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
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
• Lines of latitude that run
parallel to the equator are
called parallels
• The equator has a value of 0
degrees
• 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
• Friction of distance
• Once the 1st “law of
geography”
• Tobler’s law
• Time-Distance Decay
• 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
• Reflection of the time and
cost of overcoming distance
• 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
The density, this
concentration,
andeach
pattern
(of
example)
example) may
vary
inhouses
an areainorthis
landscape.
may each vary in an area or landscape.
Density and Concentration of
Baseball Teams, 1952–2000
The changing distribution of North American baseball teams
illustrates 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 spaceadjusting 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 HipHop, 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”