Washington Women: Practicing Geography in the U.S. Government, 1915–1970s

Histories of geography, especially those dealing with the twentieth century, tend to focus on geographic thought or academia rather than on practice in other arenas such as government agencies. In the United States during that period, however, the latter included a higher proportional representation of women professionals than did research-oriented universities. This article examines the careers of selected women geographers who had long-term and senior positions in Washington, DC, in agencies such as the Library of Congress, Bureau of the Census, the Department of State, and the Office of Naval Research. Drawing on sources including directories, the archives and oral history collections of the Society of Woman Geographers, and interviews conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I explore four main themes: how these women came to government work, aspects of the intersections of personal and professional lives, ways in which economic and political contexts shaped their opportunities and experiences, and the nature of their contributions.     

Sælemyr,Siren Therese. 2015. Contested Resources: Landscapes of Matter,Mind and Practice in the North Peruvian Andes

Clout, H. D. 1974. Agricultural plot consolidation in the Auvergne region of Central France. Norsk geografisk Tidsskr. 28, 181–194.

Plot consolidation has made great progress in the Paris Basin and has accentuated the agricultural contrast between northern innovation and southern backwardness. The Auvergne contains a wide range of agrarian structures, with environmental conditions being most favourable for farming in the lowland Limagnes. Detailed examination of Puy-de-Dôme département shows that most of the Limagnes have been consolidated, but little has been done in the uplands, which require other forms of structural change, including enlargement and re-afforestation. Plot consolidation is not a revolutionizing process since it cannot change land ownership, which is the ultimate constraint on its success.     

Geography’s Inner Worlds: Pervasive Themes in Contemporary American Geography. Ronald E. Abler,Melvin G. Marcus,and Judy M. Olson,eds.; Postmodemism,or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Fredric Jameson

New regional growth may perpetuate social and economic inequalities caused by uneven urban development, or may reverse such trends by expanding housing options that make possible the dispersal of lower-income households among suburban areas offering better social, economic, and educational opportunities. Supply-side housing approaches can facilitate a more equitable redistribution of housing options. In this research, we examine the role of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program in expanding the geography of opportunity in one fast-growing region—the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Findings suggest that although LIHTC developments are penetrating the suburbs, they are not expanding opportunities for these households. Just under half of LIHTC units are found in highly clustered areas characterized by high poverty rates, minority concentrations, poor educational opportunities, and rampant crime. The remaining units are dispersed in areas with moderate conditions. Suggestions are made for altering program guidelines to achieve better dispersal, income-mixing, and regionwide distribution.     

Water level changes in Lake Van,Turkey, during the past ca. 600 ka: climatic,volcanic and tectonic controls

Sediments of Lake Van, Turkey, preserve one of the most complete records of continental climate change in the Near East since the Middle Pleistocene. We used seismic reflection profiles to infer past changes in lake level and discuss potential causes related to changes in climate, volcanism, and regional tectonics since the formation of the lake ca. 600 ka ago. Lake Van’s water level ranged by as much as 600 m during the past ~600 ka. Five major lowstands occurred, at ~600, ~365–340, ~290–230, ~150–130 and ~30–14 ka. During Stage A, between about 600 and 230 ka, lake level changed dramatically, by hundreds of meters, but phases of low and high stands were separated by long time intervals. Changes in the lake level were more frequent during the past ~230 ka, but less dramatic, on the order of a few tens of meters. We identified period B1 as a time of stepwise transgressions between ~230 and 150 ka, followed by a short regression between ca. 150 and 130 ka. Lake level rose stepwise during period B2, until ~30 ka. During the past ~30 ka, a regression and a final transgression occurred, each lasting about 15 ka. The major lowstand periods in Lake Van occurred during glacial periods, suggesting climatic control on water level changes (i.e. greatly reduced precipitation led to lower lake levels). Although climate forcing was the dominant cause for dramatic water level changes in Lake Van, volcanic and tectonic forcing factors may have contributed as well. For instance, the number of distinct tephra layers, some several meters thick, increases dramatically in the uppermost ~100 m of the sediment record (i.e. the past ~230 ka), an interval that coincides largely with low-magnitude lake level fluctuations. Tectonic activity, highlighted by extensional and/or compressional faults across the basin margins, probably also affected the lake level of Lake Van in the past.     

A Review of: “Remote Sensing of Soils and Vegetation in the USSR”. By P. J. CURRAN,G. M. FOODY,K. YA. KONDRATYEV,V. V. KOZODEROV and P. P. FEDCHENKO. (London: Taylor & Francis, 1990.) [Pp. 200.] Price £30·00. ISBN 085066 4020.

As they increase in popularity, social media are regarded as important sources of information on geographical phenomena. Studies have also shown that people rely on social media to communicate during disasters and emergency situation, and that the exchanged messages can be used to get an insight into the situation. Spatial data mining techniques are one way to extract relevant information from social media. In this article, our aim is to contribute to this field by investigating how graph clustering can be applied to support the detection of geo-located communities in Twitter in disaster situations. For this purpose, we have enhanced the fast-greedy optimization of modularity (FGM) clustering algorithm with semantic similarity so that it can deal with the complex social graphs extracted from Twitter. Then, we have coupled the enhanced FGM with the varied density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise spatial clustering algorithm to obtain spatial clusters at different temporal snapshots. The method was experimented with a case study on typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and Twitter’s different interaction modes were compared to create the graph of users and to detect communities. The experiments show that communities that are relevant to identify areas where disaster-related incidents were reported can be extracted, and that the enhanced algorithm outperforms the generic one in this task.     

Gentrifications in the Planetary Elsewhere: tele-urbanization,Schengtrification, colour-splashing,and the mirage of “more-than-adequate” critical theory

ABSTRACT

Despite the recent planetary turn that has swept through gentrification research, the theoretical barycentre remains pegged to a few strongholds located in the global north-west. Against this background, this essay offers a provincialized account of three gentrification-like trends – tele-urbanization, Schengtrification and colour-splashing – which are currently taking place in Tbilisi, Riga and Kiev. It is proposed that these processes are supported by an underlying logic that is not pinned to these cities’ specific (“post-communist”) contexts, raising questions about the avowedly universal validity of theories of gentrification stemming from the global northwest, and particularly those developed within the more critical scholarly tradition.