Human Geography
By James Rubenstein
Chapter 1
Key Issue 3
Why Are Different
Places Similar?
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Human activities are
rarely confined to
one location.
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From Local to Global
Scale depends on the subject.
At a local scale, geographers tend
to see unique features.
At the global scale, geographers
tend to see broad patterns.
Geography matters in the
contemporary world because it can
explain human actions at all scales,
from local to global.
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Globalization
A force or process that
involves the entire world
and results in making
something worldwide in
scope.
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Globalization Means
The scale of the world is
shrinking-not literally in size,
but in the ability of a person,
object, or idea to interact with a
person, object, or idea in
another place.
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McDonalds is a visible
example of
Globalization
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Moscow, Russia
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India
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Shanghai,
China
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Economic Globalization
People living in remote regions of
the world may be able to provide all
of their daily necessities.
Most economic activities
undertaken in one region are
influenced by interaction with
decision makers located elsewhere.
Globalization has been led primarily
by transnational corporations.
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Transnational
Corporations
Sometimes called
multinational
corporations.
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Globalization of Economy:
Denso, A Transnational Corporation
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Where Sneaker material
comes from.
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Anti-Globalization
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Economic Globalization
Modem technology provides the
means to easily move money-as well
as materials, products, technology,
and other economic assets-around
the world.
Every place in the world is part of
the global economy, but
globalization has led to more
specialization at the local level.
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Importance of Locality
to conduct research,
to develop new engineering
systems,
to extract raw material,
to produce parts,
to store finished products,
to sell them,
or to manage operations.
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Globalization of the
economy has
heightened economic
differences among
places.
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Globalization of Culture
Increasingly uniform cultural
preferences produce uniform
"global" landscapes of material
artifacts and of cultural values.
The survival of local culture is
threatened by interaction with such
social customs as wearing jeans and
Nike shoes, and consuming CocaCola and McDonalds hamburgers.
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Globalization of Culture
Yet despite globalization, cultural
differences among places not
only persist but actually flourish
in many places.
The communications revolution
that promotes globalization of
culture also permits
preservation of cultural
diversity.
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Globalization of
Communications
People in two distant places can
watch the same television
program.
At the same time, with the
fragmentation of the
broadcasting market, two
people in the same house can
watch different programs.
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Cultural Preference
People residing in different
places are displaying fewer
differences and more similarities
in their cultural preferences.
But the desire of some people to
retain their traditional cultural
elements has led to political
conflict and market
fragmentation in some regions.
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Cultural Determination
Strong determination to retain local
cultural traditions in the face of
globalization can lead to intolerance of
people who display other beliefs, social
forms, & material traits.
Many contemporary social problems
result from a tension between forces
promoting global culture and economy,
and those promoting preservation of
local economic autonomy and cultural
traditions.
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Space:
Distribution Features
Geographers think about the
arrangements of people and
activities found in space
and try to understand why those
people and activities are
distributed across space as
they are.
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Distribution
The arrangement of a feature
in space.
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Distribution
Geographers identify three
main properties of
distribution across Earth:
density,
concentration,
and pattern.
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Density
The frequency with
which something occurs
in space.
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Lower Density
24 houses on 82 acres
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Higher Density
32 houses on 82 acres
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Higher Cluster
32 houses on 82 acres
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Arithmetic density
The total number of objects in
an area.
Commonly used to compare the
distribution of population in
different countries.
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Arithmetic density
Involves two measures:
The number of people
The land area
A large population does not
necessarily lead to a high
density.
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Density Definitions
Physiological density is the
number of persons per unit of
area suitable for agriculture.
Agricultural density is the
number of farmers per unit of
area.
Housing density is the number
of dwelling units per unit of
area.
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Concentration
The extent of a
feature's spread over
space is the
concentration.
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Concentration
Geographers use
concentration to describe
changes in distribution.
Clustered objects in an
area are close together.
Dispersed are far apart.
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Clustered NBL in 1952
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Dispersed NBL in 2000
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Pattern
Some features are
organized in a
geometric pattern,
while others are
distributed irregularly.
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Patterns of Gender and
Ethnic Diversity in Space
Spatial interaction may be
limited even among people in
close proximity to one
another.
Consider first the daily
movement of an "allAmerican" family.
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All-American Family
Dad drives to work, spends the
day and drives home.
Mom transports children and
organizes family life.
Most American women are now
employed at work outside the
home, adding a substantial
complication to a pattern of
moving across urban space.
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Racial Effects on
Patterns
In most U.S. neighborhoods the
residents are virtually all whites
or virtually all persons of color.
Segregation persists partly
based on cultural preference,
partly based on fears.
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Cultural Identity
A source of pride to people at the
local scale and an inspiration for
personal values.
Personal traits matter to people.
For Geographers, concern for
cultural diversity is not merely a
politically correct expediency; it
lies at the heart of geography's
spatial tradition.
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Connections between
Places
Geographers explain the
process, called diffusion, by
which connections are made
between regions, as well as
the mechanism by which
connections are maintained
through networks.
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Space-Time Compression
Refers to the reduction in
the time it takes for
something to reach
another place.
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Space-Time
Compression
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Spatial Interaction
In the past, most forms of
interaction among cultural groups
required the physical movement of
settlers, explorers, and plunderers
from one location to another.
Today travel by motor vehicle or
airplane is much quicker and we can
communicate instantly with people
in distant places.
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Spatial Interaction
Places are connected to
each other through
networks.
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Networks
Chains of communication that
connect places.
A well-known example is the
television network.
Transportation systems also
form networks that connect
places to each other.
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Air Service Network
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Distance Decay
Typically, the farther away
one group is from another,
the less likely the two
groups are to interact.
This trailing -off
phenomenon is called
distance decay.
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Hearth
The place from which an
innovation, or culture,
originates.
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Hearths
The dominant cultural, political,
and economic features of
contemporary United States
and Canada can be traced
primarily to hearths in Europe
and the Middle East.
Other regions of the world also
contain important hearths.
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Hearths
An idea, such as agriculture,
may originate independently
in more than one hearth.
Geographers observe two
basic types of diffusion:
relocation
and expansion.
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Diffusion
The process by which a
characteristic spreads
across space from one
place to another over time.
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Relocation Diffusion
The spread of an idea
through physical
movement of people.
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Relocation Diffusion
Can explain the rapid rise in the
number of AIDS cases in the
United States during the 1980s and
early 1990s, but not the rapid
decline beginning in the mid-1990s.
The decline resulted from the
rapid diffusion of preventive
methods and medicines refereed to
as Expansion Diffusion.
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Beginning of AIDS
1981
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Rise in AIDS
1993
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Decrease in AIDS
2001
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Expansion Diffusion
The spread of a feature from one
place to another in a snowballing
process.
This expansion may result from
one of three processes:
hierarchical diffusion
contagious diffusion
stimulus diffusion
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Hierarchical diffusion
The spread of an idea from
persons or nodes of
authority or power to
other persons or places.
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Contagious Diffusion
The rapid, widespread
diffusion of a characteristic
throughout the population.
such as Disease
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Stimulus Diffusion
The spread of an underlying
principle, even though a
characteristic itself
apparently fails to diffuse.
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Stimulus Diffusion
Modem methods of
communications encourage
hierarchical diffusion.
The Internet has encouraged
contagious diffusion.
All the new technologies
support stimulus diffusion.
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Diffusion of Culture
and Economy
In a global culture and economy,
transportation and
communications systems have
been organized to rapidly
diffuse raw materials, goods,
services, and capital from nodes
of origin to other regions.
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The Global Culture and
Economy
Is centered on three core or
hearth regions of North America,
Western Europe, and Japan.
Has produced greater disparities
than in the past between the levels
of wealth being enjoyed by people in
the core and in the periphery
resulting in Uneven Development.
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Uneven Development
The increasing gap in
economic conditions.
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