Popular Culture,Geopolitics, and Identity

Abstract

This study aims to theoretically investigate the notion of critical thinking for a more just understanding of self and “others” in global geographical learning. It focuses on the kinds of injustice in the world which are driven by our relationships with “others.” By drawing on the literature of critical education, philosophy of education, and geography education, this study reveals how universal notions of criticality tend to easily undermine those perceived as global others and may highlight, in deficit mode, their perceived differences. Instead, the study presents the imperative of deconstructive thinking for a more just world. The article concludes by proposing a teaching strategy for alternative criticality which strives for justice in school geography.     

Visualizing Alternative Models and their Objective Functions in the Solution of Optimal Location Problems

Abstract

This paper presents an argument for introducing location-allocation theory to advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in a simplified continuous space environment that is relatively free of the distorting effects of networks and other aspects of more differentiated “real-world” environments. This approach can enable instructors to reinforce visually the role of different models and their objective functions. In this simplified setting, students can initially concentrate on the link between these mathematical programming techniques and the spatial nature of the problems being solved. In a short time, students can move into more advanced methods in more differentiated environments. A freeware program entitled NEWLAP was developed to facilitate this approach. This software features a variety of spatial allocation models and their associated constraints that can be applied on both the plane and the sphere. This paper outlines how this software can be used to show alternative solutions using different models on the same data set as well as application of the software in a “real world” problem on a global scale.     

Teaching Social Justice: Reviving Geography's Neglected Tradition

Abstract

American students are encouraged to become globally competitive. I argue that in a world plagued by social inequality and environmental mismanagement, students should become globally cooperative. But this position is not new. Nineteenth century geographers such as Peter Kropotkin argued that geographic education should promote cooperation and tolerance of others. This article explores why geographers cast aside this progressive vision for geographic education. It hypothesizes that geography's pursuit of academic and scientific legitimacy prompted it to spurn “value-laden” methods. The article concludes by suggesting that geographers return to their social justice roots by adopting constructivist pedagogical methods of Paulo Freire.     

Active Learning Strategies and Assessment in World Geography Classes

Abstract

Active learning strategies include a variety of methods, such as inquiry and discovery, in which students are actively engaged in the learning process. This article describes several strategies that can be used in secondary-or college-level world geography courses. The goal of these activities is to foster development of a spatial perspective in students through frequent analysis and interpretation of spatial data. Detailed examples of one particular technique, the “atlas warmup”, are included. Active approaches supplement expository teaching of standards-based geography concepts and current geographic issues. Assessment of the impact of these methods reveals the need for ongoing guided practice in the use of these skills.     

Shrinking ‘Smart’?: Urban Redevelopment and Shrinkage in Youngstown,Ohio

Abstract

This article analyzes the impact of the much-heralded Youngstown 2010 Plan and the enacting of a program of “controlled” or “managed” shrinkage. It is argued that while the program of redevelopment has had an impact on Youngstown and its national image, it represents an exclusionary project that has centered on redeveloping downtown areas and neglected many city neighborhoods which continue to experience high levels of unemployment, vacancy, and crime. The analysis is situated in relation to the contemporary literature on “shrinking cities.” Youngstown's experience raises critical questions regarding the nature of the challenges facing shrinking cities, the constraints on actions available to them due to state and federal funding, and the coherence of the concept of “smart shrinkage.”     

Laboratory Work in Secondary School Geography

Abstract

Determining the direction in which to face another location on the globe is a problem with significant social and religious meaning, and one with a rich and interesting history in the Western world. Yet a fully satisfying geographic solution to this problem is hindered by our intuitive perception of the world as a flat surface-where a “straight” path (1) is the shortest distance, and (2) maintains a constant angle. On a curved surface, however, only one of these two properties can be satisfied: the first, by a great circle; the second, by a rhumb line. These two solutions are analyzed, compared, and applied to the direction-facing problem.     

Textbook Errors in the Application of the Kelvin Temperature Scale

Abstract

The units of the Kelvin temperature scale (with an upper case K for the proper noun “Kelvin”) are incorrectly introduced in most undergraduate introductory physical geography textbooks. The internationally recognized unit of the Kelvin temperature scale is the kelvin (lower case k), abbreviated to K (upper case). However, many introductory physical geography textbooks incorrectly use units of “Kelvin,” “degrees Kelvin,” or “^oK.” The errors detract from the prestige of physical geography as a natural science discipline.     

Geographical Notes

Abstract

The word geography comes from the Greek language and means “to write about the earth.” “The World is a Colorful Place” is a learning activity that is designed to engage children in grades 3 through 8 in the processes of discovery and original writing about the earth.     

Travel and Traffic in China

Abstract

Models can greatly assist the student to understand important aspects of a complex reality. A simple model, based on empirical data about farm size in Tokugawa, Japan, is here introduced and applied to China. The model makes explicit one of the major lessons East Asian civilization has for regions of the world more recently integrated into “civilization”; that is, that the productive capacity of land, and thus its ability to support people, is finite. The model also provides a useful integrative framework for introduction to the physical aspects of the geography of East Asia.     

Are Distinctions between “Environmental Sociology” and “Natural Resource Sociology” Real – and Important? Reactions to Qin et al.’s Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Abstract

The bibliometric analysis presented by Qin et al. provides useful evidence regarding debates into whether there are meaningful distinctions between “environmental sociology” and “natural resource sociology.” This commentary focuses on selected aspects of their findings, and offers thoughts about the implications of distinctions between and apparently increased divergence of these sub-fields.     

Editorial Notes and News

Abstract

The “Harvest of Hope” was an interdisciplinary science/geography project that provided students from two different schools and very diverse backgrounds the opportunity to work in a cooperative community service effort. With teacher coordination from both districts involved in the project, students from an inner-city school and a suburban school planted, tended, and harvested crops on unused school property and donated the food to organizations providing resources to the needy. “Harvest of Hope” was designed to aid the needy of Denver and teach high school students about real-world geography issues. Students also gained knowledge of issues inherent in world agriculture and the group problem-solving process. From a social perspective, inner-city students and suburban students had the opportunity to interact and gain an appreciation for cultural diversity. Most importantly, students learned through this project to think globally, but act on a local level.     

Mnemonics: An aid to geographical learning

Abstract

On both sides of the Atlantic, there is serious concern that children do not know where places are. Many surveys show the extent of this ignorance. The media blame the teachers. Sometimes the cause of this ignorance is alleged to be the lack of geography coursework. Sometimes, more ominously, geography teachers themselves are blamed. Sometimes it is the “wrong sort of geography” that is blamed; it is claimed that pupils learn about shops and houses and do not learn about the world.     

Friends in High Places

Abstract

“Friends in High Places” is a group activity designed to integrate geography with other social studies disciplines such as government, political science, American history, and world issues. It is necessary to consider geography when shaping foreign policy because the formulation of foreign policy requires of its very nature reaching out from our borders like a worldwide network of nerve fibers. As chief diplomat, the President conducts foreign affairs including 1) the initiation of foreign policy, 2) the recognition of new foreign governments, and 3) the making of treaties.     

Transformations of the Spatial Hegemony of the Courtyard in Post-Soviet St. Petersburg

Abstract

The courtyard is a space that existed before, during, and now after the Soviet period in Russian urban history. Noting the change in the courtyard's formerly hegemonic position on daily trajectories illustrates both Harvey's and Lefebvre's suggestions for uncovering the way that spaces articulate social values. A particularly revealing case study occurs in the struggle over including courtyards in a Chinese developer's project for a new multi-use district outside St. Petersburg. A brief history of the courtyard in Soviet planning allows subsequent analysis of the ways in which the city administration, the Chinese design team, and Russian planners deployed the courtyard as a spatial code for social meaning in design discussions. Examining the change in function and conceptualization of the courtyard shows how different groups in post-Soviet Russia seek to retain or redeploy concepts of the “collective” as they attempt to remake St. Petersburg as a successful “world” city.     

The “Oldest River” As An Appalachian Popular Region

Abstract

Appalachia's New River was labeled “the second oldest river in the world” during the 1970s as part of a campaign to save the river from being dammed. Despite the absence of geomorphic evidence, the promotion of the superlative age of the river was so successful that the mythical label became reality in the minds of the region's populace. The “oldest river” thus became a popular or vernacular region, defined as one perceived to exist by its inhabitants. Sources of evidence for the current existence of the oldest river as a popular region include Internet references, which typically use the positive place image of the ancient stream to enhance the value of the river valley's attributes. Geography educators and students at all levels will benefit from class research projects aimed at identifying and understanding popular regions found near their educational institutions.     

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING,WASHINGTON, D. C. June 8-9, 1973

Abstract

I argue that scientific disciplines are esteemed, supported, and patronized largely to the degree to which they are perceived as providing a “return” on invested societal resources. This “return” takes the form of scholarly products that help answer deep human questions or otherwise materially benefit members of the society whose resources they are. Such a view implies that disciplines exist in a “market” in which members compete for these limited resources by delivering products seen as valuable. In such a market, disciplinary relevance and survival are ultimately tied to decisions individual scholars practicing within the disciplines make about which research they pursue, the greater the perceived “return” the better for the long-term health of the discipline.     

Planetary urbanisation: une affaire de perception

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests that planetary urbanisation offers an antidote to the narrow-mindedness of our toxic times. It conceives planetary urbanisation as “an affair of perception,” as a vision that begins vast, at the horizon, and sees particular parts (including your own particular part) comprising an interdependent totality. To envision the world through the lens of planetary urbanisation has certain distinct advantages. After all, it’s a viewpoint expressive of commonality rather than difference, of a mutually shared planet in which people who look different, who talk different from one another, who don’t know one another, who may even hate one another, have more in common than they might think.     

Post-Soviet urban renewal and its discontents: gentrification by demolition in Baku

ABSTRACT

Gentrification is being increasingly discussed as a driver of urban change globally, including in the former Soviet Union. However, the translation of the gentrification phenomenon into post-Soviet cities like Baku remains poorly understood. This article explores how a particular form of state-led “gentrification by demolition” is unfolding in Baku. We assert the ongoing relevance of using the framework of gentrification to analyze the processes. We go on to use the case of the recently demolished Sovetsky district to carefully expand the geography of the gentrification discourse. We argue that Baku’s own “landscape of gentrification” is shaped by anumber of preconditions. It bears the marks of the legacy of post-socialist cities. However, it more resembles muscular state-led “gentrification by demolition” that is characteristic of Chinese cities. It also echoes Soviet city-building legacies in its use of spectacle and “grand gesture” to legitimize and buy support for gentrification policies.     

The empty shell of the planetary: re-rooting the urban in the experience of the urbanites

ABSTRACT

This paper offers reflections on a body of work that has been produced under the label of “planetary urbanization”. This term has its roots in speculative work by French writer Henri Lefebvre in the late 1960s and early 1970s and has recently been popularized by a new generation of critical urban theorists. In this commentary, I propose that Lefebvre’s idea of planetary urbanization (and the aligned concepts “complete urbanization” and “urban society”) offer a way to think productively about post-capitalist possibilities. Making reference to early writings by Marx and Engels about communism and the end of human pre-history, I argue that planetary urbanization presents a terrain for liberation from the constraints of capitalist histories. Given that this terrain is currently defined by the domains of neoliberalism and climate change a new politics is necessary to unlock the possibilities of urban society.