Spatial Thinking and the Traditions of Geography

Imagine driving to Yorkdale one day and looking for a parking spot. What ‘things’ go through your brain when deciding on where to park?

• Which section of Yorkdale do you wish to park? • What stores do you want to go to?

• How close to the entrance can you park? - this can be a 3 dimensional decision

• how far from the entrance (distance x)? - let's call this straight on distance • how far from the entrance (distance y)? - let's call this side distance • what floor are you going to park and then can you park near stairs or the elevator?

• Remember that this is just to enter the mall, you will have to come back to this area to exit the mall.

If you had your choice what would be the ideal spot?

In the front, in the middle, next to a curb.

The weather conditions might play a role - eg. you don't mind walking on a sunny warm day

If it is night you may want to be near a lamp post

Who is with you might play a role? - an older person who does not want to walk a great distance, special parking

Once a spot has been found - is there enough room to park, who are you next to, think about scratches, do you want to back in?

Once the car is parked how are you going to remember where you parked it?- near certain stores, near certain landmarks including identified areas, remembering letters and numbers and colours and even other cars, looking at the stores and making a decision of how relative your car is to a store.

What do Geographers do?

Geographers are more than people who just know countries and capitals. Many geographers don't know the location of every country and their capital. Most geographers don't know what the highest mountain in Sierra Leone is. Geography is much more than this.

"Geography is a discipline of diversity, under whose spatial umbrella we study and analyze processes, systems, behaviours, and countless other phenomena that have spatial expression. It is this tie that  binds geographers, this interest in patterns, distributions, diffusions, circulations, interactions, juxtapositions-the way in which the physical and human worlds are laid out, interconnect and interact" (Harm de Blij, "Why Geography Matters, page 8).

Why are things where they are? Why is Toronto where it is? Why did Toronto grow to be such a large city and other cities did not? Why does Macdonald's locate where it does? Why do Italians speak Italian and are mainly Roman Catholic? Why do the Chinese eat the food they do? All of the above are all 'spatial' questions.

There are four main traditions (developed by a man named Patterson) that a geographer follows: a.spatial analysis, b.area studies, c.man-land studies, and d.earth sciences.

When a geographer asks questions he asks: a. where are things, b. why are things there, c. how have these things influenced other things.

These questions can be placed into five themes (similar to the traditions just mentioned): 1.Location (where is Crescent?), 2.Place (describe where Crescent is located with respect to its surrounding area), 3.Human/Environment Interaction (how do you affect the environment in your everyday life?), 4.Movement (how do you get to Crescent everyday?) and 5.Region (is the area Crescent is in all the same? what type of landuse is all around Crescent?).

All of the above points address a geographers main job and that is to think spatially. Geographers basically investigate:

a.  they investigate the distribution of an individual phenomenon through space (where Italians are in Toronto and why),

b.  they investigate the interrelationships among phenomena that cause their distributions to vary through space and time (Immigration, cost of housing, time that they arrived, jobs, education), 

c.  they investigate the interrelationships that occur among phenomena because of their coincident location at a specific place or places (how Italians have interacted with other groups, how stores, restaurants and architecture have been affected),

d.  they investigate the physical and cultural character of a specific region or landscape (a place)  that exists because of the area's unique combination of spatial phenomena (study the Inuit up north and the Iroquois in Ontario and how they are different because of the environment) and

e.  they investigate the theories, methods, models, and techniques required to conduct the research and analysis of the above 4 items (look at Migration models, urban landuse models, population growth models,  etc). 

The End