaries—what

118 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

separates them from other dialects and languages—shift over time, both spatially and in terms of what elements they contain or discard.

Geolinguists map dialects by using isoglosses, which indicate the spatial borders of individual words or pronun- ciations. The dialect boundaries between Latin American Spanish speakers using tú and those using vos are clearly defined in some areas, as shown on the map in Figure 4.9. The choice of tú or vos for the second-person singular car- ries with it a cultural indication. Vos represents a usage closer to the original Spanish but is considered by many in

the Spanish-speaking world to be rather archaic and, in fact, has died out in Spain itself. In other regions, particu- larly throughout Argentina, vos has long been used by the media; often, it is considered to reflect the “standard” dialect and usage for the area in which it is used. Because certain words or dialects can fall out of fashion or simply become overwhelmed by an influx of new speakers, isogloss boundaries are rarely clear or stable over time. Indeed, in Central America, the media is increasingly using vos—long used in conversation in the region—thus elevating vos to a more official status covering a larger territory. Because of

• •

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Selected island or island group•

Baker North Line

Jarvis

Phoenix

Tokelau

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Malden

Caroline Marquesas

Tuamotu

Pitcairn Ducie

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NiuatobutabuFiji

Wallis

Kermadecs

Chatham

Bounty

New Zealand

Equator

180°

Rotuma

Ellice

Tonga

Paci f ic

Ocean

Figure 4.8 Probabilities of selected Polynesian drift and navigation voyages in the Pacific Ocean. According to a computer model, the outer arc of Polynesia, represented by Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand, could have been reached only by navigated voyages. The earliest known Polynesian pottery shards were

found in Tonga by archaeologists David Burley and William Dickinson, suggesting that the first distinctively Polynesian culture originated there. (Adapted from Levison, Ward, and Webb, 1973: 5, 33, 35, 43, 61.)

Mobility 119

this, geolinguists often disagree about how many dialects are present in an area or exactly where isogloss borders should be drawn. The language map of any place is a con- stantly shifting kaleidoscope.

The dialects of American English provide another good example. At least three major dialects, corresponding to major culture regions, had developed in the eastern United States by the time of the American Revolution: the Northern, Midland, and Southern dialects (Figure 4.10). As the three subcultures expanded westward, their dialects spread and fragmented. Nevertheless, they retained much of their basic character, even beyond the Mississippi River. These culture regions have unusually stable boundaries. Even today, the “r- less” pronunciation of words such as car (“cah”) and storm (“stohm”), characteristic of the East Coast Midland regions, is readily discernible in the speech of its inhabitants.

Although we are sometimes led to believe that Ameri- cans are becoming more alike, as a national culture over- whelms regional ones, the current status of American English dialects suggests otherwise. Linguistic divergence is still under way, and dialects continue to mutate on a regional level, just as they always have. Local variations in grammar and pronunciation proliferate, confounding the

proponents of standardized speech and defying the homogenizing influence of the Internet, television, and other mass media.

Shifting language boundaries involve content, as well as spatial reach, and this too changes over time. Today, for example, some of the unique vocabulary of American Eng- lish dialects is becoming old-fashioned. For instance, the term icebox, which was literally a wooden box with a com- partment for ice that was used to cool food, was used widely throughout the United States to refer to the precursor of the refrigerator. Although the modern electric refrigerator is ubiquitous in the United States today, some people, par- ticularly those of older generations and in the South, still use the term icebox. Many young people, by contrast, no longer pause to say the entire word refrigerator, shortening it instead to fridge.

As illustrated by the birth of the new word fridge, slang terms are quite common in most languages, and American English is no exception. Slang refers to words and phrases that are not a part of a standard, recognized vocabulary for a given language but are nonetheless used and understood by some or most of its speakers. Often, subcultures, for exam- ple, youth, drug dealers, and nightclub-goers, have their own

PACIFIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

vos

tú/vos

Not applicable

Figure 4.9 Dialect boundaries in Latin America. Spanish speakers in the Americas use either vos or tú as the second-person singular verb form. They represent dialects of Spanish: both are correct, linguistically speaking, but the vos form is older. Some regions use vos and tú interchangeably. (Adapted from Pountain, 2005.)

120 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

slang that is used within that community but is not readily understood by nonmembers. Slang words tend to be used for a period of time, and then discarded as newer terms replace them. For example, cool and groovy were used to refer to desir- able, attractive, or fashionable things in the 1970s. Although many people today still recognize these words, a new gener- ation of young people is much more likely to use a new set of words. Their children, in turn, will more than likely use yet another set of words. Slang illustrates another way in which American English changes over time.

Some African-Americans speak a distinctive form of English. African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), or Ebonics (from ebony and phonics), is a variety of the South- ern dialect displaying considerable African influence in pitch, rhythm, and tone. Many linguists understand AAVE as a creole language that grew out of a pidgin that devel- oped on the early slave plantations and is today spoken by some African-Americans. Indeed, AAVE shares many char- acteristics with other English creole languages worldwide. Today, it is considered a dialect, or variation, of Standard American English. It is also considered an ethnolect: a dialect spoken by an ethnic group, in this case, African- Americans. The popularity of AAVE’s distinctive vocabulary

and syntax among some white Americans, however, ques- tions its ethnic exclusivity and serves to point out the insta- bility of any language boundaries, including ethnic ones.

Some distinguishing characteristics of AAVE’s speech patterns include the use of double negatives (“She don’t like nothing”), omission of forms of the verb to be (“He my friend”), and nonconjugation of verbs (“She give him her paper yesterday”). There is some controversy over the place of Ebonics in the U.S. educational system. Does Ebonics constitute a distinctive language, rather than simply a dialect of English? Should it be taught—with its attendant grammar, structure, and literature—to American school- children? Are those who speak Ebonics and Standard Eng- lish technically bilingual?

In the United States today, many descendents of Span- ish speakers have adapted their speech to include words and variants of words in both Spanish and English, in a dialect known as “Spanglish” (see Seeing Geography at the end of the chapter). Although acceptance of AAVE and Spanglish is hardly without conflict (see Subject to Debate), they illustrate the fluidity of languages and how they are constantly evolving and changing as the needs and experi- ences of their users change.

N o r t h e

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CANADA U.S.A.

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Figure 4.10 Major dialects of North American English, with a few selected subdialects. These dialects had developed by the time of the American Revolution and have remained remarkably stable over time. (After Carver, 1986; Kurath, 1949.)

Globalization 121

Globalization What is the relationship between technology and language? How has the global reach of empires past and present affected the spatial distribution of language? Why is the number of spoken languages on the decline worldwide? More often than not, the diffusion of some languages has come at the expense of many others. Ten thousand years ago, the human race consisted of only 1 million people, speaking an estimated 15,000 languages. Today, a popula- tion 6000 times larger speaks only 40 percent as many tongues. Only 1 percent of all languages have as many as 500,000 speakers. Some experts believe that all but 300 lan- guages will be extinct or dying by the year 2100. Clearly, cul- tural diffusion has worked to favor some languages and eliminate others. Each passing decade witnesses the extinc- tion of more minor languages. Languages die out when their speakers do; often the entire cultural world associated with a language vanishes as well. Thus, globalization both presents the opportunity for more people to communicate directly with one another and, at the same time, threatens to extinguish the cultural diversity that goes hand-in-hand with linguistic diversity.

Technology, Language, and Empire Technological innovations affecting language range from the basic practice of writing down spoken languages to the sophisticated information superhighway provided by the Internet. Technological innovations have in the past facili- tated the spread and proliferation of multiple languages, but more recently they have encouraged the tendency of only a few languages—especially English—to dominate all others. Particular language groups achieve cultural domi- nance over neighboring groups in a variety of ways, often with profound results for the linguistic map of the world. Technological superiority is usually involved. Earlier, we saw how plant and animal domestication—the technology of the “agricultural revolution”—aided the early diffusion of the Indo-European language family.

An even more basic technology was the invention of writing, which appears to have developed as early as 5300 years ago in several hearth areas, including in Egypt, among the Sumerians in what is today Iraq, and in China. Writing helped civilizations develop and spread, giving written lan- guages a major advantage over those that remained spoken only. Written languages can be published and distributed widely, and they carry with them the status of standard, offi- cial, and legal communication.

Written language facilitates record keeping, allowing governments and bureaucracies to develop. Thus, the lan- guages of conquerors tend to spread with imperial expan-

sion. The imperial expansion of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and the United States across the globe altered the linguistic practices of millions of people (Figure 4.11). This empire building superimposed Indo-European tongues on the map of the tropics and subtropics. The areas most affected were Asia, Africa, and the Austronesian island world. A parallel case from the ancient world is China, also a formidable imper- ial power that spread its language to those it conquered. During the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618–907), Chinese control extended to Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria (in contemporary northeastern China), and Korea. The 4000-year-old written Chinese language proved essential for the cohesion and maintenance of its far-flung empire. Although people throughout the empire spoke different dialects or even dif- ferent languages, a common writing system lent a measure of mutual intelligibility at the level of the written word.

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1000 mi.0

Portuguese

Spanish

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Present border of Brazil (Portuguese as official language)

Figure 4.11 The mesh of language and empire in South America. Latin America was colonized by Spanish speakers and Portuguese speakers as well as by speakers of French, Dutch, and English in northern areas. The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494, established the political basis for the present linguistic pattern in South America. Portugal was awarded the eastern part of the continent, and Spain, the rest. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

122 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

Even though imperial nations have, for the most part, given up their colonial empires, the languages they trans- planted overseas survive (see Practicing Geography). As a result, English still has a foothold in much of Africa, South Asia, the Philippines, and the Pacific islands. French persists in former French and Belgian colonies, especially in north- ern, western, and central Africa; Madagascar; and Polynesia (Figure 4.12). In most of these areas, English and French function as the languages of the educated elite, often hold- ing official legal status. They are also used as a lingua franca of government, commerce, and higher education, helping hold together states with multiple native languages.

Transportation technology also profoundly affects the geography of languages. Ships, railroads, and highways all serve to spread the languages of the cultural groups that build them, sometimes spelling doom for the speech of less techno- logically advanced peoples whose lands are suddenly opened to outside contacts. The Trans-Siberian Railroad, built about a century ago, spread the Russian language eastward to the

Pacific Ocean. The Alaska Highway, which runs through Canada, carried English into Native American refuges. The construction of highways in Brazil’s remote Amazonian inte- rior threatens the native languages of that region.

Another example is the predominance of English on the Internet, which can be understood as a contemporary information highway (Figure 4.13; see also Global Spot- light on page 114). What will happen when other lan- guages begin to challenge the dominance of English on the Internet? This will inevitably happen sooner or later, although whether English will be surpassed by another language is anyone’s guess. For example, although only 15.7 percent of today’s Internet users speak Chinese, from 2000 to 2007 there has been a 469.7 percent growth in the number of Chinese speakers on the Internet. If this trend continues, and when—not if—the 86 percent of Chinese speakers who do not now use the Internet begin to log on, we can expect the prevalence of Chinese on the Internet to expand significantly.

English-only laws are nothing new in the United States. Its history as a nation of immigrants has led to a population that, at any one point in time, speaks a variety of languages besides English. In its early days as a colony, one could hear German, Dutch, French, and a multitude of Native American languages spoken alongside English. This prompted both Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to propose enforcing English as the sole acceptable language, and Theodore Roosevelt once said, “the one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin or preventing all possibility of its continuing as a nation at all would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities. We have but one flag. We must also learn one language, and that language is English.”

Citing concerns that providing official documents and services in multiple languages would simply be too expensive, contemporary advocates of English-only legislation claim that mandating one language is one way to reduce the cost of government. Some proponents also believe that English-only laws encourage immigrants to assimilate by learning the official language of the United States. Opponents accuse the laws of being racist and suggest that supporters of English-only legislation are threatened by cultural diversity. Linguistic unity, they say, does not lead to political or cultural unity. Furthermore, providing official documents and services only in English in effect denies these services and information to those who do not understand

English. Debates such as these bring up questions of the legal, social, and political status of minority groups and their languages, debates that exist in many countries besides the United States.

Today, most of those who wish to legislate English as the official language of the country target Spanish-speaking immigrants as the object of their concern. Anxieties about being culturally “overwhelmed” by Spanish speakers who refuse to learn English culminate in claims that Latino immigrants are dividing the nation in two: one English speaking and culturally “American,” and the other Spanish speaking and unable to assimilate into the mainstream.

Historically, most immigrants to the United States sooner or later abandon their native tongues. As late as 1910, one out of every four Americans could speak some language other than English with the skill of a native (as compared to 14 percent in 1990). This was a result of the mass immigrations from Germany, Poland, Italy, Russia, China, and many other foreign lands. Much of this linguistic diversity has given way to English, partly because these other languages lacked legal status, partly because of the monolingual educational system in the United States, and partly because of social pressures.

The success of Spanish speakers in preserving, and indeed in some areas of the United States in actively promoting, the Spanish language raises questions for the current wave of immigrants to the United States. In Miami,

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Imposing English

Globalization 123

Florida, for example, many local government and business transactions are conducted in Spanish. The ability to speak Spanish is an explicit, or at least a tacit, job requirement for many seeking employment in Miami. Street signs, radio stations, and daily conversations in Spanish abound. Across the United States, those who believe that bilingual education should be offered in public schools are raising legal

challenges to monolingual education practices. Far from experiencing a desire to assimilate into English-speaking society, many Spanish speakers are actively asserting pride in their language. Do you think this wave of immigrants is different from earlier waves? How so? Will monoglot English speakers become a dwindling minority as more and more people become bilingual, through choice or necessity?

Figure 4.12 French, the colonial language of the empire, shares this sign on the isle of Bora Bora in French Polynesia with the native variant of the Polynesian tongue. Until recently, French rulers allowed no public display of the Polynesian language and tried to make the natives adopt French. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

NH (1995)

MA (1975)

NC (1987)

VA (1996)

SC (1987)

GA (1996)

FL (1988)

AL (1990)MS

(1987)

TN (1984)

KY (1984)

IN (1984)

IL (1969)

IA (2002)

MO (1998)

AR (1987)

LA (1811)

ND (1987)

SD (1995)

NE (1920)

MT (1995)

WY (1996)

CO (1988)

UT (2000)

AZ (2006)

CA (1986)

HI (1978)

Official English Law

No Official English Law

AK (1998)

ID (2007)

KS (2007)

States that have some form of official English-only laws. Dates show the years English-only laws were enacted. In the 1980s, the influx of immigrants to the United States from Asia and Latin America prompted many of these laws. Typically, English-only laws require that state documents be published in English. Some states’ laws, however, prohibit the state from doing business in a language other than English or providing services such as multilingual emergency medical hotlines. (Source: Adapted from U.S. English, Inc.)

124

Reflecting on Geography Can we view the Internet as a principal transportation route responsible for spreading English throughout the world today? If so, what does the spread of Internet access to areas formerly isolated by their physical landscape mean for the survival of linguistic minorities?

Language Proliferation: One or Many? Could all the world’s languages have derived from one sin- gle mother tongue? It may seem a large leap from the pri- mordial tongue to a consideration of globalization and languages, but, in fact, the two are related. If we humans began with one language, why shouldn’t we return to that

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Allan Pred (1936–2007)

Like other geographers profiled in this book, Allan Pred engaged in all sorts of geographic activities as a child. “I can recall, as a child, perhaps five or six years old, spending my time on a street corner in the North Bronx. It was a major thoroughfare and there was a lot of long-distance traffic. And

I’d just stand there looking for out-of-state license places and see how many I could count.” Later, with a friend, he invented a fantasy baseball league. He drew a large map for the fictional “Idaho-Montana league.” Professor Pred was reluctant to speculate on whether this was indicative of an early interest in geography, a deep wish to escape elsewhere, or simply creativity in the face of childhood boredom.

More specifically, Professor Pred recounted how desperation drove him to majoring in geography in college. As an undergraduate, he attended Antioch College in Ohio, which he described as “a real intellectual hotbed” in those days. “I stumbled around in my first year. I’d started chemistry because that’s what my parents thought I should do.” Though he did well in chemistry, he soon became convinced that he wanted to study social sciences. He finally decided on geography after “I had worked my way through the catalog and the requirements of various majors. I chose geography because it had the smallest number of requirements and would give me the greatest freedom in choosing classes. So it was a pragmatic means to satisfy my general curiosity.”

When it came time to graduate from Antioch, he thought he would continue his studies at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts where he had been accepted. Like all seniors at Antioch, before graduating he had to write a long introspective essay on his goals and where he wanted to go in life. In the process of writing that essay, “It became clear to me that I was much too much of a person who made a practice of going against the grain to have any chance of survival in the State Department. It was April and I was in a state of panic. I happened to pick up the latest issue of the Annals [of American Geographers, the main geography journal].” He

read it and decided, “I’m going into geography because I don’t know what else to do, and this looks interesting.”

Apparently, this was a wise choice. Professor Pred built a distinguished career as a practicing geographer at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focused on modernity, racism, and Sweden. He published about 20 books, including Even in Sweden: Racisms, Racialized Spaces, and the Popular Geographical Imagination in 2000 and The Past Is Not Dead: Facts, Fictions, and Enduring Racial Stereotypes in 2004. His latest work is a book he compiled with another geographer, Derek Gregory, titled Inhuman Geographies. His project in this book involved “reworking my discontents and outrage over the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq and the ‘war on terror.’”

Although he was not a linguistic geographer in the classic sense that we have presented in this chapter, Professor Pred’s focus was always on how we write and how our writing is connected with how, and what, we know. Professor Pred’s writing often reads like poetry. He used innovative writing strategies not typically seen in academic texts, such as different fonts and superimposing words on pictures.

Professor Pred sought to view simultaneously “the visible geographies that geographers have always been preoccupied with and the invisible geographies of power relations and the world of knowing, meaning, and discourse.” He found it difficult to separate what he did as a scholar from what he did in his everyday life, saying, “everything is grist for my mill. In recent years the research issues have come to me. I haven’t gone out looking for them.”

Professor Pred went to Sweden every year. “Since the mid-1980s I’d been seeing and hearing and reading things in the everyday media. I’d take ethnographic notes on conversations and things I’d seen happen on the street. Without any specific intent in mind, I built up an extensive archive of newspaper clippings and other items. There came a point in about 1990–1991 where I just had the sense that things had gone painfully far in Sweden and that I was reading what was going on in a way that my Swedish colleagues could not or would not see. I felt a moral obligation to start writing about this.”

(C ou

rt es

y of

M ic

he le

P re

d. )

Globalization 125

Figure 4.13 The 10 most prevalent languages on the Internet as of 2007, measured as a percentage of total users. English is the second most widely spoken language on Earth, after Mandarin Chinese. And English is the most widely spoken second language in the world. It dominates the Internet as well. (Adapted from http://www.internetworldstats.com/images/ languages/png, 2007.)

0 50 100 200150 300250 400350

English

Chinese

Spanish

Japanese

French

German

Portuguese

Korean

Italian

Arabic

All other languages 175

29

31

34

47

59

59

86

366

102

184

Millions of users

condition? If one language became 15,000 and the 6000 or so that remain will dwindle to 300 within a century, then why not end up with one again?

Using techniques that remain controversial, certain lin- guists are probing into the origin and diffusion of lan- guages, seeking elusive prehistoric tongues. Some scholars believe that an ancestral speech called Nostratic, spoken in the Middle East 12,000 to 20,000 years ago, was central to six modern language families: Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Afro-Asiatic, Caucasic, and Dravidian (see Figures 4.4 and 4.7). These linguists seek nothing less than the original lin- guistic hearth area, almost certainly in Africa, where com- plex speech first arose and from which it diffused. Skeptics counter that similarities among languages arose from coin- cidence or from speakers of one language borrowing words from others through trade and other cultural interactions.

Are the forces of modernization working to produce, through cultural diffusion, a single world language? And if so, what will that language be? English? Worldwide about 343 million people speak English as their mother tongue and per- haps another 350 million speak it well as a second, learned language. Adding other reasonably competent speakers who can “get by” in English, the world total reaches about 1.5 bil- lion, more than for any other language. What’s more, the Internet is one of the most potent agents of diffusion, and its language, overwhelmingly, is English (see Global Spotlight).

English earlier diffused widely with the British Empire and U.S. imperialism, and today it has become the de facto language of globalization. Consider the case of India, where the English language imposed by British rulers was retained (after independence) as the country’s language of business,

government, and education. It provided some linguistic unity for India, which had 800 indigenous languages and dialects. This is why today many of India’s nearly 1 billion people speak English well enough to provide customer sup- port services over the telephone for clients in the United States. Even so, many people resent its use and wish India to be rid of this hated linguistic colonial legacy once and for all (see Figure 4.23). Although English is not likely to be driven out of India any time soon, it is true that the spoken English of India has drifted away from standard British English. So has the English of Singapore, which is now a separate lan- guage called Singlish. Many other regional, English-based languages have developed, languages that could not be understood readily in London or Chicago.

But is the diffusion of English to the entire world popu- lation likely? Will globalization and cultural diffusion pro- duce one world language? Probably not. More likely, the world will be divided largely among 5 to 10 major languages.

Language and Cultural Survival Because language is the primary way of expressing culture, if a language dies out, there is a good chance that the cul- ture of its speakers will too. Languages, like animal species, are classified as endangered or extinct. Endangered lan- guages are those that are not being taught to children by their parents and are not being used actively in everyday matters. Some linguists believe that more than half of the world’s roughly 6000 languages are endangered. Ethno- logue, an online language resource (see Linguistic Geogra- phy on the Internet at the end of the chapter for this web

126 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

Northern Australia

Eastern Siberia

Central South America

Oklahoma- Southwest

Northwest Pacific Plateau

Figure 4.15 Global “language hotspots.” The Enduring Voices Project and the National Geographic Society have teamed up to document endangered languages and thereby attempt to prevent language extinction. (Source: Anderson and Harrison, 2007.)

site address), considers 417 world languages to be nearly extinct. Languages that have only a few elderly speakers still living fall into this category. The Americas and the Pacific regions together account for more than three-quarters of the world’s current nearly extinct languages, thanks to their many and varied indigenous language groups (Figure 4.14). In Argentina, for example, only five families speak Vilela, and only seven or eight speakers of Tuscarora remain in Canada. When these speakers die, it is likely that their language will die out with them.

As Figure 4.14 shows, almost 40 percent of the world’s nearly extinct languages are found in the Americas. They represent a wealth of Native American languages that are

slowly becoming suffocated by English, Spanish, and Por- tuguese. Other language hotspots—places with the most unique, misunderstood, or endangered tongues—are located around the globe (Figure 4.15). Two of the world’s five most vulnerable regions—northern Australia, central South America, North America’s upper Pacific coast, eastern Siberia, and Oklahoma—are located in the United States.

Languages can also be used to keep cultural traditions alive by speaking them repeatedly. Keith Basso, an anthropol- ogist who has written an intriguing book titled Wisdom Sits in Places, discusses the landscape of distinctive place-names used by the Western Apache of New Mexico. The people Basso studied use place-names to invoke stories that help the Western Apache remember their collective history. Accord- ing to Nick Thompson, one of Basso’s interviewees, “White men need paper maps. . . . We have maps in our minds.” Thompson goes on to assert that calling up the names of places can guard against forgetting the correct way of living, or adopting the bad habits of white men, once Western Apaches move to other areas. “The names of all these places are good. They make you remember how to live right, so you want to replace yourself again.” One of the places Basso heard about is called Shades of Shit. Here is what he was told:

It happened here at Shades of Shit. They had much corn, those people who lived here,

and their relatives had only a little. They refused to share it. Their relatives begged them but still they refused to share it.

Then their relatives got angry and forced them to stay at home. They wouldn’t let them go anywhere, not even to defecate. So they had to do it at home. Their shades [shelters] filled up with it. There was more and more of it! It was very bad! Those people got sick and nearly died.

The Americas

(161)

The Pacific

(157)

Africa

(37)

Asia

(55)

Europe

(7)

Figure 4.14 Distribution of the world’s nearly extinct languages. This chart shows the regional distribution of the world’s nearly extinct languages, or those languages that have only a few elderly speakers still living. Nearly extinct languages account for 6 percent of the world’s total existing languages. (Source: Adapted from Ethnologue, “Nearly Extinct Languages.”)

Nature-Culture 127

Then their relatives said, “You have brought this on yourselves. Now you live in shades of shit!” Finally, they agreed to share their corn.

It happened at Shades of Shit. (p. 24)

Today, merely standing at this place or speaking its graphic name reminds Western Apache that stinginess is a vice that can threaten the survival of the entire community.

Related to linguistic extinction is the existence of so- called remnant languages that survive, typically in small lin- guistic islands that are surrounded by the dominant language. One example is Khoisan, found in the Kalahari Desert of southwestern Africa and characterized by distinc- tive clicking sounds. The pockets of Khoisan seen in Figure 4.3 survived after the expansion of the Bantu, discussed ear- lier (see Figure 4.6). Other remnant languages include Dra- vidian, spoken by hundreds of millions of people in southern India, adjacent northern Sri Lanka, and a part of Pakistan, as well as Australian Aborigine, Papuan, Caucasic, Nilo-Saharan, Paleosiberian, Inuktitut, and a variety of Native American language families. In a few cases, individ- ual minor languages represent the sole survivors of former families. Basque, spoken in the borderland between Spain and France, is such a survivor, unrelated to any other lan- guage in the world.

Nature-Culture What relationships exist between language and the physical environment? Language interacts with the environment in two basic ways. First, the specific physical habitats in which languages evolve help shape their vocabularies. Second, the environment can guide the migrations of linguistic groups or provide refuges for languages in retreat. The following section, from the viewpoint of possibilism—the notion that the physical environment shapes, but does not fully deter- mine, cultural phenomena—illustrates how the physical environment influences vocabulary and the distribution of language.

Habitat and Vocabulary Humankind’s relationship to the land played a strong role in the emergence of linguistic differences, even at the level of vocabulary. For example, the Spanish language—which originated in Castile, Spain, a dry and relatively barren land rimmed by hills and high mountains—is especially rich in words describing rough terrain, allowing speakers of this tongue to distinguish even subtle differences in the shape and configuration of mountains, as Table 4.2 reveals. Simi- larly, Scottish Gaelic possesses a rich vocabulary to describe types of topography; this terrain-focused vocabulary is a common attribute of all the Celtic languages spoken by hill

peoples. In the Romanian tongue, also born of a rugged landscape, words relating to mountainous features empha- size use of that terrain for livestock herding. English, by contrast, which developed in the temperate wet coastal plains of northern Europe, is relatively deficient in words describing mountainous terrain (Figure 4.16). However, English abounds with words describing flowing streams and wetlands: typical physical features found in northern Europe. This vocabulary transferred well to the temperate East Coast of the United States. In the rural American South alone, one finds river, creek, branch, fork, prong, run, bayou, and slough. This vocabulary indicates that the area is a well-watered land with a dense network of streams.

Clearly, then, language serves an adaptive strategy. Vocabularies are highly developed for those features of the environment that involve livelihood. Without such detailed vocabularies, it would be difficult to communicate sophisticated information relevant to the community’s livelihood, which in most places is closely bound to the physical landscape.

The Habitat Helps Shape Language Areas Environmental barriers and natural routes have often guided linguistic groups onto certain paths. The wide dis- tribution of the Austronesian language group, as we have seen, was profoundly affected by prevailing winds and water currents in the Pacific and Indian oceans. The Himalayas and the barren Deccan Plateau deflected migrating Indo- Europeans entering the Indian subcontinent into the rich Ganges-Indus river plain. Even today in parts of India, according to Charles Bennett, the Indo-European/Dravid- ian “language boundary seems to approximate an ecologi- cal boundary” between the black soils of the plains and the thinner, reddish Deccan soils.

Because such physical barriers as mountain ridges can discourage groups from migrating from one area to another, they often serve as linguistic borders as well. In parts of the Alps, speakers of German and Italian live on opposite sides of a major mountain ridge. Portions of the mountain rim along the northern edge of the Fertile Cres- cent in the Middle East form the border between Semitic and Indo-European tongues. Linguistic borders that follow such physical features generally tend to be stable, and they often endure for thousands of years. By contrast, language borders that cross plains and major routes of communica- tion are often unstable.

The Habitat Provides Refuge The environment also influences language insofar as inhospitable areas provide protection and isolation. Such areas often provide minority linguistic groups refuge from aggressive neighbors and are, accordingly, referred to as

128

Figure 4.16 A scene in the desert of the western United States. “Mountains,” yes, but what kind of mountains? (See Table 4.2.) The English language cannot describe such a place adequately because it is the product of a very different, humid and cool, physical landscape. As a result, the ability of English speakers to name dryland environmental features will be less precise in such places. (David Muench/Corbis.)

TABLE 4.2 Some Spanish Words Describing Mountains and Hills

Spanish Word English Meaning

candelas Literally “candles”; a collection of peñas ceja Steep-sided breaks or escarpments separating two plains of different elevations cejita A low escarpment cerrillo or cerrito A small cerro; a hill cerro A single eminence, intermediate in size between English hill and mountain chiquito Literally “small,” describing minor secondary fringing elevations at the base of and

parallel to a sierra or cordillera cordillera A mass of mountains, as distinguished from a single mountain summit cuchilla Literally “knife”; the comblike secondary crests that project at right angles from

the sides of a sierra cumbre The highest elevation or peak within a sierra or cordillera; a summit eminencia A mountainous or hilly protuberance loma A hill in the midst of a plain lomita A small hill in the midst of a plain mesa Literally “table”; a flat-topped eminence montaña Equivalent to English mountain pelado A barren, treeless mountain pelon A bare conical eminence peloncilla A small pelon peña A needlelike eminence picacho A peaked or pointed eminence pico A summit point; English peak sandia Literally “watermelon”; an oblong, rounded eminence sierra An elongated mountain mass with a serrated crest tinaja A solitary, hemispheric mountain shaped like an inverted bowl

(Source: Hill, 1986.)

linguistic refuge areas. Rugged hilly and mountainous areas, excessively cold or dry climates, dense forests, remote islands, and extensive marshes and swamps can all offer protection to minority language groups. For one thing, unpleasant environments rarely attract conquerors. Also, mountains tend to isolate the inhabitants of one val-

ley from those in adjacent ones, discouraging contact that might lead to linguistic diffusion.

Examples of these linguistic refuge areas are numer- ous. The rugged Caucasus Mountains and nearby ranges in central Eurasia are populated by a large variety of peoples and languages (Figure 4.17). In the Rocky Mountains of

Cultural Landscape 129

Northern border of mountain region

Selected borders of political subdivisions

Sparsely populated or uninhabited area

International borders

CAUCASIC LANGUAGES Circassian Dagestani

Abkhazi

Adygey

Cherkessian

Kabardin

Georgian

Georgian

Veinakh

Chechen

Ingushi

Agul

Avar

Dargin

Lak

Lezgin

Rutul

Tabasaran

Tsakhur

Armenian

Armenian

Greek

Greek

Iranic

Kurdish

Ossetian

Talysh

Slavic

Russian

Turkic

Azeri

Balkar

Karachay

Kumyk

Nogay

Turkmenian

Mongol

Kalmykian

INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES ALTAIC LANGUAGES

0 50 100 mi.

0 100 200 km

AZERBAIJAN

R U S S I A

Black

Sea GEORGIA

AZERBAIJAN

ARMENIA

Caspian

Sea

A

C

I

L

R T

A

K

A

C

I

LR

T

A

A

A

A

K

K

K

Figure 4.17 The environment is a linguistic refuge in the Caucasus Mountains. The rugged mountainous region between the Black and Caspian seas—including parts of Armenia, Russia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan—is peopled by a great variety of linguistic

groups, representing three major language families. Mountain areas are often linguistic mosaics because the rough terrain provides refuge and isolation. For more information about this fascinating and diverse region, see Wixman, 1980.

130 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

Figure 4.18 Samoan, a Polynesian language belonging to the Austronesian family, becomes part of the linguistic landscape of Apia, the capital of independent Western Samoa in the Pacific Ocean. When this area was still a British colony, such a visual display of the native language would not have been permitted. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 4.19 Linguistic landscapes can be hard to read for those who are not familiar with the script used for writing. For many English-speaking monoglots, who are visually accustomed to the Latin alphabet, the linguistic landscape of countries such as Korea appears illegible. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

northern New Mexico, an archaic form of Spanish survives, largely as a result of isolation that ended only in the early 1900s. Similarly, the Alps, the Himalayas, and the highlands of Mexico form fine-grained linguistic mosaics, thanks to the mountains that provide both isolation and protection for multitudinous languages. The Dhofar, a mountain tribe in Oman, preserves Hamitic speech, a language family oth- erwise vanished from all of Asia. Bitterly cold tundra cli- mates of the far north have sheltered Uralic and Inuktitut speakers, and a desert has shielded Khoisan speakers from Bantu invaders. In short, rugged, hostile, or isolated envi- ronments protect linguistic groups that might otherwise be eclipsed by more dominant languages.

Still, environmental isolation is no longer the vital lin- guistic force it once was. Fewer and fewer places are so iso- lated that they remain little touched by outside influences. Today, inhospitable lands may offer linguistic refuge, but it is no longer certain that they will in the future. Even an island situated in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean does not offer reliable refuge in an age of airplanes, satellite- transmitted communications, and global tourism. Similarly, marshes and forests provide refuge only if they are not drained and cleared by those who wish to use the land more intensively. The nearly 10,000 Gullah-speaking descendants of African slaves have long nurtured their distinctive African-influenced culture and language, in part because they reside on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, Georgia, and North Florida. Today, the development of these islands for tourism and housing for wealthy nonlocals threatens the survival of the Gullah culture and language. So has the out-migration of Gullah youth in search of better economic opportunities. The reality of the world is no longer isola- tion, but contact.

Cultural Landscape In what ways are languages visible and, as a result, part of the cultural landscape? Road signs, billboards, graffiti, plac- ards, and other publicly displayed writings not only reveal the locally dominant language but also can be a visual index to bilingualism, linguistic oppression of minorities, and other facets of linguistic geography (Figure 4.18). Further- more, differences in writing systems render some linguistic landscapes illegible to those not familiar with these forms of writing (Figure 4.19).

Messages Linguistic landscapes send messages, both friendly and hostile. Often these messages have a political content and deal with power, domination, subjugation, or freedom. In Turkey, for example, until recently Kurdish-speaking minorities were not allowed to broadcast music or televi-

Cultural Landscape 131

sion programs in Kurdish, to publish books in Kurdish, or even to give their children Kurdish names. Because Turkey wishes to join the European Union, these minor- ity language restrictions have come under intense outside scrutiny. In 2002, Turkey reformed its legal restrictions to allow the Kurdish language to be used in daily life but not in public education. The Canadian province of Québec, similarly, has tried to eliminate English-language signs. French-speaking immigrants settled Québec, and its offi- cial language is French, in contrast to Canada’s policy of bilingualism in English and French. In Ireland, there is a movement to replace English-language place-name signs with signs depicting the original Gaelic place-names. The suppression of minority languages, and moves to rein- state them in the landscape, offers an indication of the social and political status of minority populations more generally.

Other types of writing, such as gang-related graffiti, can denote ownership of territory or send messages to others that they are not welcome (Figure 4.20). Only those who understand the specific gang symbols used will be able to decipher the message. Misreading such writing can have dangerous consequences for those who stray into unfriendly territory. In this way, gang symbols can be under-

stood as a dialect that is particular to a subculture and trans- mitted through symbols or a highly stylized script.

Toponyms Language and culture also intersect in the names that peo- ple place on the land, whether they are given to settle- ments, terrain features, streams, or various other aspects of their surroundings. These place-names, or toponyms, often directly reflect the spatial patterns of language, dialect, and ethnicity. Toponyms become part of the cultural landscape when they appear on signs and placards. Toponyms can be very revealing because, as geographer Stephen Jett said, they often provide insights into “linguistic origins, diffu- sion, habitat, and environmental perception.” Many place- names consist of two parts—the generic and the specific. For example, in the American place-names Huntsville, Har- risburg, Ohio River, Newfound Gap, and Cape Hatteras, the specific segments are Hunts-, Harris-, Ohio, Newfound, and Hatteras. The generic parts, which tell what kind of place is being described, are -ville, -burg, River, Gap, and Cape.

Generic toponyms are of greater potential value to the cultural geographer than specific names because they appear again and again throughout a culture region. There are literally thousands of generic place-names, and every

Figure 4.20 Graffiti is used to mark gang territory. This wall in the Polanco neighborhood of Guadalajara, Mexico, is covered with graffiti. Gangs use stylized scripts that are often unintelligible to nonmembers to mark their territory. (Courtesy of Patricia L. Price.)

132 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

culture or subculture has its own distinctive set of them. They are particularly valuable both in tracing the spread of a cul- ture and in reconstructing culture regions of the past. Some- times generic toponyms provide information about changes people wrought long ago in their physical surroundings.

Generic Toponyms of the United States The three dialects of the eastern United States (see Figure 4.10)—Northern, Midland, and Southern—illustrate the value of generic toponyms in cultural geographical detective work. For example, New Englanders, speakers of the North- ern dialect, often used the terms Center and Corners in the names of the towns or hamlets. Outlying settlements fre- quently bear the prefix East, West, North, or South, with the spe- cific name of the township as the suffix. Thus, in Randolph Township, Orange County, Vermont, we find settlements named Randolph Center, South Randolph, East Randolph, and North Randolph. A few miles away lies Hewetts Corners.

These generic usages and duplications are peculiar to New England, and we can locate areas settled by New Englanders as they migrated westward by looking for such place-names in

other parts of the country. A trail of “Centers” and name dupli- cations extending westward from New England through upstate New York and Ontario and into the upper Midwest clearly indicates their path of migration and settlement (Figure 4.21). Toponymic evidence of New England exists in areas as far afield as Walworth County, Wisconsin, where Troy, Troy Center, East Troy, and Abels Corners are clustered; in Dufferin County, Ontario, where one finds places such as Mono Centre; and even in distant Alberta, near Edmonton, where the toponym Michigan Centre doubly suggests a particular cultural diffusion. Similarly, we can identify Midland American areas by such terms as Gap, Cove, Hollow, Knob (a low, rounded hill), and -burg, as in Stone Gap, Cades Cove, Stillhouse Hollow, Bald Knob, and Fredericksburg. We can recognize southern speech by such names as Bayou, Gully, and Store (for rural hamlets), as in Cypress Bayou, Gum Gully, and Halls Store.

Toponyms and Cultures of the Past Place-names often survive long after the culture that pro- duced them vanishes from an area, thereby preserving traces of the past. Australia abounds in Aborigine toponyms, even

Local duplication of town or hamlet name “Center” used as town name suffix or prefix Southern border of Northern dialect

0

0 100 mi.

150 km

Figure 4.21 Generic place-names reveal the migration of Yankee New Englanders and the spread of the Northern dialect. Two of the most typical place-name characteristics in New England are the use of Center in the names of the principal settlements in a political subdivision and the tendency to duplicate the names of local towns and villages by adding the prefixes East, West, North,

and South to the subdivision’s name. As the concentration of such place-names suggests, these two Yankee traits originated in Massachusetts, the first New England colony. Note how these toponyms moved westward with New England settlers but thinned out rapidly to the south, in areas not colonized by New Englanders.

Conclusion 133

Figure 4.22 An Australian Aborigine specific toponym joined to an English generic name, near Omeo in Victoria state, Australia. Such signs give a special, distinctive look to the linguistic landscape and speak of a now-vanished culture region. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

in areas from which the native peoples disappeared long ago (Figure 4.22). No toponyms are more permanently estab- lished than those identifying physical geographical features, such as rivers and mountains. Even the most absolute con- quest, exterminating an aboriginal people, usually does not entirely destroy such names. Quite the contrary, in fact. Geo- grapher R. D. K. Herman speaks of anticonquest, in which the defeated people finds its toponyms venerated and per- petuated by the conqueror, who at the same time denies the people any real power or cultural influence. The abundance of Native American toponyms in the United States provides an example (see Doing Geography at the end of the chap- ter). India, however, has recently decided to revert to tradi- tional toponyms, after many Indian place-names had been Anglicized under British colonial rule (Figure 4.23).

In Spain and Portugal, seven centuries of Moorish rule left behind a great many Arabic place-names (Figure 4.24). An example is the prefix guada- on river names (as in Guadalquivir and Guadalupejo). The prefix is a corruption of the Arabic wadi, meaning “river” or “stream.” Thus, Guadalquivir, corrupted from Wadi-al-Kabir, means “the great river.” The frequent occurrence of Arabic names in any particular region or province of Spain reveals the remnants of Moorish cultural influence in that area, rather than anti- conquest. Many such names were brought to the Americas through Iberian conquest, so that Guadalajara, for example, appears on the map as an important Mexican city.

New Zealand, too, offers some intriguing examples of the subtle messages that can be conveyed by archaic toponyms. The native Polynesian people of New Zealand are the Maori. As cultural geographer Hong-key Yoon has observed, the survival rate of Maori names for towns varies according to the size of its population. The smaller the

town, the more likely it is to bear a Maori name. The four largest New Zealand cities all have European names, but of the 20 regional centers, with populations of 10,000 to 100,000, 40 percent have Maori names. Almost 60 percent of the small towns, with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, bear Maori toponyms. Similarly, whereas only 20 percent of New Zealand’s provinces have Maori names, 56 percent of the counties do. Nearly all streams, hills, and mountains retain Maori names. The implication is that the British settlement of New Zealand was largely an urban phenomenon.

These Maori toponyms, which are heard and seen as one drives across New Zealand, help make the country a unique place. What is the mental impact of such names, visually dis- played on signs, on New Zealanders of European origin? One might imagine responses ranging from discomfort, even hos- tility, on the part of those faced with a linguistically alien land- scape, to a sense of comfort, homecoming, and belonging for those to whom this landscape is familiar terrain. Linguistic landscapes not only bear meaningful messages but also help shape the very character of places, as well as senses of belong- ing and exclusion for those who inhabit them.

Conclusion Language, then, is an essential part of culture that can be studied using the five themes of cultural geography. Lan- guage is firmly enmeshed in the cultural whole. Its families, dialects, vocabulary, pronunciation, and toponyms display distinct spatial variations that are shown on maps of linguistic culture regions. Languages are mobile entities, ebbing and flowing across geographical areas. Relocation and expansion diffusion, both hierarchical and contagious, are apparent in

134 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

the movement of language. They are also shaped and reshaped with the changing needs of their users.

The globalization of language, through the expansion of ancient empires as well as today’s interlinked global exchanges, underscores the fact that human interactions are primarily language based. The progression from one, to many, and back again to a few—perhaps even to one— languages shows that the number of languages in existence is variable. The trend toward the dominance of a few “big” languages may afford opportunities to communicate on a

OLD: Uttaranchal State NEW: Uttarakhand State

OLD: Calcutta NEW: Kolkata

OLD: Madras NEW: Chennai

OLD: Bangalore NEW: Bengaluru

OLD: Bombay NEW: Mumbai

OLD: Pondicherry NEW: Puducherry

0

0

200 400 mi.

200 400 km

Figure 4.23 India’s postcolonial toponym shift. More than 50 years after the English colonizers “quit” India, their colonial place- names are being swept from the map, too. (Adapted from Sappenfield, 2006.)

0

0

100 200 km

50 100 150 mi.

Each dot = one Arabic toponym

SPAIN

PO RT

U G

AL

Figure 4.24 Arabic toponyms in Iberia. Arabic, a Semitic language, spread into Spain and Portugal with the Moors more than a thousand years ago. A reconquest by Romance Indo-European speakers subsequently rooted out the Arabic- speaking North Africans in Iberia. A reminder of the Semitic language survives in Iberian toponyms, or place-names. Using this map, you can easily speculate about the direction of the Moorish invasion and retreat, the duration of Moorish rule in different parts of Iberia, and the main centers of former Moorish power. (Source: Houston, 1967.)

global scale, but it also may signal the demise of much of the cultural richness across the Earth.

Language and physical environment interact in a nature- culture dynamic, with the physical environment helping to

Sources 135

shape linguistic elements, such as vocabulary, and language shaping our use and perception of the environment. Finally, we can see language in the landscapes created by literate soci- eties. The visible alphabet, public signs, and generic toponyms together create a linguistic landscape that can be read using one’s “geographic eyes.” Dominance of one group over another is often expressed in the latter’s exclusion from the linguistic cultural landscape.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

Toponyms and Roots of Place As you recall from this chapter, toponyms can give us important clues about the historical, social, political, and physical geography of a place. One example of this is the prevalence of indigenous place-names throughout the Americas, from Canada to Chile. You may say a place-name on a daily basis without being aware of its roots in an indigenous language. According to Charles Cutler, European settlers simply appropriated many of the Native American words for plants, animals, foods, and places with little or no modification in their pronunciation. These words are known as loanwords. For example, Milwaukee comes from an Algonquin word meaning “good spot or place,” and Chicago, also Algonquin in origin, probably means “garlic field.” The commonly used derogatory place-name Podunk is also indigenous in origin, from the Natick word for “swampy place.” In fact, the names of more than half of the states in the United States are of Native American origin.

For this exercise, you will explore the theme of toponyms in more detail. You need to choose, or be assigned by your instructor, a state in the United States or a province in Canada on which to focus. Your first task is to find a map of your assigned state or province. It should be a map that is detailed enough to show the names of political and physical features, such as cities, towns, counties or parishes, rivers, mountains, lakes, and so on. You can find such maps in the reference section of your library; in printed or CD-ROM atlases; and online at sites such as the University of Texas’s Perry-Castañeda map collection, located at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/. Many maps in atlases also have an index of place-names that can be useful to you.

Now you will need to examine your map with an eye to the different categories of toponyms. Make a list of at least five place-names for each category:

• Historical people or events

• Non-English place-names (excluding Native American names)

• Native American place-names

• Place-names transplanted from elsewhere (e.g., “New” York)

• Descriptions of physical features (landforms, elevation, and so on)

• Descriptions of natural resources

Did you find at least five examples for each category? If not, why do you think you didn’t? For which category of toponyms did you find the most examples? Why? Were toponyms of one or more categories clustered spatially on the map? If so, where and why? What do the names say about the history, culture, and physical geography of the state or province you examined?

Linguistic Geography on the Internet You can learn more about linguistic geography on the Internet at the following web sites:

Dictionary of American Regional English http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html Discover a reference web site that describes regional vocabulary contrasts of the English language in the United States and includes numerous maps.

Enduring Voices http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mission/enduringvoices/ This flash map allows you to explore the world’s “language hotspots,” those regions that are home to the most linguistic diver- sity, the highest levels of linguistic endangerment, and the least- studied tongues.

Ethnologue http://www.ethnologue.com This site provides information on how languages change over time as well as on endangered and nearly extinct languages.

Language Log http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/ Search the fascinating posts on this language-themed blog, run by University of Pennsylvania phonetician Mark Liberman and fea- turing guest linguists. Themes range from aversion to the word moist, the peculiar naming of coffee cup sizes at Starbucks, and insulting words.

The Museum of Human Language http://www.geocities.com/agihard/mohl/mohl.html#LANGUAGES Visit this “virtual museum,” where you can find information on world languages—including the birth, modification, and death of languages—and how people acquire language.

Sources Anderson, Greg, and David Harrison. 2007, “Language Hotspots.”

Model developed at the Living Tongues Institute for Endan- gered Languages, available online at http://www.nationalgeo graphic.com/mission/enduringvoices/.

Basso, Keith H. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mex- ico Press.

136 Chapter 4 Speaking about Places

Spanglish gas station sign in New York City.

SEEING GEOGRAPHY Aquí se habla Spanglish

What does this sign tell you about who uses the commercial spaces in this city?

Languages are fluid, always being altered and reinvented as the needs and experiences of their users change. Thanks to relocation diffusion resulting from the conquest of the East Coast of North America by the British in the seventeenth century, the primary language of the United States is English. The language then expanded westward as English-speaking peoples conquered more and more of the continent’s territory. But the English spoken in Britain’s overseas colonies has never been “the Queen’s English.” Rather, British colonies in North America, Australia, the Caribbean, Africa, and eastern and southern Asia have all developed their own distinctive dialects. Indigenous words have been incorporated into English vocabularies, as the sections on toponyms in this chapter show. Pidgins, creoles, and distinctive dialects have resulted in places of high multilingual exposure, such as Singapore and the Anglophone Caribbean islands. Waves of immigrants have added further to the linguistic richness of English-speaking areas.

In 2002, Hispanics surpassed African-Americans as the nation’s numerically most significant minority group. In some U.S. cities, Hispanics constitute more than half of the population, a fact that brings into question the designation “minority.” For example, the population of Miami, Florida, is two-thirds Hispanic, and more than three-fourths of the

residents of El Paso and San Antonio, Texas, are Hispanic. In the United States today, Spanish-speaking peoples from Latin America provide the largest flow of immigrants into the United States. Even midsize and smaller towns in the midwestern and southern United States are becoming destinations for Spanish-speaking immigrants, sharply changing the ethnic composition of cities such as Shelbyville, Tennessee; Dubuque, Iowa; and Siler City, North Carolina.

It is logical to assume that the Spanish language spoken by these new immigrants, and by the families of Hispanic-Americans, will have a growing impact on American English. As the opening photograph for this chapter illustrates, Spanish words have become common sights in U.S. cities, appearing frequently on street signs. But Spanish and English have combined in a rich, complex fashion as well, to produce a hybrid language called Spanglish. The phrase “Vámonos al downtown a tomar una bironga after work hoy” is an excellent example. It translates into Standard English as “Let’s go downtown and have a beer after work today.” Vámonos (“let’s go”), tomar (“to drink”), and hoy (“today”) are Spanish words that are combined in the same sentence with the English words downtown and after work. Linguists refer to this as code- switching. But the noun bironga, which means “beer” in English, is a Spanglish invention: it exists in neither English nor Spanish. This is quite common in Spanglish, and neologisms such as hanguear (“to hang out”), deioff (“day off”), and parquear (“to park” a vehicle) abound. The term gasetería in the photo shown here is also an invented Spanglish word.

Spanglish reflects the growing Spanish-English bilingualism of many U.S. residents, the flexibility of language, and the enduring creativity of human beings as we attempt to communicate with one another. Ilan Stavans, author of Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, likens Spanglish to jazz. “Yes,” Stavans writes, “it is the tongue of the uneducated. Yes, it’s a hodgepodge. . . . But its creativity astonished me. In many ways, I see in it the beauties and achievements of jazz, a musical style that sprung up [sic] among African-Americans as a result of improvisation and lack of education. Eventually, though, it became a major force in America, a state of mind breaching out of the ghetto into the middle class and beyond. Will Spanglish follow a similar route?”

A Journal in the Geography of Language 137

Bennett, Charles J. 1980. “The Morphology of Language Bound- aries: Indo-Aryan and Dravidian in Peninsular India,” in David E. Sopher (ed.), An Exploration of India: Geographical Perspectives on Society and Culture. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 234–251.

Bomhard, Allan R., and John C. Kerns. 1994. The Nostratic Macro- family. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Carver, Craig M. 1986. American Regional Dialects: Word Geography. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Collin, Richard Oliver. 2005. “Revolutionary Scripts: The Politics of Writing.” Paper presented at the Vernacular 2005 Conference on Language and Society, Puebla, Mexico. Available online at http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/revolutionary_ scripts.doc.

Cutler, Charles. 1994. O Brave New Words! Native American Loan- words in Current English. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Dingemanse, Mark. Wikipedia. Available online at http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bantu_expansion.png

Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2000. 2000 Britannica Book of the Year. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Ethnologue, “Nearly Extinct Languages.” Available online at http://www.ethnologue.com/nearly_extinct.asp.

Ford, Clark. Available online at http://www.public.iastate. edu/~cfford/342worldhistoryearly.html.

Herman, R. D. K. 1999. “The Aloha State: Place Names and the Anti-Conquest of Hawaii.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 89: 76–102.

Hill, Robert T. 1986. “Descriptive Topographic Terms of Spanish America.” National Geographic 7: 292–297.

Houston, James M. 1967. The Western Mediterranean World. New York: Praeger.

Jett, Stephen C. 1997. “Place-Naming, Environment, and Percep- tion Among the Canyon de Chelly Navajo of Arizona.” Profes- sional Geographer 49: 481–493.

Krantz, Grover S. 1988. Geographical Development of European Lan- guages. New York: Peter Lang.

Kurath, Hans. 1949. Word Geography of the Eastern United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Latrimer Clarke Corporation Pty Ltd. Available online at http://www.altapedia.com.

Levison, Michael, R., Gerard Ward, and John W. Webb. 1973. The Settlement of Polynesia: A Computer Simulation. Minneapolis: Uni- versity of Minnesota Press.

Pountain, Chris. 2005. “Varieties of Spanish.” Available online at http://www.qmul.ac.uk/~mlw058/varspan/varspanla.pdf (Queen Mary School of Modern Languages).

Renfrew, Colin. 1989. “The Origins of Indo-European Lan- guages.” Scientific American 261(4): 106–114.

Sappenfield, Mark. 2006. “Tear Up the Maps: India’s Cities Shed Colonial Names.” Christian Science Monitor, September 7, online edition.

Stavans, Ilan. 2003. Spanglish: The Making of a New American Lan- guage. New York: Rayo.

U.S. English, Inc. Available online at http://www.us-english.org/ inc/official/states.asp.

Wixman, Ronald. 1980. Language Aspects of Ethnic Patterns and Processes in the North Caucasus. Research Paper No. 191. Univer- sity of Chicago, Department of Geography.

World Almanac Books. 2001. World Almanac and Book of Facts 2001. New York: World Almanac Books.

Yoon, Hong-key. 1986. “Maori and Pakeha Place Names for Cul- tural Features in New Zealand,” in Maori Mind, Maori Land: Essays on the Cultural Geography of the Maori People from an Out- sider’s Perspective. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 98–122.

Ten Recommended Books and Special Issues on the Geography of Language (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Carver, Craig M. 1986. American Regional Dialects: Word Geography. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. One of the best over- all presentations of American English dialects from the stand- point of vocabulary.

Cassidy, Frederic C. (ed.). 1985–2002. Dictionary of American Regional English. 4 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. A massive compilation of words used only regionally within the United States, with maps showing distributions.

Desforges, Luke, and Rhys Jones (eds.). 2001. “Geographies of Languages/Languages of Geography.” Special issue, Social and Cultural Geography 2(3): 261–346. The manifold ways in which geographers have examined the spaces and places of various languages.

Krantz, Grover S. 1988. Geographical Development of European Lan- guages. New York: Peter Lang. Presents a new theory and model of how the Indo-European languages fragmented as linguistic diffusion occurred in prehistoric Europe.

Kurath, Hans. 1949. Word Geography of the Eastern United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. The classic study that gave rise to the geographical study of American English dialects.

Laponce, J. A. 1987. Languages and Their Territories. Anthony Mar- tin-Sperry (trans.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Treats the themes that (1) languages protect themselves by ter- ritoriality and (2) the modern political state typically acts overtly to destroy minority languages.

Moseley, Christopher, and R. E. Asher (eds.). 1994. Atlas of the World’s Languages. London: Routledge. A wonderfully detailed color map portrait of the world’s complex linguistic mosaic; thumb through it at your library and you will come to appreci- ate how complicated the patterns and spatial distributions of languages remain, even in the age of globalization.

Ostler, Nicholas. 2005. Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World. New York: Harper-Collins. This fascinating book explores the spread and evolution of languages through con- quest, with many maps accompanying the text.

Williams, Colin H. (ed.). 1988. Language in Geographical Context. Clevedon, U.K., and Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. Eight geolinguists provide an introduction to the field, with exam- ples drawn mainly from Europe, especially the British Isles.

Withers, Charles W. J. 1988. Gaelic Scotland: The Transformation of a Culture Region. London: Routledge. A geographer analyzes one of the dying Celtic languages within the framework of the models presented in this chapter.

A Journal in the Geography of Language World Englishes. Published by the International Association for

World Englishes, the journal documents the fragmentation of English into separate languages around the world. Edited by Margie Berns and Daniel R. Davis.

When does cuisine cease to be ethnic and become simply “American”? What role does cultural diffusion play in the process?

5 Geographies of Race

and Ethnicity Mosaic or Melting Pot?

Neon signs collected from ethnic restaurants in the United States by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 174 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

139

One of the enduring stories that the people of the United States proudly tellthemselves is that “ours is an immigrant nation.” This story is displayed dur-ing annual festivals celebrating the mosaic of ethnic traditions in countless cities, towns, and villages across the nation. For example, the midwestern town of Wilber, settled by Bohemian immigrants beginning about 1865, bills itself as “The Czech Capital of Nebraska” and annually invites visitors to attend a “National Czech Festival.” Celebrants are promised Czech foods, such as koláce, jaternice, poppy seed cake, and jelita; Czech folk dancing; “colored Czech postcards and souvenirs” imported from Europe; and handicraft items made by Nebraska Czechs (bearing an official seal and trademark to prove authenticity). Thousands of visitors attend the festival each year. Without leaving Nebraska, these tourists can move on to “Norwe- gian Days” at Newman Grove, the “Greek Festival” at Bridgeport, the Danish “Grundlovs Fest” in Dannebrog, “German Heritage Days” at McCook, the “Swedish Festival” at Stromsburg, the “St. Patrick’s Day Celebration” at O’Neill, several Native American powwows, and assorted other ethnic celebrations (Figure 5.1).

Today, Nebraska is still a magnet for immigrants, but since the 1990s, the state’s new arrivals have been overwhelmingly non-European. In particular, Mexican immi- grants employed in Nebraska’s meat-processing industry find destinations such as Nebraska and other upper midwestern states attractive. In general, immigrants to the United States today are more likely to come from Asia or Latin America than from Europe, and they are changing the face of ethnicity in the United States (Fig- ure 5.2). Indeed, ethnicity is a central aspect of the cultural geography of most places, forming one of the brightest motifs in the human mosaic.

Race is often used interchangeably with ethnicity, but the two have very dif- ferent meanings, and one must be careful in choosing between the two terms. Race can be understood as a genetically significant difference among human populations. A few biologists today support the view that human populations do form racially distinct groupings, arguing that race explains phenomena such as

140 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

Figure 5.1 The town of Stromsburg, Nebraska (left). Proud of its Swedish heritage, Stromsburg holds a “Swedish Festival” each year in June. Hispanic Heritage Festival in Nebraska (right). Hispanic immigrants have expanded the range of ethnic pride festivals throughout the Midwest. (Right: Steve Skjold/Alamy.)

Latin America 52%

Other 6%

Europe 16%

US-born Foreign-born

11%

Asia 26%

Figure 5.2 The foreign-born population of the United States. The smaller chart shows that 11 percent, or 31.1 million, of the total U.S. population in 2000 (281.4 million) was born abroad. The larger chart shows that the majority of these people came from Latin America and Asia. (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000.)

Because race is a social construction, it takes different forms in different places and times. In the United States, for example, the so-called one-drop rule meant that anyone with

the susceptibility to certain diseases. In contrast, many social scientists (and many biologists) have noted the flu- idity of definitions of race across time and space, suggest- ing that race is a social construct rather than a biological fact (Figures 5.3 and 5.4).

any African-American ancestry at all was considered black. This law was intended to prevent interracial marriage. It also meant that moving out of the category “black” was, and still is today, extremely difficult because one’s racial status is determined by ancestry. Yet the notion that “black blood” somehow makes a person completely black is challenged today by the growing numbers of young people with diverse racial backgrounds. The rise in interracial marriages in the

Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity 141

Figure 5.3 Castas painting. These paintings were common in colonial Mexico. They depict the myriad racial and ethnic combinations perceived to arise from intermixing among Europeans, indigenous peoples, and African slaves in the New World. They provided a way for those in power to keep track of the confusing racial hierarchy they had created. (Schalkwijk/Art Resource, NY.)

White Black Hispanic Asian

▲ Figure 5.4 Mug shots of people from different races. Phenotype variations—visible bodily differences such as facial features, skin color, and hair texture—are considered indicative of “race” by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). “Race” is one of several visible characteristics, which also includes tattoos, scars, height, and weight, and often is used by law enforcement to identify suspects. These are photos from the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. How is this idea of race as defined by visible differences different from race as it is commonly understood in the United States? (Courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.)

United States, and the fact that—for the first time in 2000— one could declare multiple races on the Census form, means that more and more people identify themselves as “racially mixed” or “biracial” instead of feeling they must choose only one facet of their ancestry as their sole identity. Thus, golfer Tiger Woods calls himself a “Cablinasian” to describe his mixed Caucasian, black, American Indian, and Asian back- ground. Race and ethnicity arise from multiple sources: your own definition of yourself; the way others see you; and the way society treats you, particularly legally. All three of these are subject to change over time. Still, President Barack Obama, whose mixed race ancestry has led him to identify with both his black and his white relatives, struggled during the 2008 presidential campaign with the claims that he was at once “too black” and “not black enough” to be a viable presidential candidate.

In Brazil, by contrast, a range of physiognomic features, such as skin pigmentation, eye color, and hair texture, are used to identify a person racially, with the result that many racial categories exist in Brazil. Siblings are frequently clas- sified in quite different racial terms depending on their appearance, the same person can be put into multiple racial categories by different people, and individuals’ own racial self-designations can depend on such variables as their mood at the time they are asked. Increased economic or educational status can “whiten” individuals formerly clas- sified as black. However, one must keep in mind that Brazil was also the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, and discrimination against darker-skinned Brazilians is common today.

Studies of genetic variation have demonstrated that there is far more variability within so-called racial groups

142 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

than between them, which has led most scholars to believe that all human beings are, genetically speaking, members of only one race: Homo sapiens sapiens. In fact, some social scientists have dropped the term race altogether in favor of ethnicity. This is not to say, however, that racism, the belief that human capabilities are determined by racial classification and that some races are superior to others, does not exist. In this chapter, we use the verb racialize to refer to the processes whereby these socially constructed differences are understood—usually, but not always, by the powerful majority—to be impervious to assimilation. Across the world, hatreds based in racism are at the root

of the most incendiary conflicts imaginable (see Subject to Debate).

What exactly is an ethnic group? The word ethnic is derived from the Greek word ethnos, meaning a “people” or “nation,” but that definition is too broad. For our purposes, an ethnic group consists of people of common ancestry and cultural tradition. A strong feeling of group identity char- acterizes ethnicity. Membership in an ethnic group is largely involuntary, in the sense that a person cannot sim- ply decide to join; instead, he or she must be born into the group. In some cases, outsiders can join an ethnic group by marriage or adoption.

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Racism: An Embarrassment of the Past, or Here to Stay? Most modern societies are quick to claim that they have moved beyond the scourge of racism. Brazil, for example, bills itself as a “racial democracy.” Swedes see theirs as a nation that is particularly tolerant in matters of race. And the United States’s “land of opportunity” privileges are supposedly extended to all, regardless of race, creed, color, and so forth.

Yet we know through our day-to-day experiences, studying, working, and socializing in specific places, that although “postracism” may be the ideal of modern societies, it is not always carried out in real life. In France in 2005, for instance, working-class Paris suburbs such as Clichy-sous-Bois—home to mostly Muslim immigrants from North Africa—became the site of rioting by youths who felt persecuted and excluded from French society because of their religion, culture, skin color, and immigrant status. A group of teenage boys had been playing soccer, and were returning to the housing projects where they lived, when they spotted the police. They scattered in order to avoid the detainment, questioning, and requests to show identity papers that such youths often face. Thinking that they were being chased in relation to a reported burglary at a construction site, three of the teenagers hid in a power substation; two of them were accidentally electrocuted. This incident tapped into a well of unrest over what many see as the systematic exclusion in France of those with Arabic- or African-sounding names and darker skins, exclusion that has led to high levels of unemployment among banlieue (the French equivalent of a ghetto) residents. Months of rioting ensued throughout France. Nearly ten thousand cars were set on fire, property damage totaled in the hundreds of millions of euros, and three thousand arrests were made.

The following year in the United States, widespread immigration protests filled city streets across the nation. In the spring of 2006, an estimated half a million people hit the streets of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C., and groups numbering in the tens of thousands marched in Denver, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Atlanta, Phoenix, and many other cities across the nation. Hispanics and their supporters took to the streets to protest legislation that threatened to deport undocumented workers and to classify anyone who helped an undocumented individual as a felon. As with the French incidents, Hispanic immigrants to the United States expressed feeling discriminated against and excluded from society. Even those who merely “look” or “sound” Hispanic are often the targets of racism. Rather than constituting violent terrorists or drains on society, protesters argued that Hispanics are, in fact, the backbone of low-wage labor in the United States. “When did you ever see a Mexican blow up the World Trade Center? Who do you think built the World Trade Center? I’m in my homeland!” exclaimed 22-year-old David González, whose mother immigrated to the United States from Mexico (quoted in the Associated Press).

Even college campuses, supposedly the epicenters of liberalism and sites of multicultural celebrations of diversity, are plagued by a surge of race-related incidents that date from at least the mid-1980s. A 2004 report of the President’s Commission on Diversity and Equity found that only 9 percent of African-American students at the University of Virginia had never experienced or witnessed racialized attacks on campus, and a full 40 percent of black students had had a racial epithet directed at them personally. “Why so much bigotry and intolerance at institutions long seen as

Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity 143

Protesters numbering around half a million rally for immigrant rights in Los Angeles, part of a wave of protests occurring throughout U.S. cities in the spring of 2006. (J. Emilio Flores/Getty Images.)

dedicated to reason and the search for truth?” asks Noel Jacob Kent, author of “The New Racism on Campus: What’s Going On?” In part, says Kent, campuses reflect the larger societies of which they are a part, where racism is on the rise. Also, economic cutbacks, restructuring, and the sense that social benefits are becoming scarcer create anger among those who believe that their studies should allow them access to increased opportunities. This frustration is at times directed at minority populations who function as scapegoats for broader anxieties.

These incidents highlight the fact that race-related tensions are not only about ancestry or skin pigmentation but also about religious differences, immigration, and social opportunities. As anxieties arise over ever-higher levels of contact in a globalizing world, racialized intolerance is all too often the response. Indeed, A. Sivanandan has argued that “poverty is the

new black” in a globalizing world that has become increasingly hostile toward involuntary migrants regardless of their skin color.

How should neighborhoods, countries, and college campuses address racialized violence? Is it really a serious problem, or are minority groups simply agitating as they always have? Will racism finally go away by itself as societies modernize and move beyond intolerance? What is the role of multicultural education in overcoming racism? Can legislation adequately and appropriately address the fundamental causes of racism? Are more radical measures—protests or work stoppages, for example— necessary given the deeply rooted nature of race-based discrimination? Or is violence in fact the only thing that will bring the needed level of outrage to this problem? These solutions lie along a continuum of possible responses to this issue. What do you think?

Reflecting on Geography Are ethnic groups always minorities, or do majority groups also have an ethnicity? What different sorts of traits might a majority group use to define its identity, as compared to a minority group? Is it possible for a racialized minority group to racialize other groups, or even itself?

Different ethnic groups may base their identities on dif- ferent traits. For some, such as Jews, ethnicity primarily means religion; for the Amish, it is both folk culture and religion; for Swiss-Americans, it is national origin; for German-Americans, it is ancestral language; for African-

Americans, it is a shared history stemming from slavery. Religion, language, folk culture, history, and place of ori- gin can all help provide the basis of the sense of “we-ness” that underlies ethnicity.

As with race, ethnicity is a notion that is at once vexingly vague yet hugely powerful. The boundaries of ethnicity are often fuzzy and shift over time. Moreover, ethnicity often serves to mark minority groups as different, yet majority groups also have an ethnicity, which may be based on a com- mon heritage, language, religion, or culture. Indeed, an important aspect of being a member of the majority is the ability to decide how, when, and even if one’s ethnicity forms

144 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

an overt aspect of one’s identity. Finally, some scholars ques- tion whether ethnicity even exists as intrinsic qualities of a group, suggesting instead that the perception of ethnic dif- ference arises only through contact and interaction.

Apropos of this last point is the distinction between immigrant and indigenous (sometimes called aboriginal) groups. Many, if not most, ethnic groups around the world originated when they migrated from their native lands and settled in a new country. In their old home, they often belonged to the host culture and were not ethnic, but when they were transplanted by relocation diffusion to a foreign land, they simultaneously became a minority and ethnic. Han Chinese are not ethnic in China (see Figure 5.5), but if they come to North America they are. Indigenous ethnic groups that continue to live in their ancient homes become ethnic when they are absorbed into larger political states. The Navajo, for example, reside on their traditional and ancient lands and became ethnic only when the United States annexed their territory. The same is true of Mexicans who, long resident in what is today the southwestern United States, found themselves labeled ethnic minorities when the border was moved after the 1848 U.S.–Mexican War. “We did not jump the border, the border jumped us!” is a common local comeback to this sudden shift in ethnic status.

This is not to say that ethnic minorities remain unchanged by their host culture. Acculturation often occurs, meaning that the ethnic group adopts enough of the ways of the host society to be able to function economically and socially. Stronger still is assimilation, which implies a com- plete blending with the host culture and may involve the loss of many distinctive ethnic traits. Intermarriage is perhaps the most effective way of encouraging assimilation. Many stu- dents of American culture have long assumed that all ethnic groups would eventually be assimilated into the American melting pot, but relatively few have been; instead they use acculturation as their way of survival. The past three decades, in fact, have witnessed a resurgence of ethnic identity across the globe (see Subject to Debate).

Ethnic geography is the study of the spatial aspects of ethnicity. Ethnic groups are the keepers of distinctive cul- tural traditions and the focal points of various kinds of social interaction. They are the basis not only of group identity but also of friendships, marriage partners, recre- ational outlets, business success, and political power bases. These interactions can offer cultural security and reinforce- ment of tradition. Ethnic groups often practice unique adaptive strategies and usually occupy clearly defined areas, whether rural or urban. In other words, the study of ethnic- ity has built-in geographical dimensions. The geography of race is a related field of study that focuses on the spatial aspects of how race is socially constructed and negotiated. Cultural geographers who study race and ethnicity tend to always have an eye on the larger economic, political, envi-

ronmental, and social power relations at work when race is involved. This chapter draws on insights and examples from both ethnic geography and the geography of race.

Region How are ethnic groups distributed geographically? Do ethnic culture regions have a special spatial character? Formal eth- nic culture regions exist in most countries (Figure 5.5). To map these regions, geographers rely on data as diverse as probable origin of surnames in telephone directories and census totals for answers to questions on ancestry, primary racial identification, or language spoken at home. Given the cultural complexity of the real world, each method produces a slightly different map (Figure 5.6). Regardless of the map- ping method, ethnic culture regions reveal a vivid mosaic of minorities in most countries of the world.

Ethnic Homelands and Islands There are four types of ethnic culture regions: the rural eth- nic homelands and islands, and urban ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos. The difference between ethnic homelands and islands is their size, in terms of both area and population. Rural ethnic homelands cover large areas, often overlapping municipal borders, and have sizable populations. Because of their size, the age of their inhabitants, and their geographical segregation, they tend to reinforce ethnicity. The residents of homelands typically seek or enjoy some measure of political autonomy or self-rule. Homeland populations usually exhibit a strong sense of attachment to the region. Most homelands belong to indigenous ethnic groups and include special, ven- erated places that serve to symbolize and celebrate the region—shrines to the special identity of the ethnic group. In its fully developed form, the homeland represents that most powerful of geographical entities, one combining the attrib- utes of both formal and functional culture regions. By con- trast, ethnic islands are small dots in the countryside, usually occupying an area smaller than a county and serving as home to several hundred to several thousand people (at most). Because of their small size and isolation, they do not exert as powerful an influence as homelands do.

North America includes a number of viable ethnic homelands (Figure 5.7), including Acadiana, the Louisiana French homeland now increasingly identified with the Cajun people and also recognized as a vernacular region; the Hispano or Spanish-American homeland of highland New Mexico and Colorado; the Tejano homeland of south Texas; the Navajo reservation homeland in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico; and the French-Canadian homeland cen- tered on the valley of the lower St. Lawrence River in Québec. Some geographers would also include Deseret, a

Region 145

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Tibetan and Burman 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Achang Bai Drung Hani Jingpo Lahu Lisu Lhoba Monba Naxi Nu Qiang Tibetan Tujia Yi

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

Bouyei Dai Dong Li Maonan Mulam Sui Zhuang

25. 26.

Blang Va

27. 28.

Miao Yao

Turkic 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Kazak Kirgiz Salar Uygur Yugur

Mongolic 34. 35. 36.

Daur Mongol Tu

Tungus-Manchu 37. 38. 39.

Ewenki Oroqen Xibe

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Figure 5.5 Ethnic minorities in China. Most ethnic groups are Turkic, Mongolic, Tai, Tibetan, or Burman in speech, but the rich diversity extends even to the Tajiks of the Indo-European language family. Unshaded areas are Han (Mandarin) Chinese,

the host culture. Which of these ethnic regions are homelands and which islands? Why are China’s ethnic groups concentrated in sparsely populated peripheries of the country? (Source: Adapted and simplified from Carter et al., 1980.)

146 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

Mormon homeland in the Great Basin of the intermontane West. Some ethnic homelands have experienced decline and decay. These include the Pennsylvania Dutch home- land, weakened to the point of extinction by assimilation, and the southern Black Belt, diminished by the collapse of the plantation-sharecrop system and the resulting African- American relocation to northern urban areas. Mormon absorption into the American cultural mainstream has eroded Mormon ethnic status, whereas nonethnic immi- gration has diluted the Hispano homeland. At present, the most vigorous ethnic homelands are those of the French- Canadians and south Texas Mexican-Americans.

If ethnic homelands succumb to assimilation and their people are absorbed into the host culture, then, at the very least, a geographical residue, or ethnic substrate, remains. The resulting culture region, though no longer ethnic, nev- ertheless retains some distinctiveness, whether in local cui- sine, dialect, or traditions. Thus, it differs from surrounding regions in a variety of ways. In seeking to explain its distinc- tiveness, geographers often discover an ancient, vanished ethnicity. For example, the Italian province of Tuscany owes both its name and some of its uniqueness to the Etruscan

people, who ceased to be an ethnic group 2000 years ago, when they were absorbed into the Latin-speaking Roman Empire. More recently, the massive German presence in the American heartland (Figure 5.8), now largely nonethnic, helped shape the cultural character of the Midwest, which can be said to have a German ethnic substrate.

Ethnic islands are much more numerous than home- lands or substrates, peppering large areas of rural North America, as Figures 5.7 and 5.8 suggest. Ethnic islands develop because, in the words of geographer Alice Rechlin, “a minority group will tend to utilize space in such a way as to minimize the interaction distance between group mem- bers,” facilitating contacts within the ethnic community and minimizing exposure to the outside world. People are drawn to rural places where others of the same ethnic back- ground are found. Ethnic islands survive from one genera- tion to the next because most land is inherited. Moreover, land is typically sold within the ethnic group, which helps to preserve the identity of the island. Social stigma is often attached to those who sell land to outsiders. Even so, the smaller size of ethnic islands makes their populations more susceptible to acculturation and assimilation.

0 20 40 km

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Percentage of French among 10 most common names in each telephone directory

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Percentage of parish population speaking French or Cajun French

Figure 5.6 Acadiana, the Louisiana French homeland, as mapped by two different methods. The 1939 map was compiled by sampling the surnames in telephone directories. The 10 most common names in each directory were determined, and the percentage of these 10 that were of French origin was recorded. When no

telephone directories were available, surnames on mailboxes were used. The 2000 map is based on census data for the percentage of those residing in the parish who speak French or Cajun French. (After Meigs, 1941: 245; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000.)

Region 147

Viable ethnic homeland Moribund ethnic homeland Viable homeland, no longer ethnic Concentrations of ethnic islands

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Pennsylvania Dutch homeland

French- Canadian homeland

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Hispano homeland

Navajo homeland

Deseret

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ONTARIO NEW BRUNSWICK

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GEORGIA ALABAMA

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LOUISIANA

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ARIZONA

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Figure 5.7 Selected ethnic homelands in North America, past and present, and concentrations of rural ethnic islands. The Hispano homeland is also referred to as the Spanish-American homeland. With the return migration of African-Americans from northern industrial cities such as Chicago to rural

Ethnic Neighborhoods and Racialized Ghettos Formal ethnic culture regions also occur in cities through- out the world, as minority populations initially create, or are consigned to, separate ethnic residential quarters. Two types of urban ethnic culture regions exist. An ethnic

neighborhood is a voluntary community where people of common ethnicity reside by choice. Such neighborhoods are, in the words of Peter Matwijiw, an Australian geogra- pher, “the results of preferences shown by different ethnic groups . . . toward maintaining group cohesiveness.”

southern areas, the moribund Black Belt homeland might soon be enjoying a second life. Note: Nunavut became a functioning political unit within Canada in 1999. (Sources: Arreola, 2002; Carlson, 1990; Meinig, 1965; Nostrand and Estaville, 2001; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000.)

148 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

An ethnic neighborhood has many benefits: common use of a language other than that of the majority culture, nearby kin, stores and services specially tailored to a cer- tain group’s tastes, the presence of employment that relies on an ethnically based division of labor, and insti- tutions important to the group—such as churches and lodges—that remain viable only when a number of peo- ple live close enough to participate in their activities often. Miami’s orthodox Jewish population clusters in Miami Beach–area neighborhoods in part because the proximity of synagogues and kosher food establishments makes religious observance far easier than it would be in

a neighborhood that did not have a sizable orthodox Jew- ish population.

The second type of urban ethnic region is a ghetto. Historically, the term dates from thirteenth-century medieval Europe, when Jews lived in segregated, walled communities called ghettos (Figure 5.9). Ethnic residen- tial quarters have, in fact, long been a part of urban cul- tural geography. In ancient times, conquerors often forced the vanquished native people to live in ghettos. Religious minorities usually received similar treatment. Islamic cities, for example, had Christian districts. If one abides by the origin of the term, ghettos neither need to

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Czech = C Polish = P Ukrainian = U Russian = R

Finnish = F Dutch = D Japanese = J Scottish = S Irish = I

Italian

Native American, Aleut, or Inuit

Figure 5.8 Ethnic and national-origin groups in North America. Notice how the border between Canada and the United States generally also forms a cultural boundary. Several ethnic homelands appear on this map, as do many ethnic islands. Areas

shown as “Scandinavian” are those where the total of all Scandinavian origins combined exceeds the origins of any other group. (Sources: Allen and Turner, 1988: 210; Census of Canada, 1991; Dawson, 1936: iv.; U.S. Census, 1990.)

Region 149

GHETTO NUOVO

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Figure 5.9 Venetian ghetto. In the sixteenth century, Venice’s Jewish population lived in a segregated, walled neighborhood called a ghetto. On the left is a map of this early ghetto. Though most of Venice’s Jews do not reside in the ghetto today, many

be composed of racialized minorities nor be impover- ished. Typically, however, the term ghetto is commonly used in the United States today to signal an impoverished, urban, African-American neighborhood. A related term, barrio, refers to an impoverished, urban, Hispanic neigh- borhood. Ghettos and barrios are as much functional cul- ture regions as formal ones.

Coinciding with the urbanization and industrializa- tion of North America, ethnic neighborhoods became typ- ical in the northern United States and in Canada about 1840. Instead of dispersing throughout the residential areas of the city, immigrant groups clustered together. To some degree, ethnic groups that migrated to cities came from different parts of Europe from those who settled in rural areas. Whereas Germany and Scandinavia supplied most of the rural settlers, the cities attracted those from Ireland and eastern and southern Europe. Catholic Irish, Italians, and Poles, along with Jews from eastern Europe, became the main urban ethnic groups, although lesser numbers of virtually every nationality in Europe came to the cities of North America. These groups were later joined by French-Canadians, southern blacks, Puerto Ricans, Appalachian whites, Native Americans, Asians, and other non-European groups.

Regardless of their particular history, the neighbor- hoods created by ethnic migrants tend to be transitory. As a

rule, urban ethnic groups remain in neighborhoods while undergoing acculturation. As a result, their central-city eth- nic neighborhoods experience a life cycle in which one group is replaced by another, later-arriving one. We can see this process in action in the succession of groups that resided in certain neighborhoods and then moved on to more desirable areas. The list of groups that passed through one Chicago neighborhood from the nineteenth century to the present provides an almost complete history of American migratory patterns. First came the Germans and Irish, who were succeeded by the Greeks, Poles, French-Canadians, Czechs, and Russian Jews, who were soon replaced by the Italians. The Italians, in turn, were replaced by Chicanos and a small group of Puerto Ricans. As this succession occurred, the established groups had often attained enough economic and cultural capital to move to new areas of the city. In many cities, established ethnic groups moved to the suburbs. Even when ethnic groups relocated from inner-city neighborhoods to the sub- urbs, residential clustering survived (Figure 5.10). The San Gabriel Valley, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from down- town Los Angeles, has developed as a major Chinese sub- urb. These suburban ethnic neighborhoods can house relatively affluent immigrant populations and are called ethnoburbs. Ethnic neighborhoods will receive additional attention in Chapter 11.

attend religious services there, and the ghetto continues to be at the heart of Venetian Jewish life. (Left: Adapted from the Jewish Museum of Venice; Right: LusoItaly/Alamy.)

Recent Shifts in Ethnic Mosaics In the United States, immigration laws have changed dur- ing the past 40 years, shifting in 1965 from the quota system based on national origins to one that allowed a certain number of immigrants from the Eastern and Western hemi- spheres, as well as giving preference to certain categories of migrants, such as family members of those already residing in the United States. These changes, and the rising levels of undocumented immigration, have led to a growing ethnic variety in North American cities.

Asia, rather than Europe, is now the principal source of immigrants to North America, with Chinese, Koreans, Fil- ipinos, Indians, and Vietnamese constituting the most numerous immigrant groups. Asia supplied 37 percent of all legal immigrants to the United States in the mid-1990s, and Asians are projected to grow from only 4 percent of the U.S. population today to 9 percent by 2050. People of Japanese ancestry form the largest national-origin group in Hawaii, and Washington State elected the first Chinese- American governor in the country’s history in 1996. Many West Coast cities, from Vancouver to San Diego, have acquired very sizable Asian populations. Vancouver, already 11 percent Asian in 1981, has since absorbed many more Asian immigrants, particularly from Hong Kong, which again became part of China in 1997. The 2001 Canadian census shows Chinese as the third-largest ethnic-origin group in Vancouver, after British and French, accounting

for more than 17 percent of that city’s population. In the United States, the West Coast is home to about 40 percent of the Asian population, mostly in California, whereas the urban corridor that stretches from New York City to Boston houses another concentration (Figure 5.11). Spatially speaking, Asians are less segregated than African-American or Hispanic populations.

Latin America, including the Caribbean countries, has also surpassed Europe as a source of immigrants to North America (Figure 5.12). The two largest national- origin groups of Hispanic immigrants—Mexicans and Cubans—are still the most prevalent, but they have been supplemented since the 1980s by waves of Central Ameri- can and, increasingly, South American arrivals. East Coast cities have absorbed large numbers of immigrants from the West Indies. The two largest national-origin groups coming to New York City as early as the 1970s were from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, displacing Italy as the leading source of immigrants. For the United States as a whole, in 2002, Latinos narrowly surpassed African- Americans as the largest ethnic group, after non-Hispanic whites. In some popular Hispanic immigrant destination cities, Hispanics constitute majority populations (Table 5.1). The Latino influx into the United States has rewoven significant portions of the cultural mosaic, influencing food preferences, music, fashion, and language (see Global Spotlight).

Figure 5.10 Two Chinese ethnic neighborhoods. The image on the left depicts Los Angeles’s traditional urban Chinatown, which is a popular tourist destination as well. The image on the right

150

illustrates the suburban location and flavor of new ethnoburbs. This image is from the San Gabriel Valley, outside of Los Angeles. (Left: Susan Seubert/drr.net; Right: Ron Lim.)

Region 151

HAWAII

ALASKA

PUERTO RICO

0.2 – 1.4

1.7 – 3.0

3.4 – 5.7

10.9 – 10.9

41.6 – 41.6

Asian Population by Percent

Figure 5.11 Asian population by state. People indicating “Asian” alone as a percentage of the total population by state. (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000.)

TABLE 5.1 U.S. Cities of 100,000 or More with the Highest Ethnic Concentrations

Second-Largest Third-Largest Largest Concentration Concentration Concentration

Black Gary, Indiana (84%) Detroit, Michigan (81.6%) Birmingham, Alabama (73.5%) White Livonia, Michigan (95.5%) Cape Coral, Florida (93%) Boise, Idaho (92.2%) Hispanic East Los Angeles, Laredo, Texas (94.1%) Brownsville, Texas (91.3%)

California (96.8%) Asian Honolulu, Hawaii (55.9%) Daly City, California (50.7%) Fremont, California (37%)

The figures for black, white, and Asian are for that category alone, not in combination with other races. The figures for Hispanic can include any racial designation. (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000.)

152 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT Selena Crosses the Line

(Celene Reno/Corbis Sygma.)

Hispanic immigration is changing the face of American tastes in everything from fashion to food and fun. Salsa has replaced ketchup as the most popular condiment, and salsa—the dance, that is—has taken gringo movers and shakers by storm. In July 2002, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed African-Americans as the largest minority ethnic population of the United States. The increasing buying power of Hispanics is of undeniable interest to marketers. So when it comes to the powerful combination of music and money, it’s hard to find a hotter segment than the Latin music market.

In 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America estimated that 4.9 percent of the $6-billion-per-year U.S. music industry was captured by the Latin music segment, representing an 11 percent increase in sales from the previous year. Since then, the Latin music segment has surged, although global music piracy—mostly through illegally copied CDs and unauthorized music downloads— has eaten into sales. Sales of Latin music have also been hurt by recent immigration crackdowns, which eliminate potential buyers by deporting them.

Latin music includes tropical styles such as salsa, merengue, and cumbia; the accordion-influenced Tejano genre; conjuntos such as Los Tigres del Norte and Los Tucanes de Tijuana; and styles that appeal to younger tastes, such as reggaeton, alternative, hip-hop, electronic, and Christian-inspired pop. And regardless of whether you like their music, the megawatt pop stars who appeal to both Spanish- and English-speaking audiences in the United States, Latin America, and Europe are household names. Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martín, Enrique Iglesias, and Shakira are only a few examples.

Mexican regional music has long been marginalized by the largely Miami-based, Spanish-language music and entertainment industry. According to Ricky Muñóz, lead singer of the norteño (Northern Mexican) group Intocable, “ten years ago, you would look at awards shows, and there were never any Mexicans in them. And if there were, they would get their prizes during the commercial breaks” (quoted in Cobo). But Mexican regional musical styles comprise more than 50 percent of the sales of Latin music, making it a significant economic force. What’s more, the popularity of Mexican regional music remains steady over time, whereas that of other Latin music styles ebbs and flows. This is because, on the one hand, of a steady inflow of new migrants from Mexico, and on the other hand, because of its popularity among second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans who, though they may not speak Spanish, wish to retain ties to the culture of their parents or grandparents. Mexican regional music thus crosses over literal and figurative borders.

In March 1995, the life of the potentially biggest crossover pop sensation ever was cut tragically short when

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, only 23 years old, was shot by her fan-club manager, Yolanda Saldívar. Born in 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas, Selena first performed at the age of eight in her father’s Mexican restaurant. After the restaurant failed, the family moved to the east Texas coastal town of Corpus Christi, where Selena continued to perform and to tour the state playing weddings, local festivals, and quinceñeras (15th birthday celebrations for girls) with her band, Los Dinos.

Selena signed with the Capitol EMI label in 1989. She realized early that, in order to succeed, she would have to develop a global sound that went beyond the accordion- based Tejano music that sold well locally in the Texas Valley, to urban-influenced hip-hop and ballads that played better to a national Latino audience. From there, her music moved south of the border, to an international listenership in Mexico and South America. Although her first language was English, she performed most of her music in Spanish. At first, she had to be taught to sing the lyrics phonetically because she did not speak or read Spanish. She needed an interpreter to speak to the media in those Latin American countries where her first hits took off. But she soon learned Spanish and was easily able to sing and interview in both languages.

Region 153

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0.7 – 4.3

4.7 – 9.4

12.3 – 19.7

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Hispanic Population by Percent

Figure 5.12 Hispanic population by state. Hispanic or Latino population as a percentage of the total population by state. “Hispanic” is an ethnic category and can encompass several racial designations. (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000.)

In February 1995, a month before her death, Selena performed to a record 61,000 fans in the Houston Astrodome. Her album Dreaming of You was not released until after her death. It would be the last border that Selena crossed because it represented a crossover from a Spanish- to an English-speaking public.

Interestingly, her personal geography remained local even as her fame took her further across so many literal and figurative borders. Just shy of her 21st birthday, she married the guitarist in her band, Chris Pérez. They

bought a house in Corpus Christi, next door to her parents. Selena was able to maintain the family ties that were so important to her while at the same time breaking ethnic and gender stereotypes and crossing cultural divides. Longtime Latino media personality Johnny Canales compared Selena to Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson, only “I’d say she’s like those people, but better. Those people never sang tejano. She could do what they could do, but it would be hard for them to do what she does” (quoted in Mitchell).

154 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

HAWAII

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24.3 – 30.8

59.5 – 72.6

73.5 – 82.8

84.5 – 91.0

92.1 – 96.9

White Population by Percent

Figure 5.13 White population by state. People indicating “white” alone as a percentage of the total population by state. (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000.)

As demographer William Frey has noted, ethnic popu- lations continue to concentrate in established ports of entry, most of them in coastal locations. There is a large swath of the United States that has remained largely non- Hispanic white (Figure 5.13). Figure 5.14 shows that black Americans, too, remain spatially concentrated. The 2000 Census reported that in 3141 counties, or 64 percent of the total, blacks constituted less than 6 percent of the popula- tion, whereas in 96 counties blacks constituted 50 percent or more of the total population. As a nation, we may be

becoming more diverse—a more colorful mosaic—but we are nowhere near the melting pot we sometimes portray ourselves to be.

Although the United States may boast of its immigrant background, only one U.S. city—Miami—ranked in the top 10 list of the world’s cities that have significant proportions of foreign-born residents (Table 5.2). Three of the top 10 cities are located in the Middle East, three in Europe, two in Canada, and one in the Pacific. In addition, national-origin populations prevalent in the United States are even more

Region 155

HAWAII

ALASKA

PUERTO RICO

0.3 – 2.1

3.1 – 5.7

6.7 – 11.5

13.6 – 26.0

27.9 – 60.0

Black Population by Percent

Figure 5.14 Black population by state. People indicating “black or African-American” alone as a percentage of the total population by state. (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000.)

prevalent in other countries. Twenty-eight million ethnic Chinese reside outside China and Taiwan. Most of these overseas Chinese live not in North America but in South- east Asian countries and even Polynesia (Figure 5.15). Indonesia has more than 7 million, Thailand nearly 6 mil- lion, and Malaysia more than 5 million. Pacific Islanders exhibit a similar pattern. Auckland, New Zealand, has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world and ranks number seven in the world by percentage of foreign- born (see Table 5.2). Australia, Argentina, and Brazil also

have large ethnic populations. Parts of East Africa have long been home to relatively affluent South Asian Indian populations, whereas Lebanese populations in West Africa enjoy a similarly privileged position. Even European coun- tries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain—long known as sources rather than destinations of migrants—today are home to millions of Africans, Turks, and Asians. Immigration-based ethnicity is far from being a phenomenon limited to North America (see Subject to Debate on pages 142–143).

156 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

Mobility How do the various reasons behind mobility help to shape the complicated geographical patterns of ethnicity and race? When groups move, how do cultural patterns reassemble in new places? As noted in the introduction to this chapter, it is often through migration that a group for- merly in the majority becomes, in a new land, different from the mainstream and thus labeled as ethnic or racial- ized. The many motives for mobility can have different results in terms of where a group chooses to go, which parts of their original culture relocate and which do not, and who may become their neighbors in their new home.

Migration and Ethnicity Much of the ethnic pattern in many parts of the world is the result of relocation diffusion. The migration process itself often creates ethnicity, as people leave countries where they belonged to a nonethnic majority and become a minority in a new home. National Geographic’s Geno- graphic Project uses DNA samples from volunteers world- wide to substantiate the claim that all humans descended from a group of Africans who began to migrate out of Africa about 60,000 years ago. The contemporary global mosaic of ethnic populations can be traced to their spe- cific journeys. Today’s voluntary migrations have also pro- duced much of the ethnic diversity in the United States and Canada, and the involuntary migration of political and economic refugees has always been an important fac- tor in ethnicity worldwide and is becoming ever more so in North America.

Chain migration may be involved in relocation diffu- sion. In chain migration, an individual or small group decides to migrate to a foreign country. This decision typi- cally arises from negative conditions in the home area, such as political persecution or lack of employment, and the per- ception of better conditions in the receiving country. Often ties between the sending and receiving areas are preexist- ing, such as those formed when military bases of receiving countries are established in sending countries. The first emigrants, or “innovators,” may be natural leaders who influence others, particularly friends and relatives, to accompany them in the migration. The word spreads to nearby communities, and soon a sizable migration is under way from a fairly small district in the source country to a comparably small area or neighborhood in the destination country (Figure 5.16). In village after village, the first emi- grants often rank high in the local social order, so that hier- archical diffusion also occurs. That is, the decision to migrate spreads by a mixture of hierarchical and conta- gious diffusion, whereas the actual migration itself repre- sents relocation diffusion.

Figure 5.15 Store owned by a prosperous ethnic Chinese retailer on the island of Bora Bora in French Polynesia. The population of the island is overwhelmingly Polynesian. Only 0.8 percent of the people are Europeans, 6.6 percent are “Demis” (a mixture of white and Polynesian), and less than 0.5 percent are Asian. Yet this store and many others in the archipelagoes of the Pacific are owned by persons of Chinese heritage. Why don’t Polynesians own such stores? Because (1) they have no tradition of retailing and (2) theirs is a communal society that shares wealth. If a Polynesian were to open a store, all of his or her relatives would have the right to come and take merchandise for free, sharing the wealth. The store would fail within a month. And so the way was left open for the Chinese, who have a very different culture. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

TABLE 5.2 Top 10 Cities by Percentage of Foreign-Born

Percentage

Dubai, United Arab Emirates 82 Miami, Florida 51 Amsterdam, the Netherlands 47 Toronto, Canada 45 Muscat, Oman 45 Vancouver, Canada 39 Auckland, New Zealand 39 Geneva, Switzerland 38 Mecca, Saudi Arabia 38 The Hague, the Netherlands 37

(Source: Adapted from Benton-Short, Price, and Friedman, 2005, p. 953.)

Mobility 157

Involuntary migration also contributes to ethnic diffu- sion and the formation of ethnic culture regions. African slavery constituted the most demographically significant involuntary migration in human history and has strongly shaped the ethnic mosaic of the Americas. Refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam created ethnic groups in North America, as did Guatemalans and Salvadorans fleeing political repression in Central America. Often, such forced migrations may result from policies of ethnic cleansing, in which countries expel or massacre minorities outright to produce cultural homogeneity in their popu- lations. In Europe, the newly independent country of Croatia has systematically expelled its Serb minority in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Following forced migration, the relocated group often engages in voluntary migration to concentrate in some new locality. Cuban political refugees, scattered widely throughout the United States in the 1960s, reconvened in south Florida, and Vietnamese refugees continue to gather in Southern California, Louisiana, and Texas.

Outright warfare, too, displaces populations. During World War II, Polish populations were deported from the lands annexed into the German Reich, in an attempt to “Germanize” this region. In all, some 2 million Poles were expelled from their homes. In Iraq, more than 3 million people have been displaced by war-related violence there. Figure 5.17 shows that about half of them remain in the

country, whereas the rest have migrated across Iraq’s bor- ders, with most fleeing to neighboring nations.

Return migration represents another type of ethnic dif- fusion and involves the voluntary movement of a group back to its ancestral homeland or native country. The large- scale return since 1975 of African-Americans from the cities of the northern and western United States to the Black Belt ethnic homeland in the South is one of the most notable such movements now under way. This type of ethnic migra- tion is also channelized. Channelization is a process in which a specific source region becomes linked to a particu- lar destination, so that neighbors in the old place became neighbors in the new place as well. Geographers James Johnson and Curtis Roseman found that 7 percent of African-Americans in Los Angeles County, California, moved away between 1985 and 1990, including many who went to the American South. Indeed, the 1990s witnessed the largest return migration of blacks to the American South ever, from all parts of the United States. This acts to revitalize the southeastern black homeland depicted as “moribund” in Figure 5.7.

Similarly, many of the 200,000 or so expatriate Estoni- ans, Latvians, and Lithuanians left Russia and other former Soviet republics to return to their newly independent Baltic home countries in the 1990s, losing their ethnic status in the process. Clearly, migration of all kinds turns the ethnic mosaic into an ever-changing kaleidoscope.

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Figure 5.16 Origins of migrants. This map depicts the Mexican state of origin for the residents of Garfield, an ethnic neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona, that is composed mostly of Mexican and Mexican- American residents. Note that most of the residents trace their homeland to only a few northern Mexican states; immigrants from Mexico’s more southern states, such as Oaxaca and Veracruz, are relatively rare. (Adapted from Oberle and Arreola, 2008.)

158 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

Reflecting on Geography Why might African-Americans have begun return migration to the South after 1975, and why did this movement accelerate in the 1990s?

Simplification and Isolation When groups migrate and become ethnic in a new land, they have, in theory at least, the potential to introduce the totality of their culture by relocation diffusion. Conceivably, they could reestablish every facet of their traditional way of life in the area where they settle. However, ethnic immi- grants never successfully introduce the totality of their cul- ture. Rather, profound cultural simplification occurs. As geographer Cole Harris noted, “Europeans established overseas drastically simplified versions of European soci- ety.” This happens, in part, because of chain migration: only fragments of a culture diffuse overseas, borne by groups from particular places migrating in particular eras. In other words, some simplification occurs at the point of departure. Moreover, far more cultural traits are implanted in the new home than actually survive. Only selected traits are successfully introduced, and others undergo consider- able modification before becoming established in the new homeland. In other words, absorbing barriers prevent the diffusion of many traits, and permeable barriers cause changes in many other traits, greatly simplifying the migrant cultures. In addition, choices that did not exist in

the old home become available to immigrant ethnic groups. They can borrow novel ways from those they encounter in the new land, invent new techniques better suited to the adopted place, or modify existing approaches as they see fit. Most immigrant ethnic groups resort to all these devices in varying degrees.

The displacement of a group and its relocation to a new homeland can have widely differing results. The degree of isolation an ethnic group experiences in the new home helps determine whether traditional traits will be retained, modi- fied, or abandoned. If the new settlement area is remote and contacts with outsiders are few, diffusion of traits from the sending area is more likely. Because contacts with groups in the receiving area are rare, little borrowing of traits can occur. Isolated ethnic groups often preserve in archaic form cultural elements that disappear from their ancestral coun- try. That is, they may, in some respects, change less than their kinfolk back in the mother country.

Language and dialects offer some good examples of this preservation of the archaic. Germans living in ethnic islands in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe pre- serve archaic South German dialects better than do Ger- mans living in Germany itself, and some medieval elements survive in the Spanish spoken in the Hispano homeland of New Mexico. The highland location of Taiwanese aborigi- nal peoples helped maintain their archaic Formosan lan- guage, belonging to the Austronesian family, despite attempts by Chinese conquerors to acculturate them to the Han Chinese culture and language.

EGYPT SAUDI ARABIA

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Figure 5.17 Iraq is displaced by conflict. This map shows the war-related displacement of more than 3 million Iraqis, who constitute involuntary migrants. Roughly half have left Iraq for neighboring countries. There, they may face discrimination and poverty as unwanted minority populations. In Syria, nearly one-third of Iraqi refugee children do not attend school because the infrastructure is not able to accommodate them. The UN refugee agency claims that this is the largest movement of displaced people in the Middle East since the Palestinian exodus after the establishment of Israel in 1948. (Adapted from BBC News, 2007.)

Globalization 159

Globalization What is the future of ethnicity and race? Will the potent forces of globalization erase ethnic differences and wipe out racism? Or do ethnicity and race provide enduring con- structs that predate—and will outlast—the global era? The perception of differences among human groups, whether based in visible physical traits, cultural practices, language differences, or religion, is probably as old as human civiliza- tion itself. For at least a century, however, the demise of eth- nic groups has been predicted. The idea of capitalist America as a melting pot has been used to describe the process wherein the mixing of diverse peoples would even- tually absorb everyone into American mainstream culture. In communist lands, Marxist doctrine preached that racism would vanish in the golden age of socialist egalitarianism. The fact that ethnic differences and racial strife still persist—and in some instances, have worsened—points to their deeply rooted nature.

A Long View of Race and Ethnicity In keeping with the notion that globalization is a process that has unfolded over several centuries, as opposed to only in the past 40 years or so, it is useful to look at global concepts of ethnicity and race in historic perspective. Long-standing cohesion through shared language, reli- gion, or ethnicity provides group members with the per- ception of a common history and shared destiny—that feeling of “we-ness”—which is the basis of the modern nation-state. Israel’s identity as a Jewish nation, Turkey’s common language, and Japan’s distinctive cultural tradi- tions facilitated the groundwork for these groups to cohere as political entities.

Yet all three of these nation-states harbor long-standing tensions among groups that reside within the national bor- ders but who are not considered (or do not consider them- selves) part of the cultural mainstream. They may not practice the official religion of the country—as in the case of Israel’s Palestinians, who are made up of Muslims and Christians. They may not speak the official language, as with Turkey’s Kurdish-speaking minority. Or they may fol- low cultural traditions distinct from the mainstream, as is the case with Japan’s indigenous Ainu population.

Occupying a minority religious, linguistic, or ethnic position can expose a group to persecution. Violence against racial or ethnic minorities dates back to ancient times. The persecution of Jews, for example, began with pogroms, or widespread anti-Semitic rioting, during the Roman Empire some 2 millennia ago. Across medieval Europe, violence against Jews was episodic, occurring in Spain in the eleventh century, England in the twelfth century, Germany in the fourteenth century, and Russia in

the nineteenth century. Anti-Semitic hate crimes still occur today throughout Europe and the United States. Yet when Israel was founded in 1948 as the only nation-state to have Judaism as its official religion, non-Jewish minorities were, in turn, marginalized. Even minority Jewish populations, such as the Mizrahim (Arab) Jews residing in Israel, “are excluded and marginalized not only from social and polit- ical centers, but . . . from the very definition of what it is to be ‘Israeli’,” claims Israeli anthropologist Pnina Motzafi- Haller. Thus, it appears that no place or time is free of ten- sions based in ethnic or racialized difference.

Reflecting on Geography Why do you think racialized and ethnic differences are so deeply rooted in human cultures? What—if anything—might cause them to disappear?

Race and European Colonization Europe’s colonization of vast territories in Africa, Asia, and Latin America was predicated on the drawing of sharp dis- tinctions between the colonizers and the colonized. These distinctions were often depicted in racial terms. Indeed, conquered peoples were viewed as so different from Euro- peans that their very status as human beings was debated. The famous exchanges in the mid-sixteenth century between Caribbean-based Spanish priests and intellectuals in Spain is a case in point. Observing the abuses of indige- nous populations firsthand led to an outcry by these cler- ics, who argued that the subjugated peoples were not animals and should not be subject to such treatment. “Are these not men? Have they not rational souls? Must you not love them as you love yourselves?” spoke Antonio de Mon- tesinos in 1511, in a sermon delivered on the island of His- paniola (Figure 5.18). These same clerics, however, saw no problem with owning black slaves, simply because they did not view them as human beings.

European colonialism frequently drew on existing ethnic and racial cleavages in colonized societies. Rwanda provides a tragic example of this practice. Rwanda is com- posed of two major ethnic groups: the Hutu, who, at 85 percent of the population, constitute the majority, and the minority Tutsi. Although differences in status have long existed between the two groups, it was not until the Bel- gian takeover of the territory in 1918 that the distinction between Hutu and Tutsi became racialized. Tutsis were given positions of power in the colonial government, edu- cational system, and economic structure of colonial Rwanda under Belgian rule (Figure 5.19). Hutus’ physical differences from Tutsis were examined under a European racial lens. The shorter and darker Hutus were considered ugly, intellectually inferior, and natural slaves, whereas the

160 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

Figure 5.19 Identification card of a Rwandan Tutsi. In Rwanda, cards like this one were used to distinguish racialized Tutsis from Hutus. To show a card with “Tutsi” written on it was tantamount to a death sentence during the Rwandan genocide. Whether to instigate a mandatory national identification card is a hot topic in many nations faced with undocumented immigration today. Because these cards can serve to mark some groups as undesirable in some potentially dangerous way, you can understand why there is usually vigorous opposition to a national identification card. (Antony Njuguna/Reuters/Landov.)

taller, lighter Tutsis were extolled for their physical beauty and virtues of cultural refinement and leadership.

In 1959, the oppressed Hutu majority rebelled, leading to the deaths of some 20,000 Tutsis and the displacement of many more. Rwanda became independent from Belgium in 1961. Displaced Tutsi refugees regrouped in neighbor- ing Uganda and in 1990 launched an invasion of Rwanda demanding an end to racial discrimination and a reinstate-

ment of their citizenship. Rapid deterioration of Hutu-Tutsi relations ensued, and plans to exterminate Tutsis and their Hutu sympathizers were promoted as the only way to rid Rwanda of its problems. In 1994, this genocide was con- ducted, resulting in the massacre of as many as 1 million people in the span of a few months (Figure 5.20).

As these examples illustrate, ethnic and racial distinc- tions provided central features of European colonization

Figure 5.18 La Leyenda Negra. Illustrations such as this gruesome depiction of Spanish conquistadores hanging and roasting indigenous people, while dashing their babies against a wall, were used to construct the La Leyenda Negra, or “The Black Legend.” La Leyenda Negra was circulated in the sixteenth century by the Dutch and the British, Spain’s religious and colonial rivals. They wished to depict the Spaniards as cruel barbarians who had no moral business building empires in the New World. (akg-images.)

Globalization 161

Figure 5.20 Rwandan genocide. These skulls are the remains of some 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsis, and their Hutu sympathizers, who were massacred over a period of four months in 1994 by Hutu militias. (Peter Van Agtmael/Polaris.)

and the rise of nation-states. Yet, as we have seen, tensions based on race and ethnicity predate the modern era. Racial and ethnic conflict is far from erased from the face of today’s global world and may in fact become aggravated as the bonds of the nation-state are loosened (see Subject to Debate on pages 142–143).

Indigenous Identities in the Face of Globalization Differences do not always cause conflict, tension, and oppression. Indeed, pride in one’s ethnic or racial distinc- tiveness is common. Yet as revolutions in communications and transportation bring diverse peoples into heightened contact with one another the world over, distinctive mark- ers of ethnicity come under pressure. Exposure to seductive U.S.-based cultural practices—in music, cuisine, fashion, lifestyles, and values—is thought to encourage people to drop their distinctive ways in favor of adopting a homoge- neous modern, Westernized culture.

Late in the twentieth century, however, an ethnic resur- gence, especially among indigenous groups, became evi- dent in many countries around the world. In a very real way, many ethnic groups and their geographical territories have become bulwarks of resistance to globalization. Yet it is too simplistic to romanticize indigenous groups as simply the keepers of ethnic distinctiveness in a globalizing world (Fig- ure 5.21). Members of indigenous groups must interpret the challenges as well as the opportunities offered by glob- alization and can be expected to modify their identities in complex ways.

In the Andean region of South America, for example, indigenous populations have both interpreted and resisted globalization. The Andes are a long, high mountain range

Figure 5.21 Native Huichol girl. Most contemporary indigenous peoples do not wear head-to-toe ethnic garb on a daily basis. Those who live in cities or interact with the majority society regularly may adopt Western-style dress full time. Others, perhaps those who live in smaller villages, or those who do not interact often with the majority society, may blend indigenous and Western styles. Some indigenous peoples view indigenous clothing as a mark of ethnic pride and wear it daily regardless of their place of residence or level of interaction with majority society. This Huichol girl blends a baseball cap with traditional dress, itself a blend of European and indigenous materials and styles. The Huicholes are residents of western Mexico. (Susana Valadez/Huichol Center.)

162 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

that runs parallel to South America’s Pacific Coast. Their highland valleys, called altiplano, have been home to dense indigenous populations for millennia. Lynn Meisch describes the preservation of traditional forms of dress among the highland peoples of central Ecuador’s Otavalo Valley. On conquest, the indigenous men were quickly put to work by the Spaniards in weaving workshops. Because they no longer had time to weave their family’s clothing on traditional backstrap looms, and because they were legally prohibited from dressing like whites, they developed a dis- tinctive style of dress in the sixteenth century. Although these garments are produced on European-style treadle looms rather than by traditional methods, their form and color mark those who wear them as indígenas, or natives, of the Otavalo Valley region.

Dress styles, like all other things cultural, change and evolve over time through conquest, diffusion of new tech- niques, and the whims of fashion. For Ecuador’s indige- nous highlanders, conquest by the Incas in 1495 meant a shift from the manta, or wrap, for men to the camiseta, or shirt. For women, typical dress has evolved from the anaco, a square cotton wrap held closed at the shoulders by cop- per or silver pins and bound at the waist by a belt called a faja, described by the Spaniard Sancho Paz Ponce just after Spanish conquest of the region in 1582. Today, women dress quite conservatively and retain many pre-Hispanic elements, including the red backstrap-woven mama chumbi, or mother belt, which is held shut by the wawa chumbi, or baby belt.

Meisch notes that community pressure discourages drastic change in styles of dress. “In the summer of 1989 a young woman wearing a green anaku [wrap skirt] was met by stares and murmurs of disapproval from other indígenas as she walked in Otavalo.” Young men who appear in pub- lic without poncho and hat are referred to by older men as lluchu, meaning “naked.” Meisch quotes 19-year-old Breenan Conteron: “When I leave my village to visit other cities in my country of Ecuador I always wear this costume because in this way I value and respect my ancestors, who fought to maintain their culture, traditions and customs. And I am proud that through my inheritance and in my blood I am a bearer of this culture.” So much for globaliza- tion eradicating tradition! In this case, wearing traditional clothing has become a visible marker of ethnic pride.

Nature-Culture How do ethnic groups interact with their habitats? Is there a special bond between ethnic groups and the land they inhabit that helps to form their self-identity? Do ethnic groups find shelter in certain habitats? Are the areas inhab- ited by racialized groups targets of environmental racism?

Ethnicity is very closely linked to the nature-culture theme. The possibilistic interplay between people and physical environment is often evident in the pattern of ethnic cul- ture regions, in ethnic migration, and in ethnic persistence or survival. Ethnicity and race are sometimes also linked to the environment in harmful ways, particularly when the places they inhabit become the targets of pollution.

Cultural Preadaptation For those ethnic groups created by migration or relocation diffusion, the concept of cultural preadaptation provides an interesting approach. Cultural preadaptation involves a complex of adaptive traits possessed by a group in advance of migration that gives them the ability to survive and a competitive advantage in colonizing the new environment. Most often, preadaptation occurs in groups migrating to a place environmentally similar to the one they left behind. The adaptive strategy they had pursued before migration works reasonably well in the new home.

The preadaptation may be accidental, but in some cases the immigrant ethnic group deliberately chooses a destination area that physically resembles their former home. In Africa, the Bantu expansion mentioned in Chapter 4 was probably initially driven by climate change and expansion of the Sahara (see Figure 4.6). The Bantu spread south and west in search of forested lands similar to those they had previously inhabited. But their progress southward was finally inhibited because their agricultural techniques and cattle were not adapted to the drier Mediterranean climate of southern Africa.

The state of Wisconsin, dotted with scores of ethnic islands, provides some fine examples of preadapted immi- grant groups that sought environments resembling their homelands. Particularly revealing are the choices of settle- ment sites made by the Finns, Icelanders, English, and Cornish who came to Wisconsin (Figure 5.22). The Finns— coming from a cold, thin-soiled, glaciated, lake-studded, coniferous forest zone in Europe—settled the North Woods of Wisconsin, a land similar in almost every respect to the one from which they had migrated. Icelanders, from a bleak, remote island in the North Atlantic, located their only Wis- consin colony on Washington Island, an isolated outpost sur- rounded by the waters of Lake Michigan. The English, accustomed to good farmland, generally founded ethnic islands in the better agricultural districts of southern and southwestern Wisconsin. Cornish miners from the Celtic highlands of Cornwall in southwestern England sought out the lead-mining communities of southwestern Wisconsin, where they continued their traditional occupation.

Such ethnic niche-filling has continued to the present day. Cubans have clustered in southernmost Florida, the only part of the United States mainland to have a tropical

Nature-Culture 163

savanna climate identical to that in Cuba, and many Viet- namese have settled as fishers on the Gulf of Mexico, espe- cially in Texas and Louisiana, where they could continue their traditional livelihood. Yet historical and political pat- terns, as well as the factors driving chain migration dis- cussed earlier, are also at work in these contemporary patterns of ethnic clustering. They act to temper the influ- ence of the physical environment on ethnic residential selection, making it only one of many considerations.

This deliberate site selection by ethnic immigrants represents a rather accurate environmental perception of the new land. As a rule, however, immigrants tend to per- ceive the ecosystem of their new home as more like that of their abandoned native land than is actually the case. Their perceptions of the new country emphasize the sim- ilarities and minimize the differences. Perhaps the search for similarity results from homesickness or an unwilling- ness to admit that migration has brought them to a largely alien land. Perhaps growing to adulthood in a particular kind of physical environment inhibits one’s ability to per- ceive a different ecosystem accurately. Whatever the rea- son, the distorted perception occasionally caused problems for ethnic farming groups (for examples, see Chapter 8). A period of trial and error was often necessary to come to terms with the New World environment. Some- times crops that thrived in the old homeland proved poorly suited to the new setting. In such cases, cultural maladaptation is said to occur.

Reflecting on Geography Can you think of examples where cultures were particularly maladapted to their new surroundings and experienced spectacular ecological failures as a result?

Habitat and the Preservation of Difference Certain habitats may act to shelter and protect ethnically or racially distinct populations. The high altitudes and rugged terrain of many mountainous regions make these areas rel- atively inaccessible and thus can provide refuge for minor- ity populations while providing a barrier to outside influences. As we saw in the previous chapter on language, mountain-dwellers sometimes speak archaic dialects or pre- serve their unique tongues thanks to the refuge provided by their habitat. In more general terms, the ways of life— including language—that are associated with ethnic distinc- tiveness are often preserved by a mountainous location.

The ethnic patchwork in the Caucasus region, for example, persists thanks in no small measure to the moun- tainous terrain found there. As Figure 5.23 shows, distinct groups occupy the rugged landscape of valleys, plateaus, peaks, foothills, steppes, and plains in this region. Religions and languages overlap in complex ways with ethnic identi- ties and are made even more confounding by the geopolit- ical boundaries in this region, which do not necessarily follow the contours of the Caucasian ethnic mosaic. Thus,

English

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Figure 5.22 The ecology of selected ethnic islands in Wisconsin. Notice that Finnish settlements are concentrated in the infertile North Woods section, as are the Native American reservations. The Finns went there by choice, and the Native Americans survived there because few white people were interested in such land. The English, by contrast, are found more often in the better farmland south of the border of the North Woods. Some of the English were miners from Cornwall, and they were drawn to the lead-mining country of southwestern Wisconsin, where they could practice the profession already known to them. Icelanders, an island people, chose an island as their settlement site in Wisconsin. (After Hill, 1942.)

164 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

although this is one of the most ethnically diverse places on Earth, the Caucasus region has seen more than its fair share of conflict as well, much of it ethnically motivated.

Islands, too, can provide a measure of isolation and protection for ethnically or racially distinct groups. The Gullah, or Geechee, people are descendants of African slaves brought to the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to work on plantations. Many of their nearly 10,000 descendants today inhabit coastal islands of South Carolina, Georgia, and north Florida. Their island location has allowed much of the original African cultural roots to be preserved, so much so that the Gullah are some- times called the most African-American community in the United States. Today, as the tourist industry sets it sights on

developing these coastal islands, and as Gullah youth migrate elsewhere in search of opportunity, the survival of this unique culture is in question.

Environmental Racism Not only people but also the places where they dwell can be labeled by society as minority. And it is a fact that, although belonging to a racial or ethnic minority group does not nec- essarily lead to poverty, the two often go hand-in-hand. In spatial terms, being poor frequently means having the last and worst choice of where to live. In cities, that means impov- erished and racialized minorities often reside in run-down, ecologically precarious, or peripheral places that no one else

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Figure 5.23 Ethnic pluralities in the Caucasus. The Caucasus Mountains, located in Southwest Asia, are home to one of the world’s most ethnically diverse populations. It is also the site of much ethnically based conflict. Because ethnic territories often overlap, this map depicts pluralities. The populations shown comprise at least 40 percent of that place’s ethnic population,

and in most cases also constitute a majority population, although some of the more heterogeneous areas have no dominant ethnic population. The racialized term Caucasian is derived from this area’s name, although, in fact, it has little to do with the people actually living in this region. (Adapted from O’Loughlin et al., 2007.)

Nature-Culture 165

wants to inhabit (Figure 5.24). In rural areas, racialized and indigenous minorities work the smallest and least-fertile lands, or—more commonly—they work the plots of others, having become dispossessed of their own lands.

Environmental racism refers to the likelihood that a racialized minority population inhabits a polluted area. As Robert Bullard asserts, “Whether by conscious design or institutional neglect, communities of color in urban ghettos, in rural ‘poverty pockets,’ or on economically impoverished Native American reservations face some of the worst environmental devastation in the nation.” In the United States, Hispanics, Native Americans, and blacks are more likely than whites to reside in places where toxic wastes are dumped, polluting industries are located, or environmental legislation is not enforced. Inner-city populations, which in many U.S. cities are dis- proportionately made up of minorities, occupy older buildings contaminated with asbestos and toxic lead- based paints. Farmworkers, who in the United States are disproportionately Hispanic, are exposed to high levels of pesticides, fertilizers, and other agricultural chemicals. Native American reservation lands are targeted as possible sites for disposing of nuclear waste.

As Figure 5.25 depicts, there is an overlap of nonwhite populations and toxic release facilities that is difficult to explain away as simply a random coincidence. Rather, areas such as the city of South Gate located in Los Angeles County have seen contaminating industries and activities purposely located in what is today a neighborhood composed of more than 90 percent Latino residents. In its early days, South Gate

Figure 5.24 Arab slum in Delhi, India. This ethnic neighborhood is home to low-income Arabs, who are an ethnic minority population in India. Nearly 50 percent of Delhi’s residents live in slums or unauthorized settlements. (Viviane Dalles/REA/Redux.)

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% Minority Population Figure 5.25 Environmental racism in Los Angeles. The map of Los Angeles County’s nonwhite population concentrations overlaps closely with the map of toxic release facility locations in Los Angeles County. It is hard to believe that this is simply a coincidence. (Sources: Adapted from Toxic Release Inventory [U.S. EPA], 1996; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990.)

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was inhabited mostly by white non-Hispanics. From its found- ing in 1923 until the 1960s, some of the United States’s largest polluters located their operations there: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, A. R. Maas Chemical Company, Bethlehem Steel, Alcoa Aluminum, and hundreds of smaller operations were allowed to set up shop in a period when few were aware of the health consequences of their activities. These industries attracted labor arriving from Mexico. Dur- ing this period, the neighborhood was encircled by four major freeways and a flight path was routed overhead. Pollu- tion resulting from the transportation-related fossil fuels added to the industrial waste in this community. As the dele- terious health impacts of these environmental factors became more evident, white residents began to move away, being replaced by Hispanics, some 30 percent of whom are believed to be recent undocumented immigrants. Although many of the industries are now closed, their contaminants remain in the soil and water.

Racialized minority populations are not powerless in the face of environmental racism. Organizations such as Communities for a Better Environment work with local res- idents, such as those living in South Gate, to promote research, legal assistance, and activism. Environmental justice is the general term for the movement to redress environ- mental racism.

Environmental racism extends to the global scale. Industrial countries often dispose of their garbage, indus- trial waste, and other contaminants in poor countries. Industries headquartered in wealthy nations often out- source the dangerous and polluting phases of production to countries that do not have—or do not enforce—strict environmental legislation. Whether areas inhabited by poor, ethnic, or racialized minorities are deliberately tar-

geted for unhealthy conditions, or whether they are simply the unfortunate recipients of the effects of larger detri- mental processes, the connections between race, ethnicity, and the environment pose central questions for cultural geographers.

Cultural Landscape What traces do ethnicity and race leave on the landscape? Ethnic and racialized landscapes often differ from main- stream landscapes in the styles of traditional architecture, in the patterns of surveying the land, in the distribution of houses and other buildings, and in the degree to which they “humanize” the land. Often the imprint is subtle, dis- cernible only to those who pause and look closely. Some- times it is quite striking, flaunted as an ethnic flag: a readily visible marker of ethnicity on the landscape that strikes even the untrained eye (Figure 5.26). Sometimes the dis- tinctive markers of race and ethnicity are not visible at all but rather are audible, tactile, olfactory, or—as we explore here with culinary landscapes—tasty.

Urban Ethnic Landscapes Ethnic cultural landscapes often appear in urban settings, in both neighborhoods and ghettos. A fine example is the brightly colored exterior mural typically found in Mexican- American ethnic neighborhoods in the southwestern United States (Figure 5.27). These began to appear in the 1960s in Southern California, and they exhibit influences rooted in both the Spanish and the indigenous cultures of Mexico according to geographer Daniel Arreola (see Practicing

Figure 5.26 An “ethnic flag” in the cultural landscape. This maize granary, called a cuezcomatl, is unique to the indigenous population of Tlaxcala state, Mexico. The structure holds shelled maize. In Mexico, even the cultivation of maize long remained an indigenous trait because the Spaniards preferred wheat. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

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Geography). A wide variety of wall surfaces, from apartment house and store exteriors to bridge abutments, provide the space for this ethnic expression. The subjects portrayed are also wide ranging, from religious motifs to political ideol- ogy, from statements about historical wrongs to ones about urban zoning disputes. Often they are specific to the site, incorporating well-known elements of the local landscape and thus heightening the sense of place and ethnic “turf.” Inscriptions can be in either Spanish or English, but many Mexican murals do not contain a written message, relying

instead on the sharpness of image and vividness of color to make an impression.

Usually, the visual ethnic expression is more subtle. Color alone can connote and reveal ethnicity to the trained eye. Red, for example, is a venerated and auspicious color to the Chinese, and when they established Chinatowns in Canadian and American cities, red surfaces proliferated (Figure 5.28). Light blue is a Greek ethnic color, derived from the flag of their ancestral country. Not only that, but Greeks also avoid red, which is perceived as the color of

Figure 5.27 Mexican-American exterior mural, Barrio Logan, San Diego, California. This mural bears an obvious ideological- political message and helps create a sense of this place as a Mexican-American neighborhood. See also Arreola, 1984. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 5.28 Two urban ethnic landscapes. Houses painted red reveal the addition of a Toronto residential block to the local Chinatown. The use of light blue trim, the Greek color, coupled with the planting of a grape arbor at the front door of a dwelling in the Astoria district of Queens, New York City, marks the neighborhood as Greek. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

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their ancient enemy, the Turks. Green, an Irish Catholic color, also finds favor in Muslim ethnic neighborhoods in countries as far-flung as France and China because it is the sacred color of Islam (see Chapter 7).

Indeed, urban ethnic and racial landscapes are visible in cities across the world. This is true even when urban plan- ners try their best to prevent the emergence of such land- scapes. When Brazil’s capital was moved from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília in 1960, for example, very few pedestrian-friendly public spaces were incorporated into the urban plan of

architects Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer. Rather, resi- dences were concentrated in high-rise apartments called superquadra; streets were designed for high-speed motor traffic only; and no smaller plazas, cafés, or sidewalks were included—all of which discouraged informal socialization (Figure 5.29). As historian James C. Scott notes in his dis- cussion of Brasília, the lack of human-scale public gather- ing places was intentional. “Brasília was to be an exemplary city, a center that would transform the lives of the Brazilians who lived there—from their personal habits and household

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Daniel Arreola

For Daniel Arreola, practicing geography is a family affair. He traces his interest in cultural geography to his grandfathers. His paternal grandfather owned a ranch outside of Escondido, California, where Professor Arreola spent several summers during his youth. “The trip to this part of Southern California from my

hometown in Santa Monica was always an adventure and surely imprinted my later desire to travel. The experience of the out-of-doors in the San Diego backcountry was a wonderland of nature during the 1950s and helped cultivate my attraction to ranch living Mexican style.” His grandfather on his mother’s side took him on frequent walks through the neighborhood and to the beach. “As part of those wanderings, he would tell me stories about the people and places we passed through, and this experience no doubt branded me as an observer and cemented my passion for walking as exploration.”

Professor Arreola has written a number of books, including the award-winning Tejano South Texas: A Mexican American Cultural Province. In this book, he examines the physical, historical, and social aspects of south Texas that make it an ethnic homeland distinct from other areas of Mexican-American population in the United States. Professor Arreola’s concern with illuminating the diverse cultural geographic patterns within Latino communities in the United States is taken up again in his newest edited collection, titled Hispanic Places, Latino Places (2002).

For Professor Arreola, research is actually a two-step process involving re-search and search. “To do any type of investigation, one must first re-search—in other words, examine and come to some understanding of what others

have written about a subject.” Typically, this involves reading materials in the library and in archives where written or visual records are stored. The most interesting part of the project—the search—comes next. “Search as opposed to re-search means discovery of new information, and the best way to discover is to go into the field. Geographers, since ancient times, have been entrusted with the responsibility to describe the surface of the Earth.” Typically, he uses the case study method, which he describes as “an empirical inquiry that enables me to examine a contemporary place in its real-life context, and where the boundaries between the place I am studying and its geographical context are not clearly evident. As part of my case study method, I depend on diachronic inquiry, or understanding of past situations relevant to the place I am studying, because to understand a contemporary place almost always necessitates an appreciation of a past for that place.” Professor Arreola does interviews, draws maps, and takes photographs of the places where he works.

His interest in the way places look and how places change over time has shaped Professor Arreola’s current project. He began to collect historical postcards of the borderlands region between Mexico and the United States about 15 years ago, and now he has thousands of them. He recently visited the places where these pictures were originally taken and rephotographed about 100 of them from the same perspectives as the originals. He will assess how these border places have changed during three separate time periods: the1920s, the 1930s/1940s, and the 1950s/1960s. As part of the fieldwork for this project, he interviewed local residents of different generations to understand how residents remember place. He says, “I hope to combine my understanding of landscape change through my visual documentation with the oral histories of place residents to tell the story of changing border communities.”

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Cultural Landscape 169

organization to their social lives, leisure, and work. The goal of making over Brazil and Brazilians necessarily implied a disdain for what Brazil had been.” But because the housing needs of those building the city and serving the government workers had not been planned, Brasília soon developed surrounding slums that did not follow an orderly layout. And because the desires of wealthier residents were not met by the uniform superquadra apartments, unplanned but luxurious residences and private clubs were also built. By 1980, 75 percent of Brasília’s population lived in unan- ticipated settlements. And because, as previously men- tioned, Brazil’s social structure is in part based on skin pigmentation, it is the poorer and darker-skinned workers who live in the peripheral slums, whereas the wealthier and lighter-skinned residents tend to live in isolated enclaves for the rich. Thus, a racialized landscape of wealth and poverty emerged in Brasília despite all efforts to the contrary.

The Re-Creation of Ethnic Cultural Landscapes As mentioned previously in this chapter, migration is the principal way that groups not ethnic in their homelands become ethnic or racialized, through relocation to a new place. As we have seen, ethnic groups may choose to relo- cate to places that remind them of their old homelands. Once there, they set about re-creating some—although, because of cultural simplification, not all—of their particu- lar landscapes in their new homes.

Cuban-American immigrants, for example, have recon- structed aspects of their prerevolutionary Cuban homeland in Miami. In the early 1960s, the first wave of Cuban refugees came to the United States on the heels of Castro’s communist revolution on the island. Some went north, to places such as Union City, New Jersey, where today there is a sizable Cuban-American population. Others, however, came (or eventually relocated) to Miami. Once a predomi-

nantly Jewish neighborhood called Riverside, what is today called the Little Havana neighborhood became the heart of early Cuban immigration. Shops along the main thorough- fare, Calle Ocho (or Southwest Eighth Street), reflect the Cuban origins of the residents: grocers such as Sedanos and La Roca cater to the Spanish-inspired culinary traditions of Cuba; cafés selling small cups of strong, sweet café Cubano exist on every block; and famed restaurants such as Ver- sailles are social gathering points for Cuban-Americans.

Because ethnicity and its expression on the landscape are fluid and ever-changing, the landscape of Calle Ocho reflects the current demographic changes under way in Lit- tle Havana. Although the neighborhood is still a Latino enclave, with a Hispanic population in excess of 95 percent, not even half of its population identified as “Cuban” in the 2000 Census. More than one-quarter of Little Havana’s res- idents are recent arrivals from Central American countries, particularly Nicaragua and Honduras, whereas more and more Argentineans and Colombians are arriving—like the Cubans before them—on the heels of political and eco- nomic chaos in their home countries. Today, you are just as likely to see a Nicaraguan fritanga restaurant as a Cuban cof- fee shop along Calle Ocho. This has prompted some to sug- gest that the neighborhood’s name be changed from Little Havana to The Latin Quarter.

Geographer Christopher Airriess has studied Viet- namese refugees in the United States. These refugees were initially brought to one of four reception centers, and then further relocated to rural and urban locations throughout the country, on the theory that spatial dispersal would has- ten their assimilation into mainstream U.S. society. Air- riess’s work reveals that a process of secondary, chain migration later led many of them to cluster in selected urban areas that offer warm weather and proximity to other Vietnamese friends and relatives. Focusing on the Versailles neighborhood of New Orleans, Airriess found that the fact

Figure 5.29 The planned urban landscape of Brasília. As you can see from this aerial view, Brasília is a city of straight roadways, high- rise residential superquadra, and green spaces in between. Brasília is a city that was literally built from scratch in an area of cleared jungle in Brazil’s Amazonian interior. This allowed the planners to follow a modern urban design blueprint down to the last detail. Residents of Brasília complain that its larger-than-life public spaces, high-speed vehicle traffic, and impersonal housing blocks inhibit socialization and make Brasília a difficult place to live. (Cassio Vasconcellos/ SambaPhoto/Getty Images.)

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that the neighborhood is surrounded by swamps, canals, or bayous on three sides affords a degree of cultural isolation from other ethnic groups in the city. This has led to Versailles becoming an ethnic neighborhood where Vietnamese refugees re-create elements of their home landscape in the United States. The most prominent ethnic flag of the Viet- namese in Versailles is the vegetable gardens found on the perimeter of the neighborhood. Cultural preadaptation has led to the reproduction of Vietnamese rural landscapes here, sometimes with plants sent directly from Vietnam. It is the older Vietnamese who plant and tend the gardens. Such gar- dening provides a therapeutic activity, allows them to retain traditional dietary habits, enables them to produce folk med- icines from plants, and reduces household food expendi- tures. Airriess notes that “the image of conical-hat-wearing gardeners leaning over plants within a multi-textured and moisture-soaked, vibrant green agricultural scene, coupled with frequent flyovers of military helicopters, is an eerie scene of wartime Vietnam reproduced.”

After Hurricane Katrina devastated sections of New Orleans—including Versailles (today more commonly called Village de L’est)—in 2005, the ethnic cultural land- scape underwent a transformation. Many Vietnamese immi- grants moved away from Versailles after the storm, whereas many Hispanics moved into the area, attracted by the many post-Katrina construction jobs. A 2006 survey found nearly 7000 Asians in New Orleans after Katrina, compared to nearly 12,000 before the storm. By contrast, Latinos have grown from about 14,000 before the hurricane to 16,000 post-Katrina: the only ethnic group, in fact, to have increased after 2005. Today, the commercial landscape reflects this transition. The first arrivals on the scene were the loncheras, or mobile lunch trucks (Figure 5.30). Then came Hispanic- oriented restaurants, supermarkets, and services. Today, the remaining Vietnamese-American residents are learning to adapt to the newcomers. Mai Thi Nguyen, a business devel- opment director in Village de L’est, reports that her aunt, a market owner, “is learning Spanish. She’s learning to say

hello, how to tell customers how much something costs. It’s wild. I love it. It’s exciting” (quoted in Catania).

Reflecting on Geography What common ground might Vietnamese-American and Hispanic immigrants have that could help them to bridge their differences?

Ethnic Culinary Landscapes “Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are.” This oft- quoted phrase arises from the connections between identity and foodways, or the customary behaviors associated with food preparation and consumption that vary from place to place and from ethnic group to ethnic group. As geogra- phers Barbara and James Shortridge point out, “Food is a sensitive indicator of identity and change.” Immigration, intermarriage, technological innovation, and the availability of certain ingredients mean that modifications and simplifi- cations of traditional foods are inevitable over time. An examination of culinary cultural landscapes reveals that, although landscapes are typically understood to be visual entities, they can be constructed from the other four senses as well: touch, smell, sound, and—in this case—taste.

Although Singapore occupies the southern tip of the Malaysian Peninsula in extreme Southeast Asia, its cuisine draws heavily from southern Chinese cooking. This is because three-quarters of Singapore’s multiethnic population is of Chinese ancestry. Intermarriage between Chinese men, who came to Singapore as traders and settled there, and local Malay women resulted in a distinctive, spicy cuisine called nonya. As we have already understood, there are far more eth- nic Chinese in Asia than in other parts of the world, princi- pally because of China’s proximity to other Asian countries.

The corn tortilla remains a staple of central Mexican foodways and is consumed at every meal by some families. But many middle-class urban women in Mexico no longer have the time to soak, hull, and grind corn by hand to make

Figure 5.30 Lunch truck in New Orleans. Loncheras, or mobile lunch trucks, are found in areas of New Orleans that suffered devastation from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Mexican workers were attracted to New Orleans after 2005 because of opportunities to work in the construction sector as neighborhoods rebuilt. Lunch trucks cater to Mexican immigrant tastes and budgets. (Russell McCulley/AFP/Getty Images.)

Conclusion 171

corn tortillas from scratch. Rather, children are often sent every afternoon to the corner tortillería to purchase masa, or corn dough, or even hot stacks of the finished product. Con- venience notwithstanding, old-timers complain that the uni- form machine-made tortillas will never come close to the flavor and texture of a handmade tortilla. In some regions, notably in the northern part of Mexico and southern Texas, the labor-intensive corn tortilla was replaced altogether by wheat tortillas, which are much easier to make.

Geographer Daniel Arreola has plotted the Taco-Bur- rito and the Taco-Barbeque isoglosses in southwestern Texas in Figure 5.31. These lines show the transition between different Mexican culinary influences (tacos ver- sus burritos) and between Mexican and European foodways (tacos versus barbeque), with the barbeque sandwich pre- ferred by the German, Czech, Scandinavian, Anglo, and black Texan populations to the north and east of the line.

In the rural, mountainous Appalachian region of the eastern United States, distinct ethnic foodways persist and lit- erally flavor this region. Geographer John Rehder observed that, during and after World War II, Appalachians maintained their cultural distinctiveness in the face of migration to north- ern cities in part through “care packages” of lard, dried

beans, grits, cornmeal, and other foods unavailable in the North. Grocery stores in the Little Appalachia ethnic neigh- borhoods that formed in cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago soon began to cater to the distinct food preferences of the population. Thus, Appalachian foodways were main- tained as Appalachians moved north.

Rehder tells of sending students on a scavenger hunt during a class field trip to Pikeville, Tennessee. To one young man, he handed a card that read, “What are cat head biscuits and sawmill gravy?”

About a half an hour later, my “biscuit man” returned with a scared look on his face and tears welling up in his eyes. I asked, “Where did you go and what happened?” He replied, “Well, . . . I . . . went to the feed store and asked an old man there, ‘What are cat head biscuits and sawmill gravy?’ just like you told me to do. Only the old man just growled at me and said, ‘Son, if you don’t know, HELL, I ain’t goin’ to tell you!’ And with that our lad left the feed store dejected and thoroughly upset. To calm him down, I said, ”Why don’t you just go on down to the café. Get a little something to drink and maybe calmly run your question by them down there.” After a sufficient amount of time, I decided to go check on him. He was sitting on a red upholstered stool at the counter. As I drew closer, he looked up and, with fresh and quite different tears in his eyes, pointed to his plate: “This,” he said proudly, “is cat head biscuits and sawmill gravy!” ( p. 208)

Rehder explains that cat head biscuits are flour biscuits made in the exact size and shape of a cat’s head and baked golden in a wood stove. Sawmill gravy is a southern-style white gravy made in a cast-iron skillet. Legend has it that the cook at the Little River Lumber Company logging camp ran out of flour for the gravy and substituted cornmeal. The loggers complained about the texture, referring to it as “sawmill gravy.” For further discussion of ethnicity and food, see Doing Geography and Seeing Geography at the end of the chapter.

Conclusion The inclusion of a critical focus on race into the long-stand- ing field of ethnic geography provides contemporary, fruit- ful inroads into understanding human diversity. Here, the five themes of cultural geography have provided new per- spectives on ethnicity and race. Ethnicity and race help shape the pattern of rural homelands and islands, and urban ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos. Immigration is actively reshaping the ethnic mosaic of many places, including the United States. Human mobility routes—whether voluntary or involuntary, undertaken in response to persecution in the home region or opportunities beckoning beyond one’s bor- ders—help to shape the patterns that ethnicity and race assume in the new land. Sometimes, similarities between home and host habitats direct migrants to certain places

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Figure 5.31 The Taco-Burrito and Taco-Barbeque lines. The transition between different styles of Mexican, and Mexican and European, foodways is depicted on this map of Texas. Note that the lines coincide with the borders of the Hispanic homeland as defined by Terry Jordan. In this map, Daniel Arreola builds on that work. (Sources: After Arreola, 2002: 175; Jordan, 1984.)

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rather than others. Globalization appears to intensify age-old tendencies to distinguish, and discriminate, among groups. Racism seems particularly resistant to change. Certain nat- ural habitats can protect ethnically distinct groups. Yet envi- ronmental racism illustrates how minority peoples and the places they inhabit can become the targets of undesirable practices, such as pollution. On the flip side, ethnic pride and the active construction of ethnically and racially distinct landscapes are evident the world over.

By now, we hope you are beginning to think and see as geographers do. The world is patterned in terms of culture. What these patterns are, why they change, how they change, and how these changes affect people living in places is the basic focus of cultural geography. Ethnicity, along with language and religion, is at the heart of many of today’s most pressing political geography questions.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

Tracing Ethnic Foodways Through Recipes At some point in our family histories, we all trace our roots back to migrants. Perhaps your ancestors walked here some 30,000 years ago. Perhaps they arrived on slave ships in the seventeenth century. Perhaps they were traders who settled and married locals. Were they part of the waves of Europeans in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, or have you yourself only recently immigrated? More than likely, your ethnic inheritance results from a combination of different immigrant groups. As the geographer Doreen Massey wrote, “In one sense or another most places have been ‘meeting places’; even their ‘original inhabitants’ usually came from somewhere else.” In other words, if you dig into the history of any place, you’ll find layers on layers of people coming in from other places and bringing their cultural baggage—recipes and all—with them.

In this exercise, you will analyze one of the most commonplace, yet revealing, items of ethnic geography: a recipe. Certainly, you are what you eat, but you also eat where you are, and the foodways in which you take an active part are very revealing of both whom you are and where you are. Even though you may not be conscious of it, the simple act of cooking a meal sets into motion all sorts of cultural geography elements: regional identity, ethnic heritage, place- specific agricultural traditions, and so on. Together these form important components of identity and place.

Identify a recipe to analyze. Most of you grew up, or are now living, in households where meals are cooked on site at least some of the time. Choose a recipe that is used often and has been around for a while. The best candidate is a favorite family recipe that has been passed down through the generations (see note, below). If you don’t have a copy of the recipe, you will need to interview a person who does—if

necessary, by phone or e-mail. With a written recipe now in front of you, think about the following questions. Remember to ask your interviewee these questions, too.

• From where does this recipe come? With what country, or region, is it identified?

• Do any of the recipe’s ingredients give clues about the origins of the recipe? Do the ingredients draw on particular animal or plant ingredients that are, or were, produced where the recipe originated?

• Has the recipe been modified to substitute ingredients that are no longer available, either because the person who used the recipe migrated or because the ingredients went out of production?

• Are there ingredients used in the recipe that are identified with particular ethnic groups and perhaps aren’t consumed by others living in the same place?

• Do elements of the recipe’s preparation give additional clues about the foodways of the people who developed the recipe?

• Are there special occasions, such as holidays, when this recipe is always used?

• Do any of the ingredients or methods of preparation have symbolic meanings or stories associated with them?

• How many terms from this chapter can you make use of in your recipe analysis?

In sharing the results of the recipe analysis, the class can list the various places and ethnicities that together comprise the foodways of the students. Are they based on mostly local traditions, or are students in the class literally from all over the world when it comes to eating? The class might want to create a cookbook of their recipes and map the places from which they come.

Note: If you are attending school in a foreign country, use a family recipe from your native homeland. E-mail or call a family member to discuss this recipe using the guidelines for this exercise. Also, some of you may have grown up in an institutional setting, where you consumed food prepared in a cafeteria. Institutional foods can be very revealing of local ethnic influences, so choose a commonly prepared evening meal dish for this exercise.

Ethnic Geography on the Internet You can learn more about ethnic geography and the geography of race on the Internet at the following web sites:

2000 Census of the United States http://www.census.gov Go to the American FactFinder section of the web page. Here you will find a wonderful selection of maps that show themes (the- matic maps) generated from census data. Some of the maps used in this chapter were found here.

Sources 173

Ethnic Geography Specialty Group, Washington, D.C. http://www.unl.edu/geography/ethnic This web site provides information about a specialty group within the Association of American Geographers, whose mem- bership includes nearly all U.S. specialists in the study of ethnic geography.

Food: Past and Present http://www.teacheroz.com/food.htm Here you will find a list of links to hundreds of web pages that deal with all aspects of food: diets of historical and contemporary cul- tures, recipes, and foodways of regions and ethnic groups in the United States.

New American Media http://news.newamericanmedia.org/news This rich web site is dedicated to “expanding the news lens through ethnic media.” You can select news stories by ethnicity, visit blogs, or view polls designed to capture the opinions of those typically excluded from mainstream surveys.

Questions of Race and Racism http://flexiblelearning.auckland.ac.nz/anthro105/ classification_game.html In this matching game, you can associate an image of a person with the world region to which you think that person belongs. After matching 25 photos, your answers are evaluated for correctness, and you then get one more chance to place those photos you did not place correctly the first time around. The game shows just how diffi- cult it is to overcome our preconceived notions of race and ethnicity.

Racialicious http://www.racialicious.com Feel the need to know the top 10 trends in race and pop culture? Want to follow celebrity gaffes, politicians’ missteps, and question- able media representations? Log on to Racialicious, a “no holds barred” blog about the intersection of race and pop culture. The site is mediated by Carmen Van Kerchove, the cofounder and president of New Demographic, a consulting firm that “helps organizations overcome diversity fatigue by facilitating relaxed, authentic, and productive conversations about race and racism.”

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Allen, James, and Eugene Turner. 1988. We the People: An Atlas of America’s Ethnic Diversity. New York: Macmillan.

Arreola, Daniel D. 1984. “Mexican-American Exterior Murals.” Geographical Review 74: 409–424.

Arreola, Daniel D. 2002. Tejano South Texas: A Mexican American Cultural Province. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Associated Press, 2006 (March 26). “500,000 Rally Immigration Rights in Los Angeles.” Available online at http://www. msnbc.com.

BBC News. 2007 (February 7). “UN Warns of Iraq Refugee Disas- ter.” Available online at http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk.

Benton-Short, Lisa, Marie D. Price, and Samantha Friedman. 2005. “Globalization from Below: The Ranking of Immigrant Cities.” International Journal of Urban and Rural Research 29(4): 945–959.

Bullard, Robert D. (ed.). 1993. Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots. Boston: South End Press.

Carlson, Alvar W. 1990. The Spanish American Homeland: Four Cen- turies in New Mexico’s Río Arriba. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni- versity Press.

Carter, Timothy J., et al. 1980. “The Peoples of China.” Map sup- plement, National Geographic (July): 158.

Catania, Sara. 2006 (October 16). “From Fish Sauce to Salsa—New Orleans Vietnamese Adapt to Influx of Latinos.” Available online at New American Media, http://news.newamericamedia.org/ news/.

Cobo, Leila. 2007 (September 30). “Mexican Music Enjoys Strong Sales, Timeless Appeals.” Available online at http://www. reuters.com.

Dawson, C. A. 1936. Group Settlement: Ethnic Communities in Western Canada. Toronto: Macmillan.

Frey, William H. 2001. “Micro Melting Pots.” American Demographics (June): 20–23.

Harris, R. Colebrook. 1977. “The Simplification of Europe Overseas.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 67: 469–483.

Hill, G. W. 1942. “The People of Wisconsin According to Ethnic Stocks, 1940.” Wisconsin’s Changing Population. Bulletin, Serial No. 2642. Madison: University of Wisconsin.

Johnson, James H., Jr., and Curtis C. Roseman. 1990. “Recent Black Outmigration from Los Angeles: The Role of Household Dynamics and Kinship Systems.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 80: 205–222.

Jordan, Terry G., with John L. Bean, Jr., and William M. Holmes. 1984. Texas: A Geography. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Kent, Noel Jacob. 2000. “The New Racism on Campus: What’s Going On?” The NEA Higher Education Journal (Fall): 83–94.

Massey, Doreen. 1994. Space, Place, and Gender. Minneapolis: Uni- versity of Minnesota Press.

Matwijiw, Peter. 1979. “Ethnicity and Urban Residence: Winnipeg, 1941–71.” Canadian Geographer 23: 45–61.

Meigs, Peveril, III. 1941. “An Ethno-Telephonic Survey of French Louisiana.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 31: 243–250.

Meinig, Donald W. 1965. “The Mormon Culture Region.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 55: 191–220.

Meisch, Lynn A. 1991. “We Are Sons of Atahualpa and We Will Win: Traditional Dress in Otavalo and Saraguro, Ecuador,” in Margot Blum Schevill, Janet Catherine Berlo, and Edward B. Dwyer (eds.), Textile Traditions of Mesoamerica and the Andes: An Anthology. New York: Garland Publishing, 145–177.

Mitchell, Rick. 1995. “Selena: In Life, She Was the Queen of Tejano Music. In Death, the 23-Year-Old Singer Is Becoming a Leg- end.” Houston Chronicle, May 21. Available online at http:// www.chron.com/content/chronicle/metropolitan/selena/ 95/05/21/legend.html.

Motzafi-Haller, Pnina. 1997. “Writing Birthright: On Native Anthropologists and the Politics of Representation,” in Debo- rah E. Reed-Danahay (ed.), Auto/Ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social. Oxford: Berg, 195–222.

National Geographic, “The Genographic Project.” Available online at http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/

174 Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

Neon signs collected from ethnic restaurants in the United States by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

SEEING GEOGRAPHY American Restaurant Neon Signs

This remarkable image comes not from a cultural landscape but from a montage of neon signs collected for an exhibit some years ago at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The exhibit represented a small sampling of the kinds of ethnic foods available

commercially in the United States. It showed how ethnically diverse America had become.

What, more precisely, can these diverse, artificially assembled fragments from many cultural landscapes tell us? That we are a multiethnic society? Of course. As cultural geographer Richard Pillsbury recently said, America has “no foreign food” because we have accepted every possible foreign cuisine and made it our own.

Cultural interaction is also revealed here. Massive changes in U.S. immigration laws in the 1960s had the effect of greatly diversifying the immigrant stream, allowing such a food diversity to become established.

Implicit in the photo, too, are culture regions—in the form of ethnic neighborhoods. Each of these signs comes from an ethnic neighborhood, and the further regional implication is that such neighborhoods are proliferating.

Cultural diffusion is also obvious. How could these different cuisines have reached our shores other than by relocation diffusion?

So, in this manner, landscape images demand cultural interactive explanations, imply cultural regions, and require cultural diffusion. The various themes of cultural geography work together, are inseparable, and constitute a functioning whole.

When does cuisine cease to be ethnic and become simply “American”? What role does cultural diffusion play in the process?

Nostrand, Richard L., and Lawrence E. Estaville, Jr. (eds.). 2001. Homelands: A Geography of Culture and Place Across America. Bal- timore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Oberle, Alex P., and Daniel D. Arreola. 2008. “Resurgent Mexican Phoenix.” Geographical Review 98(2): 171–196.

O’Loughlin, John, Frank Witmer, Thomas Dickinson, Nancy Thorwardson, and Edward Holland. 2007. “Preface to Special Issue and Caucasus Map Supplement.” Eurasian Geography and Economics, 48(1): 127–134.

Pillsbury, Richard. 1998. No Foreign Food: American Diet in Time and Place. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Rechlin, Alice. 1976. Spatial Behavior of the Old Order Amish of Nap- panee, Indiana. Geographical Publication No. 18. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.

Rehder, John B. 2004. Appalachian Folkways. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Shortridge, Barbara G., and James R. Shortridge (eds.). 1998. The Taste of American Place: A Reader on Regional and Ethnic Foods. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Sivanandan, A. 2001 (August 17). “Poverty Is the New Black.” Available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk.

Toxic Release Inventory (U.S. EPA). 1996. Available online at http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/auto/mapofla.html.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. 2000. MLA Language Map Data Cen- ter. Available online at http://www.mla.org/map-data.

Ten Recommended Books on Ethnic Geography (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Berry, Kate A., and Martha L. Henderson (eds.). 2002. Geographical Identities of Ethnic America: Race, Space, and Place. Reno: University of Nevada Press. Eighteen different experts give their views on American ethnic geography, explaining how place shapes eth- nic/racial identities and, in turn, how these groups create dis- tinctive spatial patterns and ethnic landscapes.

Jordan, Terry G., and Matti E. Kaups. 1989. The American Back- woods Frontier: An Ethnic and Ecological Interpretation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. The authors use the concepts of cultural preadaptation and ethnic substrate to reveal how the forest colonization culture of the American eastern wood- lands developed and helped shape half a continent.

Louder, Dean R., and Eric Waddell (eds.). 1993. French America: Mobility, Identity, and Minority Experience Across the Continent.

Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. A comprehen- sive geographical study of the Franco-American and French- Canadian peoples in their North American diaspora.

McKee, Jesse O. (ed.). 2000. Ethnicity in Contemporary America: A Geographical Appraisal, 2nd ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Little- field. This clear and thoughtful text offers a geographical analysis of U.S. immigration patterns and the development of selected ethnic minority groups, focusing especially on their origin, diffusion, socioeconomic characteristics, and settle- ment patterns within the United States; many well-known geo- graphers contributed chapters.

Miyares, Ines M., and Christopher A. Airriess. 2007. Contemporary Ethnic Geographies in America. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Little- field. An edited collection featuring chapters authored by renowned contemporary ethnic geographers on a variety of top- ics ranging from Central American soccer leagues to Muslim immigrants from Lebanon and Iran; also includes a geographer’s view of the ethnic festivals, with which we began this chapter.

Noble, Allen G. (ed.). 1992. To Build in a New Land: Ethnic Land- scapes in North America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. A superb study of widely differing traditional ethnic cul-

tural landscapes in the United States and Canada, revealing what diverse countries we inhabit.

Nostrand, Richard L., and Lawrence E. Estaville, Jr. (eds.). 2001. Homelands: A Geography of Culture and Place Across America. Balti- more: Johns Hopkins University Press. A collection of essays on an array of North American ethnic homelands, together with in- depth treatment of the geographical concept of homeland.

Rehder, John B. 2004. Appalachian Folkways. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. An exploration of the folk culture of the Appalachian region of the United States, including its dis- tinctive settlement history, folk architecture, cuisine, speech, and belief systems.

Schein, Richard (ed.). 2006. Landscape and Race in the United States. London and New York: Routledge. Contributions by leading geographers studying the cultural geographies of race provide an updated and critical insight into this growing subfield.

Yoon, Hong-key. 1986. Maori Mind, Maori Land: Essays on the Cul- tural Geography of the Maori People from an Outsider’s Perspective. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang. A highly readable study of the indigenous Polynesian ethnic group in New Zealand; also use- ful as a comparison to the situation in North America.

Ten Recommended Books on Ethnic Geography 175

Are these border fences or walls?

6 Political Geography

A Divided World

Post–9/11 border security: the boundary between Israeli and Arab-Palestinian lands and the U.S.–Mexico border. (Left: Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images; Right: Jeff Topping/Getty Images.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 212 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

177

From the breakup of empires to regional differences in voting patterns, from thedrawing of international boundaries to congressional redistricting in the U.S.electoral system, from the resurgence of nationalism to separatist violence, human political behavior is inherently geographical. As geographer Gearóid Ó Tuathail has said, political geography “is about power, an ever-changing map revealing the struggle over borders, space, and authority.”

Region How is political geography revealed in regions? The theme of region is essential to the study of political geography because an array of both formal and functional polit- ical regions exist. Among these, the most important and influential is the state.

A World of States The fundamental political-geographical fact is that the Earth is divided into nearly 200 independent countries or states, creating a diverse mosaic of functional regions (Figure 6.1). The state is a political institution that has taken a variety of forms over the centuries, ranging from Greek city-states, to Chinese dynastic states, to European feudal states. When we talk about states today, however, we mean something very specific and historically recent. States are independent political units with a centralized authority that makes claims to sole jurisdiction over a bounded territory. Within that territory, the central authority controls and enforces a single system of political and legal institutions. Importantly, in the mod- ern international system, states recognize each other’s sovereignty. That is, virtu- ally every state recognizes every other state’s right to exist and control its own affairs within its territorial boundaries.

Closer inspection of Figure 6.1 reveals that some parts of the world are frag- mented into many different states, whereas others exhibit much greater unity. The United States occupies about the same amount of territory as Europe, but the latter is divided into 45 independent countries. The continent of Australia is politically united, whereas South America has 12 independent entities and Africa has 54.

178 Chapter 6 Political Geography

Flat Polar Quartic equal area projection

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Greenland (DENMARK)

BAHAMAS

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

HAITI DOMINICA GRENADA

ST. KITTS AND NEVIS ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA ST. LUCIA

ST. VINCENT AND GRENADINES

BARBADOS

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

French Guiana (FR.)

GUYANA SURINAME

VENEZUELA

COLOMBIA

CUBA JAMAICA BELIZE

HONDURAS

NICARAGUAGUATEMALA EL SALVADOR

COSTA RICA

PANAMA

ECUADOR

PERU

BOLIVIA

BRAZIL

PARAGUAY

CHILE

ARGENTINA URUGUAY

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LV

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NL

RCA

RL

RO

RU

SK

SLO

S

M MONTENEGRO

TC

TM

UAE

WAG

WAL

ZW

Abbreviations

AUSTRIA

ALBANIA

BELGIUM

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

BURKINA FASO

BULGARIA

BOTSWANA

BELARUS

SWITZERLAND

THE CZECH REPUBLIC

GERMANY

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

ESTONIA

EAST TIMOR

GUINEA BISSAU

HUNGARY

CROATIA

IVORY COAST

LUXEMBOURG

LITHUANIA

LATVIA

MACEDONIA

NETHERLANDS

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

LEBANON

ROMANIA

RUSSIA

SLOVAKIA

SLOVENIA

SERBIA

TURKISH CYPRUS

TURKMENISTAN

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

THE GAMBIA

SIERRA LEONE

ZIMBABWE

Most of the countries on this map have homepages on the Worldwide Web. Visit The Human Mosaic online to learn more about them.

The modern state is a tangible geographical expression of one of the most common human tendencies: the need to belong to a larger group that controls its own piece of the Earth, its own territory. So universal is this trait that scholars coined the term territoriality to describe it. Most geographers view territoriality as a learned cultural response. Robert Sack, for example, regards territoriality as a cultural strategy that uses power to control an area and communicate that control, thereby subjugating the inhabi- tants and acquiring resources. He argues, for example, that

the precise marking of borders is a practice originally unique to modern Western culture. The modern territor- ial state, he claims, emerged rather recently in sixteenth- century Europe and diffused around the globe through European colonialism.

Political territoriality, then, is a thoroughly cultural- geographical phenomenon. The sense of collective identity that we call nationalism (see page 183) springs from a learned or acquired attachment to region and place. Geog- raphy and national identity cannot be separated.

Independent Countries

Region 179

Distribution of National Territory An important geo- graphical aspect of the modern state is the shape and configuration of the national territory. Theoretically, the more compact the territory, the easier is national gover- nance. Circular or hexagonal forms maximize compact- ness, allow short communication lines, and minimize the amount of border to be defended. Of course, no country actually enjoys this ideal degree of compactness, although some—such as France and Brazil—come close (Figure 6.2).

Any one of several unfavorable territorial distributions can inhibit national cohesiveness. Potentially most damag- ing to a country’s stability are enclaves and exclaves. An enclave is a district surrounded by a country but not ruled by it. Enclaves can be either self-governing (e.g., Lesotho in Figure 6.2) or an exclave of another country. In either case, its presence can pose problems for the surrounding coun- try. Potentially just as disruptive is the pene-enclave, an intrusive piece of territory with only the smallest of outlets (e.g., The Gambia in Figure 6.2).

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ALGERIA LIBYA EGYPT

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SAUDI ARABIA OMAN

IRAQ KUWAIT

BAHRAIN

QATAR

JORDAN

IRAN

UAE

SYRIA

ISRAEL

CYPRUS

TC TURKEY

RLMOROCCO TUNISIA

PORTUGAL SPAIN

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ICELAND

UNITED KINGDOM

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I N D O N E S I A

AUSTRALIA

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NEW ZEALAND

TAIWAN

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LAOS

THAILAND

MYANMAR

BANGLADESH

INDIA

NEPAL BHUTAN

CHINA TAJIKISTAN

AFGHANISTAN

KYRGYZSTAN

AZERBAIJAN

TM

UZBEKISTAN

KAZAKHSTAN MONGOLIA

RUSSIA

NORTH KOREA

SOUTH KOREA

JAPAN

ARMENIA

GEORGIA

UKRAINE

BYPOLAND

MOLDOVA

RO H SKCZ.

BG

AL BA

HR SLO

MK

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S

DENMARK

NORWAY FINLAND SWEDEN

ESTLT RU LV

MAURITANIA

L

PHILIPPINES

VANUATU

NEW CALEDONIA

SOLOMON IS.

MICRONESIAPALAU

MALAYSIA

M

Figure 6.1 The independent countries of the world. In the twentieth century, the map was in rapid flux, with a proliferation of countries. This process began after World War I with the breakup of such empires as those of Austria-Hungary and Turkey, then intensified after World War II when the overseas empires of the British, French, Italians, Dutch, Americans, and Belgians collapsed. More recently, the Russian-Soviet Empire disintegrated.

180 Chapter 6 Political Geography

Exclaves are parts of a national territory separated from the main body of the country to which they belong by the territory of another (e.g., the Kaliningrad District in Figure 6.2; Figure 6.3). Exclaves are particularly undesir- able if a hostile power holds the intervening territory because defense of such an isolated area is difficult and makes substantial demands on national resources. More- over, an exclave’s inhabitants, isolated from their compatri- ots, may develop separatist feelings, thereby causing additional problems. Pakistan provides a good example of the national instability created by exclaves. Pakistan was cre- ated in 1947 as two main bodies of territory separated from each other by almost 1000 miles (1600 kilometers) of terri-

tory in northern India. West Pakistan had the capital and most of the territory, but East Pakistan was home to most of the people. West Pakistan hoarded the country’s wealth, exploiting East Pakistan’s resources but giving little in return. Ethnic differences between the peoples of the two sectors further complicated matters. In 1971, a quarter of a century after its founding, Pakistan broke apart. The dis- tant exclave seceded and became the independent country of Bangladesh (see Figure 6.1). Even when a national terri- tory is geographically united, instability can develop if the shape of the state is awkward. Narrow, elongated countries, such as Chile, The Gambia, and Norway, can be difficult to administer, as can nations consisting of separate islands

INDONESIA BRAZIL

SENEGAL

THE GAMBIA

FRANCE

Kaliningrad District

RUSSIA

SAKHALIN ISLAND

SOUTH AFRICA LESOTHO

CHILE

Capital city (in South Africa, functions divided among three cities)

Figure 6.2 Differences in the distribution of national territory. The map, drawn from Eurasia, Africa, and South America, shows wide contrasts in territorial shape. France and, to a lesser extent, Brazil approach the ideal hexagonal shape, but Russia is elongated and has an exclave in the Kaliningrad District,

whereas Indonesia is fragmented into a myriad of islands. The Gambia intrudes as a pene-enclave into the heart of Senegal, and South Africa has a foreign enclave, Lesotho. Chile must overcome extreme elongation. What problems can arise from elongation, enclaves, fragmentation, and exclaves?

(see Figures 6.1 and 6.2). In these situations, transportation and communications are difficult, causing administrative problems. Several major secession movements threaten the multi-island country of Indonesia; one of these—in East Timor—recently succeeded (see Figure 6.1). Similarly, the three-island country of Comoros, in the Indian Ocean, is troubled today by a separatist movement on Anjouan Island (see Figure 6.1).

The shape and configuration of a country can make it harder or easier to administer, but it does not determine its stability. We can think of exceptions for all of the territorial forms in Figure 6.2. For example, Alaska is an exclave of the United States, but it is unlikely to produce a secessionist movement similar to Bangladesh. Conversely, the Demo- cratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria both have com- pact territories and both have suffered through secessionist wars. Geography is an important factor in national gover- nance, but it is not the only factor.

Boundaries Political territories have different types of boundaries. Until fairly recent times, many boundaries were not sharp, clearly defined lines but instead were referred to as zones called marchlands. Today, the nearest equivalent to the marchland is the buffer state, an indepen- dent but small and weak country lying between two power- ful, potentially belligerent countries. Mongolia, for example, is a buffer state between Russia and China; Nepal occupies a similar position between India and China (see Figure 6.1). If one of the neighboring countries assumes control of the buffer state, it loses much of its indepen- dence and becomes a satellite state.

Most modern boundaries are lines rather than zones, and we can distinguish several types. Natural boundaries fol- low some feature of the natural landscape, such as a river or mountain ridge. Examples of natural boundaries are numer- ous, for example, the Pyrenees lie between Spain and France, and the Rio Grande serves as part of the border between

Region 181

Sea

B A

C

c d

f

a

b

e

Region A

Region B

Area no longer controlled by B, in the hands of A ethnic rebels since 1994

Figure 6.3 Two independent countries, A and B. A seeks to liberate region a, where the population speaks the same language and adheres to the same religion as the people of A. In a war lasting from 1990 to 1994, the people of region a seceded from B, and a tenuous ceasefire was arranged. B, meanwhile, has an exclave, b, on the opposite, western side of A, and the people of region b form another ethnic minority, unrelated to B. Country B also possesses several much smaller enclaves—c, d, and e, the last of

which is regarded as part of b (an exclave of an exclave!). A also has a tiny exclave, f. In other words, the distribution of national territories is troublesome to both A and B, particularly given the hostile relations between them. These are real countries. Using an atlas, try to identify them. You can find the answers at the end of this chapter. Have any recent events occurred here? (Sources: Office of the Geographer, U.S. Department of State, personal communication, 1997; Smith et al., 1997: 37.)

Mexico and the United States. Ethnographic boundaries are drawn on the basis of some cultural trait, usually a particular language spoken or religion practiced. The border that divides India from predominantly Islamic Pakistan is one case. Geometric boundaries are regular, often perfectly straight lines drawn without regard for physical or cultural features of the area. The U.S.–Canada border west of the Lake of the Woods (about 93° west longitude) is a geometric boundary, as are most county, state, and province borders in the central and western United States and Canada. Not all boundaries are easily categorized; some boundaries are of mixed type, composites of two or more of the types listed.

Finally, relic boundaries are those that no longer exist as international borders. Nevertheless, they often leave behind a trace in the local cultures. With the reunification of Germany in the autumn of 1990, the old Iron Curtain border between the former German Democratic Republic in the east and the Federal Republic of Germany in the west was quickly dismantled (Figure 6.4). In a remarkably short time span, measured in weeks, the Germans reopened sev- ered transport lines and created new ones, knitting the enlarged country together. Even so, remnants and reminders of the old border remained, as it continued to function as provincial boundaries within Germany. Further- more, it still separated two parts of the country with strik- ingly different levels of prosperity.

Spatial Organization of Territory States differ greatly in the way their territory is organized for purposes of administra- tion. Political geographers recognize two basic types of spa- tial organization: unitary and federal. In unitary countries, power is concentrated centrally, with little or no provincial authority. All major decisions come from the central gov- ernment, and policies are applied uniformly throughout the national territory. France and China are unitary in structure, even though one is democratic and the other totalitarian. A federal government, by contrast, is a more geographically expressive political system. That is, it acknowledges the existence of regional cultural differences and provides the mechanism by which the various regions can perpetuate their individual characters. Power is dif- fused, and the central government surrenders much authority to the individual provinces. The United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Switzerland, though exhibiting varying degrees of federalism, provide examples. The trend in the United States has been toward a more uni- tary, less federal government, with fewer states’ rights. By contrast, federalism remains vital in Canada, representing an effort to counteract French-Canadian demands for Québec’s independence. That is, by emphasizing federal- ism, the central government allows more latitude for provincial self-rule, thus reducing public support for the more radical option of secession.

182 Chapter 6 Political Geography

Figure 6.4 A boundary disappears. In Berlin, the view toward the Brandenburg Gate changed radically between 1989 and 1991 when the Berlin Wall was destroyed and Germany reunited. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Whether federal or unitary, a country functions through some system of political subdivisions. In federal systems, these subdivisions sometimes overlap in author- ity, with confusing results. For example, the Native Amer- ican reservations in the United States occupy a unique and ambiguous place in the federal system of political subdivisions. These semiautonomous enclaves are legally sanctioned political territories that, theoretically, only indigenous Americans can possess. In reality, ownership is often fragmented by non-Native American land hold- ings within the reservations. Although not completely sovereign, Native Americans do have certain rights to self- government that differ from those of surrounding local authorities. For example, many reservations can (and do) build casinos on their land though gambling may be illegal in surrounding political jurisdictions. Reservations do not fit neatly into the American political system of states, coun- ties, townships, precincts, and incorporated municipalities.

Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces Although physical fac- tors such as the spatial organization of territory, degree of compactness, and type of boundaries can influence an independent country’s stability, other forces are also at work. In particular, cultural factors often make or break a country. The most viable independent countries, those least troubled by internal discord, have a strong feeling of group solidarity among their population. Group identity is the key.

In the case of the modern state, the primary source of group identity is nationalism. Nationalism is the idea that the individual derives a significant part of his or her social identity from a sense of belonging to a nation. We can trace the origins of modern nationalism to the late eighteenth century and the emergence of the modern nation-state. Political geographer John Agnew cautions us, however, that the meaning and form of nationalism are unstable, making it difficult to generalize. One version is state nationalism, wherein the nation-state is exalted and individuals are called to sacrifice for the good of the greater whole. The twentieth-century history of state nationalism in Europe is marked by two horrific world wars in which millions of lives were sacrificed. Referring to World War I, Agnew points out that the “war itself was also the outcome of a mentality in which the individual person had to sacrifice for the good of the greater whole: the nation-state.” Another form is sub- state nationalism, in which ethnic or linguistic minority populations seek to secede from the state or to alter state territorial boundaries to promote cultural homogeneity and political autonomy.

Geographers refer to factors that promote national unity and solidarity as centripetal forces. By contrast, any- thing that disrupts internal order and furthers the destruc- tion of the country is called a centrifugal force. Many states

encourage centripetal forces that help fuel nationalistic sentiment. Such things as an official national language, national history museums, national parks and monuments, and sometimes even a national religion are actively pro- moted and supported by the state. We consider an array of centripetal and centrifugal forces later, in the sections on globalization and nature-culture.

Political Boundaries in Cyberspace What happens to political boundaries in cyberspace? E-mail, the Internet, and the World Wide Web can cross borders in ways previously not possible, although radio, telephone, and fax machines possess some of the same border-defying qual- ities. In Germany, for example, Nazi and neo-Nazi propa- ganda is prohibited, yet the First Amendment right of freedom of speech protects the dissemination of this mate- rial in the United States. What happens when this propa- ganda originates in the United States and is posted electronically to online bulletin boards worldwide? Can the German government prosecute the originator of the mes- sage—an American—for violating a German law?

How can countries impose their laws and boundaries in the computer age? One way is to restrict citizens’ access to technological hardware such as satellite dishes, computers, phone lines, and cell phones. This is becoming increasingly difficult for even the most totalitarian regimes. Another tac- tic deployed by states is to allow citizens’ access to the Web but to control the flow of information they receive. The most well-known example is the deal cut between the search engine company Google and the People’s Republic of China in 2006. In order to gain access to China’s rapidly expanding market for Internet services, estimated at 162 million cus- tomers in 2007, Google agreed to create a self-censoring search engine. Their Chinese-language version was specially designed to match the Chinese government’s censorship laws. Web sites promoting ideas that the state views as threatening to its ideological dominance, such as free speech and practicing unauthorized religions, are filtered out by Google’s search engine.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, has been widely criticized in the United States and has even been called to testify before Congress. In their own defense, Google officials argue that they can do more good for China’s citizens by participating in their Internet business than by withdrawing completely. This case illustrates that political boundaries are far from irrelevant in the age of the Internet. The Internet is, to a degree, eroding political boundaries by allowing information and ideas to diffuse more rapidly and completely. As a result, political barriers to cultural diffusion have become more fragile. However, countries still have some power to control what ideas are allowed inside their territorial boundaries.

Region 183

Supranational Political Bodies In addition to independent countries and their govern- mental subdivisions, the third major type of political func- tional region is the supranational organization (Figure 6.5). Supranationalism exists when countries voluntarily give up some portion of their sovereignty to gain the advantages of a closer political, economic, and cultural association with their neighbors. Sometimes supranational organizations take the form of regional trading blocs, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, which comprises Canada, the United States, and Mexico), that promote the freer flow of goods and services across international borders.

In the twentieth century, supranational organizations grew in numbers and importance, coincident with and counterbalancing the proliferation of independent coun- tries. Some represent the vestiges of collapsed empires, such as the British Commonwealth, French Community, and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)—the lat- ter a shadow of the former Soviet Union. Most supranation- als, such as the Arab League or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), possess little cohesion.

The European Union, or EU, is by far the most power- ful, ambitious, and successful supranational organization in the world (see Figure 6.5). It grew from a central core area of six countries in the 1950s to its present membership of 27.

184 Chapter 6 Political Geography

RUSSIA

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Figure 6.5 Some supranational political organizations in the Eastern Hemisphere. These organizations vary greatly in purpose and cohesion. ASEAN stands for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and its purposes are both economic and political. What might this map indicate about globalization?

At first, the EU was merely a customs union whose purpose was to lower or remove tariffs that hindered trade, but it gradually took on more and more of a political and cultural role. An underlying motivation was to weaken the power of its member countries to the point that they could never again wage war against one another—a response to the dev- astation of Europe in two world wars.

The member countries have all sacrificed some of their sovereign powers to the EU administration. A single mone- tary currency, the euro, has been adopted by most EU members. Most international borders within the EU are now completely open, requiring no passport checks. More importantly for citizenship and national identity, the EU is standardizing a range of social norms related to the toler- ance of religious and ethnic difference, human rights, and gender relations. In effect, the EU is pushing supranation- alism to its logical conclusion. That is, at some future date nationalism as a focus of identity will be obsolete and peo- ple will think of themselves as European rather than as, say, Italian, or Latvian, or Polish. We will have to wait to learn whether centripetal or centrifugal forces will win out in the EU’s grand experiment.

Reflecting on Geography What will motivate the existing and prospective member countries of the European Union to continue to sacrifice aspects of their independence to create a stronger union?

Electoral Geographical Regions Voting in elections creates another set of political regions. A free vote of the people on some controversial issue pro- vides one of the purest expressions of culture, revealing attitudes on religion, ethnicity, and ideology. Geographers can devise formal culture regions based on voting pat- terns, giving rise to the subspecialty known as electoral geography.

Mapping voting tendencies over many decades shows deep-rooted, formal electoral behavior regions. In Europe, for example, some districts and provinces have a long record of rightist sentiment, and many of these lie toward the cen- ter of Europe. Peripheral areas, especially in the east, are often leftist strongholds (Figure 6.6). Every country where free elections are permitted has a similarly varied electoral geography. In other words, cumulative voting patterns typi- cally reveal sharp and pronounced regional contrasts. Elec- toral geographers refer to these borders as cleavages.

Electoral geographers also concern themselves with functional regions, in this case the voting district or precinct. Their interests are both scholarly and practical. For example, following each census, political redistricting

takes place in the United States. In redistricting, new boundaries are drawn for congressional districts to reflect the population changes since the previous census. The goal is to establish voting areas of more or less equal pop- ulation and to increase or reduce the number of districts depending on the amount and direction of change in total population. These districts form the electoral basis for the U.S. House of Representatives. State legislatures are based on similar districts. Geographers often assist in the redistricting process.

The pattern of voting precincts or districts can influ- ence election results. If redistricting remains in the hands of legislators, then the majority political group or party will often try to arrange the voting districts geographically in such a way as to maximize and perpetuate its power. Cleav- age lines will be crossed to create districts that have a majority of voters favoring the party in power or some politically important ethnic group. This practice is called gerrymandering (Figure 6.7), and the resultant voting dis- tricts often have awkward, elongated shapes. Gerrymander- ing can be accomplished by one of two methods. One is to draw district boundaries so as to concentrate all of the opposition party into one district, thereby creating an unnecessarily large majority while also ensuring that it can- not win elsewhere. A second is to draw the district bound- aries so as to dilute the opposition’s vote so that it does not form a simple majority in any district.

Red States, Blue States In recent years, various commentators in academia and the popular media have used maps of national election results to suggest that the United States is divided into dis- tinct culture regions. We can trace this argument to the postelection analysis of the controversial 2000 presiden- tial election when, for the first time, news media adopted a universal color scheme for mapping voter preferences. States where the majority of voters favored the Democra- tic Party presidential candidate were assigned the color blue, whereas those favoring the Republican candidate were assigned red. When cartographers mapped the state-by-state results of the 2000 and subsequently the 2004 presidential elections, the solid blocks of starkly contrasting colors gave the appearance of a deeply divided country (Figure 6.8).

The terms red state and blue state entered the popular lexicon in reference to the division of the United States into regions of “conservative” and “liberal” cultures that these maps implied. Figure 6.8 suggests, for example, that the U.S. South is politically and culturally conservative, whereas the West Coast is liberal. These maps, so common in the popular media, are overly simplistic and, therefore, misleading. For example, the solid red coloring of the

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majority of the states represented in Figure 6.8 implies that most of the United States is culturally and politically con- servative. However, this map gives inordinate visual impor- tance to states of larger areal extent, no matter what their population. A cartogram provides a better representation of both the true significance of states in the presidential election and the relative proportion of voters favoring Democrats or Republicans (Figure 6.9). When states’ pop- ulations are taken into account, U.S. voters look much more evenly divided in their preferences for Republican and Democratic candidates.

The red state/blue state designation also exaggerates the appearance of sharp geographic divisions within the

country. Whether a state is designated “red” or “blue” is based on the winner-take-all system that the United States uses for presidential elections. That is, the candidate that receives a simple majority in the popular vote takes all the Electoral College votes for that state. George W. Bush, for example, defeated Al Gore in Florida by only 537 votes in 2000, but received all 25 of the state’s electoral votes. This was an unusually close result, but it is common in presiden- tial elections that only a small percentage of a state’s popu- lar vote separates winners and losers. Designating a state such as Florida as “red” thus masks the narrow margin of the Republican victory and exaggerates the existence of regional polarization.

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Figure 6.7 Gerrymandering of a congressional district in North Carolina. The North Carolina Twelfth District was created in 1992 to ensure an African-American majority so that an additional minority candidate could be elected to Congress. Note the awkward shape of these districts, often a sign of

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Figure 6.8 The 2004 presidential election results. News media have adopted a standard color-coding scheme for political parties— red for Republican, blue for Democrat—in election result maps. It is now common to hear of the United States being politically and culturally divided into “red state” and “blue state” regions. (After Gastner, Shalizi, and Newman, 2004.)

gerrymandering. In 1996, the North Carolina district and others gerrymandered for racial purposes were declared unconstitutional. The lines were redrawn, and although the district still looks very much gerrymandered, the courts approved the revised version. (Source: New York Times.)

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The limitations of the red state/blue state designation have led to the introduction of the term purple state to sig- nify closely divided states. If we apply the purple state idea (i.e., shadings of color rather than stark contrasts) to county-level election results, we find that the simplistic divi- sion of the United States into liberal and conservative regions begins to break down (Figure 6.10). There is a great deal of county-by-county variation within states across the United States. New geographic patterns emerge in this

map that belie the idea of large regional divisions in the country.

Using shades of color and county-level results—rather than using contrasting colors and state-level results—pro- vides a very different picture of U.S. regional political and cultural differences. Even this nuanced and finely grained cartographic presentation does not reveal all of the geo- graphic complexities of U.S. presidential elections. With three-dimensional cartographic techniques, another pattern

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Figure 6.9 Cartogram of the 2004 presidential election results. This map sizes the states in proportion to their respective populations. How does this cartogram compare to the map in Figure 6.8 in its representation of the relative popularity of the Republican and Democratic candidates? (After Gastner, Shalizi, and Newman, 2004.)

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Figure 6.10 Purple America. Rather than using stark color contrasts to represent the 2004 presidential election results, this map uses color shading. How does the use of shading affect our understanding of a sharply divided American electorate that appears so prominent in Figure 6.8? What other kinds of geographic voting patterns emerge? (Robert J. Vanderbei, Princeton University.)

Region 189

emerges. In the map in Figure 6.11, height represents voters per square mile, so that volume represents total number of voters. Here the core geographic difference appears to be between cities and rural areas, not between regions. The gen- eral pattern we see is that rural areas are predominantly Republican and cities are predominantly Democratic.

A closer analysis of the red state/blue state phenome- non reveals some of the complexities involved in electoral geography. Choices about the scale at which data are aggre- gated, the cartographic techniques employed, and even the map colors influence the interpretation of election results. This is something to keep in mind when you evaluate claims about a divided America.

Islamic Law in Nigerian Politics As we will see in Chapter 7, politics is often intertwined with religion. Some countries function as theocracies. In many others, internal religious divisions are expressed politically. A good example is Nigeria, which is divided between a Mus- lim north and a Christian/animist south (Figure 6.12). In recent years, all of the states of northern Nigeria added criminal law to the jurisdiction of sharia courts. Sharia is Islamic law, which is detailed in the Qur’an and has long been applied in personal and civil law in northern Nigeria, where the majority of the population is Muslim. Although Muslims welcomed the change, it has caused tensions between the Muslim majority and local non-Muslim minori- ties. Non-Muslims are not tried in sharia courts, but they have complained that their political and economic margin- alization has increased since the change. There has been an increase in religious violence in the northern states and even reports that some Christian populations have chosen to flee the region. It is unlikely that the country will frag- ment along this politico-religious divide in the near future.

Figure 6.11 The 2004 presidential election results in three dimensions. In this map height represents voters per square mile, so that urban areas stand out in contrast to suburban and rural areas. What is the predominant geographic pattern here and how does it compare to that of Figure 6.8? (Robert J. Vanderbei, Princeton University.)

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Figure 6.12 States within Nigeria that have adopted Islamic law as of January 1, 2002. The religious tension within this African country was already intense before the regional imposition of a religion-based legal system. Can Nigeria hold together? (Source: Embassy of Nigeria, Washington, D.C.)

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At the very least, this movement strengthens the centrifu- gal forces at work in this troubled country, which has already experienced one bloody, but unsuccessful, seces- sionist war.

Mobility Is mobility an important factor in understanding political geography? Absolutely! Political events and developments can trigger massive human migrations, sometimes spanning continents. Moreover, the forces of globalization have accen- tuated the importance of mobility across political bound- aries. However, political boundaries also act as barriers to the movement of people, ideas, knowledge, and resources.

Movement Between Core and Periphery Many independent states sprang fully grown into the world, but some expanded outward when powerful political enti- ties emerged from a small nucleus called a core area. These core political powers enlarged their territories by annexing

adjacent lands, often over many centuries. Generally, core areas possess a particularly attractive set of resources for human life and culture. Larger numbers of people cluster there than in surrounding districts, especially if the area has some measure of natural defense against aggressive neighboring political entities. This denser population, in turn, may produce enough wealth to support a large army, which then provides the base for further expansion out- ward from the core area. Resources, people, and capital investment begin to flow between the core and peripheral territories, usually resulting in a further consolidation of the core’s wealth and power.

In states formed in this way, the core area typically remains the country’s single most important district, hous- ing the capital city and the cultural and economic heart of the nation. The core area is the node of a functional region. France expanded to its present size from a small core area around the capital city of Paris. China grew from a nucleus in the northeast, and Russia originated in the small princi- pality of Moscow (Figure 6.13). The United States grew west- ward from a core between Massachusetts and Virginia on the

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Mobility 191

Atlantic coastal plain, an area that still has the national capi- tal and the densest population in the country.

The evolution of independent countries in this manner produces the core-periphery configuration, described in Chapter 1 as typical of both functional and formal regions. Although the core dominates the periphery, a certain amount of friction exists between the two. Peripheral areas generally display pronounced, self-conscious regionality and occasionally provide the settings for secession move- ments. Even so, countries that diffused from core areas are, as a rule, more stable than those created all at once to fill a political void. The absence of a core area can blur or weaken citizens’ national identity and make it easier for var- ious provinces to develop strong local or even foreign alle- giances. Belgium and the Democratic Republic of the Congo offer examples of countries without political core areas. In the case of the Congo, this situation partly accounts for the history of secessionist conflicts and internecine wars since the country gained independence from colonial rule in 1960.

Countries with multiple, competing core areas are potentially the least stable of all. This situation often devel- ops when two or more independent countries are united. The main threat is that one of the competing cores will form the center of a separatist movement and break apart the country. In Spain, Castile and Aragon united in 1479, but tensions in the union remain more than five centuries later—in part because the old core areas of the two former countries, represented by the cities of Madrid and Barcelona, continue to compete for political control and cultural influ- ence. That these two cities symbolize two language-based cul- tures, Castilian and Catalan, compounds the division.

Mobility, Diffusion, and Political Innovation One of the consequences of colonialism was the creation of new patterns of mobility among the conquered popula- tions. One pattern in particular contained the seeds of colonialism’s demise. Colonial rule in Africa depended on the establishment of a relatively small cadre of educated African civil servants. The colonial rulers selected those whom they considered the best and the brightest (and most politically cooperative) among their African subjects and sent them to the best universities in Europe. In addition to learning the skills required of colonial functionaries, they absorbed the ideals of Western political philosophy, such as the right of self-determination, independent self-rule, and individual rights. Educated Africans returned to their coun- tries armed with these ideas and organized new nationalist movements to oppose colonial rule.

The consequences can be seen in the spread of politi- cal independence in Africa. In 1914, only two African countries—Liberia and Ethiopia—were fully independent of European colonial or white minority rule, and even

Ethiopia later fell temporarily under Italian control. Influ- enced by developments in India and Pakistan, the Arabs of North Africa began a movement for independence. Their movement gained momentum in the 1950s and swept southward across most of the African continent between 1960 and 1965. Many of Africa’s great nationalist leaders of this period obtained university degrees in England, Scotland, France, and other European countries. By 1994, African nationalists had helped spread the idea of inde- pendence into all remaining parts of the continent, even- tually reaching the Republic of South Africa, formerly under white minority rule (Figure 6.14).

Despite its rapid spread, diffusion of African self-rule occasionally encountered barriers. Portugal, for example, clung tenaciously to its African colonies until 1975, when a change in government in Lisbon reversed a 500-year-old policy, allowing the colonies to become independent. In colonies containing large populations of European settlers, independence came slowly and usually with bloodshed. France, for example, sought to hold on to Algeria because many European colonists had settled there. The country nonetheless achieved independence in 1962, but only after years of violence. In Zimbabwe, a large population of Euro- pean settlers refused London’s orders to move toward majority rule, resulting in a bloody civil war and delaying the country’s independence until 1979.

On a quite different scale, political innovations also spread within independent countries. American politics abounds with examples of cultural diffusion. A classic case is the spread of suffrage for women, a movement that cul- minated in 1920 with the ratification of a constitutional amendment (Figure 6.15). Opposition to women’s suffrage was strongest in the U.S. South, a region that later exhib- ited the greatest resistance to ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and displayed the most reluctance to elect women to public office.

Federal statutes permit, to some degree, laws to be adopted in the individual functional subdivisions. In the United States and Canada, for example, each state and province enjoys broad lawmaking powers, vested in the leg- islative bodies of these subdivisions. The result is often a patchwork legal pattern that reveals the processes of cul- tural diffusion at work. A good example is the clean air movement, which began in California with the initiation of state legislation regulating automotive and industrial emis- sions. It later spread to other states and provided the model for clean air legislation at the federal level.

Politics and Migration Very often political events provide the motivation for migra- tion, both voluntary and forced. An excellent example is provided by the breakup of the Soviet Union into 15 inde- pendent countries in 1991. During the long period of

192 Chapter 6 Political Geography

Congressional representatives voting against resolution favoring women's suffrage, May 21,1919

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Figure 6.15 The diffusion of suffrage for women in the United States and of the Equal Rights Amendment. The suffrage movement achieved victory through a constitutional amendment in 1920. Both the suffrage movement and the campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) for women failed to gain approval in the Deep South, an area that also lags behind most of the remainder of the country in the election of women to public office. What might be the barriers to diffusion in the Deep South? The states failing to ratify the ERA lay mostly in the same area. The ERA movement did not succeed, in contrast to the earlier suffrage movement. (Adapted in part from Paulin and Wright, 1932.)

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Figure 6.14 Independence from European colonial or white minority rule spread rapidly through Africa in the 1950s and 1960s. Prior to the 1950s, there were only three independent countries in Africa. Between 1951 and 1968, most others had attained self-rule. The remaining few gained freedom over the next three decades so that by 1994 independence had spread from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope. Many of the ideas for national liberation were spread by African leaders educated in Europe. Why do you think it took a few countries so much longer than most to gain independence?

Globalization 193

Soviet unity, the country’s various national groups migrated into one another’s territories in large numbers. Ethnic Rus- sians, for instance, settled in all parts of the Soviet Union, even though only one of the 15 constituent republics was Russian by identity. Likewise, many members of the other 14 major ethnic groups had relocated outside their republics.

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, a profound reverse migration set in almost immediately. Ethnic Rus- sians returned to Russia, Estonians to Estonia, Azeris to Azerbaijan, and so on. By 1995, about 2 million ethnic Rus- sians had migrated to Russia. Fully half a million of these came from recently independent Kazakhstan in central Asia. In that same period, 150,000 ethnic Kazakhs returned to Kazakhstan from Russia and other former Soviet republics. This process continues to the present day. (For

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT The Condition of Transnationality Transnationalism and transnationality are terms that are increasingly being heard in the halls of academia as well as in popular discourse and the media. Among other things, these terms suggest that the processes of globalization are raising new questions about cultural identities. Nationality and ethnicity may continue to be important under globalization, but what should one make of the increasing number of people who live, work, and play in a way that is neither rooted in a tightly knit ethnic community nor territorially grounded in the traditional nation-state? What sorts of cultural identities do these people create and defend? Is a culture of transnationalism emerging?

Geographer Katharyne Mitchell (see Practicing Geography on page 194) suggests that we might think about some of the cultural implications of globalization in terms of a “condition of transnationality.” She points out that the restructuring of the world economy under globalization has produced a great increase in the movement of people across borders. One of the key ways in which this movement differs from other historical migrations is that it tends not to be unidirectional and permanent. With the aid of new transportation and communications technologies, people are able to maintain social networks and physically move about in ways that transcend political boundaries. The experience of cultural “in-betweenness”—of living in and being linked to multiple places around the globe, while being rooted in no single place—has become fundamental to the identity of a growing group of people.

Mitchell’s study of Hong Kong Chinese immigrants in Vancouver, British Columbia, illustrates the idea of transnationalism. In the 1980s, the Canadian government created a new category of immigration designed to attract business investment. Immigrants entering the country under this law had to establish businesses based in Canada. The main immigrants taking advantage of this law were Hong Kong Chinese businesspeople leaving the colony in anticipation of its handover to the People’s Republic of China.

As it happened, these immigrants maintained business and social ties in both Hong Kong and Canada, moving freely and frequently between them. In the process, a whole set of cultural conflicts were ignited between longtime Vancouver residents and the transnational Chinese. Neighborhoods were transformed as the transnationals attempted to establish themselves economically and culturally. They rapidly bought up real estate, demolished old houses, built houses in uncharacteristic architectural styles, and redesigned residential landscaping. Their mobility—a culturally defining characteristic of transnationals—made them appear transient and rootless in the eyes of longer-term residents and weakened the legitimacy of their claims and practices. This case shows us that the cultural aspects of transnationalism are bound up with the economic and political processes of globalization.

From Mitchell, 1998, 2002.

other results of migration, see Global Spotlight and Practic- ing Geography.)

Globalization How does globalization affect the world of states? The effects of globalization are complex. On the one hand, the idea of national self-determination continues to spread with the increase in global communications. Thus, new states appear on the world map almost annually. On the other hand, the forces of globalization may be rendering some functions of the territorial state obsolete. As we will learn in this section, a great deal of speculation exists regarding the impact of globalization on political geogra- phy (see Subject to Debate).

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Katharyne Mitchell

Professor Katharyne Mitchell spent her undergraduate years studying literature, music, and art, all but oblivious to the discipline of geography. It was not until graduate school, working toward a degree in architecture, that she discovered the discipline. “I think I hardly even knew

what geography was until Manuel Castells told me that all of the questions I had been pestering him with concerning space and power were questions then being pursued by geographers.” She switched majors, earned her doctorate in geography, and never looked back. “It was like coming home.” Professor Mitchell is now in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington, specializing in the study of cultural identity, citizenship, and transnationalism related to immigration.

Research for her sometimes “feels like detective work,” where one painstakingly gathers evidence and “suddenly all of the different kinds of data click together.” Professor Mitchell is convinced that “the more types of methods one can bring to bear on answering a research question, the better.” If, on the one hand, she is addressing macroeconomic and political questions, she concentrates on examining statistics and quantitative data of various

kinds. If, on the other hand, the questions are cultural and social, her methods are more qualitative. “I examine newspapers, photographs, flyers, advertisements, journals, postcards, and other documents from the time period I’m analyzing,” she explains, “and I always interview people and read what they have to say in letters to the editor and other media.” Part of her methodology is spending time walking through the relevant spaces and taking photographs.

She is currently studying how immigrants and second-generation children are educated to become “cultural” citizens of a particular nation. “By this I mean how do kids come to form a particular kind of allegiance to a particular country—especially in the contemporary time period when so much migration is transnational and there are so many global pressures on immigrant individuals and families.” She was led to this research through her interests in differing explanations of immigrant integration, from multiculturalism to assimilation. One of the ways through which she approaches the question is to focus on national education systems. According to Professor Mitchell, national systems of education are important sites “in which to study the ways in which individuals are constituted or ‘made’ into certain kinds of national subjects or ‘citizens.’”

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The Nation-State The link between political and cultural patterns is epito- mized by the nation-state, created when a nation—a peo- ple of common heritage, memories, myths, homeland, and culture; speaking the same language; and/or sharing a particular religious faith—achieves independence as a separate country. Nationality is culturally based in the nation-state, and the country’s raison d’être lies in that cultural identity. The more the people have in common culturally, the more stable and potent is the resultant nationalism. Examples of modern nation-states include Germany, Sweden, Japan, Greece, Armenia, and Finland (Figure 6.16).

Scholars generally trace the nation-state model to Europe and the European settler colonies in the Americas of the late eighteenth century. Political philosophers of the time argued that self-determination—the freedom to rule

one’s own country—was a fundamental right of all peoples. The ideal of self-determination spread, and over the course of the nineteenth century, a globalized system of nearly 100 nation-states emerged. Many of these nation-states, such as Portugal, Holland, and France, ruled overseas territories as colonies of the mother country. Under the European Empire, self-determination did not apply to colonies. How- ever, the United Nations incorporated the principle of national self-determination in its charter in 1945. This prin- ciple was adopted by independence movements in Euro- pean colonies around the globe and led ultimately to decolonization.

Ethnic Separatism Many independent countries—the large majority, in fact— are not nation-states but instead contain multiple national, ethnic, and religious groups within their boundaries. India,

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Figure 6.16 Nation-states, multinational countries, and other types. This classification, as is true of all classifications, is arbitrary and debatable. How would you change it, and why?

SUBJECT TO DEBATE The End of the Nation-State? Globalization presents powerful new challenges to the nation-state’s dominant position in political geography. Undeniably, globalization has redefined the nation-state’s role in regulating cultural, economic, and political life within its territorial boundaries. For instance, some scholars suggest that the increasing mobility of people on a global scale means that the ideal of a culturally homogeneous national identity is less and less attainable. In the economic sphere, production, trade, and finance are organized through transnational networks that operate as if national borders did not exist. Politically, the power of the nation- state is weakened by the rise of global institutions, such as the World Trade Organization, that have the power to penalize countries through trade sanctions.

There is, however, counterevidence that suggests that the nation-state is stronger than ever under globalization. In response to the greater transnational mobility of people, nationalist opposition has grown through so-called nativist movements that seek to staunch the flow of immigrants at their countries’ borders. Although finance and trade

operate through global networks, transnational flows remain constrained and directed by the laws and policies of nation-states. Capital investment remains solidly grounded in the legal and institutional structures of the nation-state. The international pecking order, in place for more than a century, remains intact because globalization has done little to shift the structural inequalities among nation-states.

Globalization’s implications for the continued supremacy of the nation-state are complex and unresolved. Is globalization a new phenomenon operating independently of the nation- state or is it a set of processes structured by an underlying foundation of sovereign countries? Are the territorial barriers erected by nation-states being dissolved or reinforced by globalization? Under what circumstances and for what cultural, economic, or political phenomenon might globalization strengthen or weaken nation-states? Is a major reorganization of the world’s political geography still unfolding, with the consequences of globalization yet to be fully evident? What new forms of political-geographic organization might emerge to supplant the territorial nation-state?

196 Chapter 6 Political Geography

Spain, and South Africa provide examples of older multi- ethnic countries. Figure 6.17 illustrates this point by divid- ing up South Africa linguistically. Many, though not all, multiethnic countries came into being in the second half of the twentieth century. These were former colonies in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia whose boundaries were a product of colonialism. European colonial powers drew political boundaries without regard to the territories of indigenous ethnic or tribal groups. These boundaries remained in place when the countries gained the right of self-determination. Although these states are often cultur- ally diverse, they are sometimes plagued by internal ethnic conflict. What’s more, members of a single, territorially homogeneous ethnic group may find themselves divided among different states by culturally arbitrary interna- tional borders.

Many independent countries function as nation-states because the political power rests in the hands of a domi- nant, nationalistic cultural group, whereas sizable ethnic minority groups reside in the national territory as second- class citizens. This creates a centrifugal force disrupting the

country’s unity. Many of the newest nation-states carved out of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, such as Estonia, Armenia, and Serbia, are relatively linguistically and ethni- cally homogeneous. These states’ cultural homogeneity represents a centripetal force that supports national unity.

Globalization, particularly the establishment of rapid global communications, has encouraged once-isolated and voiceless minority populations to appeal their rights of autonomy and self-determination to the global community beyond their nation-state borders. Ethnic groups and indigenous peoples are cultural minorities living in a state dominated by a culturally distinct majority. Those who inhabit ethnic homelands (see Chapter 5) often seek greater autonomy or even full independence as nation- states (Figure 6.18). Even some old and traditionally stable multinational countries have felt the effects of separatist movements, including Canada and the United Kingdom. Certain other countries discarded the unitary form of gov- ernment and adopted an ethnic-based federalism, in hopes of preserving the territorial boundaries of the state. The expression of ethnic nationalism ranges from public

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displays of cultural identity to organized protests and armed insurgencies. Often the ethnic group or political party in control of the country’s military responds with forced deportations and even attempted genocides (e.g., as in Rwanda in 1994; see Chapter 5). Occasionally, suc- cessful secessions occur, resulting in the birth of a new nation-state.

Francophones in Canada represent a cultural-linguistic minority group seeking secession. Approximately 7 million French-Canadians, concentrated in the province of Québec, form a large part of that country’s total population of 31.6 million. Descended from French colonists who immigrated in the 1600s and 1700s, these Canadians lived under English or Anglo-Canadian rule and domination from 1760 until well into the twentieth century. Even the provincial government of Québec long remained in the hands of the English. A political awakening eventually allowed the French to gain control of their own homeland province, and as a result Québec differs in many respects from the rest of Canada. The laws of Québec retain a pre- dominantly French influence, whereas the remainder of Canada adheres to English common law. French is the pri- mary language of Québec and is heavily favored over Eng- lish in provincial law, education, and government. In several elections, a sizable minority among the French- speaking population favored independence for Québec, and many Anglo-Canadians emigrated from the province. In 1995, more than half of the French-speaking electorate voted for independence, but the non-French minority in the province tipped the vote narrowly in favor of continued union with Canada. More recently, however, the campaign for independence seems to have weakened.

Reflecting on Geography Should Canada split into two independent countries? What would be the advantages and disadvantages for an independent Québec if this split occurred?

On a more general level, one result of unrest and sep- aratist desires is that the international political map reflects a strong linguistic-religious character. Nevertheless, the dis- tribution of cultural groups is so confoundingly compli- cated and peoples are so thoroughly mixed in many regions that ethnographic political boundaries can rarely be drawn to everybody’s satisfaction.

The Cleavage Model Why do so many cultural minorities seek political auton- omy or independence? The cleavage model, originally developed by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan to

explain voting patterns in electoral geography, sheds light on this phenomenon. It proposes to explain persistent regional patterns in voting behavior (which, in extreme cases, can presage separatism) in terms of tensions pitting the national core area against peripheral districts, urban against rural, capitalists against workers, and the dominant culture against minority ethnic cultures. Frequently, these tensions coincide geographically: an urban core area monopolizes wealth and cultural and political power while ethnic minorities, excluded from the power structure, reside in peripheral, largely rural, and less-affluent areas.

The great majority of ethnic separatist movements shown in Figure 6.18, particularly those that have moved beyond unrest to violence or secession, are comprised of peoples living in national peripheries, away from the core area of the country. Every republic that seceded from the defunct, Russian-dominated Soviet Union lay on the bor- ders of that former country. Similarly, the Slovenes and Croats, who withdrew from the former Yugoslavia, occupied border territories peripheral to Serbia, which contained the former national capital of Belgrade. Kurdistan is made up of the peripheral areas of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey—the countries that currently rule the Kurdish lands (Figure 6.19 on page 200). Slovakia, long poorer and more rural than Czechia (The Czech Republic) and remote from the center of power at Prague, became another secessionist ethnic periphery. In a few cases, the secessionist peripheries were actually more prosperous than the political core area, and the separatists resented the confiscation of their taxes to support the less affluent core. Slovenia and Croatia both occupied such a position in the former Yugoslavia.

By distributing power, a federalist government reduces such core-periphery tensions and decreases the appeal of separatist movements. Switzerland, which epitomizes such a country, has been able to join Germans, French, Italians, and speakers of Raeto-Romansh into a single, stable inde- pendent country. Canada developed under Francophone pressure toward a Swiss-type system, extending consider- able self-rule privileges even to the Inuit and Native Amer- ican groups of the north. Russia, too, has adopted a more federalist structure to accommodate the demands of ethnic minorities, and 31 ethnic republics within Russia have achieved considerable autonomy. One of these, Chechnya (called Ichkeria by its inhabitants), has been fighting for independence.

An Example: The Sakha Republic The Sakha Republic (also called Yakutia), in the huge Russ- ian province of Siberia, provides a useful example of rising ethnic demands (Figure 6.20 on page 201). The peripheral

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Ethnic Separation

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republic is enormous, forming one-fifth of Russia’s land area, and is two and a half times the size of Alaska. Roughly 35 percent of its population of 1 million consists of ethnic Sakha, or Yakuts, a people of Turkic origin (see Chapter 4). Russians, who outnumber the Sakha in the republic, are concentrated in 10 urban areas, whereas the Sakha are dominant in the rural/small-town core of the republic.

The demands of the Sakha led to a declaration of “state sovereignty” in 1990. The republic now has its own elected president and parliament, a flag and coat of arms, and a constitution (Figure 6.21 on page 202). It has attained some measure of economic independence from Russia, especially

with regard to authority over mineral rights. The republic can also prohibit nuclear testing on its territory. A survey in 1995 revealed that 72 percent of all ethnic Yakuts felt more loyalty to Sakha than to Russia. Surprisingly, a third of all Russians living in the republic expressed this same loyalty.

The Sakha Republic does not seek independence from Russia. Still, its autonomy represents the embryo of a coun- try. Ongoing Russian emigration from Sakha further com- plicates the matter. It is increasingly difficult, here as elsewhere in the modern world, to determine exactly what an independent country is. Sovereignty is a political term whose meaning has become blurred.

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Political Imprint on Economic Geography The core-periphery economic differences implicit in the cleavage model reveal that the internal spatial arrangement of an independent country influences economic patterns, presenting a cultural interaction of politics and the econ- omy. Moreover, laws differ from one country to another, which affects economic land use. As a result, political boundaries can take on an economic character as well.

For example, the U.S.–Canadian border in the Great Plains crosses an area of environmental and cultural similar- ity. Yet the presence of the border, representing the limits of jurisdiction of two different bodies of law and regulations, fos- tered differences in agricultural practices. In the United States, an act passed in the 1950s encouraged sheep raising by guaranteeing an incentive price for wool. No such law was passed in Canada. Consequently, sheep became far more

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Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, but, so far, independence has eluded them. What might cause so large and populous a nation to fail to achieve independence? (Source: Office of the Geographer, U.S. Department of State.)

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numerous on the American side of the border, whereas Cana- dian farmers devoted more attention to swine (Figure 6.22).

Nature-Culture What is the relationship between politics and the environ- ment? How people use the land and natural resources is profoundly influenced by politics. Whether a particular habitat is conserved or degraded often has much to do with the structures of a country’s land laws, tax codes, and agri- cultural policies. However, increasingly, politics is being defined by changing environmental conditions. National

policies about environmental protection, guerrillas seeking a secure base for their operations, and the natural defense provided for an independent country by a surrounding sea all reveal an intertwining of environment and politics. How governments respond to ecological crises like the loss of biodiversity, pollution, and climate change has become an important political issue. Let’s examine this complex two- way interaction between politics and the environment.

Chain of Explanation When geographers Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield used the term political ecology, they were interested in trying to

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Figure 6.20 The Republic of Sakha, a part of Russia, has achieved considerable autonomy as a result of ethnic considerations. For its location in Russia, see Figure 6.18. What would hinder the republic if it sought full independence? (Source: Jordan and Jordan-Bychkov, 2001: 4.)

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Figure 6.21 Coat of arms of the ethnic Republic of Sakha in Russia. The inscription is bilingual—Sakhan and Russian—and the picture of the horse rider is taken from ancient primitive rock art. Why might this ancient image have been used in the coat of arms of a republic seeking increased autonomy? (Source: Courtesy of the government of the Republic of Sakha.)

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Figure 6.22 The political impact on the economy. Government intervention can be seen in the choice of livestock in the border area between the United States and Canada. Sheep are more numerous than swine on the U.S. side of the boundary, partly because of government-backed price incentives for wool. The map reflects conditions in the 1960s. Since then, the contrast has essentially disappeared. Why might that have happened? (Source: Reitsma, 1971: 220-221; see also Reitsma, 1988.)

understand how political and economic forces affect peo- ple’s relationships to the land. They suggested that focusing on proximate or immediate causes, for example, the farmer dumping pesticides in a river or the poor peasant cutting a patch of tropical forest, provided an inadequate and mislead- ing explanation of human-environment relations. As an alternative, they developed the idea of a “chain of explana- tion” as a method for identifying ultimate causes. The chain of explanation begins with the individual “land managers,”

the people with direct responsibility for land-use decisions— the farmers, timber cutters, firewood gatherers, or livestock keepers. The chain of explanation then moves up in spatial scale, tracing the land mangers’ economic, cultural, and political relationships from the local to the national and, ulti- mately, the global scale.

One of the primary areas addressed by the chain-of- explanation approach is the character of the state, particu- larly the way that national land laws, natural resource policies, tax codes, and credit policies influence land-use decision making. For example, if a state assesses high taxes on land improvements, such as terracing and channeling, its tax policies actually create disincentives for land managers to implement soil conservation measures. Conversely, if a state provides cheap loans to land managers to build such struc- tures, its credit policies encourage soil conservation. There are many examples of state influences on individual land-use decisions, leading Blaikie and Brookfield to argue that one cannot fully explain the causes of environmental problems without analyzing the role of the state.

Geopolitics Spatial variations in politics and the spread of political phe- nomena are often linked to terrain, soils, climate, natural resources, and other aspects of the physical environment. The term geopolitics was originally coined to describe the influence of geography and the environment on political entities. Conversely, established political authority can be a powerful instrument of environmental modification, pro- viding the framework for organized alteration of the land- scape and for environmental protection.

Before modern air and missile warfare, a country’s sur- vival was aided by some sort of natural protection, such as surrounding mountain ranges, deserts, or seas; bordering marshes or dense forests; or outward-facing escarpments. Political geographers named such natural strongholds folk fortresses. The folk fortress might shield an entire country

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or only its core area. In either case, it is a valuable asset. Surrounding seas have helped protect the British Isles from invasion for the past 900 years. In Egypt, desert wastelands to the east and west insulated the fertile, well-watered Nile Valley core. In the same way, Russia’s core area was shielded by dense forests, expansive marshes, bitter winters, and vast expanses of sparsely inhabited lands. France—centered on the plains of the Paris Basin and flanked by mountains and hills such as the Alps, Pyrenees, Ardennes, and Jura along its borders—provides another good example (Figure 6.23).

Expanding countries often regard coastlines as the log- ical limits to their territorial growth, even if those areas belong to other peoples, as the drive across the United States from the East Coast to the Pacific Ocean in the first half of the nineteenth century has made clear. U.S. expan- sion was justified by the doctrine of manifest destiny, which is based on the belief that the Pacific shoreline offered the logical and predestined western border for the country. Underlying the doctrine was a racist ideology of Anglo- Saxon superiority, which held that Native Americans were savages blocking the progress of civilization and the pro- ductive use of the western lands. A similar doctrine led Rus- sia to expand in the directions of the Mediterranean and Baltic seas and the Pacific and Indian oceans.

The Heartland Theory Discussions of environmental influence, manifest destiny, and Russian expansionism lead naturally to the heartland theory of Halford Mackinder. Propounded in the early twentieth century and based on environmental determin- ism, the heartland theory addresses the balance of power in the world and, in particular, the possibility of world con- quest based on natural habitat advantage. It held that the Eurasian continent was the most likely base from which to launch a successful campaign for world conquest.

In examining this huge landmass, Mackinder dis- cerned two environmental regions: the heartland, which lies remote from the ice-free seas, and the rimland, the densely populated coastal fringes of Eurasia in the east, south, and west (Figure 6.24). Far from the sea, the heart- land was invulnerable to the naval power of rimland empires, but the cavalry and infantry of the heartland could spill out through diverse natural gateways and invade the rimland region. Mackinder thus reasoned that a unified heartland power could conquer the maritime countries with relative ease. He believed that the East European Plain would be the likely base for unification. As Russia had already unified this region at the time, Mackinder, in effect, predicted that the Russians would pursue world conquest.

Following Russia’s communist revolution in 1917, the leaders of rimland empires and the United States employed a policy of containment. This policy, in no small measure, found its origin in Mackinder’s theory and resulted in numer- ous wars to contain what was then considered a Russian- inspired conspiracy of communist expansion. Overlooked all the while were the fallacies of the heartland theory, par- ticularly its reliance on the discredited doctrine of environ- mental determinism. In the end, Russia proved unable to hold together its own heartland empire, much less conquer the rimland and the world.

Geopolitics Today In the post–cold war period, geopolitics has reemerged as a dynamic field of political-geographic thought. As geogra- phers Gerard Toal and John Agnew explain, the meaning of political geography is now reversed. Instead of focusing on the influence of geography and the environment on pol- itics, “it now becomes the study of how geography is informed by politics.” By this they mean the ways in which political goals and ideologies, based on preconceived notions of cultural identities, regional stereotypes, and regional development hierarchies, influence the ordering of the world. How does the geopolitical outlook of a state structure the world into places of crisis or stability, regions of opportunity or danger, and states of allies or enemies? Many geographers distinguish this new focus on culture by labeling their approach “critical geopolitics.”

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One of the important aspects of critical geopolitics is a concern with how geopolitics influences our understand- ing of human-environment relations and affects the way we transform the environment. Consider, for example, the cur- rent scientific and policy debates over global climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Worldwide debates must be placed in the historical geopolitical con- text of the global North’s political and economic domina- tion of the global South. From the South’s perspective, according to Simon Dalby, “the North got rich by using fos- sil fuels for generations. Why should those in the South forgo the same possibilities just because they come on the development scene a little later?” According to advocates of the South, the North’s ideas about restricting future emis- sions of greenhouse gases globally will have a disadvanta- geous effect on the South’s economic development. Thus,

questions of global environmental management are not restricted to the realm of science and technology; they also fall squarely in the realm of geopolitics.

Another illustration of how geopolitics influences human-environment relations is seen in the debates con- cerning global biodiversity conservation. Current global conservation policy suggests that the most effective way to save the world’s biodiversity is by creating protected areas such as national parks and reserves. However, Roderick Neumann has demonstrated that these protected areas, whether in the North or the South, were created in the his- torical context of European conquest and colonization. In the British Empire, protected areas were part of a grand economic development strategy to spatially reorder colonies into separate spheres of nature and culture. In the United States, park creation was conducted in the context

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Figure 6.24 Heartland versus rimland in Eurasia. For most of the twentieth century, the heartland, epitomized by the Soviet Union and communism, was seen as a threat to America and the rest of the world, a notion based originally on the environmental deterministic theory of the political geographer Halford Mackinder. Control of the East European Plain would permit

rule of the entire heartland, which in turn would be the territorial base for world conquest. During the cold war (1945–1990), the United States and its rimland allies sought to counter this perceived menace by a policy of containment— resisting every expansionist attempt by the heartland powers. (After Mackinder, 1904; Spykman, 1944.)

of manifest destiny and the removal of Native Americans from their homelands and their placement on reservations. In both cases, the environmental management strategies of native cultures were denigrated as immoral and irrational, providing the justification for discarding local land and resource claims and practices. Today, those who have lost their land to protected areas argue bitterly that they bear the main costs of conservation (Figure 6.25). Thus, as with the case of global climate change, the North-South debates over strategies for global biodiversity conservation fall under the domain of geopolitics.

Warfare and Environmental Destruction Of course, many political actions have an ecological impact, but perhaps none are as devastating as warfare. “Scorched

earth,” the systematic destruction of resources, has been a favored practice of retreating armies for millennia. Even military exercises and tests can be devastating. Certain islands in the Pacific were rendered uninhabitable, perhaps forever, by American hydrogen bomb testing in the 1950s. Actions during the Persian Gulf War of 1991 included an oil spill of 294 million gallons (1.1 billion liters) covering 400 square miles (1000 square kilometers) in the gulf waters, with the attendant loss of flora and fauna; the burn- ing of oil fields; the mass bulldozing of sand by the Iraqis to make defensive berms, with consequent wind erosion and loss of vegetation; and the solid-waste pollution produced by 500,000 coalition forces in the Arabian Desert, including 6 million plastic bags discarded weekly by American forces alone (Figure 6.26).

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Figure 6.25 Two visions of the landscape. Johnson Holy Rock looks out over Bear Butte State Park in the Black Hills near Sturgis, South Dakota. The Oglala Sioux Tribe of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, of which Holy Rock is a member, considers the park area to be sacred ground. What kinds of conflicts arise between conservation goals and indigenous peoples’ rights and how might we resolve them? (Ann Heisenfelt/AP Photo.)

Figure 6.26 A Kuwaiti oil field ablaze during the Persian Gulf War, 1991, gives new meaning to the expression “scorched earth.” Severe ecological damage almost invariably accompanies warfare. Could modern war be waged without such damage? (Noel Quidu/Gamma Liaison.)

Clearly, warfare—especially modern high-tech warfare— is environmentally catastrophic. From an ecological stand- point, it does not matter who started or won a war. Everyone loses when such destruction occurs, given the global intercon- nectedness of the life-supporting ecosystem.

Cultural Landscape How does politics influence landscape? How are land- scapes politicized? The world over, national politics is lit- erally written on the landscape. State-driven initiatives for frontier settlement, economic development, and territo- rial control have profound effects on the landscape. Con- versely, political writers and politicians look to landscape as a source of imagery to support or discredit political ideologies.

Imprint of the Legal Code Many laws affect the cultural landscape. Among the most noticeable are those that regulate the land-survey system because they often require that land be divided into specific geometric patterns. As a result, political boundaries can become highly visible (Figure 6.27). In Canada, the laws of the French-speaking province of Québec encourage land survey in long, narrow parcels, but most English-speaking

provinces, such as Ontario, use a rectangular system. Thus, the political border between Québec and Ontario can be spotted easily from the air.

Legal imprints can also be seen in the cultural land- scape of urban areas. In Rio de Janeiro, height restrictions on buildings have been enforced for a long time. The result is a waterfront lined with buildings of uniform height (Fig- ure 6.28). By contrast, most American cities have no height restrictions, allowing skyscrapers to dominate the central city. The consequence is a jagged skyline for cities such as San Francisco or New York City. Many other cities around the world lack height restrictions, such as Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur, which has the world’s tallest skyscrapers.

Perhaps the best example of how political philosophy and the legal code are written on the landscape is the so- called township and range system of the United States. The system is the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson—an early U.S. president and one of the authors of the U.S. Constitution— who chaired a national committee on land surveying that resulted in the U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785. Jefferson’s ideas for surveying, distributing, and settling the western frontier lands as they were cleared of Native Americans were based on a political philosophy of “agrarian democ- racy.” Jefferson believed that political democracy had to be founded on economic democracy, which in turn required a national pattern of equitable land ownership by small- scale independent farmers. In order to achieve this agrar- ian democracy, the western lands would need to be surveyed into parcels that could then be sold at prices within reach of family farmers of modest means.

Jefferson’s solution was the township and range sys- tem, which established a grid of square-shaped “townships” with 6-mile (9.6-kilometer) sides across the Midwest and West. Each of these was then divided into 36 sections of 1 square mile (2.6 square kilometers), which were in turn divided into quarter-sections, and so on. Sections were to be the basic landholding unit for a class of independent farmers. Townships were to provide the structure for self- governing communities responsible for public schools, policing, and tax collection. With the exception of the 13 original colonies and a few other states or portions of states, a gridlike landscape was imposed on the entire country as a result of Jefferson’s political philosophy and accompany- ing land-survey system (Figure 6.29).

Physical Properties of Boundaries Demarcated political boundaries can also be strikingly visi- ble, forming border landscapes. Political borders are usu- ally most visible where restrictions limit the movement of people between neighboring countries. Sometimes such boundaries are even lined with cleared strips, barriers, pill- boxes, tank traps, and other obvious defensive installations.

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Figure 6.27 Can you find the U.S.–Mexico border in this picture? The scene is near Mexicali, the capital of Baja California Norte. Why does the cultural landscape so vividly reveal the political border? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

At the opposite end of the spectrum are international bor- ders, such as that between Tanzania and Kenya in East Africa, that are unfortified, thinly policed, and in many places very nearly invisible. Even so, undefended borders of this type are usually marked by regularly spaced boundary pillars or cairns, customhouses, and guardhouses at cross- ing points (Figure 6.30).

The visible aspect of international borders is surpris- ingly durable, sometimes persisting centuries or even mil- lennia after the boundary becomes obsolete. Ruins of boundary defenses, some dating from ancient times, are common in certain areas. The Great Wall of China is prob- ably the best-known reminder of past boundaries (Figure 6.31). Hadrian’s Wall in England, which marks the north- ern border during one stage of Roman occupation and par- allels the modern border between England and Scotland, is a similar reminder.

A quite different type of boundary, marking the territo- rial limits of urban street gangs, is evident in the central areas of many American cities. The principal device used by these gangs to mark their turf is spray-paint graffiti. Geogra- phers David Ley and Roman Cybriwsky studied this phe- nomenon in Philadelphia. They found borders marked by externally directed, aggressive epithets, taunts, and obscen- ities placed there to warn neighboring gangs. A street gang of white youths, for example, plastered its border with an African-American gang’s neighborhood with slogans such as “White Power” and “Do Not Enter [District] 21-W, ______.”

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Figure 6.28 Legal height restrictions, or their absence, can greatly influence urban landscapes. Singapore (left), the city-state at the tip of the Malay Peninsula, lacks such restrictions, and spectacular skyscrapers punctuate its skyline. In Rio de Janeiro

Figure 6.29 Imposing order on the land. This aerial view of Canyon County, Idaho, farmland reveals a landscape grid pattern. This pattern was imposed on the landscape across much of the United States following the passage of the 1785 Land Ordinance. (David Frazier/Image Works.)

(above), by contrast, height restrictions allow the natural environment to provide the “high-rises.” (Left: Alamy; Right: Martin Wendler/Peter Arnold, Inc.)

The gang’s core area, its “home corner,” contains internally supportive graffiti, such as “Fairmount Rules” or a roster of gang members. Thus, a perceptive observer can map gang territories on the basis of these political landscape features.

The Impress of Central Authority Attempts to impose centralized government appear in many facets of the landscape. Railroad and highway pat- terns focused on the national core area, and radiating out- ward like the spokes of a wheel to reach the hinterlands of the country, provide good indicators of central authority. In

Germany, the rail network developed largely before unifi- cation of the country in 1871. As a result, no focal point stands out. However, the superhighway system of auto- bahns, encouraged by Hitler as a symbol of national unity and power, tied the various parts of the Reich to such focal points as Berlin or the Ruhr industrial district.

The visibility of provincial borders within a country also reflects the central government’s strength and stability. Sta- ble, secure countries, such as the United States, often per- mit considerable display of provincial borders. Displays aside, such borders are easily crossed. Most state bound- aries within the United States are marked with signboards

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Figure 6.30 Even peaceful, unpoliced international borders often appear vividly in the landscape. Sweden and Norway insist on cutting a swath through the forest to mark their common boundary. Why would they do this? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 6.31 The Great Wall of China is probably the most spectacular political landscape feature ever created. The wall, which is 1500 miles (2400 kilometers) long, was constructed over many centuries by the Chinese in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to protect their northern boundary from adjacent tribes of nomadic herders. Can you think of comparable modern structures? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

or other features announcing the crossing. By contrast, unstable countries, where separatism threatens national unity, often suppress such visible signs of provincial bor- ders. Also in contrast, such “invisible” borders may be exceedingly difficult to cross when a separatist effort involves armed conflict.

Reflecting on Geography What visible imprints of the Washington, D.C.–based central government can be seen in the political landscape of the United States?

National Iconography on the Landscape The cultural landscape is rich in symbolism and visual metaphor, and political messages are often conveyed through such means. Statues of national heroes or heroines and of symbolic figures such as the goddess Liberty or Mother Russia form important parts of the political land- scape, as do assorted monuments (Figure 6.32). The elab- orate use of national colors can be visually very powerful as well. Landscape symbols such as the Rising Sun flag of Japan, the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, and the Latvian independence pillar in Riga (which stood untouched throughout half a century of Russian-Soviet rule) evoke deep patriotic emotions. The sites of heroic (if often futile) resistance against invaders, as at Masada in Israel, prompt similar feelings of nationalism.

Some geographers theorize that the political iconogra- phy of landscape derives from an elite, dominant group in a country’s population and that its purpose is to legitimize or justify its power and control over an area. The dominant group seeks both to rally emotional support and to arouse fear in potential or real enemies. As a result, the icono- graphic political landscape is often controversial or con- tested, representing only one side of an issue. Look again at Figure 6.32. The area in which Mount Rushmore stands, the Black Hills, is sacred to the Native Americans who con- trolled the land before whites seized it. How might these Native Americans, the Lakota Sioux, perceive this monu- ment? Are any other political biases contained in it? Cul- tural landscapes are always complicated and subject to differing interpretations and meanings, and political land- scapes are no exception.

Cultural geographic studies of the political iconogra- phy of landscape have greatly enriched our understanding of political geography. Stephen Daniels, for example, demonstrated the importance of woodland landscapes for “naturalizing” ideas about the political and social order in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century England. Oak woodlands were imagined to embody the traditional conservative values associated with the economic and polit- ical dominance of the landed aristocracy. Newly planted coniferous woodlands of pine and fir were seen as a threat to the traditional order and a sign of the disruptive influ- ence of the emerging class of industrial capitalists. Thus,

Cultural Landscape 209

Figure 6.32 Mount Rushmore, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, presents a highly visible expression of American nationalism, an element of the political landscape. If political landscapes are created by an elite, in an effort to legitimize and justify their control over territory, then who might disapprove of this monument? (Brownie Harris/The Stock Market.)

debates over competing political ideologies were blended with debates over competing landscape aesthetics.

In a more contemporary study, geographer Gail Hol- lander has demonstrated the important symbolic role that the landscape and environment of the Florida Everglades have played in U.S. presidential elections. The symbolic role of the Everglades changed over time, from the 1928 to the 2004 presidential campaigns. In 1928, it was presented as worthless swampland. As such, it played a key role in the election of Herbert Hoover, who promised to drain it for agricultural development. By the 1970s, it was seen as an endangered wetland in need of protection and ecological restoration. Thus, in the 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns, the candidates’ positions on the Everglades were seen as indicators of their commitment to the environ- ment. When George W. Bush posed with pruning shears in the Everglades in May 2004, it offered him a chance to sym- bolically link his presidential campaign to the ecological restoration of what has come to be viewed as a national trea- sure (Figure 6.33).

Conclusion Political spatial variations—from local voting patterns to the spatial arrangement of international power blocs—add yet another dimension to the complex human mosaic. In particular, nation-states operate as vital functional regions, which help shape many aspects of culture. Regions con- stantly change as political innovations ebb and flow across their surfaces. Political phenomena as varied as the nation-

state, separatist movements, women’s suffrage, and the ter- ritorial expansion of countries move along the paths of dif- fusion. Globalization interacts with political geography in complex and even contradictory ways. The forces of glob- alization have strengthened some features of the nation- state and weakened others.

Nature-culture relations are important to political geography, and the tools of political ecology help us under- stand the links between systems of power and the physical environment. Countries do not exist in an environmental vacuum. The spatial patterns of landforms often find reflec- tion in boundaries, core areas, folk fortresses, and geo- political strategies. Likewise, political culture very much influences our ideas and judgments about landscape and environment. Finally, politics leaves diverse imprints on the cultural landscape, and landscapes often provide the sym- bolism and visual metaphors to support or refute political ideologies. Political geography is clearly important to understanding the human mosaic.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

The Complex Geography of Congressional Redistricting Congressional redistricting normally happens every 10 years in the United States, following each national census. In some cases, such as Texas in 2002, redistricting occurs between censuses. Although soon proved wrong, newspaper accounts at the time predicted that Texas’s midcensus redistricting would protect the Republican Party’s majority

210 Chapter 6 Political Geography

Figure 6.33 President Bush visits Everglades National Park in Florida. Such visits to iconic national parks and protected landscapes are common in U.S. political campaigns and are meant to symbolize a candidate’s commitment to protecting the environment. (Joe Raedle/Getty News.)

in the U.S. Congress for the foreseeable future. Does this midcensus redistricting fall under the category of Republican gerrymandering, as some claim, or is it, as the Texas Republican Party argues, a case of necessary adjustments in response to population shifts? Either way, the case of Texas demonstrates how critically important the drawing of congressional district boundaries is to democratic governance.

Your assignment in this exercise is to try to identify cases of possible gerrymandering in your home state or an adjacent state. The first thing you will need to do is obtain a map of congressional district boundaries in your chosen state. Once you have done so, see if you can visually identify districts that may have been gerrymandered. Figure 6.7 and the discussion on page 185 should be helpful to you in identifying such districts.

Having identified your candidate(s) for gerrymandering, address the following questions. First, what was it about the configuration of the boundaries that made you think the district(s) may have been gerrymandered? When were the boundaries drawn? Can you identify which of the major political parties was in power when the boundaries were drawn? Which party do these boundaries favor and why? That is, what are the racial, economic, religious, and ethnic characteristics of the district(s) that may suggest a particular party affiliation? Finally, look at the proportion of major party registration in nearby districts to see if you can determine whether the boundary lines were drawn in order to dilute or to concentrate opposition votes.

Political Geography on the Internet You can learn more about political geography on the Internet at the following web sites:

European Union http://www.europa.eu.int Here you can find information about the 27-member suprana- tional organization that is, increasingly, reshaping the internal political geography of Europe.

International Boundary News Archive http://www-ibru.dur.ac.uk/resources/newsarchive.html This database contains more than 10,000 boundary-related reports from a wide range of news sources around the world dating from 1991 to March 2001 with additional reports from 2006 onward.

International Geographical Union (IGU): Commission on Political Geography http://www.cla.sc.edu/geog/wpm/ The objective of the commission is to study the main theoretical issues of political geography, including questions of the rise and fall of empires, the emergence of new geopolitical models, and contemporary challenges to the state. The site features the com- mission’s newsletters.

Political Geography Specialty Group, Association of American Geographers http://www.politicalgeography.org/ This site provides details about the activities and meetings of spe- cialists in political geography and includes useful links to other sites featuring political geography and geopolitics.

United Nations http://www.un.org Search the worldwide organization with a membership that includes the large majority of independent countries. The site contains politically diverse information about such ventures as peacekeeping and conflict resolution.

Sources Agnew, John. 1998. Geopolitics: Re-Visioning World Politics. London:

Routledge. Agnew, John. 2002. Making Political Geography. London: Arnold. Blaikie, Piers, and Harold Brookfield. 1987. Land Degradation and

Society. London: Methuen. Blouet, Brian W. 1987. Halford Mackinder: A Biography. College Sta-

tion: Texas A&M University Press. Dalby, Simon. 2002. “Environmental Governance,” in R. Johnston,

P. Taylor, and M. Watts (eds.), Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World. London: Routledge, 427–440.

Daniels, Stephen. 1988. “The Political Iconography of Woodland in Later Georgian England,” in D. Cosgrove and S. Daniels (eds.), The Iconography of Landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 43–82

Elazar, Daniel J. 1994. The American Mosaic: The Impact of Space, Time, and Culture on American Politics. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press.

Gastner, M., C. Shalizi, and M. Newman. 2004. “Maps and Car- tograms of the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Results,” Univer- sity of Michigan Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems.

Hollander, Gail. 2005. “The Material and Symbolic Role of the Everglades in National Politics.” Political Geography 24(4): 449–475.

Jones, Martin, and Rhys Jones. 2004. “Nation States, Ideological Power and Globalization: Can Geographers Catch the Boat? Geoforum 35: 409–424.

Jordan, Bella Bychkova, and Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov. 2001. Siber- ian Village: Land and Life in the Sakha Republic. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Jordan-Bychkov, Terry G., and Bella Bychkova Jordan. 2002. The European Culture Area: A Systematic Geography, 4th ed., Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, Chapter 7.

Lean, Geoffrey, et al. 1990. Atlas of the Environment. New York: Prentice-Hall.

Ley, David, and Roman Cybriwsky. 1974. “Urban Graffiti as Terri- torial Markers.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 64: 491–505.

Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Stein Rokkan (eds.). 1967. Party Sys- tems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Free Press.

Mackinder, Halford J. 1904. “The Geographical Pivot of History.” Geographical Journal 23: 421–437.

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Mitchell, Katharyne. 1998. “Fast Capital, Race, and the Monster House,” in R. George (ed.), Burning Down the House: Recycling Domesticity. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 187–212.

Mitchell, Katharyne. 2002. “Cultural Geographies of Transnation- ality,” in K. Anderson, M. Domosh, S. Pile, and N. Thrift (eds.), Handbook of Cultural Geography. London: Sage, 74–87.

Morrill, Richard L. 1981. Political Redistricting and Geographic The- ory. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers, Resource Publications.

Neumann, Roderick P. 1995. “Local Challenges to Global Agen- das: Conservation, Economic Liberalization, and the Pastoral- ists’ Rights Movement in Tanzania.” Antipode 27(4): 363–382.

Neumann, Roderick P. 2002. “The Postwar Conservation Boom in British Colonial Africa.” Environmental History 7(1): 22–47.

Neumann, Roderick P. 2004. “Nature-State-Territory: Toward a Critical Theorization of Conservation Enclosures,” in R. Peet and M. Watts (eds.), Liberation Ecologies, 2nd ed. London: Rout- ledge, 195–217.

Oldale, John. 1990. “Government-Sanctioned Murder.” Geograph- ical Magazine 62: 20–21.

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SEEING GEOGRAPHY Post–9/11 Security Fences

The question is more politically charged than it may seem at first. It is vehemently debated, and the side of the border from which one is observing greatly influences the answer. “Fence” suggests neighborliness; “wall” suggests isolation and repression. The two governments responsible for the structures, Israel and the United States, both argue that these are fences, which increase security for citizens on both sides. The U.S. Congress passed the Secure Fence Act following the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade

Center and the Pentagon. The act authorized the expenditure of more than $1 billion to build a 700-mile (1126-kilometer) fence on the U.S. border with Mexico to improve “homeland security.” Critics argue that it is really a wall meant to stop the across-the-border flow of undocumented workers from Mexico and Central America and that there is little hope of it stopping terrorists from entering the United States. They also note that the three coastlines and the border with Canada remain without similar barriers.

The case of the barrier between Israeli and Arab- Palestinian lands is even more hotly disputed. In 2004, the Israeli government began building a physical barrier between its territory and that controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that the “antiterrorist fence” is an act of self-defense against terrorists entering from Palestinian-ruled lands, such as the Gaza Strip. They also note that only 3 percent of the barrier is a concrete wall, whereas the remainder is a chain- link fence. The Palestinian Authority counters that the “wall” violates civil and human rights by cutting off communities’ access to schools, workplaces, and families. The International Court of Justice seems to support the Palestinian position, ruling that construction of “the wall” is contrary to international law. Whichever side of the fence you come down on, these barriers are powerful reminders of the continuing relevance of international borders.

The boundary between Israeli and Arab-Palestinian lands and the U.S.–Mexico border.

O’Reilly, Kathleen, and Gerald R. Webster. 1998. “A Sociodemo- graphic and Partisan Analysis of Voting in Three Anti-Gay Rights Referenda in Oregon.” Professional Geographer 50: 498–515.

Ó Tuathail, Gearóid. 1996. Critical Geopolitics. Minneapolis: Uni- versity of Minnesota Press.

Paulin, C., and John K. Wright. 1932. Atlas of the Historical Geogra- phy of the United States. New York: American Geographical Soci- ety and the Carnegie Institute.

Reitsma, Hendrik J. 1971. “Crop and Livestock Production in the Vicinity of the United States–Canada Border.” Professional Geo- grapher 23: 216–223.

Reitsma, Hendrik J. 1988. “Agricultural Changes in the Ameri- can–Canadian Border Zone, 1954–1978.” Political Geography Quarterly 7: 23–38.

Rumley, Dennis, and Julian V. Minghi (eds.). 1991. The Geography of Border Landscapes. London: Routledge.

Sack, Robert D. 1986. Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History. Studies in Historical Geography, No. 7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Are these border fences or walls?

Smith, Dan. 1992. “The Sixth Boomerang: Conflict and War,” in Susan George (ed.), The Debt Boomerang. London: Pluto Press.

Smith, Dan, et al. 1997. The State of War and Peace Atlas, 3rd ed. New York: Penguin.

Smith, Graham. 1999. “Russia, Geopolitical Shifts and the New Eurasianism.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24: 481–500.

Spykman, Nicholas J. 1944. The Geography of the Peace. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Toal, Gerard, and John Agnew. 2002. “Introduction: Political Geo- graphies, Geopolitics and Culture,” in K. Anderson, M. Domosh, S. Pile, and N. Thrift (eds.), Handbook of Cultural Geography. London: Sage, 455–461.

Vanderbei, R. J. 2004. “Election 2004 Results.” Available online at www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/.

Ten Recommended Books on Political Geography (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Agnew, John. 1998. Geopolitics: Re-Visioning World Politics. London: Routledge. A leading political geographer critically examines the historical European perspective on world politics and shows how that vision of world order continues to influence geopolitical thinking.

Agnew, John. 2002. Making Political Geography. London: Arnold. This book provides an excellent overview of the field of politi- cal geography, highlighting the contributions of key thinkers from the nineteenth century to the present.

Dalby, Simon, and Gearóid Ó Tuathail (eds.). 1998. Rethinking Geopolitics. London: Routledge. Fifteen contributors to this postmodernist collection address questions of political identity and popular culture, state violence and genocide, militarism, gender and resistance, cyberwar, and the mass media. They suggest that political geography needs to be reconceptualized for the twenty-first century.

Herb, Guntram H., and David H. Kaplan (eds.). 1999. Nested Iden- tities: Nationalism, Territory, and Scale. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. This collection of essays by 14 leading political geog- raphers focuses on the geographical issue of territoriality using case studies of troubled countries and regions at different scales.

Hooson, David (ed.). 1994. Geography and National Identity. Oxford: Blackwell. Essays examine the connection between identity and homeland in a wide variety of settings and argue that the globalization of culture has strengthened the bonds between place and identity.

O’Loughlin, John (ed.). 1994. Dictionary of Geopolitics. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. A basic reference book on political geography.

Olwig, Kenneth. 2002. Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic: From Britain’s Renaissance to America’s New World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. This is an impressively researched histori- cal study of the importance of landscape in shaping the ideas of nation and national identity in England and the United States.

Shelley, Fred M., J. Clark Archer, Fiona M. Davidson, and Stanley D. Brunn. 1996. Political Geography of the United States. New York: Guilford Press. A historical survey of the role of U.S. regional- ism in shaping the American political system.

Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1991. Geopolitics and Geoculture: Essays on the Changing World-System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. A collection of Wallerstein’s essays that link the collapse of the Soviet Union to the end of U.S. hegemony around the world.

Williams, Colin H. (ed.). 1993. The Political Geography of the New World Order. London: Belhaven. A collection of essays that explore the geopolitical consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rising importance of Europe and Japan.

Political-Geographical Journals Geopolitics. This journal explores contemporary geopolitics and

geopolitical change with particular reference to territorial problems and issues of state sovereignty. Published by Frank Cass. Volume 1 appeared in 1996.

Political Geography. This is a journal devoted exclusively to political geography. Formerly titled Political Geography Quarterly, the journal changed its name in 1992. Published by Elsevier. Vol- ume 1 appeared in 1982.

Space and Polity. This journal is dedicated to understanding the changing relationships between the state and regional/local forms of governance. It highlights the work of scholars whose research interests lie in studying the relationships among space, place, and politics. Published by Carfax Publishing. Vol- ume 1 appeared in 1997.

Answers Figure 6.3 A, Armenia; B, Azerbaijan; C, Iran; a, Nagorno- Karabakh; b, the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic; c, the Okhair Eskipara enclave; d, Sofulu enclave; e, Kyarki enclave; f, Bashkend enclave.

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How can an ordinary landscape, such as a parking lot, become a sacred space?

7 The Geography of Religion

Spaces and Places of Sacredness

Parking lot shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Self-Help Graphics and Art, East Los Angeles. (Courtesy of Patricia L. Price.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 252 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

215

Religion is a core component of culture, lending vivid hues to the humanmosaic. For many, religion is the most profoundly felt dimension of their iden-tities. For this reason it is important to clearly state what is meant by the term and provide a sense of the many ways that religion can be manifest in people’s lives. Religion can be defined as a relatively structured set of beliefs and practices through which people seek mental and physical harmony with the powers of the universe. The rituals of religion provide milestones along the course of our lives—birth, puberty, marriage, having children, and death—that are observed and celebrated. Religions often attempt not only to accommodate but also to influence the awesome forces of nature, life, and death. Religions help people make sense of their place in the world. In literal terms, the word religion—derived from the Latin religare—means “to fasten loose parts into a coherent whole.”

But religion goes beyond a merely pragmatic set of rules for dealing with life’s joys and sorrows. Most religions incorporate a sense of the supernatural that can be manifest in the concept of a God or gods who play a role in shaping human existence, in the notion of an afterlife that may involve a place of rest (or torment) for those who have died, or ideas of a soul that exists apart from our physical bodies and which may be released, or even born again, once we have died. This sense of the other- worldly is often spatially demarcated through the designation of sacred spaces, such as cemeteries, religious buildings, and sites of encounters with the supernatural.

In addition, religion is often at the heart of how people with very different world- views can come to understand one another. So, on the one hand, the conquest of the Americas by the Iberians (people of modern-day Spain and Portugal) was often a vio- lent affair, whereby the religious conversion of indigenous peoples to Christianity accompanied the political takeover. Temples were destroyed and coercion was often used to convert the natives to Christianity. On the other hand, the Virgin of Guadalupe, who appeared to the indigenous Mexican convert Juan Diego in 1531— only 10 years after Cortes’s conquest of Mexico—is believed to be one of the most powerfully healing figures in the Americas to this day. Her portrait is a mixture of European and indigenous American symbols (Figure 7.1). In her kind manner of speaking to Juan Diego in Nahuatl (an indigenous language spoken by central Mexicans) and her resemblance to the earth goddess Tonantzín, she made sense to native Mexicans. For the Spaniards, dark-skinned Virgins had long been part of their

216 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

religious symbolism. In the midst of the violence of con- quest, then, the Virgin of Guadalupe provided a mother fig- ure that was readily acceptable to native Mexicans, was familiar to Spaniards, and acted as a bridge by which people from these two very different cultures could understand one another.

Each of the world’s major religions is organized accord- ing to more or less standardized practices and beliefs, and each is practiced in a similar fashion by millions, even bil- lions, of adherents worldwide. Yet many people also express their religious faith in individual ways. Rituals and prayers can be adapted to fit particular circumstances or performed at home alone. Some religions, including the Taoic religions of East Asia, as well as Hinduism and Buddhism, are largely individual or family-oriented practices. Some people do not observe a widely recognized religion at all. They may be sec- ular, holding no religious beliefs, or express skepticism— even hostility—toward organized religion. They may consider themselves to be faithful but not follow an orga- nized expression of their beliefs. Or they may practice an unconventional belief system, or cult. The term cult is often

used in a pejorative sense because it conjures images of mind control, mass suicide, and extreme veneration of a human leader. It is important to keep in mind that the practitioners of belief systems falling outside of the mainstream—for example, Mormonism, Scientology, and even Alcoholics Anonymous—strongly object to being labeled cult members.

Different types of religion exist in the world. One way to classify them is to distinguish between proselytic and ethnic faiths. Proselytic religions, such as Christianity and Islam, actively seek new members and aim to convert all humankind. For this reason, they are sometimes also referred to as universalizing religions. They instruct their faithful to spread the Word to all the Earth using persua- sion and sometimes violence to convert the “heathen.” The colonization of peoples and their lands is sometimes a result of the desire to convert them to the conqueror’s religion. By contrast, each ethnic religion is identified with a particular ethnic or tribal group and does not seek converts. Judaism provides an example. At its most basic, a Jew is anyone born of a Jewish mother. Though a per- son can convert to Judaism, it is a complex process that

Figure 7.1 The Virgin of Guadalupe. This is the image that appeared to Juan Diego. As he opened his cape in the presence of Bishop Zumárraga of Mexico City, roses of Castille (a powerful symbol to Spaniards) fell onto the floor and this image was left behind. The Virgin’s downcast gaze and dark features spoke to Mexican Indians, as did the red belt about her waist, which indicates that she is pregnant. (Mark Lennihan/AP Photo.)

has traditionally been discouraged. Proselytic religions sometimes grow out of ethnic religions—the evolution of Christianity from its parent Judaism is a good example.

Another distinction among religions is the number of gods worshipped. Monotheistic religions, such as Islam and Christianity, believe in only one God and may expressly for- bid the worship of other gods or spirits. Polytheistic religions believe there are many gods. For example, Vodun (also spelled Voudou in Haiti or Voodoo in the southern United States) is a West African religious tradition with adaptations in the Americas wherever the enslavement of Africans was once practiced. Though, as with most major religions, there is one supreme God, it is the hundreds of spirits, or iwa, that Vodun adherents turn to in times of need. Some of the better-known spirits in the Haitian Voudou tradition are Danbala Wedo, the peaceful snake- god who brings rain and fertility; Legba, the keeper of cross- roads and doorways who is invoked at the beginning of all rituals; and Ezili Danto, the protective mother figure por- trayed as a dark-skinned country woman.

Finally, the distinction between syncretism and ortho- doxy is important. Syncretic religions combine elements of

two or more different belief systems. Umbanda, a religion practiced in parts of Brazil, blends elements of Catholicism with a reverence for the souls of Indians, wise men, and his- torical Brazilian figures, along with a dash of nineteenth- century European spiritism, which is a set of beliefs about contacting spirits through mediums. Caribbean and Latin American religious practices often combine elements of European, African, and indigenous American religions. Sometimes, in order to continue practicing their religions, people in this region would hide statues of Afrocentric deities within images of Catholic saints. Or they would determine which Catholic figures were most like their own deities. Note in Figure 7.2 the equation of Danbala, the snake-god of Haitian Voudou, with Saint Patrick, who is also associated with snakes. Orthodox religions, by contrast, emphasize purity of faith and are generally not open to blending with elements of other belief systems. The word orthodoxy comes from Greek and literally means “right” (ortho) “teaching” (doxy). Many religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam, have orthodox strains. So, for instance, although some orthodox Jews closely follow a strict interpretation of the Oral Torah (a

Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion 217

Figure 7.2 Danbala and Saint Patrick. Danbala in Haitian Voudou is parallel to the Catholic Saint Patrick; both are associated with snakes. (Left: Pierre Fugère Cherismè, Fonde-des-Negres, Haiti/Courtesy of Aid to Artisans, Inc.; Right: Mary Evans Picture Library.)

218 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Religious Fundamentalism Throughout history, religions have been one of the main ways in which people have attempted to make sense of the changing world around them. Although we may associate globalization with the fast pace and seemingly shrinking world of the past 30 years or so, people from diverse cultures have in fact been in contact across the globe for thousands of years. So how have religions helped people to cope with the changes brought by new ideas, new ways of doing things, and new belief systems?

One response is acceptance. The Muslim conquest of Iberia in the eighth century brought a centuries-long flourishing of culture to modern-day Spain and Portugal. Islamic rule here was noted for its humane and enlightened nature, whereas the rest of western Europe languished in the Dark Ages. The Muslims who ruled Iberia were renowned for their religious tolerance, and they included Jews and Christians as valued members of their governmental, scientific, and artistic communities.

Another response is intolerance. When Buddhism branched off from Hinduism, its parent religion, not all Hindus were pleased at the way Buddhism replaced Hinduism in some areas. Angkor Wat (see Figure 12.12), a temple complex in Cambodia, is replete with bas-relief carvings of Buddha figures with their faces either entirely chipped off or recarved to resemble Hindu deities. Hindus intolerant of the Khmer King Jayavarman VII’s Buddhist beliefs were responsible for defacing these sacred images on the king’s death in A.D. 1220.

Today, many religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam, are experiencing intense fundamentalist movements. Fundamentalism means a return to the founding principles of a religion, which may include a literal interpretation of sacred texts and an attempt to follow the ways of a religious founder as closely as possible. Fundamentalists draw a sharp distinction between themselves and other practitioners of their religion, whom they do not believe to be following the proper religious principles, and between themselves and adherents of other faiths. Fundamentalism can be seen as an attempt to purify religious belief and practice in the face of modern influences that are thought to debase the religion. These tendencies have led to fundamentalists being regarded as antimodern

and intolerant, although this view is strongly disputed by fundamentalists themselves.

Fundamentalism is an emotionally charged term because it is often used to portray its followers derogatorily as radical extremists. The tendency of the U.S. media to use the term Islamic fundamentalists as a synonym for terrorists is an unfortunate example of this. Yet there are connections between politics and religious fundamentalism. The political agenda of the U.S. government on matters of abortion, adoption, marriage, foreign policy, domestic security, gay rights, and the curriculum in public schools has become notably influenced by politically conservative religious groups. Although not all of these groups are entirely fundamentalist in nature, many embrace fundamentalist Christian beliefs that espouse creationism and the sinfulness of homosexuality, and question the separation of church and state. Islamism, a political ideology based in conservative Muslim fundamentalism, holds that Islam provides the political basis for running the state. Similar to the influence of Christian fundamentalism, Islamist influences in several Muslim-majority countries have set a conservative social agenda and have strongly questioned the separation of church and state.

Is violence a necessary corollary to religious fundamentalism? No. In fact, most religious doctrines preach peace, not violence. Unfortunately, however, religion and violence have had a close historical association, one that in most cases is the result of broader conflicts being channeled through religion. From the Hindu backlash against Buddhism in thirteenth-century Cambodia to the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the bombings of dozens of abortion clinics in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, and the Al- Qaeda–led assault on the World Trade Center in 2001, fundamentalism, intolerance, and violence have too often been the response to the threats perceived in increasing globalization.

What role is played by the media in creating the perception—or inciting the practice—of religious antagonism? The next time you watch the nightly news broadcast or read a newspaper, keep this question in mind.

specific version of the Jewish holy book), moderate but observant Jews may observe only some or perhaps none of the dietary, marriage, and worship proscriptions observed by orthodox Jews. Intolerance of other religions, or of those

fellow believers not seeming to follow the “proper” ways, is associated with fundamentalism rather than orthodoxy. Many who consider themselves orthodox are in fact quite tolerant of other beliefs (see Subject to Debate).

Region 219

The importance of religion to the contemporary study of cultural geography will be explored through our five themes. First, religious beliefs differ from one place to another, producing spatial variations that can be mapped as culture regions. Second, a high degree of mobility is characteristic of religions as they have spread historically through conquest, trade, and missionary activity. Violent conquests, diasporas, and the geographic expansion of reli- gions through conversion have all played a role in shaping the contemporary world map of religious belief. Pilgrim- ages, too, illustrate how people can literally be set in motion through religion. Third, the global spread of religious beliefs has led to the reach of some religions, such as Hinduism, beyond their traditional hearths, whereas other religions, such as Judaism, have become diluted in part through migration-related diffusion. Religions, like all ele- ments of cultural geography, must either adapt, or not, to the globalizing world. But religions influence globalization as well; here we will consider the faith-based dimensions of the Internet. Fourth, the natural environment frequently plays an important part in faith-based belief structures, either because the forces of nature are viewed as potentially negotiable or because features of the natural landscape, such as rivers and mountains, are thought to exert a power- ful influence over human destinies. Thus, the nature- culture dimension of religion is a key aspect of its cultural geography. Fifth, and finally, religious beliefs are often visi- ble on the cultural landscape. For example, religious archi- tecture, such as mosques, temples, and shrines, literally marks the landscape with the imprint of particular religious beliefs. How the spiritual shaping of some spaces as sacred comes about is an important statement about what, and who, matters, culturally speaking.

Region What is the spatial patterning of religious faiths? Because religion, like all of culture, has a strong territorial tie, reli- gious culture regions abound. The most basic kind of for- mal religious culture region depicts the spatial distribution of organized religions (Figure 7.3). Some parts of the world exhibit an exceedingly complicated pattern of religious adherence, and the boundaries of formal religious culture regions, like most cultural borders, are rarely sharp (Figure 7.4 on page 222). Persons of different faiths often live in the same province or town.

Judaism Judaism is a 4000-year-old religion and the first major monotheistic faith to arise in southwestern Asia. It is the par- ent religion of Christianity and is also closely related to Islam.

Jews believe in one God who created humankind for the pur- pose of bestowing kindness on them. As with Islam and Christianity, people are rewarded for their faith, are pun- ished for violating God’s commandments, and can atone for their sins. The Jewish holy book, or Torah, comprises the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. In contrast to the other monotheistic faiths, Judaism is not proselytic and has remained an ethnic religion through most of its existence.

Judaism has split into a variety of subgroups, partly as a result of the Diaspora, a term that refers to the forced dis- persal of the Jews from Palestine in Roman times and the subsequent loss of contact among the various colonies. Jews, scattered to many parts of the Roman Empire, became a minority group wherever they went. In later times, they spread throughout much of Europe, North Africa, and Ara- bia. Those Jews who lived in Germany and France before migrating to central and eastern Europe are known as the Ashkenazim; those who never left the Middle East and North Africa are called Mizrachim; and those from Spain and Portugal are known as Sephardim. Spain expelled its Sephardic Jews in 1492, the same year that Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World. It was not until the quincentennial of both events, in 1992, that the Spanish gov- ernment issued an official apology for the expulsion.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries wit- nessed large-scale Ashkenazic migration from Europe to America. The Holocaust that befell European Judaism dur- ing the Nazi years involved the systematic murder of per- haps a third of the world’s Jewish population, mainly Ashkenazim. Europe ceased to be the primary homeland of Judaism, and many of the survivors fled overseas, mainly to the Americas and later to the newly created state of Israel. Today, Judaism has about 13 million adherents throughout the world. At present, roughly 6 million, or a little less than half, live in North America, and slightly more than 5 mil- lion live in Israel.

Christianity Christianity, a proselytic faith, is the world’s largest religion, both in area covered and in number of adherents, claiming about a third of the global population (Figure 7.5 on page 223). Christians are monotheistic, believing that God is a Trin- ity consisting of three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is believed to be the incarnate Son of God who was given to mankind for the sake of human redemp- tion some 2000 years ago. Through Jesus’ death and resurrec- tion, all of humanity is offered redemption from sin and provided eternal life in heaven and a relationship with God.

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are the world’s three great monotheisms and share a common culture hearth in southwestern Asia (see Figure 7.14). All three religions venerate the patriarch Abraham and thus can be called

220 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

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Abrahamic religions. Because Judaism is the parent reli- gion of Christianity, the two faiths share many elements, including the Torah, the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament (which forms part of the Christian Bible or holy book); prayer; and a clergy. This is the basis

for the term Judeo-Christian, which is used to describe beliefs and practices shared by the two faiths. Because Jesus was born into the Jewish faith, many Christians still accord Jews a special status as a chosen people and see Christianity as the natural continuation or fulfillment of Judaism.

Christianity has long been fragmented into separate branches (see Figure 7.3). The major division is threefold, made up of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Christians. Western Christianity, which now includes Catholics and Protestants, was initially identified with Rome and the Latin-speaking areas that are largely congruent with modern western Europe, whereas the Eastern Church dominated the Greek world from Constantinople (now the city of Istanbul, Turkey). Belonging to the Eastern group are the Armenian Church, reputedly the oldest in the Christian faith and today centered among a people of the Caucasus region; the Coptic Church, originally the religion of Christian Egyptians and still today a minority faith there, as well as being the dominant church among the highland

people of Ethiopia; the Maronites, Semitic descendants of seventh-century heretics who disagreed with some of early Christianity’s beliefs and retreated to a mountain refuge in Lebanon (see Figure 7.4); the Nestorians, who live in the mountains of the Middle East and in India’s Kerala state; and Eastern Orthodoxy, originally centered in Greek- speaking areas. After converting many Slavic groups, East- ern Orthodoxy is today comprised of a variety of national churches, such as Russian, Greek, Ukrainian, and Serbian Orthodoxy, with a collective membership of some 214 mil- lion (Figure 7.6).

Western Christianity splintered, most notably with the emergence of Protestantism in the Reformation of the 1400s and 1500s. As with all religious reformation

222 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

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Figure 7.4 Distribution of religious groups in Lebanon. A land torn by sectarian warfare in recent times, Lebanon is one of the most religiously diverse parts of the world. Overall, Lebanon is today 37 percent Christian, 34 percent Shiite Muslim, 21 percent Sunni Muslim, and 7 percent Druze. Unshaded areas are largely unpopulated. (Derived, with changes, from Klaer, 1996.)

Region 223

inations and cults in the United States alone. In a broad Bible Belt across the South, Baptist and other conservative fundamentalist denominations dominate, and Utah is at the core of the Mormon realm. A Lutheran belt stretches from Wisconsin westward through Minnesota and the Dakotas, and Roman Catholicism dominates southern Louisiana, the southwestern borderland, and the heavily industrialized areas of the Northeast. The Midwest is a thoroughly mixed zone, although Methodism is the largest single denomination.

Today, Christianity is geographically widespread and highly diverse in its local interpretation. Although it is not as fast-growing as Islam, intense missionary efforts strive to increase the number of adherents. Because of this prose- lytic work, Africa and Asia are the fastest-growing regions for Christianity.

Islam Islam, another great proselytic faith, claims more than a billion followers, largely in the desert belt of Asia and northern Africa and in the humid tropics as far east as Indonesia and the southern Philippines (see Figures 7.3 and 7.5). Adherents of Islam, known as Muslims—literally, “those who submit to the will of God”—are monotheists and worship one absolute God known as Allah. Islam was founded by Muhammad, considered to be the last and most important in a long line of prophets. The word of

movements, Protestantism sought to overcome what were viewed to be wrong practices of Roman Catholi- cism, such as the need for priestly or saintly mediation between humans and God, while still staying within the general framework of Christianity. Since then, the Roman Catholic Church, which alone includes 1.1 bil- lion people, or more than one-sixth of humanity, has remained unified; but Protestantism, from its begin- nings, tended to divide into a rich array of sects, which together have a total membership today of about 470 mil- lion worldwide.

In the United States and Canada, the denominational map vividly reflects the fragmentation of Western Chris- tianity and the resulting complex pattern of religious culture regions (Figure 7.7). Numerous denominations imported from Europe were later augmented by Christian denominations developed in America. The American fron- tier was a breeding ground for new religious groups, as individualistic pioneer sentiment found expression in splinter Protestant denominations. Today, in many parts of the country, even a relatively small community may con- tain the churches of half a dozen religious groups. As a result, we find today about 2000 different religious denom-

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Figure 7.5 Major religions of the world. The world’s major religions, by numbers of adherents expressed as a percentage of world population. Note that although Judaism is a prominent religion in the United States, it does not rank among the large religions of the world in terms of total number of adherents. Also note that because some religions overlap and because of various political reasons, percentages do not add up to 100. (Derived from 2000 Britannica Book of the Year; World Almanac and Book of Facts 2001.)

Figure 7.6 Greek Orthodox Monastery. The bells of St. John’s Monastery in Patmos, Greece. (Courtesy of Patricia L. Price.)

224 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

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Figure 7.7 Leading Christian denominations in the United States and Canada, shown by counties (for the United States) or census districts (for Canada). In the shaded areas, the church or denomination indicated claimed 50 percent or more of the total church membership. The most striking features of the map are the Baptist dominance through the South, a Lutheran zone in the upper Midwest, Mormon dominance in the interior West, and the zone of mixing in the American heartland. (Simplified from Bradley et al., 1992; Government of Canada, 1974.)

Allah is believed to have been revealed to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel (Jibrail) beginning in A.D. 610 of the Christian calendar in the Arabian city of Mecca (Figure 7.8). The Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, is the text of these revelations and also serves as the basis of Islamic law, or sharia. Most Muslims consider both Jews and Christians to be, like themselves, “people of the Book,” and all three religions share beliefs in heaven, hell, and the resurrec- tion of the dead. Many biblical figures familiar to Jews and Christians, such as Moses, Abraham, Mary, and Jesus, are also venerated as prophets in Islam. Adherents to Islam are expected to profess belief in Allah, the one God whose prophet was Muhammad; pray five times daily at estab- lished times; give alms, or zakat, to the poor; fast from

dawn to sunset in the holy month of Ramadan; and make at least one pilgrimage, if possible, to the sacred city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. These duties are known as the Five Pillars of the faith.

Although not as severely fragmented as Christianity, Islam, too, has split into separate groups. Two major divi- sions prevail. Shiite Muslims, 16 percent of the Islamic total in diverse subgroups, form the majority in Iran and Iraq. Shiites believe that Ali, who was Muhammad’s son-in-law, should have succeeded Muhammad. Sunni Muslims, who represent the Islamic orthodoxy (the word Sunni comes from sunnah, meaning tradition), form the large majority worldwide (see Figure 7.3). Islam has not undergone a reformation parallel to that undergone by Christianity with

Region 225

Protestantism. However, liberal movements within Sunni and Shiite Islam do have reformation as their goal.

Islam’s strength is greatest in the Arabic-speaking lands in Southwest Asia and North Africa; although the world’s largest Islamic population is found in Indonesia. Other large clusters live in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and western China. Because of successful conversion efforts in non-Muslim areas and high birthrates in pre- dominantly Muslim areas, Islam is the fastest-growing world religion. In the United States, more people convert to Islam than to any other religion, and Islam will soon surpass Judaism to become America’s second-largest faith.

Hinduism Hinduism, a religion closely tied to India and its ancient culture, claims about 800 million adherents (see Figures 7.3 and 7.5). Hinduism is a decidedly polytheistic religion. Although Hindus recognize one supreme god, Brahman, it is his many manifestations that are worshipped directly. Some principal Hindu deities include Vishnu, Shiva, and the mother goddess Devi. Ganesha, the elephant-headed god depicted in Figure 7.9, is often revered by Hindu uni- versity students because Ganesha is the god of wisdom, intelligence, and education. Believing that no one faith has a monopoly on the truth, most Hindus are notably tolerant of other religions.

Hindus strive to locate the harmonious and eternal truth, dharma, which is within each human being. Social divisions, or castes, separate Hindu society into four major categories, or varna, based on occupational categories: priests (Brahmins), warriors (Kshatriyas), merchants and

Figure 7.8 Muslims at prayer in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. (Kazuyoshi Nomachi/Pacific Press Service.)

Figure 7.9 Ganesha. The elephant-headed god of wisdom, intelligence, and education is revered by many Hindu university students. (Punit Puranjpe/Reuters/Landov.)

226 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

involving self-denial and austerity. For example, they practice veganism, a form of vegetarianism that prohibits the con- sumption of all animal-based products, including milk and eggs. Sikhism, by contrast, arose much later, in the 1500s, in an attempt to unify Hinduism and Islam. Centered in the Punjab state of northwestern India, where the Golden Tem- ple at Amritsar serves as the principal shrine, Sikhism has about 23 million followers. Sikhs are monotheistic and have their own holy book, the Adi Granth.

No standard set of beliefs prevails in Hinduism, and the faith takes many local forms. Hinduism includes very diverse peoples. This is partly a result of its former status as a proselytic religion. A Hindu majority on the Indonesian island of Bali suggests the religion’s former missionary activity (Figure 7.10). Today, most Hindus consider their religion an ethnic one, whereby one is acculturated into the Hindu community by birth; however, conversion to Hinduism is also allowed.

Buddhism Hinduism is the parent religion of Buddhism, which began 25 centuries ago as a reform movement based on the teach- ings of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, “the awakened one” (Figure 7.11). He promoted the four “noble truths”: life is full of suffering, desire is the cause of this suffering, cessa-

Figure 7.10 Hindu temple in Bali, Indonesia. Besakih, known as the “Mother Temple of Bali,” is the largest Hindu temple complex on the island, occupying the slopes of Mount Agung. (Courtesy of Patricia L. Price.)

artisans (Vaishyas), and workers (Shudras). Castes are related to dharma inasmuch as dharma implies a set of rules for each varna that regulate their behaviors with regard to eating, marriage, and use of space. All Hindus also share a belief in reincarnation, the idea that, although the physical body may die, the soul lives on and is reborn in another body. Related to this is the notion of karma. Karma can be viewed almost as a causal law, which holds that what an individual experiences in this life is a direct result of that individual’s thoughts and deeds in a past life. Likewise, all thoughts and deeds, both good and bad, affect an individ- ual’s future lives. Ultimately moksha, or liberation of the soul from the cycle of death and rebirth, will occur when the worldly bonds of the material self fall away and one’s pure essence is freed. Ahimsa, or the principle of nonvio- lence, involves veneration of all forms of life. This implies a principle of noninjury to all sentient creatures, which is why many Hindus are vegetarians.

Hinduism has splintered into diverse groups, some of which are so distinctive as to be regarded as separate reli- gions. Jainism, for instance, is an ancient outgrowth of Hin- duism, claiming perhaps 4 million adherents, almost all of whom live in India, and traces its roots back more than 25 centuries. Although they reject Hindu scriptures, rituals, and priesthood, the Jains share the Hindu belief in ahimsa and reincarnation. Jains adhere to a strict asceticism, a practice

Region 227

to the religion’s original form, whereas a variation known as Tantrayana, or Lamaism, prevails in Tibet and Mongolia (see Figure 7.3). Buddhism’s tendency to merge with native reli- gions, particularly in China, makes it difficult to determine the number of its adherents. Estimates range from 350 mil- lion to more than 500 million people (see Figure 7.5). Although Buddhism in China has become mingled with local faiths to become part of a composite ethnic religion, elsewhere it remains one of the three great proselytic reli- gions in the world, along with Christianity and Islam.

Taoic Religions Confucianism, Shinto, and Taoism together make up the faiths that center on Tao, or the force that balances and orders the universe. Derived from the teachings of philoso- pher Kung Fu-tzu (551–479 B.C.), Confucianism was later pro- moted by China’s Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220) as the official state philosophy. Thus, it has bureaucratic, ethical, and hierarchical overtones that have led some to question whether it is more a way of life than a religion in the proper sense. In China, Confucianism’s formalism is balanced by Taoism’s romanticism. Taoism, both an established religion and philosophy, emphasizes the dynamic balance depicted by the Chinese yin/yang symbol. The “three jewels of Tao” are humility, compassion, and moderation. Shinto was once the state religion of Japan. Shinto has long been blended with Buddhism, as well as infused with a Confucian-derived legal system, but at its core Shinto is an animistic religion. Because Tao is found in nature, there is some overlap with the ani- mistic faiths discussed next. In addition, because of their fluid nature, Taoic religions tend toward syncretism and have blended with other faiths, particularly Buddhism. People may simultaneously practice elements of all of these faiths. For these reasons, it is difficult to provide an exact number of adherents, although estimates hold there to be about half a billion. Taoic religions center on East Asia (see Figure 7.3).

Animism/Shamanism Peoples in diverse parts of the world often retain indige- nous religions and are usually referred to collectively as animists (Figure 7.12). For the most part animists do not form organized or recognized religious groups but instead practice as ethnic religions common to clans or tribes. In addition, most animists follow oral, rather than written, tra- ditions and thus do not have holy books. A tribal religious figure, called by some a shaman, usually serves as an inter- mediary between the people and the spirits.

Currently numbering perhaps 240 million, animists believe that nonhuman beings and inanimate objects pos- sess spirits or souls. These spirits are believed to live in rocks and rivers, on mountain peaks and celestial bodies, in

Figure 7.11 Buddhism is one of the religious faiths of South Korea. Here an image of the Buddha is carved from a rocky bluff to create sacred space and a local pilgrimage shrine. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

tion of suffering comes with the quelling of desire, and an “Eight-Fold Path” of proper personal conduct and medita- tion permits the individual to overcome desire. The resul- tant state of enlightenment is known as nirvana. Those few individuals who achieve nirvana are known as Buddhas. The status of Buddha is open to anyone regardless of social status, gender, or age. Because Buddhism derives from Hin- duism, the two religions share many beliefs, such as dharma, reincarnation, and ahimsa. Buddhism and its par- ent religion, Hinduism, as well as the related faiths Jainism and Sikhism, are known as Dharmic religions.

Today, Buddhism is the most widespread religion in South and East Asia, dominating a culture region stretching from Sri Lanka to Japan and from Mongolia to Vietnam. In the process of its proselytic spread, particularly in China and Japan, Buddhism fused with native ethnic religions such as Confucianism, Taoism, and Shintoism to form syncretic faiths that fall into the Mahayana division of Buddhism. Southern, or Theravada, Buddhism, dominant in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia, retains the greatest similarity

228 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

Figure 7.12 Druids from the Mistletoe Foundation bless mistletoe in Worcestershire, England. Celtic Druids have their roots in ancient, pre-Christian reverence for natural elements such as streams, hills, and plants. Mistletoe is sacred to the Druidic faith. (Andrew Fox/Corbis/Corbis.)

Figure 7.13 Pet grave marker. Pumpkin the cat was apparently baptized into the Christian faith and now lies at rest in Miami, Florida’s, Pet Heaven Cemetery. (Courtesy of Patricia L. Price.)

forests and swamps, and even in everyday objects. As such, objects are considered to be alive, and, depending on the local beliefs, objects and animals may assume human forms or engage in human activities such as speech. For some ani- mists, the objects in question do not actually possess spirits but rather are valued because they have a particular potency to serve as a link between a person and the omnipresent god. Followers of Wicca, a contemporary neo- pagan religion derived from pre-Christian European prac- tices of reverence for the mother goddess and the horned god, worship the god and goddess who are thought to inhabit everything. Ritual tools used by Wiccans include the athame (dagger), boline (knife), and besom (broom), which are used in ceremonies to direct energy as practitioners communicate with the god and goddess.

Animistic elements can also pervade established reli- gions. Japanese Shinto adherents worship kami, or spirits, that inhabit natural objects such as waterfalls and moun- tains. We should not classify such systems of belief as prim- itive or simple because they can be extraordinarily complex. Even in places such as the United States, where the majority of the inhabitants would not see themselves as animists, such beliefs are pervasive. For example, many people in the United States believe that their pets possess souls that ascend to heaven on death (Figure 7.13).

Mobility 229

Mobility How did the geographical distribution of religions and denominations, of regions and places, come about? Why do religions mandate or encourage pilgrimage? The spatial patterning of religions, denominations, and secularism is the product of innovation and cultural diffusion. To a remarkable degree, the origin of the major religions was concentrated spatially in three principal culture hearth areas (Figure 7.14). A culture hearth is a focused geo- graphic area where important innovations are born and from which they spread. Many religions mandate periodic return of the faithful to these culture hearths in order to confirm or renew their faith.

The Semitic Religious Hearth All three of the great monotheistic faiths—Judaism, Chris- tianity, and Islam—arose among Semitic peoples who lived in or on the margins of the deserts of southwestern Asia,

in the Middle East (see Figure 7.14). Judaism, the oldest of the three, originated some 4000 years ago. Only gradually did its followers acquire dominion over the lands between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River—the territorial core of modern Israel. Christianity, child of Judaism, orig- inated here about 2000 years ago. Seven centuries later, the Semitic culture hearth once again gave birth to a major faith when Islam arose in western Arabia, partly from Jewish and Christian roots.

Religions spread by both relocation and expansion dif- fusion. Recall from Figure 1.9 that expansion diffusion can be divided into hierarchical and contagious subtypes. In hierarchical diffusion, ideas become implanted at the top of a society, leapfrogging across the map to take root in cities and bypassing smaller villages and rural areas. Because their main objective is to convert nonbelievers, proselytic faiths are more likely to diffuse than ethnic reli- gions, and it is not surprising that the spread of monothe- ism was accomplished largely by Christianity and Islam, rather than Judaism. From Semitic southwestern Asia, both of the proselytic monotheistic faiths diffused widely.

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in the northern reaches of the Indian subcontinent and spread throughout southeastern Eurasia. Taoic religions originated in East Asia, relocating with Chinese and Japanese presence regionally and, more recently, to North and South America.

230 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

tribution that clearly reflected hierarchical diffusion (Fig- ure 7.15). The early congregations were established in cities and towns, temporarily producing a pattern of Christianized urban centers and pagan rural areas. Indeed, traces of this process remain in our language. The Latin word pagus, “countryside,” is the root of both pagan and peasant, suggesting the ancient connection between non-Christians and the countryside.

Christians, observing the admonition of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew—“Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you”—initially spread through the Roman Empire, using the splendid system of imperial roads to extend the faith. In its early centuries of expansion, Christianity displayed a spatial dis-

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Mobility 231

The scattered urban clusters of early Christianity were created by such missionaries as the apostle Paul, one of Jesus’ disciples who moved from town to town bearing the news of the emerging faith. In later centuries, Christian missionaries often used the strategy of converting kings or tribal leaders, setting in motion additional hierarchical dif- fusion. The Russians and Poles were converted in this man- ner. Some Christian expansion was militaristic, as in the reconquest of Iberia from the Muslims and the invasion of Latin America. Once implanted in this manner, Christian- ity spread farther by means by contagious diffusion. When applied to religion, this method of spread is called contact conversion and is the result of everyday associations between believers and nonbelievers.

The Islamic faith spread from its Semitic hearth area in a predominately militaristic manner. Obeying the com- mand in the Qur’an that they “do battle against them until there be no more seduction from the truth and the only worship be that of Allah,” the Arabs expanded westward across North Africa in a wave of religious conquest. The Turks, once converted by the Arabs, carried out similar Islamic conquests. In a different sort of diffusion, Muslim missionaries followed trade routes eastward to implant Islam hierarchically in the Philippines, Indonesia, and the interior of China. Tropical Africa is the current major scene of Islamic expansion, an effort that has produced competi- tion with Christians for the conversion of animists. As a result of missionary successes in sub-Saharan Africa and high birthrates in its older sphere of dominance, Islam has become the world’s fastest-growing religion in terms of the number of new adherents.

The Indus-Ganges Hearth The second great religious hearth area lay in the plains fringing the northern edge of the Indian subcontinent. This lowland, drained by the Ganges and Indus rivers, gave birth to Hinduism and Buddhism. Hinduism, which is at least 4000 years old, was the earliest faith to arise in this hearth. Its origin apparently lay in Punjab, from which it diffused to dominate the subcontinent, although some his- torians believe that the earliest form of Hinduism was intro- duced from Iran by emigrating Indo-European tribes about 1500 B.C. Missionaries later carried the faith, in its proselytic phase, to overseas areas, but most of these converted regions were subsequently lost to other religions.

Branching off from Hinduism, Buddhism began in the foothills bordering the Ganges Plain about 500 B.C. (see Figure 7.14). For several centuries it remained confined to the Indian subcontinent, but missionaries later carried the religion to China (100 B.C. to A.D. 200), Korea and Japan (A.D. 300 to 500), Southeast Asia (A.D. 400 to 600), Tibet (A.D. 700), and Mongolia (A.D. 1500). Buddhism developed many regional forms throughout

Asia, except in India, where it was ultimately accommo- dated within Hinduism.

The diffusion of Buddhism, like that of Christianity and Islam, continues to the present day. Some 2 million Buddhists live in the United States, about the same number as Episcopalians. Mostly, their presence is the result of relo- cation diffusion by Asian immigrants to the United States, where immigrant Buddhists outnumber Buddhist converts by three to one.

The East Asian Religious Hearth Kong Fu-tzu and Lao Tzu, the respective founders of Confucianism and Taoism, were contemporaries who reput- edly once met with each other. Both religions were adopted widely throughout China only when the ruling elite pro- moted them. In the case of Confucianism, this was several centuries after the master’s death. During his life, Kong Fu-tzu wandered about with a small band of disciples trying to convince rulers to put his ideas on good governance into practice. But he was shunned even by lowly peasants, who criticized him as “a man who knows he cannot succeed but keeps trying.” Thus, early attempts at contagious diffusion were unsuccessful, whereas hierarchical diffusion from politicians and schools spread Confucianism from the top down. Taoism, as well, did not gain wide acceptance until it was promoted by the ruling Chinese elite.

After 1949, China’s communist government officially repressed organized religious expression, dismissing it as a relic of the past. In other words, the government attempted to erect an absorbing barrier that would not only halt the spread of religion but that also would erase it from Chinese public and private life. As noted in Chapter 1, absorbing barriers are rarely completely successful, and this example is no exception. Although temples were converted to secu- lar uses, and even looted and burned, religion was driven underground rather than eradicated. After the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), which aimed to purify Chinese society of bourgeois excesses such as religion, tol- erance for religious expression grew. However, the Chinese Communist Party’s official stance still holds that religious and party affiliations are incompatible; thus, some party officials are reluctant to divulge their religious status. This, combined with the fact that many Chinese practice ele- ments of several Taoic faiths simultaneously, makes the pre- cise enumeration of adherents difficult.

Taoism and Confucianism have spread with the Chi- nese people through trade and military conquest. Thus, people in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, along with mainland China, practice these beliefs or at the least have been influenced by them. Today, Chi- nese and Japanese migrants alike have relocated their belief systems across the globe, as this image of the Tsubaki Shinto Shrine in Washington State confirms (Figure 7.16).

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Reflecting on Geography Why, in the entire world, did only three hearths produce so many major religious faiths?

Religious Pilgrimage For many religious groups, journeys to sacred places, or pilgrimages, are an important aspect of faith-based mobility (Figure 7.17). Pilgrimages are typical of both ethnic and pros- elytic religions. They are particularly significant for followers of Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, and Roman Catholicism. Along with missionaries, pilgrims constitute one of the largest groups of people voluntarily on the move for religious rea- sons. Pilgrims do not aim to convert people to their faith through their journeys. Rather, they enact in their travels a connection with the sacred spaces of their faith. Indeed, some religions mandate pilgrimage, as is the case with Islam where pilgrimage to Mecca forms one of the five pillars.

The sacred places visited by pilgrims vary in character. Some have been the setting for miracles; a few are the regions where religions originated or areas where the

founders of the faith lived and worked; others contain sacred physical features such as rivers, caves, springs, and mountain peaks; and still others are believed to house gods or are religious administrative centers where leaders of the religion reside. Examples include the Arabian cities of Mecca and Medina in Islam, which are cities where Muhammed resided and thus form Islam’s culture hearth; Rome, the home of the Roman Catholic Pope; the French town of Lourdes, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a girl in 1858; the Indian city of temples on the holy Ganges River, Varanasi, a destination for Hindu, Bud- dhist, and Jain pilgrims; and Ise, a shrine complex located in the culture hearth of Shintoism in Japan. Places of pil- grimage might be regarded as places of spatial conver- gence, or nodes, of functional culture regions.

Religion provides the stimulus for pilgrimage by offer- ing those who participate the reward of soul purification or the attainment of some desired objective in their lives, by mandating pilgrimage as part of devotion, or by allowing the faithful to connect with important historic sites of their faith. For this reason, pilgrims often journey great distances to visit major shrines. Other sites of lesser significance draw

Figure 7.16 Shinto shrine in the United States. With the migration of Japanese people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly to the West Coast of the United States, Shinto traditions and religious structures followed. This image depicts the Tsubaki Shrine in Granite Falls, Washington. (Copyright Alexander Marten Zhang.)

Figure 7.17 Religious pilgrims. Visitors number in the millions annually and can provide a holy site’s main source of revenue: (a) the grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared to a girl in 1858 in Lourdes, France (Franz-Peter Tschauner/dpa/Corbis); (b) the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bankok, Thailand (Kevin R. Morris/Corbis); (c) the Great Mosque in Touba, Senegal. (Richard List/Corbis.)

pilgrims only from local districts or provinces. Pilgrimages can have tremendous economic impact because the influx of pilgrims functions as a form of tourism.

In some localities, the pilgrim trade provides the only significant source of revenue for the community. Lourdes, a town of about 16,000, attracts between 4 million and 5 mil- lion pilgrims each year, many seeking miraculous cures at the famous grotto where the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared. Not surprisingly, among French cities, Lourdes ranks second only to Paris in number of hotels, although most of these are small. Mecca, a small city, annually attracts millions of Muslim pilgrims from every corner of the Islamic culture region as they perform the hajj, or fifth pillar of Islam, which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so should do at least once in their lifetime. By land, by sea, and (mainly) by air, the faithful come to this hearth of Islam, a city closed to all non-Muslims (Figure 7.18). Such mass pilgrimages obviously have a major impact on the development of trans- portation routes and carriers, as well as other provisions such as inns, food, water, and sanitation facilities.

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Figure 7.18 Religious segregation. Access to Mecca is restricted, allowing Muslims only. The Saudi Arabian government believes that allowing non-Muslim tourists to visit Mecca and Medina would disturb the sanctity of these sacred places. (vario images GmbH & Co. KG./Alamy.)

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Umbanda, Candomblé, and Santería. Whether Catholicism will ultimately reform from within to become more current, or whether it will continue to lose out to rival denominations, is a key question concerning the Latin American and Caribbean religious landscape.

Religion on the Internet In the mid-fifteenth century, Gutenberg’s printing press made the Bible available to a mass audience. The Inter- net, proponents argue, presents a similar technological revolution, one that will inevitably attract new adherents to religious faiths. Gathering together regularly in a holy place—a mosque, temple, church, or shrine—is at the heart of most organized religions. Traditionally, people have come together to receive sacraments, sing, pray, and celebrate major life events in houses of worship. With the tens of thousands of religious web sites now in existence, it is no longer necessary to physically go to a place of wor- ship. Rather, you can sit in front of a computer, at any time of the day or night, and read a holy book, submit and read online prayers, engage in theological debate, or watch broadcasts of religious services. A survey conducted in 2001 by the Pew Foundation found that 25 percent of respondents had sought religious or spiritual information

Figure 7.19 Protestant storefront church. This Pentecostal church, Igreja o Brasil para Cristo, is one of the fastest-growing evangelical Protestant churches in Brazil. The garage-front arrangement shown here is located in the mining town of Lencois. Some of the 25 worshippers at this service went into a trance. (Ponkawonka.)

Globalization How has religion adapted to globalization? To what degree is religion relevant in today’s global world? Religion is seen by many people as providing a stable anchor, one that is particularly necessary amidst the flux and turmoil that characterizes globalization. Religious customs, meetings, and obligations serve to form a strong basis of community. Typically, these communities are experienced locally; how- ever, through long-distance pilgrimage, the faithful from across the globe may gather together in one place. Today’s increased mobility and communication make possible reli- gious communities at a truly global scale.

The Rise of Evangelical Protestantism in Latin America As economic, social, and political changes occur in places, cultural forces such as religion must adapt. For instance, in Chapter 4 we saw how languages change over time in response to immigration, urbanization, and trade-based exchanges. At other times, cultural forces drive changes in politics, economics, and societies. In Chapter 5, we saw how Hispanic immigration to the United States has resulted in major shifts in consumption, political behavior, and social attitudes.

A good example of how the cultural, economic, social, and political arenas work together is provided by the con- temporary religious landscape of Latin America and the Caribbean. In this region, Roman Catholicism has domi- nated the religious landscape since the time of the Iberian conquerors in the late 1400s. More Catholics live in this region than in any other on Earth, with three out of every five Catholics residing here. Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world in terms of population, with more than 120 million adherents. However, the Catholic Church has been on the decline in Brazil and throughout the region in recent decades. Less than 80 percent of Brazilians are Catholics today, whereas 50 years ago that figure was more than 95 percent. What has happened to the region’s Catholics?

Briefly, more and more Latin Americans believe that the Catholic Church has failed to keep in touch with the needs and concerns of contemporary urban societies. Birth control, divorce, and persistent poverty are issues that are simply not addressed by Roman Catholicism to the satisfaction of many Latin Americans. As a result, more and more are turning toward evangelical Protestant faiths, such as the Seventh-Day Adventist and Pentecostal churches (Figure 7.19). The focus of these churches on thrift, sobriety, and resolving problems directly rather than through the mediation of priests is appealing to many. Others find their needs are best addressed by an array of African-based spiritist religions, which include

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Globalization 235

online—more than had gambled, banked, or dated online.

For cultural geographers, the most interesting dimen- sion of online worship concerns what it does to the role of place in a global society. Clearly, the Internet has made it possible to practice religion in a way that is not linked to a specific place of worship, but is this a good thing? Support- ers of practicing religion online contend that it is, because they have become members of virtual communities that would not otherwise have been available to them in times of spiritual need. Now, illness, invalidity, or the pressures of a busy life need not present a barrier to worship. Detractors argue that solitary worship online erodes the place-based communities that are at the heart of many religions. Recall from Chapter 1 that debates center on whether globaliza- tion dilutes the role of place and of place-based differences that make up the human mosaic. As people pick and choose elements from the different faiths available online, will religions converge into a watered-down, homogeneous “McFaith”?

Reflecting on Geography Are virtual religious communities created through the Internet an acceptable substitute for traditional place-based religious communities?

Religion’s Relevance in a Global World In the United States, geographer Roger Stump points to a twentieth-century trend toward fragmentation and domi- nance of particular religions in regions of the United States. Baptists in the South, Lutherans in the upper Midwest, Catholics in the Northeast and Southwest, and Mormons in the West each dominate their respective regions more thor- oughly today than at the turn of the twentieth century. Each of the four traditions is socially conservative and has a strong, long-standing infrastructure. Other experts, however, believe that American culture is becoming more religiously mixed, with weakening regional borders around religious core areas. Newer religious influences, too, are making an entrance onto the American religious stage. For example, if you have ever practiced yoga or meditation, you are engag- ing in Hindu and Buddhist practices (Figure 7.20). Many Americans do yoga or meditate as a means of physical or spir- itual growth, for stress relief, or even to keep up with the latest trends, rather than as part of a religious practice. Yet they are among the growing number of Americans who have found a blend of Eastern and Western religious practices to be compatible with their beliefs and lifestyles.

In some parts of the world, especially in much of Europe, religion has declined, giving way to secularization (Figure 7.21). The number of nonreligious, secular persons in the world is estimated at 913 million at present (see Figure 7.5).

Figure 7.20 Yoga class in session. Many people in the United States have incorporated Hindu and Buddhist spiritual practices into their lives. (Ryan McVay/Getty Images.)

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Figure 7.21 Secularized areas in Europe. These areas, in which Christianity has ceased to be of much importance, occur in a complicated pattern. What causal forces might have been at work? In all of Europe, some 190 million people report no religious faith, amounting to 27 percent of the population. (Source: Jordan-Bychkov and Jordan, 2002: 104.)

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The American Religious Identification Survey (see Geogra- phy of Religion on the Internet at the end of the chapter), compiled in 2001, found 30 million nonreligious adults in the United States, or about 14 percent of the population. In the state of Hawaii, for example, 51 percent of adults are unaffil- iated with a church. Areas of surviving religious vitality lie alongside secularized districts in a disorderly jumble. In some instances, the retreat from organized religion has resulted from a government’s active hostility toward a particular faith or toward religion in general. The French government has long—since the French Revolution, in fact—discouraged public displays of religious faith. France’s long-standing secu- larism is evident on the map in Figure 7.21. This extends not only to France’s traditional Roman Catholicism but to Jews and the rising Muslim population as well. In 2004 French law banned the wearing of skullcaps, headscarves, or large crosses in public schools. In other cases, we can attribute the decline to the failure of religions oriented to the needs of rural folk cultures to adapt to the contemporary urban scene, as we saw with Roman Catholicism in Latin America. Such patterns once again reveal the inherent spatial variety of humankind and invite analysis by the cultural geographer.

Nature-Culture What is the relationship between religion and the natural habitat? How does religion impact our modification of the environment and shape our perception of nature? Does the habitat influence religion? All these questions, and more, fit into the theme of cultural ecology.

Appeasing the Forces of Nature One of the main functions of many religions is the mainte- nance of harmony between a people and their physical environment. Thus, religion is perceived by its adherents to be part of the adaptive strategy (one of the cultural tools needed to survive in a given environment), and for that rea- son, physical environmental factors, particularly natural hazards and disasters, exert a powerful influence on the development of religions.

Environmental influence is most readily apparent in animistic faiths. In fact, an animistic religion’s principal goal is to mediate between its people and the spirit-filled forces of nature. Animistic ceremonies are often intended to bring rain, quiet earthquakes, end plagues, or in some other way manipulate environmental forces by placating the spirits believed responsible for these events. Sometimes the link between religion and natural hazard is visual. The great pre-Columbian temple pyramid at Cholula, near Puebla in central Mexico, strikingly mimics the shape of the awesome nearby volcano Popocatépetl, which towers to the menacing height of nearly 18,000 feet (5500 meters).

Rivers, mountains, trees, forests, and rocks often achieve the status of sacred space, even in the great reli- gions. The Ganges River and certain lesser streams such as the Bagmati in Nepal are holy to the Hindus, and the Jor- dan River has special meaning for Christians, who often transport its waters in containers to other continents for use in baptism (Figure 7.22). Most holy rivers are believed to possess soul-cleansing abilities. Hindu geographer Rana Singh speaks of the “liquid divine energy” of the Ganges “nourishing the inhabitants and purifying them.”

Mountains and other high places likewise often achieve sacred status among both animists and adherents of the great religions (Figure 7.23). Mount Fuji is sacred in Japanese Shintoism, and many high places are revered in Christianity, including Mount Sinai. Some mountains tower so impressively as to inspire cults devoted exclusively to them. Mount Shasta, a massive snowcapped volcano in northern California, near the Oregon border, serves as the focus of no fewer than 30 New Age cults, the largest of which is the “I Am” religion, founded in the 1930s (see Fig- ure 7.23, right). These cults posit that the Lemurians, denizens of a lost continent, established a secret city inside Mount Shasta. Geographer Claude Curran, who studied the Shasta cults, found that, although few of the adherents live near the mountain, pilgrimages and festivals held

Figure 7.22 Holy water from the Jordan River. This water is taken from the Jordan River, at the site where Jesus was thought to have been baptized by John the Baptist. It can be purchased and used in rituals. (Courtesy of Patricia L. Price.)

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during the summer swell the population of nearby towns and contribute to the local economy.

Animistic nature-spirits lie behind certain practices found in the great religions. Feng shui, which literally means “wind and water,” refers to the practice of harmo- niously balancing the opposing forces of nature in the built environment. A feature of Asian religions that emphasizes Tao, the dynamic balance found in nature, feng shui involves choosing environmentally auspicious sites for houses, villages, temples, and graves. The homes of the liv- ing and the resting places of the dead must be aligned with the cosmic forces of the world in order to assure good luck, health, and prosperity. Although the practice of feng shui dates back some 7000 years, contemporary people practice its principles. Figure 7.24 depicts a high-rise condominium in Hong Kong’s Repulse Bay neighborhood. The square opening in the building’s center is said to provide passage for the dragon that dwells in the hill behind to the bay, allowing the dragon to drink from the waters of the bay and return to its abode unencumbered. Some Westerners have also adopted the principles of feng shui. Office spaces as well as homes are arranged according to its basic ideas. For example, artificial plants, broken articles, and paintings depicting wars are thought to bring negative energy into liv- ing spaces and so should be avoided.

Although the physical environment’s influence on the major Western religions is less pronounced, it is still evident. Some contemporary adherents to the Judeo-Christian tradi-

tion believe that God uses plagues to punish sinners, as in the biblical account of the 10 plagues inflicted on Egypt, which forced the Israelites into the desert. Modern-day droughts, earthquakes, and hurricanes are interpreted by some as God’s punishment for wrongdoing, whereas others argue that this is not so. Environmental stress can, however, evoke a religious response not so different from that of animistic faiths. Local ministers and priests often attempt to alter unfa- vorable weather conditions with special services, and there are few churchgoing people in the Great Plains of the United States who have not prayed for rain in dry years.

The Impacts of Belief Systems on Plants and Animals Every known religion expresses itself in food choices, to one degree or another. In some faiths, certain plants and livestock, as well as the products derived from them, are in great demand because of their roles in religious cere- monies and traditions. When this is the case, the plants or animals tend to spread or relocate with the faith.

For example, in some Christian denominations in Europe and the United States, celebrants drink from a cup of wine that they believe is the blood of Christ during the sacrament of Holy Communion. The demand for wine cre- ated by this ritual aided the diffusion of grape growing from the sunny lands of the Mediterranean to newly Christian- ized districts beyond the Alps in late Roman and early medieval times. The vineyards of the German Rhine were

Figure 7.23 Two high places that have evolved into sacred space. The reddish sandstone Uluru, or Ayers Rock, in central Australia is sacred in Aboriginal animism and inspires awe from both near and afar. Snowy Mount Shasta in California is

venerated by some 30 New Age cults. (See Huntsinger and Fernández-Giménez, 2000.) Why do mountains so often inspire such worship? (Left: Michael Fogden/Bruce Coleman; Right: Joel Sartore/National Geographic.)

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the creation of monks who arrived from the south between the sixth and ninth centuries. For the same reason, Catholic missionaries introduced the cultivated grape to California, in an example of relocation diffusion. In fact, wine was associated with religious worship even before Christianity arose. Vineyard-keeping and winemaking spread westward across the Mediterranean lands in ancient times in association with worship of the god Dionysus.

Religion also can often explain the absence of individ- ual crops or domestic animals in an area. The environmen- tally similar lands of Spain and Morocco, separated only by the Strait of Gibraltar, show the agricultural impact of food taboos. On the Spanish, Roman Catholic side of the strait, pigs are common and pork a delicacy, but in Muslim Morocco on the African side, only about 12,000 swine can be found throughout the entire country. Muslims’ prohibi- tion of pork explains this contrast. Figure 7.25 maps the pork taboo. Judaism also imposes restrictions against pork and other meats, as is stated in the following passage from the Book of Leviticus:

These shall ye not eat, of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: . . . the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean unto you.

Religious taboos can even function as absorbing barriers, pre- venting diffusion of foods, drinks, and practices that violate the taboo. Mormons, who are encouraged not to consume drinks containing caffeine, have not taken part in the Amer-

ican fascination with coffee. Sometimes these barriers are per- meable. Certain Pennsylvania Dutch churches, for example, prohibit cigarette smoking but do not object to member farmers raising tobacco for sale in the commercial market.

The case of India’s sacred cows provides an intriguing example of how religious beliefs shape the role of animals in society, in this instance avoiding the use of cows as food, while emphasizing the animal’s sacred as well as its practical functions. Although only one out of every three of India’s Hindus practices vegetarianism, almost none of India’s Hindu population will eat beef, and many will not use leather. Why, in a populous country such as India where many people are poor and where food shortages have plagued regions of the country in previous decades, do peo- ple refuse to consume beef? There are several quite legiti- mate reasons. First, the dairy products provided by cow’s milk and its by-products, such as yogurt and ghee (clarified butter), are central to many regional Indian cuisines. If the cow is slaughtered, it will no longer be able to provide milk. Second, in areas of the world that rely heavily on local agri- culture for food production, such as India, cows provide valu- able agricultural labor in tilling fields. Cows also provide free fertilizer in the form of dung. Finally, the value of the cow has been incorporated into Indian Hindu beliefs and prac- tices over many centuries and has become a part of culture. Krishna, an incarnation of the major Hindu deity Vishnu, is said to be both the herder and the protector of cows. Nandi, who is the deity Shiva’s attendant, is represented as a bull.

Figure 7.24 Condominium in Hong Kong. The square opening in this building is supposed to allow for the passage of the dragon who resides in the hill behind. (Courtesy of Ari Dorfsman.)

Think for a moment about what you consider appropri- ate to eat. Perhaps beef is part of your diet, but would you eat horsemeat? What is so different about a cow and a horse? Has the “mad cow” scare affected your consumption of beef? How about dog or cat meat? What makes certain animals pets in some cultures and dinner in others? Through this sort of questioning, you may come to realize that practices that seem second nature—such as what you will and will not eat—are in fact the result of long histories that look very different from place to place.

Ecotheology Ecotheology is the name given to a rich and abundant body of literature studying the role of religion in habitat modifica- tion. More exactly, ecotheologians ask how the teachings and worldviews of religion are related to our attitudes about mod- ifying the physical environment. In some faiths, human power over natural forces is assumed. The Maori people of New Zealand, for example, believe that humans represent one of six aspects of creation, the others being forest/ animals, crops, wild food, sea/fish, and winds/storms. In the

Maori worldview, people rule over all of these except winds/storms.

The Judeo-Christian tradition also teaches that humans have dominion over nature, but it goes further, promoting the view that the Earth was created especially for human beings, who are separate from and superior to the natural world. This view is implicit in God’s message to Noah after the Flood, promising that “every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.” The same theme is repeated in the Psalms, where Jews and Christians are told that “the heav- ens are the Lord’s heavens, but the Earth he has given to the sons of men.” Humans are not part of nature but sepa- rate, forming one member of a God-nature-human trinity.

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, that human modifications of the environment were God’s work. Small wonder, then, that the medieval period in Europe wit- nessed an unprecedented expansion of agricultural acreage, involving the large-scale destruction of woodlands and the drainage of marshes. Nor is it surprising that Christian

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monastic orders, such as the Cistercian and Benedictine monks, supervised many of these projects, directing the clearing of forests and the establishment of new agricultural colonies.

Subsequent scientific advances permitted the Judeo- Christian West to modify the environment at an unprece- dented rate and on a massive scale. This marriage of technology and teleology is one cause of our modern ecological crisis. The Judeo-Christian religious heritage, in short, has for millennia promoted an instrumentalist view of nature that is potentially far more damaging to the habitat than an organic view of nature in which humans and nature exist in balance. Yet there is consid- erable evidence to the contrary. For example, in Russia, the Orthodox Church is working to create wildlife pre- serves on monastery lands. The Patriarch of Constan- tinople, leader of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, has made the fight against pollution a church policy, declar- ing that damaging the natural habitat constitutes a sin against God. The Church of England has declared that abuse of nature is blasphemous, and throughout the monotheistic religions, the green teachings of long-dead saints such as Christianity’s St. Francis of Assisi, who trea- sured birds and other wildlife, now receive heightened attention.

Indeed, the Judeo-Christian tradition is not lacking in concern for environmental protection. In the Book of Leviticus, for example, farmers are instructed by God to let the land lie fallow one year in seven and not to gather food from wild plants in that “Sabbath of the land.” Robin Doughty, a humanistic cultural geographer, suggests that, “Western Christian thought is too rich and complex to be characterized as hostile toward nature,” although he feels that Protestantism, “in which worldly success symbolizes

individual predestination,” may be more conducive to “ecological intemperance.” Beyond that, according to geo- grapher Janel Curry-Roper, some fundamentalist Protes- tant sects herald ecological crisis and environmental deterioration as a sign of the coming Apocalypse, Christ’s return, and the end of the present age. Thus, they wel- come ecological collapse and, obviously, are unlikely to be of much help in solving the problem of environmental degradation.

Some conservative, fundamentalist Protestants, how- ever, have adopted conservationist views, citing biblical admonitions. The Flood story from the Old Testament, in which Noah saves diverse animals by bringing them onto the ark, is now viewed by many fundamentalists as a call to protect endangered species. An ecotheological focus underlies the multidenominational National Religious Partnership for the Environment, which includes many evangelical Protestant members. The hope is to mobilize the Christian Right against wanton environmental destruc- tion in the same way that they oppose abortion.

The great religions of southern and eastern Asia, and many animistic faiths, also highlight teachings and beliefs that protect nature. In Hinduism, for example, geographer Deryck Lodrick found that the doctrine of ahimsa had resulted in the establishment of many animal homes, refuges, and hospitals, particularly in the northwestern part of India. The hospitals, or pinjrapoles, are maintained by the Jains. In this view of the world, people are part of and at harmony with nature. Such religions would presumably not threaten the ecological balance.

However, real-world practices do not always reflect the stated ideals of religions. Buddhism, like Hinduism, protects temple trees but demands huge quantities of wood for cremations (Figure 7.26). Traditional Hindu

Figure 7.26 Wood gathered for Hindu cremations at Pashupatinath, on the sacred river Bagmati in Nepal.These cremations contribute significantly to the ongoing deforestation of Nepal and reveal the underlying internal contradiction in Hinduism between conservation as reflected in the doctrine of ahimsa and sanctioned ecologically destructive practices. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

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cremations, for example, place the corpse on a pile of wood, cover it with more wood, and burn it during an open-air rite that can last up to 6 hours. The construction of funeral pyres is estimated to strip some 50 million trees from India’s countryside annually. In addition, the ashes are later swept into rivers, and the burning itself releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to the pollution of waterways and the atmosphere. The use of wood, and its placement on the ground, provides an important symbolic connection between the body and the earth. It does not, however, lead to efficient burning; on average, 880 pounds (400 kilograms) of wood is required to cremate a single corpse. A “green cremation system” is currently under development by a New Delhi–based nonprofit organization. By placing the first layer of wood on a grate, and placing a chimney over the pyre, wood use can be reduced by 75 percent. Although traditional Hindus balk at the notion of breaking with conventional practice, severe wood shortages and the escalating cost of wood will likely make green cremations an increasingly popular option in the future. As this example illustrates, the idea of a link between godliness and greenness is a global one. In the years following a conference in Italy in the mid-1980s—which brought together environmentalists and religious leaders repre- senting Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism—some 130,000 projects have arisen linking the green teachings some see as inherent in these faiths to the ecology movement.

Ecofeminists have also entered this debate. They point out that the rise of the all-powerful male sky-deity of Semitic monotheism came at the expense of earth god- desses of fertility and sustainability. In their view, because the Judeo-Christian tradition elevated a sky-god remote from the Earth, the harmonious relationship between people and the habitat, male and female, was disrupted.

The ancient holiness of ecosystems perished, endangering huge ecoregions. The Gaia hypothesis possesses an ecofeminist spirit, wherein the Earth is seen as a mother figure who reacts to humankind’s environmental depreda- tions through a variety of self-regulating mechanisms. The popular “love your mother” bumper sticker displays an image of the planet Earth and is a humorous example of this notion (Figure 7.27).

Cultural Landscape In what forms does religion appear in the cultural land- scape? How does the visibility of religion differ from one faith or denomination to another? Religion is a vital aspect of culture; its visible presence can be quite strik- ing, reflecting the role played by religious motives in the human transformation of the landscape. In some regions, the religious aspect is the dominant visible evidence of culture, producing sacred landscapes. At the opposite extreme are areas almost purely secular in appearance. Religions differ greatly in visibility, but even those least apparent to the eye usually leave some subtle mark on the countryside.

Religious Structures The most obvious religious contributions to the landscape are the buildings erected to house divinities or to shelter worshippers. These structures vary greatly in size, function, architectural style, construction material, and degree of ornateness (Figure 7.28). To Roman Catholics, for exam- ple, the church building is literally the house of God, and the altar is the focus of key rituals. Partly for these reasons, Catholic churches are typically large, elaborately decorated, and visually imposing. In many towns and villages, the Catholic house of worship is the focal point of the settle- ment, exceeding all other structures in size and grandeur. In medieval European towns, Christian cathedrals were the tallest buildings, representing the supremacy of religion over all other aspects of life.

For many Protestants—particularly the traditional Calvinistic chapel-goers of British background, including Presbyterians and Baptists—the church building is, by contrast, simply a place to assemble for worship. The result is an unsanctified, small, simple structure that appeals less to the senses and more to personal faith. For this reason, traditional Protestant houses of worship typically are not designed for comfort, beauty, or high vis- ibility but instead appear deliberately humble (see Figure 7.28, bottom left). Similarly, the religious landscape of

Figure 7.27 Bumper sticker. The “mother” in question is mother earth. (Courtesy of Jeffrey Gordon.)

Nature religions such as animism generally place only a subtle mark on the landscape. Nature itself is sacred, and imposing features already present in the landscape— mountains, waterfalls, and grottos, for example—mean that few human-made shrines are needed. There are, not surprisingly, exceptions. In Korea, for example, where ani- mism merged with Buddhism and the Chinese composite religion, animistic shrines survive in the landscape (Fig- ure 7.30).

Houses of worship can also reveal subtler content and messages. In Polynesian Maori communities of New Zealand, for example, the marae, a structure linked to the

Cultural Landscape 243

Figure 7.28 Traditional religious architecture takes varied forms. St. Basil’s Church on Red Square in Moscow (upper left) reflects a highly ornate Russian landscape presence, whereas the plain board chapel in the American South (lower left) demonstrates an opposite tendency of favoring visual simplicity by British- derived Protestants. The ornate Hindu temple in Varanasi, India (above), offers still another sacred landscape. (Source: Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

the Amish and Mennonites in rural North America, the “plain folk,” is very subdued because they reject ostenta- tion in any form. Some of their adherents meet in houses or barns, and the churches that do exist are very modest in appearance, much like those of the southern Calvinists.

Islamic mosques are usually the most imposing items in the landscape, whereas the visibility of Jewish synagogues varies greatly. Hinduism has produced large numbers of visually striking temples for its multiplicity of gods, but much worship is practiced in private households with their own personal shrines (Figure 7.29).

244 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

pagan gods of the past, generally stands alongside the Christian chapel, which reflects the Maoris’ conversion (Figure 7.31). The landscape thus reflects the blending of two faiths.

Paralleling this contrast in church styles are attitudes toward roadside shrines and similar manifestations of faith. Catholic culture regions typically abound with shrines, cru- cifixes, and other visual reminders of religion, as do some Eastern Orthodox Christian areas. Protestant areas, by con- trast, are bare of such symbolism. Their landscapes, instead, display such features as signboards advising the traveler to

“Get Right with God,” a common sight in the southern United States (Figure 7.32).

Faithful Details Not only buildings but also other architectural choices, such as color and landscaping elements, can convey spiri- tual meaning through the landscape. Consider the color green. The image of a Muslim mosque in northern Nigeria in Figure 7.33 depicts how green—sacred in Islam— appears often on mosque domes and minarets, the tall cir-

Figure 7.29 Temples dedicated to ancestors in Bali, Indonesia. Bali’s population practices a blend of Hinduism, animism, and ancestor worship. These temples to ancestors are a feature of every Balinese home, and offerings of incense, food, and flowers are made three times per day to show reverence. (Courtesy of Ari Dorfsman.)

Figure 7.30 Stacked stones at a pilgrimage site in South Korea perpetuate an ancient animistic/shamanistic practice. These stones had meaning in ancient times, meaning that has since been lost. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Cultural Landscape 245

cular towers from which Muslims are called to prayer. The prophet Muhammad declared his favorite color to be green, and his cloak and turban were green. In Christian- ity, green also has positive connotations, symbolizing fertil- ity, freedom, hope, and renewal. It is used in decorations, such as banners, and for clergy vestments, especially those associated with the Trinity and Epiphany seasons.

Water, often used as a decorative element in fountains, baths, and pools, has religious meaning. In fact, all three of the great desert monotheisms—Islam, Christianity, and Judaism—consider water to have a special status in religious rituals. In general, followers of all three religions believe water has the ability to purify and cleanse the body as well

as to purify and cleanse the soul of sins. Muslims use water in ablutions, or washing, of the hands, face, or ears before daily prayers and other rituals. Footbaths, or ablution foun- tains, are important features located outside of mosques, and decorating with water, particularly pools and fountains, is a common practice in Islamic architecture. Central to Christianity is baptism, where the newborn infant or adult convert is sprinkled with or fully immersed in holy water, symbolizing the cleansing of original sin for infants and repentance or cleansing from sin for adults. Jews may engage in a ritual bath, known as a mikveh, before impor- tant events, such as weddings (for women), or on Fridays, the evening of the Jewish Sabbath (for men). The story of

Figure 7.31 In the Maori community of Tikitiki, on North Island, New Zealand, a traditional Polynesian marae, or shrine (on the left), stands beside a Christian chapel (on the right). The religious landscape, in this odd juxtaposition, tells us much about the composite faith held by the modern Maori. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 7.32 Billboard in Three Forks, Montana. Protestant billboards often use American-style advertising slogans to promote church attendance. (Nancy H. Belcher.)

246 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

the Great Flood, found in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament (common to both Jews and Christians), depicts the washing away of the sins of the world so that it could be born anew.

Landscapes of the Dead Religions differ greatly in the type of tribute each awards to its dead. These variations appear in the cultural landscape. The few remaining Zoroastrians, called Parsees, who pre- serve a once-widespread Middle Eastern faith now confined to parts of India, have traditionally left their dead exposed to be devoured by vultures. Thus, the Parsee dead leave no permanent mark on the landscape. Hindus cremate their dead. Having no cemeteries, their dead, as with the Parsees, leave no obvious mark on the land. Yet on the island of Bali in Indonesia, Hinduism has blended with animism such that temples to family ancestors occupy prominent places outside the houses of the Balinese, a landscape feature that does not exists in India itself (see Figure 7.29).

In Egypt, spectacular pyramids and other tombs were built to house dead leaders. These monuments, as well as the modern graves and tombs of the rural Islamic folk of Egypt, lie on desert land not suitable for farming (Figure 7.34). Muslim cemeteries are usually modest in appear- ance, but spectacular tombs are sometimes erected for aris- tocratic persons, giving us such sacred structures as the Taj Mahal in India (Figure 7.35), one of the architectural won- ders of the world.

Taoic Chinese typically bury their dead, setting aside land for that purpose and erecting monuments to their deceased kin. In parts of pre-Communist China, cemeter- ies and ancestral shrines take up as much as 10 percent of the land in some districts, greatly reducing the acreage available for agriculture.

Christians also typically bury their dead in sacred places set aside for that purpose. These sacred places vary signifi- cantly from one Christian denomination to another. Some graveyards, particularly those of Mennonites and southern Protestants, are very modest in appearance, reflecting the reluctance of these groups to use any symbolism that might

Figure 7.33 Muslim mosque in northern Nigeria. Areas with Muslim populations enjoy a landscape where mosque minarets and domes are frequently green in color. (Courtesy of Diane Rawson/Photo Researcher.)

Figure 7.34 Landscape of the dead, landscape of the living. The Beni Hassan Islamic necropolis in central Egypt lies in the desert, just beyond the irrigable land; nearby, the living make intensive use of every parcel of land watered by the Nile River. The mud brick structures are all tombs. Thus, the doubly dead landscape is sacred, whereas the realm of living plants and people is profane. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Cultural Landscape 247

Figure 7.35 The Taj Mahal in Agra, India. Built as a Muslim tomb, the Taj Mahal is perhaps the most impressive religious structure in the world. (Pallava Bagla/Corbis.)

be construed as idolatrous. Among certain other Christian groups, such as Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Churches, cemeteries are places of color and elaborate dec- oration (Figure 7.36).

Cemeteries often preserve truly ancient cultural traits because people as a rule are reluctant to change their practices relating to the dead. The traditional rural ceme- tery of the southern United States provides a case in point. Freshwater mussel shells are placed atop many of the elongated grave mounds, and rose bushes and cedars are planted throughout the cemetery. Recent research suggests that the use of roses may derive from the worship

of an ancient, pre-Christian mother goddess of the Mediterranean lands. The rose was a symbol of this great goddess, who could restore life to the dead. Similarly, the cedar evergreen is an age-old pagan symbol of death and eternal life, and the use of shell decoration derives from an animistic custom in West Africa, the geographic origin of slaves in the American South. Although the present Christian population of the South is unaware of the ori- gins of their cemetery symbolism, it seems likely that their landscape of the dead contains animistic elements thou- sands of years old, revealing truly ancient beliefs and cultural diffusions.

Figure 7.36 Two different Christian landscapes of the dead. In the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, the dead rest in colorful, aboveground crypts, whereas in Amana, Iowa, communalistic Germans prefer tidiness, order, and equality. (Left: Macduff Everton/Corbis; Right: Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

248 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

Reflecting on Geography What is the most visible element of the religious landscape where you live?

Sacred Space Sacred spaces consist of natural and/or human-made sites that possess special religious meaning that is recognized as worthy of devotion, loyalty, fear, or esteem. By virtue of their sacredness, these special places might be avoided by the faithful, sought out by pilgrims, or barred to members of other religions (see Figure 7.18). Often, sacred space includes the site of supposed supernatural events or is viewed as the abode of gods. Cemeteries also generally are regarded as a type of sacred space. So is Mount Sinai, described by geographer Joseph Hobbs as endowed “with special grace,” where God instructed the Hebrews to “mark out the limits of the mountain and declare it sacred.” Con- flict can result if two religions venerate the same space. In Jerusalem, for example, the Muslim Dome of the Rock, on the site where Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven, stands above the Western Wall, the remnant of the ancient Jewish temple (Figure 7.37). These two religions lit- erally claim the same space as their holy site, which has led to conflict.

Sacred space is receiving increased attention in the world. In the mid-1990s, the internationally funded Sacred Land Project began to identify and protect such sites, 5000 of which have been cataloged in the United Kingdom alone. Included are such places as ancient stone circles, pil- grim routes, holy springs, and sites that convey mystery or great natural beauty. This last type falls into the category of mystical places: locations unconnected with established religion where, for whatever reason, some people believe that extraordinary, supernatural things can happen. The Bermuda Triangle in the western Atlantic, where airplanes and ships supposedly disappear, is a mystical place and, in effect, a vernacular culture region. Some people find the expanses of the American Great Plains mystical, and writer Jonathan Raban spoke of them as “a landscape ideally suited to the staging of the millennium, open to the gaze of the Almighty.” Sometimes the sacred space of vanished ancient religions never loses—or later regains—the func- tional status of mystical place, which is what has happened at Stonehenge in England.

In his 1957 book The Sacred and the Profane, the renowned religious historian Mircea Eliade suggested that all societies, past and present, have sacred spaces. Accord- ing to Eliade, sacred spaces are so important because they establish a geographic center on which society can be anchored. Through what he termed hierophany, a sacred space emerges from the profane, ordinary spaces surround-

Figure 7.37 Conflict over sacred space. Jews pray at the Western Wall, the remnant of their great ancient temple in Jerusalem, in Israel. Standing above the wall, on the site of the vanished Jewish temple, is one of the holiest sites for Muslims—the golden- capped mosque called the Dome of the Rock, covering the place from which the Prophet Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven. Perhaps no other place on Earth is so heavily charged with religious meaning and conflict. (Gary Cralle/Gettyone.)

ing it. A contemporary example of hierophany is provided by the appearance of an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on a bank building in Clearwater, Florida, transforming the profane space of finance into a Catholic pilgrimage site (see Global Spotlight. For more information on another type of sacred space—sites originally marked by tragedy and violence—see Practicing Geography.)

Conclusion Religion is firmly interwoven in the fabric of culture, a bright hue in the human mosaic; religions vary greatly from one region to another, creating diversity so profound as to give special significance to James Griffith’s admonition that we should all “learn, respect, and walk softly.” Yet religions tend to share some common elements, the most basic being

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT Moving Faith

This 60-foot (18-meter) image appeared in December 1996 in the window of a bank building in Clearwater, Florida. A woman leaving the bank noticed that this iridescent image bore a striking resemblance to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Though some claim that the image is merely a coincidence caused by a sprinkler system, others believe this to be a miracle. The bank’s parking lot quickly became a

pilgrimage site, and Catholics from around the world gathered to behold the image. It is estimated that by the end of the 1996 holiday season, more than 400,000 people had visited the image. Rita Ring, an Ohio-based homemaker and visionary, claimed to have received a message from God that the image would appear. The Shepherds of Christ Ministries that Ring is associated with purchased the bank building in 2000. Mass is held daily at 6:21 P.M. in the parking lot.

In 2004, two of the glass panels were broken out. The news of the vandalism sent waves of shock and disbelief through the large community of devotees. An 18-year-old high school senior was charged with vandalizing the building by using a slingshot to fire ball bearings at the windows. The glass shards had to be hidden because so many people tried to take them as holy relics. The Shepherds of Christ replaced the broken panes with clear instead of mirrored glass.

Was the appearance of the image a sign from God that the global finance-driven world of the United States has forgotten about religion? Many believe so. Did the apparition’s form as the Virgin of Guadalupe, a Mexican image, have anything to do with the large influx of Mexican immigrants to the Clearwater area in the 1990s? This would not be at all surprising. Images of the Virgin of Guadalupe—both in sacred apparitions such as the one depicted here, and on clothing, baseball caps, and popular art such as tattoos and graffiti—tend to follow Mexican Catholics wherever they migrate (see Seeing Geography).

Indeed, Clearwater residents may have never perceived the sprinkler stain to resemble the Virgin of Guadalupe at all had those residents not numbered many thousands of Mexicans. Relocation of religious adherents to a new place—as is the case with the 20,000 Mexicans who now live in the Clearwater, Florida, area— is one way religious landscapes are altered—or, in this case perhaps, reinterpreted. Today, long-distance migration carries with it religious practices from formerly remote areas. Note, for instance, the prevalence of Hindu centers of worship in the United States depicted in the map above. Only a few decades ago, this map would have depicted a much lower concentration of Hindus, but with the growing numbers of immigrants, particularly from South Asia, Hinduism is becoming far more visible. Conversion of native-born populations is another way that religious landscapes are altered. High rates of conversion to Islam are a major factor in Islam’s status as fastest-growing religion in the United States. It is estimated that one in three U.S. Muslims is an African- American convert to the faith.

And this works both ways. One of the most active missionary presences worldwide is that of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the Mormons. A U.S.–originated faith, Mormonism has spread worldwide thanks in large part to the energetic efforts of missionaries. More than 60,000 Mormon missionaries are currently estimated to be spreading their word across the globe.

Think about the place where you live now. Have immigrants influenced the religious landscape? If so, in what ways, and how can you distinguish those changes in the landscape? Or is your community relatively homogeneous, religiously speaking, and if so, do you believe that this is a positive or negative thing?

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250 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

animistic faiths, is to appease and placate the forces of nature in order to achieve and maintain harmony between humans and the physical environment. Plants and animals spread—or not—with the spread of religions. The follow- ers of various religions differ in their outlooks on environ- mental modification by humans.

The cultural landscape abounds with expressions of religious belief. Places of worship—mosques, temples, churches, and shrines—differ in appearance, distinctive- ness, prominence, and frequency of occurrence from one religious culture region to another. These buildings pro- vide a visual index to the various faiths, as do their related architectural elements. Cemeteries and sacred spaces also add a special effect to the landscape that tells us about the religious character of the population. In all these ways, and more, the five themes of cultural geography prove relevant to the study of the world’s religions.

Kenneth Foote came to geography the way many people do: he simply found it more interesting than anything else he’d studied before. He began college knowing he was interested in cities and thought he would become an architect or an urban planner. However, at the University of Wisconsin, where he went

to school, most of the classes on cities were offered by the geography department. As Professor Foote says, “I soon found geography—particularly landscape studies and cultural and historical geography—more interesting than urban planning.”

For the past decade, Professor Foote has focused on places and what happens to them in the aftermath of violent or tragic events. He has studied the sites of the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City, among others. “For me the question is why some of these places are transformed into powerful and evocative monuments whereas others disappear, or are actually effaced, from view entirely.” His book Shadowed Ground (see Doing Geography at the end of the chapter) focuses on the United States, while his recent work concentrates on Europe. “Once I began to focus on the transformative effect of violence on people and place,” he writes, “I realized there were many ways I could extend my work. For me, a good research question almost always suggests another and another and another.” His current

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Kenneth Foote

research examines the very different ways in which European countries have interpreted places associated with World War I and II; the Holocaust; civil wars; and events of social, political, and economic violence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. During the past few years, he has become very interested in how national shrines and memorials are created, managed, and sometimes manipulated by certain groups. “I am becoming more and more interested in the way that the legacies of the cold war will be remembered and commemorated throughout Europe.”

Detailed case studies of places and events form the building blocks of Professor Foote’s research. He uses photographs and maps to document what has happened at a place. He supplements this visual evidence by interviewing people about what happened as well as by searching through newspapers and other written documents to see what the written record says happened. Fieldwork—actually going to the place in question and consulting human, visual, and written sources in those places—is usually at the heart of how cultural geographers do their work, and Professor Foote is no exception. Because he enjoys traveling, meeting new people, and visiting libraries and archives, Professor Foote enjoys research more than any other part of his job. “I love to be on the road investigating interesting places, talking with people, or trying to locate good sources of local history. I try to be on the road at least one month a year, sometimes more.”

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that they provide a structure of faith that anchors commu- nities. This religious spatial variation leads us to ask how these distributions came to be, a question best answered by examining methods of cultural diffusion. Some religions actively encourage their own diffusion through missionary activity or conquest. Other religions erect barriers to expan- sion diffusion by restricting membership to one particular ethnic group. People, as well, are set in motion thanks to spiritual practices, most notably pilgrimages.

In today’s globalizing world, it is worth exploring how— or even if—the world’s great religions will become signifi- cantly modified in response to changing contexts. The common practice of Internet-based religious practice brings into focus the debates over the role of place in a global world.

The theme of nature-culture reveals some fundamen- tal ties between religion and the physical environment. One major function of many religious systems, particularly the

DOING GEOGRAPHY

The Making of Sacred Spaces For this exercise, you will use Professor Foote’s ideas about how spaces become sacred. In his book Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy, Professor Foote argues that what a society chooses to forget about its past is at least as important as what it remembers in shaping an image of itself that it can present to the world. Professor Foote discusses how certain places in the United States have, or have not, become sacred sites. He notes, for example, that the battlefields of the Revolutionary and Civil wars are well marked and visited by thousands every year. Yet the 1692 execution site of the supposed witches of Salem, Massachusetts, is unmarked. How could the exact site of such an infamous event in U.S. history be impossible to locate? Professor Foote realized that this was not limited to the United States, writing, “Indeed, soon after my first trip to Salem, I found myself in Berlin before the reunification of Germany. There I came across similar places—Nazi sites such as the Gestapo headquarters and Reich chancellery—that have lain vacant since just after World War II and seem to be scarred permanently by shame.”

Professor Foote suggests that sites of important events can be sanctified, obliterated, purposely ignored, or fall somewhere in between. Sanctified sites are set apart from other sites, are carefully maintained, are often publicly owned, and attract annual visitors and ceremonies. At the other end of the spectrum, the sites of particularly shameful, stigmatized, or violent events simply may be obliterated from the landscape in an attempt to forget about them. When people are unsure of how an event fits into their history, the site where the event occurred may inhabit a sort of limbo, remaining unmarked until the society in question comes to terms with the event. This is the case with many sites of racially motivated, violent, or shameful acts in the United States, such as the Memphis, Tennessee, motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 or the Manzanar, California, internment camp where Japanese-Americans were confined during World War II. Only recently have both sites become prominent on the landscape after decades of neglect.

Think about sites near where you now live and where a violent or tragic event occurred, for example, a murder, a freak accident, a natural disaster, an assassination, an act of terrorism, or a heinous crime. All places experience such events. If nothing readily comes to mind, inquire, and inevitably you will discover something for this exercise, even if you live in a rural area or a college town. Once you have identified a site, consider its current status. Is it sanctified, is it obliterated, or does it fall somewhere in between? Has the status of the site changed over time? How? What sort of

debate, if any, occurred about what to do with this site? What sorts of signs, markers, and monuments exist in the landscape that reveal the occurrence of the event? Does the site you’re examining have a religious significance, or did it in the past? If not, can you connect the processes at work to set your site apart as special to similar processes that act to make some places holier than others in a religious sense?

Geography of Religion on the Internet You can learn more about the geography of religion on the Inter- net at the following web sites:

American Religious Identification Survey, 2001 http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf This work by Barry A. Kosmin, Egon Mayer, and Ariela Keysar of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York contains the latest data on religious affiliations in the United States.

Glenmary Research Center http://www.glenmary.org Among other activities, the center conducts a census of religious denominations in the United States every 10 years; the 2000 cen- sus, listing membership by county, appeared late in 2001.

History of Religion http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/religion.swf “See 5000 years of religion in 90 seconds” by launching this map created with Flash software. The timeline shows major develop- ments in the history of world religions, which are reflected on the dynamic map.

Material History of American Religion Project, New York, N.Y. http://www.materialreligion.org Based at Columbia University, this site has information about reli- gious material objects, including religious landscapes, in the United States.

World Council of Churches http://www.wcc-coe.org An interdenominational group, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Council of Churches works for greater cooperation and understanding among different faiths.

Sources Bradley, Martin B., et al. 1992. Churches and Church Membership in

the United States. Atlanta: Glenmary Research Center. Curran, Claude W. 1991. “Mt. Shasta, California, and the I Am

Religion,” in Abstracts, The Association of American Geographers 1991 Annual Meeting, April 13–17, Miami, Florida. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers, 42.

Curry-Roper, Janel M. 1990. “Contemporary Christian Eschatolo- gies and Their Relation to Environmental Stewardship.” Profes- sional Geographer 42: 157–169.

Doughty, Robin W. 1981. “Environmental Theology: Trends and Prospects in Christian Thought.” Progress in Human Geography 5: 234–248.

Eliade, Mircea. 1987 [1957]. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Willard R. Trask (trans.). San Diego: Harcourt, Inc.

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252 Chapter 7 The Geography of Religion

SEEING GEOGRAPHY Parking Lot Shrine

This large statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe inhabits the corner of the parking lot of Self-Help Graphics and Art, an artists’ cooperative in East Los Angeles. According to Michael Amezcua, neighborhood residents actively use this shrine, leaving offerings and petitions to the Virgin in this outdoor grotto. Every December 12, neighborhood residents gather here to celebrate the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

We could interpret this unique parking lot shrine to be a variation on the yard shrine, a common feature of the residential landscape of the southwestern United States. Throughout the Mexican-American homeland region of the Southwest, it is common to see a small shrine to the

Virgin of Guadalupe in people’s front yards. This, in turn, is a variation on the Mexican custom of maintaining elaborate shrines and altars to important religious figures. These are sometimes located inside the house in a space reserved especially for altars (called a nicho). Or they can be located outside the house, near the front door, because Mexican homes usually do not have yard space in front of the house. On December 12, altars all over Mexico and Mexican-American areas in the United States are elaborately decorated with candles, ribbons, and flowers. Devotees of the Virgin of Guadalupe celebrate with family and neighbors throughout the night. Since turquoise blue is considered to be the favorite color of the Virgin of Guadalupe, this color abounds. Because the Virgin of Guadalupe is also the official patron saint of Mexico, the red, white, and green of the Mexican flag is also prevalent in altar decorations.

In Miami, another Latino population center in the United States, yard shrines are built to La Virgen de la Caridad de Cobre. Like the Virgin of Guadalupe, La Virgen de la Caridad is an American manifestation of the Virgin Mary. This Virgin hails from the copper mining village of Cobre, in Cuba. She is thought to protect seafarers and has been adopted by Cuban rafters as their patron saint. Yemayá, who is an orisha, or spirit, in the Afrocentric Cuban religious tradition of Santería, is often equated with La Virgen de la Caridad de Cobre, as both are associated with the sea.

What does the fact that this particular shrine is built in a parking lot rather than a yard say about what, and how, spaces become sacred? Can you think of a more mundane place than a parking lot for such a hallowed figure as the Virgin of Guadalupe? Perhaps the drive-through architecture of strip malls, highways, and parking lots that is so closely associated with the urban landscape of Los Angeles has something to do with it. Where else, other than in Los Angeles, can you find a sacred parking lot?

How can an ordinary landscape, such as a parking lot, become sacred space?

Foote, Kenneth E. 1997. Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Government of Canada. 1974. The National Atlas of Canada, 4th ed. Ottawa: Government of Canada, Surveys and Mapping Branch.

Griffith, James S. 1992. Beliefs and Holy Places: A Spiritual Geography of the PimerÌa Alta. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Hobbs, Joseph J. 1995. Mount Sinai. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Huntsinger, Lynn, and María Fernández-Giménez. 2000. “Spiri- tual Pilgrims at Mount Shasta, California.” Geographical Review 90: 536–558.

Jordan-Bychkov, Terry G., and Bella Bychkova Jordan. 2002. The European Culture Area: A Systematic Geography, 4th ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Klaer, Wendelin. 1996. “Survey: Lebanon.” The Economist. Febru- ary 24, l996: 333.

Parking lot shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Self-Help Graphics and Art, East Los Angeles.

Ten Recommended Books on the Geography of Religion 253

Lodrick, Deryck O. 1981. Sacred Cows, Sacred Places: Origins and Survivals of Animal Homes in India. Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press.

Raban, Jonathan. 1996. Bad Land: An American Romance. New York: Pantheon Books.

Simoons, Frederick J. 1994. Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances in the Old World, 2nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Singh, Rana P. B. 1994. “Water Symbolism and Sacred Landscape in Hinduism.” Erdkunde 48: 210–227.

Stump, Roger W. (ed.). 1986. “The Geography of Religion.” Spe- cial issue, Journal of Cultural Geography 7: 1–140.

2000 Britannica Book of the Year. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica. World Almanac and Book of Facts 2001. New York: World Almanac

Books.

Ten Recommended Books on the Geography of Religion (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Al-Faruqi, Isma’il R., and David E. Sopher. 1974. Historical Atlas of the Religions of the World. New York: Macmillan. Pretty much what its title promises, this informative atlas allows you to see cultural diffusion in action over the centuries and millennia.

Esposito, John, Susan Tyler Hitchcock, Desmond Tutu, and Mpho Tutu. 2004. Geography of Religion: Where God Lives, Where Pilgrims Walk. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic. In the tradition of the National Geographic, this comprehensive reference book is beautifully illustrated.

Gottlieb, Roger S. (ed.). 1995. This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature and Environment. London: Routledge. A good introduction to ecotheology.

Halvorson, Peter L., and William M. Newman. 1994. Atlas of Religious Change in America, 1952–1990. Atlanta: Glenmary Research Center. This atlas shows the changing pattern of denominational membership in the United States in the sec- ond half of the twentieth century, revealing the strengthening of some religions and the weakening of others.

Harpur, James. 1994. The Atlas of Sacred Places. New York: Henry Holt. This volume is a useful depiction of the location of sacred places, or “sacred space,” as we labeled it; you will be amazed by their number and diversity.

Jordan, Terry G. 1982. Texas Graveyards: A Cultural Legacy. Austin: University of Texas Press. The only book by a geographer on this aspect of the religious landscape, this volume is very reveal- ing about a state possessing a wide array of ethnic groups.

Park, Chris. 1994. Sacred Worlds: An Introduction to Geography and Religion. London: Routledge. An introductory text on the geog- raphy of religion.

Pui-lan, Kwok (ed.). 1994. Ecotheology: Voices from South and North. New York: World Council of Churches Publications. A very readable sampling of recent ecotheological thought.

Stoddard, Robert H., and Alan Morinis (eds.). 1997. Sacred Places, Sacred Spaces: The Geography of Pilgrimages. Baton Rouge: Geo- science Publications. Published by the Department of Geogra- phy and Anthropology at Louisiana State University, these 14 essays, each by a different author, draw attention to Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and lesser Asian pilgrimage traditions, as seen from the perspective of cultural geography.

Stump, Roger W. 2000. Boundaries of Faith: Geographical Perspectives on Religious Fundamentalism. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Little- field. After describing the background of fundamentalist movements within various world religions occurring in several countries, the author explains commonalities and clarifies political implications. One of the first examinations of the spa- tial strategies inherent in fundamentalism.

What differences can you “read” in these landscapes? Can you determine their locations?

8 Agriculture

The Geography of the Global Food System

Two types of contemporary agricultural landscapes. (Left: Jim Wark/AirPhoto; Right: Michael Busselle/Corbis.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 290 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

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Every one of us depends, either directly or indirectly, on agriculture for our sur-vival. It is easy to forget that urban-industrial society relies (none too securely)on the food surplus generated by farmers and herders and that, without agri- culture, there would be no cities, universities, factories, or offices.

Agriculture, the tilling of crops and rearing of domesticated animals to produce food, feed, drink, and fiber, has been the principal enterprise of humankind throughout recorded history. Even today, agriculture remains by far the most impor- tant economic activity in the world, using more land than any other activity and employing about 40 percent of the working population. In some parts of Asia and Africa, more than 75 percent of the labor force is devoted to agriculture. North Americans, on the other hand, live in an urban society in which less than 2 percent of the population work as agriculturists. Likewise, Europe’s labor force is as thor- oughly nonagricultural as North America’s. Nearly half of the world’s population, however, continues to live in farm villages.

Region How is the theme of region relevant to agriculture? For thousands of years, farmers have found ways to cope with a range of environmental conditions, creating in the process an array of different types of food-producing systems. Collectively, these farming practices have constructed formal agricultural regions (Figure 8.1). During the past 500 years, colonialism, industrialization, and globalization have greatly altered existing practices and created new types of agricultural regions, such as plan- tations. Increasingly, large-scale capitalist agriculture overcomes local environmen- tal constraints through irrigation, land reclamation, and the use of synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, herbicides, and genetic engineering. Consequently, in order to understand agricultural regions, we need to consider the role of the envi- ronment, cultural factors, and the political and economic forces that influence a region.

Swidden Cultivation Many of the peoples of tropical lowlands and hills in the Americas, Africa, and South- east Asia practice a land-rotation agricultural system known as swidden cultivation.

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more fragile ones; reduces the chance of total crop losses from disease or pests; and provides the farmer with a varied diet. The complexity of many intercropping systems reveals the depth of knowledge acquired by swidden cultivators over many centuries. Relatively little tending of the plants is necessary until harvest time, and no fertilizer is applied to the fields because the ashes from the fire are a sufficient source of nutrients.

The planting and harvesting cycle is repeated in the same clearings for perhaps three to five years, until soil fer- tility begins to decline as nutrients are taken up by crops and not replaced. Subsequently, crop yields decline. These fields then are abandoned, and new clearings are prepared to replace them. Because the farmers periodically shift their cultivation plots, another commonly used term for the

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The term swidden is derived from an old English term meaning “burned clearing.” Using machetes, axes, and chainsaws, swidden cultivators chop away the undergrowth from small patches of land and kill the trees by removing a strip of bark completely around the trunk. After the dead vegetation dries out, the farmers set it on fire to clear the land. Because of these clearing techniques, swidden culti- vation is also called slash-and-burn agriculture. Working with digging sticks or hoes, the farmers then plant a variety of crops in the ash-covered clearings, varying from the maize (corn), beans, bananas, and manioc of Native Ameri- cans to the yams and nonirrigated rice grown by hill tribes in Southeast Asia (Figure 8.2). Different crops typically share the same clearing, a practice called intercropping. This technique allows taller, stronger crops to shelter lower,

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Figure 8.2 Swidden cultivation. This Indian woman in the Amazon Basin of Brazil tends a typical field. Note the intercropping, which includes bananas, and the ashes from the burning of the clearing at the base of the tree stump. Women were the first farmers and domesticated most, if not all, crops. Are low-technology methods necessarily inferior? (Helen Trembly/Families of the World.)

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Figure 8.3 Cultivation of rice on the island of Bali, Indonesia. Paddy rice farming traditionally entails enormous amounts of human labor and yields very high productivity per unit of land. What are the disadvantages of such a system? (Denis Waugh/Tony Stone Images.)

system is shifting cultivation. The abandoned cropland lies fallow for 10 to 20 years before farmers return to clear it and start the cycle again. Swidden cultivation represents one form of subsistence agriculture: food production mainly for the family and local community rather than for market.

Swidden cultivation in the tropics often has been viewed by outsiders as destructive and inefficient, because the techniques used and the landscapes that result are so different from those common in temperate-zone agricul- ture. However, although the technology of swidden may be simple, it has proved to be an efficient and adaptive strat- egy. Swidden farming, unlike some modern systems, is eco- logically sustainable and has endured for millennia. Indeed, contemporary studies suggest that some swidden systems have actually enhanced biodiversity. Furthermore, swidden returns more calories of food for the calories spent on cultivation than does modern mechanized agriculture. In many tropical forest regions, swidden cultivation, unlike Western plantations, has left most of the forest intact over centuries of continuous use.

Nonetheless, swidden cultivation can be environmen- tally destructive under certain conditions. In poor coun- tries with large landless populations, one often finds a front of pioneer swidden farmers advancing on the forests. In such situations, a range of institutional, economic, political, and demographic factors restrict poor farmers’ abilities to employ the methods of swidden agriculture in a sustainable way. In many tropical countries, for example, a small pro-

portion of the population owns most of the best agricul- tural land, forcing the majority of farmers to clear forests to gain access to land. Another condition that may diminish the sustainability of swidden cultivation occurs when a pop- ulation experiences a sudden increase in its rate of growth and political or social conditions restrict its mobility. Popu- lation growth may encourage farmers to shorten the period during which the land is recuperating, a departure from past practices that can lead to environmental deterioration. Swidden cultivation, still widely practiced throughout the tropics, is thus a highly variable system, occurring in both sustainable and unsustainable forms.

Paddy Rice Farming Peasant farmers in the humid tropical and subtropical parts of Asia practice a highly distinctive type of subsistence agri- culture called paddy rice farming. Rice, the dominant paddy crop, forms the basis of civilizations in which almost all the caloric intake is of plant origin. From the monsoon coasts of India through the hills of southeastern China and on to the warmer parts of Korea and Japan stretches a broad region of diked, flooded rice fields, or paddies, many of which are perched on terraced hillsides (Figure 8.3). The terraced paddy fields form a striking cultural land- scape (see Figure 1.17).

A paddy rice farm of only 3 acres (1 hectare � 2.47 acres) usually is adequate to support a family, because irri- gated rice provides a very large output of food per unit of

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land. Still, paddy farmers must till their small patches inten- sively to harvest enough food. A system of irrigation that can deliver water when and where it is needed is key to suc- cess. In addition, large amounts of fertilizer must be applied to the land. Paddy farmers often plant and harvest the same parcel of land twice per year, a practice known as double-cropping. These systems are extremely productive, yielding more food per acre than many forms of industrial- ized agriculture in the United States.

The modern era has witnessed a restructuring of paddy rice farming in more developed countries, such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. In some cases, the terrace structure has been reengineered to produce larger fields that can be worked with machines. In addition, dams, electric pumps, and reservoirs now provide a more reliable water supply, and high-yielding seeds, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers boost production further. Most paddy rice farmers now pro- duce mainly for urban markets.

Peasant Grain, Root, and Livestock Farming In colder, drier Asian farming regions that are climatically unsuited to paddy rice farming—as well as in the river val- leys of the Middle East, in parts of Europe, in Africa, and in the mountain highlands of Latin America and New Guinea—farmers practice a diverse system of agriculture based on bread grains, root crops, and herd livestock (Fig- ures 8.4 and 8.5). Many geographers refer to these farmers as peasants, recognizing that they often represent a distinc- tive folk culture strongly rooted in the land. Peasants gen- erally are small-scale farmers who own their fields and produce both for their own subsistence and for sale in the market. The dominant grain crops in these regions are wheat, barley, sorghum, millet, oats, and maize. Common cash crops—some of them raised for export—include cot- ton, flax, hemp, coffee, and tobacco.

These farmers also raise herds of cattle, pigs, sheep, and, in South America, llamas and alpacas. The livestock pull the plow; provide milk, meat, and wool; serve as beasts of burden; and produce manure for the fields. They also consume a portion of the grain harvest. In some areas, such as the Middle Eastern river valleys, the use of irrigation helps support this peasant system. In general, however, most modern agricultural technologies are beyond the financial reach of most peasants.

Plantation Agriculture In certain tropical and subtropical areas, Europeans and Americans introduced a commercial agricultural system called plantation agriculture. A plantation is a landholding devoted to capital-intensive, large-scale, specialized produc- tion of one tropical or subtropical crop for the global mar-

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Figure 8.4 Two agricultural regions in China. The intricacies of culture region boundaries are suggested by the distribution of two types of agriculture in Taiwan and the eastern part of China. What might account for the more fragmented distribution of paddy rice farming, as contrasted with peasant grain, root, and livestock farming? Where would you draw the cultural boundary between the two types of agriculture? All such cultural-geographical borders are difficult to draw. (Source: Chuan-jun, 1979.)

ket. Each plantation district in the tropical and subtropical zones tends to specialize in one crop. Plantation agriculture has long relied on large amounts of manual labor, initially in the form of slave labor and later as wage labor. The plan- tation system originated in the 1400s on Portuguese-owned sugarcane-producing islands off the coast of tropical West

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Africa—São Tomé and Principe—but the greatest concen- trations are now in the American tropics, Southeast Asia, and tropical South Asia. Most plantations lie near the sea- coast, close to the shipping lanes that carry their produce to nontropical lands such as Europe, the United States, and Japan.

Workers usually live right on the plantation, where a rigid social and economic segregation of labor and man- agement produces a two-class society of the wealthy and the poor. As a result of the concentration of ownership and pro- duction, a handful of multinational corporations, such as Chiquita and Dole, control the largest share of plantations globally. Tension between labor and management is not uncommon, and the societal ills of the plantation system remain far from cured (Figure 8.6).

Plantations provided the base for European and American economic expansion into tropical Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They maximize the production of lux- ury crops for Europeans and Americans, such as sugar- cane, bananas, coffee, coconuts, spices, tea, cacao, pineapples, rubber, and tobacco (Figure 8.7). Similarly, textile factories require cotton, sisal, jute, hemp, and other fiber crops from the plantation areas. Much of the profit from these plantations is exported, along with the crops themselves, to Europe and North America, another

source of political friction between countries of the global North and South.

Market Gardening The growth of urban markets in the last few centuries also gave rise to other commercial forms of agriculture, including mar- ket gardening, also known as truck farming. Unlike planta- tions, truck farms are located in developed countries and specialize in intensively cultivated nontropical fruits, vegeta- bles, and vines. They raise no livestock. Many districts concen- trate on a single product, such as wine, table grapes, raisins, olives, oranges, apples, lettuce, or potatoes, and the entire farm output is raised for sale rather than for consumption on the farm. Many truck farmers participate in cooperative marketing arrangements and depend on migratory seasonal farm labor- ers to harvest their crops. Market garden districts appear in most industrialized countries. In the United States, a broken belt of market gardens extends from California eastward through the Gulf and Atlantic coast states, with scattered dis- tricts in other parts of the country. The lands around the Mediterranean Sea are dominated by market gardens. In regions of mild climates, such as California, Florida, and the Mediterranean region, winter vegetables are a common mar- ket crop raised for sale in colder regions of the higher latitudes.

Figure 8.5 Peasant grain, root, and livestock agriculture in highland New Guinea. Distinctive raised fields with sweet potato mounds are found here among the farms of highland New Guinea. These people raise diverse crops but give the greatest importance to sweet potatoes, together with pigs. Why might they go to the trouble of creating these small mounds? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 8.6 Plantation agriculture. This sign was erected by the management at the entrance to a banana plantation in Costa Rica. “Welcome to Freehold Plantation, a workplace where labor harmony reigns; in mutual respect and understanding, we united workers produce and export quality goods in peace and harmony.” How does this message suggest that, in fact, not all is harmonious here and that the tension of the two-class plantation system simmers below the surface? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

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Livestock Fattening In livestock fattening, farmers raise and fatten cattle and hogs for slaughter. One of the most highly devel- oped fattening areas is the famous Corn Belt of the U.S. Midwest, where farmers raise corn and soybeans to feed cattle and hogs. Typically, slaughterhouses are located close to feedlots, creating a new meat-producing region, which is often dependent on mobile populations of cheap immigrant labor. A similar system prevails over much of western and central Europe, though the feed crops there more commonly are oats and potatoes. Other zones of commercial livestock fattening appear in

overseas European settlement zones such as southern Brazil and South Africa.

One of the central traditional characteristics of live- stock fattening is the combination of crops and animal husbandry. Farmers breed many of the animals they fat- ten, especially hogs. In the last half of the twentieth cen- tury, livestock fatteners began to specialize their activities; some concentrated on breeding animals, others on preparing them for market. In the factory-like feedlot, farmers raise imported cattle and hogs on purchased feed (Figure 8.8). Increases in the amount of land and crop harvest dedicated to beef production has accompanied

Figure 8.7 Tea plantation in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Although profitable for the owners and providing employment for a small labor force, the plantation recently displaced a much larger population of peasant grain, root, and livestock farmers. This is one result of globalization. Should the government have prevented such a displacement? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 8.8 Cattle feedlot for beef production. This feedlot, in Colorado, is reputedly the world’s largest. What ecological problems might such an enterprise cause? (William Strode/Woodfin Camp.)

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the growth in feedlot size and number. In the United States, across Europe, and in European settlement zones around the globe, 51 to 75 percent of all grain raised goes to livestock fattening.

The livestock fattening and slaughtering industry has become increasingly concentrated, on both the national and global scales. In 1980 in the United States, the top four companies accounted for 41 percent of all slaugh- tered cattle. By 2000, the top four companies were slaugh- tering 81 percent of all feedlot cattle. One company alone accounted for 35 percent. Corporate conglomer- ates such as ConAgra and Cargill control much of the beef supply through their domination of the grain mar- ket and ownership of feedlots and slaughterhouses. The concentration of the industry has extended north and south across the border, primarily spurred by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). By 1999, two U.S.-based companies accounted for 50 percent of Canada’s slaughtered cattle. Cargill owns beef opera- tions in more than 60 countries. One industry observer concludes that three multinational companies control the entire global beef industry.

Grain Farming Grain farming is a type of specialized agriculture in which farmers grow primarily wheat, rice, or corn for commer- cial markets. The United States is the world’s leading wheat and corn exporter. The United States, Canada, Aus-

tralia, the European Union (EU), and Argentina together account for more than 85 percent of all wheat exports, while the United States alone accounts for about 70 per- cent of world corn exports. Wheat belts stretch through Australia, the Great Plains of interior North America, the steppes of Russia and Ukraine, and the pampas of Argentina. Farms in these areas generally are very large, ranging from family-run wheat farms to giant corporate operations (Figure 8.9).

Widespread use of machinery, synthetic fertilizers, pesti- cides, and genetically engineered seed varieties enables grain farmers to operate on this large scale. The planting and har- vesting of grain is more completely mechanized than any other form of agriculture. Commercial rice farmers employ such techniques as sowing grain from airplanes. Harvesting is usually done by hired migratory crews using corporation- owned machines (Figure 8.10). Perhaps grain farming’s ulti- mate development is the suitcase farm, which is found in the Wheat Belt of the northern Great Plains of the United States. The people who own and operate these farms do not live on the land. Most of them own several suitcase farms, lined up in a south-to-north row through the Plains states. They keep fleets of farm machinery, which they send north with crews of laborers along the string of suitcase farms to plant, fertil- ize, and harvest the wheat. The progressively later ripening of the grain as one moves north allows these farmers to main- tain and harvest crops on all their farms with the same crew and the same machinery. Except for visits by migratory crews, the suitcase farms are uninhabited.

Figure 8.9 A wheat landscape in the Palouse, a grain-farming region on the borders of Washington and Oregon. Grain elevators are a typical part of such agricultural landscapes. The raising of one crop, such as wheat, across entire regions is called monoculture. What problems might be linked to monoculture? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

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Such highly mechanized, absentee-owned, large-scale operations, or agribusinesses, have mostly replaced the small, husband- and wife-operated American family farm, an important part of the U.S. rural heritage. Geographer Ingolf Vogeler documented the decline of the small fam- ily farms in the American countryside and argued that U.S. governmental policies, prompted by the forces of globalization, have consistently favored the interests of agribusiness, thereby hastening the decline. Family-owned farms continue to play an important role, but they now operate mostly as large agribusinesses that own or lease many far-flung grain fields.

Dairying In many ways, the specialized production of dairy goods closely resembles livestock fattening. In the large dairy belts of the northern United States from New England to the upper Midwest, western and northern Europe, south- eastern Australia, and northern New Zealand, the keeping of dairy cows depends on the large-scale use of pastures. In colder areas, some acreage must be devoted to winter feed crops, especially hay. Dairy products vary from region to region, depending in part on how close the farmers are to their markets. Dairy belts near large urban centers usu- ally produce milk, which is more perishable, while those farther away specialize in butter, cheese, or processed milk. An extreme case is New Zealand, which, because of its remote location from world markets, produces much butter.

Reflecting on Geography Why is dairying confined to northern Europe and the overseas lands settled by northern Europeans? (See Figure 8.1.)

As with livestock fattening, in recent decades a rapidly increasing number of dairy farmers have adopted the feedlot system and now raise their cattle on feed pur- chased from other sources. Often situated on the subur- ban fringes of large cities for quick access to market, the dairy feedlots operate like factories. Like industrial fac- tory owners, feedlot dairy owners rely on hired laborers to help maintain their herds. Dairy feedlots are another indicator of the rise of globalization-induced agribusi- ness and the decline of the family farm. By easing trade barriers, globalization compels U.S. dairy farmers to compete with producers in other parts of the world. Huge feedlots, a factory-style organization of produc- tion, automation, the concentration of ownership, and the increasing size of dairy farms are responses to this intense competition.

Nomadic Herding In the dry or cold lands of the Eastern Hemisphere, partic- ularly in the deserts, prairies, and savannas of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the interior of Eurasia, nomadic livestock herders graze cattle, sheep, goats, and camels. North of the tree line in Eurasia, the cold tundra forms a zone of nomadic herders who raise reindeer. The common characteristic of all nomadic herding is mobility. Herders

Figure 8.10 Mechanized wheat harvest on the Great Plains of the United States. North American grain farmers operate in a capital-intensive manner, investing in machines, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. What long-term problems might such methods cause? What benefits are realized in such a system? (Roger Du Buisson/The Stock Market.)

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move with their livestock in search of forage for the animals as seasons and range conditions change. Some nomads migrate from lowlands in winter to mountains in summer; others shift from desert areas during the rainy season to adjacent semiarid plains in the dry season or from tundra in summer to nearby forests in winter. Some nomads herd while mounted on horses, such as the Mongols of East Asia, or on camels, such as the Bedouin of the Arabian Penin- sula. Others, such as the Rendile of East Africa, herd cattle, goats, and sheep on foot.

Their need for mobility dictates that the nomads’ few material possessions be portable, including the tents used for housing (Figure 8.11). Their mobile lifestyle also affects how wealth is measured. Typically, in nomadic cultures wealth is based on the size of livestock holdings rather than on the accumulation of property and personal possessions. Usually, the nomads obtain nearly all of life’s necessities from livestock products or by bartering with the farmers of adjacent river valleys and oases.

For a number of different reasons, nomadic herding has been in decline since the early twentieth century. Some national governments established policies encouraging nomads to practice sedentary cultivation of the land. This practice was begun in the nineteenth century by British and French colonial administrators in North Africa, because it allowed greater control of the people by the central govern- ments. Today, many nomads are voluntarily abandoning their traditional life to seek jobs in urban areas or in the Middle Eastern oil fields. Recent severe drought in sub-Saharan Africa’s Sahel region, which decimated nomadic livestock herds, was a further impetus to abandon nomadic life.

In recent decades, research conducted by geographers and anthropologists in Africa’s semiarid environments has revealed the sound logic of nomadic herding practices. These studies demonstrate that nomadic cultures’ pasture and livestock management strategies are rational responses to an erratic and unpredictable environment. Rainfall is highly irregular in time and space, and herding practices must adjust. The most important nomadic strategy is mobil- ity, which allows herders to take fullest advantage of the resulting variations in range productivity. These findings have led to a new appreciation of nomadic herding cultures and may cause governments to reconsider sedentarization programs, thus postponing the demise of herding cultures.

Livestock Ranching Superficially, ranching might seem similar to nomadic herding. It is, however, a fundamentally different live- stock-raising system. Although both nomadic herders and livestock ranchers specialize in animal husbandry to the exclusion of crop raising and both live in arid or semiarid regions, livestock ranchers have fixed places of residence and operate as individuals rather than within a commu- nal or tribal organization. In addition, ranchers raise live- stock on a large scale for market, not for their own subsistence.

Livestock ranchers are found worldwide in areas with environmental conditions that are too harsh for crop produc- tion. They raise only two kinds of animals in large numbers: cattle and sheep. Ranchers in the United States, Canada, trop- ical and subtropical Latin America, and the warmer parts of

Figure 8.11 Nomadic pastoralists in West Africa. This Fulbe-Waila pastoralist household in Chad is moving their livestock to new pastures. Mobility is key to their successful use of the variable and unpredictable environment of this region of Africa. They are taking with them all of their possessions, including their shelter—a hut, which they have packed on top of one of their cows. (Frank Kroenke/Peter Arnold, Inc.)

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Australia specialize in cattle raising. Midlatitude ranchers in cooler and wetter climates specialize in sheep. Sheep produc- tion is geographically concentrated to such a degree that only three countries, Australia, China, and New Zealand, account for 56 percent of the world’s export wool.

Urban Agriculture The United Nations (UN) calculates that in 2008 the human species passed a milestone. For the first time in history, more people—some 3.3 billion—are living in cities than in the countryside. As this global-scale rural-to-urban migration gained momentum, a distinct form of agriculture rose in sig- nificance. We might best call this urban agriculture. Millions of city dwellers, especially in Third World countries, now pro- duce enough vegetables, fruit, meat, and milk from tiny urban or suburban plots to provide most of their food, often with a surplus to sell. In China, urban agriculture now pro- vides 90 percent or more of all the vegetables consumed in the cities. In the African metropolises of Kampala and Dar es Salaam, 70 percent of the poultry and 90 percent of the leafy vegetables consumed in the cities, respectively, come from urban lands. Even a developed country such as Russia derives nearly half of its food from such operations. Similarly, neigh- borhood gardens increasingly are found in inner-city areas of North America.

Geographer Susanne Freidberg has conducted research demonstrating the importance of urban agricul- ture to family income and food security in West Africa. Focusing on the city of Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, Freidberg showed that though plots were small, urban agriculture offered residents “a culturally meaningful way to fulfill their roles as food producers and family providers.” In its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, urban farming provided substantial incomes from vegetable

sales in both the domestic and export markets. Since then, collapsing demand and the deterioration of environmen- tal conditions have threatened the enterprise and under- mined cooperation and trust within Bobo-Dioulasso’s urban agricultural communities.

Reflecting on Geography What types of agriculture occur in the three main densely populated areas of the world? (Compare Figures 3.1 and 8.1.) Are these two characteristics—type of agriculture and population density—linked?

Farming the Waters Most of us don’t think of the ocean when discussing agri- culture. In fact, every year more and more of our animal protein is produced through aquaculture: the cultivation and harvesting of aquatic organisms under controlled con- ditions. Aquaculture includes mariculture, shrimp farm- ing, oyster farming, fish farming, pearl cultivation, and more. In the heart of Brooklyn, New York, urban aquacul- ture thrives in a laboratory, where fish bound for New York City restaurants are harvested from indoor tanks. Aquacul- ture has its own distinctive cultural landscapes of contain- ment ponds, rafts, nets, tanks, and buoys (Figure 8.12). Like terrestrial agriculture, there is a marked regional character to aquacultural production.

Aquaculture is an ancient practice, dating back at least 4500 years. Older local practices, sometimes referred to as traditional aquaculture, involve simple techniques such as constructing retention ponds to trap fish or “seed- ing” flooded rice fields with shrimp. Commercial aquacul- ture, the industrialized, large-scale protein factories that are driving today’s production growth, is a contemporary

Figure 8.12 Emerging mariculture landscape. As mariculture expands, coastal landscapes and ecosystems are transformed, as in the case of marine fish farming off Langkawi Island, Malaysia. (Copyright © age fotostock/SuperStock.)

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phenomenon. The greatest leaps in technology and pro- duction have occurred mostly since the 1970s.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, aquaculture is experiencing phenomenal growth worldwide, growing nearly four times faster than all terrestrial animal food- producing sectors combined. Aquaculture is a key reason that per capita protein availability has mostly kept pace with population growth in recent decades. For example, China’s per capita protein supply derived from aquaculture went from 1 kilogram in 1970 to nearly 24 kilograms in 2004. By 2004, aquaculture produced nearly one-third of all fish and seafood consumed worldwide, compared with only 4 per- cent in 1970. Aquaculture’s share of production is pro- jected to continue growing as demand for seafood increases and wild fish stocks decline.

The extraordinary expansion of food production by aquaculture has come with high costs to the environment and human health. As with industrialized agriculture, most commercial aquaculture relies on high energy and chemical inputs, including antibiotics and artificial feeds made from the wastes of poultry and hog processing.

Such production practices tend to concentrate toxins in farmed fish, creating a potential health threat to con- sumers. The discharge from fish farms, which can be equivalent to the sewage from a small city, can pollute nearby natural aquatic ecosystems. Around the tropics, especially tropical Asia, the expansion of commercial shrimp farms is contributing to the loss of highly biodi- verse coastal mangrove forests.

Although aquaculture can take place just about any- where that water is found, strong regional patterns do exist. Mariculture is prevalent along tropical coasts, partic- ularly in the mangrove forest zone. Marine coastal zones in general, especially in protected gulfs and estuaries, have high concentrations of mariculture. On a global scale, China dwarfs all other regions, producing over two- thirds of the world’s farmed seafood (Figure 8.13). Asia and Pacific regions combined produce over 90 percent of the world’s total.

If you order shrimp, trout, or salmon for dinner at any of the myriad restaurant chains, you almost certainly will be eating farmed protein. As the populations of wild species

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2,191,704 (India)

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200 nautical mile EEZ (exclusive economic zone)

Figure 8.13 Global aquaculture and fisheries. Aquaculture is expanding rapidly around the globe, led by China, the world’s top producer. Virtually all mariculture takes place within a country’s 200-mile coastal territory, known as the EEZ (exclusive

economic zone). The EEZ is also the site of most commercial fishing, which has greatly depleted wild fish stocks and raised the need for increased mariculture production. (Source: The Global Education Project, Fishing and Aquaculture.)

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decline and the price of capture fish increases, farmed seafood will increasingly move into the breach. If trends continue, we may be among the last generations to enjoy affordable fresh-caught wild fish.

Nonagricultural Areas Areas of extreme climate, particularly deserts and subarc- tic forests, do not support any form of agriculture. Such lands are found predominantly in much of Canada and Siberia. Often these areas are inhabited by hunting-and- gathering groups of native peoples, such as the Inuit, who gain a livelihood by hunting game, fishing where possi- ble, and gathering edible and medicinal wild plants. At one time all humans lived as hunter-gatherers. Today, fewer than 1 percent of humans do. Given the various inroads of the modern world, even these people rarely depend entirely on hunting and gathering. In most hunt- ing-and-gathering societies, a division of labor by gender occurs. Males perform most of the hunting and fishing, whereas females carry out the equally important task of gathering harvests from wild plants. Hunter-gatherers generally rely on a great variety of animals and plants for their food.

Mobility How does the theme of mobility help us understand the spatial and cultural patterns of agricultural production and food consumption? Some of the variation among the agriculture regions we’ve discussed results from cultural diffusion. Agriculture and its many components are inventions; they arose as innovations in certain source areas and diffused to other parts of the world. Mobility, as we shall see, is key in the expansion and functioning of the modern global food system.

Origins and Diffusion of Plant Domestication Agriculture probably began with the domestication of plants. A domesticated plant is one that is deliberately planted, protected, cared for, and used by humans. Such plants are genetically distinct from their wild ancestors because they result from selective breeding by agricultur- ists. Accordingly, they tend to be bigger than wild species, bearing larger and more abundant fruit or grain. For exam- ple, the original wild “Indian maize” grew on a cob only one-tenth the size of the cobs of domesticated maize.

Plant domestication and improvement constituted a process, not an event. It began as the gradual culmination of hundreds, or even thousands, of years of close associa- tion between humans and the natural vegetation. The first

step in domestication was perceiving that a certain plant was useful, which led initially to its protection and eventu- ally to deliberate planting.

Cultural geographer Carl Johannessen suggests that the domestication process can still be observed. He believes that by studying current techniques used by native subsis- tence farmers in places such as Central America, we can gain insight into the methods of the first farmers of prehis- toric antiquity. Johannessen’s study of the present-day cul- tivation of the pejibaye palm tree in Costa Rica revealed that native cultivators actively engage in seed selection. All choose the seed of fresh fruit from superior trees, ones that bear particularly desirable fruit, as determined by size, fla- vor, texture, and color. Superior seed stocks are built up gradually over the years, with the result that elderly farmers generally have the best selections. Seeds are shared freely within family and clan groups, allowing rapid diffusion of desirable traits.

The widespread association of female deities with agri- culture suggests that it was women who first worked the land. Recall the almost universal division of labor in hunting-gathering-fishing societies. Because women had day-to-day contact with wild plants and their mobility was constrained by childbearing, they probably played the larger role in early plant domestication.

Locating Centers of Domestication When, where, and how did these processes of plant domes- tication develop? Most experts now believe that the process of domestication was independently invented at many dif- ferent times and locations. Geographer Carl Sauer, who conducted pioneering research on the origins and disper- sal of plant and animal domestication, was one of the first to propose this explanation.

Sauer believed that domestication did not develop in response to hunger. He maintained that necessity was not the mother of agricultural invention, because starving peo- ple must spend every waking hour searching for food and have no time to devote to the leisurely experimentation required to domesticate plants. Instead, he suggested this invention was accomplished by peoples who had enough food to remain settled in one place and devote consider- able time to plant care. The first farmers were probably sedentary folk rather than migratory hunter-gatherers. He reasoned that domestication did not occur in grasslands or large river floodplains, because primitive cultures would have had difficulty coping with the thick sod and periodic floodwaters. Sauer also believed that the hearth areas of domestication must have been in regions of great biodiver- sity where many different kinds of wild plants grew, thus providing abundant vegetative raw material for experimen- tation and crossbreeding. Such areas typically occur in hilly

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districts, where climates change with differing sun exposure and elevation above sea level.

Geographers, archaeologists, and, increasingly, genetic scientists continue to investigate the geographic origins of domestication. Because the conditions conducive to domestication are relatively rare, most agree that agricul- ture arose independently in at most nine regions (Figure 8.14). All of these have made significant contributions to the modern global food system. For example, the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East is the origin of the great bread grains of wheat, barley, rye, and oats that are so key to our modern diets. This region is also home to the first domes- ticated grapes, apples, and olives. China and New Guinea provided rice, bananas, and sugarcane, while the African centers gave us peanuts, yams, and coffee. Native Ameri- cans in Mesoamerica created another important center of domestication, from which came crops such as maize (corn), tomatoes, and beans. Farmers in the Andes domes- ticated the potato. While crop diffusions out of these nine regions have occurred over the millennia, the forces of globalization have now made even the rarest of local domesticates available around the world.

The dates of earliest domestication are continually being updated by new research findings. Until recently, archaeological evidence suggested that the oldest center is the Fertile Crescent, where crops were first domesti- cated roughly 10,000 years ago. However, domestication dates for other regions are constantly being pushed back by new discoveries. Most dramatically, in the Peruvian Andes archaeologists recently excavated domesticated seeds of squash and other crops that they dated to 9,240 years before the present. These seeds were associated with permanent dwellings, irrigation canals, and storage struc- tures, suggesting that farming societies were established in the Americas 10,000 years ago, similar to the Fertile Cres- cent date.

Pets or Meat? Tracing Animal Domestication A domesticated animal is one that depends on people for food and shelter and that differs from wild species in phys- ical appearance and behavior as a result of controlled breeding and frequent contact with humans. Animal domestication apparently occurred later in prehistory than did the first planting of crops—with the probable exception of the dog, whose companionship with humans appears to be much more ancient. Typically, people value domesti- cated animals and take care of them for some utilitarian purpose. Certain domesticated animals, such as the pig and the dog, probably attached themselves voluntarily to human settlements to feast on garbage. At first, perhaps, humans merely tolerated these animals, later adopting them as pets or as sources of meat.

The early farmers in the Fertile Crescent deserve credit for the first great animal domestications, most notably that of herd animals. The wild ancestors of major herd animals— such as cattle, pigs, horses, sheep, and goats—lived primarily in a belt running from Syria and southeastern Turkey east- ward across Iraq and Iran to central Asia. Farmers in the Mid- dle East were also the first to combine domesticated plants and animals in an integrated system, the antecedent of the peasant grain, root, and livestock farming described earlier. These people began using cattle to pull the plow, a revolu- tionary invention that greatly increased the acreage under cultivation. In other regions, such as southern Asia and the Americas, far fewer domestications took place, in part because suitable wild animals were less numerous. The llama, alpaca, guinea pig, Muscovy duck, and turkey were among the few American domesticates.

Modern Mobilities Over the past 500 years, European exploration and colo- nialism were instrumental in redistributing a wide variety of

Centers of origin of food production

The most productive agricultural areas of the modern world

Figure 8.14 Ancient centers of plant domestication. New archaeological discoveries and new technologies such as genetic science are changing our understanding of the geography and history of domestication. This map represents a synthesis of the latest findings. (Source: Diamond, 2002.)

Mobility 269

crops on a global scale: maize and potatoes from North America to Eurasia and Africa, wheat and grapes from the Fertile Crescent to the Americas, and West African rice to the Carolinas and Brazil.

The diffusion of specific crops continues, extending the process begun many millennia ago. The introduction of the lemon, orange, grape, and date palm by Spanish mis- sionaries in eighteenth-century California, where no agri- culture existed in the Native American era, is a recent example of relocation diffusion. This was part of a larger process of multidirectional diffusion. Eastern Hemisphere crops were introduced to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa through the mass emigrations from Europe over the past 500 years. Crops from the Amer- icas diffused in the opposite direction. For example, chili peppers and maize, carried by the Portuguese to their colonies in South Asia, became staples of diets all across that region (Figure 8.15).

In cultural geography, our understanding of agricultural diffusion focuses on more than just the crops; it also includes an analysis of the cultures and indigenous technical knowledge systems in which they are embedded. For exam- ple, geographer Judith Carney’s study of the diffusion of African rice (Oryza glaberrima), which was domesticated inde- pendently in the inland delta area of West Africa’s Niger River, shows the importance of indigenous knowledge. Euro-

pean planters and slave owners carried more than seeds across the Atlantic from Africa to cultivate in the Americas. The Africans taken into slavery, particularly women from the Gambia River region, had the knowledge and skill to culti- vate rice. Slave owners actively sought slaves from specific ethnic groups and geographic locations in the West African rice-producing zone, suggesting that they knew about and needed Africans’ skills and knowledge. Carney argues that the “association of agricultural skills with certain African eth- nicities within a specific geographic region” means that research on agricultural diffusion must address the relation of culture to technology and the environment.

Not all innovations involve expansion diffusion and spread wavelike across the land; less orderly patterns are more typical. The green revolution in Asia provides an example. The green revolution is a product of modern agricultural science that involves the development of high-yield hybrid varieties of crops, increasingly genetically engineered, coupled with extensive use of chemical fertilizers. The high-yield crops of the green revolution tend to be less resistant to insects and dis- eases, necessitating the widespread use of pesticides. The green revolution, then, promises larger harvests but ties the farmer to greatly increased expenditures for seed, fertilizer, and pesticides. It enmeshes the farmer in the global corporate economy. In some countries, most notably India, the green revolution diffused rapidly in the latter half of the twentieth

Figure 8.15 Chili peppers in Nepal and Korea. A Tharu tribal woman of lowland Nepal prepares a condiment made of chili peppers from her garden (left), and in South Korea chili peppers dry under a plastic-roofed shed (right). This crop comes from the Indians of Mexico. How might it have diffused so far and become so important in Asia? For the answer, see Andrews, 1993. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

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century. By contrast, countries such as Myanmar resisted the revolution, favoring traditional methods. An uneven pattern of acceptance still characterizes the paddy rice areas today.

The green revolution illustrates how cultural and eco- nomic factors influence patterns of diffusion. In India, for example, new hybrid rice and wheat seeds first appeared in 1966. These crops required chemical fertilizers and protec- tion by pesticides, but with the new hybrids India’s 1970 grain production output was double its 1950 level. However, poorer farmers—the great majority of India’s agriculturists—could not afford the capital expenditures for chemical fertilizer and pesticides, and the gap between rich and poor farmers widened. Many of the poor became displaced from the land and flocked to the overcrowded cities of India, aggravating urban problems. To make mat- ters worse, the use of chemicals and poisons on the land heightened environmental damage.

The widespread adoption of hybrid seeds has created another problem: the loss of plant diversity or genetic vari- ety. Before hybrid seeds diffused around the world, each farm developed its own distinctive seed types through the annual harvest-time practice of saving seeds from the bet- ter plants for the next season’s sowing. Enormous genetic diversity vanished almost instantly when farmers began pur- chasing hybrids rather than saving seed from the last har- vest. “Gene banks” have belatedly been set up to preserve what remains of domesticated plant variety, not just in the areas affected by the green revolution but also in the Amer- ican Corn Belt and many other agricultural regions where hybrids are now dominant. In sum, the green revolution has been a mixed blessing.

Labor Mobility Agriculture, more than any other modern economic endeavor, is constrained by the rhythms of nature. Biologi- cal cycles associated with planting and harvesting are reflected in cycles of labor demand. Seeds must be planted at the right moment to take advantage of seasonal condi- tions. When crops ripen, they must be harvested, often in a matter of days or weeks. In between, labor demand is min- imal, so farmers face a dilemma. They need to mobilize a large labor force for harvesting crops, but keeping a year- round work force raises farm production costs. One solu- tion has been to rely on migratory labor.

In the United States, the use of migrant workers has been central to the growth and profitability of farming. In his study of labor and landscape in California, geographer Don Mitchell found that the mechanization and intensifi- cation of farming created ever greater extremes in seasonal labor demand, lessening the demand for labor during non- harvest periods while still using manual labor for the increased harvests. Farmers thus developed an agricultural industry based on migratory labor, employing cultural and

racial stereotypes to depress farm wages and tighten employers’ control over farm workers. Mitchell noted that through much of the twentieth century, California growers surmised that “hispanic, black, or Asian workers . . . were ‘naturally’ better suited to agricultural tasks,” and prevail- ing racist attitudes allowed them to “pay nonwhite workers a lower wage than white workers.” Ultimately, the federal government provided the legal mechanism, called the Bracero Program, by which contract workers were brought from Mexico to California during periods of peak labor demand. Migrant workers lived in substandard housing, were paid less than a living wage, and were deported back to Mexico if they complained.

The case of California’s migrant workers is not unusual. Geographer Gail Hollander has documented the use of migratory labor in the development of Florida’s sug- arcane region. Florida produces 20 percent of the U.S. sugar supply, which until the 1990s was harvested entirely by hand by migrant workers imported seasonally from “for- mer slave plantation economies of the Caribbean.” Simi- larly to California, growers relied on racial stereotypes to argue that only blacks were suitable for cutting cane in Florida. The federal government also established a special federal immigration program like Bracero to import Caribbean migrant workers for the Florida harvest and repatriate them afterwards. Migrant farm workers remain ubiquitous today in other regions too, such as the EU. A recent agricultural boom in Mediterranean coastal Spain relies heavily on North African migrant workers, many of them undocumented immigrants, who are subject to persis- tent racial prejudices (Figure 8.16).

Figure 8.16 Migrant farm workers: a global phenomenon. International migrant farm workers, such as these African immigrants harvesting lettuce in southern Spain, are critical to production in the global food system. (Mark Eveleigh/Alamy.)

Globalization 271

Globalization How have the processes of globalization altered the geog- raphy of agriculture? How does globalization affect the availability and variety of food in specific places? For most of human history, people obtained their provisions locally and had locally distinct dietary cultures. The development of global markets over the past 500 years has shifted cul- tural food preferences and altered the ecology of vast areas of the planet.

Local-Global Food Provisioning As European maritime explorers brought far-flung cultures into contact, a multitude of crops were diffused around the globe. The processes of exploration, colonization, and globalization created new regional cuisines (imagine Ital- ian cuisine without tomatoes from the Americas) and at the same time simplified the global diet to a disproportionate reliance on only three grains: wheat, rice, and maize.

The expansion of European empires in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries was inseparable from the expansion of tropical plantation agriculture. Plantations in warm climates produced what were then luxury foods for markets in the global North, which had developed seem- ingly insatiable appetites for sugar, tea, coffee, and other tropical crops. The expansion of plantation agriculture had profound effects on local ecology, all but obliterating, for example, the forests of the Caribbean and the tropical coasts of the Americas (Figure 8.17).

In short, we have witnessed the development of a global food system, which, for better or worse, has freed consumers in the affluent regions of the world from the constraints of

Figure 8.17 An oil palm plantation in Malaysia. Plantation agriculture continues to expand in many Third World countries. While plantation- grown export commodities can be important to national economies, the accompanying destruction of tropical rain forests is a high ecological price to pay. (Stuart Franklin/Magnum.)

local ecologies. Fresh strawberries, bananas, pears, avoca- dos, pineapples, and many, many other types of temperate, subtropical, and tropical produce are available in our urban supermarkets any day, any time of the year. On the other hand, the emphasis on a relatively small number of staple crops desired by northern consumers can mean the aban- donment of local crop varieties and a decline in the associ- ated biological diversity. Imported refined wheat from the global North enters poor tropical countries by the shipload, altering local dietary cultures and undercutting the ability of local farmers to sell their crops at a profitable price.

These are the general patterns, but the globalization of food and agriculture has complex effects on culture and ecology that vary by location and spatial scale. These com- plexities are best illustrated by a case study from the Peru- vian Andes. Geographer Karl Zimmerer (see Practicing Geography) conducted extensive fieldwork among Quichua peasant farmers in the Paucartambo Andes to determine the effects of economic change on indigenous agricultural practices and the genetic diversity of local crops. He wanted to test the general hypothesis that as glob- alization and national economic policies integrate indige- nous farmers into market production, the diversity of crops declines, ultimately resulting in genetic erosion (i.e., a decline in the genetic diversity of cultivars).

Zimmerer’s study produced surprising findings on the complex relationships among culture, economy, and the environment. On the question of whether farmers must abandon crop diversity in order to adopt new, commercially oriented high-yielding varieties, he found there was no sim- ple answer. In fact, it was the more well-off peasants, heav- ily involved in commercial farming, who had the resources and land to cultivate diverse crops and “enjoy their agro- nomic, culinary, cultural, and ritual values.” Among these

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values was the use of diverse, noncommercial potato vari- eties in local bartering. The ability to use noncommercial varieties in this way is valued in the local culture because it is a traditional way to cement interpersonal bonds. Such uses emphasize the cultural importance of crop diversity. Zimmerer discovered that the cultural relevance of crops was a strong motivation for planting by well-off farmers.

At least 90 percent of the genetically diverse crops had been conserved, even as the Quichua were further integrated into commercial production for the market.

A number of lessons can be drawn from Zimmerer’s study, chief among them the need to carefully examine the effects of globalization on culture and environment, rather than simply assuming that local agricultural practices will

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Karl Zimmerer

University of Wisconsin geography professor Karl Zimmerer discovered the discipline of geography through his interests in agriculture. As an undergraduate, he was a student intern at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, where research was focused on developing alternatives to conventional agriculture and on the food supply. As

Zimmerer recalls, “Its director, Wes Jackson, suggested that I consider the field of geography for graduate school. I read books, visited departments, talked to students and listened to faculty lectures, and recognized that this was the discipline for me.” Geography offered him the ideal disciplinary setting for pursuing his broad interests in agriculture and food, which range from environmental to political issues.

Professor Zimmerer finds three aspects of practicing geography particularly compelling and exciting. “First is the challenge of understanding the multifaceted changes of agriculture in Latin America and the United States. . . . Part of my interest is the fusion of the human world and the natural world that takes place in agriculture.” In particular, he is interested in the new changes in the areas of biotechnology and corporate agribusiness.

“Second is the excitement and intellectual engagement of fieldwork [and] working closely with the diverse people in farming sites. When in the Andean countries, most often Bolivia and Peru, I speak Quechua as well as Spanish. Using these languages is not only exciting and engaging, but it also continually reinforces for me the importance of languages in addition to English.”

The third area of practicing geography that appeals to Professor Zimmerer is communicating his knowledge

through teaching, speaking, and writing. “Often I find myself faced with new and welcome challenges in understanding, interpreting, and telling the stories of the changes in agriculture.” As an example, through the feedback that he has received from his teaching and public speaking, Zimmerer “became increasingly aware of this diverse, expanding, and possibly hopeful (although potentially explosive) interface of agriculture and conservation.” The agriculture-conservation interface subsequently has become an important part of his research and writing.

His work in the field typically involves a variety of methods and techniques, including a lot of interviewing and related qualitative ethnographic methods. “I also do a fair amount of archival research,” he explains, “since many of my projects on agriculture have a historical dimension and since they are often located in places where archival research is the main way of gaining information and awareness about the past.” Professor Zimmerer is no stranger to quantitative methods, which are important for studying the environmental aspects of agriculture, such as biodiversity and soil properties. “In the latter sort of research I often use biogeography and ecology field methods and have also used laboratory techniques.”

Professor Zimmerer recently enjoyed a year-long sabbatical as a fellow of the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University. There he studied “the development of geographical ideas of sustainable use that have taken shape through the influence of natural historians and scientists in Latin America, Europe, and the United States.” Part of the research, which covers a 500-year period of change, focuses “on the changes that were taking place in the environments themselves—especially mountain areas.” As Professor Zimmerer’s current research bears fruit, we can look forward to the informative findings and fascinating insights about the human mosaic that we’ve grown to expect from his work.

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Globalization 273

give way to the demands of the marketplace. The Quichua farmers who benefited most from their participation in the market were those best able to cultivate traditional varieties, which functioned as an expression of cultural identity and their sense of place. Cultural values, and not merely a strict economic or ecological calculus, critically influenced farm- ing decisions.

The von Thünen Model Geographers and others have long tried to understand the distribution and intensity of agriculture based on transporta- tion costs to market. Long before globalization took hold, the nineteenth-century German scholar-farmer Johann Heinrich von Thünen developed a core-periphery model to address the problem. In his model, von Thünen proposed an “isolated state” that had no trade connections with the out- side world; possessed only one market, located centrally in the state; had uniform soil and climate; and had level terrain throughout. He further assumed that all farmers located the same distance from the market had equal access to it and that all farmers sought to maximize their profits and pro- duced solely for market. von Thünen created this model to

study the influence of distance from market and the concur- rent transport costs on the type and intensity of agriculture.

Figure 8.18 presents a modified version of von Thü- nen’s isolated-state model, which reflects the effects of improvements in transportation since the 1820s, when von Thünen proposed his theory. The model’s fundamental feature is a series of concentric zones, each occupied by a different type of agriculture, located at progressively greater distances from the central market.

Reflecting on Geography Why should we study spatial models, such as von Thünen’s, when they do not depict reality?

For any given crop, the intensity of cultivation declines with increasing distance from the market. Farmers near the market have minimal transportation costs and can invest most of their resources in labor, equipment, and supplies to augment production. Indeed, because their land is more valuable and subject to higher taxes, they have to farm intensively to make a bigger profit. With increasing distance from the market, farmers invest progressively less in

Central city (the market for agricultural produce)

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Figure 8.18 von Thünen’s isolated-state model. The model is modified to fit the modern world better and shows the hypothetical distribution of types of commercial agriculture. Other causal factors are held constant to illustrate the effect of transportation costs and differing distances from the market. The more intensive forms of agriculture, such as market

gardening, are located nearest the market, whereas the least intensive form (livestock ranching) is the most remote. Why does the model have the configuration of concentric circles? Compare this model to the real-world pattern of agricultural types in Uruguay, South America, shown in Figure 8.19.

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production per unit of land because they have to spend progressively more on transporting produce to market. The effect of distance means that highly perishable products such as milk, fresh fruit, and garden vegetables need to be produced near the market, whereas peripheral farmers have to produce nonperishable products or convert perish- able items into a more durable form, such as cheese or dried fruit.

The concentric-zone model describes a situation in which highly capital-intensive forms of commercial agricul- ture, such as market gardening and feedlots, lie nearest to market. The increasingly distant, successive concentric belts are occupied by progressively less intensive types of agriculture, represented by dairying, livestock fattening, grain farming, and ranching.

How well does this modified model describe reality? As we would expect, the real world is far more complicated. For example, the emergence of cool chains for agricultural commodities—the refrigeration and transport technolo- gies that bring fresh produce from fields around the globe

to our dinner tables—have collapsed distance. Still, on a world scale, we can see that intensive commercial types of agriculture tend to occur most commonly near the huge urban markets of northwestern Europe and the eastern United States (see Figure 8.1). An even closer match can be observed in smaller areas, such as in the South American nation of Uruguay (Figure 8.19).

The value of von Thünen’s model can also be seen in the underdeveloped countries of the world. Geographer Ronald Horvath made a detailed study of the African region centering on the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa. Although noting disruptions caused by ethnic and environmental differences, Horvath found “remarkable parallels between von Thünen’s crop theory and the agri- culture around Addis Ababa.” Similarly, German geogra- pher Ursula Ewald applied the model to the farming patterns of colonial Mexico during the period of Spanish rule, concluding that even this culturally and environmen- tally diverse land provided “an excellent illustration of von Thünen’s principles on spatial zonation in agriculture.”

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Figure 8.19 Ideal and actual distribution of types of agriculture in Uruguay. This South American country possesses some attributes of von Thünen’s isolated state, in that it is largely a plains area dominated by one city. In what ways does the spatial pattern of

Uruguayan agriculture conform to von Thünen’s model? How is it different? What might cause the anomalies? (For the answers, see Griffin, 1973.)

Globalization 275

Can the World Be Fed? Are famine and starvation inevitable as the world’s popula- tion grows, as Thomas Malthus predicted (see Chapter 3)? Or can our agricultural systems successfully feed nearly 7 billion people? In trying to answer these questions, we face a paradox. Today, more than 800 million people are malnourished, some to the point of starvation. Almost every year, we read of famines occurring somewhere in the world. Between 1990 and 2002 the number of hungry peo- ple in western and southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa increased by tens of millions (Figure 8.20). Yet—and this would astound Malthus—food production has grown more rapidly than the world population over the past 40 or 50 years. Per capita, more food is available today than in 1950, when only about half as many people lived on Earth. Pro- duction continues to increase. From 1996 to 2006 world food production increased at an annual rate of 2.2 percent, and hunger was reduced by 30 percent in more than 30 countries. Thus, paradoxically, on a global scale there is enough food produced to feed everyone, while famines and malnutrition prevail.

What explains this paradox? If the world food supply is sufficient to feed everyone and yet hunger afflicts one of every six or seven persons, then cultural or social factors must be responsible. Ultimately, international political economics, not global food shortages, causes hunger and starvation. International trade favors the farmers of wealthier countries

through systems of government subsidies that make the prices of their agricultural exports artificially low. Third World farmers find it difficult to compete. Many Third World countries do not grow enough food to feed their populations, and they cannot afford to purchase enough imported food to make up the difference. As a result, famines can occur even when plenty of food is available. Millions of Irish people starved in the 1840s while adjacent Britain possessed enough surplus food to have prevented this catastrophe. Bangladesh suffered a major famine in 1974, a year of record agricultural surpluses in the world.

Internal government policies are also an important cause of famine. The roots of the largest famine of the twentieth cen- tury lie in the agricultural policies of the Chinese govern- ment’s 1958–1961 Great Leap Forward. The Chinese government required peasants to abandon their individual fields and work collectively on large, state-run farms. This pol- icy of collectivization succeeded in boosting food production in some cases but failed in most. Thirty million rural Chinese died of starvation during the Great Leap Forward. Misguided government policies triggered one of the first famines of the twenty-first century as well. In the early 2000s, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe clung to power by demonizing white commercial farmers. In 2002 he threatened Zimbabwe’s commercial farmers with imprisonment if they continued to farm. Other government policies discouraged planting and cultivation, thus producing another human-caused famine.

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Figure 8.20 Mapping hunger worldwide. While food supply has outpaced population growth on a global scale, many world regions continue to suffer from malnutrition. What geographic patterns does this map reveal? How might we explain them? (Source: UN FAO, 2008.)

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Even when major efforts are made to send food from wealthy countries to famine-stricken areas, the poor trans- portation infrastructure of Third World countries often prevents effective distribution. Political instability can disrupt food shipments, and the donated food often falls into the hands of corrupt local officials. Such was the case in Somalia in the 1990s, where warring factions in the cap- ital city of Mogadishu prevented food aid from getting to starving populations. So while the trigger for famine may

be environmental, there are deep-seated political and eco- nomic problems that conspire to block famine relief.

The Growth of Agribusiness Globalization and its impact on agriculture have been referred to throughout this chapter. Such references have frequently been accompanied by the term agribusiness (see Global Spotlight).

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT The Global Chicken American dietary culture underwent fundamental changes during the post–World War II period, none more dramatic than the shift from beef to poultry as the preferred protein source. From 1945 to 1995, per capita consumption of chicken in the United States rose from 5 to 70 pounds (2.25 to 31.5 kilograms) and by 1990 surpassed that of beef. This is a startling development in American culture, where the myth of the cowboy herding cattle on the open range has been so central to an imagined national identity. Since the 1990s, the per capita consumption of chicken has continued to grow as that of beef continues to decline, especially since the publicity about mad cow disease.

Where does all this new poultry production come from, and where are the sites of consumption? Advances in U.S. agrotechnologies for the breeding, nutrition, housing, and processing of chickens largely account for increases in production efficiency. This has allowed the U.S. poultry industry, largely centered in the South, to become the world’s single largest supplier of broilers. As the taste for chicken spreads worldwide, U.S. producers were positioned to gain increasing shares of an expanding market. From 1980 to 2002, world trade in broilers grew nearly 500 percent, while the U.S. share of that trade rose from 22.2 to 46.1 percent. China has been the hottest import market, because rising affluence there has led to increasing per capita consumption. At the same time, China is increasing its production and its exports of poultry. It is likely to become a major competitor with the United States for access to other Asian markets.

The story of the global chicken gets more interesting if we look more closely at cultural food preferences. There is a peculiarity and a particularity to the culture of chicken consumption in the United States—an overwhelming preference for breast meat. This cultural predilection greatly influences what the importing countries eat, since the remainder of the chicken cannot simply be thrown away. Hence, 87 percent of U.S. exports in 2000 were in the form of frozen cuts, 40 percent of which were leg quarters.

The growing power and reach of multinational corporations is a hallmark of globalization, no less so in food production and consumption than for other economic sectors. Farmers who produce a single commodity, such as poultry, must produce far more than the local market can consume in order to be profitable. Thus, they must sell in national and global markets, access to which requires a dependence on multinational agribusinesses. So pervasive is the reach of agribusiness that many poultry farmers no longer own the chickens they produce; multinational corporations do. Farmers contract with multinationals to receive chicks, feed, transport, and other inputs. When the chickens mature, they are trucked to the contracting corporation’s processing plant, where they are weighed and the cost of inputs deducted from the farmers’ shares. The farmers take their earnings to pay the mortgages on their lands and buildings, and the chickens are processed for the global food system.

From Boyd and Watts, 1997; Norberg-Hodge, Merrifield, and Gorelick, 2002; U.S. Department of Agriculture.

(Robert Nickelsburg/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.)

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Globalization, you will recall, involves the restructuring of the world economy by multinational corporations thriving in an era of free-trade capitalism, rapid communications, improved transport, and computer-based information sys- tems. When applied to agriculture, globalization tends to produce agribusiness: a modern farming system that is totally commercial, large-scale, mechanized, and dependent upon chemicals, hybrid seeds, genetic engineering, and the practice of monoculture (raising a single specialty crop on vast tracts of land). Furthermore, agribusinesses are fre- quently vertically integrated; that is, they own the land as well as the processing and marketing facilities. The green revolu- tion is part of agricultural globalization, as are countless “rural development” projects in Third World countries, usu- ally funded by the World Bank or the International Mone- tary Fund. These projects typically displace peasant farmers to make way for agribusinesses. The family-run farm is one victim of agricultural globalization.

The five biggest hybrid vegetable seed suppliers control 75 percent of the global market, and the ten largest agro- chemical manufacturers command 85 percent of the world supply. Four corporations supply more than two-thirds of the U.S. consumption of hybrid seed maize. Sometimes sin- gle companies—Monsanto, for example—both supply the

seeds and manufacture the pesticides. What’s more, the genetic engineering of seeds often is done in-house. This arrangement allows Monsanto to genetically engineer “Roundup Ready” seed varieties. Roundup is an herbicide manufactured by Monsanto, and their Roundup Ready gene builds in greater tolerance to higher doses. The seeds essentially became vehicles to sell more herbicide.

Genetically modified (GM) crops, the products of biotechnology, are seen by many as another aspect of global- ization. Genetic engineering produces new organisms through gene splicing. Pieces of DNA can be recombined with the DNA of other organisms to produce new properties, such as pesticide tolerance or disease resistance. DNA can be transferred not only between species but also between plants and animals, which makes this technology truly revolution- ary and unlike any other development since the beginning of domestication. Agribusinesses are often able to patent the processes and resulting genetically engineered organisms and, thus, claim legal ownership of new life-forms.

Commercial production of GM crops began in the United States in 1996. The technology has now spread around the globe, but the United States still dominates, accounting for two-thirds of the world’s acreage (Figure 8.21). Two crops, soybeans and corn, account for the rapid

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growth of GM food production in the United States. By 2007, 91 percent of all soybeans and 73 percent of all corn produced in the United States were genetically modified. Their genetically engineered resistance to disease and drought are an important reason for the spread of GM crops, but that’s only part of the story. For example, all of the GM soybean seeds in the United States are engineered to tolerate greater doses of synthetic herbicides produced by agrochemical companies.

If you provision your household from a U.S. supermar- ket, you have undoubtedly ingested GM foods. Whether or not one finds this troubling is closely related to the strength of certain cultural norms and values that vary from region to region and country to country. In England and western Europe, where national identities are strongly linked to the countryside, agrarian culture, and regional cuisines, there has been a lot of opposition to biotechnology in agriculture. In response to public pressure, major supermarket chains, such as Sainsbury’s in England, have refused since 1998 to sell GM foods. In the United States, the response has been far more muted, so much so that the expansion of GM crop planting has proceeded virtually without public debate. These cultural differences are now coming to the fore of globalization debates as the EU challenges the United States over international trade in GM seeds and foods.

Food Fears A globalized food system is vulnerable to events that threaten food safety. Recent events, such as outbreaks of mad cow disease in Great Britain and the contamination of imported produce by Salmonella or the virus that causes hepatitis A in the United States, have raised anxiety levels among consumers about eating food transported from dis- tant lands. Responses to such crises in the global food sys- tem vary culturally and individually and may be based more on the perception of risk than on the probability of illness or death. The way that national governments and con- sumers respond to a particular food safety problem can fun- damentally reshape geographic patterns of agricultural

production on a global scale. Conversely, the idea that a cul- turally symbolic food may be tainted and life-threatening can shake the strongest of cultural identities.

The case of mad cow disease in Great Britain—where beef and dairy consumption has long been associated with British cultural identity—provides a good illustration. Mad- cow disease is the vernacular term for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a disease that attacks the central nervous system of cattle. The disease has an incubation period of several years, and there is no cure or vaccine. It was first discovered in Great Britain in 1986. While 95 per- cent of the cases have been in the United Kingdom (U.K.), new cases were documented in Austria, Finland, Slovenia, and Canada in 2001 and in the United States in 2003.

In 1996, the British government announced a link between BSE and a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), which causes a progressive deterioration of brain tis- sue in humans. The precise link between BSE and vCJD is unknown, but scientists think that vCJD is caused when peo- ple ingest contaminated brain, spinal cord, and other organs from BSE-infected cattle. Such organ matter typically is contained in ground beef. By 2002 doctors had attributed 115 deaths in the United Kingdom to vCJD, and deaths were also reported in France, Ireland, and elsewhere.

The fallout from the BSE and vCJD scares altered the geography of beef production, consumption, and trade in complex ways. The cattle production processes that led to the BSE crisis resulted from the growing industrialization and intensification of livestock fattening. High-protein cattle feed was produced from infected sheep and cow bone and organs. Cows that ate the feed contracted BSE, thus spreading the epidemic. These beef production practices have now been banned. In addition, most countries banned the import of cattle and beef from countries where BSE was discovered and shifted their trade to other regions, such as South America. The U.K. industry suffered three BSE crises (1988, 1996, and 2000) that had the net result of reducing their exports of live cows to zero (Figure 8.22). Since U.K. cattle were entering the EU export market, EU beef and live cattle exports also suf- fered and have yet to regain their old markets.

Figure 8.22 Vulnerabilities in the global food system. The industrialization and globalization of agriculture has heightened the possibilities for and consequences from food contamination, most sensationally illustrated by the case of mad cow disease. The mad cow crisis led to the destruction of tens of thousands of cattle in the United Kingdom, demoralizing many farming communities and crippling a major export industry. (Copyright P. Ashton/South West News Service.)

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Consumers’ fears of contaminated beef initially reduced demand for cattle worldwide, though the downward trend has been reversed, mostly because of new demand in middle- income countries. In the United Kingdom and the EU, the BSE scares have reinforced a long-term pattern of declining demand for beef. Similarly, in Japan consumers continue to be wary of imported beef; demand has yet to recover. In 2003, when BSE was discovered in a single cow in the United States, all exports were temporarily curtailed and the indus- try’s global competitiveness suffered long-term damage.

The case of mad cow disease demonstrates the global interconnectivity of food-producing and food-consuming regions, the vulnerability of the global food system, and the role of cultural norms and values surrounding questions of food safety.

Nature-Culture How are nature-culture relations expressed through the pro- duction and consumption of food? Agriculture has been the fundamental encounter between nature and culture for more than 10,000 years, as human labor is mixed with nature’s bounty to produce our sustenance. What we eat and how we eat it is a basic source of cultural identity. In many ways, the map of agricultural regions (see Figure 8.1) reflects human adaptation to environmental influences. At the same time, thousands of years of agricultural use of the land have led to massive alterations in our natural environment.

Technology over Nature? Historically, climate and the physical environment have exerted the greatest influence on shaping agriculture. People have had to adjust their subsistence strategies and techniques to the prevailing regional climate conditions. In addition, soils have played an influential role in both agricultural prac- tices and food provisioning. Swidden cultivation, in part, reflects an adaptation to poor tropical soils, which rapidly lose their fertility when farmed. Peasant agriculture, by contrast, often owes its high productivity to the long-lived fertility of local volcanic soils. Terrain has also influenced agriculture, as farmers tended to cultivate relatively level areas (Figure 8.23). In sum, the constraints of climate, soil, and terrain historically have limited the types of crops that could be grown and the cultivation methods that could be practiced.

In recent centuries, markets, technology, and capital investment have greatly altered the spatial patterns of agri- culture that climate and soils had historically shaped. Expanding global-scale markets for agricultural commodi- ties such as sugar, coffee, and edible oils have reduced mil- lions of acres of biologically diverse tropical forests to monocrop plantations. Synthetic fertilizers and petroleum- based insecticides and herbicides, widely available in devel-

oped countries after World War II, helped boost agricul- tural productivity to unimagined levels. Massive dams and large-scale irrigation systems have caused the desert to bloom from central Asia to the Americas, converting, for example, the semiarid Central Valley of California into the world’s most productive agricultural region.

The ecological price of such technological miracles is high. Drainage and land reclamation destroy wetlands and associated biodiversity. The application of synthetic fertilizers

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the Asian wet-rice region, where unreliable rainfall causes harvests to vary greatly from one year to the next. Farmers have developed complex cultivation strategies to avert peri- odic famine, including growing many varieties of rice. These farmers, including those in parts of Thailand, almost universally rejected the green revolution. The simplistic advice given to them by agricultural experts working for the Thai government was inappropriate for their marginal lands. Based on generations of experimentation, the local farmers knew that their traditional diversified adaptive strategy was superior. In West Africa, peasant grain, root, and livestock farmers have also developed adaptations to local environmental influences. They raise a multiplicity of crops on the more humid lands near the coast. Moving inland toward the drier interior, farmers plant fewer kinds of crops but grow more drought-resistant varieties. Having observed many cases like these in which local practices have proved effective and sustainable, most geographers now agree that agricultural experts need to consider indigenous knowledge when devising development plans.

Intensity of Land Use Great spatial variation exists in the intensity of rural land use. Intensive agriculture means that a large amount of human labor or investment capital, or both, is put into each acre or hectare of land, with the goal of obtaining the greatest out- put. Intensity can be calculated by measuring either energy input or level of productivity. In much of the world, espe- cially the paddy rice areas of Asia, high intensity is achieved through prodigious use of human labor, which results in a rice output per unit of land that is the highest in the world. In Western countries, high intensity is achieved through the use of massive amounts of investment capital for machines, fertilizers, and pesticides, resulting in the highest agricul- tural productivity per capita found anywhere.

Many geographers support the theory that increased land-use intensity is a common response to population growth. As demographic pressure mounts, farmers systemat- ically discard the more geographically extensive adaptive strategies to focus on those that provide greater yield per unit of land. In this manner, the population increase is accommodated. The resultant farming system may be riskier, because it offers fewer options and possesses greater poten- tial for environmental modification, but it does yield more food—at least in the short run. Other geographers reject this theory, arguing instead that increases in population density follow innovations, such as the introduction of new high- calorie crops, which lead to greater land-use intensity.

The Desertification Debate Over the millennia, as dependence on agriculture grew and as population increased, humans made ever larger demands on the forests. With the rise of urban civilization

results in nutrient-rich runoff from farms that enters freshwa- ter systems as pollution, lowering water quality, destroying aquatic habitat, and reducing biodiversity. Agrochemicals also enter the environment as runoff, as residue on food crops, and in the tissues of livestock. These chemicals ultimately reduce biodiversity, pollute water systems, and cause increases in the rates of cancer and birth defects in humans and animals.

In the context of global climate change, great concern exists about the long-term sustainability of modern agricul- tural practices. In many parts of the world, groundwater is being pumped to the surface faster than it can be replenished and reservoirs are approaching the end of their life spans. Well-and-pump irrigation has drastically lowered the water table in parts of the American Great Plains, particularly Texas, causing ancient springs to go dry. Climate change data from the distant past and computer models of future climate con- ditions suggest that the U.S. Southwest is likely entering a drier climate regime. Lake Mead, the giant reservoir in Arizona and Nevada that helps supply water to California’s cities and farms, was only 49 percent full in 2006 and is unlikely ever to be full again. This region, the most agriculturally productive in the world, will face increasingly difficult questions regarding the viability of current farming and land-use practices.

Another area where arid land irrigation has had severe ecological consequences lies on the borderland between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in central Asia. The once-huge Aral Sea has become so diminished by the diversion of irri- gation water from the rivers flowing into it that large areas of dry lakebed now lie exposed. Not only was the local fish- ing industry destroyed, but noxious, chemical-laden dust storms now blow from the barren lakebed onto nearby set- tlements, causing assorted health problems. Irrigation water diverted to huge cotton fields, then, destroyed an ecosystem and produced another desert.

Sustainable Agriculture As cultural geography studies by Zimmerer and many others have shown, local and indigenous knowledge about ecologi- cal conditions can be a foundation for sustainable agriculture (refer to Practicing Geography on page 272). Sustainability— the survival of a land-use system for centuries or millennia without destruction of the environmental base—is the central ecological issue confronting agriculture today. The case of the Quichua peasants offers an optimistic assessment of indige- nous knowledge as the basis for long-term sustainability. Their response to contemporary market pressures suggests that development and conservation can be compatible. Their knowledge of complex and variable ecological conditions in the Andes has allowed them to farm highly diverse crop vari- eties, a practice that in some cases has been strengthened by economic development.

Another example of sustainable indigenous agriculture is the paddy rice farming that occurs near the margins of

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and conquering empires, the human transformation of forests to fields accelerated and expanded. In many parts of China, India, and the Mediterranean lands, forests virtually vanished. In transalpine Europe, the United States, and some other areas, they were greatly reduced (Figure 8.24).

Grasslands suffered similar modifications. Farmers occasionally plowed grasslands that were too dry for sus- tainable crop production, and herders sometimes dam- aged semiarid pastures through overgrazing. The result could be desertification, a process first studied half a cen- tury ago by geographer Rhoads Murphey. He argued that farmers caused substantial parts of North Africa to be added to the margins of the Sahara Desert. He noted the catastrophic decline of countries such as Libya and Tunisia in the 1500 years since the time of Roman rule, when North Africa served as the “granary of the Empire,” yielding huge wheat harvests.

More recent research on desertification has centered on the Sahel, a semiarid tropical savanna region just south of the Sahara Desert in Africa (Figure 8.25). A series of droughts in the 1970s and 1980s raised concern that the Sahel was becoming desertified. This was a focal point of discussion at the 1977 UN Conference on Desertification. One theory advanced at the conference was that farmers and pastoralists were overusing the land, destroying vege- tation to such an extent that the plant life could not regenerate. Lands that had been covered with pastures and fields could become permanently joined with the adjacent Sahara. In sum, researchers theorized that Africans were overgrazing rangelands and using poor cul- tivation practices, which were causing the desert to spread southward.

In the intervening years, substantial evidence, much of it obtained through satellite images, has raised questions about this theorized link between land use and the advancing Sahara Desert. Satellite imagery suggests to many researchers that the semiarid lands possess more resiliency than was once thought. Since 1960, they claim that the Sahara-Sahel bound- ary has not migrated steadily south but fluctuated as it always has, responding to wetter and drier years. New research by geographers and anthropologists also challenges the gener- alized claim that Africans were misusing the land. These find- ings suggest that African land-use practices in the region are highly adapted to the variable and unpredictable environ- ments of the Sahel. A great deal of careful research is needed to distinguish the fluctuations caused by climate variability from permanent ecological damage caused by human mis- use. For now, the debate continues over the extent and sources of desertification in the Sahel.

Reflecting on Geography What might be some ecological consequences of expanding cropland to meet the world’s rising food needs?

Environmental Perception by Agriculturists People perceive the physical environment through the lenses of their culture. Each person’s agricultural heritage can be influential in shaping these perceptions. This is not surprising, because human survival depends on how suc- cessfully people can adjust their ways of making a living to environmental conditions.

The Great Plains of the United States provides the set- ting for how an agricultural experience in one environment

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influenced farmers’ environmental perceptions and subse- quent behavior when they began farming in the Great Plains. The Plains farmers who came from the humid eastern United States consistently underestimated the problem of drought in their new home. In the 1960s, geographer Thomas Saarinen pointed out that almost every Great Plains farmer, even the oldest and most experienced of the farmers, underestimated the frequency of the dry periods. By contrast, culturally preadapted German-speaking immigrants from the steppes of Russia and Ukraine, an area very much like the American Great Plains, accurately perceived the new land and experi- enced fewer problems due to drought.

Farmers rely on climatic stability. A sudden spell of unusual weather events can change agriculturists’ environ- mental perceptions. Geographer John Cross studied Wisconsin agriculture following a series of floods, droughts, and other anomalies. He found that two-thirds of all Wisconsin dairy farmers now believe the climate is chang- ing for the worse, and fully one-third told him that contin-

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ued climatic variability threatened their operations. Perhaps they perceive the environmental hazard to be greater than it really is, but they make decisions based on their perceptions.

Environmental perceptions also operate at the level of society. Such is the case in the U.S. Southwest, where early- twentieth-century dam building on the Colorado River allowed for the expansion of irrigated agriculture and an urban population boom that is still going strong. The wide- spread perception that water is abundant, however, has been based on a misreading of the climate. The early 1920s, when the Colorado River flow was divided among western states, was an unusually wet period in the region’s climate. Officials greatly overestimated average river flow when allocating water rights, thus creating a perception of water abundance. The region is now entering a drier phase, partly associated with global warming, which is bound to put agriculture in increasing conflict with urban demands. Since migration into the Southwest continues, where urban growth outpaces

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that of the rest of the country, we can conclude that percep- tions have yet to catch up with the reality of water scarcity.

Don’t Panic, It’s Organic Alarmed by the ecological and health hazards of chemical- dependent, industrialized agriculture, a small countercul- ture movement emerged in the United States and Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. Geographer Julie Guthman labels this the organic farming movement. For Guthman, the movement in the United States saw in organic agriculture a solution to a range of social, cultural, political, and environ- mental ills. These included the loss of small, family-owned and -operated farms, environmental pollution from indus- trial agriculture, corporate control of the food system, and the nutritional deficiencies of highly processed foods.

When the organic food movement was in its infancy, there was no way to differentiate organically produced ani- mals and crops from the product of what has come to be called conventional agriculture. Movement advocates, many of them based in California, invented new certifica- tion systems in the 1970s that focused on the technical aspects of organic agriculture, particularly the absence of artificial fertilizers and petrochemical-based pesticides and herbicides. Certification systems created uniform standards and definitions for organic production but lacked enforce- ment powers to control fraud. In 1979, California passed the first organic law in the United States, but it took 11 more years before the state added enforcement powers. At the federal level, opposition from corporate agribusiness interests delayed regulatory legislation on organic farming until 1990 and full implementation for another decade.

By legislating regulatory standards for organic agricul- ture, the state and federal governments provided organic farmers the basis for differentiating their product in the marketplace. This in turn allowed producers and retailers to charge consumers a premium. Premium pricing has encouraged many producers to switch to organic agricul- ture. The organic food market is now the most rapidly growing (and most profitable) agricultural sector. Affluent consumer demand for organics in First World countries, while only 1 to 3 percent of national retail sales, is growing at the phenomenal pace of 20 to 25 percent annually. Land- use practices reflect this growing demand. In the United States, organic crop acreage increased 11 percent between 2001 and 2003, with larger increases in vegetables and fruits, which now account for 4 and 2 percent, respectively, of total U.S. farm acreage.

In Guthman’s assessment, the organic farming move- ment, because it focused solely on the technical aspects of organic production, fell short of addressing many of the social and political ills it sought to correct. Her study of California organic agriculture demonstrated that organic

farming is readily incorporated into large-scale agribusiness enterprises. Indeed, some existing agribusinesses merely purchased existing organic farms as a means of diversifying their operations and tapping the profits from premium pricing. While organic agriculture has produced environ- mental and health benefits (for farm laborers and con- sumers), its effect on the historic decline of family farms and their rural communities has been minimal.

Green Fuels from Agriculture Henry Ford fueled his first car with alcohol, and Rudolf Diesel ran his engine on fuel made from peanut oil. They soon abandoned these biofuels, however, for nonrenew- able fossil fuels derived from “rock oil,” and the rest is his- tory. The modern global economy is dependent on fossil fuels to produce everything that we eat, wear, listen to, read, and live in. Now fossil fuels, particularly oil, have become scarce, causing prices and political uncertainties to increase. In addition, fossil-fuel combustion is a source of atmospheric greenhouse gases, which are partly responsi- ble for global warming. Thus, an urgent search is under way to find alternative, renewable fuel supplies, and agriculture has become one of the main sources.

How can agriculture be a source of energy for industry? By tapping the simple process of fermentation, many plant materials can be converted to a combustible alcohol, ethanol. In the United States, corn is the main source of ethanol, and new ethanol plants are springing up across the Corn Belt in the midwestern United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects ethanol production to double from 2005 to 2009 and then continue to expand. This shift in corn production from food to fuel affects nearly every aspect of the field crop sector, as well as live- stock production, habitat protection, and the global grain trade. For example, corn acreage in the midwestern United States is projected to increase nearly 15 percent, replacing crops such as soybeans and taking over pastures and land set aside for conservation.

Brazil, which is the United States’s closest international rival in ethanol production, grows and ferments sugarcane, which yields twice as many gallons of ethanol per acre as does corn. The policies of the Brazilian government have encour- aged the creation of delivery infrastructure (plants, tanks, and pumps) and the manufacture and sale of “flex” cars that can run on either gasoline or ethanol. By 2006 the country had freed itself from a dependence on imported oil, an achievement that many countries dream of emulating.

Will biofuels from agriculture produce a sustainable, environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels? Biofu- els appear to offer tremendous promise, but many prob- lems remain, such as shifting crops from food to fuel production (Figure 8.26). The environmental benefits of

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Figure 8.26 Corn Belt ethanol plant. Plants such as this one in Colorado have been springing up in cornfields across the midwestern United States as demand for alternative fuel sources has increased. Corn is the main ingredient in making ethanol as a gasoline additive in the United States. (Rick Wilking/Reuters/Corbis.)

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Can Biofuels Save the Planet? In 2005, in response to diminishing oil reserves and global warming, the U.S. government mandated that biofuels be added to gasoline. Governments around the world have implemented similar initiatives to increase renewable fuel use, particularly for transportation. Globally, the most promising environmental outcome of increased biofuel use is a decrease in greenhouse gasses. Growing plants consume atmospheric carbon dioxide. Using them for fuel thus recycles an important greenhouse gas, in contrast with fossil fuels, which release stored carbon into the atmosphere when combusted.

Biofuel demand is transforming agriculture around the world, but the energy and environmental benefits are uncertain. Because U.S. corn cultivation is thoroughly industrialized and dependent on petrochemicals, ethanol production consumes as much fossil fuel as it replaces. By some estimates, corn ethanol production uses more energy than it produces. Brazil’s sugarcane ethanol industry has a far better energy balance of 1 unit of fossil fuel input to 8 units of biofuel output. These energy gains are offset by other environmental costs. Sugarcane cultivation has

created a biological desert that is expected to double in acreage by 2014. Many fear this will contribute to deforestation. Likewise, in the United States, 35 million acres of land now set aside for soil and wildlife conservation may be plowed for corn ethanol.

The increase in biofuel production raises social and ethical questions. For example, the world grain trade is controlled by giant multinational corporations that stand to gain the most from government subsidies and rising fuel prices. On the other hand, farmers are receiving near-record prices for their corn. Using cropland to produce fuel is already raising food prices for consumers and threatening food security in the poorest countries. The emerging food- fuel battle could pit 800 million affluent motorists against the world’s 2 billion poorest people.

What do you think can be done to make biofuels more promising environmentally? How can food security for the poor be assured as biofuel use increases? Who do you think will benefit the most from the expansion of biofuel use? Small farmers or agribusiness? The poorest or most affluent of the world? High-income countries or low-income countries?

biofuels also may be reduced by some of the associated costs of increasing ethanol and biodiesel production. Biodiesel, fuel made from vegetable oils, takes less energy

to produce than crop-based ethanol, but it is typically more expensive than petroleum-derived diesel. These issues are explored further in the Subject to Debate feature.

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Cultural Landscape What is the agricultural component of the cultural land- scape? What might we learn about agriculture by examining its unique landscape? According to the UN Food and Agri- culture Organization, 37.3 percent of the world’s land area is cultivated or pastured. In this huge area, the visible imprint of humankind might best be called the agricultural landscape. The agricultural landscape often varies even over short distances, telling us much about local cultures and subcultures. Moreover, it remains in many respects a window on the past, and archaic features abound. For this reason, the traditional rural landscape can teach us a great deal about the cultural heritage of its occupants.

In Chapter 3, we discussed some aspects of the agricultural landscape, in particular the rural settlement forms. We saw the different ways in which farming people situate their dwellings in various cultures. In Chapter 2, we considered traditional rural architecture, another element in the agricultural land- scape. In this chapter, we attend to a third aspect of the rural landscape: the patterns of fields and property ownership cre- ated as people occupy land for the purpose of farming.

Survey, Cadastral, and Field Patterns A cadastral pattern is one that describes property ownership lines, whereas a field pattern reflects the way that a farmer subdivides land for agricultural use. Both can be greatly influ- enced by survey patterns, the lines laid out by surveyors prior to the settlement of an area. Major regional contrasts exist in survey, cadastral, and field patterns, for example, unit-block versus fragmented landholding and regular, geometric survey lines versus irregular or unsurveyed property lines.

Fragmented farms are the rule in the Eastern Hemi- sphere. Under this system, farmers live in farm villages or smaller hamlets. Their landholdings lie splintered into many separate fields situated at varying distances and lying in various directions from the settlement. One farm can consist of 100 or more separate, tiny parcels of land (Figure 8.27). The individual plots may be roughly rectangular in shape, as in Asia and southern Europe, or they may lie in narrow strips. The latter pattern is most common in Europe, where farmers traditionally worked with a bulky plow that was difficult to turn. The origins of the fragmented farm sys- tem go back to an early period of peasant communalism. One of its initial justifications was a desire for peasant equal- ity. Each farmer in the village needed land of varying soil composition and terrain. Travel distance from the village was to be equalized. From the rice paddies of Japan and India to the fields of western Europe, the fragmented hold- ing remains a prominent feature of the cultural landscape.

Unit-block farms, by contrast, are those in which all of the farmer’s property is contained in a single, contiguous piece

of land. Such forms are found mainly in the overseas area of European settlement, particularly the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Most often, they reveal a reg- ular, geometric land survey. The checkerboard of farm fields in the rectangular survey areas of the United States provides a good example of this cadastral pattern (Figure 8.28).

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Figure 8.27 Fragmented landholdings surround a French farm village. The numerous fields and plots belonging to one individual farmer are shaded. Such fragmented farms remain common in many parts of Europe and Asia. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this system? (After Demangeon, 1946.)

Figure 8.28 American township and range survey creates a checkerboard. The checkerboard is illustrated well by irrigated agriculture in the desert of California’s Imperial Valley. (Glowimages/Getty Images.)

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Figure 8.30 A long-lot settlement in the hills of central Germany. Each property consists of an elongated unit-block of land stretching back from the road in the valley to an adjacent ridgecrest, part of which remains wooded.

The American township and range system, discussed in Chapter 6, first appeared after the Revolutionary War as an orderly method for parceling out federally owned land for sale to pioneers. It imposed a rigid, square, graph-paper pattern on much of the American countryside; geometry triumphed over physical geography (Figure 8.29). Simi- larly, roads follow section and township lines, adding to the checkerboard character of the American agricultural land- scape. Canada adopted an almost identical survey system, which is particularly evident in the Prairie Provinces.

Reflecting on Geography What advantages does the checkerboarded North American rural landscape offer? What disadvantages?

Equally striking in appearance are long-lot farms, where the landholding consists of a long, narrow unit- block stretching back from a road, river, or canal (Figure 8.30). Long-lots lie grouped in rows, allowing this cadas- tral survey pattern to dominate entire districts. Long-lots

Cultural Landscape 287

occur widely in the hills and marshes of central and west- ern Europe, in parts of Brazil and Argentina, along the rivers of French-settled Québec and southern Louisiana, and in parts of Texas and northern New Mexico. These unit-block farms are elongated because such a layout pro- vides each farmer with fertile valley land, water, and access to transportation facilities, either roads or rivers. In French America, long-lots appear in rows along streams, because waterways provided the chief means of transport in colonial times. In the hill lands of central Europe, a road along the valley floor provides the focus, and long-lots reach back from the road to the adjacent ridge crests.

Some unit-block farms have irregular shapes rather than the rectangular or long-lot patterns. Most of these result from metes and bounds surveying, which makes much use of natural features such as trees, boulders, and streams. Parts of the eastern United States were surveyed under the metes and bounds system, with the result that

farms there are much less regular in outline than those where rectangular surveying was used (Figure 8.31).

Fencing and Hedging Property and field borders are often marked by fences or hedges, heightening the visibility of these lines in the agricultural landscape. Open-field areas, where the domi- nance of crop raising and the careful tending of livestock make fences unnecessary, still prevail in much of western Europe, India, Japan, and some other parts of the Eastern Hemisphere, but much of the remainder of the world’s agricultural land is enclosed.

Fences and hedges add a distinctive touch to the cul- tural landscape (Figure 8.32). Different cultures have their own methods and ways of enclosing land, so that types of fences and hedges can be linked to particular groups. Fences in different parts of the world are made of sub- stances as diverse as steel wire, logs, poles, split rails, brush,

Original Survey Lines Property Lines, About 1955 (Those that follow original survey lines are shown by thicker lines.)

U.S. RECTANGULAR SURVEY, HANCOCK AND HARDIN COUNTIES, OHIO

METES AND BOUNDS SURVEY, UNION AND MADISON COUNTIES, OHIO

Field and Woodlot Borders, About 1955

Figure 8.31 Two contrasting land-survey patterns, rectangular and metes and bounds. Both types were used in an area of west-central Ohio. Note the impact these survey patterns had on modern cadastral and field patterns. What other features of the cultural landscape might be influenced by these patterns? (After Thrower, 1966: 40, 63, 84.)

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rock, and earth. Those who visit rural New England, western Ireland, or the Yucatán Peninsula will see mile upon mile of stone fence that typifies those landscapes. Barbed-wire fences swept across the American countryside a century ago, but remnants of older styles can still be seen. In Appalachia, the traditional split-rail zigzag fence of pioneer times sur- vives here and there. As do most visible features of culture, fence types can serve as indicators of cultural diffusion.

The hedge is a living fence. In Brittany and Normandy in France and in large areas of Great Britain and Ireland, hedgerows are a major aspect of the rural landscape. To walk or drive the roads of hedgerow country is to experi- ence a unique feeling of confinement quite different from the openness of barbed wire or unenclosed landscapes.

Conclusion We have seen that the ancient human endeavor called agri- culture varies markedly from region to region and is reflected in formal agricultural regions, and that we can better understand this complicated pattern through the themes of mobility, the global food system, nature-culture interactions, and agricultural landscape. Once again we have seen the interwoven character of the five themes of cultural geography. In many fundamental ways, the agricul- tural revolution changed humankind. In equally dramatic fashion, the industrial revolution sparked further changes. We will use the five themes to guide an exploration of the industrial world in the next chapter.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

The Global Geography of Food For most of history, people obtained the food they needed either by growing it themselves or by procuring it directly from farmers who lived nearby. The choice and availability of food were limited and changed seasonally. About 100 years ago, this situation began to change dramatically as the pace

of urbanization and industrialization accelerated. Today, very few people in developed countries know where the food they eat was produced or who produced it. Fewer still grow any of the food that they consume, yet one can walk into a supermarket and find aisles full of fresh produce, meat, fish, and a variety of grain-based products any day of the year, regardless of the season or proximity to farms.

Where does this food come from? Who produces and sells it? Your task for this exercise is to find out. This exercise can be organized as a group or individual project. As a group project, people can be assigned to research particular categories of food, such as meat and poultry, cereals and grains, fruits and vegetables, and dairy products. As an individual project, you should begin with a typical day’s meals and identify all the ingredients (don’t forget the seasonings and cooking oils used in preparation).

The project starts at the food markets where you usually shop. For much of the information you will need, you can refer to the labels on the food items. For some items, such as fish, poultry, and meat, you may need to speak to the butcher or store manager. Find out, as specifically as possible, where the food item was produced. Find out the name of the company that marketed the product and, if available, the name of the parent company.

Once you have this basic information, you will need to head to the library and perhaps log on to the Internet to do further research (the web sites listed in this chapter should be helpful). The first task is to organize a list of companies and the food products they market. The second is to locate the geographic origins of the food products. Now look for patterns. Which and how many companies are involved? What proportion of the food supply does each control? What proportion and which kinds of food are produced in other countries? Can you trace the movement of particular food commodities from the field to the dining table? Do certain kinds of foods tend to be produced closer to the market than others? Do certain kinds of food tend to be marketed by large corporations more than others? Can you think of explanations for the patterns you identify?

Figure 8.32 Traditional fence in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. The fence is designed to keep pigs out of sweet potato gardens. The modern age has had an impact, as revealed in the use of tin cans to decorate and stabilize the fence. Each culture has its own fence types, adding another distinctive element to the agricultural landscape. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

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Finally, you can take this investigation to a greater depth. Can you determine from your research what the conditions are where the food is produced? For example, what landscape changes occur when regions begin producing for the global food system? How is production structured? Is it organized into large corporate plantations or small peasant farm plots? Are there ethical dilemmas involved in the production, processing, or transportation of some food commodities? For example, what are the conditions for workers? Have concerns over the treatment of animals been raised? These are just a few of the many questions we can investigate to help us understand how our cultural food preferences are linked to agricultural landscapes and culture regions around the world.

Agricultural Geography on the Internet You can learn more about agricultural geography in the Internet at the following web sites:

Agriculture, Food, and Human Values (AFHVS) http://www.afhvs.org Founded in 1987, AFHVS promotes interdisciplinary research and scholarship in the broad areas of agriculture and rural stud- ies. The organization sponsors an annual meeting and publishes a journal by the same name.

Food First http://www.foodfirst.org Founded in 1975 by author-activist Francis Moore Lappé, Food First is a nonprofit, “people’s” think tank and clearinghouse for information and political action. The organization highlights root causes and value-based solutions to hunger and poverty around the world, with a commitment to establishing food as a fundamen- tal human right.

International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C. http://www.ifpri.cgiar.org Learn about strategies for more efficient planning for world food supplies and enhanced food production from a group concerned with hunger and malnutrition. Part of this site deals with domes- ticated plant biodiversity.

Resources for the Future http://www.rff.org This well-respected center for independent social science research was the first U.S. think tank on environment and natural resources. There is a great deal of information related to the envi- ronmental aspects of global food and agriculture.

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Rome, Italy http://www.fao.org Discover an agency that focuses on expanding world food produc- tion and spreading new techniques for improving agriculture as it strives to predict, avert, or minimize famines.

United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. http://www.usda.gov Look up a wealth of statistics about American farming from the principal federal regulatory and planning agency dealing with agriculture.

Urban Agriculture Notes http://www.cityfarmer.org This is the site of Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture. It con- cerns itself with all manner of subjects, from rooftop gardens to composting toilets to air pollution and community development. It encompasses mental and physical health, entertainment, build- ing codes, rats, fruit trees, herbs, recipes, and much more.

World Bank Group, Washington, D.C. http://www.worldbank.org Read about an agency that provides development funds to coun- tries, particularly economically distressed regions. It is a driving force behind globalization and agribusiness.

Worldwatch Institute http://www.worldwatch.org Learn about a privately financed organization focused on long- range trends, particularly food supply, population growth, and ecological deterioration.

Sources Andrews, Jean. 1993. “Diffusion of Mesoamerican Food Complex

to Southeastern Europe.” Geographical Review 83: 194–204. Binns, T. 1990. “Is Desertification a Myth?” Geography 75: 106–113. Bourne, Jr., Joel. 2007. “Biofuels: Boon or Boondoggle.” National

Geographic Magazine 212(4): 38–59. Boyd, William, and Michael Watts. 1997. “Agroindustrial Just-In-

Time: The Chicken Industry and Postwar American Capitalism,” in M. Watts and D. Goodman (eds.), Globalizing Food: Agrarian Questions and Global Restructuring. London: Routledge, 192–225.

Carney, Judith. 2001. Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultiva- tion in the Americas. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Chakravarti, A. K. 1973. “Green Revolution in India.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 63: 319–330.

Chuan-jun, Wu (ed.). 1979. “China Land Utilization.” Map. Beijing: Institute of Geography of the Academica Sinica.

Cowan, C. Wesley, and Patty J. Watson (eds.). 1992. The Origins of Agriculture: An International Perspective. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Cross, John A. 1994. “Agroclimatic Hazards and Fishing in Wisconsin.” Geographical Review 84: 277–289.

Darby, H. Clifford. 1956. “The Clearing of the Woodland in Europe,” in William L. Thomas, Jr. (ed.), Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 183–216.

Demangeon, Albert. 1946. La France. Paris: Armand Colin. Diamond, Jared. 2002. “Evolution, Consequences and Future of

Plant and Animal Domestication.” Nature 418: 700–707. Dillehay, T., J. Rossen, T. Andres, and D. Williams. 2007. “Prece-

ramic Adoption of Peanut, Squash, and Cotton in Northern Peru.” Science 316(5833): 1890–1893.

Ewald, Ursula. 1977. “The von Thünen Principle and Agricultural Zonation in Colonial Mexico.” Journal of Historical Geography 3: 123–133.

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Freidberg, Susanne. 2001. “Gardening on the Edge: The Condi- tions of Unsustainability on an African Urban Periphery.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91(2): 349–369.

Griffin, Ernst. 1973. “Testing the von Thünen Theory in Uruguay.” Geographical Review 63: 500–516.

Grigg, David B. 1969. “The Agricultural Regions of the World: Review and Reflections.” Economic Geography 45: 95–132.

Griliches, Zvi. 1960. “Hybrid Corn and the Economics of Innova- tion.” Science 132( July 26): 275–280.

Guthman, Julie. 2004. Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hewes, Lewlie. 1973. The Suitcase Farming Frontier: A Study in the Historical Geography of the Central Great Plains. Lincoln: Univer- sity of Nebraska Press.

Hidore, John J. 1963. “Relationship Between Cash Grain Farming and Landforms.” Economic Geography 39: 84–89.

Hollander, Gail. 2008. Raising Cane in the ‘Glades: The Global Sugar Trade and the Transformation of Florida’. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Horvath, Ronald J. 1969. “von Thünen’s Isolated State and the Area Around Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 59: 308–323.

ISAAA. 2007. International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications web site. http://www.isaaa.org.

Johannessen, Carl L. 1966. “The Domestication Processes in Trees Reproduced by Seed: The Pejibaye Palm in Costa Rica.” Geographical Review 56: 363–376.

Mathews, K., J. Bernstein, and J. Buzby. 2003. “International Trade of Meat and Poultry Products and Food Safety Issues,” in J. Buzby (ed.), International Trade and Food Safety: Economic Theory and Case Studies. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.

SEEING GEOGRAPHY Reading Agricultural Landscapes

Let us take a careful look at each photo and systematically identify the differences in each, beginning with the one on the left. The most striking aspect of this aerial landscape shot is the abrupt division between the cultivated land at the top and the noncultivated land at the bottom. Looking closely, we see that an irrigation channel forms the boundary between the two. A second prominent feature of the landscape is the checkerboard pattern of the fields and the straight roads forming their boundaries. Other details emerge as you look more closely. For example, the settlement pattern consists of isolated, sparsely arranged farmsteads separated by large expanses of cultivated fields. You might also note that the uncultivated land is brown

and treeless and that trees in the cultivated portion are found only along the watercourses.

The landscape features in the photo on the right are nearly the opposite of those in the one on the left. Settlement is clustered in a densely populated village centered on a church and town square. The fields are of irregular sizes and shapes and form a band of cultivated land around the concentrations of houses, some of which are built of stone. There is no clear evidence of irrigation. Trees and shrubs are concentrated in the outermost band but also occur throughout the landscape, which overall appears verdant.

Putting all these visual clues together leads us to conclude that the landscape on the left must be somewhere in the western United States. We know this region was surveyed and settled under the township and range system, which explains the isolated farmsteads and checkerboard pattern. We also know that much of the western United States is arid or semiarid, which explains the need for irrigation and the general lack of trees and green vegetation in the bottom half of the photo. In fact, it is in Mack, Colorado, where irrigation meets the desert. The landscape on the right is probably located in Europe. The large church in the center and dense cluster of houses suggest the settlement pattern of a historical market town. The irregular fields and their close proximity to the town are explained by deep historical patterns of land ownership and the reliance on foot travel in preindustrial agriculture. The verdant landscape and absence of irrigation suggest the temperate climate characteristic of western Europe. In fact, it is the vineyard region of Saône-et-Loire, France.

What differences can you “read” in these landscapes? Can you determine their locations?

Two types of contemporary agricultural landscapes.

Journals in Agricultural Geography 291

Millstone, Erik, and Tim Lang. 2003. The Penguin Atlas of Food. New York: Penguin Books.

Mitchell, Don. 1996. The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the Cal- ifornia Landscape. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Murphey, Rhoads. 1951. “The Decline of North Africa Since the Roman Occupation: Climatic or Human?” Annals of the Associ- ation of American Geographers 41: 116–131.

Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Todd Merrifield, and Steven Gorelick. 2002. Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness. London: Zed.

Popper, Deborah E., and Frank Popper. 1987. “The Great Plains: From Dust to Dust.” Planning 53(12): 12–18.

Saarinen, Thomas F. 1966. Perception of Drought Hazard on the Great Plains. University of Chicago, Department of Geography, Research Paper No. 106. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sauer, Carl O. 1952. Agricultural Origins and Dispersals. New York: American Geographical Society.

Sauer, Jonathan D. 1993. Historical Geography of Crop Plants. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press.

Thomas, David S. G. 1993. “Sandstorm in a Teacup? Understand- ing Desertification.” Geographical Journal 159(3): 318–331.

Thomas, David S. G., and Nicholas J. Middleton. 1994. Desertifica- tion: Exploding the Myth. New York: John Wiley.

Thrower, Norman J. W. 1966. Original Survey and Land Subdivision. Chicago: Rand McNally.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. 2004. Economic Research Ser- vice web site www.ers.usda.gov.

Vogeler, Ingolf. 1981. The Myth of the Family Farm: Agribusiness Dom- inance of United States Agriculture. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

von Thünen, Johann Heinrich. 1966. von Thünen’s Isolated State: An English Edition of Der Isolierte Staat. Carla M. Wartenberg (trans.). Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press.

Westcott, Paul. 2007. Ethanol Expansion in the United States: How Will the Agricultural Sector Adjust? Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.

Whittlesey, Derwent S. 1936. “Major Agricultural Regions of the Earth.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 26: 199–240.

Wilken, Gene C. 1987. Good Farmers: Traditional Agricultural and Resource Management in Mexico and Central America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Zimmerer, Karl. 1996. Changing Fortunes: Biodiversity and Peasant Livelihood in the Peruvian Andes. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ten Recommended Books on Agricultural Geography (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Clay, Jason. 2004. World Agriculture and the Environment: A Commodity- by-Commodity Guide to Impacts and Practices. Washington, D.C., and Covelo, Calif.: Island Press. The book describes the envi- ronmental effects resulting from the production of 22 major crops; it is global in scope and encyclopedic in detail.

Galaty, John G., and Douglas L. Johnson (eds.). 1990. The World of Pastoralism: Herding Systems in Comparative Perspective. New York: Guilford Press. A multidisciplinary collection of essays span- ning five continents that analyzes the productivity of different

animal-herding practices and their contributions to herding societies.

Grigg, David B. 1995. An Introduction to Agricultural Geography, 2nd ed. London: Routledge. A comprehensive introduction to the human and environmental factors that influence how agricul- ture and agricultural practices differ from place to place.

Ilbery, Brian, Quentin Chiotti, and Timothy Rickard (eds.). 1997. Agricultural Restructuring and Sustainability: A Geographical Perspec- tive. Wallingford, U.K.: C. A. B. International. A selection of papers dealing with agricultural restructuring and sustainability delivered at a conference of rural geographers from Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and New Zealand.

Middleton, Nick, and David S. G. Thomas (eds.). 1997. World Atlas of Desertification, 2nd ed. London: Arnold. Look at the carto- graphic evidence and decide for yourself whether the deserts of the world are enlarging at the expense of agricultural lands.

Millstone, Erik, and Tim Lang. 2003. The Penguin Atlas of Food. New York: Penguin Books. A book packed with information on global agriculture on a wide range of topics, including geneti- cally modified crops, fast food, organic farming, and more, all presented in brilliantly detailed maps.

Sachs, Carolyn E. 1996. Gendered Fields: Rural Women, Agriculture, and Environment. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. An explo- ration of the commonalities and differences in rural women’s experiences and their strategies for dealing with the challenges and opportunities of rural living.

Sauer, Carl O. 1969. Seeds, Spades, Hearths, and Herds. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. The renowned American cultural geogra- pher presents his theories on the origins of plant and animal domestication—the beginnings of agriculture.

Turner, B. L., II, and Stephen B. Brush (eds.). 1987. Comparative Farming Systems. New York: Guilford Press. An interdisciplinary collection of essays that integrates socioeconomic, political, environmental, and technical elements of farming systems in Latin America, Anglo-America, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Watts, M., and D. Goodman (eds). 1997. Globalizing Food: Agrarian Questions and Global Restructuring. London: Routledge. This edited volume, containing primarily the work of geographers, analyzes globalization and the biotechnological revolution in agriculture.

Journals in Agricultural Geography Agriculture and Human Values. An interdisciplinary journal dedi-

cated to the study of ethical questions surrounding agricultural practices and food. Published by Kluwer. Volume 1 appeared in 1984. Visit the homepage of the journal at http://www. kluweronline.com/issn/0889–048X/current.

Journal of Agrarian Change. A journal focusing on agrarian politi- cal economy, featuring both historical and contemporary stud- ies of the dynamics of production, property, and power. Published by Blackwell. Volume 1 appeared in 2000. Formerly titled the Journal of Peasant Studies, which began publication in 1973. Visit the homepage of the journal at http://www. blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1471-0358&site=1.

Journal of Rural Studies. An international interdisciplinary journal ranked as the best of its kind. Published by Pergamon, an imprint of Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Vol- ume 1 appeared in 1985. Visit the homepage of the journal at http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/jrurstud.

How is this Chinese landscape connected to the Wal-Mart located in your neighborhood?

Manufacturing #2, Shift Change, Yuyuan Shoe Factory, Gaobu Town, Guangdong Province, 2004. Copyright © Edward Burtynsky. Courtesy of Charles Cowles Gallery, New York/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto.

9 Geography of Economies Industries, Services, and Development

Buildings that house a set of shoe factories in Guangdong Province, China. Turn to Seeing Geography on page 322 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

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A lmost every facet of our lives is affected in some way by economic activity. Ona Friday night out, you might drive in a car to a single outlet in a nationwidechain of restaurants, where you order chicken raised indoors several states away on special enriched grain, brought by refrigerated truck to a deep freeze, and cooked in an electric deep fryer. The car you drive most likely was manufactured in several different locations around the world, assembled somewhere else, brought by container ship or truck-bed to your local automobile dealership, and purchased through financing provided by a bank or other financial service provider. Later, at a movie, you buy a candy bar manufactured halfway across the country. You then enjoy a series of machine-produced pictures that flash in front of your eyes so rapidly that they seem to be moving. Just about every object and event in your life is affected, if not actually created, by economics. What we mean by economics is how goods (from the food we eat to the Internet we use) are produced, distributed, financed, sold, and consumed by people. These diverse activities greatly shape culture and are in turn shaped by cultural preferences, ideas, and beliefs. Economies function differ- ently in different parts of the world. In this chapter, we examine differences and sim- ilarities of geographies of economic activities from a variety of vantage points that range from our own neighborhoods to the entire globe.

Region How can we understand why certain regions of the world are relatively wealthy while other regions of the world are considered poor? Many of you have had the experi- ence of traveling to countries or regions where the everyday conditions of living seem so much more difficult than the conditions you are used to at home. If you haven’t traveled yourself to these places, you certainly have seen enough television shows, movies, and Internet features to understand that the everyday lives of people in different parts of the world, including their access to housing, food, and health care, may differ greatly from yours. You may also notice that there are economic differences within your own neighborhood, town, or city. On a global scale, the differences between those parts of the world that are considered wealthy and those that are less wealthy often are explained with reference to stages of economic development.

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world was quite low. By standard of living, they were referring to such things as literacy rates, infant mortality, life expectancy, and poverty levels. They realized that, in general, a low standard of living was correlated with an economy that was based primarily on subsistence agriculture. These officials and scholars believed that introducing new technologies and skills would enable these regions to develop more productive forms of agriculture and that industrialization—the transfor- mation of raw materials into commodities—would follow. These new economic initiatives then would lead to a higher standard of living. This viewpoint—categorizing regions of the world using the criterion of economic structure and then assuming that one could raise the standard of living in certain regions by transforming that economic structure—is what came to be known as economic development.

We’ve discussed the idea of development throughout the book, particularly in Chapter 3, where we examined how development is often correlated with a region’s demo- graphic structure. In this chapter we focus on the economic aspects of development in order to help explain how and why people living in different parts of the world have differ- ing access to resources such as food, health care, and hous- ing. First, however, it is important to understand exactly what is meant by economic development and how it was for- mulated, because the term is a powerful one and carries with it several assumptions that are often overlooked.

The term economic development emerged in the post— World War II era when scholars and government and policy officials, particularly those in the United States, became con- cerned that the standard of living in many regions of the

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Today, economic development as a concept refers to two related but somewhat different ideas. The first is a way of cat- egorizing the regions of the world. Regions are categorized according to particular measures of economic growth, such as GDP (gross domestic product). GDP is a measurement of the total value of all goods and services produced within a particular region or country within a set time period. Those regions with relatively high GDPs are considered developed regions; those with relatively low GDPs are considered devel- oping regions (Figure 9.1). The second meaning refers to the actual process of economic growth. It can refer to the shift of a region’s economy from one based on subsistence agriculture to one that relies on industrialization. Thus, eco- nomic development refers both to a process and to a way of categorizing the different regions of the world.

One of the earliest and most influential models of the process of economic development was suggested by the econ- omist Walter Rostow in 1962. Rostow posited that economic development was a process that all regions of the world would go through and experience in similar ways. His model assumed that regions would progress in a linear fashion through economic stages. The first stage was what he called a “traditional” economy, one based on agriculture and with lim- ited access to or knowledge of advanced technologies. This first stage was followed by a series of other stages characterized by increasing technological sophistication and the introduc- tion of industrialization. Rostow’s final stage is called the “age of high mass consumption,” the stage that he said character- ized such economies as those of the United States and much of western Europe. In this stage, industrialization has devel-

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Figure 9.2 Oil field at sunset. Primary industries extract natural resources from the Earth. (Bill Ross/Corbis.)

oped to such a point that goods and services are readily avail- able, and most people can accumulate wealth to such a degree that they don’t need to worry about subsistence needs.

Rostow’s model has been criticized by scholars for a variety of reasons. While the simplicity of the model is appealing, its assumptions about the world often just don’t stand up to reality. For example, the model suggests that countries and regions proceed on this path to development in isolation from each other. But as we will explore in this chapter, different countries and their economies are inter- linked in complex ways, so that if one country’s economy is based primarily on services and consumption, it needs other regions and economies to supply its food and manu- factured goods and vice versa. In addition, the model assumes that all economies will develop without obstacles from other countries, and we know that this is rarely true, since, for example, some countries may deliberately try to stop economic development in other countries that they think will become their competitors. We also know that dif- ferent cultures think, feel, and act differently. The pro- posed goal of Rostow’s model—high levels of mass consumption—may not be the considered the highest level of development to many people in the world for whom other factors, such as political freedom or decent working conditions, are more important than material goods.

In this chapter we will be using the terms developing and developed to refer to different regions of the world, but we won’t be assuming, like the Rostow model does, that there

is a normal and linear progression from one to the other. We refer to developing regions as those that are character- ized by economies that include a good deal of subsistence activities but that also include some manufacturing and ser- vice activities. In these regions, people are often unable to accumulate wealth, since they are often producing just enough, or at times not enough, food and other resources for their own immediate needs. These countries therefore have a lower GDP and are considered relatively poor. We will use the term developed to refer to those regions of the world characterized by economies that are based more on manufacturing and services. In these regions, people are better able to accumulate resources, and therefore these regions have a higher GDP and are considered wealthier.

In order to fully understand the differences and similar- ities between developing and developed economic regions, it is helpful to distinguish the types of economic activities that characterize them. In general, scholars divide types of eco- nomic activities into three broad categories. Primary indus- tries refer to activities that involve extracting natural resources from the Earth. Fishing, farming, hunting, lumber- ing, oil extraction, and mining are examples of primary industries (Figure 9.2). Although primary industries are located throughout the world, it is in the developing world that these economic activities dominate. Secondary industries process the raw materials extracted by primary industries, transforming them into more usable forms. Ore is converted into steel; logs are milled into lumber; and fish are processed

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and canned. Manufacturing is a more common way of refer- ring to secondary industries. Manufacturing activities are found throughout the world, though as we will discuss later in this chapter, they tend to cluster in particular areas because of favorable circumstances such as cheap power sources or available labor. In many parts of the developed world, where people import the bulk of their manufactured products, eco- nomic activities are dominated by services. Services refer to all the different types of work necessary to make goods and resources circulate and get delivered to people. So wide is the range of services that some geographers find it useful to dis- tinguish three different types: transportation/communica- tion services, producer services, and consumer services. We will discuss these services in more detail later in the chapter. In general, countries that are dominated by primary indus- tries tend to be in the developing category, while countries that are dominated by services are considered to be in the developed category.

But, of course, the world and its economies are com- plex, and there are many exceptions to the general associa- tion of different types of economic activities and stages of economic development as outlined above. Countries in the Persian Gulf region, like Saudi Arabia, are considered fairly developed, yet their economies are dominated by a primary industry, oil extraction. On the other hand, countries like the Russian Federation that were industrialized long ago often are placed in the category of developing regions. So stages of economic activity don’t necessarily explain why some countries are rich and some countries are poor; other factors need to be considered too, like political stability, cul- tural values, etc. Rich and poor are not always indicators of social development, because money does not always corre- late to a higher standard of living. For example, Figure 9.1 groups countries in the world by a strict economic indicator: GDP. This map, however, does not totally correspond to the Human Development Index (see Figure 1.12 on p. 14), the measurement compiled by the United Nations that includes other variables in addition to income, such as literacy, life expectancy, and education.

Understanding why some regions of the world are richer than other regions, and why some groups of people have better access to such things as education and health care, is a difficult affair. We can see that it is related to a region’s economic structure—whether its economy is dominated by primary industry, secondary industry, or services—but we know that it is not the only factor to con- sider. In the next section, we take a closer look at the changing geography of industrialization itself: where it began and how it diffused; its differing impacts on the globe; and its relationship to contemporary movements of people, money, and things around the world. This will help us understand the uneven distribution of wealth around the globe.

Mobility How can we understand the changing locations of industrial activities? As we have seen, economic development is related to industrialization. In this section we consider the factors needed for industrialization and how those factors have shifted over time and through space. We start by con- sidering the beginnings of industrialization and its impacts around the world.

Origins of the Industrial Revolution Until the industrial revolution, society and culture remained overwhelmingly rural and agricultural. Cities cer- tainly existed, as centers of political power, education, and innovation, but the majority of people lived in the country- side working to procure food through agriculture. To be sure, secondary industry already existed in this setting. For as long as Homo sapiens has existed, we have fashioned tools, weapons, utensils, clothing, and other objects, but tradi- tionally these items were made by hand, laboriously and slowly. Before about 1700, most such manufacturing was carried out in two rather distinct systems: cottage industry and guild industry.

Cottage industry, by far the more common system, was practiced in farm homes and rural villages, usually as a side- line to agriculture. Objects for family use were made in each household, usually by women. Additionally, most vil- lages had a cobbler, miller, weaver, and smith, all of whom worked part-time at these trades in their homes. Skills passed from parents to children with little formality.

By contrast, the guild industry consisted of professional organizations of highly skilled, specialized artisans engaged full-time in their trades and based in towns and cities. Mem- bership in a guild came after a long apprenticeship, during which the apprentice learned the skills of the profession from a master. Although the cottage and guild systems dif- fered in many respects, both depended on hand labor and human power.

The industrial revolution began in England in the early 1700s. First, machines replaced human hands in the fash- ioning of finished products, rendering the word manufac- turing (meaning “made by hand”) technically obsolete. No longer would the weaver sit at a hand loom and painstak- ingly produce each piece of cloth. Instead, large mechani- cal looms were invented to do the job faster and cheaper. Second, human power gave way to various other forms of power: water power, the burning of fossil fuels, and later electricity and the energy of the atom fueled the machines. Men and women, once the producers of handmade goods, became tenders of machines.

The initial breakthrough came in the secondary, or manufacturing, sector. More specifically, it occurred in the

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British cotton textile cottage industry, centered at that time in the district of Lancashire in northwestern England. At first the changes were on a small scale. Mechanical spinners and looms were invented, and flowing water was harnessed to drive the looms. During this stage, manufacturing indus- tries were still largely rural and dispersed, because they were tethered to their individual power sources. Sites where rushing streams could be found, especially those with waterfalls and rapids, were ideal locations. Later in the eighteenth century, the invention of the steam engine pro- vided a better source of power, and a shift away from water- powered machines occurred. The steam engine also allowed textile producers and other manufacturers to move away from their power source—water—and to relocate instead in cities that better suited their labor and trans- portation needs. Manufacturing enterprises generally began to cluster together in or near established cities.

Traditionally, metal industries had been small-scale, rural enterprises, carried out in small forges situated near ore deposits. Forests provided charcoal for the smelting process. The chemical changes that occurred in the mak- ing of steel remained mysterious even to the craftspeople whose job it was, and much ritual, superstition, and cere- mony were associated with steel making. Techniques had changed little since the beginning of the Iron Age, 2500 years earlier. The industrial revolution radically altered all this. In the eighteenth century, a series of inventions by iron makers living in Coalbrookdale, in the English Mid- lands, allowed the old traditions, techniques, and rituals of steel making to be swept away and replaced by a scientific, large-scale industry. Coke, nearly pure carbon derived from high-grade coal, was substituted for charcoal in the smelt- ing process. Large blast furnaces replaced the forge, and efficient rolling mills took the place of hammer and anvil. Mass production of steel resulted, and that steel was used to make the machines that in turn created more industry.

Primary industries also were revolutionized. Coal min- ing was the first to feel the effects of the new technology. The adoption of the steam engine required huge amounts of coal to fire the boilers, and the conversion to coke in the smelting process further increased the demand for coal. New mining techniques and tools were invented, and coal mining became a large-scale, mechanized industry. How- ever, coal, which is heavy and bulky, was difficult to trans- port. As a result, manufacturing industries that relied heavily on coal began flocking to the coalfields to be near the supply. Similar modernization occurred in the mining of iron ore, copper, and other metals needed by rapidly growing industries.

The industrial revolution also affected the service industries, most notably in the development of new forms of transportation. Traditional wooden sailing ships gave way to steel vessels driven by steam engines, and later rail-

roads became more prevalent. The need to move raw mate- rials and finished products from one place to another both cheaply and quickly was the main stimulus that led to these transportation breakthroughs. Without them, the impact of the industrial revolution would have been minimized.

Once in place, the railroads and other innovative modes of transport associated with the industrial revolution fostered additional cultural diffusion. Ideas spread more rapidly and easily because of this efficient transportation network. In fact, the industrial revolution itself was diffused through these new transportation technologies. We take up this idea in the next section.

Diffusion of the Industrial Revolution Great Britain maintained a virtual monopoly on the indus- trial revolution well into the 1800s. Indeed, the British gov- ernment actively tried to prevent the diffusion of the various inventions and innovations that made up the indus- trial revolution. After all, they gave Britain an enormous economic advantage and contributed greatly to the growth and strength of the British Empire. Nevertheless, this tech- nology finally diffused beyond the bounds of the British Isles (Figure 9.3), with continental Europe feeling the impact first. In the last half of the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution took firm root in the coalfields of Bel- gium, Germany, and other nations of northwestern and central Europe. The diffusion of railroads in Europe pro- vides a good index of the spread of the industrial revolution there. The United States began rapid adoption of this new technology in about 1850, followed half a century later by Japan, the first major non-Western nation to undergo full industrialization. In the first third of the twentieth century, the diffusion of industry and modern transport spilled over into Russia and Ukraine.

Until fairly recently, most of the world’s manufacturing plants were clustered together in pockets within several regions, particularly Anglo-America, Europe, Russia, and Japan. In the United States, secondary industries once clus- tered mainly in the northeastern part of the country, a region referred to as the American Manufacturing Belt (Figure 9.4). Across the Atlantic, manufacturing occupied the central core of Europe, which was surrounded by a less industrialized periphery throughout the mid-twentieth cen- tury. Japan’s industrial complex was located along the shore of the Inland Sea and throughout the southern part of the country.

The Locational Shifts of Secondary Industry The diffusion of industrialization around the globe contin- ues today, but not in the same manner in which the indus- trial revolution spread from England to Europe, the United States, and Japan. During the diffusion of industry in the

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Figure 9.3 The diffusion of the industrial revolution. By diffusion from Great Britain, the industrial revolution has changed

cultures in much of the world. Why might the industrial revolution have originated in so small and peripheral a country?

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nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were very few global transportation or communication networks. Therefore, for the most part, industries were predomi- nantly national in scale. All of their activities were located within national boundaries, from their headquarters to their supply of raw materials to the labor for their plants. However, by the mid- to late twentieth century, with the advent of new communication and transportations tech- nologies such as telephones, jet planes, and computers, it became possible to develop industries that could locate dif- ferent parts of their operation (labor, power, materials, markets, etc.) in places beyond national borders. This has allowed manufacturing companies, for example, to seek out the best locations for their plants without regard to national boundaries, in effect spreading industrialization around the world. Today, corporations that are headquar- tered in London, for example, might have their manufac- turing facilities in Vietnam and Mexico, while their materials might be supplied by Indonesia. We will return to this topic later in the chapter, particularly when we discuss globalization, but first we need to examine the geographic impacts of this new mobility.

To start, we can think of secondary industrial regions as consisting of several zones, each dominated by a partic- ular kind of industry. This pronounced regional specializa- tion occurs because different types of manufacturing activities find different locations more or less advantageous. For example, iron- and steel-processing plants tend to locate close to their mining source, given that transporting these primary materials is very expensive, while textile mills, which are heavily dependent on labor, tend to locate in areas that can supply inexpensive workers. Over time, this development of specialized manufacturing regions led to a core-periphery pattern, where several regions con- tained the major industries, each drawing on the resources of the peripheral areas surrounding it to continue its indus- trial activity. Resources extracted from the peripheries flowed to the core, leading to the impoverishment of these peripheral areas. For example, England in the nineteenth century was the core of textile production in the world, pre- dominantly because the country’s entrepreneurs retained control over the technologies (the spinning and weaving machinery) that made textile production efficient and rel- atively inexpensive. The cotton that was used in this produc- tion, however, was shipped into the country from India, the United States, and Egypt. The merchants and entrepre- neurs of England became very wealthy from this domina- tion of the textile industry, while the resources of India and Egypt were extracted and the people were paid relatively lit- tle for their labor. The resultant geographical pattern—one of the fundamental realities of our age—is often referred to as uneven development or regional disparity. In the United States, that pattern of uneven development ended

when local entrepreneurs developed the technologies to open their own factories, thus leading to the development of an American-based textile industry.

Although the manufacturing dominance of the devel- oped countries persists, a major global geographical shift is currently under way. In virtually every core country, much of the secondary sector is in marked decline, especially tradi- tional mass-production industries, such as steel making, that require a minimally skilled, blue-collar workforce. In such districts, factories are closing and blue-collar unemployment rates are at the highest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the United States, for example, where manu- facturing employment began a relative decline around 1950, nine out of every ten new jobs in recent years have been low- paying service positions. The manufacturing industries sur- viving and now booming in the core countries are mainly those requiring a highly skilled or artisanal workforce, such as high-tech firms and companies producing high-quality consumer goods. Because it is often difficult for the blue- collar workforce to acquire the new skills needed in such industries, many old manufacturing districts lapse into deep economic depression. Moreover, high-tech manufacturers employ far fewer workers than heavy industries and tend to be geographically concentrated in very small districts, some- times called technopoles (see Figure 9.4).

The word deindustrialization describes the decline and fall of once-prosperous factory and mining areas, such as the east and west Midlands of England (Figure 9.5). Manufacturing industries lost by the core countries relo- cate to newly industrializing lands that were once the periphery. South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Brazil, Mex- ico, coastal China, and parts of India, among others, have experienced a major expansion of manufacturing. Geog- raphers and others often refer to these countries as newly industrializing countries (NICs). Companies move to these areas for many different reasons, including cheaper labor costs, lower environmental standards, and the relative proximity of these plants to their expanding markets out- side the traditional core. This ongoing locational shift in manufacturing regions is largely the work of transnational corporations. One can no longer think of decisions about market location, labor supply, or other aspects of industrial planning within the framework of a single plant controlled by a single owner. Instead, we now deal with a highly com- plex international corporate structure that is able to coor- dinate spatially diffuse production, marketing, and management facilities. In other words, transnational corpo- rations, many of which are headquartered in places like New York or London, locate their manufacturing plants where labor and resources are cheapest and then ship their products to the places where they can be sold for the most profit. Yet even with this massive diffusion of industry, the geographic pattern of the world’s manufacturing sites

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The regions in decline were earlier centers of the industrial revolution. Why might the industrial districts in decline not have shared the new prosperity? Why did eastern Europe fall so far behind? (Source: Jordan-Bychkov and Jordan, 2002: 300.)

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Figure 9.6 Map of world manufacturing production. Notice that the old industrial regions of the United States, Europe, and Japan still dominate much of the world’s manufacturing, although countries like China and Brazil are important new centers of manufacturing. Identify several factors that have contributed to this uneven distribution of industrialization. (Adapted from Dicken, 2003.)

remains quite uneven (Figure 9.6). The United States, Japan, and Germany still account for almost 60 percent of the world’s manufacturing output, with such “new” coun- tries as South Korea and China accounting for approxi- mately 3.5 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively. (See Seeing Geography at the end of the chapter.)

Reflecting on Geography Identify and discuss some of the reasons that the “old” manufacturing core still retains its dominance in the global manufacturing system.

A good example of corporations that are transnational are those that produce automobiles. According to geogra- pher Peter Dicken, both Ford and General Motors produce almost two-thirds of their cars (63.9 percent and 61.8 per- cent, respectively) outside the United States—most often in Europe but also in Canada, Mexico, and Brazil (Figure 9.7). In comparison to the automobile industry, the manufactur- ing plants of which are scattered throughout the world, the manufacturing facilities of the textile and garment indus- tries are disproportionately located in China, which has a large pool of relatively low-wage workers and a government eager to offer incentives. However, not all types of textile production are located in China. While the bulk of mass- produced items are made in China, much high-end, designer clothing tends to be produced in different places and under different conditions. The activity described in Doing Geography will help clarify and explain some of these distinctions within the complex global textile and garment industry. This is all part of the process of globalization.

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Figure 9.7 The global geography of General Motors and Ford. As you can see from these diagrams, automobiles are produced in a range of countries around the world. Do you think you would find a similar global pattern of production for Japanese automobile manufacturers? (Adapted from Dicken, 2003.)

The Locational Shifts of Service Industries The decline of primary and secondary industries in the older developed core, or deindustrialization, has ushered in an era in these regions widely referred to as the postindustrial phase. Both the United States and Canada are in the postin- dustrial era, as are most of Europe and Japan. In this postin- dustrial phase, service industries are most prevalent. Scholars have identified three different types of service industries.

Transportation/communication services, part of both the industrial and postindustrial phases, include trans-

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portation, communication, and utility (such as power com- panies) services. Highways, railroads, airlines, pipelines, telephones, radio, television, and the Internet are all referred to as transportation/communication services. All facilitate the distribution of goods, services, and informa- tion. Modern industries require well-developed transport systems, and every industrial district is served by a network of such facilities.

Major regional differences exist in the relative impor- tance of the various modes of transport. In Russia and Ukraine, for example, highways are not very important to industrial development; instead, railroads—and, to a lesser extent, waterways—carry much of the transport load. Indeed, Russia still lacks a paved transcontinental highway. In the United States, by contrast, highways reign supreme, while the railroad system has declined. Western European nations rely heavily on a greater balance among rail, high- way, and waterway transport. Meanwhile, electronic trans- fers of funds and telecommunications between computers continents apart add a new dimension and speed to the exchange of data and ideas.

Producer services are services required by the manu- facturers of goods, including services such as insurance, legal services, banking, advertising, wholesaling, retailing, consulting, information generation, and real estate transac- tions. Such businesses represent one of the major growth sectors in postindustrial economies, and a geographical segregation has developed in which manufacturing is increasingly shunted to the peripheries while corporate headquarters and the producer-related service activities remain, for the most part, in the core. Some of these pro- ducer service activities, however, are now moving offshore, to such places as the Caribbean and India, to take advan- tage of educated but low-wage workers (see the Global Spotlight on page 306). Nevertheless, the main control cen- ters for these large companies are still located within the major cities of the West.

An inherent problem with this spatial arrangement is that it leads to more uneven development: global corpora- tions invest in secondary industry in the peripheries, but profits flow back to the core, where the corporate head- quarters are located. As early as 1965, American-based cor- porations took, on average, about four-fifths of their net profits out of Latin America in this way. As a result, the industrialization of less developed countries actually increases the power of the world’s established industrial nations. Consequently, although industrial technology has spread everywhere, the basic industrial power of the planet is more centralized today than ever before. As we said ear- lier, global corporations are based mainly in several large cities in the older industrial regions—places like New York, Tokyo, and London (see the section on globalization in

Chapter 10). Similarly, loans for industrial development come from banking institutions in Europe, Japan, and the United States, with the result that interest payments drain away from poor to rich countries.

Increasingly important in the producer service indus- tries are the collection, generation, storage, retrieval, and processing of computerized information, including research, publishing, consulting, and forecasting. The impact of computers is changing the world dramatically, a process that has accelerated since about 1970, drastically reshaping each of the three industrial sectors. Many pro- ducer service businesses depend on a highly skilled, intelli- gent, creative, and imaginative labor force. Although information-generating activity is focused geographically in the old industrial core, the distribution of this activity, if viewed on a more local scale, can be seen to coalesce in technopoles around major universities and research cen- ters. The presence of Stanford University and the Univer- sity of California at Berkeley, for example, helped make the San Francisco Bay Area a major center of such industry. Similar technopoles have developed near Harvard and MIT in New England and near the Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill Research Triangle of North Carolina (see Figure 9.4). These high-tech corridors (see the section on new urban landscapes in Chapter 11)—or “silicon landscapes,” as some have dubbed them—occupy relatively little area. In other words, the information economy is highly focused geographically, contributing to and heightening uneven development spatially. In Europe, for example, the emerg- ing core of producer service industries is even more con- fined geographically than the earlier concentration of manufacturing (see Figure 9.5).

Consumer services are those provided to the general public, and they include education, government, recre- ation/tourism, and health/medicine. Many of these activi- ties are also shifting their locations, since the Internet has made it possible to provide these services remotely. For example, some American executives find themselves so busy at work and with their families that they have hired personal assistants to schedule their travel, medical appointments, and so on. Some of these services are now located in India. Similarly, some educational activities can now be done through the Internet. A company called TutorVista employs 600 tutors in India to help American students with their homework. The company has over 10,000 subscribers.

One of the most rapidly expanding activities included under consumer services is tourism. By 1990, this industry already accounted for 5.5 percent of the world’s economy, generated $2.5 trillion in income, and employed 112 mil- lion workers—more than any other single industrial activ- ity, and amounting to 1 of every 15 workers in the world. Just a decade later, the total income generated had risen to

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$4.5 trillion, and tourism employed 1 of every 12 workers. This trend toward the increased importance of tourism has continued and spread through most regions of the world, often in spite of terrorist attacks directed against tourists, as in Egypt during the fall of 1997 and Bali in 2002. Like all

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Figure 9.8 Intensity of tourism. This map shows only foreign tourists and does not count vacationers who stay within their own country. What bias might be built into such a map?

Notice also how many tourist areas are vulnerable to environmental degradation. (Source: United Nations Environmental Programme.)

Figure 9.9 Tourism reaches even into remote areas. Small charter buses now deliver climbers to a thatched tourist hut, which lacks running water, at the foot of Mount Wilhelm in highland Papua New Guinea—an area totally unknown to the outside world as late as 1930. Increasing numbers of tourists from Europe, North America, and Japan seek out such places. How might these places change as a result of tourism? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan- Bychkov.)

other forms of industry, tourism varies greatly in impor- tance from one region or country to another (Figure 9.8), with some countries, particularly those in tropical island locations, depending principally on tourism to support their national economies (Figure 9.9).

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Globalization How has globalization affected industries, services, and development? As we have seen, the location of industries and services has been shifting over the past 50 years or so. This mobility is both created by and reinforces the inter- linked economic networks that we refer to as globalization. Many companies now function globally in the sense that they can seek out the best locations around the world to locate their factories, obtain their services, and sell their products. Let’s think through how this actually works.

Labor Supply Labor-intensive industries are those industries in which labor costs form a large part of total production costs. Examples include industries that depend on skilled workers producing small objects of high value, such as computers, cameras, and watches, and industries that require large numbers of semi- skilled workers, such as the textile and garment industries. Manufacturers consider several characteristics of labor in

deciding where to locate factories: availability of workers, average wages, necessary skills, and worker productivity. Workers with certain skills tend to live and work in a small number of places, partly as a result of the need for higher education or for person-to-person training in handing down such skills. Consequently, manufacturers often seek locations where these skilled workers live. Geographer Amy Glasmeier (see Practicing Geography) has traced the history and con- temporary conditions of the watch-making industry in four countries (Great Britain, the United States, Switzerland, and Japan) and shown how the availability of a pool of skilled labor, and the maintenance of that pool through different forms of education and training, was critical to the success of these businesses.

In recent decades, with the increasing effects of glob- alization, two trends have been evident in terms of the relationship between the location of industry and labor supply. On the one hand, the increased mobility of people has in some ways lessened the locational influence of the labor force. Large numbers of workers around the globe have migrated to manufacturing regions. Today, labor

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Amy Glasmeier

Part teacher, part researcher, and part activist, economic geographer Amy Glasmeier of Penn State says that the most exciting part of her job is “engaging people at all spatial scales from the smallest community to the level of large international organizations.” For Glasmeier, “practicing” geography

means real-world problem solving. “I never study a problem that is purely theoretical, but rather I am interested in real-world problems. I like being able to solve social problems through understanding the role geography plays in economic activity.”

And she’s taken on an incredible array of problems, from industrial restructuring and regional development (in places like Switzerland, Silicon Valley, and Appalachia), to telecommunications policy, to the political economy of the environment. What unites these various issues is a passion for solving problems of inequality, whether that relates to unequal access to the Internet or to environmental health. Tackling such seemingly intractable problems might overwhelm some, but not Glasmeier. Her

diverse educational background and work experiences help. Trained as an urban and regional planner and now teaching in a geography department, Glasmeier has worked for and with federal agencies, international organizations, and private foundations. Also helpful is her willingness to engage in numerous research methods. “I always use multiple methods and always check what I find statistically with history and real-world ground truthing. I like to talk to policy audiences, and I like to train activists to use statistics and analytical thinking to challenge the status quo. I always start from a historical perspective.”

For now, she’s focusing much of her attention on a large project called One Nation, Pulling Apart, funded by the Ford Foundation, the goal of which is to better understand the expansion, persistence, and geography of poverty in the United States. Working with student collaborators and using her full toolbox of methods, Glasmeier is exploring the real, lived effects of industrial restructuring on individuals and communities. “I’m rethinking poverty policy in the United States since 1960, hoping to enliven a new debate about the importance of space in the construction and perpetuation of poverty and economic inequality.”

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migration is at an all-time high, lessening labor’s influ- ence on industrial location. On the other hand, particu- larly for industries that are reliant on large pools of labor and that are transnational in structure, the location of labor has become even more important. These industries are often referred to as footloose, in the sense that they shift the location of their facilities in search of cheap labor. We discussed this earlier in regard to the textile and garment industries (see the section on secondary indus- try), but here we can see how globalization is enabling more industries to locate their production facilities close to labor supply.

Some companies are even locating their producer ser- vice activities in places where they can take advantage of cheaper labor costs. In the 1990s, many companies began to move what we typically called secretarial jobs—filing, typing, document formatting, and so on—out of their cor- porate headquarters and into places and spaces that were

cheaper, both in terms of rental of office space and, espe- cially, in terms of labor costs. More recently, some types of businesses, such as accounting firms, Wall Street invest- ment houses, advertising agencies, and insurance compa- nies, have found it cost effective to outsource other white-collar jobs that are generally considered more skilled, such as legal research, financial analysis, and accounting. Chennai (formerly known as Madras), India, for example, is a primary site of these more skilled out- sourced activities (Figure 9.10). Here, educated and highly skilled workers are trained to do these jobs; they are paid the equivalent of $10,000 to $20,000 a year, com- pared to the average annual salary of $100,000 for a simi- lar worker in New York City (see Global Spotlight below). Furthermore, although lower labor costs are the major motivation behind these locational shifts, Wall Street com- panies have also found that having their junior analysts and researchers located in India keeps them from the

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT A Day in the Life of a Back-Office Worker in India Harish Kuman trains new employees for Office Tiger, an American-owned company located in Chennai, India, that provides services such as equity analysis and legal research for a variety of predominantly American companies such as Wall Street firms, accounting companies, and insurance conglomerates. His job includes teaching business skills that range from American slang to PowerPoint, skills that will enable his trainees to move up into more skilled jobs of analysis and research. With a policy of rewarding good and hard work and a climate explicitly set up as a meritocracy, Office Tiger thrives on employees like Harish who work long hours, often 80 a week. In turn, Harish gains money, experience, and exposure to another way of life and an alternative future. He also finds that his position with this American company has changed him in fundamental ways. Here is a snapshot from a typical day in his life:

The neighborhood where Harish has lived all his life is named Triplicane, and was once an ancient fishermen’s village. It is today so densely populated that some travel guides mistake it for a slum. Harish’s house is off the main road, in an alley of jasmine peddlers, Muslim shop workers, and Hindu priests. He rises around 5:30 A.M., mounts his rusted bike, and rides to work. His passage doesn’t rouse the beggar children, who have learned his recently acquired belief that direct handouts to the

poor encourage sloth. At work, he trains his candidates, takes ten minutes or so for lunch in the office pantry, and trains some more. At seven-thirty in the evening, when it’s 9 A.M. in New York, he confers with the American banking clients for whom he tailors his training, to insure that he is emphasizing the right skills. And then he turns to a slew of computer-programming challenges that may show management his greater gifts. He often goes home after midnight.

On his concrete threshold in Triplicane, as on others in the neighborhood, is an intricate chalk design known as a kolam. His grandmother, who is seventy-nine, draws it there each morning, in the Hindu hope of keeping catastrophe safely out in the streets. At night, from her mat, she listens for her grandson, sometimes cupping a hand around an elaborately bejeweled ear. The ear adornment was the custom in the village where she was born, a place where the tigers were real and said to devour boys in one go, not bit by bit each workday. She is the first at the door when her grandson rings the bell. He leaves his new square-toed lace-ups at the threshold, swallows a few spoonfuls of rice to silence protests about his declining weight, and joins his extended family on the floor. It is then that his grandmother, if not Harish, can sleep.

From Boo, 2004.

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temptations of insider trading and leads to better decision making.

A new global division of labor, then, seems to have emerged. Behind these changes in the international labor market lies the strategic thinking by directors of the global corporations. According to a U.S. Department of Commerce study, as early as the mid-1970s, 298 Amer- ican-based global corporations employed as many as 25 percent of their workers outside the United States. Since then, as we have seen, the practice has become even more common. Such factories and offices, despite relo- cation costs, quickly drive up corporate profit margins. In addition, the ability of these corporations to shift the production of a given product to faraway lands has a weakening effect on organized labor inside the United States.

Markets Geographically, a market includes the area in which a product may be sold in a volume and at a price profitable to the manufacturer. The size and distribution of markets are generally the most important factors in determining the spatial distribution of industries. With globalization, markets have expanded to cover most of the regions in the world, but even so the costs of shipping may prohibit par- ticular kinds of manufactured goods from being sold worldwide. Some manufacturers have to situate their facto- ries among their customers to minimize costs and maxi- mize profits. Such industries include those that manufacture a weight-gaining finished product, such as bottled beverages, or a bulk-gaining finished product,

such as metal containers or bottles. In other words, if weight or bulk is added to the raw materials in the man- ufacturing process, location near the market is economi- cally desirable because of the high transportation costs. Similarly, if the finished product is more perishable or time-sensitive than the raw materials, as with baked goods and local newspapers, a location near the market also is required. In addition, if the product is more fragile than the raw materials that go into its manufacture, as with glass items, the industry will be attracted to locations near its market. In each of these cases—gain in weight or bulk, perishability, or fragility—transportation costs of the fin- ished product are much higher than those of the raw materials. On the other hand, items that become easier to transport after manufacturing often are produced in locations close to the site of the raw materials.

As a rule, we can say that the greatest market potential exists where the largest numbers of people live. This is why many manufacturing firms today are looking to the large population centers in such countries as India, China, and Russia for what they consider their emerging markets. The term emerging markets refers to places within the global economy that have recently been opened to foreign trade and where populations are just beginning to accumulate capital that they can spend on goods and services. In China, for example, globalization has led to a huge increase in industrialization (as discussed earlier), and these industries create jobs for people that allow them to purchase consumer goods. China’s large population base (close to 1.5 billion people) serves as both a great source of labor and an expanding consumer market. Because China has more than 40 cities with populations exceeding

Figure 9.10 Back-office workers in Chennai, India. This photo was taken inside the Office Tiger call center, a company that provides professional support services, as described in the Global Spotlight on India. There are still many call centers located in the United States, but increasingly these services are being outsourced. Why? (James Pomerantz/Corbis.)

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a million (Figure 9.11) and also has a stable government that encourages foreign investment, transnational compa- nies find the opportunities for low-cost production and expanding consumption there appealing.

Governments and Globalization So far, we’ve considered the roles of labor, corporations, and consumers in globalizing processes, but governments are major players, too. Governmental policies shape eco- nomic activities on scales that range from urban areas, to regions, to nations, to the globe. Governments often inter- vene directly in decisions about industrial location. Such intervention typically results from a desire to encourage foreign investment; to create national self-sufficiency by diversifying industries; to bring industrial development and a higher standard of living to poverty-stricken provinces; to establish strategic, militarily important industries that otherwise would not develop; or to halt agglomeration in existing industrial areas. Such govern- mental influence becomes most pronounced in highly planned economic systems, particularly in certain social- ist countries such as China, but it works to some extent in almost every industrial nation.

Other types of government influence come in the form of tariffs, import-export quotas, political obstacles to the free movement of labor and capital, and various methods of hindering transportation across borders.

Tariffs, in effect, reduce the size of a market area propor- tionally to the amount of tariff imposed. A similar effect is produced when the number of border-crossing points is restricted. In some parts of the world, especially Europe, the impact of tariffs and borders on industrial location has been greatly reduced by the establishment of free-trade blocs—groups of nations that have banded together economically and abolished most tariffs. Of these associations, the European Union (EU) is perhaps the most famous. Composed of 27 nations, the EU has succeeded in abolishing tariffs within its area. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among the United States, Canada, and Mexico—with future expan- sion to include other countries—is a similar arrange- ment in the Western Hemisphere. At a much larger spatial scale, the World Trade Organization (WTO) administers trade agreements and settles trade disputes, including those over tariffs, throughout much of the world. With nearly 150 member countries, the WTO reg- ulates approximately 97 percent of world trade. The WTO was formed in 1995, replacing the international organization known as GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) that had been established after World War II. The degree to which free trade—trade between countries that is not regulated by governments—as pro- moted by these transnational organizations is actually ben- eficial to different groups of people is, however, subject to debate (see Subject to Debate).

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Transnational corporations, which scatter their hold- ings across international borders, would seem to suffer from such political regulations. In reality, however, multi- national enterprises are well placed to take advantage of some government policies. Various countries act differ- ently to encourage or discourage foreign investment, cre- ating major spatial discontinuities in opportunities for the global corporations. Areas where foreign investment is encouraged are often called export processing zones

(EPZs), although in China they are called special eco- nomic zones (SEZs). In general, these zones are desig- nated areas of countries where governments create conditions conducive to export-oriented production, including trade concessions, exemptions from certain types of legislation, provision of physical infrastructure and services, and waivers of restrictions on foreign ownership. According to Peter Dicken, about 90 percent of these zones are located in Latin America, the Caribbean, Mexico, and

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Is Free Trade Fair Trade? Around the world, groups such as campus-based United Students Against Sweatshops and larger political protests, such as those that have taken place in different cities where the World Trade Organization (WTO) meets, have raised public awareness of some of the problems that stem from free trade. Most of these protesters, and the scholars and thinkers whose work they build on, think that free trade only benefits the wealthy living in the more prosperous countries and regions of the world, at the expense of workers in less wealthy regions. On the other side of the debate—the side associated with such organizations as the World Bank, the WTO, and large transnational corporations—are scholars and thinkers who believe that free trade throughout the world is the most efficient way to equalize prosperity. Is there some middle ground? Can free trade also be fair trade?

Let’s start with thinking about what free trade really means. As we’ve learned in this book, global trade has a fairly long history. But for most of that history, countries found ways to regulate how that trade would happen. For example, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when industrialization was diffusing to different parts of the world, many countries realized that their newly forming industries needed to be protected from outside competition. Even countries like the United States, with developed industries, did not necessarily want competition from foreign companies. What these countries did, then, was to set up tariffs, or taxes, on certain imports so that foreign products were very expensive and not readily consumed. In addition to tariffs, today many countries use other forms of state control to protect national economic interests—things like government subsidies to farmers or price controls that keep prices of products low.

Advocates of free trade believe that these tariffs, controls, and subsidies should be eliminated, thereby creating a situation where people who need or want goods (the demand side) would be supplied with those goods in

the most efficient way. Most importantly for this debate, they believe that this efficiency will eventually lead to an equitable distribution of wealth. The regions of the world that produce textiles, for example, will see rising wages as the demand for these products increases. Thus, trade that is free from government interference will, in the end, produce the most fair outcomes. Transnational organizations like the WTO promote these goals. In contrast, antiglobalization activists believe that free trade benefits only the wealthy countries that are able to support their higher standard of living by exploiting workers living in less wealthy countries. The people who produce textiles, for example, often do so in sweatshop conditions—long working hours, little pay, no recourse to labor organizing, etc.—that will be maintained as long as the demand for these cheaper products continues. Unlike the free-trade advocates, they do not believe that increased demand will lead to better working conditions, because they’ve seen how companies will opt instead to move their factories somewhere else. Free trade and globalization, they believe, translate into a race to the bottom, not the top.

Can free trade ever be fair trade? Free-trade advocates believe it can. Over time economic globalization will lead to rising prosperity in less wealthy countries. Antiglobalization advocates believe it can’t. Free trade and globalization will exasperate existing inequalities. Is there any middle ground here? Part of the problem in figuring this out is that we have no way to test free trade and see what happens. Most countries and many regions (the European Union, for example) still regulate their trade in some manner, and organizations like the World Bank and the WTO also function as international regulatory bodies. Do you see examples in your own life or from your own state or region that show how global free trade is helping people attain a higher standard of living? Do you see examples of peoples’ lives becoming harder because of free trade?

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Figure 9.12 Global sites of export processing zones. Notice the concentration of these zones along the U.S.-Mexican border. What explains this phenomenon? (Adapted from Dicken, 2003.)

Asia (Figure 9.12). Those located along the U.S.-Mexican border are populated by American-owned assembly plants called maquiladoras (Figure 9.13), most of which utilize Mexican low-wage labor, predominantly women, to produce textiles, clothing, and electronics for the export market.

Economic Globalization and Cultural Change Economic globalization brings with it enormous changes, and those changes have profound impacts on peoples’ lives. As we have already seen in this chapter, the globalization of industry can radically alter regional economies, while the increase in international trade that is a major consequence of globaliza- tion allows for the circulation of new and different types of consumer goods and services throughout much of the world. Some very fundamental changes in how people live their everyday lives often accompany these large economic transfor- mations. Increased interregional trade often leads to intercul- tural contact and the introduction of different ways of living and working to formerly isolated regions. The locational shifts of industries into new regions of the world can precipitate

large movements of people from rural, farming areas into cities to work in factories. In some places in the world, eco- nomic globalization has restructured families and reshaped gender roles. For example, many transnational companies seek out a female labor force to work in their factories, since they believe women are more reliable and pliant workers, and also because in general they earn less than men. The Global Spotlight on the facing page provides an interesting case study of the complex changes wrought by industrialization in the Mexican border zone.

Even though globalization has spread industries and services throughout the world, not all groups of people have benefited equally. Some regions of the world have remained relatively underdeveloped, serving the global economy as sources of raw materials and low-wage labor, while other areas of the world benefit from the cheaper costs of production elsewhere to raise their standards of liv- ing. This can be explained by a large range of factors: the particular histories and physical geographies of certain countries, their situation within the geopolitical world (see Chapter 6), international trade agreements (refer again to

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Figure 9.13 Maquiladora in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. In this maquiladora, Mexican workers are completing telephone repairs for AT&T. Why are many of these workers women? (Bob Daemmrich/The Image Works.)

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT Women, Men, and Work in the Maquiladoras Young women constitute a large percentage of the labor force in the maquiladora factories along the U.S.-Mexican border. For the American-owned companies that employ them, they are considered the cheapest and most reliable pool of labor. Many of these women leave their homes and villages in other parts of Mexico to work in these plants, living in company- or state-owned dormitories, while others live with their families close by, frequently in squatter settlements. Though often considered hazardous and backbreaking, these jobs provide a much-needed source of capital for many of these women and their families. They also disrupt the gender division of labor within their own homes. Geographer Altha Cravey analyzed such effects on the lives of women and men working in maquiladora plants in Nogales, Mexico, pointing out the connections between domestic work arrangements and factory work and, for some, the potentially liberating disruptions caused by women working away from home:

As individual Nogales households adapt to change, such as fluctuations in income and household composition,

household members devise new arrangements for meeting daily and long-term needs. Overall, males contribute domestic labor to approximately 60% of Nogales households, and it is common to find men who regularly assume responsibility for some domestic tasks. Negotiations over the simple tasks of child care, cleaning, shopping, and cooking are less simple than they might seem at first glance. The result may challenge long-standing gender norms, amounting even to a renegotiation of the social meaning of gender itself. For instance, one male informant who regularly cares for his children during his wife’s hours at the factory seemed to downplay his sustained domestic labor, as if it contradicted his ideal self-image. He and his partner had settled on this arrangement after a long period of fighting over the expense of paying a neighbor for child care. . . . His struggles and those of others like him result in the invention of new male (and female) identities.

Adapted from Cravey, 1998.

Subject to Debate), and the types of people who live in dif- ferent regions and their cultures. As we can see, economic development is an uneven process that brings with it enor- mous changes that benefit some, but not all.

Nature-Culture How do economic activities affect the natural environment? Industrialization is a process that transforms natural resources into commodities for human use. The theme of nature-culture, then, is central to understanding industrial- ization and economic development. Some scholars would go as far as saying that we have tacitly agreed to the ongoing destruction of the planet in exchange for living comfort- ably today, for most economic activity creates serious eco- logical problems. In other words, examining the various impacts that economic activities have had on the natural environment provides an important example of how humans have modified the Earth.

Renewable Resource Crises At first glance, it might seem that only finite resources are affected by industrialization, but even renewable resources such as forests and fisheries are endangered. The term

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renewable resources refers to those that can be replenished nat- urally at a rate sufficient to balance their depletion by human use. But that balance is often critically disrupted by the effects of industrialization. So while deforestation is an ongoing process that began at least 3000 years ago, the industrial rev- olution drastically increased the magnitude of the problem. In just the last half-century, a third of the world’s forest cover has been lost. Lumber use tripled between 1950 and 2000,

and the demand for paper increased fivefold. Today, we wit- ness the rapid destruction of one of the last surviving great woodland ecosystems, the tropical rain forest (Figure 9.14). The most intensive rain-forest clearing is occurring in the East Indies and Brazil, and commercial lumber interests are largely responsible (Figure 9.15). Although trees represent a renew- able resource when properly managed, too many countries are in effect mining their forests. Canadians and Americans

Figure 9.14 Destruction of tropical rain forest near Madang in Papua New Guinea by Japanese lumbering interests. The entire forest is leveled to extract a relatively small number of desired trees. Why are overtly destructive policies employed? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

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Figure 9.15 The tropical rain forest of the Amazon Basin. In Brazil, the rain forest is under attack by settlers, ranchers, and commercial loggers. Its removal will intensify the impact of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, because the

forest acts to convert those gases into benign forms. About 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers) of Brazil’s tropical rain forest are cleared each year. (Source: Worldwatch Institute web site.)

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can only hypocritically chastise countries such as Brazil and Indonesia for not protecting their tropical rain forests, because their own midlatitude rain forests in the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska continue to suffer severe damage as a result of unwise lumbering practices. In any case, foreign rather than Brazilian interests now hold log- ging rights to nearly 30 million acres (12 million hectares) of Amazonian rain forest. Even when forests are converted into scientifically managed “tree farms,” as is true in most of the developed world, ecosystems often are destroyed. Natural ecosystems have plant and animal diversity that cannot be sus- tained under the monoculture of commercial forestry.

Similarly, overfishing has brought a crisis to many ocean fisheries, a problem compounded by the pollution of many of the world’s seas. The total fish catch of all countries combined rose from 84 million metric tons in 1984 to more than 100 million metric tons by 2003, causing some species to decline. Salmon in Pacific coastal North America and cod in the Maritime Provinces of Canada can be said to have reached a “marine biological crisis.” Overfishing is a global problem, with some estimates suggesting that almost 30 percent of the fish species in the world are near a state of collapse because of overfishing or habitat loss caused by pollution. Some experts forecast a collapse of the world’s fisheries in the near future.

Acid Rain Secondary and service industries pollute the air, water, and land with chemicals and other toxic substances. The burning of fossil fuels by power plants, factories, and automobiles releases acidic sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides into the air;

these chemicals are then flushed from the atmosphere by precipitation. The resultant rainfall, called acid rain, has a much higher acidity than normal rain. Overall, 84 percent of the world’s human-produced energy is generated by burning fossil fuels, making acid rain a prevalent phenomenon.

Acid rain can poison fish, damage plants, and diminish soil fertility. Such problems have been studied intensively in Germany, one of the most completely industrialized nations in the world. German scholars have been alarmed by the dramatic suddenness with which the catastrophic effects of acid rain arrived. In 1982, only 8 percent of forests in western Germany showed damage, but by 1990 the pro- portion had risen to more than half. Now only a crash pro- gram of pollution control and energy conservation can save the country’s woodlands. The neighboring Czech Republic faces a comparable problem. In North America, the effects of acid rain have accumulated, but not yet with the cata- strophic speed seen in central Europe. More than 90 lakes in the seemingly pristine Adirondack Mountains of New York were “dead,” meaning devoid of fish life, by 1980, and 50,000 lakes in eastern Canada faced a similar fate.

Since about 1990, the acid-rain problem has become less severe in many parts of the world, especially Europe, but the situation in the Adirondacks did not start improv- ing until very recently. For years, the government of Canada urged U.S. officials to take stringent action to help alleviate acid-rain damage, because much of the problem on the Canadian side of the border derives from American pollution. These pleas have begun to have some effect, as new and cleaner technologies for burning fossil fuels have been adopted by companies within the United States. You can see from Figure 9.16 that there is a decrease in acid-rain

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concentrations in some areas, particularly Louisiana and Illinois. Scientists continue to monitor the situation in order to assess future scenarios.

Global Climate Change Most scientists now agree that we have entered a phase of global warming caused by industrial activity and, most par- ticularly, by the greatly increased amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by burning fossil fuels (however, see Sub- ject to Debate in Chapter 1, page 21, to examine more fully why some disagree about the degree to which industrial activities contribute to the increase in CO2). Fossil fuels— coal, petroleum, and natural gas—are burned to create the energy that powers the world’s factories, and as that burn- ing has increased, so has the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere. The eight hottest years on record all occurred in the period 1990–2001, based on records com- piled at more than 14,000 locations. In 2002, a huge ice mass the size of Rhode Island broke off from Antarctica and fragmented into icebergs in the ocean, and since then sci- entists have noted a general shrinking of glaciers through- out much of the world.

At issue is the so-called greenhouse effect. Every year billions of tons of CO2 are produced worldwide by fossil-fuel burning from automobiles and industry, at a level 75 per- cent greater than that in 1860. By some estimates, the atmo- spheric concentration of CO2 has climbed to the highest level in 180,000 years (Figure 9.17). In addition, the ongo- ing destruction of the world’s rain forests adds huge addi- tional amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. Although CO2 is a natural component of the Earth’s atmosphere, the freeing of this huge additional amount is altering the chemical com- position of the air. Carbon dioxide, only one of the absorb-

ing gases involved in the greenhouse effect, permits solar short-wave heat radiation to reach the Earth’s surface but acts to block or trap long-wave outgoing radiation, causing a thermal imbalance and global heating.

The greenhouse effect could warm the global climate enough to melt or partially melt the polar ice caps, causing the sea level to rise and inundate the world’s coastlines. To begin to mitigate the effects of this looming crisis, 38 indus- trialized countries signed the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. This document, originally discussed in Kyoto in 1997, binds these countries to reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases so that their 2012 levels of emissions will be less than their 1990 levels. The United States agreed to this protocol in 1997 but has since changed its position and is no longer a part of the agreement.

Ozone Depletion Potentially even more serious is the depletion of the upper-atmosphere ozone layer, which acts to shield humans and all other forms of life from the most harmful types of solar radiation. Several chemicals, including the freon used in refrigeration and air conditioning, are almost certainly the main culprits. These refrigeration sys- tems are heavily used within large manufacturing plants and are critical for such things as the global trade in food commodities. Because of particular stratospheric condi- tions, the ozone layer has been most depleted in the Arc- tic and Antarctic regions. The ozone decrease in the Arctic was first noticed in the early 1990s, with the obser- vation of an ozone hole in that region comparable to the one first detected in the Antarctic during the 1980s. In 2006, the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic was the largest ever measured, both in terms of surface area

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Nature-Culture 315

and in the actual loss of mass. Other areas of the world also are affected by the reduction in the ozone layer. In the middle latitudes, where most of the world’s popula- tion lives, ozone levels have dropped an average of 5 per- cent per decade since 1979.

Most of the industrialized countries of the world con- tribute large amounts of these chemicals, and they signed the Montreal Protocol in 1989, which was aimed at reduc- ing the ozone-damaging substances. The problem is that there is a significant time lag between when these sub- stances are released into the atmosphere and when they are finally dissipated. The 2006 measurements show a sig- nificant reduction in the level of damaging substances within the lower atmosphere but not yet in the higher atmosphere. Scientific estimates now suggest that it will take at least another 50–75 years to see recovery of the ozone layer.

Reflecting on Geography If we cannot be certain that global warming and upper-level ozone depletion are caused by industrial activity rather than being natural fluctuations or cycles, should we take action or simply wait and see what happens?

Radioactive Pollution Like acid rain, radioactive pollution is invisible. It comes from nuclear power plants and waste storage facilities, both consequences of the growing need for energy on the part of industrialized societies. The catastrophe at Cher- nobyl in Ukraine on April 26, 1986, clearly demonstrated the inherent dangers in reliance on nuclear power. When the Chernobyl nuclear reactor core melted down, causing two explosions, a sizable area around Chernobyl in Ukraine and Belarus became heavily contaminated with deadly radiation; everyone within an 18-mile (30- kilometer) radius of the destroyed reactor had to be evac- uated. This area remains uninhabited today, save for a few elderly people who refused to leave. Beyond this zone, siz- able swaths across Europe were bombarded with various long-lasting radioactive chemicals that attack the entire human body. Some estimates place the amount of radioactive chemicals released as equivalent to at least 750 Hiroshima atomic bombs. Ultimately, a sizable part of both Ukraine and Belarus may be declared unfit for human habitation, and additional tens of thousands of people could die from exposure to radiation caused by this single catastrophe. Another radioactive contaminant released by the explosion continues to leak into the groundwater table at Chernobyl. The ominous term national sacrifice area is now heard in governmental circles in various countries as a potential euphemism for districts

rendered permanently uninhabitable by radiation pollu- tion. Some geographers speak of “hazardscapes” to describe such places.

Environmental Sustainability The key issue in all these industry-related ecological prob- lems is sustainability. A sustainable environment is defined as one that would last indefinitely, providing adequate resources for the world’s population. Can our present industry-based way of life continue without causing those resources to run out, leading to ecological collapse?

The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) has been devised to measure, country by country, the level of progress toward sustainability. The highest possible score on the ESI is 100, the lowest 0. No fewer than 21 “core indicators” involving 67 different variables are consid- ered (Figure 9.18). These include air and water quality, biodiversity, population pressures, private business sec- tor responsiveness, level of governmental intervention, and so on. In 2005, the highest-ranked country was Fin- land, at 75.1; the lowest was North Korea, at 29.2. Although far from being a perfect measure, the ESI clearly points to the regions of the world where ecosys- tems are most highly stressed. These lie mainly in the tropics and subtropics.

Developing new sources of energy is one of the keys to environmental sustainability. For example, notable progress is being made in the use of wind power to gener- ate electricity. In the United States alone, wind power pro- duced over 6200 megawatts of electricity by the end of 2003, about 1 percent of the total generated. This repre- sents a significant increase over that of previous years, although the United States lags far behind such countries as Denmark, Spain, and Germany. Texas, California, Iowa, and Minnesota are the leading wind-power states.

Another development fostering sustainability is ecotourism, defined as responsible travel that does not harm ecosystems or the well-being of local people. Eco- tourism arose when it was recognized that even seemingly benign industries such as tourism can create ecological problems. Ecotourists tend to visit out-of-the-way places with exotic, healthy ecosystems. They disdain the comforts of large hotels and resorts, preferring more spartan condi- tions. Revenue from ecotourism is helping to rescue Uganda’s mountain gorillas from extinction, especially now that the government has realized that the wildlife serves as a valuable tourist attraction.

Also notable has been the rise of the Greens, politi- cal activists who advocate an emphasis on environmental issues. Many countries now have Green political parties. Also active in environmental advocacy are groups such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and the Nature Conservancy.

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Figure 9.18 Environmental Sustainability Index. The ESI is a multiple-criterion measure of how well countries are doing in trying to achieve an ecological balance that might be sustained over centuries. What could explain the regional patterns? (Source: Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, 2005.)

Cultural Landscape In what ways have economic activities altered the cultural landscape? It is difficult to look at any particular landscape and not see some evidence of the production, circulation, and consumption of goods and services. Factory buildings of course provide an obvious example, but perhaps less obvious are the spaces where goods and services circulate (highways, trains, airports, etc.) and where they are con-

sumed (malls, shops, offices, etc.). Economic landscapes, then, are prominent visible features of our surroundings and form part of daily life.

Each level of industrial activity produces its own dis- tinctive landscape. Primary industries exert perhaps the most drastic impact on the land. The resulting landscapes contain slag heaps, clear-cut commercial forests, strip- mining scars, open-pit mines, and “forests” of oil derricks (Figure 9.19). The destruction of nature is less apparent in other types of primary industrial landscapes. The fish-

Cultural Landscape 317

ing villages of Portugal or Newfoundland even attract tourists (Figure 9.20). In still other cases, efforts are made to restore the preindustrial landscape. Examples include the establishment of artificial grasslands in old strip-mining areas of the American Midwest and the cre- ation of recreational ponds in old mine pits along inter- state highways.

Among the most obvious features of the landscapes of secondary industry, or manufacturing, are factory build- ings. Early- to mid-nineteenth-century industrial land-

scapes are easy to identify, because the technologies that ran these factories were reliant on water power. Hence, the mill buildings that housed the machinery were designed in linear form to take full advantage of the turbines that were connected to waterwheels. What’s more, given this loca- tional requirement, these mill complexes were most often built in rural areas. Entire communities, most often with housing for the workers, were thus constructed along with the mills. These mill towns dotted the landscape of Eng- land, Scotland, and New England, the site of the first

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Figure 9.19 Three primary industrial landscapes. Upper left: This bizarrely colored “industrial mosaic” is on the margins of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where chemicals and minerals such as metallic magnesium, potassium, and sodium chloride are derived from the water by solar evaporation. Upper right: This open- pit mine is Bingham Canyon in Utah, the second largest in the world. Bottom: This mind-boggling, artificial “Alp” is the result of potash mining near Kassel in Germany. (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

Figure 9.20 A fishing village in Newfoundland. Primary industrial landscapes can be pleasing to the eye. What problems might such a landscape also suggest? (Courtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov.)

industrial developments in the United States (Figure 9.21). Later—as water power was supplanted by steam, coal, and then electric power—factories were located near urban areas, taking advantage of the housing supply already there

and the proximity to a large consumer base. These indus- trial landscapes were often located at the edge of down- towns, lining the railroad routes into the city, and were surrounded by working-class housing (see the section on

Cultural Landscape 319

Figure 9.21 Mill buildings in central Massachusetts. Most textile mills in New England were abandoned by the mid-twentieth century, as textile production moved to southern states and then to countries outside the United States. What accounts for the footloose nature of the textile industry? (Courtesy of Mona Domosh.)

class, race, and gender in the industrial city in Chapter 11). In the second half of the twentieth century—with the development of the interstate highway system and the trucking industry, as well as the switch to high-tech indus- tries such as electronics—industrial landscapes took on a different form. Factories began to move to industrial parks at interstate exchanges, and their architecture began to resemble other types of mass-produced architecture, such as “box” stores (Figure 9.22).

Given the degree of deindustrialization in certain parts of the old core industrial regions, it is not surpris- ing that many of these factory complexes, particularly those that date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are derelict or are being retrofitted into hous- ing or commercial uses. Others now house historical museums depicting past industrial technologies and ways of life. Lowell, Massachusetts, an early (mid-nineteenth- century) planned industrial town that produced textiles, is now the site of a national park. A good percentage of its factories, canals, and housing complexes have been preserved and can be toured by visitors. In Great Britain, many sites of industrial history are now preserved as museums. New Lanark, located outside of Glasgow in Scotland, is now a World Heritage Site and provides a particularly interesting example of an industrial land- scape, given that it was originally established by Robert Owen as a utopian community. He included in his plan-

Figure 9.22 Footwear factory in Picardie, France. This factory is located right along the highway, providing easy access for its employees and for the trucks that transport its products. Are there any visual clues here that this structure is a factory rather than a “box” store? (ForestierYves/Corbis Sygma.)

ning good schools, housing, and even a cooperative food store in order to create a benevolent community of work- ers (Figure 9.23).

Figure 9.23 New Lanark, Scotland. Robert Owen’s planned industrial town is now a World Heritage Site. Compare these buildings to the workers’ dormitory in Figure 9.24, and consider the changes that have occurred (or haven’t occurred) in the provision of housing for industrial workers. (Courtesy of Mona Domosh.)

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Figure 9.24 Workers’ dormitory in Dongguan, China. Notice the similarity in clothing hanging on each worker’s balcony. Compare this image to Figure 9.23. (Courtesy of Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, and Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco.)

In other parts of the world, as we’ve learned in this chapter, industrial landscapes are far from derelict; they are, in fact, being built anew. In Southeast Asia, China, and Mexico, large industrial landscapes are under construction. Some, like the maquiladoras (refer again to the Global Spotlight on page 311), are similar to the early mill towns in that they, too, are being constructed in nonurban sites without housing or other infrastructure. In the maquilado- ras, as well as in many industrial regions of China, housing comes either in the form of dormitories or in informal squatter settlements (Figure 9.24).

Service industries, too, produce a cultural landscape. Its visual content includes elements as diverse as high-rise bank buildings, hamburger stands, “silicon landscapes,” gasoline stations, and the concrete and steel webs of high- ways and railroads. Some highway interchanges can best be described as a modern art form, but perhaps the aes- thetic high point of the industrial landscape is found in bridges, which are often graceful and beautiful structures. The massive investment in these transportation systems has even changed the way we view the landscape. As geo- grapher Yi-Fu Tuan commented, “In the early decades of the twentieth century vehicles began to displace walking as the prevalent form of locomotion, and street scenes were perceived increasingly from the interior of automo- biles moving staccato-fashion through regularly spaced traffic lights.” Los Angeles provides perhaps the best

example of the new viewpoints provided by the industrial age. Its freeway system allows individual motorists to observe their surroundings at nonstop speeds. It also allows the driver to look down on the world. The view from the street, on the other hand, is not encouraged. In some areas of Los Angeles, streets actually have no side- walks at all, so that the pedestrian viewpoint is function- ally impractical. In addition, the shopping street is no longer scaled to the pedestrian—Los Angeles’s Ventura Boulevard extends for 15 miles (24 kilometers).

Producer services related to financial activities, such as legal services, trade, insurance, and banking, tradition- ally were located in high-rise buildings in urban centers, but with suburbanization they have taken on a nonurban form. Many are now located in five- or six-story buildings, along the interstates surrounding cities, in what we’ve called high-tech corridors (Figure 9.25). Other producer service industries choose to maintain their downtown location for symbolic reasons. Some consumer services, particularly retailing, have created distinctive and, within the American context at least, socially important land- scapes. Shopping malls are now dominant features of the North American suburb and often serve as catalysts to sub- urban land development, in effect creating entirely new landscapes, all geared toward consumption. Chapter 11 provides more details about these new and emerging land- scape elements.

Economic Geography on the Internet 321

Conclusion As we have seen, two of the most significant events of our age—the diffusion of industrialization and the globaliza- tion of economic activities—have brought a host of far- reaching changes. Already these developments have modified the regions, habitats, cultures, and landscapes of some lands so greatly that people who lived there in the past would be bewildered by the modern setting. As it turns out, much of the process of industrialization and globaliza- tion has been carried out in cities. Indeed, industrialization is the principal cause of urbanization. In the following two chapters, we will turn our attention to the city as a geo- graphical phenomenon.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

The Where and Why of What You Wear As we’ve pointed out in this chapter, the textile and garment industries have historically been very footloose, able to move production facilities to locations that suit manufacturers, often because of the low cost of labor. In today’s global world, that tendency is even more pronounced, with manufacturers of clothing and other garment-related materials outsourcing many aspects of production and often subcontracting with other companies

to complete different tasks in different parts of the world. It’s possible, then, that the clothes and shoes you are wearing right now were designed in one place, woven into fabric in another place, and assembled in yet another.

This exercise is about tracing the “origins” of the clothes and shoes you are wearing right now and about asking “Why?” The cost of labor, as we’ve learned, is important, but it certainly isn’t the only factor in determining where garments and shoes are made. In manufacturing in general, other locational factors include the locations of markets as well as state and international policies, such as NAFTA. For clothing and shoes, another important factor is fashion. Styles change often, and there might be a need for manufacturers to be able to change their production quickly. This would lead companies to locate manufacturing facilities close to their main markets, which might mean in the United States or Canada.

Start this exercise by locating as many of the labels as you can on the shoes and all the pieces of clothing you are wearing right now. Read them carefully and create a list and a map of the places mentioned on the labels. This alone should give you a good sense of the global nature of this industry. Now, ask “Why?” Why are certain items manufactured in particular places? Is there a pattern to these places? What are the similarities in these countries? What are the differences? Consider each of the locational factors we’ve mentioned—labor, markets, state policies, consumer trends—and try to generalize the why of what you wear.

Economic Geography on the Internet You can learn more about economic geography on the Internet at the following web sites:

Global Policy Forum http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/index.htm This site provides access to resources about global economic development, poverty, and social justice issues that are relevant for policy makers around the globe.

Greenpeace http://www.greenpeace.org This is the site for information about an activist group that uses both orthodox and illegal methods in its attempts to bring atten- tion to environmental crises.

Inter-American Development Bank http://www.iadb.org/index.cfm The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) provides financ- ing for social and economic development in Latin America and the Caribbean. This site provides information about their vari- ous development projects and allows you to download their publications, which include valuable data and sources for data concerning development in the region.

Figure 9.25 Office buildings in suburban Florida. Most of the activities that take place in these offices are related to banking. Why are these buildings set back off the road? (Courtesy of Mona Domosh.)

322 Chapter 9 Geography of Economies

United Nations Industrial Development Organization http://www.unido.org This specialist agency of the United Nations is devoted to promot- ing sustainable industrial development in countries with develop- ing and/or transition economies. The site contains industrial statistics and information on, for example, women in industrial development, and it allows you to access data and maps of the least developed countries in the world.

World Bank http://www.worldbank.org In addition to information about the workings of the World Bank, this site contains valuable data on measures of economic develop- ment for most countries in the world.

Worldwatch Institute, Washington, D.C. http://www.worldwatch.org This nongovernmental watchdog and research institute compiles and analyzes the latest information about such ecological prob-

lems as global warming, industrial pollution, and deforestation. It also seeks sustainable alternatives.

Sources Airriess, Christopher A. 2001. “Regional Production, Information-

Communication Technology, and the Developmental State: The Rise of Singapore as a Global Container Hub.” Geoforum 32: 235–254.

Boo, Katherine. “The Best Job in Town.” The New Yorker, July 5, 2004. Braudel, Fernand. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean

World in the Age of Phillip II. New York: Harper & Row. Brown, Laurie, Martha Ronk, and Charles E. Little. 2000. Recent

Terrains: Terraforming the American West. Baltimore: Johns Hop- kins University Press.

Dean, Cornelia. “Study Sees ‘Global Collapse’ of Fish Species.” New York Times, November 3, 2006.

Buildings that house a set of shoe factories in Guangdong Province, China.

SEEING GEOGRAPHY Factories in Guangdong Province, China

The buildings depicted in this image house a set of factories in Guangdong Province, China, that produce different types of shoes (Nike, New Balance, Reebok, etc.), some of which are contracted to be sold in the United States. Given that Wal-Mart accounts for 12 percent of China’s exports to the United States, it’s not difficult to surmise that some of the shoes produced here, in southeastern China, will make their way to the shoe racks at your local store. China manufactures almost half of all the shoes in the world, and this particular manufacturing site, employing approximately 50,000 workers, is said to be the world’s largest shoe production site.

The shoe industry is a particularly good example of the worldwide scale of contemporary economic globalization and of how this globalization is changing lives and landscapes in complex ways. The group of shoe factories shown here—called the Yu Yuan manufacturing plant—is actually owned by the Bao Cheng Group, a large corporation controlled by Taiwanese investors and entrepreneurs. With labor costs rising in Taiwan, these entrepreneurs began to invest heavily in China in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of the workers shown in this image have moved to this new urban center from surrounding rural areas, where it was difficult to make a living as farmers. This rural-to-urban migration promises to be the largest human migration in history, and it is estimated that by the year 2010, almost half of China’s population (approximately 1.5 billion) will live in urban centers. Almost 70 percent of the workers at the Yu Yuan factories are women, leading to transformations in family structure and domestic arrangements similar to what is happening in the border region in Mexico.

Even more changes are on the horizon. The Chinese economy is booming, bringing with it higher economic standards and therefore rising labor costs. As a result, the Taiwanese entrepreneurs who own the Bao Cheng Group have begun to look elsewhere for cheaper labor and have already moved a number of their factories to Vietnam. It may be only a matter of time before some of the factory buildings shown in this photograph are transformed to house other types of commercial activities or are torn down to make way for different land uses altogether.

How is this Chinese landscape connected to the Wal-Mart located in your neighborhood?

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Dicken, Peter. 2003. Global Shift: Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st Century. New York: Guilford Press.

Francaviglia, Richard V. 1991. Hard Places: Reading the Landscape of America’s Historic Mining Districts. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Glasmeier, Amy. 2000. Manufacturing Time: Global Competition in the Watch Industry, 1795–2000. New York: Guilford Press.

Holden, Andrew. 2000. Environment and Tourism. New York: Routledge.

Hudson, John C., and Edward B. Espenshade, Jr. (eds.). 2000. Goode’s World Atlas, 20th ed. Chicago: Rand McNally.

Jakle, John A., and Keith A. Sculle. 1994. The Gas Station in Amer- ica. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Jordan-Bychkov, Terry G., and Bella Bychkova Jordan. 2002. The Euro- pean Culture Area, 4th ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

National Atmospheric Deposition Program web site. http:// nadp.sws.uiuc.edu.

O’Hare, Greg. 2000. “Reviewing the Uncertainties in Climate Change Science.” Area 32: 357–368.

Power, Thomas M. 1996. Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies: The Search for the Value of Place. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Rostow, W.W. 1952. The Process of Economic Growth. New York: Norton and Co.

Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1989. “Cultural Pluralism and Technology.” Geograph- ical Review 79: 269–279.

United Nations. 2006. Statistical Yearbook. New York: United Nations.

Warrick, Richard, and Graham Farmer. 1990. “The Greenhouse Effect, Climatic Change and Rising Sea Level: Implications for Development.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 15: 5–20.

Weber, Alfred. 1929. Theory of the Location of Industries. Carl J. Friedrich (trans. and ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

“Wind Power: Maybe This Time.” (2001). The Economist (March 10): 30–31.

Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network. 2005. 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University.

Ten Recommended Books on Economic Geography (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Castree, Noel, Neil Coe, Kevin Ward, and Mike Samers. 2004. Spaces of Work: Global Capitalism and Geographies of Labour. Lon- don: Sage Publications. A very accessible introduction to how

economic globalization is impacting different labor markets, and vice versa.

Cravey, Altha. 1998. Women and Work in Mexico’s Maquiladoras. Lan- ham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. A detailed analysis of the rela- tionships between gender and work in two different places along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Dicken, Peter. 2003. Global Shift: Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st Century. New York: Guilford Press. An incredibly comprehensive look at the causes and effects of the increas- ingly global and interlinked industries of the world.

Drake, Frances. 2000. Global Warming: The Science of Climate Change. London: Arnold. A British geographer presents the complicated issue of global warming in terms intelligible to the undergraduate student, stripping away the jargon of sci- ence while retaining the essential message of climate change.

Hall, Colin M., and Stephen J. Page. 1999. The Geography of Tourism and Recreation: Environment, Place and Space. New York: Rout- ledge. An excellent comprehensive introduction to the topic, containing case studies from North America, Europe, China, Australia, and the Pacific islands.

Harrington, James W., and Barney Warf. 1995. Industrial Location: Principles and Practice. New York: Routledge. A useful basic primer on industrial location written for nonexperts.

Harvey, David. 2006. Spaces of Global Capitalism: A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development. New York: Verso. The latest book by a major theorist and critic of the effects of global capitalism throughout the world.

McDowell, Linda. 1997. Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City. 1997. Oxford: Blackwell. An interesting look at the impor- tance of gender identity to the functioning of the financial sector.

Peck, Jamie. 1996. Work-Place: The Social Regulation of Labor Markets. New York: Guilford Press. A detailed analysis of the relation- ships among labor, place, and state policies.

Sheppard, Eric, and Trevor Barnes. 2002. Companion to Economic Geography. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. A very accessible series of essays that serve to introduce the major concepts and issues in contemporary economic geography.

Journals in Economic Geography Economic Geography. Published by Clark University. Volume 1

appeared in 1925. Geoforum. Published by Elsevier Science. Volume 1 appeared in 1969. Journal of Economic Geography. Published by Oxford University

Press. Volume 1 appeared in 2000. Journal of Transport Geography. Published by Elsevier Science.

Volume 1 was published in 1993.

What are some of the major environmental and social impacts of an increasingly urbanized world?

10 Urbanization

The City in Time and Space

Imagine the 2 million years that humankind has spent on Earth as a 24-hour day.In this framework, settlements of more than a hundred people came about onlyin the last half hour. Towns and cities emerged only a few minutes ago. Yet it is during these “minutes” that we see the rise of civilization. Civitas, the Latin root word for civilization, was first applied to settled areas of the Roman Empire. Later it came to mean a specific town or city. To civilize meant literally “to citify.”

Urbanization over the past 200 years has strengthened the links among culture, society, and the city. An urban explosion has gone hand in hand with the industrial revolution. According to United Nations’ assessments, the year 2008 was a momen- tous one, as it marked the first time that the world’s urban population exceeded its rural population. The world’s urban population has more than quadrupled since 1950 (733 million in 1950 versus 3.3 billion in 2008) and will reach 4.94 billion by the year 2030. At that time, over 60 percent of the Earth’s population will live in cities. The cultural geography of the world will change dramatically as we become a predominantly urban people and the ways of the countryside are increasingly replaced by urban lifestyles.

In this chapter, we consider overall patterns of urbanization, learn how urban- ization began and developed, and discuss the differing forms of cities in the devel- oping and developed worlds. In addition, we examine some of the external factors influencing city location. In Chapter 11, we look at the internal aspects of the city, as seen through the five themes of human geography.

Region How are urban areas and urban populations spatially arranged? All of you know from your own travels locally or internationally that some regions contain lots of cities, while others contain relatively few, and that the size of those cities can vary greatly. How can we begin to understand the location, distribution, and size of cities? We start with a consideration of global patterns of urbanization, examining the gen- eral distribution of urban populations around the world. A quick look at Figure 10.1 reveals differing patterns of urbanized population—the percentage of a nation’s population living in towns and cities—around the world. For example, the countries of Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean have relatively high

View of Rio de Janeiro from Sugarloaf Mountain. (Blaine Harrington III/The Stock Market.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 354 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

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Figure 10.1 Urbanized population in the world. This map indicates the percentage of a country’s population that live in urban areas. Notice that despite recent rapid urbanization in countries of the developing world, many of these countries have less urbanized populations than countries of the developed world. Can you identify some of the reasons for this paradox? (Source: Population Division of the United Nations Secretariat.)

levels of urbanization, with approximately 75 percent of each country’s population living in urban areas. The nations of Africa and Asia, on the other hand, are less urbanized, with approximately 38 percent of each country’s population residing in urban areas. How do geographers explain these varying regional patterns of urbanization?

Patterns and Processes of Urbanization According to United Nations estimates, almost all the worldwide population growth in the next 30 years will be concentrated in urban areas, with the cities of the less devel- oped regions responsible for most of that increase. The rea- sons for this explosion in urban population growth and its uneven distribution around the world vary, as each coun-

try’s unique history and society present a slightly different narrative of urban and economic development. Making matters more complex is the lack of a standard definition of what constitutes a city. Consequently, the criteria used to calculate a country’s urbanized population differ from nation to nation. Using data based on these varying criteria would result in misleading conclusions. For example, the Indian government defines an urban center as an area hav- ing 5000 inhabitants, with an adult male population employed predominantly in nonagricultural work. In con- trast, the U.S. Census Bureau defines a city as a densely pop- ulated area of 2500 people or more, and South Africa counts as a city any settlement of 500 or more people. Fur- thermore, some countries revise their definitions of urban settlements to suit specific purposes. China-watchers were

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ETHIOPIA

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baffled in 1983 when that country’s urban population swelled by 13 percent in one year, only to learn that China had simply revised its census definitions for urban settle- ments, with criteria that vary from province to province. It is important to remember, then, that an international com- parison of urbanized population data can be made only by taking into account the varying definitions of a city.

Nonetheless, several generalizations can be made about the differences in the world’s urbanized population. First, there is a close link between urbanized population and the more developed world. Put differently, highly industrialized countries have higher rates of urbanized population than do less developed countries. The second generalization, closely tied to the first, is that developing countries are urbanizing rapidly and that their ratio of

urban to rural population is increasing dramatically (Figure 10.2).

Urban growth in these countries comes from two sources: the migration of people to the cities (see also the section on mobility) and the higher natural population growth rates of these recent migrants. People move to the cities for a variety of reasons, most of which relate to the effects of uneven economic development in their country. Cities are often the centers of economic growth, whereas opportunities for land ownership and/or farming-based jobs are, in many countries, rare. Because urban employ- ment is unreliable, many migrants continue to have large numbers of children to construct a more extensive family support system. Having a larger family increases the chances of someone’s getting work. The demographic transition to

328 Chapter 10 Urbanization

Figure 10.2 Urbanization. Shown here are scenes from a squatter settlement in Rio de Janeiro (top), the business district in Kolkata (Calcutta) (middle), and a residential district of Manila (bottom). For more information about the growth of such cities, see the section on globalizing cities in the developing world. As is evident from this scene in Kolkata, the downtowns of cities in the developing world are often more vibrant than those of the developed world. Can you think of some reasons for this? (Top: Najilah Feaney/Saba; Middle: Earl Young/Tony Stone Images; Bottom: Bruno Zehnder/Peter Arnold, Inc.)

smaller families comes later, when a certain degree of secu- rity is ensured. Often, this transition occurs as women enter the workforce (see Chapter 3).

Impacts of Urbanization Although rural-to-urban migration affects nearly all cities in the developing world, the most visible cases are the extra- ordinarily large settlements we call megacities, those having populations of over 10 million. Table 10.1 shows the world’s 20 largest cities, over half of which are in the developing world. This is a major change from 30 years ago, when the list would have been dominated by Western, industrialized cities, a trend that most expect to continue. Projections for future growth, however, must be qualified by two consider- ations. First, cities of the developing world will continue to explode in size only if economic development expands. If it stagnates because of political or resource problems, city growth will probably slow (although urban migration might increase if rural economies deteriorate). For example, Mexico City’s growth is linked to that country’s economic growth and, more specifically, to Mexico’s oil industry, which fluctuates according to the world market for oil. Sec- ond, because these megacities are plagued by transporta- tion, housing, employment, and ecological problems— such as an inadequate water supply, in the case of Mexico City—some countries are trying to control urban migra- tion. The success or failure of these policies will influence city size in the next 10 to 20 years.

Nevertheless, the urban population in the developing world is growing at astounding rates. Even though the developed regions of the world are more urbanized overall than the less developed regions, the sheer scale and rate of growth in absolute numbers reveal a reversal in this pattern. According to geographer David Drakakis-Smith, there are now twice as many urban dwellers in the developing world as there are in developed countries. For example, the pop- ulation of urbanites in the countries of Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean (according to the United Nations, 1.2 billion) is smaller than the popula- tion of urbanites in Asia (1.5 billion). And with this incred- ible increase in sheer numbers of urban dwellers in the less developed regions of the world comes a large list of prob- lems. Unemployment rates in cities of the developing world are often over 50 percent for newcomers to the city; hous- ing and infrastructure often cannot be built fast enough to keep pace with growth rates; water and sewage systems can rarely handle the influx of new people. Consequently, one of the world’s ongoing challenges will be this radical restructuring of population and culture as people in devel- oping countries move into cities.

The target for much urban migration is the primate city. This is a settlement that dominates the economic, political, and cultural life of a country and, as a result of

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TABLE 10.1 The World’s 20 Largest Metropolitan Areas

Population Rank Metropolitan Area Country (thousands)

1 Tokyo/Yokohama Japan 33,600 2 Seoul South Korea 23,400 3 Mexico City Mexico 22,400 4 New York USA 21,900 5 Mumbai (Bombay) India 21,600 6 Delhi India 21,500 7 São Paulo Brazil 20,600 8 Los Angeles USA 18,000 9 Shanghai China 17,500

10 Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto Japan 16,700 11 Cairo Egypt 16,100 12 Kolkata (Calcutta) India 15,700 13 Manila Philippines 15,600 14 Jakarta Indonesia 15,100 15 Karachi Pakistan 15,100 16 Guangzhou China 14,700 17 Buenos Aires Argentina 13,600 18 Moscow Russia 13,500 19 Beijing China 12,800 20 Dhaka Bangladesh 12,600

(Source: Th. Brinkhoff: The Principal Agglomerations of the World, http://www.citypopulation.de, 2007-09-30)

rapid growth, expands its primacy or dominance. Buenos Aires is an excellent example of a primate city because it far exceeds Rosario, the second-largest city in Argentina, in size and importance. Although many developing countries are dominated by a primate city, often a former center of colonial power, urban primacy is not unique to these coun- tries: think of the way London and Paris dominate their respective countries.

Reflecting on Geography What types of historical, political, and economic factors account for nations that are dominated by a primate city? Why didn’t Boston or New York City become the primate city for the United States?

And although these primate cities are often the ones that garner scholars’ and policy makers’ attention because of their dominance and large size, recent demographic trends sug- gest that the majority of urban growth is today taking place in smaller, less dominant cities—places such as Gabarone, the capital of Botswana, whose population of 186,000 people is expected to more than double by 2020. Urban planners and policy makers are beginning to focus their attention on these

midsize cities that are scattered throughout the world, partic- ularly in the developing countries, in order to examine the impacts of increased urbanization.

Central-Place Theory So far our analysis of regional patterns of urbanization has been focused on a global scale as we’ve examined the vary- ing degrees of urbanization around the world. In this sec- tion we shift the focus to a much finer scale of analysis and consider the arrangement of cities within a particular region. Urban geographers have studied the spatial distri- bution of towns and cities to determine some of the eco- nomic and political factors that influence the pattern of cities. In doing so, they have created a number of models that collectively make up central-place theory.

Most urban centers are engaged mainly in the service industries. The service activities of urban centers include transportation, communication, and utilities—services that facilitate the movement of goods and that provide the net- works for the exchange of ideas about those goods (see Chapter 9 for a more detailed examination of these differ- ent industrial activities). Towns and cities that support such activities are called central places.

330 Chapter 10 Urbanization

In the early 1930s, the German geographer Walter Christaller first formulated central-place theory as a series of models designed to explain the spatial distribution of urban centers. Crucial to his theory is the fact that differ- ent goods and services vary both in threshold, the size of the population required to make provision of the good or service economically feasible, and in range, the average maximum distance people will travel to purchase a good or service. For example, a larger number of people are required to support a hospital, university, or department store than to support a gasoline station, post office, or gro- cery store. Similarly, consumers are willing to travel a greater distance to consult a heart specialist, record a land title, or purchase an automobile than to buy a loaf of bread, mail a letter, or visit a movie theater. Because the range of central goods and services varies, urban centers are arranged in an orderly hierarchy. Some central places are small and offer a limited variety of services and goods; oth- ers are large and offer an abundance. At the top of this hier- archy are regional metropolises—cities such as New York, Beijing, or Mumbai—that offer all services associated with central places and that have very large tributary trade areas, or hinterlands. At the opposite extreme are small market villages and roadside hamlets, which may contain nothing more than a post office, service station, or café. Between these two extremes are central places of various degrees of importance. Each higher rank of central place provides all the goods and services available at a lower-rank center, plus

one or more additional goods and services. Central places of lower rank greatly outnumber the few at the higher lev- els of the hierarchy. One regional metropolis may contain thousands of smaller central places in its tributary market area (Figure 10.3). The size of the market area is deter- mined by the distance range of the goods and services it offers.

With this hierarchy as a background, Christaller evalu- ated the individual influence of three forces (the market, transportation, and political borders) in determining the spacing and distribution of urban centers by creating mod- els. His first model measured the influence of the market and range of goods on the spacing of cities. To simplify the model, he assumed that the terrain, soils, and other envi- ronmental factors were uniform; that transportation was universally available; and that all regions would be supplied with goods and services from the minimum number of cen- tral places. If market and range of goods were the only causal forces, the distribution of towns and cities would pro- duce a pattern of nested hexagons, each with a central place at its center (Figure 10.4a).

In Christaller’s second model, he measured the influ- ence of transportation on the spacing of central places. He no longer assumed that transportation was universally and equally available in the hinterland. Instead, he assumed that as many demands for transport as possible would be met with the minimum expenditure for construction and maintenance of transportation facilities. Thus, as many high-ranking central places as possible would be on straight-line routes between the primary central places (Figure 10.4b). When transportation is considered the influential factor in shaping the spacing of central places, then the pattern is rather different from that created by the market factor. This transportation-driven pattern occurs because direct routes between adjacent regional metropo- lises do not pass through central places of the next-lowest rank. As a result, these second-rank central places are “pulled” from the “corners” of the hexagonal market area to the midpoints in order to be on the straight-line routes between adjacent regional metropolises.

Christaller hypothesized that the market factor would be the greater force in rural countries, where goods were seldom shipped throughout a region. In densely settled industrialized countries, however, he believed that the transportation factor would be stronger because there were greater numbers of central places and more demand for long-distance transportation.

Christaller devised a third model to measure the effect of political borders on the distribution of central places. He rec- ognized that political boundaries, especially within indepen- dent countries, would tend to follow the hexagonal market-area limits of each central place that was a political center. He also recognized that such borders tend to separate

First-order place (regional metropolis)

Second-order place

Third-order place

Fourth-order place

Figure 10.3 Christaller’s hierarchy of central places shows the orderly arrangement of towns of different sizes. This is an idealized presentation of places performing central functions. For each large central place, many smaller central places are located within the larger place’s hinterland.

Mobility 331

people and retard the movement of goods and services. Such borders necessarily cut through the market areas of many central places below the rank of regional metropolis. Central places in such border regions lose rank and size because their market areas are politically cut in two. Border towns are thus stunted, and important central places are pushed away from the border, which distorts the hexagonal pattern.

Market area, transportation, and political borders are but three of the many forces that influence the spatial distri- bution of central places. For example, in all three of these models, it is assumed that the physical environment is uni- form and that people are evenly distributed. Of course, nei- ther of these is true, leading to some distortions in the model. Nonetheless, central-place theory has proven to be a very useful tool for understanding the locations of cities and services in relationship to population. For example, with increasing concerns about environmental sustainability (see Chapter 9), regional planners have begun to use central- place theory to think about how to minimize transportation costs in a particular region by siting key services in central locations. Yet it is important to keep in mind that the model

fails to take into account such cultural factors as people’s his- torical attachment to places. For example, if people have shopped in a certain city for several generations, or even sev- eral years, and feel attached to that place, it is often the case that they choose not to shop elsewhere, even if another city is located closer to them. In other words, the most econom- ically rational (in terms of saving money by traveling less) path is not always the one most preferred by people.

Reflecting on Geography If Christaller’s assumptions did not hold, in what ways would central-place theory need to be altered?

Mobility As we noted in opening this chapter, we are entering an era when more people live in cities than live in rural areas: quite an historical feat. When cities first began, only a very small portion of the population lived in them. Over time

First-order place (regional metropolis)

Second-order place

Third-order place

Fourth-order place

(a)

Figure 10.4 (a) The influence of market area on Christaller’s arrangement of central places. If marketing were the only factor controlling the distribution of central places, this diagram would represent the arrangement of towns and cities. Why, in this model, would hexagons be the shape to appear instead of a square, circle, or some other shape? (b) The distribution of central places according to Christaller’s model. If the availability of

First-order place (regional metropolis)

Second-order place

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transportation is the determining factor in the location of central places, their distribution will be different from the distribution that would result if marketing were the determining factor. Note that the second-order central places are pulled away from the apexes of the hexagon and become located on the main transport routes between regional metropolises. (After Christaller, 1966. By permission of the publisher.)

332 Chapter 10 Urbanization

cities began to diffuse throughout the globe, and estab- lished cities grew larger. In this section, we analyze two aspects of mobility in regard to urbanization. First, we take a historical look at the origins of city life and explore how, why, and where cities diffused around the world. Second, we examine the more contemporary processes of rural-to- urban migration.

Origin and Diffusion of the City In seeking explanations for the origin of cities, we ulti- mately find a relationship among areas of early agricultural development, permanent village settlements, the emer- gence of new social forms, and urban life. The first cities resulted from a complicated transition that took thousands of years.

As early people, originally hunters and gatherers, became more successful at gathering their resources and domesticating plants and animals, they began to settle, first semipermanently and then permanently. In the Middle East, where the first cities appeared, a network of perma- nent agricultural villages developed about 10,000 years ago. These farming villages were modest in size, rarely with more than 200 people, and were probably organized on a kinship basis. Jarmo, one of the earliest villages, located in present-day Iraq, had 25 permanent dwellings clustered together near grain storage facilities.

Although small farming villages like Jarmo predate cities, it is wrong to assume that a simple quantitative change took place whereby villages slowly grew, first into towns and then into cities. True cities, then and now, differ qualitatively from agricultural villages. All the inhabitants of agricultural villages were involved in some way in food procurement—tending the agricultural fields or harvesting and preparing the crops. Cities, however, were more removed, both physically and psychologically, from every- day agricultural activities. Food was supplied to the city, but not all city dwellers were involved in obtaining it. Instead, city dwellers supplied other services, such as technical skills or religious interpretations considered important in a par- ticular society. Cities, unlike agricultural villages, contained a class of people who were not directly involved in agricul- tural activities.

Two elements were necessary for this dramatic social change: the creation of an agricultural surplus and the development of a stratified social system. Surplus food, which is a food supply larger than the everyday needs of the agricultural labor force, is a prerequisite for supporting nonfarmers—people who work at administrative, military, or handicraft tasks. Social stratification, the existence of dis- tinct socioeconomic classes, facilitates the collection, stor- age, and distribution of resources through well-defined channels of authority that can exercise control over goods

and people. A society with these two elements—surplus food and a means of storing and distributing it—was set for urbanization.

Models for the Rise of Cities One way to understand the transition from village to city life is to model the development of urban life assuming that a single factor is the trigger behind the transition. The question that scholars ask is, “What activity could be so important to an agricultural society that its people would be willing to give some of their surplus to support a social class that specializes in that activity?” Next we discuss answers to that question and clarify a multiple-factor expla- nation for the rise of cities.

Technical Factors The hydraulic civilization model, devel- oped by Karl Wittfogel, assumes that the development of large-scale irrigation systems was the prime mover behind urbanization and a class of technical specialists were the first urban dwellers. Irrigating agricultural crops yielded more food, and this surplus supported the development of a large nonfarming population. A strong, centralized gov- ernment backed by an urban-based military could expand its power into the surrounding areas. Farmers who resisted the new authority were denied water. Continued reinforce- ment of the power elite came from the need for organiza- tional coordination to ensure continued operation of the irrigation system. Labor specialization developed. Some people farmed; others worked on the irrigation system. Still others became artisans, creating the implements needed to maintain the system, or administrative workers in the direct employ of the power elite’s court.

Although the hydraulic civilization model fits several areas where cities first arose—China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq)—it cannot be applied to all urban hearths. In parts of Mesoamerica, for example, an urban civilization blossomed without widespread irrigated agriculture, and therefore without a class of technical experts.

Religious Factors Geographer Paul Wheatley suggests that religion led to urbanization. In early agricultural soci- eties, knowledge of such matters as meteorology and climate was considered an element of religion. Such soci- eties depended on their religious leaders to interpret the heavenly bodies before deciding when and how to plant their crops. The propagation of this type of knowledge led to more successful harvests, which in turn allowed for the support of both a larger priestly class and a class of people engaged in ancillary activities. The priestly class exercised the political and social control that held the city together.

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In this scenario, early cities were religious spaces. The first urban clusters and fortifications are seen as defenses not against human invaders but against spiritual ones: demons or the souls of the dead. This religious explanation is applicable in some ways to all the early centers of urban- ization, although it seems especially successful in explain- ing Chinese urbanization.

Political Factors Other scholars suggest that the centraliz- ing force in urbanization was political order. Urban histo- rian Lewis Mumford described the agent of change in emerging urban centers as the institution of kingship, which involved the centralizing of religious, social, and eco- nomic aspects of a civilization around a powerful figure who became known as the king. This figure of authority, who in the pre-urban world was accorded respect for his or her human abilities, ascended to almost superhuman status in early urbanizing societies. By exercising power, the king was able to marshal the labor of others. The resultant social hierarchy enabled the society to diversify its endeavors, with different groups specializing in crafts, farming, trading, or religious activity. The institution of kingship provided essential leadership and organization to this increasingly complex society, which became the city.

Multiple Factors At the onset of urbanization, and even much later in some places, sharp distinctions among eco- nomic, religious, and political functions were not always made. The king may also have functioned as priest, healer, astronomer, and scribe, thereby fusing secular and spiritual power. Critics of the kingship theory, therefore, point out that this explanation of urbanization may not be different from the religion-based model. Rather than attempting to isolate one trigger, a wiser course may be to accept the role of multiple factors behind the changes leading to urban life. Technical, religious, and political forces were often interlinked, with a change in one leading to changes in another. Instead of oversimplifying by focusing on one pos- sible development schema, we must appreciate the com- plexities of the transition period from agricultural village to true city.

Urban Hearth Areas The first cities appeared in distinct regions, such as Mesopotamia, the Nile River valley, Pakistan’s Indus River val- ley, the Yellow River (or Huang Ho) valley of China, Mesoamerica, and the Andean highlands and coastal areas of Peru. These are called the urban hearth areas (Figure 10.5).

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Figure 10.5 The world’s first cities arose in six urban hearth areas. The dates shown are conservative figures for the rise of urban life in each area. For example, some scholars would suggest that urban life in Mesopotamia existed by 5000 B.C. Ongoing discoveries suggest that urban life appeared earlier in each of the hearth areas and that there are probably other hearth areas—in West Africa, for example.

334 Chapter 10 Urbanization

Reflecting on Geography Scholars are continually altering the dates for the emergence of urban life, as well as the location of the hearth areas. Why? Can you outline some of the reasons that it is so difficult to pinpoint the places and dates for the emergence of urban life?

It is generally agreed that the first cities arose in Mesopotamia, the river valley of the Tigris and Euphrates in what is now Iraq. Mesopotamian cities, small by current standards, covered 0.5 to 2 square miles (1.3 to 5 square kilometers) with populations that rarely exceeded 30,000.

Nevertheless, the densities within these cities could easily reach 10,000 people per square mile (4000 per square kilo- meter), which is comparable to the densities in many con- temporary cities.

Scholars have referred to these first cities as cosmo- magical cities, defined as cities that are spatially arranged according to religious principles. The spatial layouts of cos- momagical cities are similar in three important ways (Fig- ure 10.6). First, great importance was accorded to the city’s symbolic center, which was also thought to be the center of the known world. It was therefore the most sacred spot and was often identified by a vertical structure of monumental

Figure 10.6 Plan of the city of Wang-Ch’eng in China. The city as built did not follow this exact design, but the plan itself is of interest because it suggests the symbolic importance of the three spatial characteristics of the Chinese cosmomagical city. The four walls are aligned to the cardinal directions, and the axis mundi is represented by the walled-off center city containing ceremonial buildings. The physical space of the city (microcosmos) replicates the larger world of the heavens (macrocosmos). For example, each of the four walls represents one of the four seasons. What do you think the gates to the city represent? (Source: Wheatley, 1971.)

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scale that represented the point on Earth closest to the heavens. This symbolic center, or axis mundi, took the form of the ziggurat in Mesopotamia, the palace or temple in China, and the pyramid in Mesoamerica. Often this ele- vated structure, which usually served a religious purpose, was close to the palace or seat of political power and to the granary. These three structures were often walled off from

the rest of the city, forming a symbolic center that both reflected the significance of these societal functions and dominated the city physically and spiritually (Figure 10.7). The Forbidden City in Beijing remains one of the best examples of this guarded, fortresslike “city within the city.” The second spatial characteristic common to cosmomagi- cal cities is that they were oriented toward the four cardinal

Suburb

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Figure 10.7 Map of Babylon, illustrating the urban morphology of early Mesopotamian cities. The citadel in the inner city is characterized by the ziggurat, main temple, palace, and granary. Beyond the citadel lay the residential areas; we can assume they extended out to the inner walls and occupied both sides of the river. Suburbs grew outside the major gates and were occupied by people not allowed to spend the night in the city, such as traders and noncitizens. (After map in Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 1984: 555.)

336 Chapter 10 Urbanization

directions. By aligning the city in the north-south and east- west directions, the geometric form of the city reflected the order of the universe. This alignment, it was thought, would ensure harmony and order over the known world, which was bounded by the city walls.

In all of these early cities, one sees evidence of a third spatial characteristic: an attempt to shape the form of the city according to the form of the universe. The ordering of the space of the city was thought to be essential to maintain- ing harmony between the human and spiritual worlds. In this way, the world of humans would symbolically replicate the world of the gods. This characteristic may have taken a literal form—a city laid out, for example, in a pattern of a major star constellation. Far more common, however, were cities that symbolically approximated mythical conceptions of the universe. Angkor Thom was an early city in Cambo- dia that presents one of the best examples of this paral- lelism. An urban cluster that spread over 6 square miles (15.5 square kilometers), Angkor Thom was a representa- tion in stone of a series of religious beliefs about the nature of the universe. Thus, the city was a microcosmos, a re-creation on Earth of an image of the larger universe.

Nevertheless, regional variations of this basic form cer- tainly existed. For example, the early cities of the Nile were not walled, which suggests that a regional power structure kept individual cities from warring with one another. In the Indus Valley, the great city of Mohenjo-daro was laid out in a grid that consisted of 16 large blocks, and the citadel was located within the block that was central but situated toward the western edge.

The most important variations within the urban hearth areas occurred in Mesoamerican cities (Figure 10.8). Here, cities were less dense and covered large areas. Furthermore, these cities arose without benefit of the technological advances found in the other hearth areas, most notably the wheel, the plow, metallurgy, and draft animals. However, the domestication of maize compen- sated for these shortcomings. Maize is a grain that in trop- ical climates yields several crops a year without irrigation; in addition, it can be cultivated without heavy plows or pack animals.

The Diffusion of the City from Hearth Areas Although urban life originated at several specific places in the world, cities are now found everywhere: North Amer- ica, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Australia. How did city life come to these regions? There are two possible explanations:

1. Cities evolved spontaneously as native peoples created new technologies and social institutions.

2. The preconditions for urban life are too specific for most cultures to have invented without contact with other urban areas; therefore, they must have learned these traits through contact with city dwellers. This scenario emphasizes the diffusion of ideas and techniques necessary for city life.

Diffusionists argue that the complicated array of ideas and techniques that gave rise to the first cities in

Figure 10.8 Mayan city of Chichén Itzá. Monumental and ceremonial architecture often dominated the morphology and landscape of urban hearth areas and reinforced ruling- class power. In what part of the city would you say this monument is located? Can you think of examples from your own daily life of monumental architecture that symbolizes some ruling authority? (Malcolm Kirk/Peter Arnold, Inc.)

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Mesopotamia was shared with other people in both the Nile and the Indus river valleys who were on the verge of the urban transformation. Indeed, archaeological evidence suggests that these three civilizations had trade ties with one another. Soapstone objects manufactured in Tepe Yahya, 500 miles (800 kilometers) to the east of Mesopotamia, have been uncovered in the ruins of both Mesopotamian and Indus River valley cities, which are sep- arated by thousands of miles. Writings of the Indus civiliza- tion have also been found in Mesopotamian urban sites. Although diffusionists use this artifactual evidence to argue that the idea of the city spread from hearth to hearth, an alternative view is that trading took place only after these cities were well established. There is also evidence of con- tact across the oceans between early urban dwellers of the New World and those of Asia and Africa, although it is unclear whether this means that urbanization was diffused to Mesoamerica or simply that some trade routes existed between these peoples.

Nonetheless, there is little doubt that diffusion has been responsible for the dispersal of the city in historical times (Figure 10.9), because the city has commonly been used as the vehicle for imperial expansion. Typically, urban life is carried outward in waves of conquest as the borders of an empire expand. Initially, the military controls newly won lands and sets up collection points for local resources, which are then shipped back into the heart of the empire.

As the surrounding countryside is increasingly pacified, the new collection points lose some of their military atmo- sphere and begin to show the social diversity of a city. Arti- sans, merchants, and bureaucrats increase in number; families appear; the native people are slowly assimilated into the settlement as workers and may eventually control the city. Finally, the process repeats itself as the empire pushes farther outward: first a military camp, then a collec- tion point for resources, then a full-fledged city expressing true division of labor and social diversity.

This process, however, did not always proceed without opposition. The imposition of a foreign civilization on native peoples was often met with resistance, both physical and symbolic. Expanding urban centers relied on the sur- rounding countryside for support. Their food was supplied by farmers living fairly close to the city walls, and tribute was exacted from the agricultural peoples living on the edges of the urban world. The increasing needs of the city required more and more land from which to draw resources. However, the peasants farming that land may not have wanted to change their way of life to accommodate the city. The fierce resistance of many Native American groups to the spread of Western urbanization is testimony to the potential power of folk society to defy urbanization, although the destructive long-term effects of such resis- tance suggest that the organized military efforts of urban society were difficult to overcome.

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Figure 10.9 The diffusion of urban life with the expansion of certain empires. What does this map tell us about the importance of urban life to military conquest?

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Rural-to-Urban Migration This analysis of the diffusion of cities throughout the world helps us explain historically the increase in urban popula- tion, since it went hand-in-hand with the growing number of cities. In today’s world, however, increasing urbanization is caused by two related phenomena: natural population increase (see Chapter 3) and rural-to-urban migrations. While the United Nations estimates that natural increase accounts for the majority of the recent growth in urban population, it was rural-to-urban migrations of the past 20 to 30 years that brought millions of people originally into urban life. In countries throughout Africa and Asia, large numbers of people have left their rural villages and migrated to cities for better economic and social opportu- nities. And although people flock to the cities in search of jobs, there is often not a perfect correlation between eco- nomic growth and urbanization. Cities increase in size not necessarily because there are jobs to lure workers, but rather because conditions in the countryside are much worse. In India, for example, rural poverty has exacerbated the rapid population increase in such cities as Mumbai (for- merly Bombay) and Kolkata. People leave in hope that urban life will offer a slight improvement, and often it does. Given the new global economy, however, many of the jobs that are available in these cities are low-skilled and low- paying manufacturing jobs with harsh working conditions. The result is that rural-to-urban migrants often find them- selves either unemployed or with jobs that barely provide them a living.

Sociologist Alejandro Portes argues that the large inter- nal migrations that bring impoverished agricultural people into the city are a phenomenon that can be traced back to colonial times. In colonial Latin America, for example, the city was essentially home to the Spanish elite. When precon- quest agricultural patterns were disrupted, peasants came to the city looking to improve their economic situation. These people usually lived on the margins of the city. Moreover, they were completely disenfranchised because only landowners had the right to hold office. The reaction by the elite to this ongoing pattern of movement of large masses of people into the city was a mixture of tolerance and indiffer- ence, with no one taking responsibility to integrate the migrants into the city. Rural-to-urban migrations continue to occur in many globalizing cities, such as Arequipa in Peru (see Global Spotlight). Even though many of these modern migrants experience poor living conditions in the city and are torn from their village and family roots, the opportuni- ties presented by urban life, such as better pay and exposure to new and more “Western” cultural forms (for example, music and film), are often difficult to resist.

China presents a particularly interesting example of rural-to-urban migration. Until the late 1970s, the country

was predominantly rural, but state economic policies there- after encouraged industrialization and most of those indus- tries were located in urban areas along its southeastern coast (see Chapter 9). The state lifted its restrictions on internal migration, which enabled its rural population to become more mobile. Today it is estimated that 18 million Chinese migrate to cities each year, a phenomenal rate of urban increase. These migrations are drastically altering the economy, society, and culture of China, as the country experiences this unprecedented shift from a rural, agricul- tural nation to one based on cities and industry.

Globalization Many of the globalizing forces we have already discussed in this book—the integration of international economies, the merging of different cultures, and the reshaping of social organization—are centered in urban life. In other words, cities are the places where one can see both the multitude of benefits that come from globalization and the numerous pitfalls that it can bring. In this way, all cities can be consid- ered global cities, places being shaped by the new global forces. However, scholars have identified two particular types of cities that are key to understanding globalization and that are themselves being critically reshaped by it.

Global Cities Global cities are defined as those cities that have become the control centers of the global economy—the places where major decisions about the world’s commercial net- works and financial markets are made. These cities house a concentration of multinational and transnational corpo- rate headquarters, international financial services, media offices, and related economic and cultural services. While many industries have become global in the sense that their sites of production and consumption are spread through- out the world, the sites of decision making are now central- ized. According to sociologist Saskia Sassen, there are only three such cities now operating at this level: New York City, London, and Tokyo. These cities have become, in many ways, the headquarters for a global economy and form the top level of a hierarchical global system of cities.

More recently, scholars have begun to broaden their analysis of global cities in order to also understand the next tier of cities within the urban hierarchy—those that contain a large percentage of producer service firms (law, accoun- tancy, advertising, financial, consultancy) that are interna- tional. In this new analysis, cities are categorized by the number and type of transnational firms they house—not only headquarters, but regional and national offices as well. This analysis has identified globally and regionally

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dominant cities and ones that are major participants in the new global economy. Geographers Yefang Huang, Yee Leung, and Jianfa Shen refer to these as international cities—places that are significant because they are centers of the new international economy. Their analysis allowed them to identify degrees of internationalization based on the number and locations of the international firms each city contained. The result is a very interesting list organized into classes of international cities, dominated by six in class A (London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, and Paris), followed by 10 in class B and 44 in class C. Figure 10.10 maps those cities by class, revealing the dominance of

certain regions within the global economy (the United States, Europe, parts of Asia) and revealing another level within the global system of cities. In this way, we can begin to understand globalization as an uneven process, but one having impacts in many cities previously left unexamined.

Globalizing Cities Globalizing cities are those that are being shaped by the new global economy and culture (see Doing Geography on page 353). This includes just about every city, present and past, to one degree or another. As geographer Brenda Yeoh

One of the primary causes of rapid population growth in globalizing cities is massive rural-to-urban migration. In Arequipa, Peru, as in many cities, that rapid population growth has led to the development of squatter settlements on the outskirts of the town. Many migrants have few options for housing and must live in these settlements, which are often illegal. The following story explains how the negotiations over housing take place in the case of one family.

Sebastiano and Maria used to live in a small village about 30 miles from Arequipa with Maria’s parents. Work was difficult to obtain as the prices for the sugar that was grown in the area had been falling for years and only those with strong personal ties to the overseers were recruited. Sebastiano initially moved to Arequipa on his own in order to try to get work in the new factories in the city.

Sebastiano first moved into an inner-city barrio with one of his distant cousins, but he only stayed there until he found out how the employment situation operated in Arequipa. Each day he would go to the western edge of the long-distance bus terminus where foremen from the building contractors would recruit their casual labor. Soon Sebastiano moved to his own rented room in a small house nearby. The accommodation was simple, even primitive, compared to his rural home. He had a bed, a cupboard and a recess for hanging his clothes. Washing was done at the tap in the yard.

All in all, Sebastiano was reasonably happy with his rented room in the city center—he was near to his main source of work and to cheap services, and he had an understanding landlord. The advertisements for the new low- cost housing schemes on the edge of the city held no appeal for him. He could not afford the regular rental demands, or the transport costs to get into the city to find work.

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT One Family’s Tale

However, Sebastiano did not want to live alone in the city. He missed his wife, Maria, and their young son, Pedro. After a couple of years in the inner city he began to make inquiries about a plot in a new squatter barrio that was planned on some unused public land. His landlord knew someone who knew the local councilor and advised Sebastiano to go and talk to him. The councilor was impressed with Sebastiano’s carpentry and building skills and recommended him to the informal committee that was organizing the “invasion.” Sebastiano was accepted and with about 90 other families occupied the small piece of floodplain down by the river on the Ascension Day holiday when they knew the police would be busy elsewhere. Each family managed to put up basic walls and a roof on their allotted plot and, with the support of their councilor, were permitted to stay and improve their shelter as and when they could. They named the settlement St. Christopher as they were all travelers to the city. The municipal authorities knew better than to enforce the letter of the law. After all, these were determined, hardworking people who were housing themselves at no cost to the city government.

Eventually, sheer numbers forced the municipal authority to recognize the de facto rights of the settlement and to extend electricity, water, and sanitation services to the barrio. Access to regular water was a particularly important improvement, as residents had hitherto been forced to purchase from private water trucks at 10 times the cost of the piped supply, but all of the upgraded services resulted in a substantial improvement in the community’s health and well-being. Sebastiano and Maria were now established members of the urban community.

From Drakakis-Smith, 2000: 158–159

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indicates, cities have almost always been important hubs of activity beyond the national scale, and therefore it is not surprising that they figure prominently in contemporary discussions of globalization. But the degree of globalization in the last 30 years has sharpened and enhanced the ways in which global economies and cultures shape cities. As geographer Kris Olds points out (see Practicing Geogra- phy), there are five interrelated dimensions of current globalizing processes that are shaping our cities: the devel- opment of an international financial system, the globaliza- tion of property markets, the prominence of transnational corporations, the stretching and intensifying of social and cultural networks, and the increased degree of interna- tional travel and networking. As he argues, it is impossible to understand developments in the urban landscapes of cities as diverse as Jakarta and London without referring to these global processes.

Yet not all cities are affected by these globalizing processes in the same way. Some cities like London, as we’ve just discussed, are the control centers of this economy, while others, like Jakarta, provide sites of production for the global economy. The differences between these two types of cities emerge out of cultural uniqueness and historical cir- cumstance, particularly the colonial relationships that devel- oped in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With the end of colonialism and the movement toward political and economic independence, developing countries entered a

period of rapid, sometimes tumultuous change. Cities have often been the focal point of this change, and as we have seen, millions of people have migrated to cities in search of a better life. Some of these newly globalizing cities are mov- ing into the ranks of international cities, as you can see by looking at Figure 10.10. Other globalizing cities like Gabarone in Botswana that we mentioned earlier are just now beginning to feel the impacts of population growth and global economic integration, and their future is very much uncertain at this point. We will be discussing in more detail the landscape forms and patterns of these globalizing cities in the section on cultural landscape, but for now we want to recognize that globalization is an uneven process. Some cities are becoming globally and/or regionally dominant and are the primary beneficiaries of economic globaliza- tion, while others, many of which are located in the devel- oping world, are experiencing more of the environmental and social problems that come with rapid and massive pop- ulation growth, with less economic gain.

Nature-Culture What is the relationship between cities and their physical settings? At first glance, cities seem totally divorced from the natural environment. What possible relationships could the shiny glass office buildings, paved streets, and high-rise

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Figure 10.10 The top 60 international cities in the world of class A, B, and C. This map and index indicate the location of cities that contain international producer service firms. Class A cities contain over 88 percent of the 100 international firms that were surveyed, class B cities host over 70 percent of the same

firms, and class C cities contain over 44 percent of those firms. Look carefully at the distribution of these cities, and see if you can explain their locations by considering their national and regional contexts. (Source: Yefang Huang, Yee Leung, and Jianfa Shen, 2007.)

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apartment buildings that characterize most cities have with forests, fields and rivers? In this section we examine several different ways to think about the relationships between urban life and its natural setting. We start by exploring how the physical environment affects the locations of cities (site and situation), before turning to an examination of the rec- iprocal relationship that exists between increasing urban- ization and global environmental problems such as vulnerability to natural disasters.

Site and Situation There are two components of urban location: site and situa- tion. Site refers to the local setting of a city; the situation is the regional setting or location. As an example of site and sit- uation, consider San Francisco. The original site of the Mex- ican settlement that became San Francisco was on a shallow

cove on the eastern (inland) shore of a peninsula. The importance of its situation was that it drew on waterborne traffic coming across the bay from other, smaller settlements. Hence the town could act as a transshipment point.

Both site and situation are dynamic, changing over time. For example, in San Francisco during the gold rush period of the 1850s, the small cove was filled to create flat- land for warehouses and to facilitate extending wharves into deeper bay waters. The filled-in cove is now occupied by the heart of the central business district (Figure 10.11). The geographical situation has also changed as patterns of trade and transportation technology have evolved. The original transbay situation was quickly replaced during the gold rush by a new role: supplying the mines and settlements of the gold country. Access to the two major rivers leading to the mines, plus continued ties to ocean trade routes, became the important components of the city’s situation.

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Kris Olds

Singapore and Vancouver are thousands of miles apart, in two very different areas of the world, but as urban geographer Kris Olds reminds us, they are being shaped by similar processes: economic restructuring, transnational migrations, and new social policies. A professor of

geography at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Olds studies the interdependence of global cities around the world. His work intelligently undermines the distinctions we used to make between cities in the developed and developing worlds. “My research primarily focuses on the geographical organization of power in relation to contemporary urban transformations. Much of this work takes place in multiple locations that are tied together via the processes I am examining in my research.”

This type of research allows Olds to indulge two of his passions at the same time: traveling and solving real-world problems. “I’ve always had the travel bug. When I almost got kicked out of the University of British Columbia for atrocious grades (I thought that I would be better off becoming an engineer or a geologist instead of a geographer), I took some time off, traveled the world, and then returned to UBC . . . and stumbled into some great courses, all of them taught by urban geographers. Now, I get to travel while ‘working.’” His work takes him to

Bristol, Berlin, Singapore, and Hong Kong, but also to Vancouver, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Madison. In all of these places, his interest is in understanding the global power relationships that are disrupting people’s lives in fundamental ways, such as forced housing evictions that often accompany large-scale mega-events, such as the Olympic games, and access to education and other social services. “I am particularly interested in the processes underlying urban change and the role of elites and networks of elites in shaping the development process.”

Olds finds qualitative methods the best for getting at these processes, since what makes these global networks “tick” are the interests and motivations of people. “I’ve got nothing against quantitative techniques (some of which I used to use), but they simply cannot help me shed light on the issues that I find to be important. I now prefer to work with in-depth semistructured interviews, observation, and participant observation.” Currently, he’s observing and interviewing some of the key players involved in Singapore’s push to become a global education hub, as well as working with an international nongovernmental organization to formulate concrete mechanisms that will prevent future forced housing evictions caused by mega- events. One of the most exciting things about being a practicing geographer, Olds says, is that “I am able to work on issues of real importance in the world.”

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San Francisco’s situation has changed dramatically in the last decade, for it is no longer the major port of the bay. The change in technology to containerized cargo was adopted more quickly by Oakland, the rival city on the opposite side of the bay, and San Francisco declined as a port city. Oakland was able to accommodate containerized cargo in part because it filled in huge tracts of shallow bay lands, creating a massive area for the loading, unloading, and storage of cargo containers.

Certain attributes of the physical environment have been important in the location of cities. Those cities with distinct functions, such as defense or trade, were located because of specific physical characteristics. The locations of many contemporary cities can be partially explained by decisions made in the past that capitalized on the advan- tages of certain sites. The following classifications detail some of the different location possibilities.

Defensive Sites There are many types of defensive sites for cities (some are diagrammed in Figure 10.12). A defensive site is a location that can be easily defended. The river- meander site, with the city located inside a loop where the stream turns back on itself, leaves only a narrow neck of land unprotected by water. Cities such as Bern, Switzerland, and New Orleans are situated inside river meanders. Indeed, the nickname for New Orleans, Crescent City, refers to the curve of the Mississippi River.

Even more advantageous was the river-island site, which, because the stream was split into two parts, often combined a natural moat with an easy river crossing. For example, Montreal is situated on a large island surrounded by the St. Lawrence River and other water channels. The offshore-island site—that is, islands lying off the seashore or in lakes—offered similar defensive advantages (Figure 10.13). Mexico City began as an Indian settlement on a lake

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island. Venice is the classic example of a city built on off- shore islands in the sea, as is Hong Kong. Peninsula sites were almost as advantageous as island sites, because they offered natural water defenses on all but one side. Boston was founded on a peninsula for this reason, and a wooden palisade wall was built across the neck of the peninsula.

Danger of attack from the sea often prompted sheltered- harbor defensive sites, where a narrow entrance to the har- bor could be defended easily. Examples of sheltered-harbor sites include cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, and San Francisco.

High points were also sought out. These are often referred to as acropolis sites; the word acropolis means “high city.” Originally the city developed around a fortification on

the high ground and then spilled out over the surrounding lowland. Athens is the prototype of acropolis sites, but many other cities are similarly located.

Trade-Route Sites Defense was not always the primary con- sideration. Instead, urban centers were often built on trade- route sites—that is, at important points along already established trade routes. Here, too, the influence of the physical environment can be detected.

Especially common types of trade-route sites (Figure 10.14) are bridge-point sites and river-ford sites, places where major land routes could easily cross over rivers. Typ- ically, these were sites where streams were narrow and shal- low with firm banks. Occasionally, such cities even bear in

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Figure 10.13 The classic defensive site of Mont St. Michel, France. A small town clustered around a medieval abbey, which was originally separated from the mainland during high tides, Mont St. Michel now has a causeway that connects the island to shore, allowing armies of tourists to penetrate the town’s defenses easily. (Photo Researchers.)

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their names the evidence of their sites, as in Frankfurt (“ford of the Franks”), Germany, and Oxford, England. The site for London was chosen because it is the lowest point on the Thames River where a bridge—the famous London Bridge—could easily be built to serve a trade route running inland from Dover on the sea.

Confluence sites are also common. They allow cities to be situated at the point where two navigable streams flow together. Pittsburgh, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, is a fine example (Figure 10.15). Head-of-navigation sites, where navigable water routes begin, are even more common, because goods must be transshipped at such points. Iquitos, Peru, is located at the head-of-navigation site for the Amazon River, and Minneapolis—St. Paul, at the falls of the Mississippi River,

also occupies a head-of-navigation site. Portage sites are very similar. Here, goods were portaged from one river to another. Chicago is near a short portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River drainage basin. In these ways and others, an urban site can be influenced by the physical environment. But so, too, do cities impact that physical environment in a multitude of ways. In the next section we explore that general theme of urban sustainabil- ity.

Urbanization and Sustainability As we examined in Chapter 9, industrialization goes hand in hand with urbanization, so that the environmental impacts of industrialization are often found in cities. But

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Figure 10.14 Trade-route city sites. These sites are strategic positions along transportation arteries. Is your city or one near you located on a trade- route site?

Figure 10.15 Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. At the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, Pittsburgh is a classic example of how an early trade-route site has evolved into a commercial center. (Comstock Select/Corbis.)

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urbanization generates its own set of environmental impacts: supplying enough energy, food, and water to large concentrations of people puts an array of stresses on the nat- ural environment. Scholars now refer to these varied impacts of urban areas on the environment as the urban footprint. For example, Las Vegas is one of the fastest- growing urban areas in the United States, yet it is located in a desert (Figure 10.16). The city’s primary water source is the Colorado River, but in more ways than one the costs of delivering that water are extremely high. It is expensive to construct the dams and infrastructure necessary to move the water into the city, and the environmental damage to the region is very costly. The dams alter the flows of water through the Colorado Valley, harming fish and disrupting aquatic life cycles, and the energy required to divert the water to the city leads to higher sulfur dioxide emissions, which have been shown to lead to global warming.

But the environmental effects of increased urbaniza- tion—the urban footprint—can spread beyond the immedi- ate stresses caused by higher concentrations of population. Urban living often leads to rising levels of consumption, as new urbanites gain access to better jobs with more dispos- able income available to them. This growing demand for things like better food can impact areas far from urban cen- ters. For example, as the United Nations report “Unleash- ing the Potential of Urban Growth” suggests, tropical forests in Tobasco, an area 400 miles away from Mexico City, have

been turned into cattle-grazing areas in response to urban- ites’ demands for meat, while, in a second example, a major contributing factor to the deforestation of the Amazon is the increased demand for soybeans from the newly urbanizing regions of China as well as from the urbanites of the United States, Japan, and Europe. Urbanization, however, does not necessarily imply environmental degradation (see Subject to Debate). For example, the higher densities of population that cities represent can be seen as a form of sustainable growth. Half the population of the world—the urban half— lives on approximately 3 percent of the land mass. The con- centration of people in cities therefore opens up other areas that can be protected and left relatively free from human use. Many countries in the developing and developed world are working on local and regional planning projects that, on the one hand, maintain urban boundaries and prevent sprawl, and on the other hand protect natural environments outside urban areas from the sorts of environmental degra- dations we have just outlined above. These sorts of urban environmental conservation projects will become increas- ingly important in future years.

Natural Disasters Hurricane Katrina has become a critical reminder of the vulnerability of human settlements to natural disasters. The disaster, which struck the Gulf Coast of the United States in August of 2005, killed 1836 people and left hun- dreds of thousands of people homeless. Urban areas, with their concentrations of people, are particularly vulnerable to such natural disasters, given that so many peoples’ lives and livelihoods are at risk. In addition, since many cities like New Orleans are sited near water (see the section on site and situation), they are often located in the direct paths of disasters such as hurricanes and tsunamis. Making matters even worse, scientists have recently noted an increase in the number of natural disasters, attributable partly they believe to global climate change. This combina- tion of increasing urbanization and a growing number of natural disasters means that more and more people’s lives are being impacted adversely. According to the United Nations Environment Program, between 1980 and 2000 approximately 75 percent of the world’s population lived in areas affected by natural disasters (Figure 10.17). And, as with Hurricane Katrina, it is most often poor people who are the most affected, since they tend to live in struc- tures that are not well built and in sections of the city that are more vulnerable, such as low-lying areas. In cities in the developing world, squatter settlements (see the section on cultural landscape) are often sited on steep hillsides or poorly drained areas, making these areas far more vulner- able to landslides, flooding, and other natural disasters.

Figure 10.16 Las Vegas, Nevada. One of the fastest-growing cities in North America, Las Vegas is sited in the heart of the desert. As such, its growing demands for water are putting huge stresses on the natural environment, as water has to be diverted from the Colorado River. (Robert Cameron/Getty Images.)

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Cultural Landscape

As you probably already know from your local, regional, or international travels, the look of cities varies from place to place. Some cities have bustling downtowns where most of the residents work, while others are characterized by nodes of activities clustered on the suburban fringe; some cities are built around a set of historical buildings with political or religious significance, while the centers of other cities are dominated by new skyscrapers housing financial offices. Finally, some cities have streets laid out in a grid-like pat- tern, while in other cities streets are a crisscrossed jumble without apparent order. How can we make sense of this range of urban landscapes? In this section, we explore sev- eral forms or models of urban landscapes, particularly those outside the developed world. In the cultural land- scape section in Chapter 11, we focus on cities in North America and Europe, in order to explore in more detail how cities are arranged and to help you learn to “read” the landscape of your own city.

Globalizing Cities in the Developing World In cities of the developing world, the combination of large numbers of migrants and widespread unemployment leads to overwhelming pressure for low-rent housing. Govern- ments have rarely been able to meet these needs through housing projects, so one of the most characteristic land- scape features of cities in the developing world has been construction of illegal housing: squatter settlements. Squat- ter settlements, or barriadas (Figure 10.18), are often referred to as slums—areas of degraded housing. The United Nations defines a slum household as a cohabiting group that lacks one or more of the following conditions: an adequate physical structure that protects people from extreme climatic conditions, sufficient living area such that no more than three people share a room, access to a suffi- cient amount of water, access to sanitation, and secure tenure or protection form forced eviction. Current esti- mates suggest that over 1 billion people in the world live in slums. In greater Cairo alone, for example, scholars esti- mate that 5.5 million people live in slum conditions within squatter settlements.

many of the most vulnerable cities contain large numbers of people living in conditions that add to their vulnerability, such as poorly built housing. (Source: Alex de Sherbenin, Andrew Schiller, and Alex Pulsipher, 2007.)

Cultural Landscape 347

Squatter settlements usually begin as collections of crude shacks constructed from scrap materials; gradually, they become increasingly elaborate and permanent. Paths and walkways link houses, vegetable gardens spring up, and often water and electricity are bootlegged into the area so that a common tap or outlet serves a number of houses. At later stages, such economic pursuits as handicrafts and

small-scale artisan activities take place in the squatter settle- ments. In many instances, these supposedly temporary set- tlements become permanent parts of the city and function as many neighborhoods do—that is, as social, economic, and cultural centers.

Squatter settlements are located not only in downtown areas but also close to places where people work. In many

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Can Urbanization Be Environmentally Sustainable? The United Nations’ assessment that 2008 marked the year when urban population in the world began to exceed rural population has refueled the debate over the environmental impacts of increasing urbanization. On the one hand, increasing urbanization serves to concentrate population, potentially reducing the regional human footprint around cities, and creates economies of scale because more people can benefit from the urban infrastructure—transportation, power supply routes, water servicing, and so on. On the other hand, these same concentrations of population lead to greater demands on resources outside of the city (e.g., water and energy), and the greater wealth that is often correlated with urban life can lead to greater consumer demands that in turn impact large swaths of countryside outside the city. Are cities, then, sustainable?

First, we have to think about what sustainable actually means, and this issue itself is subject to debate! For our purposes here, sustainable urbanization is the creation of a situation whereby a society can meet the needs of contemporary urban dwellers for water, food, and shelter, while not damaging the ability of future urban dwellers to meet their needs. Thus, impacts on the environment must be kept to a level that is considered sustainable—in other words, the natural environment is able to maintain these impacts over the long-term without incurring serious harm. Before the industrial revolution, the majority of people lived as farmers in the countryside, and cities were relatively small in size. Under these conditions, urbanization did not present any particular challenge to environmental sustainability. It was only in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, with industrialization (see Chapter 9), that cities in Europe and North America grew rapidly in size, adding stress to the environment. That stress has been further exacerbated with the recent and rapid growth of cities in the developing world. And it has been this recent and rapid growth that has caused alarm among policy makers and scholars.

On one side of the debate are those who focus on the adverse environmental impacts of large concentrations of

people. Not only do cities have a direct impact on the land, in terms of the amount of space they occupy and the pollution they create, but these large population centers also create stresses on land far from the actual city. In addition, urban dwellers typically have higher incomes and expectations in terms of material satisfaction than do rural dwellers, which places additional stress on the environment. More consumer demand for things like meat, wood, and metals from city dwellers in, say, Vancouver, can have adverse environmental impacts throughout Canada and other parts of the Asia-Pacific rim. Those who are optimistic about creating a more sustainable future with increasing urbanization argue that higher-density human settlements are better for the environment in the long run than are less dense settlements. Even with the current growth rate of cities in terms of size and number, recent estimates based on satellite data show that urban settlements occupy only 2.8 percent of the total land on Earth. Urban spatial expansion per se does not appear to be the major stressor. As noted above, it is the appetite of these new urban dwellers for material goods that places stress on land and natural resources away from the city. As the United Nations’ report State of the World Population 2007 suggests, urban density actually helps maintain fragile ecosystems by keeping them free from human interference. Proponents of this side of the debate argue that policies geared toward dispersing the world’s populations are misguided. The real problem, they argue, rests with unsustainable forms of production and consumption, and it is on managing these issues that the world’s attention should be focused.

This debate is certain to grow in intensity as the world’s population continues its urban course. So, can this increasingly urban world become sustainable? Whichever way you see the debate, it’s difficult to deny the draw of urban life. Working toward the management of sustainable practices might be a far more practical solution than dispersing populations.

348 Chapter 10 Urbanization

cities, this means places that just a few years ago were con- sidered rural. Because of growing populations and pres- sures on space, many globalizing cities in the developing world are expanding outward. Some of these cities, such as Mexico City, Hanoi, and Manila, are expanding so rapidly out into the countryside that the city is swallowing up smaller villages and rural areas. In this way, these new urban forms are blurring the distinction between the rural and the urban, creating what some scholars have called extended metropolitan regions (EMRs). Multinational cor- porations often rely on the labor of new urban migrants, and so the city grows rapidly at the margins as factories are built in export processing zones (EPZs) (see Chapter 9) and squatter settlements emerge around them. At the same time, the downtowns of these cities often experience not dispersal but concentration: high-rises accommodate the regional offices of corporations and the services associated with them (media, advertising, personnel management, and so forth), and upper-class housing developments accommodate this new class of white-collar workers.

In addition, landscape forms associated with the global consumer, entertainment, and tourist economy are emerg- ing: American-style shopping districts (with American stores) and new airports, hotels, restaurants, and entertain- ment facilities. Many of these landscape developments are funded by international investments. Entrepreneurs and governments in many parts of the world look to these new globalizing cities of the developing world as good places to make financial and real estate investments. The extended metropolitan region of Hanoi, for example, is being built with funds from a range of countries (Figure 10.19): an export processing zone and a golf and entertainment facil- ity are partly funded by Malaysia; South Korea is investing in a hotel, another golf course, and a business center;

Taiwan is involved in a tourism project and an industrial park. Hanoi’s downtown (Fig. 10.20) is being developed with more hotels and office construction funded by Japan and Singapore. Finland provided the infrastructure for the water supply to one of these new developments.

These new urban regions are complex in both their landscape form and function because they developed rapidly, without any planning, and have in many cases incorporated preexisting places. These EMRs, therefore, include multiple nodes of economic activity, with few of those nodes any older than a decade. Scholars who write about Mexico City, for example, find it impossible to speak of the city as one place; rather, they suggest that it can now only be represented as a pastiche of different places, each with its own center and outlying neighborhoods.

Latin American Urban Landscapes To describe the landscapes of Latin American cities, urban geographers have developed a model, which is shown in Fig- ure 1.3, so you might want to refer back to it as you read this section. In contrast to many contemporary cities in the United States, the central business districts (CBDs) of Latin American cities are vibrant, dynamic, and increasingly spe- cialized. The dominance of the central district is explained partly by widespread reliance on public transit and partly by the existence of a large and relatively affluent population close to it. Outside the central district, the dominant compo- nent is a commercial spine surrounded by an elite residen- tial sector. Because these two zones are interrelated, they are referred to as the spine/sector. This combination is an exten- sion of the CBD down a major boulevard, along which the city’s important amenities, such as parks, theaters, restau- rants, and even golf courses, are located. Strict zoning and

Figure 10.18 Squatter settlements in Mexico City (left) and Kuala Lumpur (right). Migration to cities has been so rapid that often illegal squatter settlements have been the only solution to housing problems. (Cameramann International, Ltd.)

Cultural Landscape 349

Soc Son

Nghia Do

Dong Anh

South Thang Long Gia

Lam Sai

Dong

Van Dien

Thuong Dinh

Cau Dien

5-Star Hotel and Golf Course in Van Tri

The venture is between South Korea and Hanoi

Total investment: $50.93 million

Noi Bai Export Processing Zone (EPZ) The EPZ will be developed over 100 ha The project is a joint venture between

Malaysia and Hanoi Total investment: $140 million

Noi Bai Golf Course and Entertainment Resort

The project will be developed over 100 ha and is a joint venture between

Malaysia and Hanoi Total investment: $15.68 million

Daeha Business Center Joint venture between South Korea and Hanoi

Total investment: $195 million

HITC Building The project is to build offices

for lease. The area is currently the most attractive district for the city's

future developments Total investment: $93 million

Hanoi New Urban Center The project is to build an 800-room 4-star hotel.

It will also contain two 15-story office buildings of 660 rooms, entertainment facilities and a parking lot for 1400 vehicles. The center covers 10 ha and is a

joint venture between Japan and Vietnam Total investment: $400 million

Quang Ba Royal Garden Covering 2.8 ha, the project is a joint

venture between Singapore and Hanoi Total investment: $50.93 million

Nghi Tam Tourism Village The project is between Taiwan and Vietnam

Total investment: $32 million

Hanoi-Dai Tu Industrial Park The project covers 40 ha

and is a 100% Taiwanese project Total investment: $12 million

Red River City The project is for the construction

of a new city center with office and residential buildings accommodating 10,000 people. The joint venture is between Singapore and Vietnam

Total investment: $260 million

Soc Son: Noi Bai International Airport is located in this area. Malaysia is investing in two projects there: a golf course and an EPZ. Dong Anh: At the moment the area is one of the main vegetable-supplying sources for residents in Hanoi. Nghia Do: Only five minutes from the West Lake, a property development area. South Thang Long: Attracts a lot of foreign investment. The infrastructure is good, with the water supply system aided by the Finnish government. Gia Lam Area: Called the "Daewoo area," it will soon become a satellite city of Hanoi. Cau Dien: Recently approved project of traditional cultural tourism villages. Thuong Dinh: Local industrial area. Van Dien: An industrial park with infrastructure not yet developed. No foreign investment at present.

Figure 10.19 Diagram of Hanoi’s extended metropolitan region. Foreign investment has been crucial to the spatial expansion of Hanoi, as you can see from the various projects under construction. Is this form of urban expansion different from what you know of cities in North America? (Source: Drakakis-Smith, 2000: 24.)

350 Chapter 10 Urbanization

land controls ensure continuation of these activities and pro- tect the elite from incursions by low-income squatters.

Somewhat less prestigious is the inner-city zone of maturity, a collection of homes occupied by people unable to afford housing in the spine/sector. This is an area of upward mobility. The zone of accretion is a diverse collec- tion of housing types, sizes, and quality, which can be thought of as a transition between the zone of maturity and the next zone. It is an area of ongoing construction and change, emblematic of the explosive population growth that characterizes the Latin American city. Although some neighborhoods within this zone have city-provided utilities, other blocks must rely on water and butane delivery trucks for essential services.

The most recent migrants to the Latin American city are found in the zone of peripheral squatter settlements. This fringe of poor people and inadequate housing contrasts dra- matically with the affluent and comfortable suburbs that ring North American cities. Streets are unpaved, open trenches carry waste; residents haul water from distant locations, and electricity is often pirated by attaching illegal wires to the closest utility pole. Although this zone’s quality of life seems marginal, many residents transform these squatter settle- ments over time into permanent neighborhoods with mini- mal amenities (see the section on globalizing cities in the developing world for a discussion of squatter settlements).

Landscapes of the Apartheid and Postapartheid City As we have seen in previous chapters, racism and the residen- tial segregation that often results from it can have profound effects on landscapes. In South Africa, the state-sanctioned policy of segregating “races,” known as apartheid, signifi-

cantly altered urban patterns. Although racial segregation was not the only force shaping the apartheid city, it certainly was a dominant one. The intended effects of this policy on urban form are delineated in Figure 10.21. To understand this illustration fully, we need to outline some of the impor- tant components of the apartheid state.

The policies of economic and political discrimination against non-European groups in South Africa were formal- ized and sharpened under National Party rule after 1948. To segregate the “races,” the government passed two major pieces of legislation in 1950. The first was the Population Registration Act, which mandated the classification of the population into discrete racial groups. The three major groups were white, black, and colored, each of which was subdivided into smaller categories. The second piece of major legislation was called the Group Areas Act; its goal was, in the words of geographer A. J. Christopher, “to effect the total urban segregation of the various population groups defined under the Population Registration Act.” Cities were thus divided into sections that were to be inhab- ited only by members of one population group.

Although the effects of these acts on the form of South African cities did not appear overnight, they were massive nonetheless. Members of nonwhite groups were by far the ones most adversely affected. Almost without exception, the downtowns of cities were restricted to whites, whereas those areas set aside for nonwhites were peripheral and restricted, often lacking any urban services, such as trans- portation and shopping. Large numbers of nonwhite fami- lies were displaced with little or no compensation (estimates suggest that only 2 percent of the displaced fam- ilies were white). Buffer zones were established between residential areas to curtail contact between groups, further

Figure 10.20 Intersection in Old Quarter, Hanoi. Commercialization and modernization are evident even in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, as you can see by the presence of neon lights. (Macduff Everton/Corbis.)

Cultural Landscape 351

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Indian CBD

Roa d

Ro ad

Buf fer

zon e

Railway

Physical barrier

White CBD CBD frame Industrial

Indian or colored group areaBlack area

White group areaW

Socioeconomic status (white group areas)

WM

WH

WM

WL

WL CT

IT

A1

I or C P

RESIDENTIAL AREAS

Buffer zone

I Indian C Colored

T Township P Privatelydeveloped

Hostel A1 Township

H High M Middle LowL

Domestic servants' quarters not shown

Figure 10.21 The model apartheid city. Townships were areas set aside by the government for members of nonwhite groups to live in, often located close to industrial areas of the city. Hostels were built to house black men from the rural areas who were needed

hindering access to the central city for those groups pushed into the periphery. In effect, this created a city similar to that described by the sector model (see Chapter 11), only here it was organized along racial lines.

After the change of government in 1994, apartheid came to an end as an official policy, and the laws that enforced racial segregation in South Africa were abolished. Results from the 1996 census revealed a marked decline in degrees of racial segregation within South Africa’s cities, a trend that characterizes the postapartheid city. However, historical patterns of residential segregation and racial prej- udice are very difficult to change. A. J. Christopher found that despite a general overall decline in levels of segrega- tion, particularly among the colored population, the major- ity of the white population in South Africa remained isolated from their nonwhite neighbors, while the black

population remained relatively isolated due to the lack of mobility caused by poverty.

Landscapes of the Socialist and Postsocialist City The effects of centralized state policies on urban land-use pat- terns are also evident in the cities of the countries that formed the Soviet Union and in other former socialist countries in eastern Europe. In the Soviet Union, for example, the Bolshe- vik Revolution of 1917 brought with it attempts by the state to confront and solve the urban problems attendant upon industrialization (see Chapter 9). Socialist principles called for the nationalization of all resources, including land. Fur- ther, centralized planning replaced market forces as the means for allocating those resources. These ideas had pro- found effects on the form of Soviet cities. The principles that

to work in particular industries. Why are nonwhite groups located close to industry? (From Christopher, 1994: 107. Copyright © 1994 by A. J. Christopher. Reprinted by permission of Routledge.)

352 Chapter 10 Urbanization

underlie capitalist cities—that land is held privately and that the economic market dictates urban land use—were no longer the prime influences on urban form. Instead, Soviet policies attempted to create a more equitable arrangement of land uses in the city. The results of those policies included (1) a relative absence of residential segregation according to socioeconomic status, (2) equitable housing facilities for most citizens, (3) relatively equal accessibility to sites for the distri- bution of consumer items, (4) cultural amenities (theater, opera, and so on) located and priced to be accessible to as many people as possible, and (5) adequate and accessible public transportation. Although these results created better living and working conditions for many people, the situation was far from ideal. By the 1970s and 1980s, many Soviet citi- zens realized that their standards of living were well below those in the West and that the centralized planning system was not successful.

National policies of economic restructuring intro- duced in the late 1980s, referred to as perestroika, led to mandates to privatize resources and the land market. In the post-socialist city, market forces are once again dominant in shaping urban land uses, and the pace and scale of urban change are unprecedented (Figure 10.22). One of the most significant of those changes is the privatization of the hous- ing market. In Moscow, for example, the percentage of the housing stock that is in private hands grew from 9.3 percent in 1990 to 49.6 percent in 1994. However, this privatization does not necessarily mean better housing. In the new hous- ing market, flats and homes are allocated according to mar- ket forces, and many people cannot afford the high prices.

Apartments are particularly expensive in the center of Moscow, and most people have no choice but to continue to live in the communal apartments assigned to them under the Soviet system. In addition, processes akin to gen- trification (see Chapter 11) are taking place in the center of cities such as Prague, Cracow, Budapest, and Moscow, dis- placing residents to the peripheral portions of the city while housing others in Western-style elegance.

Post-socialist cities are also taking on the look of Western cities. The downtowns are increasingly dominated by retailing outlets of familiar Western companies, such as Nike and McDonald’s. Tall office buildings that house finan- cial service businesses are replacing industrial buildings. In other post-socialist cities, the new landscapes of finance cap- italism are located outside the city center, where land is cheaper. In Prague, for example, most of the city center is of great historical significance and is therefore protected from new building construction. Large financial institutions like international banks have found locations farther out from the city, close to the city’s metro stops, to be ideal for their needs (Figure 10.23). These new financial centers bring with them economic growth, and some are now resembling the suburban sprawl of North American cities.

Figure 10.22 Downtown Moscow. The post-Soviet city, rekindled by market forces, demonstrates unprecedented urban change. (Courtesy of Mona Domosh)

Figure 10.23 Bank buildings clustered near a metro stop in Prague. Since most of downtown Prague is protected from new development because of its historical significance, the many financial institutions that want to locate in this burgeoning capitalist nation have constructed large skyscrapers to house their offices on the edge of the city, grouped around the metro stops. Contrast this to the location of bank office buildings in North American cities. (Courtesy of Mona Domosh)

Sources 353

Conclusion The first cities arose as new technologies—particularly the domestication of plants and animals—facilitated the con- centration of people, wealth, and power in a few specific places. This transformation from village to city life was accompanied by new social organizations, a greater division of labor, and increased social stratification. These charac- teristics still distinguish rural from urban life. Although the first cities developed in specific hearths, urban life has now diffused worldwide, and all indications are that the major- ity of the Earth’s population has become urban.

This increasing urbanization, however, leads to a host of problems, some environmental, some social, and some a bit of both. Many problems of globalizing cities in the develop- ing world are the result of rapid and massive population growth and concentration. Such cities are bursting at the seams as thousands of new migrants crowd into them each day, seeking jobs, housing, and schooling. Because jobs are scarce, unemployment rates are often very high. Housing is also a problem. In some cities, over a third of the population lives in hastily constructed squatter settlements. But even many of these problems have historical roots, as an exami- nation of the political and social history of colonial cities demonstrates. For example, massive rural-to-urban migra- tion is not a new phenomenon. The disruptions caused by nineteenth-century colonial settlements deprived many people of their land and forced rural inhabitants into the city. This pattern (with modified causes) continues today.

The future of the world’s cities is uncertain. Strong governmental planning measures might alleviate many present-day ills, but the long-range hope lies with decreased population growth and increased economic opportunities. Whether this is possible under contemporary conditions remains to be seen.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

Connecting Urban Population Growth with Globalization As we’ve suggested in this chapter, most cities today are global in the sense that they are being shaped by global economic, cultural, and political forces. But sometimes it is difficult to actually see in what ways this is happening or in what ways this matters. In this exercise, you will focus on one simple measure of urbanization—population growth— in order to analyze how it is being affected by globalization.

Choose one city from the list of megacities in Table 10.1. First, to provide context, track its population change over the past 50 years and determine its growth rate every decade (you will probably need to use online data, from the United Nations Statistics Division or other sources). Next,

concentrating on the past 20 years, see if you can determine the sources of its population growth. In other words, are people migrating to the city from rural areas? From other countries? Or is it natural population growth? Third, link that population growth to global changes. Are people moving to this city to work for transnational companies? Because their rural homes are experiencing decline due to environmental degradation? Because they must leave their homes in one country due to uneven global development? Finally, try to understand in what ways these population shifts are shaping the cultures of this city.

The City on the Internet You can learn more about the city in time and space on the Inter- net at the following web sites:

Globalization and World Cities http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/ A fantastic web site that details the work of the globalization and world cities research group and network, including data sets that document relationships between 100 world cities, and recent pub- lications of the group.

United Nations Statistics Division http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/ The source for world population statistics, this site contains a com- prehensive section on urbanization as a social indicator.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development http://www.hud.gov Here you can find information about housing issues and urban economic development and about how to get involved personally in your own local community.

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354 Chapter 10 Urbanization

SEEING GEOGRAPHY Rio de Janeiro

Few cities boast such a spectacular site as Rio de Janeiro, located between the mountains and Guanabara Bay along the Atlantic Ocean. This view looking southwest highlights the dramatic siting: the night lights of a bustling city, the colorful neon of the beaches, the outlines of rugged mountain peaks against the night sky. One can barely discern in this image the “other” side of Rio: the favelas, or squatter settlements, located on the mountainsides (see Figure 10.2). Perched above the centers of economic activity and the middle- and upper- class residential areas located along the southern coastal areas of Rio, the favelas are an ever-present part of the urban landscape and are home to approximately one-fifth of the city’s population.

The information in this chapter should help us to “read” this image of Rio de Janeiro. As a city of the developing world, Rio experienced rapid population growth in the twentieth century, and its metropolitan area now exceeds 11 million people. More striking is the dramatic increase in the urban population of Brazil. The percentage of the population living in metropolitan areas rose from approximately 31 percent in 1940 to about

84 percent in 2005. In Rio, that population growth is evident in the intensity of land use within the city, which is marked by the presence of skyscrapers, the metropolitan sprawl that extends well beyond the parameters of this image, and the presence of the favelas, home to many of the rural-to-urban migrants. Like other cities of the developing world, population growth has strained the city’s infrastructure and its ability to provide services, which has led to traffic congestion, pollution, and crime. It has also exacerbated ecological problems. When vegetation covered the hillsides, the heavy summer rains Rio experiences were absorbed into the soil. Now the summer rains often flood the streets of the low-lying areas of the city and lead to landslides on the slopes that house the favelas. One such episode in 1996, for example, led to the death of 71 people, with approximately 2000 people left homeless. Yet Rio, like its larger neighbor 230 miles (370 kilometers) to the south, São Paulo, is now experiencing much slower population growth as a result of lower birthrates and less rural-to-urban migration.

Founded as a Portuguese colonial city in 1565, Rio grew quickly in the eighteenth century, when it became the primary port for exporting the gold and diamonds discovered in the interior of the country. Later, in the first decades of the twentieth century, Rio underwent industrialization. The southern and coastal portions of the city that we see in this image became home to the elite, while the factories and working classes moved north and west of the downtown (out of the view of this image).

Today, Rio is part colonial city and part global city. It is home to the regional headquarters of 10 multinational firms. Its beaches, particularly Ipanema and Copacabana, are icons for global jet-setters. Yet its favelas, some of which have now been recognized by the government as legal communities, continue to grow, with little infrastructure and few public services. Like other globalizing cities, it experiences both the bright lights and the grimmer realities of the twenty-first-century economic order.

What are some of the major environmental and social impacts of an increasingly urbanized world?

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View of Rio de Janeiro from Sugarloaf Mountain.

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Ten Recommended Books on Urban Geography (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan) Boyer, M. Christine. 1996. The City of Collective Memory: The Historical

Imagery and Architectural Entertainments. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. A wide-ranging analysis of the role of history and memory in the shaping and function of contemporary Western cities.

Brenner, Neil, and Roger Keil (eds.). 2006. The Global Cities Reader. New York: Routledge. A rich collection of essays that explore

the rise of the concept of the global city and examine a range of case studies of global cities throughout the world.

Harvey, David. 1985. The Urban Experience. Baltimore: Johns Hop- kins University Press. A study of the relationship between cap- italist economics and the cities it produces.

King, Anthony D. 2004. Spaces of Global Culture: Architecture, Urban- ism, Identity. New York: Routledge. A fascinating examination of transnational urban forms.

Legates, Richard T., and Frederic Stout (eds.). 1999. The City Reader, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge. An extensive edited col- lection of readings covering the evolution of cities and the con- temporary forces that are restructuring them.

Marcuse, Peter, and Ronald Van Kempen (eds.). 2000. Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order? Oxford: Blackwell. A collection of studies of the impact of globalization on the spatial form of cities, from Singapore to Kolkata to New York.

Olds, Kris. 2001. Globalization and Urban Change: Capital, Culture, and Pacific Rim Mega-Projects. New York: Oxford University Press. An in-depth examination of how globalization actually operates in terms of large-scale urban developments in Van- couver and Shanghai.

Sassen, Saskia (ed.). 2003. Global Networks, Linked Cities. New York: Routledge. A collection of essays that examine the emerging networks of global commerce and communication that are reshaping the world’s cities.

Smith, Michael. 2000. Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globaliza- tion. New York: Blackwell. An examination of how and why transnational linkages exist between a diverse array of cities.

Taylor, Peter. 2003. World City Network: A Global Urban Analysis. New York: Routledge. An empirically rich accounting of the myriad commercial and financial connections between cities that form a global network.

Journals in Urban Geography Environment and Urbanization. Published by Sage, Beverly Hills.

Volume 1 appeared in 1989. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Published by

Edward Arnold, London. Volume 1 appeared in 1987. Urban Geography. Published by Bellwether Press, Lanham, Md.

Volume 1 appeared in 1976. Urban Studies. Published by Routledge, New York. Volume 1

appeared in 1964.

How has globalization affected urban ethnic neighborhoods?

11 Inside the City

A Cultural Mosaic

A street in Chinatown, New York City. (Bojan Breceli/Corbis.) Turn to Seeing Geography on page 398 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

357

F inding and understanding patterns in a city is a difficult matter. As you walk ordrive through a city, its intricacy may dazzle you and its form can seem chaotic.It is often hard to imagine why city functions are where they are, why people cluster where they do. Why does one block have high-income housing and another, slum tenements? Why are ethnic neighborhoods next to the central business district? Why does the highway run through one neighborhood and around another? Just when you think you are beginning to understand some patterns in your city, you note that those patterns are swiftly changing. The house you grew up in is now part of the business district. The central city that you roamed as a child looks abandoned. A sub- urban shopping center thrives on what was once farmland.

Chapter 10 focused on cities as points in geographical space. In this chapter, we try to orient ourselves within cities to gain some perspective on their spatial patterns. In other words, the two chapters differ in scale. Chapter 10 presented cities from afar, as small dots diffusing across space and interacting with one another and with their environment. In this chapter, we use the five themes of human geography to study the city as if we were walking its streets.

Region How are areas within a city spatially arranged? Much of the fascination with urban life comes from its diversity, from the excitement created by different groups of peo- ple and different types of activities packaged in a fairly small area. Yet within this diversity, it is possible to discern regional patterns, for cities are composed of a series of districts, each of which is defined by a particular set of land uses.

Downtowns In the center of the typical city is the central business district (CBD), a dense cluster of offices and shops. The CBD is formed around the point within the city that is most accessible. As such, businesses and services located in the CBD experience the most “action” as measured by the volume of people, money, and ideas moving through this space. Competition for this space often leads to the construction of skyscrapers, creating a skyline that characterizes and symbolizes a city’s CBD and the activities that are often located there: financial services, corporate headquarters, and related

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and ethnic culture regions as functions of the political and economic forces underlying and reinforcing residential segregation and discrimination. (More information on eth- nic areas is found in Chapter 5.)

One way to define social culture regions is to isolate one social trait, such as income, and plot its distribution within the city. The U.S. census is a common source of such information because the districts used to count population, called census tracts, are small enough to allow the subtle texture of social regions to show. These maps of social traits form the basis of many urban land-use models, which we discuss later in this section.

Ethnicity is another characteristic that often distin- guishes one urban residential area from another (see Chapter 5 for a fuller discussion of ethnicity). This is not surprising, given the history of immigration to North America and the propensity of immigrants to move to cities. During the middle to late nineteenth century, when waves of immigrants left eastern and southern Europe, North American port cities were a common destination and employment as laborers in factories was the norm. With limited affordable housing available, most immi- grants settled close to one another, forming ethnic com- munities or pockets within the mosaic of the city. These ethnic urban regions—with names such as Little Italy and Chinatown—often allowed the immigrants to maintain their native languages, holidays, foodways, and religions. Although the names of these urban enclaves still exist today, most of them have been transformed by new and dif- ferent waves of immigrants arriving in North America in

Figure 11.1 Skyline of Shanghai, China. The skyline is a clear marker of the global importance of Shanghai as a new financial center. Compare these very recent skyscrapers to those of an American or Canadian city. (Photographer’s Choice/Getty.)

services such as advertising and public relations firms. The tallest buildings in the world are located in Asian cities such as Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, and Taipei—cities that are vying to be major financial centers (Figure 11.1). Just beyond the skyscrapers are often four- and five-story build- ings that comprise the city’s main shopping district, tradi- tionally centered around several department stores. Also within the CBD are concentrations of smaller retail estab- lishments, transportation hubs such as railroad stations, and often civic centers such as a city hall and main library. Surrounding the CBD is a transitional zone, because it is sit- uated between the core commercial area and the outlying residential areas. It is a district of mixed land uses, charac- terized by older residential buildings, warehouses, small factories, and apartment buildings.

Residential Areas Beyond the transitional zone are various types of residen- tial communities, or regions. Geographers have studied these culture regions in depth, trying to discern patterns of the distribution of diverse peoples. Some have focused on the idea of a social culture region: a residential area char- acterized by socioeconomic traits, such as income, educa- tion, age, and family structure (Figures 11.2 and 11.3). Other researchers, who use the notion of ethnic culture region, highlight traits of ethnicity, such as language and migration history. Obviously the two concepts overlap, because social regions can exist within ethnic regions and vice versa. In addition, some researchers treat both social

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Figure 11.2 An inner-city neighborhood near the Capitol in Washington, D.C. One of the most pressing problems facing the United States is reversing the continued decay of inner cities. What factors have led to this decay of the inner city? (For help, look at the section on suburbanization and decentralization on page 367.) (Cameramann International, Ltd.)

Figure 11.3 Middle-income neighborhood in Reston, Virginia. Social areas within the city can be delimited by certain traits taken from the census, such as income, education, or family size. How would the social characteristics of this neighborhood differ from those in Figure 11.2? (Cameramann International, Ltd.)

the past 20 years (see the section on globalization). New York’s Little Italy, for example, is now home to people from East and Southeast Asia, with Italian restaurants vying for space with noodle houses.

Reflecting on Geography As we look at these urban regions, various questions concern the geographer: How do ethnic and social regions differ? Why do people of similar social traits cluster together? What subtle patterns might be found within these regions?

Social culture regions are not merely statistical defini- tions. They are also areas of shared values and attitudes, of interaction and communication. Neighborhood is a con- cept often used to describe small social culture regions

where people with shared values and concerns interact daily. For example, if we consider only census figures, we might find that parents between 30 and 45 years of age, with two or three children, and earning between $50,000 and $75,000 a year cover a fairly wide area in any given city. Yet, from our own observations, we know intuitively that this broad social area is probably composed of numerous neighborhoods where people associate a sense of commu- nity with a specific locale.

A conventional sociological explanation for neighbor- hoods is that people of similar values cluster together to reduce social conflict. Where a social consensus exists about such mundane issues as home maintenance, child rearing, acceptable behavior, and public order, there is lit- tle daily worry about these matters. People who deviate from this consensus will face social coercion that could

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Figure 11.4 Woodside, Queens, New York City. Once home to Irish immigrants, Woodside is now the destination of immigrants from a wide range of countries. In what ways are these new ethnic neighborhoods different from those of the Irish-Americans? In what ways do you think they are similar? (James Estrin/NYT Pictures.)

force them to seek residence elsewhere, thus preserving the values of the neighborhood.

However, many neighborhoods have more heterogene- ity than this traditional definition would allow. Conse- quently, the current understanding of neighborhoods is more flexible. While it embraces traditional components of locality, such as political outlook and shared economic characteristics, it also emphasizes the consensus that comes from both insiders and outsiders perceiving a certain area as a neighborhood. So although a neighborhood might be ethnically and socially diverse, its residents may think of themselves as a community that shares similar political con- cerns, holds neighborhood meetings to address these prob- lems, and achieves recognition at city hall as a legitimate group with political standing. A 1999 article in The New York Times documenting the new ethnic composition of Wood- side, Queens, was titled “From a Babel of Tongues, a Neigh- borhood” (Figure 11.4). For much of the late nineteenth century and into the late twentieth century, Woodside was predominantly an Irish-American community, but recent immigration has created a diverse neighborhood. In 2006, 46 percent of its residents were foreign-born, most of whom are from China and Latin America. In struggling for decent schools, housing, and jobs, many residents have united and forged a coalition of interests and a sense of communal identity—keystones of a neighborhood.

Homelessness Neighborhoods are usually composed of people who have access to a permanent or semipermanent place of residence.

In the cities of the United States, for example, homelessness, and with it the loss of neighborhood, is increasingly com- mon. It is nearly impossible to determine the exact number of homeless people in the United States because definitions of homelessness vary. For example, does living in a friend’s house for more than a month constitute a homeless condi- tion? How permanent does a shelter have to be before it is considered a “home”? To some people, home connotes a suburban middle-class house; to others, it simply refers to a room in a city-owned shelter.

Reflecting on Geography Why is home such a difficult concept to define? How does it differ from the concept of a house?

In addition, homeless people are often not counted in the census or other population surveys. Estimates of the number of homeless, therefore, are only rough approxima- tions. Recent studies suggest that there are up to 3 million homeless people in the United States, concentrated in the downtown areas of large cities, often in what we call the transitional zone (see the next section on models of the internal structure of American and Canadian cities).

The causes of homelessness are varied and complex. Many homeless people suffer from some type of disorder or handicap that contributes to their inability to maintain a job and obtain adequate housing. Most have been marginalized in some way by the economic problems that have plagued the United States since the early 1980s, and therefore they have been left out of the housing market. Deprived of the

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Figure 11.5 The distribution of services for the homeless in the skid row district of Los Angeles. The population of the area is difficult to estimate, ranging from 6000 to 30,000. There are approximately 2000 shelter beds in the area, half of which are available to women. Single-room-occupancy hotels provide about 6700 units of longer-term housing. More than 50 social service programs are run through agencies, missions, and shelters. Love Camp and Justiceville are the sites of informal street encampments of homeless people. (After Rowe and Wolch, 1990.)

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Figure 11.6 The concentric-zone model. Each zone represents a different type of land use in the city. Can you identify examples of each zone in your community?

social networks that a permanent neighborhood provides, the homeless are left to fend for themselves. Most cities have tried to provide temporary shelter, but many homeless peo- ple prefer to rely on their own social ties for support to main- tain some sense of personal pride and privacy. In a study of the Los Angeles skid row district, Stacy Rowe and Jennifer Wolch explored how homeless women formed new types of social networks and established a sense of community to cope with the day-to-day needs of physical security and food (Figure 11.5). This study points to the importance of social ties in maintaining personal identity and helps us under- stand the magnitude of a problem that deprives people of their home and neighborhood.

Models of the Internal Structure of American and Canadian Cities Beginning in the 1920s, urban geographers in the United States began to recognize and create models to describe the ways that central business districts and residential areas are located in relation to each other. They examined these rela- tionships in a range of North American cities and ended up devising three different spatial models of urban land use. Below we describe each of these models and discuss what each has to offer in terms of describing land use within cities. We then discuss some of the important critiques of these models that highlight their limitations.

Concentric-Zone Model The concentric-zone model was developed in 1925 by Ernest W. Burgess, a sociologist at the University of Chicago. Figure 11.6 shows the concentric- zone model with its five zones. At first glance, you can see the effects of residential decentralization. There is a dis- tinct pattern of income levels from zone 1, the CBD, out to the commuter residential zone. This pattern shows that even at the beginning of the automobile age, American cities expressed a clear separation of social groups. The extension of trolley lines into the surrounding countryside had a lot to do with this pattern.

Zone 2, a transitional area between the CBD and resi- dential zone 3, is characterized by a mixed pattern of indus- trial and residential land use. Rooming houses, small apartments, and tenements attract the lowest-income segment of the urban population. Often this zone includes slums and skid rows. In the past, many ethnic ghettos took root here as well. Landowners, while waiting for the CBD to reach their land, erected shoddy tenements to house a mas- sive influx of foreign workers. An aura of uncertainty was characteristic of life in zone 2, because commercial activi- ties rapidly displaced residents as the CBD expanded.

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Figure 11.7 An abandoned building in the uptown area of Chicago. The transitional zone in the city contains vacant and deteriorated buildings. Why has this area become a likely target for gentrifiers? (See the section on gentrification on page 370.) (Cameramann International, Ltd.)

Today, this area is often characterized by physical deterio- ration (Figure 11.7).

Zone 3, the “workingmen’s quarters,” is a solid blue- collar arc, located close to the factories of zones 1 and 2. Yet zone 3 is more stable than the zone of transition around the CBD. It is often characterized by ethnic neighborhoods: blocks of immigrants who broke free from the ghettos in zone 2 and moved outward into flats or single-family dwellings. Burgess suggested that this working-class area, like the CBD, was spreading outward because of pressure from the zone of transition and because blue-collar work- ers demanded better housing.

Zone 4 is a middle-class area of better housing. From here, established city dwellers—many of whom moved out of the central city with the construction of the first street- car network—commute to work in the CBD.

Zone 5, the commuters’ zone, consists of higher- income families clustered together in suburbs, either on the farthest extension of the trolley or on commuter rail- road lines. This zone of spacious lots and large houses is the growing edge of the city. From here, the rich press outward to avoid the increasing congestion and social heterogene- ity brought to their area by an expansion of zone 4.

Burgess’s concentric-zone theory represented the American city in a new stage of development. Before the 1870s, an American metropolis, such as New York, was a city of mixed neighborhoods where merchants’ stores and sweatshop factories were intermingled with mansions and hovels. Rich and poor, immigrant and native-born rubbed shoulders in the same neighborhoods. However, in Chicago, Burgess’s hometown, something else occurred. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned down the core of the

city, leveling almost one-third of its buildings. As the city was rebuilt, it was influenced by late-nineteenth-century market forces: real estate speculation in the suburbs, inner-city industrial development, new streetcar systems, and the need for low-cost working-class housing. The result was more clearly demarcated social patterns than existed in other large cities. Chicago became a segregated city with a concentric pattern working its way out from the downtown in what one scholar called “rings of rising affluence.” It was this rebuilt city that Burgess used as the basis for his con- centric zone model.

However, as you can see from Figure 11.8, the actual residential map of Chicago does not exactly match the simplicity of Burgess’s concentric zones. For instance, it is evident that the wealthy continue to monopolize certain high-value sites within the other rings, especially Chicago’s “Gold Coast” along Lake Michigan on the Near North Side. According to the concentric-zone theory, this area should have been part of the zone of transition. Burgess accounted for some of these exceptions by noting how the rich tended to monopolize hills, lakes, and shore- lines, whether they were close to or far from the CBD. Crit- ics of Burgess’s model also were quick to point out that even though portions of each zone did exist in most cities, rarely were they linked in such a way as to totally surround the city. Burgess countered that there were distinct barri- ers, such as old industrial centers, that prevented the com- pletion of the arc. Still other critics felt that Burgess, as a sociologist, overemphasized residential patterns and did not give proper credit to other land uses—such as indus- try, manufacturing, and warehouses—in describing urban patterns.

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Figure 11.8 Residential areas of Chicago in 1920 were used as the basis for many studies and models of the city. Compare this pattern with the concentric-zone and sector models.

Sector Model Homer Hoyt, an economist who studied hous- ing data for 142 American cities, presented his sector model of urban land use in 1939. He maintained that high-rent res- idential districts (rent meaning capital outlay for the occu- pancy of space, including purchase, lease, or rent in the popular sense) were instrumental in shaping the land-use structure of the city. Because these areas were reinforced by transportation routes, the pattern of their development was one of sectors or wedges (Figure 11.9), not concentric zones.

Hoyt suggested that the high-rent sector would expand according to four factors. First, a high-rent sector moves from its point of origin near the CBD, along established routes of travel, toward another nucleus of high-rent build- ings. That is, a high-rent area directly next to the CBD will naturally head in the direction of a high-rent suburb, even- tually linking the two in a wedge-shaped sector. Second, this sector will progress toward high ground or along water- fronts when these areas are not used for industry. The rich

have always preferred such environments for their resi- dences. Third, a high-rent sector will move along the route of fastest transportation. Fourth, it will move toward open space. A high-income community rarely moves into an occupied lower-income neighborhood. Instead, the wealthy prefer to build new structures on vacant land where they can control the social environment.

As high-rent sectors develop, the areas between them are filled in. Middle-rent areas move directly next to them, drawing on their prestige. Low-rent areas fill in the remain- ing areas. Thus, moving away from major routes of travel, rents go from high to low.

There are distinct patterns in today’s cities that echo Hoyt’s model. He had the advantage over Burgess in that he wrote later in the automobile age and could see the tremen- dous impact that major thoroughfares were having on cities. However, when we look at today’s major transportation arteries, which are generally freeways, we see that the areas surrounding them are often low-rent districts. According to Hoyt’s theory, they should be high-rent districts. Freeways are rather recent additions to the city, coming only after World War II, which were imposed on an existing urban pat- tern. To minimize the economic and political costs of con- struction, they were often built through low-rent areas, where the costs of land purchase for the rights-of-way were less and where political opposition was kept to a minimum because most people living in these low-rent areas had little

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Figure 11.9 The sector model. In this model, zones are pie- shaped wedges radiating along main transportation routes.

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political clout. This is why so many freeways rip through eth- nic ghettos and low-income areas. Economically speaking, this is the least expensive route.

Multiple-Nuclei Model Both Burgess and Hoyt assumed that a strong central city affected patterns throughout the urban area. However, as cities increasingly decentralized, districts developed that were not directly linked to the CBD. In 1945, two geographers, Chauncey Harris and Edward Ullman, suggested a new model: the multiple- nuclei model. They maintained that a city developed with equal intensity around various points, or multiple nuclei (Figure 11.10). In their eyes, the CBD was not the only focus of activity. Equal weight had to be given to an old community on the city outskirts around which new subur- ban developments clustered; to an industrial district that grew from an original waterfront location; or to a low- income area that developed because of some social stigma attached to the site.

Harris and Ullman rooted their model in four geo- graphical principles. First, certain activities require highly specialized facilities, such as accessible transportation for a factory or large areas of open land for a housing tract. Sec- ond, certain activities cluster together because they profit from mutual association. Car dealers, for example, are com- monly located near one another because automobiles are very expensive and so people will engage in comparative shopping—moving from one dealer to another until their decisions are made. Third, certain activities repel each other and will not be found in the same area. Examples would be high-rent residences and industrial areas, or slums and expensive retail stores. Fourth, certain activities could not make a profit if they paid the high rent of the most desirable locations and would therefore seek lower- rent areas. For example, furniture stores may like to locate where pedestrian traffic is greatest to lure the most people into their showrooms. However, they need large amounts of space for showrooms and storage. Thus, they cannot afford the high rents that the most accessible locations

demand. They compromise by finding an area of lower rent that is still relatively accessible.

The multiple-nuclei model, more than the other models, seems to take into account the varied factors of decentralization in the structure of the North American city. Many geographers criticize the concentric-zone and sector models as being rather simplistic, for they empha- size a single factor (residential differentiation in the concentric-zone model and rent in the sector model) to explain the pattern of the city. But the multiple-nuclei model encompasses a larger spectrum of economic and social factors. Harris and Ullman could probably accom- modate the variety of forces working on the city because they did not confine themselves to seeking simply a social or economic explanation. As geographers, they tried to integrate the disparate elements of culture into a workable model. Most urban scholars agree that they succeeded.

Critiques of the Models Most of the criticisms of the models just discussed focus on their simplification of reality or their inability to account for all the complexities of actual urban forms. More recently, feminist geographers have noticed some flaws in the models and in how they were constructed that call into question their descriptive power.

All three models assume that urban patterns are shaped by an economic trade-off between the desire to live in a suburban neighborhood appropriate to one’s eco- nomic status and the need to live relatively close to the cen- tral city for employment opportunities. These models assume that only one person in the family is a wage worker—the male head of the family. They ignore dual- income families and households headed by single women, who contend with a larger array of factors in making loca- tional decisions, including distances to child-care and school facilities and other services important for other members of a family. For many of these households, the tra- ditional urban models that assume a spatial separation of workplace and home are no longer appropriate.

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Figure 11.10 The multiple-nuclei model. This model was devised to show that the CBD is not the sole force in creating land-use patterns within the city. Rather, land-use districts may evolve for specific reasons at specific points elsewhere in the city—hence the name multiple nuclei. Compare this model to Figure 11.9. How and why are they different?

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For example, a study of the activity patterns of working parents shows that women living in a city have access to a wider array of employment opportunities and are better able to combine domestic and wage labor than are women who live in the suburbs. Many of these middle-class women will choose to live in a gentrified inner-city location, hoping that this type of area will offer the amenities of the suburbs (good schools and safety), while also accommodating their work schedules. Other research has shown that some busi- nesses will locate their offices in the suburbs because they rely on the labor of highly educated, middle-class women who are spatially constrained by their domestic work. As geographers Susan Hanson (see Practicing Geography) and Geraldine Pratt found in their study of employment practices and gender in Worcester, Massachusetts, most women seek employment locations closer to their homes than do men, and this applies to almost all women, not just those with small children.

The traditional models are also criticized for being cre- ated by men who all shared certain assumptions about how cities operate and thus presented a very partial view of urban life. Geographers David Sibley and Emily Gilbert, for instance, have both brought to our attention the develop- ment of other theories about urban form and structure during the same time. These theories incorporate the alter- native perspectives of female scholars. Drawing on the urban reform work done by Jane Addams at Hull House in Chicago, scholars in the first decades of the twentieth cen- tury examined the causes of and possible solutions to urban problems. For example, Edith Abbott, Sophonisba Breckin- ridge, and Helen Rankin Jeter, faculty at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, worked with their mostly female students to produce a number of studies about “race,” ethnicity, class, and hous- ing in Chicago. These studies differed in several ways from those of such theorists as Burgess and Hoyt. For instance,

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Susan Hanson

Going out into the “field” doesn’t necessarily mean donning stout boots and tromping along muddy paths or through dense stands of trees to reach mountain summits. For urban geographer Susan Hanson, it means talking to ordinary people about their differing

experiences of the city. “All of my research involves fieldwork—yes, fieldwork in the city. Why? Because the questions I’m interested in all have to do, in one way or another, with how the everyday lives of people are shaped by, and in turn help to shape, the urban environment.”

Even though Hanson is a world-famous geographer, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the former president of the Association of American Geographers, her passions about her work keep her close to the ground and in touch with her students. Given that she’s a professor of geography at Clark University, located in the heart of Worcester, Massachusetts, she and her students only have to walk out the door to find an urban field project worthy of exploration. And those explorations with her undergraduates are the most exciting part of her job as a “practicing” geographer. “In my undergraduate courses students carry out original empirical research on a question that fascinates them; these students later tell me that they

never dreamed they could do this kind of work, nor did they realize how meaningful it could be.” Perhaps her keen interest in sharing her work with students derives partly from her own experiences as a student, experiences that led her to become a geographer. “As a sophomore [at Middlebury College] I discovered geography when I took an intro course from a marvelous teacher, Rowland Illick, who emphasized links between human activity and the environment.”

Hanson adopts a variety of methods for understanding the relationships between the everyday lives of people and the cities in which they live, including surveys, questionnaires, and in-depth interviews. For example, her current research focuses on understanding how cities assist and/or constrain male and female entrepreneurs differently when they launch and sustain their businesses. “I’ve used a range of secondary data sources on self- employment and entrepreneurship, and with the help of many student research assistants, I’ve also collected a lot of primary data, via both personal interviews and mailed survey questionnaires.” By mixing her methods—using both quantitative and qualitative data—she and her students produce studies of cities and people that explore specific meanings and processes on the one hand but also seek generalizations on the other. “Combining these analytical approaches is, to me, an insightful and rewarding way to learn about the world.”

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they emphasized the role of landlords in shaping the hous- ing market and included an awareness of how racism is related to the allocation of housing and a sensitivity to the different urban experiences of ethnic groups.

Much of what these researchers at the School of Social Service uncovered in the 1930s is applicable to urban areas today. For example, a study by urban historian Raymond Mohl chronicles the making of black ghettos in Miami between 1940 and 1960. His research reveals the role of public policy decisions, landlordism, and discrimination in that process—forces identified by Abbott and others that continue to operate today.

Reflecting on Geography Consider why the insights gained from the studies done by these women have been ignored until recently. How do you think our knowledge of urban life would have been different if these studies had become part of our accepted urban curriculum?

Mobility How can we understand the spatial movement of people and activities in the city? The patterns of activities we see in the city are the result of thousands of individual decisions about location: Where should we locate our store—in the central city or the suburbs? Where should we live—down- town or outside the city? And so on. The result of such deci- sions might be expansion at the city’s edge or the relocation of activities from one part of the city to another. The cultural geographer looks at such decisions in terms of expansion and relocation diffusion (see Chapter 1).

To understand the role of diffusion, let us divide the city into two major areas—the inner city and the outer city. Those diffusion forces that result in residences, stores, and factories locating in the inner or central city are centraliz- ing forces. Those that result in activities locating outside the central city are called decentralizing forces, or subur- banizing forces. The pattern of homes, neighborhoods, offices, shops, and factories in the city results from the con- stant interplay of these two forces.

Centralization Centralization has two primary advantages: economic and social.

Economic Advantages An important economic advantage of central-city location has always been accessibility. For example, imagine that a department store seeks a new loca- tion. If its potential market area is viewed as a full circle, then naturally the best location is in the center. There, cus- tomers from all parts of the city can gain access with equal

ease. Before the automobile, a central-city location was par- ticularly necessary because public transportation—such as the streetcar—was usually focused there. A central location is also important to those who must deliver their goods to customers. Bakeries and dairies were usually located as close to the center of the city as possible to maximize the efficiency of their delivery routes.

Location near regional transportation facilities is another aspect of accessibility and is thus an economic advantage. Many a North American city developed with the railroad at its center. Hence, any activity that needed access to the railroad had to locate in the central city. In many urban areas, giant wholesale and retail manufacturing dis- tricts grew up around railroad districts, producing “freight- yard and terminal cities” that supplied the produce of the nation. Although many of these areas have been aban- doned by their original occupants, a walk by the railroad tracks today will give the most casual pedestrian a view of the modern “ruins” of the railroad city.

Another major economic advantage of the inner city is agglomeration, or clustering, which results in mutual ben- efits for businesses. For example, retail stores locate near one another to take advantage of the pedestrian traffic each generates. Because a large department store generates a good deal of foot traffic, any nearby store will also benefit.

Historically, offices clustered together in the central city because of their need for communication. Remember, the telephone was invented only in 1875. Before that, messengers hand-carried the work of banks, insurance firms, lawyers, and many other services. Clustering was essential for rapid com- munication. Even today, office buildings tend to cluster because face-to-face communication is still important for busi- nesspeople. In addition, central offices take advantage of the complicated support system that grows up in a central city and aids everyday efficiency. Printers, bars, restaurants, travel agents, and office suppliers are within easy reach.

Social Advantages Three social factors have traditionally reinforced central-city location: historical momentum, prestige, and the need to locate near work. The strength of historical momentum should not be underestimated. Many activities remain in the central city simply because they began there long ago. For example, the financial district in San Francisco is located mainly on Montgomery Street. This street originally lay along the waterfront, and San Francisco’s first financial institutions were established there in the mid-nineteenth century because it was the center of commercial action. In later years, however, landfill extended the shoreline (see Figure 10.11). Today, the financial district is several blocks from the bay; conse- quently, the district that began at the wharf head remained at its original location, even though other activity moved with the changing shoreline.

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The prestige associated with the downtown area is also a strong centralizing force. Some activities still necessitate a central-city address. Think how important it is for some advertising firms to be on New York’s Madison Avenue or for a stockbroker to be on Wall Street. This factor extends to many activities in cities of all sizes. The “downtown lawyer” and the “uptown banker” are examples. Residences have often been located in the central city because of the prestige associated with it.

Probably the strongest social force for centralization has been the desire to live near one’s place of employment. Until the development of the electric trolley in the 1880s, most urban dwellers had little alternative but to walk to work, and as most employment was in the central city, peo- ple had no choice but to live nearby. Upper-income people had their carriages and cabs, but others had nothing. Even after the introduction of electric streetcar lines in the 1880s, which made possible the exodus of some middle- class residents, many people continued to walk to work, par- ticularly those who could not afford the new housing being constructed in what Sam Bass Warner has called “streetcar suburbs.”

Suburbanization and Decentralization

The past 50 years have witnessed massive changes in the form and function of most Western cities (Figure 11.11). In the United States in particular, the suburbanization of res- idences and the decentralization of workplaces have emp- tied many downtowns of economic vitality. How and why has this happened? Geographer Neil Smith argues that the processes of suburbanization and decline of the inner city are fundamentally linked: capital investment in the suburbs is often made possible by disinvestment, or the removal of money, from the central city. In post–World War II Amer- ica, investors found greater returns on their money in the new suburbs than they did in the inner city, and therefore much of the economic boom of this time period took place in the suburbs at the expense of the city. Smith refers to these processes as uneven development (Figure 11.12). This type of explanation gives us a broad picture of the eco- nomic reasons that many cities are now decentralized. We will now look more closely, examining the specific socio- economic and public policy causes for the decentralization of our cities and for the problems that have resulted.

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Figure 11.11 A hypothetical decentralized city. While the old central business district (CBD) struggles (vacant stores and upper floors), newer activities locate either in the urban redevelopment project (offices, convention center, hotel) or in outlying office parks, malls, or shopping centers. However, some

new specialty shops might be found around the new downtown pedestrian mall. New industry locates in suburban industrial parks that, along with outlying office areas, form major destinations for daily lateral commuting. In what ways does your city follow this hypothetical pattern? In what ways does it differ?

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Socioeconomic Factors Changes in accessibility have been a major reason for decentralization. The department store that was originally located in the central city may now find that its customers have moved to the suburbs and no longer shop downtown. As a result, the department store may move to a suburban shopping mall. The same process affects many other industries as well. The activities that were located downtown because of its proximity to the railroad may now find trucking more cost-effective. They relocate closer to a freeway system that skirts the down- town area. Finally, many offices now locate near airports so that their executives and salespeople can fly in and out more easily.

Although agglomeration once served as a centralizing force, its former benefits have now become liabilities in many downtown areas. These disadvantages include rising rents as a result of the high demand for space; congestion in the sup- port system, which causes delays in getting supplies or means standing in endless lines for lunch; and traffic congestion, which makes delivery to market time-consuming and costly. Some downtown areas are so congested that traffic moves more slowly today than it did at the turn of the twentieth cen- tury. Often dissatisfied with the inconveniences of central-

city living, employees may demand higher wages as compen- sation. This adds to the cost of doing business in the central city, and many firms choose to leave instead. For example, many firms have left New York City for the suburbs. They claim that it costs less to locate there and that their employ- ees are happier and more productive because they do not have to put up with the turmoil of city life.

Clustering in new suburban locations can also have ben- efits. In industrial parks, for example, all the occupants share the costs of utilities and transportation links. Similar benefits can come from residential agglomeration. Suburban real estate developments take advantage of clustering by sharing the costs of schools, parks, road improvements, and utilities. New residents much prefer moving into a new development when they know that a full range of services is available nearby. Then they will not have to drive miles to find, say, the nearest hardware store. It is to the developer’s advantage to encourage construction of nearby shopping centers.

The need to be near one’s workplace has historically been a great centralizing force, but it can also be a very strong decentralizing force. At first the suburbs were “bed- room communities” from which people commuted to their jobs in the downtown area. This is no longer the case. In many metropolitan areas, most jobs are not in the central city but in outlying districts. Now people work in suburban industrial parks, manufacturing plants, office buildings, and shopping centers. Thus, a typical journey to work involves lateral commuting: travel from one suburb to another. As a result, most people who live away from the city center actually live closer to their workplaces (see the dis- cussion of edge cities on pages 392–393).

The prestige of the downtown area might once have lured people and businesses into the central city. But once it begins to decay, once shops close and offices are empty, a certain stigma develops that may drive away residents and commercial activities. Investors will not sink money into a downtown area that they think has no chance of recovery, and shoppers will not venture downtown when streets are filled with vacant stores, transients, pawnshops, and second- hand stores. One of the persistent problems faced by cities is how to reverse this image of the downtown area so that people once again consider it the focus of the city.

Reflecting on Geography Identify some of the efforts that your city has undertaken to create a better image of itself. Have these efforts been successful? Does this reimagining of the city actually help residents of the inner city?

Public Policy Many public policy decisions, particularly at the national level, have contributed greatly to the decen- tralization and abandonment of our cities. Both the Federal

Figure 11.12 Abandoned row houses in North Philadelphia. Often the economic neglect of these areas is directly linked to economic investment in the suburbs. (Associated Press.)

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Road Act of 1916 and the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 directed government spending on transportation to the advantage of the automobile and the truck. Urban express- ways, in combination with the emerging trucking industry, led to massive decentralization of industry and housing. In addition, the ability to deduct mortgage interest from income for tax purposes favors individual homeownership, which has tended to support a move to the suburbs.

The federal government in the United States has also intervened more directly in the housing market. In Crab- grass Frontier, Kenneth Jackson outlines the implications of two federal housing policies for the spatial patterning of our metropolitan areas. The first was the establishment of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in 1934 and its supplement, known as the GI Bill, enacted in 1944. These federal acts, which insured long-term mortgage loans for home construction, were meant to provide employment in the building trades and to help house the returning sol- diers from World War II. Although the FHA legislation con- tained no explicit antiurban bias, most of the houses it insured were located in new residential developments in the suburbs, thereby neglecting the inner city.

Jackson identifies three reasons that this happened. First, by setting particular terms for its insurance, the FHA favored the development of single-family over multifamily projects. Second, FHA-insured loans for repairs were of short duration and were generally small. Most families, therefore, were better off buying a new house that was probably in the suburbs than updating an older home in the city.

Jackson regards the third factor as the most important. To receive an FHA-insured loan, the applicant and the neighborhood of the property had to be assessed by an “unbiased professional.” This requirement was intended to guarantee that the property value of the house would be greater than the debt. This policy, however, encouraged bias against any neighborhood that was considered a poten- tial risk in terms of property values. The FHA explicitly warned against neighborhoods with a racial mix, assuming that such a social climate would bring property values down, and encouraged the inclusion of restrictive covenants in property deeds, which prohibited certain “undesirable” groups from buying property. The agency also prepared extensive maps of metropolitan areas depict- ing the locations of African-American families and predict- ing the spread of that population. These maps often served as the basis for redlining, a practice whereby banks and mortgage companies demarcated areas (often by drawing a red line around them on these maps) considered to be at high risk for loans.

These policies had two primary effects. First, they encouraged construction of single-family homes in subur- ban areas while discouraging central-city locations. Second,

they intensified the segregation of residential areas and actively promoted homogeneity in the new suburbs.

The second federal housing policy that had a major impact on the patterning of metropolitan areas, the United States Housing Act, was intended to provide public housing for those who could not afford private housing. Originally implemented in 1937, the legislation did encourage the construction of many low-income housing units. Yet most of those units were built in the inner city, thereby contribut- ing to the view of the suburbs as the refuge of the white middle class. This growing pattern of racial and economic segregation arose in part because public housing decisions were left up to local municipalities. Many municipalities did not need federal dollars and therefore did not want public housing. In addition, the legislation required that for every unit of public housing erected, one inferior housing unit had to be eliminated. Thus, only areas with inadequate housing units could receive federal dollars, again ensuring that public housing projects would be constructed in the older, downtown areas, not the newer suburbs. As Jackson claims, “The result, if not the intent, of the public housing program of the United States was to segregate the races, to concentrate the disadvantaged in inner cities, and to rein- force the image of suburbia as a place of refuge for the problems of race, crime, and poverty.”

The Costs of Decentralization Decentralization has taken its toll on North American cities. Many of the urban problems they now face are the direct result of the rapid decentraliza- tion that has taken place in the last 50 years. Those people who cannot afford to live in the suburbs are forced to live in inadequate and run-down housing in the inner city, areas that currently do not provide good jobs. Vacant storefronts, empty offices, and deserted factories testify to the move- ment of commercial functions from central cities to sub- urbs. Retail stores in North American central cities have steadily lost sales to suburban shopping centers. Even offices are finding advantages to suburban location when they can capitalize on lower costs and easier access to new transportation networks.

Decentralization has also cost society millions of dol- lars in problems brought to the suburbs. Where rapid suburbanization has occurred, sprawl has usually fol- lowed. A common pattern is leapfrog or checkerboard development, where housing tracts jump over parcels of farmland, resulting in a mixture of open lands with built- up areas. This pattern occurs because developers buy cheaper land farther away from built-up areas, thereby cutting their costs. Furthermore, home buyers are often willing to pay premium prices for homes in subdivisions surrounded by farmland (Figure 11.13). The developer’s gain is the area’s loss, for it is more expensive to provide city services—such as police, fire protection, sewers, and

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electrical lines—to those areas that lie beyond open parcels that are not built up. Obviously, the most cost-efficient form of development is the addition of new housing directly adja- cent to built-up areas so that the costs of providing new ser- vices are minimal.

Sprawl also extracts high costs because of the increased use of cars. Public transportation is extremely costly and inefficient when it must serve a low-density checkerboard development pattern—so costly that many cities and tran- sit firms cannot extend lines into these areas. This means that the automobile is the only form of transportation. More energy is consumed for fuel, more air pollution is cre- ated by exhaust, and more time is devoted to commuting and everyday activities in a sprawling urban area than in a centralized city.

Moreover, we should not overlook the costs of losing valuable agricultural land to urban development. Farmers cultivating the remaining checkerboard parcels have a hard time earning a living. They are usually taxed at extremely high rates because their land has high potential for devel- opment, and few can make a profit when taxes eat up all their resources. Often the only recourse is to sell out to sub- dividers. So the cycle of leapfrog development goes on.

Many cities are now taking strong measures to curb this kind of sprawling growth. San Jose, California, for example, one of the fastest-growing cities of the 1960s, is now focus- ing new development on empty parcels of the checker- board pattern. This is called in-filling. Other cities are tying the number of building permits granted each year to the

availability of urban services. If schools are already crowded, water supplies inadequate, and sewage plants overburdened, the number of new dwelling units approved for an area will reflect this lower carrying capacity.

Gentrification Beginning in the 1970s, urban scholars began to observe what seemed to be a trend opposite to suburbanization. This trend, called gentrification, is the movement of middle-class people into deteriorated areas of city centers. Gentrification often begins in an inner-city residential dis- trict, with gentrifiers moving into an area that had been run down and is therefore more affordable than suburban housing (Figure 11.14). The infusion of new capital into the housing market usually results in higher property val- ues, and this, in turn, often displaces residents who cannot afford the higher prices. Displacement opens up more housing for gentrification, and the gentrified district con- tinues its spatial expansion.

Commercial gentrification usually follows residential, as new patterns of consumption are introduced into the inner city by the middle-class gentrifiers. Urban shopping malls and pedestrian shopping corridors bring the conve- niences of the suburbs into the city, and bars and restau- rants catering to this new urban middle class provide entertainment and nightlife for the gentrifiers.

The speed with which gentrification has proceeded in many of our downtowns and the scale of landscape changes

Figure 11.13 Suburban sprawl. Suburbanization gives us a familiar landscape of look-alike houses and yards; automobile-efficient street and transportation patterns; and, in the background, remnants of agriculture, awaiting the day that they are converted into housing tracts. (Cameramann International, Ltd.)

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that accompany it are causing dramatic shifts in the urban mosaic. What factors have led to this reshaping of our cities?

Economic Factors Some urban scholars look to broad eco- nomic trends in the United States to explain gentrification. We already know from our discussion of suburbanization that throughout the post–World War II era most invest- ments in metropolitan land were made in the suburbs; as a result, land in the inner city was devalued. By the 1970s, many home buyers and commercial investors found land in the city much more affordable, and a better economic investment, than in the higher-priced suburbs. This situa- tion brought capital into areas that had been undervalued and accelerated the gentrifying process.

In addition, most Western countries have been experi- encing deindustrialization, a process whereby the economy is shifting from one based on secondary industry to one based on the service sector. This shift has led to the aban- donment of older industrial districts in the inner city, including waterfront areas. Many of these areas are prime targets of gentrifiers, who convert the waterfront from a noisy, commercial port area into an aesthetic asset. In Buenos Aires, for example, one of the new gentrified neigh- borhoods is Puerto Madero, an area that was once home to docking facilities and a wholesale market (Figure 11.15). The shift to an economy based on the service sector also means that the new productive areas of the city will be ded- icated to white-collar activities. These activities often take place in relatively clean and quiet office buildings, con- tributing to a view of the city as a more livable environment.

Social Factors Other scholars look to changes in social structure to explain gentrification. The maturing of the baby-boom generation has led to significant modifications of our traditional family structure and lifestyle. With a

Figure 11.14 Gentrification in Vancouver, Canada. Gentrification often occurs in older neighborhoods with historical buildings. These Victorian houses have been carefully restored to reflect their new owners’ interest in preserving the past, although this might have come at the cost of displacing the previous tenants. As you can see from this image, this neighborhood is also very close to downtown. Why? (Canada Stock Photographs.)

Figure 11.15 Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires. These expansive dock facilities in Buenos Aires have recently been converted by the city and private entrepreneurs into a center of nightlife for the city, complete with clubs, restaurants, and shopping. New condominiums and hotels are now under construction. Is there anything that marks this gentrified district as being located in Buenos Aires, instead of, say, New York City? (Courtesy of Mona Domosh)

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majority of women in the paid labor force and many young couples choosing not to have children or to delay that deci- sion, a suburban residential location looks less appealing. A gentrified location in the inner city attracts this new class because it is close to their managerial or professional jobs downtown, is usually easier to maintain, and is considered more interesting than the bland suburban areas where they grew up. Living in a newly gentrified area is also a way to dis- play social status. Many suburbs have become less exclusive, while older neighborhoods in the inner city frequently exploit their historical associations as a status symbol.

Political Factors Many metropolitan governments in the United States, faced with the abandonment of the central city by the middle class and therefore with the erosion of their tax base, have enacted policies to encourage com- mercial and residential development in downtown areas. Some policies provide tax breaks for companies willing to locate downtown; others furnish local and state funding to redevelop central-city residential and commercial buildings.

At a more comprehensive level, some larger metropol- itan areas have devised long-term planning agendas that target certain neighborhoods for revitalization. Often this is accomplished by first condemning the targeted area, thereby transferring control of the land to an urban- development authority or other planning agency. Such areas are often older residential neighborhoods that were originally built to house people who worked in nearby fac- tories, which are usually torn down or transformed into lofts or office space. The redevelopment authority might locate a new civic or arts center in the neighborhood. Public-sector initiatives often lead to private investment, thereby increasing property values. These higher property values, in turn, lead to further investment and the even- tual transformation of the neighborhood into a middle- to upper-class gentrified district.

Sexuality and Gentrif ication Gentrified residential dis- tricts are often correlated with the presence of a signifi- cant gay and lesbian population. It is fairly easy to understand this correlation. First, the typical suburban life tends not to appeal to people whose lifestyle is often regarded as different and whose community needs are often different from those of people living in the suburbs. Second, gentrified inner-city neighborhoods provide access to the diversity of city life and amenities that often include gay cultural institutions. In fact, the association of urban neighborhoods with gays and lesbians has a long history. For example, urban historian George Chauncey has documented gay culture in New York City between 1890 and World War II, showing that a gay world occupied

and shaped distinctive spaces in the city, such as neighbor- hood enclaves, gay commercial areas, and public parks and streets.

Yet, unlike this earlier period, when gay cultures were often forced to remain hidden, the gentrification of the postwar period has provided gay and lesbian populations with the opportunity to reshape entire neighborhoods actively and openly. Urban scholar Manuel Castells argues that in cities such as San Francisco, the presence of gay men in institutions directly linked to gentrification, such as the real estate industry, significantly influenced that city’s gen- trification processes in the 1970s.

Geographers Mickey Lauria and Lawrence Knopp emphasize the community-building aspect of gay men’s involvement in gentrification, recognizing that gays have seized an opportunity to combat oppression by creating neighborhoods over which they have maximum control and that meet long-neglected needs. Similarly, geographer Gill Valentine argues that the limited numbers and types of lesbian spaces in cities also serve as community-building centers for lesbian social networks.

According to geographer Tamar Rothenberg, the gen- trified neighborhood of Park Slope in Brooklyn is home to the heaviest concentration of lesbians in the United States. Its extensive social networks are marking the neighborhood as both a center of lesbian identity and a visible lesbian social space.

The Costs of Gentrification Gentrification often results in the displacement of lower-income people, who are forced to leave their homes because of rising property values. This displacement can have serious consequences for the city’s social fabric. Because many of the displaced people come from disadvantaged groups, gentrification frequently con- tributes to racial and ethnic tensions. Displaced people are often forced into neighborhoods more peripheral to the city, a trend that only adds to their disadvantages. In addi- tion, gentrified neighborhoods usually stand in stark con- trast to surrounding areas where investment has not taken place, thus creating a very visible reminder of the uneven distribution of wealth within our cities.

The success of a gentrification project is usually mea- sured by its appeal to an upper-middle-class clientele. This suggests that gentrified neighborhoods are completely homogeneous in their use of land. Residential areas are consciously planned to be separate from commercial dis- tricts and are themselves sorted by cost and tenure type (homeownership versus rental). Thus, gentrification often draws on the suburban notion of residential homogeneity and eliminates what many people consider to be a great asset of urban life—its diversity and heterogeneity (see Subject to Debate).

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Globalization The photograph of Chinatown in New York City that opened this chapter suggests some of the diverse impacts that globalization is having on the urban mosaic. Transna- tional firms, for example, create a workforce that is increas- ingly mobile, moving between countries with relative ease and impacting cities in multitude ways (as we saw in Chap- ter 10), while global workplaces bring people into cities and often across national borders to provide labor, creating new ethnic neighborhoods within cities. Globalization is also apparent in creating similar urban forms around the world: global cities such as Shanghai and New York, Delhi and London, for example, are beginning to share common

landscape characteristics, as we will see in the section on global urban form on pages 375–377.

New Ethnic Neighborhoods According to the United States Department of Homeland Security, approximately 4.8 million people immigrated to the United States between 2000 and 2005: 41 percent came from Latin America and the Caribbean, 32 percent from Asia, 18 percent from Europe and Canada, and 9 percent from other regions. The vast majority of these immigrants found job opportunities and cultural connections that drew them to major metropolitan regions in six states— California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illi- nois (Figure 11.16). This spatial concentration of

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Can Gentrification Be Socially Just? As we have seen, many scholars and policy makers criticize gentrification because it can lead to homelessness and the displacement of disadvantaged groups. Yet gentrification also helps downtowns become more lively social centers and can lead to an economic rejuvenation that benefits many groups of urban dwellers. In other words, gentrification has benefits as well as costs. But is there some way of diminishing the costs so that all residents can take advantage of the social and economic benefits of gentrification? Can gentrification be socially just?

Critics of the gentrification process point to a range of studies by geographers, planners, and sociologists in cities around the world that show similar outcomes: poor or disadvantaged groups of people are often left homeless or are displaced from their homes and forced to move into marginal areas of the city as wealthier and more privileged groups of people move into the neighborhood, often encouraged to do so by urban governments through a variety of public policy decisions (e.g., tax breaks and zoning changes). The neighborhood is then subject to inflows of capital that create urban amenities such as restaurants, clubs, and services. The rich and advantaged are able to benefit from these new services; the poor and disadvantaged are not. In addition, critics point out that gentrification often exacerbates racism since commonly gentrifiers are white, while those being displaced are people of color.

On the other side of the debate are those who believe that gentrification does not necessarily lead to

displacement and that its benefits can be shared by all. Recent studies have shown that urban gentrification brings benefits to the entire city: lower crime rates, better schools, higher property taxes (monies that can be used to improve urban services). And these advantages can be shared by all urban residents. In addition, they point to recent studies of several cities that have been successful in “managing” gentrification so that is does not lead to displacement. Some of these management techniques include rent control, eviction controls, strengthening tenants’ rights, and maintaining some control over new housing developments through governmental oversight. Many cities have grassroots organizations that fight displacement by bringing different interests together from diverse parts of the community: schools, churches, businesses, and residents. One particularly successful group in Chicago is called ONE (Organization of the Northeast), whose goal is to build a “successful multi-ethnic, mixed-economic community on the northeast side of Chicago” (for more information, see its web site: http://www.onechicago.org/index.html).

So, some scholars and policy makers believe a carefully managed gentrification can be socially just in that its benefits can be enjoyed by a diverse range of residents; others say that the lure of more money will eventually lead to the displacement of the poor in favor of the rich. What is the situation in your city? Do you think tenants’ rights groups and other similar organizations can control gentrification?

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America’s new immigrants has created diverse communi- ties with distinctive landscapes, both within the downtown areas of these cities and in the suburban regions. Miami’s Little Havana, for example, is easily recognized by the com- mercial signs in Spanish, Spanish street names, and the col- ors and styles of buildings. Parts of what were once run-down neighborhoods of the city have been remade into vibrant commercial and residential communities. Another example is Los Angeles: 80 years ago, a Saturday morning stroll through the CBD of Los Angeles would have led through streets lined with department stores, movie theaters, and offices. Now it is filled with the sounds of Latin music and vendors selling everything from elec- tronics to mango ice cream.

But these new ethnic landscapes are not limited to the central city. Portions of America’s suburbs have also become diverse. The decentralization of the downtown has created new economic centers in suburban regions, and immigrants are drawn to these centers. According to the 2007 census, approximately 40% of new immigrants to the United States are settling in the suburbs. Geographer Wei Li refers to these new immigrant communities located in the suburbs as eth- noburbs. In Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburban community outside of Washington, D.C., almost a quarter of all households are headed by a person who is foreign-born. Instead of the dense residential and commercial districts that characterize downtown ethnic enclaves, the new suburban ethnicity is proclaimed within shopping centers, suburban cemeteries, and dispersed churches and temples. According to geographer Joseph Wood, their presence in the landscape is often not visible to observers precisely because it is subur- ban. For example, most of the 50,000 Vietnamese-Americans who migrated to the Washington, D.C., area from the 1970s

through the 1990s settled in suburbs in northern Virginia. The focal point of the Vietnamese community there is the Eden Center, a typical L-shaped shopping center that has been transformed into a Vietnamese-American economic and social center (Figure 11.17). This pattern of shopping plazas serving as ethnic community markers for a dispersed immigrant population is not peculiar to northern Virginia; it is commonplace in the metropolitan areas of most major North American cities.

Urban ethnic enclaves are not limited to U.S. or Cana- dian cities. Many cities around the world are experiencing

New York-New York- Northern NJ-Northern NJ- Long IslandLong Island 224,444*224,444*

Los Angeles-Los Angeles- Long Beach-Long Beach- Santa AnaSanta Ana 120,880120,880

Miami-Miami- Fort Lauderdale-Fort Lauderdale- Miami BeachMiami Beach 98,922*98,922*

Washington-Arlington-Washington-Arlington- Alexandria-RockvilleAlexandria-Rockville

54,556*54,556*

Chicago-Chicago- Naperville-Naperville-

JolietJoliet 49,755*49,755*

San Francisco-San Francisco- Oakland-Oakland- FreemontFreemont 38,350*38,350*

Houston-Houston- Sugar Land-Sugar Land- BaytownBaytown 31,557*31,557*

Boston-Boston- Cambridge-Cambridge-

QuincyQuincy 28,473*28,473*

Dallas-Dallas- Fort Worth-Fort Worth-

ArlingtonArlington 26,654*26,654*

Atlanta-Atlanta- Sandy Springs-Sandy Springs-

MariettaMarietta 25,270*25,270*

New York- Northern NJ- Long Island 224,444*

Los Angeles- Long Beach- Santa Ana 120,880*

Miami- Fort Lauderdale- Miami Beach 98,922*

Washington-Arlington- Alexandria-Rockville

54,556*

Chicago- Naperville-

Joliet 49,755*

San Francisco- Oakland- Freemont 38,350*

Houston- Sugar Land- Baytown 31,557*

Boston- Cambridge-

Quincy 28,473*

Dallas- Fort Worth-

Arlington 26,654*

Atlanta- Sandy Springs-

Marietta 25,270*

Number of legal permanent residents obtaining residence in 2006

*

Figure 11.16 Map indicating the location of 10 metropolitan areas in the United States with the largest number of persons obtaining legal permanent resident status, 2006. Why is immigration focused on these particular cities? (Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2006.)

Figure 11.17 Eden Shopping Center in Fairfax, Virginia. This shopping plaza serves as a social and cultural center for the Vietnamese community of northern Virginia. (Courtesy of Joseph Wood.)

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the effects of immigration as globalization makes it easier for people from one country to seek employment in thriv- ing metropolitan areas of a different country. As we’ve learned from previous chapters, globalization has created conditions that support the movement of peoples across national and ethnic boundaries (Figure 11.18). There are North African communities in Paris, Turkish neighbor- hoods in Berlin, and Kurdish neighborhoods in Istanbul, and each of these is impacting the culture, economy, and landscape of these cities in profound ways (see Global Spotlight).

A Global Urban Form? As we have seen, the increasing mobility brought about by globalization can bring diversity (new immigrants living in what once were all-white suburbs, bringing their own cul- tural forms into new contexts), but it can also lead to

Figure 11.18 A Muslim family in the neighborhood of Belleville in Paris. Many cities have ethnic enclaves where immigrants from other countries live, creating a different scale of community within the larger scale of the city. How are these ethnic enclaves related to globalization? (Peter Turnley/Corbis.)

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT Spaces of Inclusion and Exclusion: Urban Ethnic Enclaves Globalization has created political and economic conditions that support the movement of peoples across national and ethnic boundaries. For example, many Kurdish-identified people from southeastern Turkey have migrated to Istanbul to escape the political and military turmoil surrounding the ongoing conflict between the state and the Kurdish separatist movement. In Istanbul, they seek ways to feel at home in a city that is divided into ethnically, religiously, and regionally segregated neighborhoods. Approximately 60 percent of Istanbul’s 12 million inhabitants were born elsewhere, creating a city that resembles a patchwork of ethnic regions. Some Kurds are able to establish their “own” neighborhoods, while others find themselves living among people who consider them different and would prefer to exclude them. As geographer Anna Secor found, most would rather live in Kurdish-identified neighborhoods, since they provide a “safe haven” within an often hostile urban environment. For these migrants, the city provides a space of affiliation, one where they can identify as Kurdish and as Turkish. One of the women Secor interviewed said, “I feel most comfortable in

the place where I live. It is a housing development of 75 homes, mostly Kurds and Alevis. . . . Our culture is the same, our language is the same. I feel very comfortable there.”

For others, faced with discriminatory and exclusionary housing practices, the city becomes a space of alienation. Unable to find adequate housing in their “own” ethnic neighborhood, some Kurds are put in the position of “hiding” their identity. Here is how another woman migrant put it:

We came from Bitlis here, and being Kurds, everyone excluded us. At the moment it is still like this. In the neighborhood where we live, we are the only Kurds. If we had said we were Kurds they wouldn’t even had given us the house. . . . I am Kurdish, okay. I am proud of my Kurdishness. But did something happen to make me say “Kurd, Kurd” constantly?

Ethnic neighborhoods, in other words, can be both spaces of identification and spaces of exclusion.

Based on Secor, 2004

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homogeneity. The relative ease of communication and transportation today helps erode cultural barriers, and global capital allows international and transnational devel- opment companies to finance, design, and construct simi- lar buildings throughout the world. In terms of the urban mosaic, this means that cities are beginning to resemble each other, as particular urban elements that used to be specific to one place or one culture are now being exported to other places outside their original context. For example, as we discovered in our section on downtowns, skyscrapers—once thought to be a uniquely American urban feature—are now reaching their greatest heights in Asia. Taipei 101 in Taiwan (Figure 11.19) is currently the tallest building in the world, followed by the Shanghai World Financial Center and the twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lampur. Asia might soon lose its dominance here, as a new tower is under construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that promises to top Taipei 101 when it is com-

pleted in 2009. Called the Burj Dubai, the 2300-foot build- ing is being developed by a team of companies that are incredibly international. The land development corpora- tion is from Dubai, the architecture firm is from the United States, while the main contractor is the Samsung Corporation from South Korea.

Increasingly, much of the new construction within the world’s cities is being impacted by these global develop- ment corporations and teams, including commercial struc- tures, such as skyscrapers and shopping malls (see the section on the new urban landscape on pages 393–396), and residential structures. An interesting example in this regard is the global spread of gated communities. Gated communities are residential areas that are inaccessible to the public. These private communities can take several forms, either using literal gates to enclose streets and yards or in some way introducing forms of surveillance such as guards posted at all street entrances. Like skyscrapers, gated communities are often considered “American” since they became common in the United States in the late twen- tieth century. But they now can be found in many places throughout the world, often with architectural styles simi- lar to those in the United States. Gated communities have become particularly prevalent in large cities in Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Indonesia, India, and China, places with an emerging middle and upper class who desire residences that are secure while also expressing their new economic status. Gated communities serve this purpose for them, since they are privately controlled and guarded, and are considered symbols of wealth and pres- tige. Many of these communities resemble each other in architectural style as well as form (i.e., gated), contribut- ing to what some believe is the homogenization of the urban landscape, a sort of global residential form.

Figure 11.19 Taipei 101, in downtown Taipei, Taiwan. Like other growing cities, Taipei is betting that having the tallest building in the world will bring more and more attention to its bid for regional and perhaps global economic dominance. Notice how the building dwarfs the surrounding, older skyscrapers and is built in a very different architectural style. What accounts for these differences? (Digital Vision Ltd./SuperStock.)

However, as urban geographers are now showing, even though many of these gated communities are financed and developed by large transnational corporations or teams, the notion that they are uniform or somehow dominated by American landscape tastes is simply not true. Local cul- tural contexts, either at the regional or national level, are important shapers both of the styles and meanings of these communities.

For example, geographers Choon-Piew Pow and Lily Kong interviewed residents of Vanke Garden City in Shang- hai, a well-established gated community, and examined advertisements for many of the gated communities in the city (Figure 11.20). What they found was that these commu- nities fulfill the aspiration of the new Chinese middle class for exclusivity and prestige based on their association to the West, but they do so partly by drawing on meanings that are rooted in Chinese history and culture. In fact, gated com- munities are nothing new in China but have deep roots in Chinese history (see Chapter 10, on the cosmomagical city) and were part of the collectivist vision of China’s socialist government. In Shanghai, Pow and Kong discovered, for example, that houses with private gardens, a feature of these new gated communities, allure buyers not necessarily because of their association to prestige and the West, but because gardens in Chinese history have long been associ- ated with the highest ideals of civilization—the contempla-

Figure 11.20 A gated community in the Pudong area of Shanghai. Pudong, an area of Shanghai that was predominantly agricultural until the 1990s, is now home to many of the city’s nouveaux riches. Gated communities here are common, as signs of status and for security. From the outside, this community looks little different from what you would see outside Atlanta. Why is that? (Kevin Hulsey/KHI Inc.)

tion of nature from a secluded location. They also discov- ered that Western housing plans were altered in these com- munities to accommodate Chinese-style kitchens (more open) and Chinese notions of feng shui—the arrangement of spaces to create harmonious energy flows. As an exam- ple of what is happening in today’s global cities, gated resi- dential communities show us that on the one hand they are being produced by similar forces (global capital flows, transnational development firms), but on the other they are also shaped by local, regional, and national cultural contexts.

Nature-Culture How can we understand the relationships between the urban mosaic and the physical environment? The physical environ- ment affects cities, just as urbanization profoundly alters nat- ural environmental processes (Figure 11.21). The theme of nature-culture helps us to organize information about these city-nature relationships. Although we discuss these topics in general terms in the next pages, one should not lose sight of how the differing cultural fabric within and between cities affects the relationship between city and nature. Urban ecol- ogy differs greatly from place to place because of different physical environments and varying cultural patterns.

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Figure 11.21 Suburban homes built on landfills, Treasure Island, Florida. When land values are high and pressure for housing intense, terrain rarely stands in the way of the developer. In fact, particular physical site characteristics can actually increase land values. What site characteristics evident in this photo tell you that Treasure Island is a very expensive place to live? (Cameramann International, Ltd.)

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Urban Weather and Climate Cities alter virtually all aspects of local weather and climate. Temperatures are higher in cities, rainfall increases, the incidence of fog and cloudiness is greater, and levels of atmospheric pollution are much higher.

The causes of these changes are no mystery. Because cities cover large areas of land with streets, buildings, park- ing lots, and rooftops, about 50 percent of the urban area is a hard surface. Rainfall is quickly carried into gutters and sewers, so that little standing water is available for evapora- tion. Because evaporation removes heat from the air, when moisture is reduced, evaporation is lessened and air tem- peratures are higher.

Moreover, cities generate enormous amounts of heat. This heat comes not just from the heating systems of buildings but also from automobiles, industry, and even human bodies. One study showed that on a winter day in Manhattan, the amount of heat produced in the city is two and a half times the amount that reaches the ground from the sun. This results in a large mass of warmer air sitting over the city, called the urban heat island (Figure 11.22). The heat island causes yearly temperature averages in cities to be 3.5�F (2�C) higher than in the countryside; during the winter, when there is more city-produced heat, the average difference can easily reach 7�F to 10�F (4�C to 5.6�C).

Urbanization also affects precipitation (rainfall and snowfall). Because of higher temperatures in the urban area, snowfall will be about 5 percent less than in the surrounding countryside. However, rainfall can be 5 to 10 percent higher. The increased rainfall results from two factors: the large number of dust particles in urban air and the higher city temperatures. Dust particles are a necessary precondition for condensation, offering a nucleus around which moisture can adhere. An abundance of dust particles, then, facilitates con- densation. That is why fog and clouds (dust domes) are usu- ally more frequent around cities (Figure 11.23).

Urban Hydrology Not only is the city a great consumer of water, but it also alters runoff patterns in a way that increases the frequency and magnitude of flooding. Within the city, residential areas are usually the greatest consumers of water. Water consumption can vary, but generally each person in the United States uses about 60 gallons (264 liters) per day in a residence. Of course, residential demand varies. It is greater in drier climates as well as in middle- and high- income neighborhoods. Higher-income groups usually have a larger number of water-using appliances, such as washing machines, dishwashers, and swimming pools.

Urbanization can increase both the frequency and the magnitude of flooding because cities create large impervi- ous areas where water cannot soak into the earth. Instead, precipitation is converted into immediate runoff. It is forced into gutters, sewers, and stream channels that have been straightened and stripped of vegetation, which results in more frequent high water levels than are found in a com- parable area of rural land. Furthermore, the time between rainfall and peak runoff is reduced in cities; there is more lag in the countryside, where water runs across soil and veg- etation into stream channels and then into rivers. So, because of hard surfaces and artificial collection channels, runoff in cities is concentrated and immediate.

Urban Vegetation Until a decade ago, it was commonly thought that cities were made up mostly of artificial materials: asphalt, con- crete, glass, and steel. Studies, however, show that about two-thirds of a typical North American city is composed of trees and herbaceous plants (mostly weeds in vacant lots and cultivated grasses in lawns). This urban vegetation is usually a mix of natural and introduced species and is a crit- ical component of the urban ecosystem because it affects the city’s topography, hydrology, and meteorology.

More specifically, urban vegetation influences the quantity and quality of surface water and groundwater;

Major roads

Figure 11.22 Diagram of the urban heat island in Chengdu, China. The deep colors (purple and red) indicate higher temperatures, while the shades of yellow and green indicate lower temperatures. Notice the marked contrast in temperature between the built-up part of the city and the surrounding rural areas. (Source: Shangming and Bo, 2001.)

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reduces wind velocity and turbulence and temperature extremes; affects the pattern of snow accumulation and melting; absorbs thousands of tons of airborne particulates and atmospheric gases; and offers a habitat for mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects, all of which play some useful role in the urban ecosystem. Furthermore, urban vegeta- tion influences the propagation of sound waves by muffling out much of the city’s noise; affects the distribution of nat- ural and artificial light; and, finally, is an extremely impor- tant component in the development of soil profiles— which, in turn, control hillside stability.

Our urban settlements are still closely tied to the phys- ical environment. Cities change these natural processes in profound ways, and we must understand these distur- bances in order to make better decisions about adjust- ments and control.

Cultural Landscape What do the urban patterns we have been discussing look like? How can we recognize different types of cities from their three-dimensional forms, and how are these forms changing? Cities, like all places humans inhabit, demon- strate an intriguing array of cultural landscapes, the read- ing of which gives varied insights into the complicated interactions between people and their surroundings. In this section, we offer some thoughts about how to view and “read” urban landscapes. We begin by discussing some geo- graphical reference points—one might say helpful hints— for investigating and reading cityscapes. We then turn to a discussion of one of the key factors in reading a cityscape, and that is understanding a city’s landscape history. A brief

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Figure 11.23 The dust dome over Cincinnati, Ohio. Numbers show the concentration of particulate matter in the air at an elevation of 3000 feet (914 meters). The higher the value, the greater the amount of particulate matter. Does land use (industrial, central business district, and so on) have an effect on the concentration of particulate matter in the air? (After Bach and Hagedorn, 1971.)

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discussion of the new components in urban landscapes then follows. Much of what we say will strike a familiar chord, because our urban scene is the basis of so much of our life. You will find that you have a great deal of intuitive knowledge about cityscapes.

Ways of Reading Cityscapes What do cities look like? Understanding urban landscapes requires an appreciation of large-scale urbanizing processes and local urban environments both past and present. The patterns we see today in the city, such as building forms, architecture, street plans, and land use, are a composite of past and present cultures. They reflect the needs, ideas, technology, and institutions of human occupancy. Two concepts underlie our examination of urban landscapes. The first is urban morphology, or the physical form of the city, which consists of street patterns, building sizes and shapes, architecture, and density. The second concept is functional zonation, which refers to the pattern of land uses within a city or, put another way, the existence of areas with differing functions, such as resi- dential, commercial, and governmental. Functional zona- tion also includes social patterns—whether, for example, an area is occupied by the power elite or by people of low status, by Jews or by Christians, by the wealthy or by the poor. Both concepts are central to understanding the cul- tural landscape of cities, because both make statements about how cultures occupy and shape space.

Human geographers look to cityscapes for many differ- ent kinds of information (see Doing Geography at the end of the chapter). Here we discuss four interconnected themes that are commonly used as organizational frame- works for landscape research (Figure 11.24).

Landscape Dynamics Think of some familiar features of the cityscape: downtown activities creeping into residential areas, deteriorated farmland on a city’s outskirts, older buildings demolished for the new. These are all signs of spe- cific processes that create urban change; the landscape faithfully reflects these dynamics.

When these visual clues are systematically mapped and analyzed, they offer evidence for the currents of change expressed in our cities. Of equal interest is where change is not occurring—those parts of the city that, for various reasons, remain relatively static. An unchanging landscape also conveys an important message. Perhaps that part of the city is stagnant because it is removed from the forces that produce change in other parts. Or per- haps there is a conscious attempt by local residents to inhibit change—to preserve open space by resisting sub- urban development, for example, or to preserve a his- toric landmark. Documenting landscape changes over

time gives valuable insight into the paths of settlement development.

The City as Palimpsest Because cityscapes change, they offer a rich field for uncovering remnants of the past. A palimpsest is an old parchment used repeatedly for written messages. Before a new missive was written, the old was erased, yet rarely were all the previous characters and words completely obliterated—so remnants of earlier messages were still visible. This record of old and new is called a palimpsest, a word geographers use fondly to describe the visual mixture of past and present in cultural landscapes.

Cities are full of palimpsestic offerings, scattered across the contemporary landscape. How often have you noticed an old Victorian farmhouse surrounded by new tract homes, or a historic street pattern obscured or highlighted by a recent urban redevelopment project, or a brick factory shadowed by new high-rise office buildings? All of these

Figure 11.24 Boston’s central city. There are various ways of looking at cityscapes: as indicators of change, as palimpsests, as expressions of visual biases, and as manifestations of symbolic traditions. This photo offers evidence of all approaches. Which clues would you select to illustrate each cityscape theme? (Steve Dunwell/The Image Bank.)

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give clues to past settlement patterns, and all are mute tes- timony to the processes of change in the city.

Our interest in this historical accumulation is more than romantic nostalgia. A systematic collection of these urban remnants provides us with glimpses of the past that might otherwise be hidden. All societies pick and choose, consciously or not, what they wish to preserve for future generations, and, in this process, a filtering takes place that often excludes and distorts information. But the land- scape does not lie.

The urban palimpsest, then, offers a way to find the past in the contemporary landscape. We can evaluate these remnants to glean a better understanding of historical settlements.

Symbolic Cityscapes Landscapes contain much more than literal messages. They are also loaded with figurative or metaphorical meaning and can elicit emotions and memo- ries. To some people, skyscrapers are more than high-rise office buildings: they are symbols of progress, economic vitality, downtown renewal, or corporate identities. Simi- larly, historical landscapes—those parts of the city where the past has been preserved—help people to define them- selves in time; establish social continuity with the past; and codify a largely forgotten, yet sometimes idealized, past.

D. W. Meinig, a geographer who has given much thought to urban landscapes, maintains that there are three highly symbolic townscapes in the United States: the New England village, with its white church, commons, and tree- lined neighborhoods; Main Street of Middle America, a string street of a small midwestern town, with storefronts,

Figure 11.25 Main Street, Ferndale, California. The symbolism of Main Street, USA, is a powerful force in shaping communities today, particularly because an ersatz Main Street is the central element of Disney World. Think of the ways this symbol is used in art, literature, film, and television and of the messages and emotions conveyed by this landscape. (ChromoSohm/Sohm/Photo Researchers, Inc.)

bandstand, and park (Figure 11.25); and what Meinig calls California Suburbia, suburbs of quarter-acre lots, effusive garden landscaping, swimming pools, and ranch-style houses. As Meinig explains: “Each is based upon an actual landscape of a particular region. Each is an image derived from our national experience . . . simplified . . . and widely advertised so as to become a commonly understood sym- bol. Each has . . . influenced the shaping of the American scene over broader areas.”

More politically and problematically, the cultural landscape is an important vehicle for constructing and maintaining, subtly and implicitly, certain social and eth- nic distinctions. For example, geographers James and Nancy Duncan have found that because conspicuous con- sumption is a major way of conveying social identity in our culture, elite landscapes are created through large-lot zon- ing, imitation country estates, and the preservation of undeveloped land. They see the residential landscapes in upper-income areas as controlled and managed to rein- force class and status categories. Their study of elite sub- urbs near Vancouver and New York sensitizes us to how the cultural landscape can be thought of as a repository of symbols used by our society to differentiate itself and pro- tect vested interests.

Perception of the City During the last 25 years, social scien- tists have been concerned with measuring people’s percep- tions of the urban landscape. They assume that if we really know what people see and react to in the city, we can ask architects and urban planners to design and create a more humane urban environment.

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Kevin Lynch, an urban designer, pioneered a method for recording people’s images of the city. On the basis of interviews conducted in Boston, Jersey City (New Jersey), and Los Angeles, Lynch suggested five important elements in mental maps (images) of cities:

1. Pathways are the routes of frequent travel, such as streets, freeways, and transit corridors. We experience the city from the pathways, and they become the threads that hold our maps together.

2. Edges are boundaries between areas or the outer limits of our image. Mountains, rivers, shorelines, and even major streets and freeways are commonly used as edges. They tend to define the extremes of our urban vision. Then we fill in the details.

3. Nodes are strategic junction points, such as breaks in transportation, traffic circles, or any place where important pathways come together.

4. Districts are small areas with a common identity, such as ethnic areas and functional zones (for instance, the CBD or a row of car dealers).

5. Landmarks are reference points that stand out because of shape, height, color, or historical importance. The city hall in Los Angeles, the Washington Monument, and the golden arches of a McDonald’s are all landmarks.

Using these concepts, Lynch saw that some parts of the cities were more legible, or easier to decipher, than others. Lynch discovered that, in general, legibility increases when the urban landscape offers clear pathways, nodes, districts, edges, and landmarks. Further, some cities are more legible than others. For example, Lynch found that Jersey City is not very legible. Wedged between New York City and Newark, Jersey City is fragmented by railroads and high- ways. Residents’ mental maps of Jersey City have large blank areas in them. When questioned, they can think of few local landmarks. Instead, they tend to point to the New York City skyline just across the river.

Landscape Histories of American, Canadian, and European Cities When you walk around any city, you are looking at build- ings and roads and parks that were built in different times for diverse purposes. Understanding and “reading” urban landscapes, therefore, requires in-depth knowledge of the people who have created and inhabited them, in both the past and the present. In this next section, we provide a guide to the history of urban forms that have characterized Western cities—cites that trace their origins to Greece and Rome. We provide this guide not only to help you read the landscape of your own city, but also to enrich your under- standing of the diverse array of urban landscapes located throughout North America and much of Europe.

The Greek City Western civilization and the Western city both trace their roots back to ancient Greece. City life dif- fused to Greece from Mesopotamia. By 600 B.C., there were more than 500 towns and cities on the Greek main- land and surrounding islands. As Greek civilization expanded, cities spread with it throughout the Mediter- ranean, reaching as far as the north shore of Africa, Spain, southern France, and Italy. These cities were of modest size, rarely containing more than 5000 inhabitants. Athens, however, may have reached a population of 300,000 in the fifth century B.C.

Greek cities had two distinctive functional zones: the acropolis and the agora. In many ways, the acropolis was sim- ilar to the citadel of Mesopotamian cities. Here were the tem- ples of worship, the storehouse of valuables, and the seat of power. The acropolis also served as a place of retreat in time of siege (Figure 11.26). If the acropolis was the domain of power, the agora was the province of the citizens. As origi- nally conceived, the agora was a place for public meetings, education, social interaction, and judicial matters. In other words, it was the civic center, the hub of democratic life for Greek men (women were excluded from political life).

Figure 11.26 The Acropolis in Athens. The Acropolis dominates the contemporary city and reminds us that many cities throughout the world have been centered on fortified places that eventually became more symbolic than functional. How does this landscape compare with other defensive acropolis sites? (James Hanley/Photo Researchers.)

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The early Greek cities probably were not planned but rather grew spontaneously, without benefit of formal guide- lines. However, some scholars think that many ceremonial areas within these cities were designed to be seen accord- ing to prescribed lines of vision and that those lines of vision included not only the buildings but also the natural landscape that surrounded it. The human aesthetic sense was given a degree of authority that it did not have in the cosmomagical city.

More formalized city design and plan are apparent in later Greek cities that were built in areas of colonial expansion. One of the best examples of such planned cities is Miletus, on the eastern shore of the Mediter- ranean, in Ionia (present-day Turkey). The city was laid out in a rigid grid pattern, imposing its geometry onto the physical conditions of the site (Figure 11.27). Although the source of such a plan is debatable, clearly this orderly

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Figure 11.27 The plan of the city of Miletus by Hippodamus, circa 450 B.C. Notice how the strict grid is imposed on the irregular coastline. The central agora is also regularized, characteristic of this colonial phase of the Greek city. (Source: Vance, 1990.)

and coherent layout indicates an abstract and highly ratio- nal notion of urban life and seems to fit well with the func- tional needs of a colonial city.

Roman Cities By 200 B.C., Rome had replaced Greece as the chief urbanizing force in the West. The Romans adopted many urban traits from the Greeks as well as from the Etrus- cans, a civilization of central Italy that Rome had con- quered. As the Roman Empire expanded, city life diffused farther into France, while also reaching Germany, England, interior Spain, the Alpine countries, and parts of eastern Europe—areas that had not previously experienced urban- ization. Most of these cities were military and trading out- posts of the Roman Empire. The military camp, or castrum, was the basis for many of these new settlements. In Eng- land, the Roman trail of city building can be found by look- ing for the suffixes -caster and -chester—as in Lancaster or

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Winchester, cities originally founded as Roman camps. Fig- ure 11.28 shows the diffusion of urban life into Europe as the Greek and Roman frontiers advanced.

The landscape of these Roman cities shared several traits with that of their Greek predecessors. The gridiron street pattern, used in later Greek cities, was fundamental to Roman cities. This pattern can still be seen in the heart of such Italian cities as Pavia (Figure 11.29). The straight streets and right-angle intersections make a striking contrast to the curved, wandering lanes of the later medieval quar- ters or the streets of Rome itself. At the intersection of a city’s two major thoroughfares was the forum, a zone com- bining elements of the Greek acropolis and agora. Here were not only the temples of worship, administrative build- ings, and warehouses, but also the libraries, schools, and marketplaces that served the common people.

Rome’s most important legacy probably was not its architectural and engineering feats, although they remain landmarks in European cities to this day, but rather the Roman method for choosing the site of a city, which remains applicable today. The Romans consistently chose sites with transportation in mind. The Roman Empire was held together by a complicated system of roads and highways linking towns and cities. In choosing a site for a new settlement, the Romans made access to transportation a major consideration. The significance of Roman location was such that even though urban life declined dramatically with the collapse of the empire, many cities—such as Paris, London, and Vienna—were

established centuries later on the same old Roman sites because they offered the advantage of access to the sur- rounding countryside.

With the decline of the Roman Empire by A.D. 400, urban life also declined. Historians attribute the fall of Rome to internal decay, the invasion of the Germanic peoples, and other factors. Cities were sapped of their vital- ity. The highway system that linked them fell into disrepair, so that cities could no longer exchange goods and ideas. When Roman cities were invaded, they could no longer count on outside military support as the administrative structure of the empire collapsed. As symbols of a conquer- ing empire, Roman outposts were either actively destroyed or, devoid of purpose, simply left to decay.

Yet there were exceptions. Some cities of the Mediter- ranean survived because they established trade with the Eastern Roman Empire centered in Constantinople. After the eighth century, some cities—particularly those in Spain—were infused with new vigor by the Almohad and Almoravis empires of Morocco, which spread across the Mediterranean from northern Africa. The cities of north- ern regions were unable to survive, however. Cities became small villages. Where thousands had formerly thrived, a few hundred eked out a living.

Urban decline occurred only in the areas that had been under Roman rule. Other civilizations continued to thrive throughout this period. The achievements of Chinese civi- lization and the great cities of the Mayan Empire remind us that this collapse was limited to a particular area of Europe.

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The Medieval City The medieval period, lasting roughly from A.D. 1000 to 1500, was a time of renewed urban expansion in Europe that also deeply influenced the future of urban life. As the Germanic and Slavic peoples expanded their empires, urban life spread beyond the borders of the former Roman Empire, into the north and east of Europe. In only four cen- turies, 2500 new German cities were founded. Most cities of present-day Europe were established during this period, including many built on old Roman sites.

Scholars have debated why urban life began to regain vigor in the eleventh century. In essence, it was the result of the revival of both local and long-distance trade, which was itself the consequence of a combination of factors, includ- ing population increase, political stability and unification, and agricultural expansion through new land reclamations along with the development of new agricultural technolo- gies. Sustained trading networks required protected mar- kets and supply centers, functions that renewed life in cities. In addition, trading—particularly over long distances—led to the development of a new social class: the merchant class. Members of the merchant class breathed new life into early medieval cities, providing the impetus and the wealth for sustained city building.

The medieval city can be characterized by the pres- ence of four features: the charter, the wall, the market- place, and the cathedral. The charter was a governmental decree from a regional power, usually a feudal lord, grant-

ing political autonomy to the town. This act had impor- tant implications, as it freed the population from feudal restrictions, made the city responsible for its own defense and government, and often allowed it to coin money. The wall served a defensive purpose, but it was also a symbol of the sharp distinction between country and city (Figure 11.30). Within the wall, most inhabitants were, by charter, free; outside, most were serfs. A city of free citizens, not based on a vast pool of slave labor, was a first in the history of the Western world.

Another central feature was the marketplace. It symbol- ized the important role of economic activities in the medieval city. The city depended on the countryside for its food and produce, which were traded in the market. The market was also a center for long-distance trade. Textiles, salt, ore, and other raw materials were bought and sold in the marketplace. At one end of the marketplace stood the town hall, a fairly tall structure that provided meeting space for the city’s political leaders. The town hall often served as a market hall as well, with many of its rooms used to store and display the finer goods that could not be exposed to the natural elements outside on the market square. Yet, in many of the larger commercial cities, civic and economic functions were located in separate buildings. Brugge, Belgium, an important trading center for northern Europe, had two distinct complexes of buildings at its center (Figure 11.31).

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Figure 11.29 The Roman grid street pattern in Pavia, Italy. Many of the straight streets from Roman times remain in use 20 centuries after they were first built. The dotted lines indicate the Roman streets that do not exist today. Beyond the Roman core, the streets developed in irregular patterns. Why do the present-day buildings not necessarily follow the Roman grid?

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The crowning glory of a medieval town was usually the cathedral, a dominating architectural symbol of the impor- tance of the church. Often the cathedral, the marketplace, and the town hall were close together, indicating close ties among religion, commerce, and politics. However, the church was frequently the prevailing political force in medieval towns.

The functional zonation of the medieval city differs markedly from that of our modern cities. The city was divided into small quarters, or districts, each containing its own center that served as its focal point. Within each of these districts lived people who were engaged in similar occupations. Coopers (people who made and repaired wooden barrels), for example, lived in one particular dis- trict, attended the same local church, and belonged to the same guild. Their church and guildhall were located in the small center area of their district. Along the narrow, wind- ing streets surrounding this center area were the houses and workplaces of the coopers. Many worked in the first story of their houses and lived above the shop, with their apprentices living above them. The more prestigious groups lived in occupational districts close to the center of the city, whereas those who were involved in noxious activ- ities, such as butchers and leather workers, lived closer to the city walls.

Some of these districts, however, were defined not by occupation but by ethnicity—these areas have been referred to as ghettos. The origin of the term ghetto is somewhat unclear, although one plausible explanation sug- gests that the word dates from the early sixteenth century, when Venetians decided to restrict Jewish settlement in the

city to an area already known as Ghetto Nuovo, or the new foundry. This area was physically separated from the rest of the city and had a single entrance that could be guarded. The practice of spatially segregating the Jewish population was not limited to Venice. In most medieval cities, Jews were forced to live in their own districts. In Frankfurt am Main, Jews lived on the Judengasse, a street that was formed from the dried-up moat that had run along the old wall to the city. The Judengasse was enclosed by walls with only one guarded gate for entrance and exit. Because the area was not allowed to expand beyond those walls, a growing pop- ulation led to denser living conditions. In 1462, the popu- lation of the Judengasse was only 110 inhabitants; but by 1610, 3000 people lived in the Jewish ghetto, creating one of the densest districts in the city.

In summary, there are three fundamental points to be made about the role of the medieval period in the evolu- tion of the Western city: (1) most European cities were founded during this period; (2) many of the traditions of Western urban life began then; and (3) the medieval land- scape is still with us, providing a visible history of the city and a distinctive form into which twenty-first-century activ- ities are placed.

The Renaissance and Baroque Periods During the Renais- sance (approximately 1500–1600) and Baroque (1600– 1800) periods, the form and function of the European city changed significantly. Absolute monarchs arose to preside over unified countries. The burghers, or rising middle class, of the cities slowly gave up their freedoms to join with the king in pursuit of economic gain. City size increased rapidly

Figure 11.30 The medieval hill town of Carcassonne in southern France. Notice the double set of fortified walls that surround this medieval town. (Jonathan Blair/Corbis.)

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Figure 11.31 Part of a 1562 panoramic map of the city of Brugge, Belgium, showing the central area. Directly in the center of the image is the great Halle building, the economic heart of the city. Just in front of it and to the left is the Waterhalle, so named because it straddled the canal, allowing goods to be delivered directly into the building. To the left is the old castle

surrounded by guildhalls and the town hall. To the extreme right is the cathedral building. How do the reasons for this organic urban plan compare and contrast with the reasons for the grid plan of Roman cities? (See Figure 11.29.) (Source: Benevolo, 1980.)

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because the bureaucracies of regional power structures came to dominate cities and because trade patterns expanded with the beginnings of European imperial con- quest. One city, the national capital, rose to prominence in most countries.

A new concern with city planning went hand in hand with these developments. Rulers considered the city a stage on which to act out their destinies, and as a stage, the city could be rearranged at will. Most planning measures, then, were meant to benefit the privileged classes. Typical of the time was the infatuation with wide, grandiose boulevards. The rich could ride along them in carriages, and the army could march along them in an impressive display of power. Other features of the Baroque city were large, open squares; palaces; and public buildings.

Although the height of Baroque planning was between 1600 and 1800, the autocratic spirit in which it was pursued carried into the nineteenth century, as illus- trated by Paris (Figure 11.32). There, Napoléon III had Baron Haussmann build a system of boulevards designed, among other reasons, to control the populace. Streets were straightened and widened, and cul-de-sacs were bro- ken down to give the army—should the people rise up— space to maneuver, with ordered sight lines for its artillery. Whole neighborhoods were torn down to build these avenues, and thousands of residents were displaced. They had to seek new shelter without assistance, and many ended up in the congested working-class sections of east and north Paris. Even today, these areas are over- crowded, and much of the blame can be assigned to the Baroque planners.

The Capitalist City Underlying many of the innovations in Renaissance and Baroque city planning was a sweeping socioeconomic transformation that reshaped western Europe. The transition from a feudal order to a capitalist one, which stretched from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-eighteenth century, involved drastic changes in class structure, economic systems, political allegiances, cultural patterns, and human geographies. The countryside was reordered with the introduction of commercialized and specialized agriculture and with the enclosure of individual land units. The city was also reshaped, as the value of two- dimensional location and three-dimensional form in the city acquired economic significance.

Perhaps of greatest significance was how the capitalist mind-set introduced a notion of urban land as a source of income. Proximity to the center of the city, and therefore to the most pedestrian traffic, added economic value to land. Other specialized locations, such as areas close to the river or harbor, or along the major thoroughfares into and out of the city, also increased land value. This fundamental change in the value accorded to urban land led to the grad- ual disintegration of the medieval urban pattern.

In the emerging capitalist city, the ability to pay deter- mined where one would live. The city’s residential areas thus became segregated by economic class. The wealthy lived in the desirable neighborhoods; those without much money were forced to live in the more disagreeable parts of the city. In addition, places of work were separated from home, so that a merchant, for example, lived in one part of the city and traveled to another to conduct his business. This spatial separation of work from home, of public space from private

Figure 11.32 A view of Paris, showing boulevards designed by Baron Haussmann. The boulevard was a favorite of Baroque planners. It was a ceremonial street that often led to public buildings and monuments, was lined with trees and upper-income housing, and offered public space for the wealthy. Boulevards were often created at the expense of thousands of poorer citizens, who were displaced as older housing was destroyed by the boulevard builders. Has this happened in your city or one near you as freeways have been built? (Jeff Greenberg/Photo Researchers.)

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space, both reflected and helped to shape the changing social worlds of men and women. In general, men generated economic income from work outside the home and there- fore came to be associated with the public space of the city. Women, who were primarily engaged in domestic work, were considered the keepers of the private world of the home. This association of women with private domestic space and men with public work space deepened and became more complex throughout the next few hundred years.

Reflecting on Geography How did (and does) the association of private domestic space with women and of public work space with men affect the daily lives of men and women? Can you think of counterexamples, that is, instances of the merging of private and public spaces?

The center of the capitalist city was not the cathedral or town hall, but instead the buildings devoted to business enter- prises. A downtown defined by economic activity emerged that, with the coming of industrialization, eventually expanded and subdivided into specialized districts. The new upper classes of the city, whose status was based on their accu- mulation of wealth, not only made money from buying and selling urban land but also used urban land as a basis for expressing their wealth. With the downtown devoted to mer- cantile and emerging industrial uses, the upper classes sought newer land on the edge of the city for their residential enclaves. These new areas often acted as three-dimensional symbols of relatively recent wealth, conferring on their resi- dents the legitimacy of upper-class membership.

One of the first and finest of these new enclaves for the wealthy was London’s Covent Garden Piazza, a residential square designed by Inigo Jones in the early 1630s. The inhab- itants of Covent Garden included some of London’s nobility and wealthier bourgeoisie. The presence of nobility lent an aristocratic aura to the area and provided social legitimacy to the newly affluent who lived there. The economic success of this speculative real estate venture led to many imitations, and similar residential squares cropped up throughout the West End of London (Figure 11.33). These upper-class squares were transplanted to America throughout the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, arising in such cities as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Savannah.

Class, “Race,” and Gender in the Industrial City Until the industrial period, the rate of urbanization in Western coun- tries was relatively low. For example, in 1600, urban dwellers made up only 2 percent of the German, French, and English populations; in the Netherlands and Italy, 13 percent of the population were urban dwellers. However, as millions of people migrated to the cities over the next 200 years, the rate of urbanization skyrocketed. By 1800, Eng- land was 20 percent urbanized, and around 1870 it became the world’s first urban society. By the 1890 census, 60 per- cent of its people lived in cities. The United States was 3 percent urbanized in 1800, 40 percent in 1900, and 51 per- cent in 1920 (when it became an urban country); today about 75 percent of its population live in towns and cities.

The industrial revolution and the triumph of capitalism turned the city from a public institution into private prop- erty—spoils to be divided with an eye to maximizing profits.

Figure 11.33 A 1730 view of Bloomsbury Square, laid out in 1661 by the Earl of Southampton. Southampton House occupies the far end of the square, lending an aristocratic air to this speculative, mercantile development. Notice the men and women parading in their finery, suggesting the wealthy and leisurely life of the inhabitants. What other signs of wealth are evident in this image? (Source: Hayes, 1969.)

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A new philosophy emerged: laissez-faire utilitarianism. Lewis Mumford, in The City in History, defined this philoso- phy as a belief that divine providence ruled over economic activity and ensured the maximum public good through the unregulated efforts of every private, self-seeking individual. One expression of this new philosophy was a changed atti- tude toward land and the buildings on that land. Once raw materials such as coal and iron ore could be brought to the city by rail, factories began to cluster together to share the benefits of agglomeration—that is, to share labor, trans- portation costs, and utility costs—and to take advantage of financial institutions found in the city. Industry concen- trated in the city itself, around labor, the commercial mar- ketplace, and capital. Land use intensified drastically. With the increased competition for land in the industrial period, land transactions and speculation became an everyday part of city life. Land parcels became the property of the owner, who had no obligations to society in deciding how to use them. The historical urban core was often destroyed, the older city replaced. The result was a mosaic of mixed land uses: factories directly next to housing, slum tenements next to public buildings, open spaces and parks violated by rail- road tracks. A planned attempt to bring order to the city came only in the twentieth century with the concept of zon- ing. Yet even this idea was rooted in some of the same forces—profit, bigotry, and individualism—that had already made the industrial city unresponsive to the needs of most of its inhabitants.

Class Laissez-faire industrialism did little for the work- ing classes that labored in shops and plants. In their slum dwellings, direct sunlight was seldom available and open spaces were nonexistent. In Liverpool, England, for instance, one-sixth of the population reportedly lived in “underground cellars.” A study from the middle of the nineteenth century showed that in Manchester, England, there was but one toilet for every 212 people. Running water was usually available only on the ground floors of

apartment buildings. Disease was pervasive and mortality rates ran high. In 1893, the life expectancy of a male worker in Manchester was 28; his country cousin might live to 52. The death rate in New York City (Figure 11.34) in 1880 was 25 per 1000, whereas it was half that in the rural counties of the state. The infant mortality rate per thousand live births rose from 180 in 1850 to 240 in 1870. Legislation correct- ing such ills came only in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

“Race” With all its faults, industrialization created some of the most vibrant centers of urban activity in modern times. American industrial cities relied on a diverse labor force, and each social group fought for its place in the urban land mar- ket. Despite the harsh living conditions, various groups of laborers carved out identities in the urban landscape.

Industrialization in the United States drew its work- force not only from European immigrants but also from African-Americans. After the Civil War, many former slaves in the South either migrated to northern cities to work in a diverse array of skilled and semiskilled jobs or moved from the countryside to industrializing cities. In both northern and southern cities, the African-American population lived in segregated neighborhoods, forced by discrimination and often by law to keep its distance from Anglo-American res- idential districts.

Although the services provided to these neighbor- hoods were usually minimal, many people did find oppor- tunities for cultural expression in the new urban mosaic. A study of African-Americans in Richmond, Virginia, after the Civil War found that residents effectively used public rituals in the streets and buildings of the city to carve out their own civic representations as well as to challenge the dominant Anglo-American order. For example, African- American militias were formed that marched through the streets of Richmond on holidays certified by the African- American community as their own political calendar: January 1, George Washington’s birthday, April 3 (Eman-

Figure 11.34 New York City, looking southwest from the Bronx. The rows and rows of working-class housing in the foreground and the factories visible to the left indicate the horizontal spatial expansion of industrial urban form; the massive skyline indicates the degree of vertical expansion. (Courtesy of Mona Domosh.)

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cipation Day), and July 4. As urban historians Elsa Barkley Brown and Gregg Kimball state: “White Richmonders watched in horror as former slaves claimed civic holidays white residents believed to be their own historic posses- sion, and as black residents occupied spaces, like Capitol Square, that formerly had been reserved for white citi- zens.” Other spaces, such as churches, schools, and beauty shops, served as both community centers and public state- ments of an African-American identity. In this way, the urban landscape acted as one arena for the struggle to control the meanings and uses of an environment often thought to be totally dominated by Anglo-American cul- ture (Figure 11.35).

Reflecting on Geography Consider how important the appropriation of space is to forming and maintaining cultural identity in the city. Why might such appropriation be more important for groups that are not dominant in a society? What do examples from your city tell you about struggles to control the meaning of its built environment?

Gender Industrialization, as we have seen, not only destroyed sections of cities to make way for railroads and factories but also made possible the creation of new urban identities and neighborhoods. Throughout the nineteenth century, the industrial city became increasingly segregated by function; large areas of the city were dedicated to the production of goods and services, surrounded by working- class neighborhoods. At the same time, the center of the city was remade into an area of consumption and leisure, with large department stores, theaters, clubs, restaurants,

and nightclubs. In New York City during the last half of the nineteenth century, one of the foremost displays of such a culture of consumption was located along Broadway and Sixth Avenue between Union and Madison squares. This area was called Ladies’ Mile because, as the new class of consumers, middle-class women were the major patrons of the large department stores that architecturally dominated the streets.

Although industrialization led to a particular form of separate spheres—the female sphere centered on the home and domestic duties, the male sphere dominating the public spaces and duties—it also created the need for mass consumption to keep the factories running prof- itably. With men as the class of producers, the duties of consumption fell to the women. Moreover, the locational logic of the urban land market meant that retailers were located in the most central parts of the city. This estab- lished what some scholars have referred to as a feminized downtown, meaning not only that the downtown was char- acterized by the presence of middle- and upper-class women but also that the retailers themselves created spaces considered appropriately “feminine.” Interiors were orderly and well arranged, the facades of buildings were heavily ornamented, and streets were paved and well lit (Figure 11.36).

Although this type of ornate and “feminine” downtown retailing area is still evident in large cities such as New York and San Francisco, the decentralizing forces in the twentieth- century city led to the abandonment of many of these areas, which have been replaced by the suburban shopping mall. It would be interesting to speculate in what ways the shopping mall is also a “feminine” space.

Figure 11.35 Sketch of an African- American congregation in Washington, D.C. African-American churches often served as centers of community organizations and as public statements of identity in the industrializing cities of the North.

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Figure 11.36 Stewart’s department store. One of the most ornate department stores along Ladies’ Mile in New York City was Stewart’s, located on Broadway at 10th Street. Because the store catered to the needs of Victorian women, it can be considered an example of “feminine” space. Can you think of other examples of such “feminine” spaces in your city or in a city with which you are familiar?

Figure 11.37 Edge city. These new centers of economic activity are located on the “edges” of traditional downtowns. (Walter Jimenez/TexStock Photo Inc.)

Megalopolis In the nineteenth century, cities grew at unprecedented rates because of the concentration of peo- ple and commerce. The inner city became increasingly dominated by commerce and the working class. In the twentieth century, particularly after World War II, new forms of transportation and communication led to the decentralization of many urban functions. As a result, one metropolitan area blends into another, until supercities are created that stretch for hundreds of miles. The geographer Jean Gottmann coined the term megalopolis to describe these supercities.

This term is now used worldwide in reference to giant metropolitan regions such as Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan and the Ruhr region of Germany that includes Dortmund, Essen, and Düsseldorf. These urban regions are characterized by high population densities extending over hundreds of square miles or kilometers; concentrations of numerous older cities; transportation links formed by freeways, railroads, air routes, and rapid transit; and an extremely high proportion of the nation’s wealth, commerce, and political power.

Edge Cities The past 25 years have witnessed an explosion in metropolitan growth in areas that had once been periph- eral to the central city. Many of the so-called bedroom com- munities of the post–World War II era have been transformed into urban centers, with their own retail, financial, and entertainment districts (Figure 11.37). Author Joel Garreau refers to these new centers of urban activity as edge cities, although many other terms have been used in the past, including suburban downtowns, galactic cities, and urban villages. As Garreau mentions, most Americans

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now live, work, play, worship, and study in this type of set- tlement. What differentiates an edge city from the suburbs is that it is a place of work, of productive economic activity, and therefore is the destination of many commuters. In fact, the conventional work commute from the suburbs to the inner city has been replaced by commuting patterns that completely encircle the inner city. People live in one part of an edge city and commute to their workplace in another part of that city. Garreau argues that an edge city is a place defined by five characteristics:

1. Has five million square feet or more of leasable office space.

2. Has 600,000 square feet or more of leasable retail space.

3. Has more jobs than bedrooms. The idea here is that these are places that people go to for their work—in other words, like all cities, the number of people here increases at 9 A.M.

4. Is perceived by the population as one place. In other words, this place is recognized locally as a defined place, with a name.

5. Was nothing resembling a “city” as recently as 30 years ago.

Many scholars are wary of referring to these new nodes of activity as cities because they do not resemble our nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century vision of a city. Edge cities contain all the functions of old downtowns, but they are spread out and less dense, with clusters along major freeways and off-ramps. This new form is attribut- able to changes in Americans’ lifestyles and to the devel- opment of new transportation and communication technologies. The interstate highway system made possi- ble an effective trucking system to transport consumer goods, thereby enabling new industries to locate outside the downtown. Breakthroughs in computer and commu- nication technologies have allowed corporate executives to move company headquarters out of the downtowns and into sleek new glass buildings with parking garages, jog- ging paths, and picnic tables under the trees. Real estate speculation in emerging edge cities has fueled their devel- opment, resulting in an environment that many people feel is ugly and chaotic. As Garreau points out, however, even a place as revered by designers as Venice, Italy, began as an ad hoc mercantilist adventure; the Piazza San Marco was the result not of great urban planning but of the coin- cidence of centuries of building and rebuilding by people concerned with making money.

The New Urban Landscape Within the past 30 to 35 years, our cityscapes have under- gone massive transformations. The impact of suburbaniza- tion and decentralization has led to edge cities, while in older downtown areas, we have seen that gentrification,

redevelopment, and immigration have also created novel urban forms. What we see now in our cityscapes, then, is a new urban landscape, composed of distinctive elements that we now will discuss.

Shopping Malls Many people consider the image of the shopping mall, surrounded by mass-produced suburbs, to be one of the most distinctive landscape symbols of modern urbanity. Yet, oddly, most malls are not designed to be seen from the outside. As a matter of fact, without appropriate signs, a passerby could proceed past a mall without noticing any visual display. Unlike the retail districts of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century cities, where grand architec- tural displays along major boulevards were the norm, shop- ping malls are enclosed, private worlds that are meant to be seen from the inside. Often located near an off-ramp of a major freeway or beltway of a metropolitan area, and close to the middle- and upper-class residential neighborhoods, shopping malls can be distinguished more by their exten- sive parking lots than by their architectural design.

For all that, shopping malls do have a characteristic form. The early malls of the 1960s tended to have a simple, linear form, with two department stores at each end that functioned as “anchors” and 20 to 30 smaller shops con- necting the two ends. In the 1970s and 1980s, much larger malls were built, and their form became more complex.

Malls today are often several stories high and may con- tain five or six anchor stores and up to 400 smaller shops. In addition, many malls now serve more than a retail func- tion—they often contain food courts and restaurants, pro- fessional offices, movie complexes, hotels, chapels, and amusement arcades and centers (Figure 11.38). A shop- ping center in Kuala Lumpur, known simply as The Mall, contains Malaysia’s largest indoor amusement park, a replica of the historic city of Malacca, a cineplex, and a food court, in addition to hundreds of stores. Many scholars con- sider these megamalls to be the new centers of urban life because they seem to be the major sites for social interac- tion. For example, after workplace, home, and school, the shopping mall is where most Americans spend their time.

However, unlike the open-air marketplaces of an earlier era, shopping malls are private, not public, spaces. The use of the shopping mall as a place for social interaction, there- fore, is always of secondary importance to its private, com- mercial function. If a certain group of people were considered a nuisance to shoppers, the mall owners could prevent them from what Jeffrey Hopkins calls “‘mallinger- ing’—the act of lingering about a mall for economic and noneconomic social purposes.”

Office Parks With the connection of metropolitan areas by major interstate highways and with the development of new communication technologies, office buildings no longer

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need to be located in the central city. Cheaper rent in subur- ban locations, combined with the convenience of easy-access parking and the privacy of a separate location, has led to the construction of office parks throughout suburban America. Many of these office parks are occupied by the regional or national headquarters of large corporations or by local sales and professional offices. To take advantage of economies of scale, many of these offices will locate together and rent or buy space from a land development company.

The use of the word park to identify this new land- scape element points to the consciously antiurban imagery of these complexes. Many of these develop- ments are surrounded by a well-landscaped outdoor space, often incorporating artificial lakes and waterfalls (Figure 11.39). Jogging paths, fitness trails, and picnic tables all cater to the new lifestyle of professional and managerial employees.

Many office parks are located along what have been called high-tech corridors: areas along limited-access highways that contain offices and other services associated with new high- tech industries. As our discussion of edge cities suggests, this new type of commercial landscape is gradually replacing our downtowns as the workplace for most Americans.

Master-Planned Communities Many newer residential developments on the suburban fringe are planned and built as complete neighborhoods by private development companies. These master-planned communities include not only architecturally compatible housing units but also recreational facilities (such as tennis courts, fitness cen- ters, bike paths, and swimming pools) and security mea- sures (gated or guarded entrances). In Weston, a master-planned community that covers approximately 10,000 acres (4000 hectares) in southern Florida, land use

Figure 11.39 Compare this suburban office building in Yonkers, New York, with your image of downtown skyscrapers. Notice the green space around the building and its horizontal rather than vertical appearance. Why do you rarely find very tall office buildings in the suburbs? (Michael Melford/The Image Bank.)

Figure 11.38 Food court at the Fashion Mall in Plantation, Florida. A large percentage of the third story of this mall is devoted to fast-food outlets. The fountain and natural lighting are meant to create a gardenlike setting for mall dining. Why do you think these fast-food outlets are all clustered together within the mall? (Courtesy of Mona Domosh.)

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is completely regulated not only within the gated residen- tial complexes but also along the road system that con- nects Weston to the interstate. Shrubbery is planted strategically to shield residents from views of the roadway, and the road signs are uniform in style and encased in styl- ish, weathered-gray wood frames. This massive commu- nity—Weston is now home to 50,000 people—contains various complexes catering to particular lifestyles, ranging from smaller patio homes to equestrian estates. For exam- ple, in the mid-1990s, homes in one such complex— Tequesta Point—cost $250,000–$300,000 and came with gated entranceways, split-level floor plans, and Roman bathtubs. Those in Bermuda Springs, on the other hand, which originally cost $115,000–$120,000, were signifi- cantly smaller and did not offer the same interior features. Typical of master-planned communities, the name of the development itself was chosen to convey a hometown feel- ing. In this instance, developers carried out an extensive marketing survey before they settled on the name Weston.

Festival Settings In many cities, gentrification efforts focus on a multiuse redevelopment scheme that is built around a particular setting, often one with a historical association. Waterfronts are commonly chosen as focal points for these large-scale projects, which Paul Knox has referred to as festival settings. These complexes integrate retailing, office, and entertainment facilities and incorpo- rate trendy shops, restaurants, bars and nightclubs, and hotels. Knox suggests that these developments are “dis- tinctive as new landscape elements merely because of their scale and their consequent ability to stage—or merely to be—the spectacular.” Such festival settings as Faneuil Hall in Boston, Bayside in Miami, and Riverwalk in San Antonio serve as sites for concerts, ethnic festivals, and street performances; they also serve as focal points for the more informal human interactions that we usually associate with urban life (Figure 11.40). In this sense, fes- tival settings do perform a vital function in the attempt to revitalize our downtowns. Yet, like many other gentrifica- tion efforts, these massive displays of wealth and consump- tion often stand in direct contrast to neighboring areas of the inner city that have received little, if any, monetary or other social benefit from these projects.

“Militarized” Space Considered together, these new ele- ments in the urban landscape suggest some trends that many scholars find disturbing. Urbanist Mike Davis has called one such trend the “militarization” of urban space, meaning that increasingly space is used to set up defenses against people the city considers undesirable. This includes landscape devel- opments that range from the lack of street furniture to guard against the homeless living on the streets, to gated and guarded residential communities, to the complete segrega-

Figure 11.40 Quincy Market, an early-nineteenth-century wholesale market near Faneuil Hall in Boston. The market is re- created as a festival setting, complete with upscale shops, restaurants, and bars. In what ways do you think this cultural landscape differs from the original Quincy Market in the early nineteenth century? (Ulrike Welsch/Photo Researchers.)

tion of classes and “races” within the city. Particularly in downtown redevelopment schemes, the goal of city planners and others is usually to provide safe and homogeneous envi- ronments, segregated from the diversity of cultures and lifestyles that often characterizes the central area of most cities. As Davis says, “Cities of all sizes are rushing to apply and profit from a formula that links together clustered devel- opment, social homogeneity, and a perception of security.” Although this “militarization” is not completely new, it has taken on epic proportions as whole sections of such cities as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Miami have become “militarized” spaces (Figure 11.41).

Reflecting on Geography Some scholars might argue that the increasing “militarization” of our urban spaces will lead to situations little different from what happened to South African cities under apartheid (see Figure 10.21). Identify similarities and differences between these two urban situations.

Decline of Public Space Related to the increase in “milita- rized” space is the decline of public spaces in most of our cities. For example, the change in shopping patterns from the downtown retailing area to the suburbs indicates a change of emphasis from the public space of city streets to the privately controlled and operated shopping malls.

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Globalization is a major force in reshaping cities today. On the one hand, the creation of transnational development firms means that urban landscapes around the world are beginning to share some common elements, like skyscrapers, shopping malls and gated communities. On the other hand, local cultural contexts are actively shaping these similar forms, leading to more diversity within the urban mosaic.

As dense collections of human artifacts, cities offer a fas- cinating array of cultural landscapes that tell us much about ourselves and our interaction with the environment. These cityscapes reveal contemporary change, the past, prevalent scenic values, and our storehouse of symbols. New elements in the urban landscape relay information about our current social, economic, and political reality, and they indicate trends for the future that many scholars find disturbing.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

Reading “Your” Urban Landscape Even without extensive training in geography, most of us are avid “readers” of our landscapes. We drive through residential neighborhoods and make judgments about the types of people who live there; we walk downtown and, finding that the streets get narrower, surmise that they were built a long time ago, before automobile traffic was a factor; we marvel at how high buildings rise into the sky, knowing that those with offices at the top make “top” dollar. But, as the Global Spotlight in Chapter 1 taught us, reading landscapes can be tricky business; what we see in front of us may not always be as it appears, nor built when and for whom we think. This exercise, then, is about interpreting your own urban landscape and about understanding the limitations of that interpretation.

Your goal in this exercise is to create an interpretative walking tour of part of your city that could be used by tourists (or anyone, really) and that is both informative and engaging. In other words, the idea is to get people to look, think, and make connections—but also to understand the limitations of “just looking.” First, pick your place. Decide on a route that takes people through a particular part of your city—downtown, an ethnic landscape, a commercial area, a local neighborhood, and so on. Almost anywhere will work. From reading this chapter, you should have a pretty good idea of the types of urban landscapes and the ones that are of interest to you. Second, walk the route yourself, marking places where you want people to stop, look, and think. Third, you must now investigate these places. You should be able to use the information in this chapter and elsewhere in the book to do a good bit of this work, but the specifics of your city will require more information: archival research, perhaps some informal interviews, or something else altogether. At each point, you should be asking yourself: What can I learn from looking at

Figure 11.41 The Metro Dade Cultural Center in downtown Miami. Inside this literal fortress is Dade County’s public library and Center for the Fine Arts. The building was designed to be completely removed from the street, with the few entrances heavily monitored by cameras. Does this seem like a welcoming space? Should it be? (Courtesy of Mona Domosh.)

Similarly, many city governments, often joined by private developers, have built enclosed walkways either above or below the city streets. These walkways serve partly to pro- vide a climate-controlled means of passing from one build- ing to another and partly to provide pedestrians with a “safe” environment that avoids possible confrontations on the street. Again, the public space of the street is being replaced by controlled spaces that do not provide the same access to all members of the urban community. It remains to be seen whether this trend will continue or whether new public spaces will be formed that accommodate all groups of people within the urban landscape.

Conclusion We have examined various components of the intricate urban mosaic. Culture regions are found at a smaller scale than oth- ers that we have previously explored; in the city, neighbor- hoods and census units can be thought of as social regions and culture regions. Models of the internal structure of cities describe how social and economic activities sort themselves out in space. The simplification of these models calls into question their usefulness for describing the contemporary American city, as well as other cities around the world.

We also see two major forces at work in the city that are examples of locational mobility. One works to centralize activ- ities within the city, the other to decentralize activities into the suburbs. The costs of decentralization run high, not just in the suburbs, where unplanned growth takes its toll, but also in the inner cities, which are left with decayed and stagnant cores.

Sources 397

this landscape and what could I never have guessed? Fourth, based on what you’ve found out, write your interpretative tour, providing information and questions for each particular stop on the route. Finally, try it out—give your route map and written descriptions and questions to a friend, and see what happens.

The Urban Mosaic on the Internet You can learn more about cities and suburbs on the Internet at the following web sites:

The Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester http://www.le.ac.uk/ur/index.html This site is a wonderful portal for researching the history of urban form online.

Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb http://www.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown Here you can find a history of Levittown, New York, the first mass- produced suburb, with interesting historical and contemporary photographs.

The Skyscraper Museum http://www.skyscraper.org/home.htm The Skyscraper Museum in New York City runs this site and pro- vides extremely useful information and virtual tours of tall build- ings around the world.

The State of the Nation’s Cities: A Comprehensive Database on American Cities and Suburbs http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/cupr/sonc/sonc.htm This site is a comprehensive database on 77 American cities and suburbs that you can download onto your computer and display in graphic form.

Sources Abbott, Edith, and Mary Zahrobsky. 1936. “The Tenement Areas

and the People of the Tenements,” in E. Abbott (ed.), The Tene- ments of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 72–169.

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Anderson, Kay. 1987. “The Idea of Chinatown: The Power of Place and Institutional Practice in the Making of a Racial Category.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77: 580–598.

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Bell, David, and Gill Valentine (eds.). 1995. Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities. London: Routledge.

Bell, Morag. 1995. “A Woman’s Place in ‘a White Man’s Country.’ Rights, Duties and Citizenship for the ‘New’ South Africa, c. 1902.” Ecumene 2: 129–148.

Benevolo, Leonardo. 1980. The History of the City. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

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Burgess, Ernest W. 1925. “The Growth of the City: An Introduc- tion to a Research Project,” in Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and Roderick D. McKenzie (eds.), The City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 47–62.

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Domosh, Mona. 1995. “The Feminized Retail Landscape: Gender Ideology and Consumer Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York City,” in Neil Wrigley and Michelle Lowe (eds.), Retailing, Consumption and Capital. Essex, U.K.: Longman, 257–270.

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Duncan, James, and Nancy Duncan. 2003. Landscapes of Privilege: The Politics of the Aesthetic in an American Suburb. New York: Routledge.

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Gottmann, Jean. 1961. Megalopolis. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Hanson, Susan. 1992. “Geography and Feminism: Worlds in Colli-

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Hayes, John. 1969. London: A Pictorial History. New York: Arco Pub- lishing Company.

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Kenny, Judith T. 1995. “Climate, Race and Imperial Authority: The Symbolic Landscape of the British Hill Station in India.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 85: 694–714.

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Li, Wei. 1998 “Anatomy of a New Ethnic Settlement: The Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles.” Urban Studies 35:479–501.

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McDowell, Linda. 1983. “Towards an Understanding of the Gen- der Division of Urban Space.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 1: 59–72.

A street in Chinatown, New York City

SEEING GEOGRAPHY Chinatown, New York City

centuries, when most of the brick buildings in this photograph were built. In this part of New York City, land values were relatively low. The financial center of Wall Street was to the south, and the retail areas along Broadway and Fifth Avenue were farther north, as were the middle- and upper-class residences. With few choices available, Chinese immigrants (and many others, including Italians and eastern European Jews) settled into this area and found jobs in the small industries and businesses nearby. The result was a series of neighborhoods of mixed land uses, on the edge of both the financial CBD and the retail CBD, in the zone of transition. Each of these neighborhoods came to be defined by the dominant Anglo culture as an ethnic region—in this case, Chinatown.

Today, Chinatown is still home to new migrants, and many of them come from other East Asian countries such as Korea and the Philippines. In the United States between 1997 and 2006, the Korean population grew 71percent and the Filipino population 52 percent. Although we know that an increasing proportion of new immigrants to the United States move to suburban areas, Chinatown in New York City still attracts many immigrants because of its accessibility to a fairly diverse job market and to the services available for immigrants who may not speak English and do not drive automobiles.

The Häagen-Dazs sign reminds us of the presence of globalizing forces and also indicates that Chinatown has become a tourist destination for visitors to the city. After a trip to the top of the Empire State Building or to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, tourists might go downtown for “authentic” Chinese food, stopping off for ice cream afterward. If they really wanted to sample the avant-garde club scene of the city, they might find themselves in a trendy bar on the edge of Chinatown. Much of the Lower East Side is already gentrified, and Chinatown is a likely next target. If that happens, the Mandarin Court sign might soon read Starbucks Coffee.

“Reading” this urban landscape is relatively simple: the signs of the stores and restaurants leave no doubt that this place is marked as a “Chinatown.” Interpreting this scene is easy for most Americans because Chinatown has become a symbolic landscape: a place that connotes America’s history and geography of immigration, and the idea of the melting pot, and now a commitment to cultural pluralism. But there are other ways to understand this landscape as well, ways that rely on a keen eye and an urban geographical analysis. That some of the writing is in English and some in Chinese tells us that this streetscape is located in a place where both languages are spoken; the style of architecture, the types of cars, the street signs, and the American flag indicate a location in the United States. This Chinatown happens to be in New York City, but one could have guessed San Francisco, Boston, or Philadelphia.

Based on our understanding of the models of urban land use, we could surmise that Chinatown is located in a transitional zone, just outside the CBD. This certainly was the case in the late nineteenth and early twentieth

How has globalization affected urban ethnic neighborhoods?

Ten Recommended Books on the Urban Mosaic 399

Meinig, D. W. (ed.). 1979. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mills, Sara. 1996. “Gender and Colonial Space.” Gender, Place and Culture 3: 125–148.

Mohl, Raymond A. 1995. “Making the Second Ghetto in Metro- politan Miami, 1940–1960.” Journal of Urban History 21: 395–427.

Mumford, Lewis. 1961. The City in History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Pirenne, Henri. 1996. Medieval Cities. Garden City, N.Y.: Double- day (Anchor Books).

Portes, Alejandro, and Ruben G. Rumbaut. 1996. Immigrant Amer- ica: A Portrait, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Pounds, Norman J. G. 1969. “The Urbanization of the Classical World.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 59: 135–157.

Pow, Choon-Piew, and Lily Kong. 2007. “Marketing the Chinese Dream House: Gated Communities and Representations of the Good Life in (Post-)Socialist Shanghai.” Urban Geography 28: 129–169.

Pratt, Geraldine. 1990. “Feminist Analyses of the Restructuring of Urban Life.” Urban Geography 11: 594–605.

Rothenberg, Tamar. 1995. “‘And She Told Two Friends’: Lesbians Creating Urban Social Space,” in David Bell and Gill Valentine (eds.), Mapping Desire. London: Routledge, 165–181.

Rowe, Stacy, and Jennifer Wolch. 1990. “Social Networks in Time and Space: Homeless Women in Skid Row, Los Angeles.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 80: 184–204.

Secor, Anna. 2004. “‘There Is an Istanbul That Belongs to Me’: Citizenship, Space and Identity in the City.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94: 352–368.

Shangming, Dan, and Dan Bo. 2001. “Analysis of the effects of urban heat island by satellite remote sensing.” Paper presented at the 22nd Asian Conference on Remote Sensing, November 2001, Singapore, 1–6.

Sibley, David. 1995. “Gender, Science, Politics and Geographies of the City.” Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geogra- phy 2: 37–49.

Sjoberg, Gideon. 1960. The Preindustrial City. New York: Free Press. Smith, Neil. 1984. Uneven Development. New York: Blackwell. Smith, Neil. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the

Revanchist City. New York: Routledge. Sorkin, Michael (ed.). 1992. Variations on a Theme Park: The New

American City and the End of Public Space. New York: Hill & Wang. Spain, Daphne. 1992. Gendered Spaces. Chapel Hill: University of

North Carolina Press. Summerson, John. 1946. Georgian London. New York: Charles

Scribner’s Sons. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 2006. Yearbook of Immigra-

tion. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Valentine, Gill. 1993. “Desperately Seeking Susan: A Geography of

Lesbian Friendships.” Area 25: 109–116. Vance, James E., Jr. 1971. “Land Assignment in the Pre-Capitalist,

Capitalist and Post-Capitalist City.” Economic Geography 47: 101–120.

Vance, James E., Jr. 1990. The Continuing City: Urban Morphology in Western Civilization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Ward, David. 1971. Cities and Immigrants. New York: Oxford University Press.

Warner, Sam Bass. 1962. Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870–1900. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Warr, Mark. 1985. “Fear of Rape Among Urban Women.” Social Problems 32: 238–250.

Watson, Sophie, with Helen Austerberry. 1986. Housing and Homelessness: A Feminist Perspective. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Women and Geography Study Group of the Institute of British Geographers. 1997. Feminist Geographies: Explorations in Diversity and Difference. London: Prentice Hall.

Wood, Joseph. 1997. “Vietnamese-American Place Making in Northern Virginia.” The Geographical Review 87: 58–72.

Ten Recommended Books on the Urban Mosaic (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Allen, James P., and Eugene Turner. 1997. The Ethnic Quilt: Popu- lation Diversity in Southern California. Northridge, Calif.: Center for Geographical Studies. A fascinating visual exploration of Southern California’s diverse population.

Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. 2006. Home. New York: Rout- ledge. An insightful and concise examination of the concept and everyday experiences of home.

Davis, Mike. 1990. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Ange- les. New York: Verso. A rough-and-tumble historical guide through the past, present, and possible future of the landscape of Los Angeles.

Fincher, Ruth, and Jane M. Jacobs. 1998. Cities of Difference. New York: Guilford Press. A series of case studies that examine the relationships between urban space and social identities and differences.

Ford, Larry. 2003. America’s New Downtowns: Revitalization or Rein- vention? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. An interesting assess- ment of 16 contemporary American downtowns.

Harvey, David. 2003. Paris, Capital of Modernity. New York: Rout- ledge, 2003. A revealing look at Paris during its mid-nine- teenth-century political turmoil.

Hayden, Dolores. 2003. Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820–2000. New York: Pantheon. A critical historical treatment of American suburban development.

Lees, Loretta, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wylie. 2007. Gentrification. New York: Routledge. An overview of the major theoretical and conceptual frameworks for understanding gentrification.

Marshall, Richard. 2002. Global Urban Projects in the Asia Pacific Rim. New York: Routledge. A fascinating and well-illustrated look at how global cities in the Asia Pacific Rim are creating and embodying a new urban vision.

Pattilo, Mary. 2007. Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City. Chicago; University of Chicago Press. An in- depth examination of the many conflicts faced by residents in an African-American Chicago community experiencing gentrification.

What do these images convey about empire and globalization and their similarities and differences?

12 One World or Many?

The Cultural Geography of the Future

Two images of global reach, more than a century apart (Queen Victoria with world map; a JVC advertisement) (Left: Enslow Publisher; Right: Eric Nash) Turn to Seing Geography on page 422 for an in-depth analysis of the question on the photo.

401

This final chapter is about the future. Unless one is precognizant, writing aboutthe future is “a fool’s game.” The best we can do is collect evidence about pastand present conditions, examine ongoing trends, and then let our imaginations go to work. Even when we do this well, it is difficult to predict the outcome of any- thing with certainty. Who, for example, would have thought that we would still be combating slavery and the slave trade in the twenty-first century? It is even more dif- ficult to predict wholly new phenomena. Who would have predicted the dramatic social changes that the revolution in information technology is bringing about, espe- cially the ascendance of the World Wide Web in daily life? Despite the lack of cer- tainty, looking ahead is a necessary activity if we want to be at all prepared for the world in which we will build our careers, raise our families, and work toward the ful- fillment of ourselves and others. Globalization, whose effects we have traced throughout the pages of this text, will have a profound influence on the cultural geography of the future. As noted in Chapter 1, the phenomenon of globalization has created an interlinked world of instantaneous communication where people, goods, and money move increasingly as if international borders did not exist. While there’s no denying the general trends produced through globalization, we will see in this chapter that the future is far from predetermined by them.

We are posing perhaps the most essential and difficult cultural geographical questions of all in this chapter. Will our future contain one world or many? Will we face a world where more people will have more opportunities and choices, or where deprivation and powerlessness will spread? Will we witness a global-scale process of cultural diversification or of homogenization? Are we headed toward a human mosaic or a human monochrome?

Throughout The Human Mosaic, we have witnessed the transformation of folk and indigenous cultures, the spread of a few world religions at the expense of many local ones, the rise of a handful of languages and the demise of countless others, the erosion of ethnicity through acculturation and assimilation, the decline of the power of independent states, the urbanization of the world, the rise of corporate agribusi- ness, the spread of the green revolution, and other homogenizing trends that reflect globalization and undermine diversity.

Pick up a newspaper almost any day and you can read about globalization, though the word may not always be used. New suburbs in India are built to resemble

402 Chapter 12 One World or Many?

but we can gain additional insight into the question by look- ing at the future of regions.

Region Are culture regions weakening and fading? Do the diverse hues of the human mosaic as revealed in maps shine less brightly than before? Can we detect any such trends, using the theme of culture region? Some geographers look at the maps and do indeed see fading colors. David Nemeth, for example, suggests that regions are “being crushed and recy- cled into a bland, ambiguous amalgam,” producing “some- thing akin to a vast parking lot of global scale.” And without question, people in all parts of the world must seek a new form of self-identity, torn as they are between their tradi- tional attachment to place and local culture on the one hand and their inevitable attraction to globalization-driven cosmopolitanism on the other. They feel the opposite tugs of hearth (region) and cosmos (world).

The Uneven Geography of Development Most cultural geographers believe that culture regions will persist. In particular, the familiar core-periphery concept is just as relevant as ever, especially where development is con- cerned. Some regions—forming the core—are moving ahead and prospering, while many others—the periphery— fall further and further behind. Global interdependence has not evened out the differences between the haves and have- nots; in many ways it increases them. What do we mean by falling behind or moving ahead? One clear measure is global wealth distribution. There is now a transnational class of the

Figure 12.1 Australian aboriginal children at play with a laptop. The blending of modern technology and traditional culture is increasingly common under globalization. Will such interactions enhance or reduce the world’s cultural heterogeneity? (Robert Essel NYC/Corbis.)

those in Southern California; the citizens of the United Kingdom lament membership in the European Union, wor- rying that the forces of globalization will erode their distinct English identity; commercial loggers deforest Rendova Island in the Solomon Islands and in the process destroy the culture and lifestyle of the native Haporai people; and so on—endlessly, it seems.

But does globalization truly have the ability to render cultural differences irrelevant? Can’t groups of people selec- tively choose from what globalization has to offer and still retain their cultural identity and attachment to place (Figure 12.1)? Does globalization act to homogenize the world or, instead, to widen the differences between haves and have- nots? In fact, much of the resistance to globalization is based on the belief that it enriches and empowers the few at the expense of the many, heightening class differences.

Many—perhaps most—geographers believe that the future will continue to contain many worlds. They speak of profound and irreducible cultural contrasts and of the capacity of indigenous peoples to weave Western elements into their own cultures, creating new and distinct hybrids. Globalization, they argue, produces different results in dif- ferent lands. The global need not and cannot abolish the regional or the local. In fact, throughout the chapter we will explore many examples of groups using the technolo- gies and networks of globalization in campaigns that defend local cultural geographies and reassert the rele- vance of the local. Often local cultures are not merely defending ancient tradition but rather are interacting with outside influences to produce new and distinctive forms of cultural expression. So which view is correct or most likely? Will it be one world or many? No one can say for certain,

Region 403

super-rich, the 0.25 percent of the world’s population that owns as much wealth as the other 99.75 percent. Most of them live in a First World core consisting of Anglo-America, the European Union (EU), the coastal zone of East Asia, and Australia–New Zealand. As the greatest beneficiaries of glob- alizing processes, these regions are moving ahead of the remaining Third World peripheral lands.

Not all observers, however, agree that the global income gap is widening. In a recent study, The New Geography of Global Inequality, Glenn Firebaugh argues that world core-periphery differences are not actually increasing. He points out that if one only takes into account the fact that the incomes of the richest nations are increasing at a greater rate than those of the poorest, it does look like the rich are becoming richer faster, while the poor remain poor. Yet this overlooks another fact: the many poorer countries contain only 10 percent of the world’s population, while those that are developing very rapidly (mostly Asian countries) contain more than 40 per- cent. Taking national population numbers into account, global income gaps are in fact decreasing.

In the meantime, income gaps within nation-state bound- aries are growing rapidly. Instead of core-periphery, another way to think about the unevenness of development is in terms of “fast” and “slow” worlds. In many ways economic develop- ment speeds up daily life. The fast world is at the forefront of instantaneous global communication, where one can down- load the latest music and films from around the world or play the Tokyo stock market from one’s home computer in Seattle. The fast world is fully wired for the Internet; located in the world’s megacities; adaptable to rapid shifts in global trends of investment, trade, production, and consumption; and home to the transnational super-rich. The slow world consists of the hollowed-out rural landscapes, declining or abandoned man- ufacturing zones, and slums and shantytowns. Internet cable service and computers, even if available, are priced out of reach of most of the inhabitants of the slow world. Pieces of the periphery that lie adjacent to the core, such as Mexico’s northern border, scramble to join the privileged part of the world, to be fast rather than slow. As Mexico’s border cities’ recent experience with job loss to China demonstrates, for such regions, membership in the fast world can be fleeting.

British geographer Rob Shields, in Places on the Margin, concentrates on an array of places and regions of varying size that have been “left behind in the modern race for progress.” He finds peripheries even within the core. Often these places and regions become sites of illicit or stigma- tized activities, such as the international trades in sex and illegal drugs. Says Shields, such “margins become signifiers of everything centers deny or repress.”

Sociologist Elijah Anderson’s classic study of Philadel- phia neighborhoods provides a good urban-scale illustration of how peripheries are created and become homes to drug trafficking. The neighborhoods he studied were historically home to stable, racially and ethically diverse middle-class

families rooted in a manufacturing-based economy. When larger-scale economic changes produced by globalization led to the movement of manufacturing jobs “offshore,” city fac- tories closed their doors, poverty rates increased, and the future prospects of youth dimmed. The old manufacturing economy was replaced by an underground economy of drug trafficking, prostitution, and associated violent crime.

Tragically, places on the margin have also become key sites in the international trafficking of slave labor. Slavery, it turns out, is not a shameful practice consigned to the dis- tant past, but an increasingly common phenomenon under globalization. Some believe that as many as 27 million peo- ple live in slavery worldwide, on every continent in the world save Antarctica. Traffickers prey on the most desper- ate and powerless of society’s castoffs. In the United States, California, Texas, and Florida lead the way in the increase in slave labor cases. Some of Florida’s famous orange juice, for example, was recently found to be harvested by illegal Mexican immigrants held against their wills in remote rural camps. The insatiable international demand for Brazil’s timber and beef has been met through the labor of captive workers held deep in the Amazon. Labor recruiters in Brazilian cities lure jobless workers to cut remote forest- lands through false promises of good wages and housing. Once there, workers’ wages are withheld and they are pre- vented from leaving. Some are forced to work for years clearing forests to make way for cattle ranching. According to one Brazilian labor official, “Slave labor in Brazil is directly linked to deforestation.” The example of slavery shows how illicit activities can thrive in peripheries, such as rural Florida and the Brazilian Amazon.

One Europe or Many? Looking at just one region of the world, geographer Ray Hudson echoes our question: “One Europe or many?” Local identities are asserting themselves within states at the same time that supranationalism is touted as the path to “one Europe.” He opts decidedly for “many,” saying that one main role of the European Union should be to pro- mote “complex geographies of identities.” Hudson also concludes that power and wealth will not be evenly distrib- uted geographically in Europe, contributing to the mainte- nance of many cultural regions.

A similar outlook leads geographer Michael Keating to speak of a “new regionalism” in Europe, and David Hooson went so far as to suggest that globalization actually strength- ens people’s bond between place and identity. This strengthening is suggested by the rise of ethnic separatism in countries as diverse as Spain, the United Kingdom, and Serbia and Montenegro. As people find that the forces of globalization are eroding cultural norms, customs, and practices, local political movements that seek to reinvigo- rate ethnic identities rooted in place may arise in reaction.

404 Chapter 12 One World or Many?

Major political-geographic events such as the disintegra- tion of the Soviet Union or the creation and expansion of the EU can have complex effects on cultural identities. The recent expansion of the EU is likely to bring a host of unin- tended and surprising outcomes for culture regions. In some former Soviet territories, for example, ethnic Russian immi- grants have become a disadvantaged minority group. New post-Soviet states have used their membership in the EU to reassert national ethnic heritage and redefine themselves culturally as “Western.”

Glocalization The theme of culture region, then, seems to suggest that a new human mosaic is forming in the age of globalization. Rapid change is pervasive, but its direction differs from one

location to the next. The future will not be like the past, but it will also not be monochromatic.

The interaction between global and local prompted geo- grapher Erik Swyngedouw to promote the term glocalization to describe the consequences. In brief, he argues that the outcome of this interaction involves change both in the regional way of life and in the globalizing force. For exam- ple, transnational corporations often have to adapt their product lines to local norms and preferences or adjust their production practices to local labor and environmental laws. Put differently, glocalization is a process that ensures the survival of culture regions and places in the future. These considerations, prompted by the culture region theme, lead us to conclude that a planetary culture is almost cer- tainly illusory and that potent forces are at work to prevent homogenization.

Internet Connections 180 140 100 60 20

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Figure 12.2 Connections to the Internet, shown as hosts per 10,000 inhabitants, in 2000. Profound geographical contrasts in access to the information superhighway have developed, and these will undoubtedly have some influence spatially in the new century. What consequences might a low frequency of Internet connections have on a country’s economic, political, and cultural future? (Source: Internet Software Consortium web site.)

Region 405

The Geography of the Internet Has the Internet reduced the importance of geography or the viability of culture regions? In 2001, The Economist described the Internet as being “everywhere, yet nowhere in particular.” The Internet can cross borders, both politi- cal and cultural; it breaks down barriers; it eliminates the effects of distance. In 2003, however, The Economist drew the opposite conclusion. Perhaps it was naive of people to think that the Internet would make geography irrelevant. Geog- raphy is “far from dead,” The Economist concluded.

The reality of the Internet’s influence is very complex and ultimately leaves culture regions intact. In truth, the Internet is much “constrained by the realities of geogra- phy.” Rather than making national borders irrelevant, the Internet can sometimes highlight differences between dif- ferent countries. For example, the Internet can now be

screened, censored, regulated, and blocked by govern- ments (see Subject to Debate).

Although the constraints of geography are increasingly recognized, there is no question that the Internet has been very effective in creating new forms of social interaction, including the creation of virtual communities. We might ask, as John Barlow does, “Is there a there in cyberspace?” Does the Internet contain a geography at all? Certainly, places—at least as understood by cultural geographers— cannot be created on the Internet. For starters, these “vir- tual places” lack a cultural landscape and a cultural ecology. In the broader context, on a worldwide scale, human diver- sity is poorly portrayed in cyberspace. “Old people, poor people, the illiterate, and the continent of Africa” seem not to be “there,” as Barlow notes (Figure 12.2). Users usually end up “meeting” others pretty much like themselves on

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social networks to maintain cultural and emotional ties with their geographic communities of origin. From this perspec- tive we might view the Internet as just another vehicle for maintaining those ties and preserving cultural identities (see Subject to Debate).

Clearly the virtual regions and places created in cyber- space lack the materiality of actual regions and places that geographers study. However, cyberspace is itself earth- bound and rooted in actual places. The fiber-optic cables of the Internet have a location, and in fact the whole enter- prise remains largely city-bound. A high-speed digital sub- scriber line requires proximity to a telephone exchange. As the 2003 report in The Economist sums up, “So much for the borderless internet.”

the Internet. More important, the breath and spirit of place cannot exist in cyberspace. Barlow, resorting to a Hindu term, calls this missing essence prana. These are not real places, nor can they ever be.

Other critics point out that virtual communities do not have the defining qualities of geographic communities: communion among citizens, shared responsibilities, and civic duty. Communication across the Internet does not a community make. Nevertheless, people can use virtual communities to establish bonds that carry over into the real world. To keep things in historical perspective, we should remember that throughout the modern period families and individuals have left their geographic communities and dispersed widely. However, these people have constructed

SUBJECT TO DEBATE The Internet: Global Tool for Democracy or Repression? In a few short years the Internet has become the most important medium for the global exchange of information and ideas. Many argue that the expansion of this global network will spread democratic ideals of citizen participation in government, freedom of expression, and individual liberty. Others suggest that the Internet, like other technologies of mass communication, can be used for any number of political and cultural ends, including the repression of public dissent.

The case of China illustrates the debate over the global expansion of the Internet. China represents the biggest and fastest-growing market for Western-based Internet companies, and industry giants such as Google and Yahoo! have established subsidiaries there. These and other Western companies stress the power of the Internet to promote freedom of thought, creativity, and social equity through the widespread dissemination of information. The companies argue that their very presence and the access they provide to more information for increasing numbers of Chinese citizens are in and of themselves politically and culturally liberating.

There are signs, however, that the Internet in China can also function as an effective government tool to suppress dissent. In 2004, Yahoo! provided personal information to the Chinese government about a journalist’s online pro-democracy writings. The

government courts sentenced the journalist to 10 years in prison. Google was allowed to establish a subsidiary in China in 2006 only by complying with the government’s censorship policies. The company developed a Chinese version of its search engine that automatically blocks results from searches on terms such as Tibet or Tiananmen Square. Cisco Systems designed the software behind the “Great Firewall of China,” the feature of the Internet in China that filters all online information as it crosses the country’s borders. The Great Firewall can block access to web sites as well as individual pages from a site. Terms such as democracy and human rights tend to trigger the Firewall. Finally, in 2008, the Chinese government used its control of the Internet to suppress information on its military crackdown on Tibetan protests and simultaneously foment nationalistic outrage among Han Chinese against the Tibetans.

What does the Chinese case tell us about the power of the Internet? Is China a unique case or just an extreme example of repressive uses of the Internet? Do private corporations have an ethical responsibility to citizens living under authoritarian governments? If so, what form should corporate action take? Should Internet companies agree to the Communist Party’s censorship policies? Is such an agreement balanced by the benefits of more Chinese citizen access to the Internet? How can companies limit the harm done through the provision of Internet services?

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Mobility How is the theme of mobility relevant to the debate over “one world or many”? How will changing patterns of movement help configure the cultural geography of the future? Movement on a global scale—of ideas, people, money, and commodities—in many ways will characterize the future. The computer, the Internet, satellite television, compact discs, and other globally available technologies greatly facilitate access to and the diffusion of ideas and information, while also accelerating their spread. At the same time, the spread of new ideas and innovations often produces disruptions that change the world in unex- pected and unintended ways. At the very least, the theme of mobility cautions us against counting on predeter- mined outcomes.

The Information Superhighway Terms such as information superhighway and infobahn imply the enhanced ability to achieve cultural diffusion. Moreover, the use of more efficient transportation sys- tems, such as containerized cargo units, has greatly increased “the spatial dispersion of the production and consumption of economic goods,” in the words of geog- rapher Christopher Airriess, whose work we introduced in Chapter 9.

The Internet allows ideas, music, artwork, and indeed any form of cultural expression that can be turned into digital data to be transmitted around the world in a mat- ter of seconds. The circulation of people and things, although it takes considerably longer, can nonetheless reach virtually any part of the globe in only a matter of hours or days. With the development of the Internet and rapid global transportation systems, transnational corpo- rations are able to advertise, market, and deliver virtually anywhere. Every Fortune 500 company now has its own web site, allowing them to market cultural products directly to consumers in every corner of the globe. What’s more, nongovernmental organizations, art museums, indige- nous peoples, individual artists and musicians, and just about all imaginable culture groups or producers of cul- ture have their own web sites.

The Internet clearly has the potential to profoundly alter the speed and character of cultural interaction, but to what effect? The spread of more democratic forms of gov- ernance, for example, has accompanied the more rapid movement of information over the Internet. Dictatorships thrive by controlling and manipulating information—an increasingly difficult task in the age of the Internet. And the Internet is certainly not the only means by which infor-

mation spreads rapidly. Cellular telephones, satellite- beamed cable television, and news channels such as CNN contribute to the diffusion of information, as does the increased volume of international travelers.

The theme of mobility also applies to the spread of the Internet itself. If the future is to bring the universal diffusion of cultural elements, then surely this new homogenizing tendency ought to be revealed in the spread of this most essential element of globalization (Fig- ure 12.3). The diffusion of the Internet has now spread across much of the world, following the models set down in Chapter 1.

But although the Internet now reaches into almost every land, its use varies profoundly (see Figures 12.2 and 12.3). Just because an innovation is available does not mean that most or even many people will accept it. In much of the world, use of the Internet remains arrested, and we should not necessarily expect it to diffuse much further. Barriers of wealth, education, and governmental opposition prove formidable. It may be correct, in the words of Frances Cairncross, to refer to “the death of dis- tance” caused by the revolution in communications, but it clearly does not follow that everything will diffuse everywhere.

New (Auto)Mobilities Back in the middle of the twentieth century, there was much popular debate about the future of transportation in the United States. People speculated that anything from a national network of high-speed railways to nuclear- powered flying machines would replace automobiles. Hardly anyone predicted that the twenty-first century would be more of the same old thing: the internal com- bustion engine–driven family car. Almost no one pre- dicted that the American fascination with the automobile would diffuse to East and South Asia, which, at that time, were largely agricultural, facing recurring famine, and among the poorest regions of the world. Between now and 2012, however, China is expected to account for 18 per- cent of the growth in worldwide auto sales. India, while expected to account for only 9 percent of the growth, will not be far behind the expected 11 percent growth of the United States.

The transformation in China’s urban cultures is as pro- found as it is sudden, with cars now clogging city streets built for pedestrians and bicycles (Figure 12.4 on page 410). Crowding and associated pollution will only intensify in the future as cities such as Beijing register 1000 new drivers every day. Perhaps because of the suddenness and profundity of the changes in mobility in urban China, Chinese drivers have developed driving habits that would seem peculiar if not

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dangerous to most Americans. For example, the use of turn signals, windshield wipers, and nighttime headlights is often considered a distraction—Beijing had outlawed the use of headlights until the mid-1980s—both for the driver and for other cars sharing the road.

American auto manufacturers are scrambling to get a foothold in China, the world’s hottest car market. General Motors Corporation, for example, began establishing man- ufacturing plants in China in the late 1990s (Figure 12.5). It now has seven joint ventures and two wholly owned for- eign enterprises in China that are involved in all aspects of the auto industry, including vehicle manufacturing, sales, financing, and parts distribution. Carmakers are betting that the symbolic importance of the luxury automobile will diffuse to these regions of East and South Asia. It appears

as though a prime status symbol in American middle-class culture is poised to become the same for a new global mid- dle class (see Global Spotlight).

The Place(s) of the Global Tourist Tourism will be one of the key types of mobility of the twenty-first century. By some estimates, tourism is or soon will be the largest industry in the world, second only to oil as the most important source of revenue for the Third World. Cultural geographers are increasingly interested in understanding this phenomenon. What sort of cultural interactions will take place under global tourism? Will the end result be the preservation, conversion, or elimination of distinct culture regions?

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As with many global-scale patterns of mobility, there are distinct differences in power that structure the tourist experience. The most glaring inequality is that between the visiting and visited cultures. The vast majority of global tourists originate in the First World. The cultures visited are often located in the marginalized sites of the global economy, such as on the famed African safaris or spring- break excursions to Cancún, Mexico.

The global tourist industry presumes the existence of unique places that appear “exotic” to the Westerner—or at least serve to emphasize the difference between the experience of home and the experience of the travel des- tination. Tourism can thus be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there is an imperative to preserve and nur- ture folk and indigenous cultures, and, on the other, an imperative to merely create the illusion of cultural differ- ence. The former imperative can gain support from tourism, such as in the case of agricultural tourism, where traditional but uneconomical food production persists with the aid of profits gained from tourist visits. For exam- ple, the European Union provides funds to member states

Figure 12.4 Traffic congestion in Shanghai. China will soon be the second-largest automobile market in the world. Here automobiles and bicycles compete for space in the increasingly congested streets of Shanghai, China. (Thomas Imo/photothek.net/drr.net.)

Figure 12.5 GM plant in Shanghai. Factory workers check a car body on the assembly line at the Shanghai General Motors factory in Pudong, China. Other American, Japanese, and European car makers are building factories throughout China. (Natalie Behring/drr.net.)

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GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT China’s New Car Culture For most of his 70 years, You Xiaoyi pedaled his bike to work in one of China’s state-run factories. Following the country’s efforts to boost economic growth by shifting to private enterprise, he became a factory owner himself. Now he’s driving himself to work in a brand-new Volkswagen Jetta, having passed on the Buicks and Audis that he test-drove.

Well-heeled new capitalists like You are turning China into the hottest car market in the world. China is now the third-largest market and is poised to become the second- largest, behind only the United States. General Motors is moving into China in a big way, having introduced its Cadillac line in June 2004 with the hope of capitalizing on the wealth of the new middle class. Along with five other of the largest carmakers, GM is committed to investing $17 billion to build new factories in China in anticipation of rising demand.

General Motors and the other carmakers are counting on the winners in China’s phenomenal economic expansion to adopt the ultimate status symbol of the middle class. Just a decade ago, the notion that the expansion of global car sales would be driven by a Chinese version of American car culture was unthinkable. Then only state bureaucrats bought cars and had only six models from which to choose. Now there are 90 models on the market and businessmen like You, flush with profits from the economic boom, are paying cash. China’s new millionaires have adopted the “Beemer,” the Yuppie status symbol of the go-go 1980s in the United States, as their own. They have made China the world’s number one market for BMW’s 760Li model.

The stiff competition with BMW, Audi, and others for the hearts and minds of middle-class consumers pushed GM to pull out all the stops in launching its Cadillac luxury line. The company descended on the 2004 Beijing Auto Show with a dazzling ceremony, staged by filmmaker Ang Lee. If autos are any indication, it looks like cultural diffusion is as important as ever under globalization.

Source: Naughton, 2004

General Motors Corporation launches its Cadillac line at the 2004 Beijing Auto Show. What brand name better symbolizes America’s car culture than Cadillac? China’s nouveaux riches will now enjoy urban gridlock in grand American style. (Ng Han Gua/AP Photo.)

Figure 12.6 Global tourism and local culture. Tourists line up to photograph a colorfully dressed “native.” What do such encounters suggest about the effects of global tourism on local cultures? (AP World Wide Photos.)

to support the production of a range of traditional agri- cultural products such as local cheeses and rare livestock breeds. The EU believes that these investments keep rural economies intact and spark the tourist trade as urbanites and foreign tourists are attracted to the countryside to sample unique and historically significant agricultural products. The latter imperative is often driven by commer- cial enterprises that make their profits from entertaining their customers with sights and sounds of the “exotic.” In such cases, “traditional” dress and performance is for the benefit of tourists, not a part of everyday life (Figure 12.6). Some cultural geographers have concluded from these observations that tourism conforms to the tastes of the affluent global tourist and so results in an “inauthen- tic” experience of place.

It would be wrong, however, to simply view local cultures as “made-up” or “invented” by the global tourism industry or to suggest that only inauthentic cultural interactions are

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possible. Geographers Peggy Teo and Lim Hiong Li’s study of global and local interactions at a tourist site in Singa- pore—a former private mansion and fantasy garden—pro- vides an excellent case in point. They favor the view that local groups can use the forces of global tourism to strengthen their cultural identities and traditions. Their study focused on a government-sponsored effort to create from the mansion and garden an “Oriental Disneyland,” a Western-style theme park loosely based on Disney’s techno- logically enhanced tourist attractions. After the venture failed, local people successfully lobbied the government to redesign the site to more closely replicate its original condi- tion. The motivation behind these efforts was to defend local cultural and historical meanings associated with the site. They conclude that “the global does not annihilate the local.” Rather, tourism can result in “unique outcomes in different locations.”

Globalization How does globalization operate to shape the future? How does it relate to the phenomena of the past, such as Euro- pean colonialism? These are some of the questions geogra- phers and other scholars are investigating in their research. We can start by looking at some of this groundbreaking work.

A Deeper Look at Globalization As we have seen, the debate over one-world-or-many hinges on globalization, a theme that has helped structure every chapter. It is vital, therefore, that we organize our thoughts about the future by examining what people mean by the term. Chapter 1 introduced and defined globalization and we have seen in subsequent chapters just how complex and encompassing the phenomenon is. Perhaps we are now pre- pared to analyze the concept at an even deeper level by look- ing at how practicing geographers define it in their research.

Carolyn Cartier began her book on the economic growth and sociocultural transformation of South China, Globalizing South China, with a description of globalization. For Cartier, it includes many different cultural, economic, and political phenomena, both material and symbolic. Globalization is most closely associated with the transna- tional activities of large corporations, which operate some- times in alliance with and sometimes against states.

In Global Shift, Peter Dicken views globalization as interrelated processes working on a global scale to pro- duce effects that can vary greatly from place to place. He distinguishes “internationalization”—a decades- if not centuries-old practice of simply extending economic activ- ities beyond state borders—from globalization. He explains that globalization is qualitatively different from

internationalization because it involves the full integra- tion of human activities on a global scale. Many examples of this may come to mind. Recall Chapter 9’s Global Spot- light feature describing professionals in southern India conducting financial services for Wall Street firms in New York. Increasingly, globalization processes are linking far- flung places around the world in a complex, integrated system for the production, transport, and marketing of many everyday commodities

Our last view of globalization comes from R. J. John- ston, Peter Taylor, and Michael Watts’s Geographies of Global Change. They think the most important element of global- ization is the global scale of social activities. Similarly to Dicken, they differentiate between the international aspects of social interaction and globalization, arguing that the latter is constituted by “trans-state” processes. That is, under globalization, activities and outcomes “do not merely cross borders, these processes operate as if borders were not there.” They suggest that we carefully examine the processes of globalization from a “geohistorical perspec- tive” to find out what, exactly, is different now and what the historical precedents are. This involves tracing the flow of things, people, and information through time and across spaces. It also involves identifying and explaining how spe- cific places respond to and are transformed by globaliza- tion in different and unique ways.

Globalization is an extremely complex and variable phenomenon involving many cultural, economic, and political processes. The best way for us to reach a better understanding is to look at concrete examples.

History, Geography, and the Globalization of Everything From these ideas we can identify several defining features of globalization. First, it involves global-scale interactions among cultural, political, economic, and environmental phenomena. Second, globalization is characterized by relentless movement—a constant flow of money, people, information, ideas, goods, and services through all parts of the world. (For an example of how geographers study these movements, see Practicing Geography.) Third, the effects of globalization are felt unevenly in different places at different times. Fourth, transnational corporations are the primary institutions driving globalization. While states remain important, the relevance of international borders has diminished; several transnational corporations now have total sales greater than entire national economies (Figure 12.7). Fifth, local- and global-scale movements have formed to oppose globalization, hoping to limit or mitigate its effects. Sixth, globalization, although histori- cally rooted in processes of internationalization, is qualita- tively different.

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Many scholars trace the origins of globalization to the age of European exploration and imperialism or to the industrial revolution. While its historical roots may run deep, globalization is a recent phenomenon. The processes of globalization first became prominent in the 1960s, when the capitalist world economy, increasingly dominated by huge multinational corporations and high technology, pro- duced a new, efficient, and integrated system of produc- tion, marketing, transportation, communications, and information processing. Globalization functions as a single system—dynamic, yet highly organized. Globalization— unlike, say, the British Empire—has no single seat of power, and no single country can control it. In that sense, global- ization represents something radically new and quite differ- ent from older forms of empire.

Geographers are interested in globalization because it bears so profoundly upon the central geographical issue of human diversity. It produces a multitude of historically

unique, contradictory, and paradoxical cultural conditions. The most evident paradox is that globalization—which would seem to erase cultural difference—has been accompa- nied by a reassertion of distinct religious, national, and eth- nic identities. The start of the twenty-first century has been marked by heightened ethnic divisions and conflicts, the resurgence of nationalisms, and numerous highly visible identity movements—gay, feminist, green, and born-again. Contradictions and paradoxes such as these lead geogra- phers to ask whether we are headed for one world or many.

Globalization and Its Discontents Many people view the consolidation of transnational cor- porate power, global environmental decline, and cultural homogenization as threatening to local livelihoods and cultural practices. We see on television and in newspapers the accounts of people from many countries and cultures

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participating, usually nonviolently, in mass demonstrations against “globalization.” In popular news accounts, for example, we learn of anti-globalization protests, such as those trying to disrupt the meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in 1999 and in Cancún, Mexico, in 2003. The WTO regulates exchange of goods and services between nation-states with the goal of liberal- izing trade (i.e., reducing tariff and other barriers).

Who are the opponents of globalization, what are they protesting, and what do they want? To find an answer, we need to move beyond the six o’clock news footage and front-page headlines of big, noisy demonstrations. Recog- nizing that there is not just one kind of anti-globalization activist, we need to carefully examine how specific groups

in specific locations organize to maintain local cultural practices, identities, and landscapes in the face of globaliz- ing processes. Let us take a look at local opposition to glob- alizing processes in two different locations, among very different social groups: indigenous peoples in Mexico and unionized workers in New York City.

On January 1, 1994—the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the United States, and Mexico took effect—hundreds of indige- nous Mayan peasants forcibly occupied government offices in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Calling themselves Zapatistas, they declared that they had no choice but to take up arms (Figure 12.8). The impoverished Mayan farmers saw globalization in the form of NAFTA as sounding the death

PRACTICING GEOGRAPHY Susan Mains

Cultural geographer Susan Mains gets around. Raised in Scotland, educated in Kentucky, and now a member of the faculty in the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of West Indies-Mona in Kingston, Jamaica, she personifies the curious, itinerant

geographer. In fact, being able to “learn about and travel to new places” was one of the things that influenced her to study geography as an undergraduate.

Perhaps an even more powerful motivation for practicing cultural geography was her desire to understand the rapid changes in the landscape and social life of Uddingston (her hometown) that she witnessed growing up. In nearby Glasgow she was exposed to a very dynamic urban, political, and artistic landscape. “Glasgow has a long history of trade unionism, social activism, and community theater,” she explains. “The arts have been a forum for expressing and affecting political change in the city for many years, and I became increasingly intrigued by the links between the social, architectural, and artistic changes that were taking place.”

Her research and teaching constantly provide her with opportunities to experience new cultures and places or to experience familiar landscapes in unfamiliar ways. Even when just “having a lime” (“hanging out” in Jamaican) with her students after class, she discovers new ideas and ways of thinking about landscapes and cultural change. Her research and teaching provide her with opportunities to address topics of deep personal concern for her, such as social justice and social exclusion. “As a cultural

geographer, I believe it is important to think reflexively about what we explore and to try to empathize with people and cultures whose experiences may be different from our own, for example, refugees, political prisoners, sites of civil unrest, children, and various recipients of discrimination.”

Professor Mains found in cultural geography an academic discipline in which she could fully utilize her many talents and interests. She has strong interests in analyzing and producing documentary films, both of which she has incorporated into her research. Of her study of Jamaican migration, she explains, “I collected census data outlining the characteristics of migration, and I’ve been watching film and television footage (from the 1950s to the present) that addresses the topic of West Indians in the United Kingdom. I also . . . analyze key imagery, language, and themes addressed—and omitted—in media coverage.” She combines film analysis with a wide range of other methods, such as open-ended interviews, the analysis of historical archives, and the analysis of demographic data.

Her current research explores the experiences of Jamaican migrants to New York, London, and Toronto, and of those who return to the island. “I’m examining what makes people decide to move,” she explains, “what their experiences are like during that process and, once they are living overseas, how they keep in touch with Jamaica.” As part of the study, she is making a documentary film that will feature interviews with research participants and events organized by various Jamaican communities. On completing this project, she hopes to “give something back” to her Jamaican participants by providing access to her results through her web site and the distribution of the film.

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knell for their culture and way of life. Globalization meant that cheap corn from the midwestern region of the United States would flood Mexico, making it impossible for Mayas to continue farming for a living and to maintain their commu- nities. Interestingly, the initial armed rebellion soon gave way to a skillful campaign that used key instruments of globaliza- tion—satellite TV and the Internet—to gain worldwide sup- port for their campaign. The Zapatistas have won some concessions from the Mexican government, but their strug- gle to protect their culture and homeland continues. Their web site details the latest developments.

The response of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) to globalization provides an example of protest and resistance very different from that of the Zapatistas. In this case, manufacturing jobs in the gar- ment district in New York City began to disappear in the 1980s under the demands of the new global economy. Gar- ment manufacturing jobs were being moved out of the U.S. to regions with cheaper labor costs. Labor unions in the United States have consistently argued that this is a signifi- cant drawback of globalization and have fought to slow the loss of jobs with limited success. In this case, however, a labor union found an indirect way to keep manufacturing jobs in the United States. At the same time manufacturing jobs were leaving New York, the new economy raised demand for office space and upscale urban housing, encouraging landlords to convert garment factories to more profitable spaces. Labor geographer Andrew Herod showed how the union fought job losses by lobbying for changes in the city zoning laws that would prevent the con- version of factories to high-rent offices and condos. A spe-

cial garment center district was created that prohibited con- versions, thereby giving the workers increased job security. The ILGWU managed to slow New York City manufactur- ing job losses resulting from globalization by defending the local historical urban landscape.

Many more examples of local efforts to resist globaliza- tion or at least mitigate its worst effects could be recounted. Some movements mobilize globally; others, locally. Some movements take up arms; others work through existing democratic institutions. In most cases, however, these move- ments are rooted in place and are expressed through local cultural values and beliefs. They all ultimately seek to gain a voice in controlling the speed and extent of globalization’s transformative forces. As a consequence, the effects of glob- alization are not predetermined; cultural homogeneity is not the only possible outcome. Rather, the actions of local cul- ture groups—be they made up of indigenous peoples, urban workers, or rural farmers—also shape its effects. The local- global link, it seems, operates in two directions.

Blending Sounds on a Global Scale On the popular music scene, debates about the effects of globalization abound. These debates follow the general terms of the broader globalization debates. Is globalization a force for homogenization or new forms of diversification, hybridity, and synthesis? If we think about music historically, synthesis and hybridization have deep roots. It is actually fairly difficult to find a truly “authentic” or “pure” locally bound musical genre that has not been influenced by extra- local musical forms. Distinctive regional sounds, such as

Figure 12.8 Local resistance to globalization. Zapatista commanders sit at the negotiating table in San Andres Larrainzar, Mexico, in 1996. The Mayan-based Zapatista leaders have been periodically involved in talks with the Mexican government over cultural and economic rights since NAFTA began in 1994. (AP Photo/Scott Sady.)

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Memphis soul or Tibetan throat singing, can definitely be identified. In many cases these musical genres are associated with culture regions. At the same time, musical genres rarely develop in geographic isolation. Prior to globalization, migration and movement have produced all manner of blending of ideas, styles, and genres—probably since the time humans began imitating the rhythms and sounds of nature. Modern technological innovations, from the inven- tion of the gramophone to the release of online file-sharing software, have accelerated, intensified, and added to the complex processes of musical hybridization.

Take the case of soukous, a musical genre centered in Africa’s Congo River basin. Soukous originated in the folk music and dance traditions of various Congolese ethnic groups. Some of these performers began to adopt Western instruments and jazz arrangements during the Belgian colonial period of the early twentieth century. As the pop- ulation urbanized in the 1950s, record companies found a burgeoning market and began importing Cuban “rumba” 78 rpm vinyl recordings. These “Latin” rhythms were incor- porated and helped launch soukous as the first pan-African sound. It is interesting to note that this transfer was part of a historical process of multidirectional diffusion, since the rhythms imported from Cuba originated among African slave laborers who had carried them from West Africa a cen- tury earlier. Congolese musicians were given record con- tracts and brought to Paris studios, where they continue to blend new sounds and techniques and pump out the puls- ing soukous beat for the world music scene. One can get dizzy just trying to keep track of the many multidirectional pathways of cultural interaction across time and space.

Cultural interaction in music has been ongoing for centuries but has been greatly speeded up and geographi- cally expanded under globalization. From one perspective, globalization has sparked a creative cultural interaction by mixing musical traditions from around the world to pro- duce new hybrid forms, many of which are highly localized. As a result, new and innovative regionally based sound- scapes emerge continuously, reinforcing old or helping to construct new culture regions. From another perspective, globalization has enriched First World transnational enter- tainment corporations without providing due compensa- tion for the creative labor of local cultures. The debate over which perspective best reflects the actual effects of global- ization on music is complex and will undoubtedly continue.

Nature-Culture How is the theme of nature-culture related to the question of “one world or many”? The central issues include the impact of globalization processes on ecosystems and local communities and the promise and peril of new technolo- gies for the natural world. Globalization represents for

some an ever-expanding world economy. Where will the natural resources come from to fuel this expansion? Oil prices are rising in response to the growing demands of China’s and India’s economies. Will the entire world be able to replicate the post–World War II boom of the United States, or are gas prices a sign that we are reaching the planet’s limits? What about alternative technologies that don’t rely so completely on oil?

Sustainable Futures Whether fearful or hopeful, most forecasters agree that recent trends indicate rising levels of consumption world- wide. Specifically, the cultures of mass consumption that developed first in the United States and Europe are spread- ing to every corner of the globe. China is a case in point. As we enter the twenty-first century, China is or soon will be the world’s largest consumer of coal and automobiles. The cultures of mass consumption at the heart of globalization require enormous amounts of natural resources and pro- duce prodigious quantities of pollutants. Given the ecolog- ical problems associated with the mass consumption of commodities such as cars, refrigerators, and so forth, we are compelled to ask ourselves whether current trends in con- sumption are sustainable for much longer.

The question of sustainable development on a global scale has been around since the 1970s. Cambridge geogra- pher William Adams has produced the most comprehen- sive and carefully researched history of sustainable development. He suggests that the first attempt to create a plan for global sustainable development came in 1980 with the publication of the World Conservation Strategy. This idea was refined a few years later by the UN-sponsored World Commission on Environment and Development. The commission brought sustainable development into the mainstream through its 1987 book Our Common Future. It identified poverty as a fundamental cause of the world’s ecological problems and concluded that to reduce global ecological problems, we need to reduce global poverty through the promotion of economic development. Today, just about everyone from the barefoot “tree hugger” to the well-heeled international bank executive advocates sustain- able development. This is what Adams labeled the “main- stream” version of sustainable development, by which he meant that the concept had been redefined in a way that posed no serious challenge to the status quo of continual global expansion of consumption and economic growth.

But let us take a closer look at the mainstream approach to sustainable development. In essence it says that the familiar industrial model of continual economic expansion is the cure for both global poverty and ecologi- cal problems. However, while globalization has brought new prosperity and higher levels of consumption to some parts of the world, ecological problems only seem to be

Nature-Culture 417

Figure 12.9 Mountaintop mining in West Virginia. Landscapes and ecosystems are permanently altered to meet the industrial demand for increasing amounts of fossil fuels. A popular technique in “sustainable” coal mining involves the removal of entire mountaintops to access the deposit. (Vivian Stockman.)

increasing. China’s rising coal consumption has led to increased emissions of carbon dioxide, a leading green- house gas. It is now second only to the United States in total greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, as we noted previ- ously, the rewards of globalization are distributed unevenly, with the majority of poor people remaining poor and only a few people becoming richer.

Some observers conclude that the term sustainable development is an oxymoron. Given the ecological record of modern industrialization, the faith in economic growth as a cure for environmental ills seems misplaced (Figure 12.9). Cultural and political ecologists have been strong critics of mainstream sustainable development. They claim that the sustainable development idea does not take into account the larger-scale historical and structural causes of poverty, such as the lasting effects of European colonialism. Unless these are addressed, it is unlikely that mainstream sustainable development will substantially decrease poverty levels. A further criticism is that the focus on the link between poverty and ecological degrada- tion downplays the environmental impact from high lev- els of consumption in affluent countries. For instance, Americans alone consume one-fourth of the world’s petroleum output and generate one-fourth of the carbon dioxide pollution.

One suggested alternative is to formulate sustainable development “from below” rather than through a top- down global program. The idea is to assist local initiatives and employ local knowledge to craft different economic paths for developing countries and communities that will not degrade land and resources along the way to higher living standards. Such alternatives, because they are informed by the communities they most immediately con-

cern, would also be designed to maintain cultural identi- ties, landscapes, and regions. Across the globe there are now hundreds of such efforts, which go by a variety of titles, such as “community conservation,” “joint forest management,” and “indigenous peoples’ reserves.” Approaching sustainable development from below means that the future will be defined by cultural heterogeneity, not homogeneity.

Think Globally, Act Locally Perhaps sustainable development from below can mitigate widespread poverty while minimizing the ecological degra- dation that accompanies many top-down development ini- tiatives. But what about the environmental effects of modern affluence—how can those be addressed? Through- out the 1990s a series of international conferences were held that sought to identify the world’s most pressing envi- ronmental problems and propose global-scale initiatives to address them. The most prominent of these was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Now known simply as the Rio Conference, it produced international conventions that sought to reduce global ecological problems such as species extinction and global warming. The most promi- nent of these was the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Biodiversity Convention committed signatory states to protecting wildlife habitats and pursuing economic devel- opment policies that minimize species loss.

The approach taken at the Rio Conference is best captured in the slogan “Think Globally, Act Locally.” If we plan carefully, actions taken at the local scale in places around the world will collectively result in an improved

418 Chapter 12 One World or Many?

global environment. For example, the establishment of local parks and reserves will provide a global network of protected habitats that will help to maintain the Earth’s biodiversity.

The recent introduction of hybrid cars—vehicles that combine traditional fossil-fuel engines with electric motors to greatly reduce gas consumption and pollution—is another case in point. When the state of California passed a law requiring 10 percent of all car sales to be hybrids, it forced carmakers to produce more fuel-efficient cars. Since California is the largest car market in the United States, its action has had ripple effects nationwide and, ultimately, worldwide. China is now promoting hybrid cars for its bur- geoning market, and several of the new auto factories will produce hybrids. These local- and national-level initiates should help considerably in reducing global levels of car- bon dioxide and other pollutants.

Cultural Landscape Is the debate over whether the future will reflect one world or many visible? Can we get some clue about the outcome by observing the cultural landscape under globalization? Of course we can. Philip Kelly even speaks of “landscapes of globalization.” He is referring mostly to the urban, corpo- rate architecture that has sprung up on every continent, replicating itself in city after city. Such homogenization is often resisted by local communities that hope to preserve existing cultural landscapes.

Globalized Landscapes Geographer David Keeling sought visible evidence of glob- alization in the landscape of Buenos Aires, Argentina—the capital of a country that desperately wants to become enmeshed in the world economy but struggles, perhaps in vain, against its peripheral location. He found abundant evidence of “a homogenized landscape” of glass-and-steel corporate office towers, of luxury hotels and conference centers for the corporate power brokers of the world economy (Figure 12.10).

Clearly, urban landscapes—cityscapes—can serve as an index to the level and type of engagement with the globalization process. We have now begun witnessing the diffusion of California-style suburban housing tracts to affluent regions of India. Still, Keeling notes, these homogenizing processes are neither omnipresent nor omnipotent. Certain other Latin American capitals—such as Quito, Ecuador; La Paz, Bolivia; and Havana, Cuba— reveal minimal global influences in their cityscapes. Given the improbability of a global culture, visible differences among cities seem likely to persist. Moreover, people all over the world value their cultural landscapes, whether as visual reminders of their heritage or as lucrative attrac-

tions in the global tourism industry, and will thus want to preserve them. Landscape and place still matter in a globalizing world.

Striving for the Unique Urban landscapes in the age of globalization reveal another element: the enduring spirit of place. One city after another has preserved or erected some building or monu- ment so unique as to be a symbol or icon of that particular city. When you see a photograph of this structure, you know at once where it is located (Figure 12.11). Television jour- nalists often stand in front of such visible icons to prove to viewers that they are actually reporting on location. Exam- ples would include the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the arch linking east and west in St. Louis, the Space Nee- dle in Seattle, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. True, many or most of these icons predate the era of globalization, but that is not the issue. Rather, their retention and protection offer the relevant message. The Kremlin walls in Moscow may retain few if any of their original red bricks, as they fall victim to weathering and are replaced, but the structure is renewed and endures as a symbol of the city.

Neolocalism is the desire evident in many local com- munities to embrace the uniqueness and authenticity of place. Governments and electorates at all levels—from local to national—have a far greater say about globaliza- tion than you might imagine. A backlash against chain stores and conformity can find strength in local ordi- nances. A community can actually prevent McDonald’s or Wal-Mart from establishing outlets. Neolocalism, then, pits the cultural power of place against the economic power of globalization.

Figure 12.10 Modern office buildings in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The forces of globalization have accelerated the construction of numerous urban landscapes such as this one near the docklands area of Puerto Madero harbor basin. (wim wiskerke/Alamy.)

Wal-Martians Invade Treasured Landscape! Local communities and their governments attempt to pre- serve cultural landscapes in numerous ways. Zoning laws, architectural guidelines, minimum lot-size requirements, building codes, and conservation easements can all be used to maintain the distinct character of landscapes. At the global scale we have World Heritage Sites, places that the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has deemed to be of such cultural significance that they should be given international protection. The tem- ples at Angkor Wat in Cambodia (Figure 12.12) and the “Old Stone Town” on Zanzibar Island, Tanzania, are two examples of the dozens of UNESCO World Heritage Sites worldwide.

Globalizing processes are putting new pressures on cul- tural landscapes. Often small community groups and town governments are pitted against powerful transnational corpo- rations whose investment choices can profoundly transform a landscape. The phenomenal expansion of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., is an often-cited example of how small-town landscapes are transformed by corporate investment. The biggest impact is the “hollowing out” of small-town main streets. Owner-run small businesses cannot compete with the giant retailer and soon have to lock their doors. Since “big box stores” such as

Wal-Mart are typically located outside of city centers, the old downtowns are turned into empty shells.

Some communities have welcomed Wal-Mart and oth- ers have tried hard to keep it out. Perhaps the most novel opposition campaign has been conducted in Vermont. In a confrontation that author Barbara Ehrenreich labeled “Earth People vs. Wal-Martians,” the National Trust for His- toric Preservation declared the entire state of Vermont to be an endangered landscape. Vermont is the only state ever to make the list of endangered historic places, which gen- erally comprise individual buildings and historic urban dis- tricts. According to the National Trust, building more supersized Wal-Mart stores in Vermont would degrade the state’s “sense of place.” The National Trust had employed a similar strategy in 1993, which forced Wal-Mart to build stores more appropriate to Vermont’s landscape.

Protecting Europe’s Rural Landscape Another aspect of globalization, the drive to eliminate ter- ritorial barriers to the free trade of commodities, threatens rural landscapes in Europe. The fear is that cheap food imports will put small farmers out of business, which in turn will lead to the demise of treasured rural landscapes

Figure 12.12 Angkor Wat, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Located 192 miles from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and built between A.D. 1113 and 1150, this temple is regarded as the pinnacle of the Khmer Empire’s architecture. UNESCO named it and surrounding structures a World Heritage Site in 1992. Such a designation helps efforts to safeguard and restore cultural landscapes of global significance. (Courtesy of Ari Dorfsman.)

Cultural Landscape 419

Figure 12.11 The Petronas Towers, in Kuala Lampur, have become a symbol for the city. Their unique design helps establish Kuala Lampur’s identity as a city different from others. Uniqueness of design, a feature of much modern architecture, stands in opposition to cultural homogenization. (age fotostock/SuperStock.)

420 Chapter 12 One World or Many?

(Figure 12.13). European farmers and their national and EU representatives have argued that agriculture is not solely about food production—that it performs multiple functions, such as maintaining cultural landscapes and providing envi- ronmental services. Geographer Gail Hollander has observed that farmers and their advocates are using what they call agriculture’s “multifunctionality” to gain exemp- tions from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) strict rules on free trade. The exemptions are warranted, they argue, in order to preserve the character of cultural land- scapes that agriculture supports. Hollander concludes that multifunctionality could be used to preserve the landscapes of a few communities in Europe or, in stronger form, to chal- lenge the very logic of the WTO’s rules on the global trade of agricultural products. Given their symbolic value, the preservation of cultural landscapes may be a key tool used to slow or mitigate globalization’s homogenizing effects.

Conclusion As powerfully transformative as the processes of globalization are, they are unlikely to result in cultural homogenization any time soon. As we learned by examining globalization’s inter- action with each of cultural geography’s five themes, we do not yet live in a placeless world. In fact, we have observed many trends suggesting that globalization will produce more geographic diversity and many unintended and unforeseen outcomes in our future.

In closing, it is our hope that we have excited your interest in the world’s cultural diversity. To paraphrase the words of Aldous Huxley, we hope that our vicarious world travels have left you “poorer by exploded convictions” and “perished certainties,” but richer by what you have seen.

Perhaps we, like Huxley, set out on this journey with pre- conceptions of how people should best “live, be governed, and believe.” When one travels—even if just through the pages of a geography book as we have—such convictions often get mislaid. The main message of The Human Mosaic is that we will best be prepared to thrive in this new millen- nium if we maintain a willingness to question even our most closely held convictions and remain open to the boundless capacity of human cultural expression to sur- prise and amaze.

DOING GEOGRAPHY

Interpreting the Imagery of Globalization The mandate of large corporations today, nearly regardless of the type of service or good they produce, is to go global or go bankrupt. In addition to staying competitive, going global gives a company a certain cachet and consumer appeal, the way that being “modern” did in previous decades. Transnational corporations also stress other popular notions related to globalization, such as respect for the world’s cultural diversity and concern for the global environment.

This activity requires you to use your interpretive skills to look at the way the processes of globalization are represented in corporate-produced visual imagery and text. Try to find representations of globalization in more than one medium, including product packaging, magazine advertisements, and corporate web sites. You may concentrate on one type of industry, such as pharmaceuticals or automobiles, or several. Look for materials that include visual and textual representations of the globe, the Earth, or the world, and remember to make use of the five themes of cultural geography.

Figure 12.13 Rural town in Andalucia, Spain. The ancient olive terraces, gardens, woodlots, and pastures of this town are typical of much of Mediterranean Europe. Globalization and other economic forces are making the traditional, extensive agricultural systems that produced and support such landscapes increasingly obsolete. (Courtesy of Roderick Neumann.)

Sources 421

Set up a series of questions to systematically interpret each of the samples that you select. What popular notions about globalization are emphasized? How much validity do their representations carry? This is not the same as asking about the truth or falseness of an ad. Rather it is to ask, for example: What does going to the Hard Rock Café and buying a T-shirt have to do with “saving the planet”? In the cases of visual imagery, look carefully at the way objects are arranged and scaled in relation to one another. How is power represented in the imagery? Does it lie with the individual consumer or the corporation? How are local- global linkages represented? Are the activities of global corporations given a moral authority, and if so, how? As you do this exercise, bear in mind the power of transnational corporations in an era of globalization. Think about the importance of understanding how the images and texts they produce give meaning to our world, our places, and our landscapes.

The Geography of the Future on the Internet You can learn more about the geography of the future on the Internet at the following web sites:

An Atlas of Cyberspaces, Martin Dodge http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html Here cyberspaces are made visible: graphic representations of the geography of the electronic territories of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and other new cyberspaces help you to visualize and com- prehend the digital “landscapes” beyond your computer screen.

The Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies http://www.futures.hawaii.edu/ One of the best-known institutions for future studies. The Hawaii State Legislature created it in 1971 to train students in future thinking for work in government and business.

Millennium Project: World Federation of UN Associations http://www.millennium-project.org/ A global, participatory, futures-research think tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers. It produces numerous future scenarios and such documents as the annual “State of the Future” report.

World Futures Studies Federation http://www.wfsf.org/ Founded in 1967 to further research and education in future stud- ies. It is comprised of hundreds of individuals and institutions worldwide which together create a global network of researchers, teachers, policy analysts, and activists.

World Future Society http://www.wfs.org/ A scientific and educational association exploring how social and technological developments are shaping the future. The society serves as a clearinghouse for forecasts, recommendations, and alternative scenarios. It publishes, among other periodicals, the bimonthly journal The Futurist.

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ability in the Third World, 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Airriess, Christopher A. 2001. “Regional Production, Information-

Communication Technology, and the Developmental State: The Rise of Singapore as a Global Container Hub.” Geoforum 32: 235–254.

Anderson, Elijah. 1990. Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Anderson, Janna Quitney, and Lee Rainie. 2006. “The Future of the Internet II.” Washington, D.C.: The Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Barber, Benjamin. 1995. Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World. New York: Ballantine.

Barlow, John P. 1995. “Cyberhood Versus Neighborhood.” Special issue of Utne Reader 68(3): 52–64.

Beaverstock, Jonathan, Phillip Hubbard, and John Short. 2004. “Getting Away with It? Exposing the Geographies of the Super- Rich.” Geoforum 35(4): 401–407.

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Bruntland, H. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press (for the World Commission on Environment and Development).

Bunge, William. 1973. “The Geography of Human Survival.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 63: 275–295.

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SEEING GEOGRAPHY Global Reach

Before we explore an answer, let us pause to recall our Practicing Geography profile of Denis Cosgrove in Chapter 1. Remember that Professor Cosgrove’s primary interest in cultural geography was in “interpreting” rather than “explaining.” His book Apollo’s Eye is a good example. In it, Cosgrove attempted to interpret the power represented in images of the globe and to show how the practices of globalization are historically rooted in a Western cultural history of imagining, seeing, and representing the globe. We will try a little of this interpretive method on these two images.

The image on the left shows Queen Victoria circa 1850 in front of a world map oriented so that the majority of Britain’s territorial empire is displayed. We know that during this period of European history the queen was sovereign, meaning that she personified, even embodied, Britain and its colonial empire. The image is scaled such that the queen’s arm span matches the span of the British Empire. She is positioned in front of the map, emphasizing her authority and power over it. With power and authority comes responsibility; the viewer is meant to read in the

queen’s pose and dress a moral role as protector and civilizing force. Foregrounded as she is, then, all lines of power, authority, and moral right and responsibility in empire run through her.

The image on the right is an advertisement for JVC, a transnational consumer electronics company that began as the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan, Limited, in 1927. In the advertisement, photographed in 2004, the company’s logo, “JVC,” is scaled to continental size. The message conveyed is one of global dominance and global reach. It also conveys the message of one company bringing the world together, a goal which JVC’s web site describes as “contributing to the global community through cultural activities” with corporate underwriting. Finally, the advertisement is meant to express through the image of the globe the fact that JVC now has a network of manufacturing sites throughout Asia, the Americas, and Europe, and sales subsidiaries in many more regions.

So what do these images tell us about continuity and change from empire to globalization? We see a common theme in the claim of global reach. In the JVC ad, it is expressed as the company’s ability to span the globe with its products and services. In the image with Queen Victoria, it is expressed in the cartographic representation of England’s global empire. We also can identify significant differences between the emotional and affective meaning of British empire and globalization conveyed by these images. Under empire, the queen personifies British imperial rule and allegiance to the queen is required of all imperial subjects. Under globalization, on the other hand, allegiance is constructed between the consumer and transnational corporations. Corporations are faceless rather than personified, represented by abstract logos rather than by living, breathing sovereigns. In summary, we can see in these images both the roots of globalization in empire as well as the significant differences between the two kinds of global power.

What do these images convey about empire and globalization and their similarities and differences?

Two images of global reach, more than a century apart (Queen Victoria with world map; a JVC advertisement).

Ten Recommended Books on the Geography of the Future 423

Keating, Michael. 1998. The New Regionalism in Western Europe. Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar.

Keeling, David J. 1999. “Neoliberal Reform and Landscape Change in Buenos Aires.” Yearbook, Conference of Latin Americanist Geogra- phers 25: 15–32.

Kelly, Philip F. 2000. Landscapes of Globalization. London: Routledge. Kimble, George H. T. 1951. “The Inadequacy of the Regional Con-

cept,” in L. Dudley Stamp and Sidney W. Wooldridge (eds.), Lon- don Essays in Geography: Rodwell Jones Memorial Volume. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 151–174.

Kitchen, Rob, and Martin Dodge. 2002. “Emerging Geographies of Cyberspace,” in R. J. Johnston, Peter Taylor, and Michael Watts (eds.), Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 340–354.

Knox, Paul. 2002. “World Cities and the Organization of Global Space,” in R. J. Johnston, Peter Taylor, and Michael Watts (eds.), Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 328–339.

Kraus, Clifford. 2002. “Returning Tundra’s Rhythm to the Inuit, in Film.” The New York Times, 30 March, p. A4.

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McDowell, Linda (ed.). 1997. Undoing Place? A Geographical Reader. London: Arnold.

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Nemeth, David J. 2000. “The End of the Re(li)gion?” North American Geographer 2: 1–8.

O’Loughlin, John, et al. 1998. “The Diffusion of Democracy, 1946–1994.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88: 545–574.

Poon, Jessie P. H., Edmund R. Thompson, and Philip F. Kelly. 2000. “Myth of the Triad? The Geography of Trade and Investment Blocs.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 25: 427–444.

Press, Larry. 1997. “Tracking the Global Diffusion of the Inter- net.” Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery 40(11): 11–17.

Relph, Edward. 1976. Place and Placelessness. London: Pion. “The Revenge of Geography.” 2003. The Economist Technology Quar-

terly (March 15): 19–22. Rohter, Larry. 2002. “Brazil’s Prized Exports Rely on Slaves and

Scorched Land.” The New York Times, 25 March, pp. A1, A6. Sessions, George (ed.). 1995. Deep Ecology for the 21st Century. Boul-

der, Colo.: Shambala Press. Shields, Rob. 1991. Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of

Modernity. London: Routledge. Suvantola, Jaakko. 2002. Tourist’s Experience of Place. Aldershot,

U.K.: Ashgate. Swerdlow, Joel L. (ed.). 1999. “Global Culture.” Special issue of

National Geographic 196(2): 2–132. Swyngedouw, Erik. 1997. “Neither Global nor Local,” in Kevin R.

Cox (ed.), Spaces of Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the Local. New York: Guilford, 137–166.

Teo, Peggy, and Lim Hiong Li. 2003. “Global and Local Interactions in Tourism.” Annals of Tourism Research 30(2): 287–306.

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Ten Recommended Books on the Geography of the Future (For additional suggested readings, see The Human Mosaic web site: www.whfreeman.com/jordan)

Bagchi-Sen, Sharmistha, and Helen Smith (eds). 2006. Economic Geography: Past, Present and Future. London: Routledge. Eco- nomic geographers point the way for the future development of the subfield in 20 wide-ranging chapters.

Crang, Mike, Phil Crang, and Jon May (eds.). Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space and Relations. London: Routledge. Explores how new communications technologies produce new types of space and even new geographies.

Firebaugh, Glenn. 2003. The New Geography of Global Inequality. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Makes the argu- ment that income inequalities among and within world regions are misunderstood. There is a lot of economic data to wade through, but they make the case stronger. The author raises important questions about the effects of globalization.

Gabel, Medard, and Henry Bruner. 2003. Global Inc.: An Atlas of the Multinational Corporation. New York: The New Press. A won- derful atlas mapping everything from the historic rise of multi- national companies to the latest geographic expansions of Wal-Mart. It’s full of facts on every important global industry, including food, cars, and pharmaceuticals. It also maps the impacts of multinational corporations, including cultural and environmental.

Johnston, R. J., Peter Taylor, and Michael Watts (eds). 2002. Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Considers such issues as post–Cold War geopolitics, global environmental governance, and cultural changes related to mass consumption, the Internet, and eth- nic identity.

Jussila, Heikki, Roser Majoral, and Fernanda Delgado-Cravidao. 2001. Globalization and Marginality in Geographical Space. Alder- shot, U.K.: Ashgate. Case studies from Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Australia illustrate how geographical research aids our understanding of the way in which the policies and politics of globalization affect the more marginalized areas of the world.

Kotkin, Joel. 2000. The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape. New York: Random House. Argues that computer and telecommunication technology has freed people and businesses to locate wherever they wish, thereby weakening venerable core-periphery patterns but strengthening place distinctiveness.

Miles, Malcolm, and Tim Hall (eds). 2003. Urban Futures: Critical Commentaries on Shaping Cities. This volume brings together experts from a range of disciplines to debate the cultures and forms of tomorrow’s cities.

Norwine, Jim, and Jonathan M. Smith (eds). 2000. Worldview Flux: Perplexed Values Among Postmodern Peoples. Lanham, Md.: Lexing- ton Books. An irreverent, occasionally funny look at how groups as diverse as Cajuns, South African whites, and Pacific coast Native Americans are coping with the new age of global- ization and the need to restructure their self-identities and place attachments.

Skelton, Tracey, and Tim Allen (eds.). 1999. Culture and Global Change. London: Routledge. No fewer than 27 authors con- sider the interaction of culture and globalization, in the process rejecting both cultural and economic determinism.

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Glossary

425

absorbing barrier A barrier that completely halts diffusion of innovations and blocks the spread of cultural elements. [Chapter 1]

acculturation The adoption by an ethnic group of enough of the ways of the host society to be able to function economically and socially. [Chapter 5]

acid rain Rainfall with much higher acidity than normal, caused by sulfur and nitrogen oxides derived from the burning of fossil fuels being flushed from the atmosphere by precipitation, with lethal effects for many plants and animals. [Chapter 9]

adaptive strategy The unique way in which each culture uses its particular physical environment; those aspects of culture that serve to provide the necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter, and defense. [Chapter 1 and others]

agglomeration A snowballing geographical process by which secondary and service industrial activities become clustered in cities and compact industrial regions in order to share infrastructure and markets. [Chapter 11]

agribusiness Highly mechanized, large-scale farming, usually under corporate ownership. [Chapter 8]

agricultural landscape The cultural landscape of agricultural areas. [Chapter 8]

agricultural region A geographic region defined by a distinctive combination of physical environmental conditions; crop type; settlement patterns; and labor, cultivation, and harvesting practices. [Chapter 8]

agricultural surplus The amount of food grown by a society that exceeds the demands of its population. [Chapter 10]

agriculture The cultivation of domesticated crops and the raising of domesticated animals. [Chapter 8]

agroforestry A cultivation system that features the interplanting of trees with field crops. [Chapter 2]

agro-region A culture region based on characteristics of agriculture, within which a given type of agriculture occurs. [Chapter 8]

amenity landscapes Landscapes that are prized for their natural and cultural aesthetic qualities by the tourism and real estate industries and their customers. [Chapter 2]

Anatolian hypothesis A theory of language diffusion that holds that the movement of Indo-European languages from the area in contemporary Turkey known as Anatolia followed the spread of plant domestication technologies. [Chapter 4]

animism The belief that inanimate objects, such as trees, rocks, and rivers, possess souls. [Chapter 7]

apartheid In South Africa, a policy of racial segregation and discrimination against non-European groups. [Chapter 10]

aquaculture The cultivation, under controlled conditions, of aquatic organisms primarily for food but also for scientific and aquarium uses. [Chapter 8]

assimilation The complete blending of an ethnic group into the host society resulting in the loss of all distinctive ethnic traits. [Chapter 5]

axis mundi The symbolic center of cosmomagical cities, often demarcated by a large, vertical structure. [Chapter 10]

barriadas Illegal housing settlements, usually made up of temporary shelters, that surround large cities; often referred to as squatter settlements. [Chapter 10]

bilingualism The ability to speak two languages fluently. [Chapter 4]

biofuel Broadly, this refers to any form of energy derived from biological matter, increasingly used in reference to replacements for fossil fuels in internal combustion engines, industrial processes, and the heating and cooling of buildings. [Chapter 8]

birthrate The annual number of births per thousand population. [Chapter 3]

border zones The areas where different regions meet and sometimes overlap. [Chapter 1]

buffer state An independent but small and weak country lying between two powerful countries. [Chapter 6]

cadastral pattern The shapes formed by property borders; the pattern of land ownership. [Chapter 8]

carrying capacity The maximum number of people that can be supported in a given area. [Chapter 3]

census tracts Small districts used by the U.S. Census Bureau to survey the population. [Chapter 11]

central business district (CBD) The central portion of a city, characterized by high-density land uses. [Chapter 11]

centralizing forces Diffusion forces that encourage people or businesses to locate in the central city. [Chapter 11]

central place A town or city engaged primarily in the service stages of production; a regional center.

[Chapter 10]

central-place theory A set of models designed to explain the spatial distribution of urban service centers. [Chapter 10]

centrifugal force Any factor that disrupts the internal order of a country. [Chapter 6]

centripetal force Any factor that supports the internal unity of a country. [Chapter 6]

chain migration The tendency of people to migrate along channels, over a period of time, from specific source areas to specific destinations. [Chapter 5]

checkerboard development A mixture of farmlands and housing tracts. [Chapter 11]

circulation A term that implies an ongoing set of movements of people, ideas, or things that have no particular center or periphery [Chapter 1]

cityscape An urban landscape. [Chapter 11]

cleavage model A political-geographic model suggesting that persistent regional patterns in voting behavior, sometimes leading to separatism, can usually be explained in terms of tensions pitting urban against rural, core against periphery, capitalists against workers, and power group against minority culture. [Chapter 6]

colonialism The forceful appropriation of a territory by a distant state, often involving the displacement of indigenous populations to make way for colonial settlers. [Chapter 2]

concentric-zone model A social model that depicts a city as five areas bounded by concentric rings. [Chapter 11]

consumer nationalism A situation where local consumers favor nationally produced goods over imported goods as part of a nationalist political agenda. [Chapter 2]

consumer services The range of economic activities that facilitate the consumption of goods. [Chapter 9]

contact conversion The spread of religious beliefs by personal contact. [Chapter 7]

contagious diffusion A type of expansion diffusion in which cultural innovation spreads by person-to-person contact, moving wavelike through an area and population without regard to social status. [Chapter 1]

conventional agriculture The widely adopted commercial, industrialized form of farming that uses a range of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides to control pests and maximize productivity. A term that emerged following the creation of alternative forms, such as organic farming. [Chapter 8]

convergence hypothesis A hypothesis holding that cultural differences among places are being reduced by improved transportation and communications systems, leading to a homogenization of popular culture. [Chapter 2]

core area The territorial nucleus from which a country grows in area and over time, often containing the national capital and the main center of commerce, culture, and industry. [Chapter 6]

core-periphery A concept based on the tendency of both formal and functional culture regions to consist of a core or node, in which defining traits are purest or functions are headquartered, and a periphery that is tributary and displays fewer of the defining traits. [Chapter 1 and others]

cornucopians Those who believe that science and technology can solve resource shortages. In this view, human beings are our greatest resource rather than a burden to be limited. [Chapter 3]

cosmomagical city A type of city that is laid out in accordance with religious principles, characteristic of very early cities, particularly in China. [Chapter 10]

cottage industry A traditional type of manufacturing in the pre–industrial revolution era, practiced on a small scale in individual rural households as a part-time occupation and designed to produce handmade goods for local consumption. [Chapter 9]

creole A language derived from a pidgin language that has acquired a fuller vocabulary and become the native language of its speakers. [Chapter 4]

cultural diffusion The spread of elements of culture from the point of origin over an area. [Chapter 1]

cultural ecology Broadly defined, the study of the relationships between the physical environment and culture; narrowly (and more commonly) defined, the study of culture as an adaptive system that facilitates human adaptation to nature and environmental change. [Chapter 1]

cultural interaction The relationship of various elements within a culture. [Chapter 1]

cultural landscape The artificial landscape; the visible human imprint on the land. [Chapter 1]

cultural maladaptation Poor or inadequate adaptation that occurs when a group pursues an adaptive strategy

426 Glossary

that, in the short run, fails to provide the necessities of life or, in the long run, destroys the environment that nourishes it. [Chapter 5]

cultural preadaptation A complex of adaptive traits and skills possessed in advance of migration by a group, giving it survival ability and competitive advantage in occupying the new environment. [Chapter 5]

cultural simplification The process by which immigrant ethnic groups lose certain aspects of their traditional culture in the process of settling overseas, creating a new culture that is less complex than the old. [Chapter 5]

culture A total way of life held in common by a group of people, including such learned features as speech, ideology, behavior, livelihood, technology, and government; or the local, customary way of doing things—a way of life; an ever-changing process in which a group is actively engaged; a dynamic mix of symbols, beliefs, speech, and practices. [Chapter 1]

culture hearth A focused geographic area where important innovations are born and from which they spread. [Chapter 7]

death rate The annual number of deaths per 1000 persons in the population. [Chapter 3]

decentralization The tendency of people or businesses and industry to locate outside the central city. [Chapter 11]

defensive site A location from which a city can be easily defended. [Chapter 10]

deindustrialization The decline of primary and secondary industry, accompanied by a rise in the service sectors of the industrial economy. [Chapters 9, 11]

demographic transition A change in population growth that occurs when a nation moves from a rural, agricultural society with high birth and death rates to an urban, industrial society in which death rates decline first and birthrates decline later. [Chapter 7]

desertification A process whereby human actions unintentionally turn productive lands into deserts through agricultural and pastoral misuse, destroying vegetation and soil to the point where they cannot regenerate. [Chapter 8]

dialect A distinctive local or regional variant of a language that remains mutually intelligible to speakers of other dialects of that language; a subtype of a language. [Chapter 4]

diffusion The movement of people, ideas, or things from one location outward toward other locations. [Chapter 1]

dispersed A type of settlement form in which people live relatively distant from each other. [Chapter 1]

domesticated animal An animal kept for some utilitarian purpose whose breeding is controlled by humans and whose survival is dependent on humans; domesticated animals differ genetically and behaviorally from wild animals. [Chapter 8]

domesticated plant A plant deliberately planted and tended by humans that is genetically distinct from its wild ancestors as a result of selective breeding. [Chapter 8]

double-cropping Harvesting twice a year from the same parcel of land. [Chapter 8]

dust dome A pollution layer over a city that is thickest at the center of the city. [Chapter 11]

ecofeminism A new doctrine proposing that women are inherently better environmental preservationists than men because the traditional roles of women involved creating and nurturing life, whereas the traditional roles of men too often necessitated death and destruction. [Chapter 1]

ecotheology The study of the influence of religious belief on habitat modification. [Chapter 7]

ecotourism Responsible travel that does not harm ecosystems or the well-being of local people. [Chapter 9]

edge city A new urban cluster of economic activity that surrounds nineteenth-century downtowns. [Chapter 11]

electoral geography The study of the interactions among space, place, and region and the conduct and results of elections. [Chapter 6]

enclave A piece of territory surrounded by, but not part of, a country. [Chapter 6]

environmental determinism The belief that cultures are directly or indirectly shaped by the physical environment. [Chapter 1]

environmental perception The belief that culture depends more on what people perceive the environment to be than on the actual character of the environment; perception, in turn, is colored by the teachings of culture. [Chapter 1]

environmental racism The targeting of areas where ethnic or racial minorities live with respect to environmental contamination or failure to enforce environmental regulations. [Chapter 5]

ethnic cleansing The removal of unwanted ethnic minority populations from a nation-state through mass killing, deportation, or imprisonment. [Chapters 3, 5]

ethnic culture region An area occupied by people of similar ethnic background who share traits of ethnicity, such as language and migration history. [Chapter 11]

Glossary 427

ethnic flag A readily visible marker of ethnicity on the landscape. [Chapter 5]

ethnic group A group of people who share a common ancestry and cultural tradition, often living as a minority group in a larger society. [Chapter 5]

ethnic homeland A sizable area inhabited by an ethnic minority that exhibits a strong sense of attachment to the region and often exercises some measure of political and social control over it. [Chapter 5]

ethnic island A small ethnic area in the rural countryside; sometimes called a “folk island.” [Chapter 5]

ethnic neighborhood A voluntary community where people of like origin reside by choice. [Chapter 5]

ethnic religion A religion identified with a particular ethnic or tribal group; does not seek converts. [Chapter 7]

ethnic substrate Regional cultural distinctiveness that remains following the assimilation of an ethnic homeland. [Chapter 5]

ethnicity See ethnic group. [Chapter 5]

ethnographic boundary A political boundary that follows some cultural border, such as a linguistic or religious border. [Chapter 6]

ethnolect A dialect spoken by a particular ethnic group. [Chapter 4]

Eurocentric Using the historical experience of Europe as the benchmark for all cases. [Chapter 3]

exclave A piece of national territory separated from the main body of a country by the territory of another country. [Chapter 6]

expansion diffusion The spread of innovations within an area in a snowballing process, so that the total number of knowers or users becomes greater and the area of occurrence grows. [Chapter 1]

export processing zones (EPZs) Designated areas of countries where governments create conditions conducive to export-oriented production. [Chapter 9]

extended metropolitan region (EMR) A new type of urban region, complex in both landscape form and function, created by the rapid spatial expansion of cities in the developing world. [Chapter 10]

farmstead The center of farm operations, containing the house, barn, sheds, and livestock pens. [Chapter 3]

farm village A clustered rural settlement of moderate size, inhabited by people who are engaged in farming. [Chapter 3]

federal state An independent country that gives considerable powers and even autonomy to its constituent parts. [Chapter 6]

feedlot A factorylike farm devoted to either livestock fattening or dairying; all feed is imported and no crops are grown on the farm. [Chapter 8]

festival setting A multiuse redevelopment project that is built around a particular setting, often one with a historical association. [Chapter 11]

folk Traditional, rural; the opposite of “popular.” [Chapter 2]

folk architecture Structures built by members of a folk society or culture in a traditional manner and style, without the assistance of professional architects or blueprints, using locally available raw materials. [Chapter 2]

folk culture A small, cohesive, stable, isolated, nearly self- sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race; characterized by a strong family or clan structure, order maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family, little division of labor other than that between the sexes, frequent and strong interpersonal relationships, and a material culture consisting mainly of handmade goods. [Chapters 2, 8]

folk fortress A stronghold area with natural defensive qualities, useful in the defense of a country against invaders. [Chapter 6]

folk geography The study of the spatial patterns and ecology of traditional groups; a branch of cultural geography. [Chapter 2]

foodways Customary behaviors associated with food preparation and consumption. [Chapter 5]

formal region A region inhabited by people who have one or more cultural traits in common. [Chapter 1]

functional region An area that functions as a unit politically, socially, or economically. [Chapter 1]

functional zonation The pattern of land uses within a city; the existence of areas with differing functions, such as residential, commercial, and governmental. [Chapter 11]

fundamentalism A movement to return to the founding principles of a religion, which can include literal interpretation of sacred texts, or the attempt to follow the ways of a religious founder as closely as possible. [Chapter 7]

Gaia hypothesis The theory that there is one interacting planetary ecosystem, Gaia, that includes all living things and the land, waters, and atmosphere in which they live; further, that Gaia functions almost as a living organism, acting to control deviations in climate and to correct

428 Glossary

chemical imbalances, so as to preserve Earth as a living planet. [Chapter 7]

gender roles: What it means to be a man, and what it means to be a woman, in different cultural and historical contexts. [Chapter 3]

generic toponym The descriptive part of many place- names, often repeated throughout a culture area. [Chapter 4]

genetically modified (GM) crops Plants whose genetic characteristics have been altered through recombinant DNA technology. [Chapter 8]

gentrification The displacement of lower-income residents by higher-income residents as buildings in deteriorated areas of city centers are restored. [Chapter 11]

geodemography Population geography; the study of the spatial and ecological aspects of population, including distribution, density per unit of land area, fertility, gender, health, age, mortality, and migration. [Chapter 3]

geography The study of spatial patterns and of differences and similarities from one place to another in environment and culture. [Chapter 1]

geometric boundary A political border drawn in a regular, geometric manner, often a straight line, without regard for environmental or cultural patterns. [Chapter 6]

geopolitics The influence of the habitat on political entities. [Chapter 6]

gerrymandering The drawing of electoral district boundaries in an awkward pattern to enhance the voting impact of one constituency at the expense of another. [Chapter 6]

ghetto Traditionally, an area within a city where an ethnic group lives, either by choice or by force. Today in the United States, the term typically indicates an impoverished African-American urban neighborhood. [Chapters 5, 11]

global city A city that is a control center of the global economy. [Chapter 10]

globalization The binding together of all the lands and peoples of the world into an integrated system driven by capitalistic free markets, in which cultural diffusion is rapid, independent states are weakened, and cultural homogenization is encouraged. [Chapters 1, 12]

globalizing city A city experiencing significant economic and social changes related to the global economy. [Chapter 10]

global warming The pronounced climatic warming of the Earth that has occurred since about 1920 and particularly since the 1970s. [Chapter 9]

glocalization The process by which global forces of change interact with local cultures, altering both in the process. [Chapter 12]

greenhouse effect A process in which the increased release of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, caused by industrial activity and deforestation, permits solar short-wave heat radiation to reach the Earth’s surface but blocks long-wave outgoing radiation, causing a thermal imbalance and global heating. [Chapter 9]

green revolution The recent introduction of high-yield hybrid crops and chemical fertilizers and pesticides into traditional Asian agricultural systems, most notably paddy rice farming, with attendant increases in production and ecological damage. [Chapter 8]

Greens Activists and organizations, including political parties, whose central concern is addressing environmental deterioration. [Chapter 9]

guild industry A traditional type of manufacturing in the pre–industrial revolution era, involving handmade goods of high quality manufactured by highly skilled artisans who resided in towns and cities. [Chapter 9]

hamlet A small rural settlement, smaller than a village. [Chapter 8]

heartland The interior of a sizable landmass, removed from maritime connections; in particular, the interior of the Eurasian continent. [Chapter 6]

heartland theory A 1904 proposal by Mackinder that the key to world conquest lay in control of the interior of Eurasia. [Chapter 6]

heat island An area of warmer temperatures at the center of a city, caused by the urban concentration of heat- retaining concrete, brick, and asphalt. [Chapter 11]

hierarchical diffusion A type of expansion diffusion in which innovations spread from one important person to another or from one urban center to another, temporarily bypassing other persons or rural areas. [Chapter 1]

high-tech corridor An area along a limited-access highway that houses offices and other services associated with high-tech industries. [Chapters 9, 11]

hinterland The area surrounding a city and influenced by it. [Chapter 10]

homelessness A temporary or permanent condition of not having a legal home address. [Chapter 11]

human geography The study of the relationships between people and the places and spaces in which they live. [Chapter 1]

Glossary 429

hunting and gathering The killing of wild game and the harvesting of wild plants to provide food in traditional cultures. [Chapter 8]

hydraulic civilization A civilization based on large-scale irrigation. [Chapter 10]

independent invention A cultural innovation that is developed in two or more locations by individuals or groups working independently. [Chapter 1]

indigenous culture A culture group that constitutes the original inhabitants of a territory, distinct from the dominant national culture, which is often derived from colonial occupation. [Chapter 2]

indigenous technical knowledge Highly localized knowledge about environmental conditions and sustainable land-use practices. [Chapter 2]

industrial revolution A series of inventions and innovations, arising in England in the 1700s, that led to the use of machines and inanimate power in the manufacturing process. [Chapter 9]

infant mortality rate The number of infants per 1000 live births who die before reaching one year of age. [Chapter 3]

in-filling New building on empty parcels of land within a checkerboard pattern of development. [Chapter 11]

intensive agriculture The expenditure of much labor and capital on a piece of land to increase its productivity. In contrast, extensive agriculture involves less labor and capital. [Chapter 8]

intercropping The practice of growing two or more different types of crops in the same field at the same time. [Chapter 8]

involuntary migration Also called forced migration, refers to the forced displacement of a population, whether by government policy (such as a resettlement program), warfare or other violence, ethnic cleansing, disease, natural disaster, or enslavement. [Chapter 5]

isogloss The border of usage of an individual word or pronunciation. [Chapter 4]

Kurgan hypothesis A theory of language diffusion, which holds that the spread of Indo-European languages originated with animal domestication; originated in the Central Asian steppes; and was later, more violent, and swifter than proponents of the Anatolian hypothesis maintain. [Chapter 4]

labor-intensive industry An industry for which labor costs represent a large proportion of total production costs. [Chapter 9]

laissez-faire utilitarianism The belief that economic competition without government interference produces the most public good. [Chapter 11]

land-division pattern A term that refers to the spatial patterns of different land uses. [Chapter 1]

language A mutually agreed-on system of symbolic communication that has a spoken and usually a written expression. [Chapter 4]

language family A group of related languages derived from a common ancestor. [Chapter 4]

language hotspots Those places on Earth that are home to the most unique, misunderstood, or endangered languages. [Chapter 4]

lateral commuting Traveling from one suburb to another in going from home to work. [Chapter 11]

legible city A city that is easy to decipher, with clear pathways, edges, nodes, districts, and landmarks. [Chapter 11]

leisure landscapes Landscapes that are planned and designed primarily for entertainment purposes, such as ski and beach resorts. [Chapter 2]

lingua franca An existing, well-established language of communication and commerce used widely where it is not a mother tongue. [Chapter 4]

linguistic refuge area An area protected by isolation or inhospitable environmental conditions in which a language or dialect has survived. [Chapter 4]

livestock fattening A commercial type of agriculture that produces fattened cattle and hogs for meat. [Chapter 8]

local consumption cultures Distinct consumption practices and preferences in food, clothing, music, and so forth formed in specific places and historical moments. [Chapter 2]

Malthusian Those who hold the views of Thomas Malthus, who believed that overpopulation is the root cause of poverty, illness, and warfare. [Chapter 3]

marchland A strip of territory, traditionally one day’s march for infantry, that served as a boundary zone for independent countries in premodern times. [Chapter 6]

mariculture A branch of aquaculture specific to the cultivation of marine organisms, often involving the transformation of coastal environments and the production of distinctive new landscapes. [Chapter 8]

market The geographical area in which a product may be sold in a volume and at a price profitable to the manufacturer. [Chapter 9]

430 Glossary

market gardening Farming devoted to specialized fruit, vegetable, or vine crops for sale rather than consumption. [Chapter 8]

master-planned communities Large-scale residential developments that include, in addition to architecturally compatible housing units, planned recreational facilities, schools, and security measures. [Chapter 11]

material culture All physical, tangible objects made and used by members of a cultural group, such as clothing, buildings, tools and utensils, instruments, furniture, and artwork; the visible aspect of culture. [Chapter 2]

mechanistic view of nature The view that humans are separate from nature and hold dominion over it and that the habitat is an integrated mechanism governed by external forces that the human mind can understand and manipulate. [Chapter 1]

megacity A term that refers to a particularly large urban center. [Chapter 10]

megalopolis A large urban region formed as several urban areas spread and merge, such as Boswash, the region including Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. [Chapter 11]

migrant worker Most broadly, this refers to people working outside of their home country. Migrant workers are particularly critical to large-scale commercial agriculture. [Chapter 8]

migrations The large-scale movements of people between different regions of the world. [Chapter 1]

mobility The relative ability of people, ideas, or things to move freely through space. [Chapter 1]

model An abstraction, an imaginary situation, proposed by geographers to simulate laboratory conditions so that they may isolate certain causal forces for detailed study. [Chapter 1]

monoculture The raising of only one crop on a huge tract of land in agribusiness. [Chapter 8]

monotheistic religion The worship of only one god. [Chapter 7]

multiple-nuclei model A model that depicts a city growing from several separate focal points. [Chapter 11]

nationalism The sense of belonging to and self- identification with a national culture. [Chapter 6]

nation-state An independent country dominated by a relatively homogeneous culture group. [Chapter 6]

natural boundary A political border that follows some feature of the natural environment, such as a river or mountain ridge. [Chapter 6]

natural hazard An inherent danger present in a given habitat, such as flooding, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, or earthquakes; often perceived differently by different peoples. [Chapter 1]

nature-culture A term that refers to the complex relationships between people and the physical environment, including how culture, politics, and economies affect people’s ecological situation and resource use. [Chapter 1]

neighborhood A small social area within a city where residents share values and concerns and interact with one another on a daily basis. [Chapter 11]

neolocalism The desire to reembrace the uniqueness and authenticity of place, in response to globalization. [Chapter 12]

neo-Malthusians Modern-day followers of Thomas Malthus (see Malthusian). [Chapter 3]

node A central point in a functional culture region where functions are coordinated and directed. [Chapter 1]

nomadic livestock herder A member of a group that continually moves with its livestock in search of forage for its animals. [Chapter 8]

nonmaterial culture The wide range of tales, songs, lore, beliefs, superstitions, and customs that passes from generation to generation as part of an oral or written tradition. [Chapter 2]

nucleation A relatively dense settlement form. [Chapter 1]

office park A cluster of office buildings, usually located along an interstate, often forming the nucleus of an edge city. [Chapter 11]

organic agriculture A form of farming that relies on manuring, mulching, and biological pest control and rejects the use of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and genetically modified crops. [Chapter 8]

organic view of nature The view that humans are part of, not separate from, nature and that the habitat possesses a soul and is filled with nature spirits. [Chapter 1]

orthodox religion A strand within most major religions that emphasizes purity of faith and is not open to blending with other religions. [Chapter 7]

outsource The physical separation of some economic activities from the main production facility, usually for the purpose of employing cheaper labor. [Chapter 9]

paddy rice farming The cultivation of rice on a paddy, or small flooded field enclosed by mud dikes, practiced in the humid areas of the Far East. [Chapter 8]

Glossary 431

palimpsest A term used to describe cultural landscapes with various layers and historical “messages.” Geographers use this term to reinforce the notion of the landscape as a text that can be read; a landscape palimpsest has elements of both modern and past periods. [Chapter 11]

peasant A farmer belonging to a folk culture and practicing a traditional system of agriculture. [Chapter 8]

permeable barrier A barrier that permits some aspects of an innovation to diffuse through it but weakens and retards continued spread; an innovation can be modified in passing through a permeable barrier. [Chapter 1]

physical environment All aspects of the natural physical surroundings, such as climate, terrain, soils, vegetation, and wildlife. [Chapter 1]

pidgin A composite language consisting of a small vocabulary borrowed from the linguistic groups involved in international commerce. [Chapter 4]

pilgrimage A journey to a place of religious importance. [Chapter 7]

place A term used to connote the subjective, idiographic, humanistic, culturally oriented type of geography that seeks to understand the unique character of individual regions and places, rejecting the principles of science as flawed and unknowingly biased. [Chapter 1]

placelessness A spatial standardization that diminishes regional variety; may result from the spread of popular culture, which can diminish or destroy the uniqueness of place through cultural standardization on a national or even worldwide scale. [Chapters 2, 12]

plantation A large landholding devoted to specialized production of a tropical cash crop. [Chapter 8]

plantation agriculture A system of monoculture for producing export crops requiring relatively large amounts of land and capital; originally dependent on slave labor. [Chapter 8]

political geography The study of the spatial and ecological aspects of political behavior, from nationalism and the independent country to voting patterns, sectionalism, and regional separatism. Sometimes called geopolitics. [Chapter 6]

polyglot A mixture of different languages. [Chapter 4]

polytheistic religion The worship of many gods. [Chapter 7]

popular culture A dynamic culture based in large, heterogeneous societies permitting considerable individualism, innovation, and change; having a money- based economy, division of labor into professions, secular institutions of control, and weak interpersonal ties;

producing and consuming machine-made goods. [Chapter 2]

population density The number of people in an area of land, usually expressed as people per square mile or per square kilometer. [Chapter 7]

population explosion The rapid, accelerating increase in world population since about 1650 and especially since 1900. [Chapter 3]

population geography Geodemography; the study of the spatial and ecological aspects of population, including distribution, density per unit of land area, fertility, gender, health, age, mortality, and migration. [Chapter 3]

population pyramid A graph used to show the age and sex composition of a population. [Chapter 3]

possibilism A school of thought based on the belief that humans, rather than the physical environment, are the primary active force; that any environment offers a number of different possible ways for a culture to develop; and that the choices among these possibilities are guided by cultural heritage. [Chapter 1]

postindustrial phase A society characterized by the dominance of the service sectors of economic activity. [Chapter 9]

primary industry An industry engaged in the extraction of natural resources, such as agriculture, lumbering, and mining. [Chapter 9]

primate city A city of large size and dominant power within a country. [Chapter 10]

producer services The range of economic activities required by producers of goods. [Chapter 9]

proselytic religion A religion that actively seeks converts and has the goal of converting all humankind. [Chapter 3]

push-and-pull factors Unfavorable, repelling conditions and favorable, attractive conditions that interact to affect migration and other elements of diffusion. [Chapter 3]

race A classification system that is sometimes understood as arising from genetically significant differences among human populations, or visible differences in human physiognomy, or as a social construction that varies across time and space. [Chapter 5]

ranching The commercial raising of herd livestock on a large landholding. [Chapter 8]

range In central-place theory, the average maximum distance people will travel to purchase a good or service. [Chapter 10]

redlining A practice by banks and mortgage companies of demarcating areas considered to be high risk for housing loans. [Chapter 11]

432 Glossary

refuge area A region in which the physical habitat has provided natural protection for a minority cultural group. [Chapter 4]

refugees Those fleeing from persecution in their country of nationality. The persecution can be religious, political, racial, or ethnic. [Chapter 3]

region A grouping of like places or the functional union of places to form a spatial unit. [Chapter 1]

regional trading blocs Agreements made among geographically proximate countries that reduce trade barriers in order to better compete with other regional markets. [Chapter 6]

relic boundary A former political border that no longer functions as a boundary. [Chapter 6]

religion A social system involving a set of beliefs and practices through which people seek harmony with the universe and attempt to influence the forces of nature, life, and death. [Chapter 7]

relocation diffusion The spread of an innovation or other element of culture that occurs with the bodily relocation (migration) of the individual or group responsible for the innovation. [Chapter 1]

renewable resource A resource that is not depleted if wisely used, such as forests, water, fishing grounds, and agricultural land. [Chapter 9]

restrictive covenant A statement written into a property deed that restricts the use of the land in some way; often used to prohibit certain groups of people from buying property. [Chapter 11]

return migration A type of ethnic diffusion that involves the voluntary movement of a group of migrants back to its ancestral or native country or homeland. [Chapter 5]

rimland The maritime fringe of a country or continent; in particular, the western, southern, and eastern edges of the Eurasian continent. [Chapter 6]

sacred space An area recognized by a religious group as worthy of devotion, loyalty, esteem, or fear to the extent that it becomes sought out, avoided, inaccessible to the nonbeliever, and/or removed from economic use. [Chapter 7]

satellite state A small, weak country dominated by one powerful neighbor to the extent that some or much of its independence is lost. [Chapter 6]

secondary industry An industry engaged in processing raw materials into finished products; manufacturing. [Chapter 9]

sector model An economic model that depicts a city as a series of pie-shaped wedges. [Chapter 11]

sedentary cultivation Farming in fixed and permanent fields. [Chapter 8]

services The range of economic activities that provide services to industry. [Chapter 9]

settlement forms The spatial arrangement of buildings, roads, towns, and other features that people construct while inhabiting an area. [Chapter 1]

sex ratio The numerical ratio of males to females in a population. [Chapter 3]

site The local setting of a city. [Chapter 10]

situation The regional setting of a city. [Chapter 10]

slang Words and phrases that are not part of a standard, recognized vocabulary for a given language but that are nonetheless used and understood by some of its speakers. [Chapter 4]

social culture region An area in a city where many of the residents share social traits such as income, education, and stage of life. [Chapter 11]

sovereignty The right of individual states to control political and economic affairs within their territorial boundaries without external interference. [Chapter 6]

space A term used to connote the objective, quantitative, theoretical, model-based, economics-oriented type of geography that seeks to understand spatial systems and networks through application of the principles of social science. [Chapter 1]

spatial distribution The arrangement of a particular landscape feature or features throughout a unit of space. [Chapter 10]

squatter settlement An illegal housing settlement, usually made up of temporary shelters, that surrounds a large city. [Chapter 10]

state A centralized authority that enforces a single political, economic, and legal system within its territorial boundaries. Often used synonymously with “country.” [Chapter 6]

stimulus diffusion A type of expansion diffusion in which a specific trait fails to spread but the underlying idea or concept is accepted. [Chapter 1]

subculture A group of people with norms, values, and material practices that differentiate them from the dominant culture to which they belong. [Chapter 2]

subsistence A livelihood system that provides only basic food, clothing, and shelter requirements. [Chapter 2]

subsistence agriculture Farming to supply the minimum food and materials necessary to survive. [Chapter 8]

subsistence economies Economies where people seek to consume only what they produce and to produce only for

Glossary 433

local consumption rather than for exchange or export. [Chapter 2]

suitcase farm In American commercial grain agriculture, a farm on which no one lives; planting and harvesting is done by hired migratory crews. [Chapter 8]

supranationalism Occurs when states willingly relinquish some degree of sovereignty in order to gain the benefits of belonging to a larger political-economic entity. [Chapter 6]

supranational organization A group of independent countries joined together for purposes of mutual interest. [Chapter 6]

survey pattern A pattern of original land survey in an area. [Chapter 8]

sustainability The survival of a land-use system for centuries or millennia without destruction of the environmental base, allowing generation after generation to continue to live there. [Chapters 8, 9, and others]

swidden cultivation A type of agriculture characterized by land rotation in which temporary clearings are used for several years and then abandoned to be replaced by new clearings; also known as “slash-and-burn agriculture.” [Chapter 8]

symbolic landscapes Landscapes that express the values, beliefs, and meanings of a particular culture. [Chapter 1]

syncretic religion Religions, or strands within religions, that combine elements of two or more belief systems. [Chapter 7]

technopole A center of high-tech manufacturing and information-based industry. [Chapter 9]

territoriality A learned cultural response, rooted in European history, that produced the external bounding and internal territorial organization characteristic of modern states. [Chapter 6]

threshold In central-place theory, the size of the population required to make provision of goods and services economically feasible. [Chapter 10]

time-distance decay The decrease in acceptance of a cultural innovation with increasing time and distance from its origin. [Chapter 1]

toponym A place-name, usually consisting of two parts, the generic and the specific. [Chapter 4]

total fertility rate (TFR) The number of children the average woman will bear during her reproductive lifetime (15–44 years old). A TFR of less than 2.1, if maintained, will cause a natural decline of population. [Chapter 3]

trade-route site A place for a city at a significant point on a transportation route. [Chapter 10]

transnational corporations Companies that have international production, marketing, and management facilities. [Chapter 9]

transnational migrants Groups of people who maintain ties to their homelands after they have migrated. [Chapter 1]

transportation/communication services The range of economic activities that provide transport and communication to businesses. [Chapter 9]

uneven development The tendency for industry to develop in a core-periphery pattern, enriching the industrialized countries of the core and impoverishing the less industrialized periphery. This term is also used to describe urban patterns in which suburban areas are enriched while the inner city is impoverished. [Chapters 1, 9, 11, 12]

unitary state An independent state that concentrates power in the central government and grants little authority to the provinces. [Chapter 6]

universalizing religions Also called proselytic religions, they expand through active conversion of new members and aim to encompass all of humankind. [Chapter 7]

urban agriculture The raising of food, including fruit, vegetables, meat, and milk, inside cities, especially common in the Third World. [Chapter 8]

urban hearth area A region in which the world’s first cities evolved. [Chapter 10]

urbanized population The proportion of a country’s population living in cities. [Chapter 10]

urban morphology The form and structure of cities, including street patterns and the size and shape of buildings. [Chapter 11]

vernacular region A region perceived to exist by its inhabitants; based in the collective spatial perception of the population at large; bearing a generally accepted name or nickname (such as “Dixie”). [Chapters 1, 2]

zero population growth A stabilized population created when an average of only two children per couple survive to adulthood, so that, eventually, the number of deaths equals the number of births. [Chapter 3]

434 Glossary

AAVE (African-American Vernacular English), 120

Abbott, Edith, 365 aboriginal groups, definition of, 144 Aborigines, Australian

globalization and cultural identity of, 402(fig)

languages of, 110–111(map) paintings by, xxxii(fig), 28 place-names of, 132–133, 133(fig)

abortion Christian opposition to, 218 female-specific, 76

Abrahamic religions, 219, 221. See also Christianity; Islam; Judaism

absorbing barriers, 12–13 Acadiana

“Creole” cottages in, 53, 53(fig) ethnic minorities in, 144, 146(map),

147(map) as folk culture region, 32(map)

acculturation, 144 acid rain, 313–314, 313(map) acquired immune deficiency syndrome

(AIDS). See HIV/AIDS Acropolis (Athens), 382, 382(fig) acropolis sites, 343 Adams, John, 122 Adams, William, 416 adaptive strategy, religion as, 237–238 advertising, 42 Afghanistan, 12–13, 43 African-American folk culture region,

32(map), 34, 34(fig) African-Americans

discrimination against, 142–143 ethnic homeland of, 146, 146(map),

157 Gullah people and language, 130, 164 post–Civil War cityscapes and, 390–391,

391(fig) shotgun houses of, 53, 53(fig), 54(fig) spatial distribution of, 154, 155(map)

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), 120

African folk architecture, 54–56, 55(fig) African self-rule, 191, 192(map) Afro-Asiatic language family,

110–111(map), 112–113, 113(tab), 116(map)

age distributions, 74–75, 77, 78–79(map), 78(fig), 80(fig), 81(fig)

agglomeration, 366 Agnew, John, 183, 203 agoras, 382 agrarian democracy, 206 agribusinesses

chicken industry and, 276 decline of family farms and, 263 globalization and, 276–278, 277(map) green revolution and, 269–270

agricultural surpluses, 332 agriculture

cultural landscape and fencing and hedging, 287–288,

288(fig) survey, cadastral, and field patterns,

285–287, 285(fig), 286(fig), 286(map), 287(fig)

as theme in human geography, 22(fig)

ethnicity and, 166, 166(fig) globalization and

agribusiness, 276–278, 277(map) local-global food provisioning,

271–273, 271(fig) von Thünen model, 273–274,

273(fig), 274(map) vulnerabilities, 278–279, 278(fig) world hunger, 275–276, 275(map)

language expansion diffusion and, 115–116, 121

mobility and migrant workers, 270, 270(fig) modern mobilities, 268–270, 269(fig) origins and diffusion of plant

domestication, 267–268, 267(map) origins of animal domestication, 268

nature-culture and biofuels, 283–284, 284(fig) deforestation and desertification,

280–281, 281(map), 282(map) environmental perception, 281–283 land-use intensity, 280 organic food movement, 283 sustainability, 272, 280 technology vs. nature, 279–280,

279(map) patterns of, 3–4, 3(map) region and (types of)

435

aquaculture, 265–267, 265(fig), 266(map)

dairying, 263 grain farming, 262–263, 262(fig),

263(fig) hunting-and-gathering areas, 267 livestock fattening, 261–262, 261(fig) livestock ranching, 264–265 market gardening, 260 nomadic herding, 263–264, 264(fig) overview, 255, 256–257(map) paddy rice farming, 258–259,

258(fig), 259(map) peasant grain, root, and livestock

farming, 259, 259(map), 260(fig) plantation agriculture, 259–260,

260(fig), 261(fig) swidden cultivation, 255–256,

257(fig), 258 urban agriculture, 265

Agriculture, Food, and Human Values (AFHVS), 289

agroforestry, 49–51 AIDS (acquired immune deficiency

syndrome). See HIV/AIDS Ainu people, 159 Airriess, Christopher, 169 alcoholic beverages, 37 alphabetic writing systems, 114 Altaic language family, 110–111(map),

115, 129(map) Amazonian languages, 122 amenity landscapes, 57 American Geographical Society, 27 American Memory project, 60 American Religious Identification Survey,

237, 251 “The American Scene” (Lowenthal), 59 Amharic language, 113, 117 Amish people, 30(fig), 63(fig). See also

Pennsylvania Dutch Anatolian hypothesis, 115–116 Anderson, Elijah, 403 Anderson, Kay, 2 Anderson, Thomas, 19 Andes culture region, 40, 40(map),

161–162 androcentrism, 76 Angkor Thom (Cambodia), 336 Angkor Wat (Cambodia), 218, 419(fig)

Index

Anglican Church, 241 animal domestication, 11–12, 268. See also

livestock animal sounds, 107, 107(tab) animism/shamanism

environmental influence, 237 overview, 227–228, 228(fig)

Antarctica, place-names in, 107–108, 108(fig)

anticonquest, 133 anti-Semitism, 159 Apache people, 126–127 apartheid, 350–351, 351(fig) Apollo’s Eye (Cosgrove), 422 Appalachian people

folk ecology of, 49, 51(map) foodways of, 171

aquaculture overfishing, 313 overview, 265–267, 265(fig), 266(map)

Arabic language Islam and diffusion of, 117 in Israel, 113(fig) prevalence of, 112, 113(tab) in Spanish and Portuguese place-names,

133, 134(map) architecture

cultural landscape and, 25–26, 25(fig) folk, 52–56, 53(fig), 54(fig), 55(fig) of North American folk regions, 34,

34(fig) as symbolic landscape element, 23,

23(fig) Arequipa (Peru), 338 Armenian Church, 222 Arreola, Daniel, 166, 168, 172 art, urban ethnic landscapes and,

166–167, 167(fig) Ashton, Dub, 42 Asian-Americans

national origins, 150 population by state, 151(map)

assimilation, 144 Association of American Geographers, 27,

211 An Atlas of Cyberspaces, Martin Dodge,

421 Australian Aborigines. See Aborigines,

Australian Austro-Asiatic language family,

110–111(map), 115 Austronesian language family

diffusion of, 116(map), 117, 127 distribution of, 110–111(map), 115

automobile industry in China, 407, 409, 410(fig), 411 transnational corporations and, 302,

302(fig) axis mundi, 335, 335(fig)

Ayers Rock, 238(fig) Aymara language, 40

Baltic countries, return migration to, 157 Baltic languages, 112(fig) Bantu expansion, 127, 162 Bantu languages, 115, 115(map) baptism, 245 Baptist Church, 223, 224(map) Barlow, John, 405 barns, 34, 34(fig) Baroque cities, 386, 388, 388(fig) barriers to cultural diffusion, 12–13, 42–43 barrios, 149, 166–167, 167(fig) Basil, Church of Saint, 243(fig) Basque language, 127 Basso, Keith, 126 Bebbington, Anthony, 49 beef industry

mad cow disease and, 278–279, 278(fig) overview, 261–262, 261(fig)

beef wheels, 34, 35(fig) Belgium, colonialism by, 159–160,

160(fig) Bengali language, 113(tab) Bennett, Charles, 127 Berlin Wall, 182(fig) Besakih temple, 226(fig) Bible, 117 “big box” retail chains, 59 bigness, cult of, 59 bilingualism, 109 Billboard magazine, 42 biodiversity

cultural diversity and, 47(map) geopolitics and, 204–205, 205(fig) tree farms and, 313

biofuels, 283–284, 284(fig) biology

gender and, 20 terms from, 17

birthrate, 68 Black Belt, 146, 147(map), 157 Blaikie, Piers, 201–202 Blaut, James, 13 blowguns, 44–45, 44(map) border zones, 8 boundaries

fences vs. walls, 176(fig), 212 as imprint of central authority, 208–209 linguistic, 127 political, 181–182, 206–208, 208(fig)

bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), 278–279, 278(fig)

Bracero Program, 270 Brasília, 168–169, 169(fig) Brazil

racial categories in, 141 rain-forest destruction in, 312(map)

436 Index

urban planning of Brasília, 168–169, 169(fig)

Breckinridge, Sophonisba, 365 Brookfield, Harold, 201–202 Brown, Elsa Barkley, 391 Brownell, Joseph, 40 Brugge (Belgium), 386, 387(fig) BSE (bovine spongiform

encephalopathy), 278–279, 278(fig)

Buddhism ecotheological views of, 241 Hindu fundamentalism and, 217 influence on American culture, 235 origins and diffusion of, 231 overview, 226–227, 227(fig)

buffer states, 181 Burgess, Ernest W., 361–362 Burj Dubai, 376 Bush, George W., 210, 210(fig)

cadastral patterns, 285–287, 285(fig), 286(fig), 286(map), 287(fig)

Cadbury’s chocolate, 42, 45 caffeine, 239 Cairncross, Frances, 407 California Suburbia, 381 Canadian folk architecture, 53(fig), 54,

54(fig) “Cape Cod” houses, Yankee, 53(fig) capitalist cities, 388–389, 389(fig) Carcassonne (France), 387(fig) Carney, Judith, 269 carrying capacity, 68, 69(map) Carson, Rachel, 20 Cartier, Carolyn, 412 Castells, Manuel, 372 Catholicism. See Roman Catholicism cattle

diseases of, 94, 278–279, 278(fig) in India, 239

Caucasic languages, 110–111(map), 129(map)

Caucasus region as linguistic refuge area, 128, 129(map) preservation of ethnic differences in,

163, 164(map) CBDs. See central business districts Celtic languages, 110, 112(fig), 127 cemeteries

as religious landscapes, 246–247, 246(fig), 247(fig)

of Yankee and African-American folk regions, 34, 34(fig)

censorship as barrier to diffusion, 43 by Google in China, 406

census, United States, 172

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, 60

central business districts (CBDs) in concentric-zone model, 361, 361(fig) urban landscapes and, 348, 350,

357–358 centralization, as city pattern, 366–367 central-place theory, 329–331, 330(fig),

331(fig) Centre for Urban History at the University

of Leicester, 397 centrifugal and centripetal forces

definition of, 183 ethnic minorities and national stability,

196 chain migration, 156, 157(map) chain-of-explanation approach, 201–202 channelization, 157 Chauncey, George, 372 checkerboard development

of cities, 369–370, 370(fig) of villages, 96(fig), 97, 99, 100(fig)

Chernobyl catastrophe, 315 Chicago, residential areas of, 362, 363(fig) Chichén Itzá, 336(fig) chicken industry, 276 chili peppers, 269, 269(fig) China

agricultural regions in, 259(map) automobiles in, 407, 409, 410(fig), 411 consumer markets in, 307–308,

308(map) ethnic minorities in, 145(map) family demographics in, 76 Google and, 183, 406 Great Leap Forward, 275 Internet access in, 406 population control programs, 93–94

Chinatowns in Los Angeles, 150(fig) in New York, 356(fig), 398 use of red in, 167, 167(fig)

Chinese language Formosan language and, 158 on Internet, 122, 125(fig) prevalence of, 111, 113(tab)

cholera, 87–88, 88(map) Cholula, Mexico, temple at, 235 Chongqing, China, 17, 18(map) Christaller, Walter, 330–331 Christianity

animistic elements, 228, 228(fig) baptism ritual of, 245 ecotheological views in, 240–242 fundamentalist movements in, 218 as monotheistic religion, 217 North American denominations,

224(map)

origins and diffusion of, 229–231, 230(map)

orthodox strains of, 217 overview, 219, 221–223, 223(fig) as proselytic religion, 216 relocation diffusion of, 11 spread of vineyards and, 238–239 treatment of dead in, 246–247, 247(fig) use of green and, 245

Christopher, A. J., 351 churches, 242–243, 243(fig) circulation, 13 cities, patterns within. See also

urbanization cultural landscape and

capitalist cities, 388–389, 389(fig) edge cities, 392–393, 392(fig) Greek cities, 382–383, 382(fig),

383(map) industrial cities, 389–391, 390(fig),

391(fig), 392(fig) medieval cities, 385–386, 386(fig),

387(fig) megalopolises, 392 new urban landscapes, 393–396,

394(fig), 395(fig), 396(fig) overview, 379–380 Renaissance and Baroque cities, 386,

388, 388(fig) Roman cities, 383–384, 385(fig) ways of reading cityscapes, 380–382,

380(fig), 381(fig) globalization and

new ethnic neighborhoods, 373–375, 374(fig), 374(map), 375(fig)

worldwide homogeneity, 375–377, 376(fig), 377(fig)

mobility and centralization, 366–367 decentralization and suburbanization,

367–370, 367(fig), 368(fig), 370(fig)

gentrification, 370–373, 371(fig) nature-culture and

overview, 377 urban agriculture, 265 urban hydrology, 378 urban vegetation, 378–379 urban weather and climate, 378,

378(fig), 379(fig) region and

concentric-zone model, 361–362 criticisms of models, 364–366 downtowns, 357–358, 358(fig) homelessness, 360–361, 361(fig) multiple-nuclei model, 364, 364(fig) residential areas, 358–360, 359(fig) sector model, 363–364, 363(fig)

citizenship, cultural belonging and, 46

Index 437

The City in History (Mumford), 390 class, industrial cityscapes and, 390 cleavage model, 197, 198–199(map) climate

impact of cities on, 378, 378(fig), 379(fig)

influence on population geography, 94 climate change

agriculture and, 280 Bantu expansion and, 162 economics and, 314, 314(fig) geopolitics and, 204 nature-culture relationships and, 21

clothing, 161–162, 161(fig) clustering, ethnic, 162–163, 163(map) The Clustering of America (Weiss), 36 coastlines, 203 collective farms, 275 colonialism

ethnicity and, 159–161, 160(fig) indigenous ecology and, 46–47 language diffusion and, 116–117,

121–123, 123(fig) modern territorial state and, 178 multiethnic countries and, 196 toponyms and, 133, 134(map)

color religious symbolism and, 244–245,

246(fig) urban ethnic landscapes and, 167–168,

167(fig) Communities for a Better Environment,

166 concentric-zone model, 361–362 Confucianism

origins and diffusion of, 231 as Taoic religion, 227

Congo, Democratic Republic of, 191 congressional redistricting, 185,

185(map), 210–211 conquistadors, 160(fig) consumer nationalism, 45 consumer services, 303–304, 304(fig),

304(map) consumption, landscapes of, 56–57 contagious diffusion

chain migration and, 156 of Confucianism, 231 definition of, 11, 12(map) of diseases, 91 in popular culture, 42

contamination, food, 278–279, 278(fig) contraception, 73, 77(fig) conventional vs. organic agriculture, 283 convergence hypothesis, 45 cool chains, 274 Coptic Christians, 117, 222 core-periphery configuration

of cultural diffusion, 13

core-periphery configuration (cont.) ethnic separatism and, 197,

198–199(map), 200(map) in formal regions, 8 future of human geography and,

402–403 Midwest as vernacular region and, 40 political expansion and, 190–191,

190(map) producer services and, 303 secondary industries and, 300 von Thünen model, 273–274, 273(fig),

274(map) corn tortillas, 170–171 cornucopians, 92 Cosgrove, Denis, 5, 22, 26, 422 cosmological cities, 334–336, 334(fig) cottage industry, 297 Crabgrass Frontier ( Jackson), 369 Cravey, Altha, 311 cremation, 241–242, 241(fig), 246 “Creole” cottages, Acadian, 53, 53(fig) creole languages, 109 Creuzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), 278–279 crops. See agriculture Cross, John, 282 Crowley, David, 24 Cuban-Americans

climate preferences of, 162–163 re-creation of homeland by, 169

cuezcomatls, 166(fig) cult, as term, 216 cultural differences

categories of, 32–33 cultural landscapes and

folk, 52–56, 53(fig), 54(fig), 55(fig) popular, 56–59, 56(fig), 57(map),

58(fig), 59(fig) globalization and, 45–46 mobility and

advertising, 42 blowguns, 44–45, 44(map) communications barriers, 42–43 diffusion in popular culture, 40–42,

42(fig) diffusion of the rodeo, 43–44,

43(map) nature-culture and

folk ecology, 49 gender, 49–51 global economy, 48–49 indigenous ecology, 46–47, 47(map) indigenous technical knowledge,

47–48 popular culture, 51, 52(fig)

region and folk culture, 32(map), 34, 34(fig),

35(fig)

indigenous culture, 38–40, 39(fig), 39(map), 40(map)

popular culture, 35–38, 35(fig), 36(fig), 36(map), 37(map)

vernacular culture, 40, 41(map) cultural ecology, definition of, 17 cultural geography. See human geography cultural landscape

agriculture and fencing and hedging, 287–288,

288(fig) survey, cadastral, and field patterns,

285–287, 285(fig), 286(fig), 286(map), 287(fig)

city patterns and capitalist cities, 388–389, 389(fig) edge cities, 392–393, 392(fig) Greek cities, 382–383, 382(fig),

383(map) industrial cities, 389–391, 390(fig),

391(fig), 392(fig) medieval cities, 385–386, 386(fig),

387(fig) megalopolises, 392 new urban landscapes, 393–396,

394(fig), 395(fig), 396(fig) overview, 379–380 Renaissance and Baroque cities, 386,

388, 388(fig) Roman cities, 383–384, 385(fig) ways of reading cityscapes, 380–382,

380(fig), 381(fig) cultural difference and, 53(fig), 54(fig),

55(fig) economics and, 316–320, 318(fig),

319(fig), 320(fig), 321(fig) ethnicity and

ethnic flags, 166, 166(fig) foodways, 138(fig), 170–171,

171(map), 172, 174 re-creation of ethnic cultural

landscapes, 168–170, 170(fig) urban ethnic landscapes, 166–169,

167(fig), 169(fig) future of cultural geography and,

418–420 human geography and

architecture, 25–26, 25(fig) land-division patterns, 25, 25(fig) overview, 20–22, 22(fig) settlement forms, 24 symbolic landscapes, 23, 23(fig)

language and messages, 130–131, 130(fig) place-names, 131–133, 132(map),

133(fig), 134(map), 135 political geography and

central authority, 208–209 gender, 101–102, 102(fig)

438 Index

laws, 206, 206(fig), 207(fig) national iconography, 209–210,

209(fig), 210(fig) physical properties of boundaries,

206–208, 208(fig) political and economic factors, 99

population geography and historical factors, 99, 100(fig) overview, 96–97 rural settlement patterns, 96(fig),

97–99, 97(fig), 98(fig) religion and

detailed elements, 244–245, 246(fig) religious structures, 242–244,

243(fig), 244(fig), 245(fig) sacred spaces, 248, 248(fig) treatment of dead, 246–247, 246(fig),

247(fig) urbanization and

developing world, 346–348, 348(fig) Latin America, 348, 350 socialist and post-socialist cities,

351–352, 352(fig) South African cities, 350–351,

351(fig) cultural maladaptation, 163 cultural preadaptation, 162–163, 282 Cultural Survival, 60 cultural traits, 6–8, 6(fig), 7(map) culture, definition of, 2 culture hearths, 229–231 Curran. Claude, 237 Curry-Roper, Janel, 241 cyberspeech, 114

dairying, 263 Dalby, Simon, 204 Danbala, 217, 217(fig) Daniels, Stephen, 209 Davis, Mike, 395 dead, treatment of, 246–247, 246(fig),

247(fig). See also cremation death rates, 69–70, 72–73(map) decentralization, as city pattern, 367–370,

367(fig), 368(fig), 370(fig) defensive sites, 342–343, 343(fig) deforestation

agriculture and, 280–281, 281(map) as crisis, 312–313, 312(fig), 312(map) overpopulation and, 95, 95(fig) slave labor and, 403

deindustrialization, 300, 301(map), 371 demographic divide, 73–74 demographic transition, 70–71, 72(fig),

73–74 density, population, 66–67(map), 66–68,

68(tab) Denver, Colorado, 8(fig) Deseret, 147(map)

desertification, 281, 282(map) determinism, environmental, 17 developing regions

vs. developed regions, 296 urban cultural landscape in, 346–348,

348(fig) development. See economic development;

Human Development Index; sustainable development; uneven development

dialects definition of, 109 linguistic mobility and, 117–120,

119(map), 120(map) Diaspora, Jewish, 219 diaspora communities, 46 Dicken, Peter, 310, 412 Dictionary of American Regional English,

135 Diego, Juan, 215, 216 difference, ethnic, preservation of,

163–164, 164(map) differences, cultural. See cultural

differences diffusion. See also contagious diffusion;

hierarchical diffusion; relocation diffusion

barriers to, 42–43 of diseases, 91 ethnic, 156–157, 157(map), 158(map) in popular culture, 40–42, 42(fig) of rodeos, 43–44, 43(map) as theme in human geography, 10–13,

11(fig), 12(map), 13(fig) disasters, environmental. See also

Hurricane Katrina cities and, 345 religious response to, 238

disease. See also HIV/AIDS livestock and, 94, 278–279, 278(fig) population geography and, 87–89,

87(fig), 88(map), 90–91 dispersed settlement forms, 24 distribution, population, 66–67(map),

66–68, 68(tab) distributions, territorial, 179–182,

180(map), 181(map) districts, 382 diversity, cultural and biological, 47(map) division of labor, sexual

among hunter-gatherers, 267 in early plant domestication, 268

DNA, 156 dogtrot houses, Upland Southern, 53,

53(fig) Dome of the Rock, 248, 248(fig) domestication

of animals, 11–12, 268 of plants, 267–268, 267(map)

double-cropping, 259 Doughty, Robin, 241 downtowns, 357–358, 358(fig) Drakakis-Smith, David, 328 Dravidian languages, 110–111(map), 127 droughts, 282 drug trafficking, 403 druids, 228(fig) dust domes, 378, 379(fig)

early humans, 81–82, 86(fig) “Earth People vs. Wal-Martians”

(Ehrenreich), 419 East Asian culture hearth, 231 Eastern Orthodox Church

environmental campaigning by, 241 overview, 221, 223(fig)

Ebonics, 120 ecofeminism, 20, 49–50, 242, 242(fig) ecology

definition of, 17 folk, 49 indigenous, 46–48, 47(map)

economic development overview, 293–295, 294–295(map) stages of, 295–296 uneven (See uneven development)

economic growth, 295 economics

cultural landscape and, 99, 316–320, 318(fig), 319(fig), 320(fig), 321(fig)

definition of, 293 globalization and

cultural change, 310–311 governmental policies, 308–310,

310(map) labor supply, 305–307, 307(fig) markets, 307–308, 308(map)

mobility and diffusion of the industrial revolution,

298, 299(map) locational shifts of secondary

industry, 298, 300, 301(map), 302, 302(map)

locational shifts of service industries, 302–304, 304(fig), 304(map)

origins of the industrial revolution, 297–298

nature-culture and acid rain, 313–314, 313(map) climate change, 314, 314(fig) environmental sustainability, 315,

316–317(map) ozone depletion, 314–315 radioactive pollution, 315 renewable resource crises, 311–313,

312(fig), 312(map) region and

Index 439

categories of economic activity, 296–297, 296(fig)

developing vs. developed regions, 296 economic development, 293–295,

294–295(map) stages of economic development,

295–296 ecosystems, definition of, 17 ecotheology, 240–242 edge cities, 392–393, 392(fig) edges, 382 Ehrenreich, Barbara, 419 electoral geographical regions, 185,

186(map), 187(map). See also red and blue states

Eliade, Mircea, 248 elitist landscapes, 57–59, 57(map), 58(fig) elongation, 180, 180(map) elsewhereness, 57 emerging markets, 307 emoticons, 114 EMRs (extended metropolitan regions),

348, 349(fig) enclaves, 179, 180(map), 181(map) Enduring Voices Project, 126(fig), 135 Engels, Friedrich, 91 England, Church of, 241 English language

American dialects of, 119–120, 120(map)

classification of, 110 extinction of Native American

languages and, 126 habitat-related vocabulary in, 127,

128(fig) imperial conquest and, 116 on Internet, 122, 125(fig) as lingua franca, 114 prevalence of, 113(tab) in Québec, 131 technological and imperial diffusion of,

122 as world language, 125

English-only laws, 122–123 environmental alteration, population

density and, 95–96, 95(fig) environmental degradation

acid rain, 313–314, 314(map) agricultural technology and, 279–280 climate change, 314, 314(fig) Environmental Sustainability Index,

315, 316–317(map) ozone depletion, 314–315 racism and, 164–166, 165(map) radioactive pollution, 315 renewable resource crises, 311–313,

312(fig), 312(map) warfare and, 205–206, 205(fig)

environmental determinism, 17

environmental justice, 166 environmental perception, 19–20, 19(fig),

281–283 environmental racism, 164–166, 165(fig),

165(map) Environmental Sustainability Index, 315,

316–317(map) EPZs (export processing zones), 309–311,

310(fig), 311(fig), 348 erosion, 20, 20(fig) An Essay on the Principle of Population

(Malthus), 91 Estonia, 157 ethanol, 283–284, 284(fig) ethnic cleansing, 99, 157. See also genocide ethnic flags, 166, 166(fig) Ethnic Geography Specialty Group, 173 ethnic homelands, 144, 146, 147(map) ethnic islands. See islands, ethnic ethnicity

cultural landscape and flags, 166, 166(fig) foodways, 138(fig), 170–171,

171(map), 172, 174 re-creation of ethnic cultural

landscapes, 168–170, 170(fig) urban ethnic landscapes, 166–169,

167(fig), 169(fig), 358–359 globalization and

European colonization, 159–161, 160(fig)

indigenous identities, 161–162, 161(fig)

long view of, 159 mobility and

migration, 156–157, 157(map), 158(map)

simplification and isolation, 158 nature-culture and

cultural preadaptation, 162–163, 163(map)

environmental racism, 164–166, 165(fig), 165(map)

preservation of difference, 163–164, 164(map)

overview and definitions, 139–144 region and

ethnic homelands and islands, 144–146

neighborhoods and ghettos, 147–149, 149(fig), 150(fig)

overview, 144, 145(map), 146(map) shifts in ethnic mosaics, 150,

151(map), 151(tab), 153(map), 154–155, 154(map), 155(map), 156(tab)

ethnic neighborhoods as ethnic culture regions, 147–149,

149(fig), 150(fig)

recent establishment of, 373–375, 374(fig), 374(map), 375(fig)

as re-creation of homeland, 168–170, 170(fig)

ethnic religion definition of, 216–217 Hinduism as, 226 Judaism as, 219

ethnic restaurants, 138, 174 ethnic separatism, 194–197, 195(map),

196(map), 198–199(map) ethnic substrates, 146 ethnoburbs, 149 ethnographic boundaries, 182 ethnolects, 120 Ethnologue, 135 EU. See European Union Eurocentrism, 73 European supranationalism and

regionalism, 403–404 European Union (EU)

as free-trade bloc, 308 support for traditional agriculture by,

410–411 supranationalism vs. regionalism and,

403–404 as supranational organization, 184–185,

184(map) Web site of, 211

Even in Sweden: Racism, Racialized Spaces, and the Popular Geographical Imagination (Pred), 124

Everglades, 210, 210(fig) Ewald, Ursula, 274 exclaves, 180, 180(map), 181(map) expansion diffusion

definition of, 11 of languages, 116–117

export processing zones (EPZs), 309–311, 310(fig), 311(fig), 348

extended metropolitan regions (EMRs), 348, 349(fig)

extinction, language, 125–127, 126(fig), 126(map)

fair trade, 309 famine, 275–276, 275(map) Faneuil Hall, 395, 395(fig) farmhouses

Québec French, 53(fig), 54, 54(fig) Upper Canadian “Ontario,” 53(fig), 54

farming. See agriculture farmsteads, 96(fig), 98–99, 98(fig) farm villages, 96(fig), 97–98, 97(fig),

98(fig) fast and slow worlds, 403 fast food, 37–38, 37(map) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),

141(fig)

440 Index

federalism, 182–183, 197 feedlots

beef, 261, 261(fig) dairy, 263

feminized downtown areas, 391–392, 392(fig)

fences, 287–288, 288(fig) feng shui, 238, 239(fig), 377 Fertile Crescent, 268 fertility rate. See total fertility rate festival settings, 395, 395(fig) field patterns, 285–287, 285(fig), 286(fig),

286(map), 287(fig) Filipinas, 102 Firebaugh, Glenn, 403 First Peoples Worldwide, 60 fishing. See aquaculture flags, ethnic, 166, 166(fig) flooding, 19, 19(fig) folk architecture

in North America, 52–54, 53(fig), 54(fig)

in sub-Saharan Africa, 54–56, 55(fig) folk culture

architecture and, 25(fig) defined, 32–33 foods and, 6 peasants and, 259 regions of, 32(map), 34, 34(fig), 35(fig) relationship with nature and, 46

folk ecology, 49 folk fortresses, 202–203 folk geography (term), 32–33 Food: Past and Present, 173 Food and Agriculture Organization, 289 Food First, 289 foods

ethnic cultural landscape and, 138(fig), 170–171, 171(map), 172, 174

fast food, 37–38, 37(map) folk foods as cultural traits, 6 global geography exercise, 288–289 popular culture and, 37–38, 37(map) safety issues, 278–279, 278(fig) taboos and, 239–240, 240(map)

Foote, Kenneth, 250 footloose industries, 306 forced migrations, 86 forebay barns, 34, 34(fig) formal regions, 6–8, 6(fig), 7(map) Formosan language, 158 fossil fuels, 283 “four-two-one” problem, 76 France

folk fortresses of, 203, 203(map) racism in, 142 secularism in, 237

Franklin, Benjamin, 122 free trade, 308–309

French-Canadians, 197. See also Québec French language

imperialism and, 122, 123(fig) in Québec, 131

French Riviera, 57–58, 58(fig) Frey, William, 154 Friedberg, Susanne, 265 Fuji, Mount, 237 functional regions, 8–9, 8(fig), 9(map) functional zonation, 380 fundamentalism, religious, 217 future, cultural geography of

cultural landscape and, 418–420 globalization and

alternative views of globalization, 412 defining features of globalization,

412–413 music, 415–416 resistance to globalization, 414–415,

415(fig) mobility and

Internet, 407, 408–409(map) new automobile markets, 407, 409,

410(fig), 411 tourism, 409–412, 411(fig)

overview, 401–402 region and

European supranationalism and regionalism, 403–404

glocalization, 404 Internet access, 404–405(map),

405–406 uneven development, 402–403

sustainable development, 416–418, 417(fig)

Gade, Daniel, 58 Gaelic language

habitat-related vocabulary in, 127 place-names in, 131

Gaia hypothesis, 242, 242(fig) Gale, Fay, 2 Ganesha, 225, 225(fig) Ganges River, 237 gangs, 207–208 gardens, 170 Garreau, Joel, 392–393 gated communities, 376–377, 377(fig) GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and

Trade), 308 gays and lesbians, 372 GDP (gross domestic product),

294–295(map), 295 gender

cultural-demographic landscapes and, 101–102, 102(fig)

ecofeminism, 20, 49–50, 242, 242(fig) industrial cityscapes and, 391–392,

392(fig)

maquiladoras and, 311 nature-culture and, 49–50 population geography and, 76, 79, 81,

83(fig) segregation by, 81, 83(fig)

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 308

generic toponyms, 131–132, 132(map) genetically modified (GM) crops,

277–278, 277(map) genocide, 159–160, 160(fig), 161(fig). See

also ethnic cleansing Genographic Project, 156 gentleman farms, 58–59, 58(fig) gentrification, 362(fig), 370–373, 371(fig) geodemography. See population

geography Geographies of Global Change (Johnston et

al.), 412 geography, cultural. See human geography geography, definition of, 1 geometric boundaries, 182 geopolitics

contemporary, 203–205, 205(fig) in history, 202–203, 203(map)

German language archaic dialects of, 158 Bible translation into, 117 prevalence of, 113(tab)

Germany, formal and functional regions of, 9, 9(map)

gerrymandering, 185, 185(map), 210–211 ghettos, 148–149, 387 Gilbert, Emily, 365 Glasmeier, Amy, 305 Glenmary Research Center, 251 global cities, 338–339, 340(map) globalization, as process. See future,

cultural geography of globalization, as theme

agriculture and agribusiness, 276–278, 277(map) local-global food provisioning,

271–273, 271(fig) von Thünen model, 273–274,

273(fig), 274(map) vulnerabilities, 278–279, 278(fig) world hunger, 275–276, 275(map)

city patterns and new ethnic neighborhoods, 373–375,

374(fig), 374(map), 375(fig) worldwide homogeneity, 374(fig),

374(map), 375–377, 376(fig) cultural difference and, 45–46 economics and

cultural change, 310–311 governmental policies, 308–310,

310(map), 311(fig) labor supply, 305–307, 307(fig)

Index 441

markets, 307–308, 308(map) ethnicity and

European colonization, 159–161, 160(fig)

indigenous identities, 161–162, 161(fig)

long view of, 159 future of cultural geography and

alternative views of globalization, 412 defining features of globalization,

412–413 music, 415–416 resistance to globalization, 414–415,

415(fig) language and

cultural survival, 125–127, 126(fig), 126(map)

proliferation vs. unification, 124–125 technology and imperialism, 121–123,

123(fig) political geography and

cleavage model, 197, 198–199(map), 200(map)

economic geography, 200–201, 202(map)

ethnic separatism, 194–197, 195(map), 196(map), 198–199(map)

nation-states, 194, 195, 195(map) overview, 193 Sakha Republic and state sovereignty,

197, 199, 201(map), 202(fig) population geography and

population control, 93–94 population explosion, 89–90(fig),

91–92 rule of 72, 92–93

religion and evangelical Protestantism in Latin

America, 234, 234(fig) Internet, 234–235 religion’s relevance, 235–237,

236(map) as theme in human geography,

14–15(map), 14–16, 16(fig) urbanization and

global cities, 338–339, 340(map) globalizing cities, 339–340

Globalization and World Cities, 353 globalizing cities, 339–340 Globalizing South China (Cartier), 412 Global Policy Forum, 321 Global Shift (Dicken), 412 global warming. See climate change glocalization, 404 Godfrey, Brian, 45 Google, 183, 406 Gottmann, Jean, 392

governmental policies, 308–310, 310(map), 311(fig)

Graff, Thomas, 42 graffiti, 131, 131(fig), 207–208 grain farming

overview, 262–263, 262(fig), 263(fig) peasants and, 259, 259(map), 260(fig)

grandparents in China, 76 in Italy, 75

“Gray Power” lifestyle cluster, 36, 36(map) Great Leap Forward, 275 Great Mosque, Touba, 233(fig) Great Wall of China, 207 Greek cities, 382–383, 382(fig), 383(map) Greek languages, 112(fig) Greek Orthodoxy. See Eastern Orthodox

Church Greek people, color preferences of,

167–168, 167(fig) greenhouse effect, 314 greenhouse gases. See climate change Greenpeace, 321 green revolution, 269–270 green villages, 96(fig), 97 gross domestic product (GDP),

294–295(map), 295 growth, economic, 295 guild industry, 297 Gullah people and language, 130, 164 Guthman, Julie, 283

Hadrian’s Wall, 207 Hägerstrand, Torsten, 4, 11, 13 Hall, Edward T., 104 Hamitic languages, 112–113, 130 hamlets, 96(fig), 285, 285(map) Han Chinese language. See Chinese

language Hanoi, 349(map), 350(fig) Hanson, Susan, 365 Harris, Chauncey, 364 Hawaii Research Center for Futures

Studies, 421 hazards, natural, 19, 19(fig) HDI (Human Development Index),

14–15, 14–15(map), 15, 81 hearth areas

for culture, 229–231 for urbanization, 333–336, 333(map),

334(fig), 335(map) heartland theory, 203, 204(map) heat islands, 378, 378(fig) Hebrew language, 112–113, 113(fig), 117 Hecock, Richard, 58 hedges, 288 height restrictions, 206 herbicides, 277 herding, nomadic, 263–264, 264(fig)

Herman, R.D.K., 133 Herod, Andrew, 415 The Hidden Dimension (Hall), 104 hierarchical diffusion

chain migration and, 156 of Confucianism, 231 definition of, 11, 12(map) of diseases, 91 in popular culture, 41–42, 42(fig)

hierarchies, social, 5 hierophany, 248 Highland Hispanic folk culture region,

32(map) high-tech corridors, 301(map), 303, 320,

321(fig), 394 Hill Tribes, 39 Hindi language, 113(tab) Hinduism

ecotheological views of, 241–242, 241(fig)

food prohibitions, 239 influence on American culture, 235 intolerance of Buddhism, 217 origins and diffusion of, 231 orthodox strains of, 217 overview, 225–226, 225(fig), 226(fig) temples and shrines of, 243, 244(fig) treatment of dead in, 246

hinterlands, 330 Hispanic Places, Latino Places (Arreola), 168 Hispanics

discrimination against, 142 ethnic homeland of, 144, 147(map) folk culture regions, 32(map) Mexican origins of, 157(map) national origins, 150 population by state, 153(tab) Tejano subculture, 144, 147(map),

152–153 History of Religion, 251 history parks, 58 HIV/AIDS

death rates from, 70, 72–73(map) hierarchical and contagious diffusion

of, 11, 12(map) role of geography in understanding, 88,

90–91 worldwide incidence of, 72–73(map)

Hobbs, Joseph, 248 hogans, Navajo, 55(fig) holism, 27 Hollander, Gail, 270, 420 Holy Rock, Johnson, 205(fig) homelands, ethnic, 144, 146, 147(map) homogenized landscapes, 418, 418(fig) Hong Kong Canadian immigrants, 193 Hooson, David, 403 Hoover, Herbert, 210 Hopkins, Jeffrey, 57, 393

442 Index

Horvath, Ronald, 274 hotspots, language, 126(map). See

language hotspots Hoyt, Homer, 363 HPI. See Human Poverty Index Huang, Yefang, 339 Huichol people, 161(fig) Human Development Index (HDI),

14–15, 14–15(map), 15, 81 human geography

cultural landscape and architecture, 25–26, 25(fig) land-division patterns, 25, 25(fig) overview, 20–22, 22(fig) settlement forms, 24 symbolic landscape, 23, 23(fig)

globalization and, 14–15(map), 14–16, 16(fig)

human modifications and, 20–21, 20(fig)

introduction definition, 2 models and perspectives, 4–5, 4(fig) overview, 2–4

mobility and, 10–13, 11(fig), 12(map), 13(fig)

nature-culture and environmental determinism, 17 environmental perception, 19–20,

19(fig) overview, 16–17 possibilism, 17–19, 18(map)

region and formal regions, 6–8, 6(fig), 7(map) functional regions, 8–9, 8(fig),

9(map) vernacular regions, 10, 10(fig)

Human Poverty Index (HPI), 81 hunger, world, 275–276, 275(map) hunting and gathering, 267 Hurricane Katrina

environmental perception and, 19, 19(fig)

environmental vulnerability and, 345 ethnic transformation following, 170,

170(fig) Hutu people, 159–160, 160(fig), 161(fig) Huxley, Aldous, 420 hybrid crops

agribusinesses and, 277 green revolution and, 269–270

hydraulic civilization model, 332 hydrology, urban, 378

“I am” religion, 237 Iberia. See Portugal; Spain ICDIP. See International Cancún

Declaration of Indigenous Peoples icons, landscape, 418, 419(fig)

identification cards, 160(fig) ideology

idea of landscape and, 22–23, 22(fig) power and, 5

ILGWU (International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union), 415

immigrants. See also migration vs. indigenous ethnic groups, 144 in Nebraska, 139, 140(fig) origins of, in United States, 139,

140(fig) population figures in cities, 154,

156(tab) re-creation of ethnic cultural landscapes

by, 168–170, 170(fig) transnationalism of, 193

immigration laws, 150 imperialism. See colonialism income gap, global, 402–403 independent invention

of blowguns, 44–45, 44(map) definition of, 11 of polygonal folk houses, 55(fig)

India ethnic slums in, 165(fig) languages of, 125, 127, 133, 134(fig) outsourcing of labor to, 306–307,

307(fig) place-names in, 133, 134(map)

Indic languages, 110, 112(fig) Indigenous Agricultural Revolution

(Richards), 48 indigenous culture

defined, 33 globalization and, 46–48 region and, 38–40, 39(fig), 39(map),

40(map) indigenous ecology, 46–48, 47(map) indigenous ethnic groups, definition of,

144 indigenous identities, globalization and,

161–162, 161(fig) indigenous technical knowledge (ITK)

agricultural diffusion and, 269 definition of, 47–49 sustainable agriculture and, 280

Indo-European language family in central Asia, 129(map) diffusion of, 115–117, 116(map) distribution of, 110–111,

110–111(map), 112(fig), 113(tab) Indus-Ganges culture hearth, 231 industrial cities, 389–391, 390(fig),

391(fig), 392(fig) industrial revolution

diffusion of, 298, 299(map) origins of, 297–298

inequality, global, 402–403 infanticide, female, 76

infant mortality rate, 81 in-filling, 370 information economy, 303 Inhuman Geographies (Pred and Gregory),

124 innovation

cultural, 10–13, 11(fig), 12(map) political, 191, 192(map)

Institute of British Geographers, 28 intensity, land-use, 280 Inter-American Development Bank, 321 intercropping, 256 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC), 21 International Boundary News Archive,

211 International Cancún Declaration of

Indigenous Peoples (ICDIP), 48 International Decade of the World’s

Indigenous People, 33 International Food Policy Research

Institute, 289 International Geographical Union (IGU),

211 International Labor Organization (ILO),

33 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’

Union (ILGWU), 415 Internet

cyberspeech and, 114 future of cultural geography and,

404–405(map), 405–406 global diffusion of, 407, 408–409 languages on, 122, 125(fig) political geography and, 183 religion on, 234–235 resources

agricultural geography, 289 city patterns, 397 cultural difference, 60 economic geography, 321–322 ethnic geography, 172–173 geography of future, 421 geography of religion, 251 human geography, 27–28 linguistic geography, 135 political geography, 211 population geography, 103 urbanization, 353

interracial marriage, 140–141 intolerance, religious, 217 Inuit people, 6(fig), 147(map) Inuktitut languages, 110–111(map), 130 invention, independent. See independent

invention involuntary migration, 157 Iran, 43 Iranic languages, 110, 112(fig) Iraq, 157, 158(map)

Index 443

Ireland, 131 irregular clustered villages, 96(fig), 97,

97(fig) irrigation, 280, 332 Islam

as Abrahamic religion, 219, 221 cemeteries of, 246, 246(fig), 247(fig) diffusion of Arabic language and, 117 food prohibitions, 239 in France, 142 fundamentalist movements in, 218 green as sacred color of, 168, 244–245,

246(fig) in Iberia, 217 as monotheistic religion, 217 mosques, 243 Nigerian politics and, 189–190,

189(map) origins and diffusion of, 231 orthodox strains of, 217 overview, 223–225, 225(fig) as proselytic religion, 216 Taliban government and, 12–13

islands, 164 islands, ethnic

overview, 144, 146, 147(map), 148(map)

in Wisconsin, 162, 163(map) isoglosses, 118 isolated-state (von Thünen) model,

273–274, 273(fig), 274(map) isolation, ethnic, 158 Israel, 159 Italy, 75 ITK. See indigenous technical knowledge

Jackson, Kenneth, 369 Jackson, Peter, 45 Jainism, 226, 241 Jakle, John, 56 Japanese language, 113(tab) Jefferson, Thomas, 206 Jersey City, 382 Jeter, Helen Rankin, 365 Jett, Stephen, 44, 131 Jews. See Judaism Johannessen, Carl, 267 Johnson, James, 157 Johnston, R. J., 412 Jones, Inigo, 389 Jordan River, 237, 237(fig) Judaism

as Abrahamic religion, 219, 221 ecotheological views of, 240–242 ethnic neighborhoods and, 148 as ethnic religion, 216–217, 219 food prohibitions, 239 Israel and, 159 medieval ghettos and, 387

Judaism (cont.) origins and diffusion of, 229 orthodox strains of, 217–218 overview, 219 preservation of Hebrew language and,

117 prevalence of, 223(fig) ritual baths in, 245 synagogues, 243

Judeo-Christian, as term, 221 justice, environmental, 166 JVC Corporation, 400(fig), 422

Kay, Jeanne, 51 Keating, Michael, 403 Keeling, David, 418 Kennewick Man, 82, 84–85 Khoisan language, 110–111(map), 127,

130 Kimball, Gregg, 391 Knapp, Gregory, 50 Knopp, Lawrence, 372 Knox, Paul, 395 Kolkata (India), 64(fig), 104 Kong, Lily, 377 Koran, 117, 224 Korean language, 115 kraals, 54, 56 Kuala Lumpur, 348(fig), 418, 419(fig) Kuman, Harish, 306 Kurdish language, 130–131, 159 Kurdish people, 375 Kurdistan, 197, 200(map) Kurgan hypothesis, 116

labor-intensive industries, 305 labor supply, 305–307, 307(fig) laissez-faire utilitarianism, 390 Lamaism, 227 land-division patterns, 25, 25(fig) landfills, building on, 377(fig) landmarks, 382 landscape, cultural. See cultural landscape landscapes of consumption, 56–57 landscapes of popular culture, 56–59,

56(fig), 57(map), 58(fig), 59(fig) land-use intensity, 280 language

cultural landscape and messages, 130–131, 130(fig) place-names, 131–133, 132(map),

133(fig), 134(map), 135 ethnic isolation and, 158 formal regions and, 6, 7(map) globalization and

cultural survival, 125–127, 126(fig), 126(map)

proliferation vs. unification, 124–125

technology and imperialism, 121–123, 123(fig)

mobility and dialects, 117–120, 119(map),

120(map) diffusion patterns, 115–117,

116(map) religion, 117

nature-culture and, 127–130, 128(fig), 128(tab), 129(map)

overview, 107–109 region and

language families, 109–115, 110–111(map), 112(fig), 113(tab)

overview, 109 South Africa as multiethnic state and,

196, 196(map) language families, 109–115,

110–111(map), 112(fig), 113(tab) language hotspots, 126, 126(map) Language Log, 135 “large” houses, Yankee, 52–53, 53(fig) Las Vegas, 345, 345(fig) lateral commuting, 368 Latin America, urban landscapes of, 348,

350 Latin language, 116, 117 Latin music, 152–153 Latvia, 157 Lauria, Mickey, 372 laws

immigration, 150 political geography and, 206, 206(fig),

207(fig) sharia, 189–190

Lebanon, 222(map) legibility, 382 leisure landscapes, 57 Leung, Yee, 339 Levison, Michael, 117 Levittown: Documents of an Ideal

American Suburb, 397 Lewis, Pierce, 21–22 La Leyenda Negra, 160(fig) Li, Lim Hiong, 412 lifestyle clusters, 36–37, 36(map) lingua francas, 109, 114, 122 linguistic refuge areas, 127–128,

129(map), 130 Lipset, Seymour Martin, 197 Lithuania, 157 little emperor syndrome, 76 Little Havana, 169 livestock

around U.S.–Canadian border, 201–202, 203(map)

dairy industry, 263 diseases of, 94 fattening of, 261–262, 261(fig)

444 Index

nomadic herding, 253–264, 264(fig) origins of animal domestication, 268 peasant farming and, 259, 259(map),

269(fig) ranching, 264–265

local consumption cultures, 45 Lodrick, Deryck, 241 logographic writing systems, 114 loncheras, 170, 170(fig) London

as trade-route site, 344 wealthy enclaves in, 389, 389(fig)

long-lot farms, 286–287, 286(map) loose irregular villages, 96(fig) Los Angeles, 165–166, 165(map) Louisiana, ethnic minorities in, 144,

146(map), 147(map) Lourdes, 233, 233(fig) Lowenthal, David, 59 Luther, Martin, 117 Lutheran Church, 223, 224(map) Lynch, Kevin, 382

Mackinder, Halford, 203, 204(map) mad cow disease, 278–279, 278(fig) Main Street, 381, 381(fig) maize cultivation, 166, 166(fig) maladaptation, cultural, 163 Malay-Indonesian language, 115 male bias, 76 malls, shopping, 57, 393, 394(fig) malnutrition, 275–276, 275(map) Malthus, Thomas, 91–92, 275 Manchester Institute for Popular Culture,

60 Mandarin Chinese language. See Chinese

language Maori language, 133 Maori people

ecotheological views of, 240 religious structures of, 243–244,

245(fig) Mao Zedong, 93 maquiladoras, 310, 311, 311(fig) marae, 243–244, 245(fig) marchlands, 181 mariculture, 265. See also aquaculture market gardening, 260 marketplaces, medieval, 386 Market Square, Warsaw, 24, 24(fig) Maronites, 222 Marx, Karl, 91 Marxism, 159 master-planned communities, 394–395 material culture, definition of, 32 Material History of American Religion

Project, 251 Mattson, Richard, 56 Matwijiw, Peter, 147

Mayan people, 39–40, 39(map), 99, 100(fig)

McDonald’s restaurants, 41, 42(fig) Mecca, 224, 225(fig), 233, 233(fig) mechanistic view of nature, 19–20 media outlets, control of information by,

42–43 medieval cities, 385–386, 386(fig),

387(fig) meditation, 235 megacities, 328, 329(tab) megalopolises, 392 Meinig, D. W., 381 Meisch, Lynn, 162 messages, 130–131, 130(fig) metal industries, 298 Methodism, 223, 224(map) metropolitan areas, as functional regions,

8–9, 8(fig) Mexican folk culture region, 32(map) Mexico, racial categories in, 141(fig) Mexico City, 348(fig) Miami, re-creation of Cuban homeland in,

169 Midwest, as vernacular region, 40,

41(map) migrant farm workers, 270, 270(fig) migration. See also immigrants

English-only laws and, 122–123 ethnicity and, 156–157, 157(map),

158(map) of Jewish Diaspora, 219 as pattern of mobility, 13, 13(fig) population geography and, 86(fig),

86(map) rural-to-urban, 338 sex industry and, 102 of Upland Southerners, 49, 51(map)

mikveh baths, 245 Miletus (Turkey), 383, 383(map) militarized space, 395, 396(fig) Millennium Project, 421 minorities

discrimination against, 142–143 English-only laws and, 122–123

minority languages, 130–131 Miskito communities (Nicaragua), 48–49 Mitchell, Don, 270 Mitchell, Katharyne, 193, 194 mobility

agriculture and migrant workers, 270, 270(fig) modern mobilities, 268–270, 269(fig) origins and diffusion of plant

domestication, 267–268, 267(map) origins of animal domestication, 268

city patterns and centralization, 366–367 gentrification, 370–373, 371(fig)

cultural difference and advertising, 42 blowguns, 44–45, 44(map) communications barriers, 42–43 diffusion of the rodeo, 43–44,

43(map) economics and

diffusion of the industrial revolution, 298, 299(map)

locational shifts of secondary industry, 298, 300, 301(map), 302, 302(map)

locational shifts of service industries, 302–304, 304(fig), 304(map)

origins of the industrial revolution, 297–298

ethnicity and migration, 156–157, 157(map),

158(map) simplification and isolation, 158

future of cultural geography and new automobile markets, 407, 409,

410(fig), 411 tourism, 409–412, 411(fig)

language and dialects, 117–120, 119(map),

120(map) diffusion patterns, 115–117,

116(map) religion, 117

political geography and core-periphery configurations,

190–191, 190(map) migration, 191, 193 political innovation, 191, 192(map)

population geography and disease, 87–89, 87(fig), 88(map),

90–91 migration, 81–87, 86(fig), 86(map)

religion and, 232–233, 233(fig) as theme in human geography, 10–13,

11(fig), 12(map), 13(fig) urbanization and

diffusion from urban hearth areas, 336–337, 337(map)

origin and diffusion of cities, 332–333 overview, 331–332 rural-to-urban migration, 338 urban hearth areas, 333–336,

333(map), 334(fig), 335(map) Mongolic languages, 115 monoculture, 277 monotheistic religions, 217 Monsanto, 277 Mont St. Michel (France), 343(fig) Mormon folk culture region, 32(map) Mormons

ethnic status of, 146

Index 445

geographical distribution of, 223, 224(map)

objection to cult label by, 216 mortality, patterns of, 69–70, 72–73(map) Moscow, 352(fig) mosques, 243 Motzafi-Haller, Pnina, 159 mountainous regions, 163, 164(map) mountains, sacred, 237–238. See also

Mount Rushmore mountaintop mining, 417(fig) Mountain Western folk culture region,

32(map), 34, 35(fig) Mount Rushmore, 209, 209(fig) Mugabe, Robert, 275 multiple-nuclei model, 364, 364(fig) Mumford, Lewis, 333, 390 murals, 166–167, 167(fig) Murong people, 39(fig) Murphey, Rhoads, 281 The Museum of Human Language, 135 music

barriers to diffusion of, 42–43 globalization and, 415–416 Latin, 152–153 popular culture and, 38, 38(map)

Napoléon III, 388 natality, patterns of, 68–69, 70–71(map) National Geographical Society, 27 national iconography, 209–210, 209(fig),

210(fig) nationalism

consumer, 45 as learned response, 178 as source of group identity, 183

National Religious Partnership for the Environment, 241

national sacrifice areas, 315 nation-states

ethnic cleansing in, 99 as political concept, 194, 195,

195(map) Native Americans

biodiversity conservation and, 204–205, 205(fig)

languages of Alaska Highway and, 122 distribution, 110–111(map) extinction of, 126 place-names in, 135

reservations of as ethnic islands, 163(map) political ownership of, 183

Native Lands, 60 natural boundaries, 181–182 natural disasters, 345, 346(map). See also

Hurricane Katrina natural hazards, 19, 19(fig)

nature-culture agriculture and, 281–283

biofuels, 283–284, 284(fig) deforestation and desertification,

280–281, 281(map), 282(map) land-use intensity, 280 organic food movement, 283 sustainability, 272, 280 technology vs. nature, 279–280,

279(map) city patterns and

overview, 377 urban hydrology, 378 urban vegetation, 378–379 urban weather and climate, 378,

378(fig), 379(fig) cultural differences and

folk ecology, 49 gender, 49–51 global economy, 48–49 indigenous ecology, 46–47, 47(map) indigenous technical knowledge,

47–48 popular culture, 51, 52(fig)

economics and acid rain, 313–314, 313(map) environmental sustainability, 315,

316–317(map) ozone depletion, 314–315 radioactive pollution, 315 renewable resource crises, 311–313,

312(fig), 312(map) environmental determinism, 17 environmental perception, 19–20,

19(fig) ethnicity and

cultural preadaptation, 162–163, 163(map)

environmental racism, 164–166, 165(fig), 165(map)

preservation of difference, 163–164, 164(map)

language and, 127–130, 128(fig), 128(tab), 129(map)

overview, 16–17 political geography and

chain-of-explanation approach, 201–202

geopolitics in history, 202–203, 203(map)

geopolitics today, 203–205, 205(fig) heartland theory, 203, 204(map) warfare and environmental

destruction, 205–206, 205(fig) population geography and

environmental alteration, 95–96, 95(fig)

environmental influence, 66–67(map), 94

environmental perception, 94–95 possibilism, 17–19, 18(map) religion and

ecotheology, 240–242 impact on plants and animals,

238–240, 240(map) religion as adaptive strategy, 237–238

sustainable development and, 416–418, 417(fig)

urbanization and natural disasters, 345, 346(map) overview, 340–341 site and situation, 341–344,

342(map), 343(fig), 344(fig) Navajo people, 144, 147(map) Ndebele painted houses, 55–56, 55(fig) Nebraska, 139, 140(fig) neighborhoods, 359–360. See also ethnic

neighborhoods neolocalism, 418–419 neo-Malthusians, 92 Nestorians, 222 Neumann, Roderick, 204 New Age cults, 237, 238(fig) New American Media, 173 The New Geography of Global Inequality

(Firebaugh) New Orleans

post-Katrina ethnic transformation, 170, 170(fig)

Vietnamese immigrants in, 169–170 newspapers, 43 New York City, 390(fig) New Zealand, 133 NGOs (nongovernmental organizations),

48 Nietschmann, Barney, 48–49 Niger-Congo language family,

110–111(map), 115 Niger-Congo language group, 116(map) Nigeria, 189–190, 189(map) Nilo-Saharan languages, 110–111(map) nodes, 8–9, 382 nomadic herding, 263–264, 264(fig) nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),

48 nonmaterial culture, definition of, 32 nonya cuisine, 170 “Norma Rae–Ville” lifestyle cluster, 36–37,

36(map) North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA), 184, 261, 308 Norwine, Jim, 19 Nostratic language, 112(fig), 125 nucleation, 24 Nunavut, 147(map)

Obama, Barack, 141 office parks, 393–394, 394(fig)

446 Index

oil derricks, 59, 59(fig) Olds, Kris, 341 “Old Yankee Rows” lifestyle cluster, 36–37,

36(map) one-drop rule, 140 “one world or many” question. See future,

cultural geography of “Ontario” farmhouses, Upper Canadian,

53(fig), 54 organic food movement, 283 organic view of nature, 19 Ormrod, Richard, 13 orthodox religions, 217–218 Ó Tuathail, Gearóid, 177 Our Common Future (World Commission

on Environment and Development), 416

outsourcing, 306–307, 307(fig) overfishing, 313 Owen, Robert, 319 ozone depletion, 314–315

paddy rice farming, 258–259, 258(fig), 259(map), 280

painted houses, Ndebele, 55–56, 55(fig) paintings, Aboriginal, xxxii(fig), 28 Pakistan, 180 Paleosiberian languages, 110–111(map) palimpsests, cities as, 380–381 Papua New Guinea, 304(fig) Papuan languages, 110–111(map) Paris, 388, 388(fig) parks

national, 51, 52(fig) Native Americans and, 204–205,

205(fig) Parsees, 246 The Past Is Not Dead: Facts, Fictions, and

Enduring Racial Stereotypes (Pred), 124

pastoralism, 263–264, 264(fig) pathways, 382 patriarchy, 76 Patrick, Saint, 217, 217(fig) Pavia (Italy), 384, 385(fig) peasant farmers

agribusinesses and, 277 crop diversity and, 271–272

peasant grain, root, and livestock farming, 259, 259(map), 280

pene-enclaves, 179, 180(map) Pennsylvania Dutch, 146, 147(map) Pennsylvanian folk culture region,

32(map), 34, 34(fig) perception

of cities, 381–382 environmental, 19–20, 19(fig), 281–283 of physical environment, 94–95

permeable barriers, 13

Persian Gulf War, 205, 205(fig) personal space, 103, 104 petroleum, 68, 69(map) Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, 418,

419(fig) pets

animal domestication and, 268 cemeteries for, 228, 228(fig)

physical environment, definition of, 2 physical geography, 94 pidgin languages, 109 pigs

livestock fattening and, 261 religious taboos against pork, 239,

240(map) in U.S. vs. Canada, 201–202, 203(map)

pilgrimages, religious, 232–233, 233(fig) Pittsburgh, 344, 344(fig) place

popular culture and, 35–37, 35(fig), 36(fig), 36(map)

sense of, 5 vs. space, 27

place images, 45–46 placelessness, 35–37, 35(fig) place-names

among Native Americans, 126–127 in Antarctica, 107–108, 108(fig) cultural landscape and, 131–133

Places on the Margin (Shields), 403 plague, 87, 87(fig) Plains Ranch folk culture region, 32(map) plantation agriculture, 259–260, 260(fig),

261(fig), 271(fig) plant domestication, 267–268, 267(map) political ecology, 201–202 political factors

cultural-demographic landscapes and, 99

rise of cities and, 333 political geography

cultural landscape and central authority, 208–209 laws, 206, 206(fig), 207(fig) national iconography, 209–210,

209(fig), 210(fig) physical properties of boundaries,

206–208, 208(fig) globalization and

cleavage model, 197, 198–199(map), 200(map)

economic geography, 200–201, 202(map)

ethnic separatism, 194–197, 195(map), 196(map), 198–199(map)

nation-states, 194, 195, 195(map) overview, 193

Sakha Republic and state sovereignty, 197, 199, 201(map), 202(fig)

mobility and core-periphery configurations,

190–191, 190(map) migration, 191, 193 political innovation, 191, 192(map)

nature-culture and chain-of-explanation approach,

201–202 geopolitics in history, 202–203,

203(map) geopolitics today, 203–205, 205(fig) heartland theory, 203, 204(map) warfare and environmental

destruction, 205–206, 205(fig) region and

cyberspace, 183 electoral geographical regions, 185,

186(map), 187(map) Islamic law in Nigerian politics,

189–190, 189(map) red and blue states, 185, 187–189,

187(map), 188(map), 189(map) states, 177–183, 178–179(map),

180(map), 181(map), 182(fig) supranationalism, 184–185, 184(map)

polyglot populations, 113, 113(fig) polygonal folk houses, 55(fig) Polynesian languages, 115, 117, 118(map) Polynesian people, 156(fig) polytheistic religions, 217 popular culture

defined, 33 diffusion in, 40–42, 42(fig) food and, 37–38, 37(map) landscapes of, 56–59, 56(fig), 57(map),

58(fig), 59(fig) music and, 38, 38(map) nature-culture and, 51, 52(fig) place and, 35–37, 35(fig), 36(fig),

36(map) relationship with nature and, 46

Popular Culture Association, 60 population control

gender demographics and, 76 globalization and, 93–94

population explosion, 89–90(fig), 91–92 population geography

cultural landscape and gender, 101–102, 102(fig) historical factors, 99, 100(fig) overview, 96–97 political and economic factors, 99 rural settlement patterns, 96(fig),

97–99, 97(fig), 98(fig) globalization and

population control, 93–94

Index 447

population explosion, 89–90(fig), 91–92

rule of 72, 92–93 mobility and

disease, 87–89, 87(fig), 88(map), 90–91

migration, 81–87, 86(fig), 86(map) nature-culture and

environmental alteration, 95–96, 95(fig)

environmental influence, 66–67(map), 94

environmental perception, 94–95 overview, 65–66 region and

age distributions, 74–75, 77, 78–79(map), 78(fig), 80(fig), 81(fig)

demographic transition, 70–71, 72(fig), 73–74

gender, 76, 79, 81, 83(fig) patterns of mortality, 69–70,

72–73(map) patterns of natality, 68–69,

70–71(map) population distribution and density,

66–67(map), 66–68, 68(tab) standard of living, 81

Population Reference Bureau, 103 pork, religious taboos against, 239,

240(map) Portugal

Arabic place-names in, 133 conquest of Americas by, 215 Islam in, 217

Portuguese language Amazonian languages and, 122 Arabic place-names in, 133,

134(map) extinction of Native American

languages and, 126 prevalence of, 113(tab)

possibilism, 17–19, 18(map) postindustrial phase, 302 poultry industry, 276 poverty, 81 Pow, Choon-Piew, 377 power, 5 Prague, 352(fig) Pratt, Geraldine, 365 preadaptation, cultural, 162–163, 282 Pred, Allan, 124 Presley, Elvis, 38, 38(map) primary industries

as category of economic activity, 296, 296(fig)

industrial revolution and, 298 primate cities, 328–329 producer services, 303

proselytic religion definition of, 216 Hinduism as, 226

Protestantism as branch of Christianity, 222–223 church buildings of, 242–243, 243(fig) ecotheological views of, 241 evangelical, in Latin America, 234,

234(fig) proxemics, 104 Puerto Madera, Buenos Aires, 371,

371(fig) push-and-pull factors, 86–87 pyramids, population, 77, 80(fig), 81(fig)

quarantine, 87 Québec

as French-Canadian ethnic homeland, 144, 147(map)

French influence in, 197 language issues in, 131

Québec French farmhouses, 53(fig), 54, 54(fig)

Québec French folk culture region, 32(map), 34

Quechua language, 40 Questions of Race and Racism, 173 Quichua people

crop diversity and, 271–272 indigenous technical knowledge of, 49,

280 Quincy Market, 395(fig) Quintanilla-Pérez, Selena, 152–153 Qur’an, 117, 224

Raban, Jonathan, 248 race. See also ethnicity

definition of, 139–142 industrial cityscapes and, 390–391,

391(fig) segregation by, 31

Racialicious, 173 racism

colonialism and, 159–161, 160(fig), 161(fig)

contemporary issues, 142–143 environmental, 164–166, 165(fig),

165(map) migrant farm workers and, 270

radioactive pollution, 315 rain forests, 312–313, 312(fig), 312(map) Raitz, Karl, 59 ranch houses, 23(fig), 26–27 ranching, 264–265 ranges, 330 reading landscapes, 22, 24, 24(fig) Rechlin, Alice, 146 recipes, 172

red and blue states, 185, 187–189, 187(map), 188(map), 189(map)

redlining, 369 refrigeration, 274 refuge areas, linguistic, 127–128,

129(map), 130 refugees, 86 region

agriculture and aquaculture, 265–267, 265(fig),

266(map) dairying, 263 grain farming, 262–263, 262(fig),

263(fig) hunting-and-gathering areas, 267 livestock fattening, 261–262, 261(fig) livestock ranching, 264–265 market gardening, 260 nomadic herding, 263–264, 264(fig) overview, 255, 256–257(map) paddy rice farming, 258–259,

258(fig), 259(map) peasant grain, root, and livestock

farming, 259, 259(map), 260(fig) plantation agriculture, 259–260,

260(fig), 261(fig) swidden cultivation, 255–256,

257(fig), 258 urban agriculture, 265

city patterns and concentric-zone model, 361–362 criticism of models, 364–366 downtowns, 357–358, 358(fig) multiple-nuclei model, 364, 364(fig) residential areas, 358–360, 359(fig) sector model, 363–364, 363(fig)

cultural differences and folk culture, 32(map), 34, 34(fig),

35(fig) popular culture, 35–38, 35(fig),

36(fig), 36(map), 37(map), 38(map)

economics and categories of economic activity,

296–297, 296(fig) developing vs. developed regions, 296 economic development, 293–295,

294–295(map) stages of economic development,

295–296 ethnicity and

ethnic homelands and islands, 144–146

neighborhoods and ghettos, 147–149, 149(fig), 150(fig)

overview, 144, 145(map), 146(map) shifts in ethnic mosaics, 150,

151(map), 151(tab), 153(map),

448 Index

154–155, 154(map), 155(map), 156(tab)

future of cultural geography and European supranationalism and

regionalism, 403–404 glocalization, 404 Internet access, 404–405(map),

405–406 uneven development, 402–403

language and language families, 109–116,

110–111(map), 112(fig), 113(tab) overview, 109

political geography and cyberspace, 183 electoral geographical regions, 185,

186(map), 187(map) red and blue states, 185, 187–189,

187(map), 188(map), 189(map) states, 177–183, 178–179(map),

180(map), 181(map), 182(fig) supranationalism, 184–185, 184(map)

population geography and age distributions, 74–75, 77,

78–79(map), 78(fig), 80(fig), 81(fig)

gender, 76, 79, 81, 83(fig) patterns of mortality, 69–70,

72–73(map) patterns of natality, 68–69,

70–71(map) population distribution and density,

66–67(map), 66–68, 68(tab) standard of living, 81

religion and animism/shamanism, 227–228,

228(fig) Buddhism, 226–227, 227(fig) Christianity, 219, 221–223, 223(fig) complexity of distribution, 222(map) Hinduism, 225–226, 225(fig),

226(fig) Islam, 223–225, 225(fig) Judaism, 219 Taoic religions, 227 world distributions, 220–221(map),

223(fig) urbanization and

central-place theory, 329–331, 330(fig), 331(fig)

impacts of urbanization, 328–329, 329(tab)

overview, 325–326, 326–327(map) patterns and processes of

urbanization, 326–328, 328(fig) regionalism, European, 403–404 regional trading blocs, 184 regions

agricultural, 255, 256–257(map)

city patterns and, 360–361, 361(fig) defined, 1 formal regions, 6–8, 6(fig), 7(map) functional regions, 8–9, 8(fig), 9(map) vernacular regions, 10, 10(fig)

Rehder, John, 171 reindeer, domestication of, 11–12 relic boundaries, 182, 182(fig) religion

cosmological cities, 334–336, 334(fig) cultural landscape and

detailed elements, 244–245, 246(fig) religious structures, 242–244,

243(fig), 244(fig), 245(fig) sacred spaces, 248, 248(fig) treatment of dead, 246–247, 246(fig),

247(fig) female agricultural deities, 268 formal regions and, 6, 7(map) globalization and

evangelical Protestantism in Latin America, 234, 234(fig)

Internet, 234–235 religion’s relevance, 235–237,

236(map) houses of worship, 2(fig) linguistic mobility and, 117 nature-culture and

ecotheology, 240–242 impact on plants and animals,

238–240, 240(map) religion as adaptive strategy, 237–238

overview, 215–219 pilgrimages, 232–233, 233(fig) region and

animism/shamanism, 227–228, 228(fig)

Buddhism, 226–227, 227(fig) Christianity, 219, 221–223, 223(fig) complexity of distribution, 222(map) Hinduism, 225–226, 225(fig),

226(fig) Islam, 223–225, 225(fig) Judaism, 219 Taoic religions, 227 world distributions, 220–221(map),

223(fig) rise of cities and, 332–333

relocation diffusion of blowguns, 45 chain migration and, 156 of crops, 269, 269(fig) definition of, 11 of diseases, 91 of languages, 116–117

Relph, Edward, 5 remnant languages, 127 Renaissance cities, 386, 388, 388(fig)

renewable resources, 311–313, 312(fig), 312(map)

residential areas of cities, 358–360, 359(fig)

Resources for the Future, 289 restaurants, ethnic, 138, 174 return migration, 157 reverse hierarchical diffusion, 42 reverse migration, 191, 193 revitalization of difference, 45 rice cultivation. See also paddy rice farming

cultural landscape and, 22(fig) diffusion of, 269

Richards, Paul, 48 Richmond, Virginia, 390–391 rimlands, 203, 204(map) Ring, Rita, 249 Rio conference, 417–418 Rio de Janeiro, 354 rivers, holy, 237, 237(fig) Rocheleau, Diane, 49–50 rodeos, diffusion of, 43–44, 43(map) Rokkan, Stein, 197 Roman Catholicism

as branch of Christianity, 222–223 church buildings of, 242 Latin language and, 117 North American distribution, 223,

224(map) Romance languages, 110–111(map),

112(fig) Roman cities, 383–384, 385(fig) Romanian language, 127 Roosevelt, Theodore, 122 root crops, 259, 259(map), 260(fig) Roseman, Curtis, 157 Rostow, Walter, 295–296 Rothenberg, Tamar, 372 “Roundup Ready” seed varieties, 277 Rowe, Stacy, 361 row villages, 96(fig) Royal Geographical Society, 28 rule of 72, 92–93 runoff, urban, 378 rural landscapes, preservation of,

419–420, 420(fig) rural settlement patterns, 96(fig), 97–99,

97(fig), 98(fig) rural-to-urban migration, 338 Russia

core-periphery expansion of, 190(map) heartland theory and, 203, 204(map)

Russian language diffusion into Siberia, 122 imperial conquest and, 116 prevalence of, 113(tab)

Rwandan genocide, 159–160, 160(fig), 161(fig)

Index 449

Saarinen, Thomas, 282 Sack, Robert, 56, 178 The Sacred and the Profane (Eliade), 248 sacred spaces, 248, 248(fig) saddlebag houses, Upland Southern, 53,

53(fig) Sahara Desert, 281, 282(map) Sahel, 281, 282(map) Sakha Republic, 197, 199, 201(map),

202(fig) San Fernando Valley (United States), 10,

10(fig) San Francisco

possibilism and, 17, 18(map) site and situation of, 341–342,

342(map) San Gabriel Valley, 149, 150(fig) SARS (severe acute respiratory

syndrome), 88 Sassen, Saskia, 338 satellite states, 181 Sauer, Carl, 268 Scientologists, 216 scorched-earth policies, 205 Scott, James C., 168 scraped-earth cemeteries, 34, 34(fig) secessionist conflicts

core-periphery configuration and, 191 territorial distribution and, 180–181

secondary industries as category of economic activity,

296–297 industrial revolution and, 297–298 locational shifts of, 298, 300, 301(map),

302, 302(map) sector model, 363–364, 363(fig) secularization, 235–237, 236(map) sedentarization programs, 264 segregation

by gender, 81, 83(fig) by race, 31 by religion, 148–149, 233(fig), 387

Selena (singer), 152–153 self-determination

in Africa, 192, 193(map) nation-state model and, 194

Semitic culture hearth, 229–231 Semitic languages, 112–113 separatism, ethnic, 194–197, 195(map),

196(map), 198–199(map) September 11 terrorist attacks, 218 service industries

as category of economic activity, 297 industrial revolution and, 298 locational shifts of, 302–304, 304(fig),

304(map) settlement forms, 24 sex industry, 102, 403 sexism, 76

sex ratios, 79, 82–83(map) sexual division of labor

among hunter-gatherers, 267 in early plant domestication, 268

sexuality, urban gentrification and, 372 Shadowed Ground (Foote), 250, 251 shamanism. See animism/shamanism Shanghai, 358(fig) sharia law, 189–190, 189(map) Shasta, Mount, 237, 238(fig) sheep farming, 201–202, 203(map) Shen, Jianfa, 339 Shields, Rob, 403 Shiite Muslims, 224–225 Shintoism

as animistic religion, 228 as Taoic religion, 227 in United States, 231, 232(fig)

shopping malls, 393, 394(fig) shotgun houses, African-American, 53,

53(fig), 54(fig) shrines, 243–244, 244(fig) Sibley, David, 365 signboards, religious, 244, 245(fig) Sikhism, 226 Silent Spring (Carson), 20 silicon landscapes. See high-tech corridors Silvey, Rachel, 101 simplification, cultural, 158 Sinai, Mount, 237, 248 Singapore, 170 Singh, Rana, 237 Sino-Tibetan language family,

110–111(map), 111–112, 113(tab) site and situation, 341, 342(map),

343(fig), 344(fig) skylines, as symbolic landscapes, 23,

23(fig) Skyscraper Museum, 397 slang, 119–120 slavery

agricultural diffusion and, 269 in modern world, 403 plantation agriculture and, 259 racism and, 159

Slavic languages, 110, 112(fig) slums, 165(fig) Smith, Neil, 367 Snow, John, 87–88 social construct, race as, 140, 141(fig) social culture regions, 358–360, 359(fig) social hierarchies, 5 socialist and post-socialist cities, 351–352,

352(fig) soukous music, 416 South Africa

advertising by, 42 as multiethnic state, 196, 196(map)

sovereignty

definition of, 177 of Sakha Republic, 197, 199, 201(map),

202(fig) Soviet Union, breakup of, 191, 193 space

models of human geography and, 4–5, 4(fig)

vs. place, 27 Spain

Arabic place-names in, 133, 134(map) competing core areas in, 191 conquest of Americas by, 159, 160(fig),

215 Islam in, 217

Spanglish, 106(fig), 120 Spanish language

Arabic place-names in, 133, 134(map) archaic forms of, 130, 158 English-only laws and, 122–123 extinction of Native American

languages and, 126 habitat-related vocabulary in, 127,

128(tab) imperial conquest and, 117 Latin American dialects of, 118,

119(map) prevalence of, 113(tab)

spatial organization of territory, 182–183 special economic zones (SEZs), 310 squatter settlements, 346–348, 348(fig) standard of living, 81 state nationalism, 183 The State of the Nation’s Cities: A

Comprehensive Database of America’s Cities and Suburbs, 397

states, 177–183, 178–179(map), 180(map), 181(map), 182(fig)

stimulus diffusion, 11–12 street villages, 96(fig), 97, 98(fig) strip development, 56, 56(fig) structures, religious, 242–244, 243(fig),

244(fig), 245(fig) subcultures, definition of, 31 subsistence agriculture, 258 subsistence economies, 48 substate nationalism, 183 substrates, ethnic, 146 suburbanization, 367–370, 367(fig),

368(fig), 370(fig) suitcase farms, 262 Sunni Muslims, 224–225 superquadra apartments, 168–169,

169(fig) super-rich class, 402–403 supranationalism, 184–185, 184(map),

403–404 surpluses, agricultural, 332 survey patterns, 285–287, 285(fig),

286(fig), 286(map), 287(fig)

450 Index

sushi restaurants, hierarchical diffusion of, 11

sustainability of agriculture, 272, 280 urbanization and, 344–345, 345(fig)

sustainable development, 416–418, 417(fig)

sweatshops, 309 swidden cultivation, 255–256, 257(fig),

258 Swyngedouw, Erik, 404 syllabic writing systems, 114 symbolic cityscapes, 381, 381(fig) symbolic landscapes, 23, 23(fig) synagogues, 243 syncretic religions

definition of, 217 Taoic religions as, 227

taco-burrito and taco-barbecue isoglosses, 171, 171(map)

Taipei 101, 376, 376(fig) Taj Mahal, 246, 247(fig) Taliban government (Afghanistan), 12–13,

43 Tantrayana Buddhism, 227 Taoic religions, 227 Taoism

origins and diffusion of, 231 as Taoic religion, 227 treatment of dead in, 246

tariffs, 308 Taylor, Peter, 412 technology, language and, 121 technopoles, 299(map), 300, 303 Tejano South Texas: A Mexican American

Cultural Province (Arreola), 168 Tejano subculture

ethnic homeland of, 144, 147(map) music of, 152–153

television, 12–13, 43 Temple of the Emerald Buddha, 233(fig) Teo, Peggy, 412 territoriality, 178 terrorism, 218, 304 textile and garment industries

industrial revolution and, 297–298 origins exercise, 321 sweatshops, 309 world distribution of, 302

texting, 114 texts, landscapes as, 22, 24, 24(fig) TFR. See total fertility rate “Think Globally, Act Locally,” 417–418 thresholds, 330 Tibeto-Burman languages, 111–112 time-distance decay, 12, 41 Time Warner, 42–43 Toal, Gerard, 203

tobacco, 239 Tok Pisin, 109 topographical paintings, Aboriginal,

xxxii(fig), 28 toponyms

among Native Americans, 126–127 in Antarctica, 107–108 cultural landscape and, 131–133,

132(map), 133(fig), 134(map), 135 topophilia, 5 Torah, 219 tortillas, 170–171 total fertility rate (TFR)

age distribution and, in Italy, 75 in China, 93 overview, 68–69, 70–71(map)

tourism cultural interactions and, 409–412,

411(fig) as type of service industry, 303–304,

304(fig), 304(map) township and range system, 206, 207(fig),

286, 286(map) trade-route sites, 343–344 traits, cultural, 6–8, 6(fig), 7(map) transcience, 59 transitional zones, 358 transition zone, 361–362, 361(fig),

362(fig) transnational corporations

annual earnings, 412, 413(fig) governmental regulations and, 309 labor supply for, 305–307, 307(fig) rise of, 300, 302

transnationality, 13, 13(fig), 193 transportation/communication services,

122, 302–303 Trans-Siberian Railroad, 122 tree farms, 313 Tuan, Yi-Fu, 5, 56, 320 Turkey, 130–131 Turkic languages, 115 Tutsi people, 159–160, 161(fig) Tyner, James, 102

Ukrainian folk culture region, 32(map) Ullman, Edward, 364 Umbanda, 217 undefended borders, 207, 208(fig) uneven development

of city areas, 367 defined, 15 future of cultural geography and,

402–403 geography of, 300, 302, 302(map)

unitary countries, 182–183 unit-block landholdings, 285, 285(fig) United Nations

Conference on Environment and Development, 417–418

High Commissioner for Refugees, 103 Industrial Development Organization,

322 on self-determination, 194 Statistics Division, 353 Web site of, 211

United States government Census Bureau Population Clocks, 103 Department of Agriculture, 289 Department of Housing and Urban

Development, 353 universalizing religions. See proselytic

religion Upland Southerners

architecture of, 34 folk architecture of, 53, 53(fig) folk culture region of, 32(map) folk ecology of, 49, 51(map) foodways of, 171

Upper Canadian folk culture region, 32(map), 53(fig), 54

upright-and-wing houses, Yankee, 53, 53(fig), 54(fig)

Uralic language family, 110–111(map), 115, 130

urban agriculture, 265 Urban Agriculture Notes, 289 urban ethnic landscapes, 166–169,

167(fig), 169(fig) urbanization. See also cities, patterns

within cultural landscape and

developing world, 346–348, 348(fig) Latin America, 348, 350 socialist and post-socialist cities,

351–352, 352(fig) South African cities, 350–351, 351(fig)

globalization and global cities, 338–339, 340(map) globalizing cities, 339–340

mobility and diffusion from urban hearth areas,

336–337, 337(map) origin and diffusion of cities, 332–333 overview, 331–332 rural-to-urban migration, 338 urban hearth areas, 333–336,

333(map), 334(fig), 335(map) nature-culture and

natural disasters, 345, 346(map) overview, 340–341 site and situation, 341–344,

342(map), 343(fig), 344(fig) sustainability, 344–345, 345(fig)

region and central-place theory, 329–331,

330(fig), 331(fig)

Index 451

impacts of urbanization, 328–329, 329(tab)

overview, 325–326, 326–327(map) patterns and processes of

urbanization, 326–328, 328(fig) urban morphology, 380 urban mosaic. See cities, patterns within urban planning, 168–169, 169(fig) Urdu language, 113(tab) utilitarianism, 59, 59(fig)

“valley, the,” 10, 10(fig) vCJD (Creuzfeldt-Jakob Disease), 278–279 Vermont, 419 vernacular regions, 10, 10(fig), 40,

41(map) Versailles, New Orleans, 169–170 Victoria, Queen, 400(fig), 422 Vietnamese-Americans, 163, 169–170 Vietnamese language, 112 villages. See rural settlement patterns vineyards, 238–239 violence, 218 Virgin of Guadalupe, 214(fig), 215–216,

216(fig), 248, 249, 252 vocabulary, habitat and, 127 Vodun, 217 von Thünen model, 273–274, 273(fig),

274(map) Voodoo, 217

walls, medieval, 386, 387(fig) Wal-Mart, 42, 419 Ward, Gerard, 117 warfare

environmental destruction and, 205–206, 205(fig)

population displacement and, 157, 158(map)

warming, global. See climate change “war on terror,” 124 Warsaw, Market Square in, 24, 24(fig) waste dumping, 165–166, 165(map) water

for agriculture, 280 environmental perception and,

282–283 in religious rituals, 245–246 urban use of, 378

Watts, Michael, 412 Webb, John, 117 Weiss, Michael, 36 Welsh language, 117 West Edmonton Mall, 57 Western Wall, 248, 248(fig) Weston, Florida, 394–395 wheat cultivation

overview, 262, 262(fig), 263(fig) patterns of, 3–4, 3(map)

Wheatley, Paul, 332 wheat tortillas, 171 white Americans, 154, 154(map) Wicca, 228 Williams, Raymond, 32 wine, 238–239 Wisconsin, cultural preadaptation in, 162,

163(map) Wisdom Sits in Places (Basso), 126–127 Wittfogel, Karl, 332 Wolch, Jennifer, 361 women’s rights

U.S. constitutional amendments for, 191, 192(map)

Woods, Tiger, 141 Woodside, Queens, 360, 360(fig) World Bank, 322

World Bank Group, 289 World Commission on Environment and

Development, 416 World Council of Churches, 251 World Future Society, 421 World Futures Studies Federation, 421 World Health Organization, 103 World Heritage Sites, 419, 419(fig) World Trade Organization (WTO), 48,

308–309 World War II, 157 Worldwatch Institute, 103, 289, 322 writing systems

invention of, 121 types of, 114

WTO (World Trade Organization), 48, 308–309

452 Index

Yahoo!, 406 Yankee folk culture region

architecture of, 34, 52–53, 53(fig), 54(fig)

location of, 32(map) Yellowstone National Park, 52(fig) yoga, 235, 235(fig) Yoon, Hong-Key, 133 yurts, Mongol, 55(fig)

Zapatistas, 414–415, 415(fig) Zelinsky, Wilbur, 40, 41, 42, 45 zero population growth, 68 Zimmerer, Carl, 271–272 Zonn, Leo, 45

  • Cover Page
  • Half-Title Page
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Contents in Brief
  • Preface
    • The Five Themes
    • New to the Eleventh Edition
      • Key Chapter Changes
      • New Features
      • New Topics
    • Media and Supplements
      • Student Supplements
      • Instructor Supplements
    • Acknowledgments
  • About the Authors
  • Half-Title Page
  • Contents
  • Chapter 1: Human Geography: A Cultural Approach
    • What Is a Cultural Approach to Human Geography?
      • How to Understand Human Geography
    • Themes in Human Geography
      • Region
      • Mobility
      • Globalization
      • Nature-Culture
      • Cultural Landscape
    • Subject to Debate: Human Activities and Global Climate Change
    • Global Spotlight: “Reading” Globalization in a Medieval Square
    • Practicing Geography: Denis Cosgrove
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: Space, Place, and Knowing Your Way Around
    • Seeing Geography: Aboriginal Topographical Painting of Arnhem Land
  • Chapter 2: Many Worlds: Geographies of Cultural Difference
    • Many Cultures
    • Region
      • Material Folk Culture Regions
      • Is Popular Culture Placeless?
      • Popular Food and Drink
      • Popular Music
      • Indigenous Culture Regions
      • Vernacular Culture Regions
    • Mobility
      • Diffusion in Popular Culture
      • Advertising
      • Communications Barriers
      • Diffusion of the Rodeo
      • Blowguns: Diffusion or Independent Invention?
    • Globalization
      • From Difference to Convergence
      • Difference Revitalized
      • Place Images
    • Subject to Debate: Mobile Identities: Questions of Culture and Citizenship
    • Nature-Culture
      • Indigenous Ecology
      • Local Knowledge
    • Global Spotlight: Indigenous Cultures Go Global
      • Global Economy
      • Folk Ecology
      • Gendered Nature
    • Practicing Geography: Gregory Knapp
      • Nature in Popular Culture
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Folk Architecture
      • Folk Housing in North America
      • Folk Housing in Sub-Saharan Africa
      • Landscapes of Popular Culture
      • Leisure Landscapes
      • Elitist Landscapes
      • The American Popular Landscape
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: Self-Representation of Indigenous Culture
    • Seeing Geography: American Fathers and Daughters
  • Chapter 3: Population Geography: Shaping the Human Mosaic
    • Region
      • Population Distribution and Density
      • Patterns of Natality
      • The Geography of Mortality
      • The Demographic Transition
      • Age Distributions
    • Subject to Debate: Female: An Endangered Gender?
      • Geography of Gender
      • Standard of Living
    • Mobility
      • Migration
      • Diseases on the Move
    • Globalization
      • Population Explosion?
    • Global Spotlight: The Geography of HIV/AIDS
      • Or Creativity in the Face of Scarcity?
      • The Rule of 72
      • Population Control Programs
    • Nature-Culture
      • Environmental Influence
      • Environmental Perception and Population Distribution
      • Population Density and Environmental Alteration
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Rural Settlement Patterns
      • Historical Factors Shaping the Cultural- Demographic Landscape
      • Political and Economic Factors Shaping the Cultural-Demographic Landscape
      • Gender and the Cultural-Demographic Landscape
    • Practicing Geography: Rachel Silvey
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: Public Space, Personal Space: Too Close for Comfort?
    • Seeing Geography: Street in Kolkata, India
  • Chapter 4: Speaking about Places: The Geography of Language
    • Region
      • Language Families
    • Global Spotlight: Texting and Language Modification
    • Mobility
      • Indo-European Diffusion
      • Austronesian Diffusion
      • Religion and Linguistic Mobility
      • Language’s Shifting Boundaries
    • Globalization
      • Technology, Language, and Empire
    • Subject to Debate: Imposing English
    • Practicing Geography: Allan Pred
      • Language Proliferation: One or Many?
      • Language and Cultural Survival
    • Nature-Culture
      • Habitat and Vocabulary
      • The Habitat Helps Shape Language Areas
      • The Habitat Provides Refuge
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Messages
      • Toponyms
      • Generic Toponyms of the United States
      • Toponyms and Cultures of the Past
    • Conclusion
      • Doing Geography: Toponyms and Roots of Place
      • Seeing Geography: Aquí se habla Spanglish
  • Chapter 5: Geographies of Race and Ethnicity: Mosaic or Melting Pot?
    • Subject to Debate: Racism: An Embarrassment of the Past, or Here to Stay?
    • Region
      • Ethnic Homelands and Islands
      • Ethnic Neighborhoods and Racialized Ghettos
      • Recent Shifts in Ethnic Mosaics
    • Global Spotlight: Selena Crosses the Line
    • Mobility
      • Migration and Ethnicity
      • Simplification and Isolation
    • Globalization
      • A Long View of Race and Ethnicity
      • Race and European Colonization
      • Indigenous Identities in the Face of Globalization
    • Nature-Culture
      • Cultural Preadaptation
      • Habitat and the Preservation of Difference
      • Environmental Racism
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Urban Ethnic Landscapes
    • Practicing Geography: Daniel Arreola
      • The Re-Creation of Ethnic Cultural Landscapes
      • Ethnic Culinary Landscapes
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: Tracing Ethnic Foodways Through Recipes
    • Seeing Geography: American Restaurant Neon Signs
  • Chapter 6: Political Geography: A Divided World
    • Region
      • A World of States
      • Political Boundaries in Cyberspace
      • Supranational Political Bodies
      • Electoral Geographical Regions
      • Red States, Blue States
      • Islamic Law in Nigerian Politics
    • Mobility
      • Movement Between Core and Periphery
      • Mobility, Diffusion, and Political Innovation
      • Politics and Migration
    • Global Spotlight: The Condition of Transnationality
    • Globalization
    • Practicing Geography: Katharyne Mitchell
      • The Nation-State
      • Ethnic Separatism
    • Subject to Debate: The End of the Nation-State?
      • The Cleavage Model
      • An Example: The Sakha Republic
      • Political Imprint on Economic Geography
    • Nature-Culture
      • Chain of Explanation
      • Geopolitics
      • The Heartland Theory
      • Geopolitics Today
      • Warfare and Environmental Destruction
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Imprint of the Legal Code
      • Physical Properties of Boundaries
      • The Impress of Central Authority
      • National Iconography on the Landscape
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: The Complex Geography of Congressional Redistricting
    • Seeing Geography: Are These Border Fences or Walls?
  • Chapter 7: The Geography of Religion: Spaces and Places of Sacredness
    • Subject to Debate: Religious Fundamentalism
    • Region
      • Judaism
      • Christianity
      • Islam
      • Hinduism
      • Buddhism
      • Taoic Religions
      • Animism/Shamanism
    • Mobility
      • The Semitic Religious Hearth
      • The Indus-Ganges Hearth
      • The East Asian Religious Hearth
      • Religious Pilgrimage
    • Globalization
      • The Rise of Evangelical Protestantism in Latin America
      • Religion on the Internet
      • Religion’s Relevance in a Global World
    • Nature-Culture
      • Appeasing the Forces of Nature
      • The Impacts of Belief Systems on Plants and Animals
      • Ecotheology
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Religious Structures
      • Faithful Details
      • Landscapes of the Dead
      • Sacred Space
    • Conclusion
    • Global Spotlight: Moving Faith
    • Practicing Geography: Kenneth Foote
    • Doing Geography: The Making of Sacred Spaces
    • Seeing Geography: Parking Lot Shrine
  • Chapter 8: Agriculture: The Geography of the Global Food System
    • Region
      • Swidden Cultivation
      • Paddy Rice Farming
      • Peasant Grain, Root, and Livestock Farming
      • Plantation Agriculture
      • Market Gardening
      • Livestock Fattening
      • Grain Farming
      • Dairying
      • Nomadic Herding
      • Livestock Ranching
      • Urban Agriculture
      • Farming the Waters
      • Nonagricultural Areas
    • Mobility
      • Origins and Diffusion of Plan Domestication
      • Locating Centers of Domestication
      • Pets or Meat? Tracing Animal Domestication
      • Modern Mobilities
      • Labor Mobility
    • Globalization
      • Local-Global Food Provisioning
    • Practicing Geography: Karl Zimmerer
      • The von Thünen Model
      • Can the World Be Fed?
      • The Growth of Agribusiness
    • Global Spotlight: The Global Chicken
      • Food Fears
    • Nature-Culture
      • Technology over Nature?
      • Sustainable Agriculture
      • Intensity of Land Use
      • The Desertification Debate
      • Environmental Perception by Agriculturists
      • Don’t Panic, It’s Organic
      • Green Fuels from Agriculture
    • Subject to Debate: Can Biofuels Save the Planet?
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Survey, Cadastral, and Field Patterns
      • Fencing and Hedging
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: The Global Geography of Food
    • Seeing Geography: Reading Agricultural Landscapes
  • Chapter 9: Geography of Economies: Industries, Services, and Development
    • Region
    • Mobility
      • Origins of the Industrial Revolution
      • Diffusion of the Industrial Revolution
      • The Locational Shifts of Secondary Industry
      • The Locational Shifts of Service Industries
    • Globalization
      • Labor Supply
    • Practicing Geography: Amy Glasmeier
    • Global Spotlight: A Day in the Life of a Back-Office Worker in India
      • Markets
      • Governments and Globalization
    • Subject to Debate: Is Free Trade Fair Trade?
      • Economic Globalization and Cultural Change
    • Nature-Culture
      • Renewable Resource Crises
    • Global Spotlight: Women, Men, and Work in the Maquiladoras
      • Acid Rain
      • Global Climate Change
      • Ozone Depletion
      • Radioactive Pollution
      • Environmental Sustainability
    • Cultural Landscape
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: The Where and Why of What You Wear
    • Seeing Geography: Factories in Guangdong Province, China
  • Chapter 10: Urbanization: The City in Time and Space
    • Region
      • Patterns and Processes of Urbanization
      • Impacts of Urbanization
      • Central-Place Theory
    • Mobility
      • Origin and Diffusion of the City
      • Models for the Rise of Cities
      • Urban Hearth Areas
      • The Diffusion of the City from Hearth Areas
      • Rural-to-Urban Migration
    • Globalization
      • Global Cities
    • Global Spotlight: One Family’s Tale
      • Globalizing Cities
    • Nature-Culture
    • Practicing Geography: Kris Olds
      • Site and Situation
      • Urbanization and Sustainability
      • Natural Disasters
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Globalizing Cities in the Developing World
    • Subject to Debate: Can Urbanization Be Environmentally Sustainable?
      • Latin American Urban Landscapes
      • Landscapes of the Apartheid and Postapartheid City
      • Landscapes of the Socialist and Postsocialist City
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: Connecting Urban Population Growth with Globalization
    • Seeing Geography: Rio de Janeiro
  • Chapter 11: Inside the City: A Cultural Mosaic
    • Region
      • Downtowns
      • Residential Areas
      • Homelessness
      • Models of the Internal Structure of American and Canadian Cities
    • Practicing Geography: Susan Hanson
    • Mobility
      • Centralization
      • Suburbanization and Decentralization
      • Gentrification
    • Subject to Debate: Can Gentrification Be Socially Just?
    • Globalization
      • New Ethnic Neighborhoods
      • A Global Urban Form?
    • Global Spotlight: Spaces of Inclusion and Exclusion: Urban Ethnic Enclaves
    • Nature-Culture
      • Urban Weather and Climate
      • Urban Hydrology
      • Urban Vegetation
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Ways of Reading Cityscapes
      • Landscape Histories of American, Canadian, and European Cities
      • The New Urban Landscape
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: Reading “Your” Urban Landscape
    • Seeing Geography: Chinatown, New York City
  • Chapter 12: One World or Many? The Cultural Geography of the Future
    • Region
      • The Uneven Geography of Development
      • One Europe or Many?
      • Glocalization
      • The Geography of the Internet
    • Subject to Debate: The Internet: Global Tool for Democracy or Repression?
    • Mobility
      • The Information Superhighway
      • New (Auto)Mobilities
      • The Place(s) of the Global Tourist
    • Global Spotlight: China’s New Car Culture
    • Globalization
      • A Deeper Look at Globalization
      • History, Geography, and the Globalization of Everything
      • Globalization and Its Discontents
    • Practicing Geography: Susan Mains
      • Blending Sounds on a Global Scale
    • Nature-Culture
      • Sustainable Futures
      • Think Globally, Act Locally
    • Cultural Landscape
      • Globalized Landscapes
      • Striving for the Unique
      • Wal-Martians Invade Treasured Landscape
      • Protecting Europe’s Rural Landscape
    • Conclusion
    • Doing Geography: Interpreting the Imagery of Globalization
    • Seeing Geography: Global Reach
  • Glossary
  • Index