Chapter 1: part 2

Spatial Analysis

Where? Why?

• The two main questions in geography:• To answer where?

• maps

• To answer why?• Processes of spatial

interaction and diffusion

• Spatial Analysis• Study of many geographic

phenomena can be approached in terms of their arrangement as points, lines, areas, or surfaces

• Keys to spatial analysis:• Location• Distance• Space• Accessibility• Spatial interaction

What is place?

• Humans possess a strong sense of place• Feeling for features that

contribute to the distinctiveness of a particular spot on Earth

• Hometown• Vacation destination

• Describing the features of a place or region is an essential building block for geographers

• Geographer’s describe a feature’s place on Earth by identifying its location• The position that

something occupies on Earth

• Four ways to identify location:• Place name• Site• Situation• Mathematical location

Place

• Place Names (toponym)• Most straightforward

way to describe a location

• Might be named for a person, tied to religion, physical features, etc.

• Ashburn’s explanation

Relative Location

• Site• Refers to physical

attributes of a location

• Terrain, soil, vegetation, water sources

• Situation• Refers to the location

of a place relative to other places and human activities

• Accessibility to routeways

• Nearness to population centers

Site

Physical character of a place

Site factors include things like landforms (i.e. is the area protected by mountains or is there a natural harbor present?), climate, vegetation types, availability of water, soil quality, minerals, and even wildlife.

Site factors are essential in selecting locations for settlements historically

Humans can modify site Example:

Manhattan is twice as large as it was when bought in 1626.

How? Portions of the East River and Hudson river filled with sunken ships and refuse

Recently: Battery Park City, 142- acre site

Situation Situation is the location of a

place relative to other places Important for two reasons:

Finding an unfamiliar place Understanding its importance

• Reason #1:• Can compare an unfamiliar

location with a familiar one.• Example:

− Directions: “It’s down off Ryan Road, take a left at Loudoun County Parkway and a left at the 1st light.”

• Reasons #2:• Many locations are important

because they are accessible to other places.

• Example: Singapore− Has become center of trading

and distribution of goods for much of Southeast Asia

− Located near the straight of Malacca, a major passageway between the China Sea and Indian Ocean.

Situation- Singapore

Mathematical - Absolute Location

• Latitude• Refers to the angular distance of a

point on Earth’s surface measured in degrees, minutes, and seconds north or south of the Equator

• Lines of latitude that run parallel to the equator are called parallels

• The equator has a value of 0 degrees

• Longitude• Refers to the angular distance of

a point on Earth’s surface, measured in degrees, minutes, and seconds east or west from the prime meridian

• The prime meridian is the line that passes through both poles and through Greenwich, England

• Prime meridian has a value of 0 degrees

• Lines of longitude, called meridians, run from the north pole to the south pole

• Practice quiz

• GPS• Consists of 21 satellites that pinpoint

location

Distance

• Absolute physical measure• Kilometers• Miles

• Relative measure• Expressed in terms of

time, effort, or cost• Distance can be in eye

of the beholder• Cognitive distance

− Distance that people perceive as existing in a given situation

− Based on personal judgments about the degree of spatial separation between points

Distance• Central theme in

geography

• Once the 1st “law of geography”• Tobler’s law

• everything is related to everything else, but nearer things are more related than distant things (i.e. distance itself hinders interaction).

• Leads to distance decay: contact between two places decreases as distance increases

• Friction of distance• Reflection of the time and cost

of overcoming distance

• Time-Distance Decay• Distance decay describes the

rate at which a particular activity or phenomena diminishes with increasing distance

• The farther people have to travel the less likely they are to do so

• i.e. contact diminishes with increasing distance and eventually disappears

Space

• Most fundamental skill that geographers possess to understand the arrangement of objects across surfaces of the earth

• Geographers think about the arrangement of people and activities found in space and try to understand why those people and activities are distributed across space as they are

• Immanuel Kant• German philosopher• Compared geography’s

concern for space to history’s concern for time

• Historians identify dates of important events and explain why human activities follow one another chronologically − When and why?

• Geographers identify the location of important events and explain why human activities are located beside one another in space− Where and why?

Space

• Space can be measured in absolute, relative, and cognitive terms

• Absolute space• Mathematical space described

through points, lines, areas, planes, and configurations whose relationships can be fixed through mathematical reasoning− Topological space

– Defined by the connections between, or connectivity of, particular points in space

– Measured in nature and degree of connectivity between locations

• Relative space• Can take the form of

socioeconomic space or of experiential or cultural space

• Can be described in terms of site and situations, routes, regions, and distribution patterns− Spatial relationships are fixed

measures of time, cost, profit, production, and physical distance

• Cognitive space• Defined and measured in terms of

people’s values, feelings, beliefs, and perceptions about locations, districts, and regions

• Can be described, therefore, in terms of behavioral space-− Landmarks, paths, environments,

and spatial layouts

Distrubution and Spatial Interaction

• Everything occupies a unique space on earth

• Distribution:• arrangement of a feature in

space• Three main properties of

distribution:− Density− Concentration − pattern

• Density: frequency something occurs

• Arithmetic Density: total # of objects in an area (i.e. pop density – 340/sq km)

• Physiological Density: # of persons per unit of area suitable agric (i.e. can country feed itself?)

• Concentration: extent of a feature’s spread over space

• Clustered: Objects close together• Dispersed: objects relatively far apart• NOT THE SAME AS DENSITY

• Pattern: geometric arrangement of objects in space

• Land Ordinance of 1785 (grid)

Density, Concentration, and Pattern

Fig. 1-18: The density, concentration, and pattern (of houses in this example) may each vary in an area or landscape. The density, concentration, and pattern (of houses in this example) may each

vary in an area or landscape.

Density and Concentration of Baseball Teams, 1952–2000

The changing distribution of North American baseball teamsillustrates the differences between density and concentration.

World Population Density

US Population Density

Concentration of Christians in the world

Accessibility

• Generally defined in relative location• The opportunity for contact

or interaction from a given point or location in relation to other locations

• Implies proximity, or nearness, to something

• Connectivity• Important aspect of

accessibility• Contact and interaction are

dependent on channels of communication and transportation− Example: commercial

airlines– Cities that operate as

hubs are most accessible

• Accessibility often a function of economic, cultural, and social factors

Airline Route Networks

Delta Airlines, like many others, has configured its route network in a “hub and spoke” system.

Spatial Interaction

• Used by geographers as shorthand for all kinds of movement and flows involving human activity

• Four basic concepts:• Complementarity• Transferability• Intervening

opportunities• diffusion

Complementarity

• AKA we need each other

• For spatial interaction to occur between two places there must be demand in one place and a supply that matches, or compliments it, in the other

• Complementarity can be the result of several factors• Variation in physical

environments and resource endowments from place to place

• Internal division of labor that derives from the evolution of the world’s economic systems

• Specialization and economies of scale

Transferability• AKA: cost involved in moving

goods from one place to another

• Function of two things:• Costs of moving a particular

item, measured in real money and/or time

• the ability of the item to bear these costs.

• High transferability rate− Computer microchips

– Easy to handle– Transport costs are minimal

in proportion to their value

• Low transferability rate− Computer monitors

– Fragile– Lower value by weight and

volume

• Transferability varies over time• Successive innovations in

transportation and communications

• Waves of infrastructure development

• Time-space convergence• The rate at which places move

closer together in travel or communication costs

• Results from a decrease in the friction of distance as space-adjusting technologies have brought places closer together over time

• Global and local• Shrinking of space has important

implications

Space-Time Compression 1492–1962

The times required to cross the Atlantic, or orbit the Earth, illustrate how transport improvements have shrunk the world.

Intervening Opportunity• More important in

determining volume and pattern of movements and flows

• Size and relative importance are important aspects

• PRINCIPLE OF INTERVENING OPPORTUNITY:• Spatial interaction between

an origin and a destination will be proportional to the number of opportunities at that destination an inversely proportional to the number of opportunities at alternative destinations

DIFFUSION

• Process in which phenomenon (disease, trends, technology, etc.) spread from one place to another over time• Hearth: place of origination• Diffusion happens quickly today w/

modern technology, communication, transportation

Spatial Diffusion

• The way things spread through space and over time

• One of the most important aspects of spatial interaction

• Crucial to understanding geographic change

• Diffusion occurs as a function of geographic statistical probability

Types of Diffusion• Relocation Diffusion

• The spread of an idea through physical movement of people from one place to another

• Languages• Money systems• Aids

• Expansion diffusion• “snowballing process”• develops in hearth- remains

strong and spreads• Example: an agricultural

innovation among members of local farming community

• Example: Islam

• Three types of Expansion diffusion

• Hierarchical• Contagious• Stimulus

Types of Expansion Diffusion

• Hierarchical: idea spread from persons or nodes of authority or power− Also called cascade diffusion− A phenomenon can be diffused

from one location to another without necessarily spreading to people or places in between.

– Example: a fashion trend from large metro area to smaller cities, towns, and rural settlements

– Example: Rap music – came from West Africa, adopted on East Coast, morphed in Philly into Hip-Hop, spread into urban areas and then dispersed.

• Contagious: rapid, widespread diffusion throughout population− Like a disease- Cholera− Example: hula-hoop, spread

quickly in 1950’s, literally contagious (hearth: Cali)

• Stimulus: spread of underlying principle, even though characteristic itself failed to diffuse− Indirectly promote

changes, ideas, innovation

– Example: Europeans grew wheat, went to America, no wheat but corn, started growing corn like wheat.

– the adoption leads to something new.

Diffusion of Culture and Economy

• In global culture and economy, transportation and communications systems rapidly diffuse raw materials, goods, services, and capital from nodes of origin to other regions.

• Three core hearth regions:• North America

• New York

• Western Europe• London

• Japan• Tokyo

• Africa, Asia, Latin America• 3/4ths world population, almost

all population growth• On “periphery”• Gap in regions called “uneven

development”