REGIONAL AND TEMPORAL TRENDS IN POWER PLANT UNIT SITING, 1912–1978*

Regional trends in the siting of U.S. coal, gas, oil, and nuclear power plant units from 1912 to 1978 are examined. Results of a multivariate statistical analysis indicate that while these trends are comparatively individualistic, they tend to be governed more by factors affecting the choice of fuel than by regional differences in the siting process.     

MYTHOLOGIES OF THE GRID IN THE EMPIRE CITY, 1811–2011*

In this article, I examine the performative dimensions of historical narration as a form of modern mythmaking by reconsidering conventional narratives on the “origins” of Manhattan's grid street plan of 1811. The historical mythology of the grid espoused in canonical readings of the Plan of 1811 relies extensively on a rearticulation of the official explanation that the grid's designers provided in a foundational text known as the “Commissioners’ Remarks”. I argue that such accounts result in an extraordinarily narrow and formulaic interpretation of the utilitarian motives and intentions behind the city's grid plan, one that reinforces a form of “morphological essentialism”. To support this argument, I shift the focus of attention beyond the “Commissioners’ Remarks” in order to complicate readings of the intentionality that gave rise to the 1811 street plan. I conclude by suggesting that the mythic search for the “origins” of the grid in the realm of founding intentions can most effectively be challenged by drawing attention to the proliferation of countermyths of gridded space.     

THE USE OF QUANTITATIVE METHODS IN MAJOR GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNALS, 1956–1986*

Ninety mainstream quantitative methods used in 14 major geographical journals are analyzed for four selected years: 1956, 1966, 1976, and 1986. Mainstream methods are used in 53% of all articles in 1986, as opposed to 3% in 1956. Both the intensity and variety of methods used also increased, particularly in physical and techniques articles compared to human articles. Major methods that dominate the entire period include bivariate correlation and regression, multiple regression, factor analyses, and chi-square. The use of nonparametric methods is increasing, although their frequency of occurrence is still low. Spatial autocorrelation and advanced multiple regression appear to be strong newcomers to the discipline.     

THE CHANGING LOCATION OF TRADE AND SERVICES IN GUADALAJARA,MEXICO, 1994–2004*

The location of trade and services in Guadalajara, Mexico, is in flux as suburban commercial centers compete with the traditional downtown for new businesses and employment. Since the mid‐1990s a factor driving the change has been the introduction of American‐style big‐box retailers, corporate franchise supermarkets, and large suburban shopping malls. In this article I analyze the changing patterns of commercial and service businesses and employment from 1994 to 2004 in order to compare suburban and urban growth. My analysis includes comparative measures of change in neighborhoods immediately surrounding Walmart stores and by disaggregated types of commercial districts. Results indicate that a complementary relationship has developed: Suburbs are increasingly strong in the services, but the downtown remains a commercial hub. Moreover, some traditional small vendors in close proximity to Walmart may suffer, but growth in employment and in the service sector near Walmarts is high.     

COUNTERURBANIZATION IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY*

Since Berry argued in 1976 that counterurbanization had replaced urbanization in the U.S., a debate has ensued as to whether the phenomenon also exists in Western Europe. Proponents of a developmental theory of counterurbanization contend that the phenomenon should be evident in countries which have achieved a very high level of socioeconomic development, including the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Most of the German and English language literature on the topic suggests the contrary for the FRG. Here urbanization and counterurbanization are restricted to specific geographic meanings, i.e., spatial agglomeration and deglomeration. Results from four interrelated tests show a trend toward counterurbanization evident as early as the 1960s in the post-war regional demographic data of the FRG.     

THE ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSFORMATION OF AN APPALACHIAN VALLEY, 1850–1906*

ABSTRACT. The physical environment of the George's Creek Valley in western Maryland was altered dramatically during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as coal mining and associated activities expanded and intensified. Although mineral extraction was the chief agent of change, forest and water resources were also affected by other industrial and commercial activities, as well as by the region's growing population. Examining the environmental alteration that took place in the valley, this work also considers attitudes and motivations that contributed to the transformation.     

NOTES ON THE RISE OF THE AREA STUDIES TRADITION IN U.S. GEOGRAPHY, 1910–1929*

Area studies emerged as the leading tradition in American geography during the second decade of this century, supplanting the earth science tradition. The man-land tradition, reaching its peak during the second and third decades, never became as dominant as did the area studies tradition, based on a classification of the number of articles published, papers presented at annual AAG meetings, doctoral dissertations, and philosophical and methodological pronouncements by noted figures in American geography.     

INCIDENTS OF TERRORISM IN THE UNITED STATES, 1997–2005

ABSTRACT. The geography of terrorism remains underexplored. By focusing on the spatial patterns of terrorist attacks, the settings and land uses in which attacks occur, and the methods used to perpetrate violence, this analysis helps build a theory of terrorism geography. Between 1 January 1997 and 11 September 2005, 178 terrorist incidents occurred in the United States. Analysis of these incidents suggests three insights. At the national scale, terrorism in the United States clustered in large urban areas, with regional differentiation of terrorist motives and targets. At the scale of individual attack sites, terrorist motivations pinpointed offices, clinics, and public spaces; right‐wing violence, military, government, and infrastructural targets; and religious terrorism, commercial and special land uses. At the scale of individual interactions, terrorists crossed paths with victims in various ways. For example, the 2001 anthrax‐attack letters and lone‐wolf terrorism created alternative intersections of perpetrators with victims.     

ONE NATION OR TWO? THE CHANGING GEOGRAPHY OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN, 1983–1988*

Unemployment affected large numbers of people in Great Britain during the 1980s. An economic upturn since the mid-1980s has resulted in declining numbers of unemployed. Disaggregated data show that the geography of unemployment decline has not led to regional convergence in numbers out of work: unemployment has fallen most in those regions which were least affected by it.     

CHANGES IN THE SHAPES OF CHINESE CITIES, 1934–1974

The Boyce-Clark shape index was employed to study changes in the shapes of twenty-three Chinese cities between 1934 and 1974. With the aid of shapes curves and cluster analysis, types of city growth since 1934 were identified. It was found that, on the whole, city shapes have changed only moderately, although cities in the north and northeast tended to experience greater changes. This suggests that these have been priority areas of Chinese urban planning. City shape and population size were employed to produce a simple typology of Chinese cities. The results suggest the persistence of square or rectangle shapes, although some cities in the south and north also experienced linear development.     

PATTERNS OF HORSE DEVOLUTION AND TRACTOR DIFFUSION IN ILLINOIS, 1920–1982*

The concern is to extend certain diffusion concepts to devolution. In this example, tractors replaced horses because tractors had advantages over horses. Logistic curves depict well the temporal rate of tractor acceptance and of horse abandonment. Although differing somewhat in time, the spatial patterns of adoption and abandonment are similar. They centered early in east central Illinois, a prosperous agricultural core, and spread outward. Laggard counties as well as persister ones were mainly in southern Illinois, a peripheral area with a relatively impoverished agriculture. Influences on the patterns include farm value, size, and type and land quality.     

REGIONAL TRENDS IN ELECTORAL SUPPORT IN BRITAIN, 1950–1983*

Analyses of the geography of British elections have typically stressed the continuity in patterns of party support. This paper challenges that conclusion. Employing an alternative method of analysis, it identifies significant regional trends in the Conservative and Labour vote between 1950 and 1983. Pro-Labour trends in Scotland and Northwest England are contrasted with secular changes favoring the Conservatives in non-metropolitan Southern England. These long-term trends have not been associated with growing regional polarization in party support. While the findings are specific to Britain, the method of assessing electoral change might be usefully applied to patterns in other countries.     

BUILDING A COLONIAL RESOURCE MONOPOLY: THE EXPANSION OF SULPHUR MINING IN NEW SPAIN, 1600–1820*

The discovery, extraction, and monopolistic control of key natural resources was a priority of New Spain's colonial administration. Managing the region's abundant resources, however, often proved difficult for the Spanish Crown. Human and environmental challenges impeded protoindustrial growth and development, and monopolistic control of resources often met resistance. In this article I examine these processes in the context of New Spain's little‐known monopoly on sulphur—a yellow, powdery mineral the Crown jealously guarded as its own. Sulphur was critical for gunpowder and explosives production, yet the Crown often failed to produce enough of it to meet the growing demand by its military and the silver blast‐mining industry. Colonial documents reveal administrators’ attempts to improve sulphur production through reform measures, which included advising sulphur miners on how to discover sulphur deposits and, eventually, how to develop their mines. Efforts to improve sulphur production were moderately successful, although the process was messy and inefficient.     

THE MODERNIZATION OF SUGAR PRODUCTION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, 1880–1940

ABSTRACT. Southeast Asia is an ideal location in which to study the modernization of sugar production, given that the presence of six colonial powers makes comparisons possible. The Dutch took the lead in modernizing the region's sugar industry by breeding new varieties of sugarcane and by introducing central sugar factories. The article takes these two innovations as indexes of modernization and traces their diffusion through the region. It demonstrates that colonial policy largely determined the speed of acceptance of these innovations. Modernization made the sugar industry dependent on the continuing success of scientific research, restructured the relations between worker and factory, and, by supplanting the previous system of sugar production, Chinese in origin, changed the human geography of the region.     

THE IDEOLOGY OF EMPIRE IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE'S COVERAGE OF THE PHILIPPINES, 1898–1908

ABSTRACT. Between 1898 and 1908 the National Geographic Magazine reported copiously on the territorial acquisition and U.S. colonial administration of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. The pages of the magazine provide an intriguing window on connections between the emergence of geography as an organized profession and the expanding sphere of U.S. control of overseas territories. The overall picture reveals a shift from bold calls for direct economic exploitation of the natural resources and labor power of the Philippine Islands to more platitudinous justifications for U.S. control, based on moral responsibility and the ostensibly objective imperatives of “scientific” development.     

THE AMERICAN CHALLENGE TO BRITISH HEGEMONY, 1861–1947*

ABSTRACT. In The Shaping of America Donald Meinig describes a United States averse to challenging Britain geostrategically but emerging as a powerhouse economy by the late 1890s. But America embarked on a sustained economic struggle with Britain in 1861 by embracing protectionism; America's Civil War ironclads were as much to resist Britain as fight the Confederacy; and in 1866 uss Miantonomoh helped persuade Britain to reconsider, then pay, the Alabama Claims. Britain never retaliated in the economic struggle by moving to protectionism and in the late 1800s began to appease America in geostrategic terms. This struggle intensified in the 1920s and 1930s as America and Britain competed for control of international transportation, international communication, and the global oil supply, but by the mid‐1940s American hegemony was clear. This article traces the course of the complex economic and political struggle for hegemony in the light of recent models of transitions in the world economy.     

THE ROLE OF ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION PATTERNS IN AGROCLIMATE VARIABILITY IN FINLAND, 1961–2011

This study evaluates interannual variations and trends in growing season daily temperature sum and daily precipitation sum in Finland during 1961–2011, and their connections to well known atmospheric circulation patterns. Changes in summer (June–August) climate partially explain changes in growing season daily temperature sum and daily precipitation sum over Finland, which naturally decreased from south to north. On a national scale, growing season warmed and became wetter during 1961–2011, as growing season daily temperature sum and daily precipitation sum significantly (p < 0.05) increased by 5.01 ± 3.17°C year^–1 and 1.39 ± 0.91 mm year^–1, respectively. The East Atlantic pattern was the most influential atmospheric circulation pattern for variations in growing season daily temperature sum (rho = 0.40) across Finland and the East Atlantic/West Russia pattern was most influential for growing season daily precipitation sum variability (rho = –0.54). There were significant (p < 0.05) increasing trends in growing season daily temperature sum and daily precipitation sum throughout Finland during 1961–2011. Increased growing season daily temperature sum was mainly observed in northern, central, western, eastern and coastal areas of south‐western Finland. This warming was positively associated with the East Atlantic pattern in the north, centre and south, but negatively associated with the East Atlantic/West Russia pattern in eastern Finland. Increased GSP mostly occurred in southern, eastern, western, central, northern and north‐western Finland. These wetting trends were positively correlated with the East Atlantic pattern in the north and negatively correlated with the Polar pattern in the south and the East Atlantic/West Russia pattern in the east, west, centre and north‐east of Finland. The overall agroclimatic year‐to‐year variability in Finland between 1961 and 2011 was mostly linked to variations in the East Atlantic and East Atlantic/West Russia patterns.     

DISADOPTION OF MILK COWS BY FARMERS IN ILLINOIS: 1930–1978*

I am concerned with the opposite of diffusion, i.e., the patterns and processes that describe the contraction or disappearance of phenomena. Using change over time in the proportion of farms that do not have milk cows as a medium of investigation, I present evidence that the logistic curve provides a good temporal, non-spatial model of the data and that a periphery-to-core contraction model is significant in describing the spatial pattern.