Applied Geography
A World Perspective
edited by
ANTOINE BAILLY
University of Geneva,
Switzerland
LAY JAMES GIBSON
University of Arizona,
Tucson, USA
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V.
2013
2013
The GeoJournal Library
Volume 77
Managing Editor: Max Barlow, Concordia University,
Montreal, Canada
Founding Series Editor:
Wolf Tietze, Helmstedt, Germany
Editorial Board: Paul Claval, France
Yehuda Gradus, Israel
Risto Laulajainen, Sweden
Sam Ock Park, South Korea
Herman van der Wusten, The Netherlands
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Antoines Bailly and Lay James Gibson
Part I: History and epistemological foundations
Chapter 1
Managing geography after Y2K 9
Antoine Bailly and Lay James Gibson
Chapter 2
The principles and practice of applied geography 23
Michael Pacione
Chapter 3
Historical foundations of applied geography 47
Michel Phlipponneau
Chapter 4
Political geography, public policy and the rise of policy analysis 69
Kingsley E. Haynes, Qingshu Xie and Lei Ding
Chapter 5
The role of geographic information science in applied geography 95
Arthur Getis
Chapter 6
Economic base theory and applied geography 113
Lay James Gibson
Chapter 7
Retail location and consumer spatial choice behavior 133
Harry Timmermans
Part II: A world perspective
Chapter 8
Applied geography in Western and Southern Europe 151
Chapter 9
Applied geography in Central Europe 169
Gyorgy Enyedi ¨
Chapter 10
Applied geography in 20th century North America: A perspective 187
John W. Frazier
Part III: Case studies
Chapter 11
Disability, disadvantage, and discrimination: An overview with
special emphasis on blindness in the usa 213
Reginald G. Golledge
Chapter 12
Human Wayfinding 233
Reginald G. Golledge
Chapter 13
International trade 253
Jessie P.H. Poon and James E. McConnell
Chapter 14
Medicometry and regional development 273
Antoine S. Bailly
Chapter 15
Monitoring and benchmarking regional and local performance 287
Robert Stimson
Chapter 16
Applied geography for the future 305
Antoine Bailly and Lay James Gibson
Chapter 17
Biographies and fields 309
Index 319
INTRODUCTION
Applied Geography: A World Perspective makes geography’s utility as an applied science explicit. It has been argued that geographic applications in corporations, government agencies and in non-governmental organizations “just happen.” Many geographers, however, are less trusting. Geography’s position as an academic discipline has been challenged frequently over the years. Further, geographic approaches have often been adopted by those with little or no formal training in geography per se. The authors who have contributed to this book feel that there is real value to having a strong and readily recognizable discipline of geography. We want geography to get full credit for its contributions to policy and practice and we want graduates of our university-based programs get full consideration when they apply for positions in industry, government, and in NGO’s.
The book is organized around three main themes: “History and Epistemological Foundations” of applied geography; “A World Perspective” on the practice of applied geography in different regions; and finally “Case Studies” which show how applied geography can contribute to problem solving in different institutional environments.
Part 1, History and epistemological foundations has seven of the book’s 15 papers. The first paper by Antoine Bailly and Lay Gibson sets the tone. The authors build the case for an aggressive and proactive approach for establishing geography as a vital problem-solving discipline and for making applied geography an explicit part of the geography curriculum.
Michael Pacione deals with the Principles and Practices of Applied Geography and more specifically the ways that the worlds of practice and theory intersect. His chapter is organized into nine main sections. These address the definition of applied geography; the concept of useful knowledge; the relationship between pure and applied research; the value of applied geography; the question of values in applied geography; types of applied geographical research; the practice of applied geography; the history of applied geography; and the prospects for applied geography.
The paper by Michel Phlipponneau favors “French geography;” nevertheless it complements Pacione’s paper nicely. Whereas the latter paper is especially good at qualifying and positioning the special role of applied geography in the contemporary world, Phlipponneau’s paper digs deep into the history of applied work including geography and early explorations, the roles of geographical societies in heightening awareness of geography, and involvement by geographers in surveying and mapping. A special treat are his frequent mentions of the International Geographical Union, its growth and development, and the place of applied work in the IGU’s agenda.
The paper by Kingsley Haynes et al. (Political Geography, Public Policy and the Rise of Policy Analysis) also complements the Pacione paper and Phlipponeau’s paper too in that it looks at trends in academic geography and its influence on applied geography. But there is a major difference, Pacione focuses on geography broadly defined whereas Haynes focuses on political geography and public policy. He begins with a brief review of the literature on political geography and a categorization of scale issues. He then moves onto two simple but extremely appropriate applied case studies which show how geographic factors affect public policy analysis and how applied public policy studies can be carried out with sensitivity to geographic considerations. The two case studies are regional income convergence and the rise of regional transportation management institutions.
The paper by Arthur Getis represents a change in direction – to technology driven applied geography. He points out that powerful new technologies have emerged that greatly improve our ability to collect, store, manage, view, analyze, and utilize information regarding the critical issues of our time. These technologies include geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS), satellite-based remote sensing, and a great variety of remarkable software that allows for the analysis of the compelling problems. The issues include globalization, global warming, pollution, security, crime, public health, transportation, energy supplies, and population growth. Geographic Information Science (GISc) is more than just GIS and it has given rise to an essentially multidisciplinary approach to applied problems. No single person is an expert in all of these areas. It is necessary to emphasize coordination and collaboration and to find bridges that reduce barriers between disciplines
Whereas Getis featured a technique, Lay Gibson focuses on a concept – economic base theory. Gibson’s paper deals explicitly with the ways that economic base theory can contribute to practical understandings of value to regional planning and development professionals who need to better understand how regions work and how they might work even better. Base theory is often employed as a research tool on the promise that it can produce a multiplier. But it can do much more if the practitioner thinks to ask or if the applied geographer bothers to offer. This article identifies seven economic development problems commonly faced by development practitioners and regional planners and illustrates how solutions can be drawn from the application of economic base theory
The final paper in this section was prepared by Harry Timmermans; it deals with “Retail Location and Consumer Spatial Choice Behavior.” He reminds us that geographers traditionally have made substantial contributions to retail management and retail policy. Retail location decisions have a major impact on the success of a store. The saying “location, location, location” suggests that bad location decisions are difficult to compensate by other elements of the marketing mix such as pricing, merchandising and promotion. Space and location are the very core of the geography discipline; hence many geographical theories, results of spatial analyses and spatial methods are potentially relevant for better informed decisions in retailing. But he also discusses the role of retail geography in land-use policy development. For example, to avoid empty downtown areas, retail policy in many countries has stimulated retail business in downtown areas and prohibited retail growth in out-of-town or peripheral location by implementing appropriate planning control. Equity issues (good accessibility and a basic provision of retail stores in every neighborhood) have also been high on the policy agenda, especially in European countries in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
There are three papers in Part 2, A World Perspective. The three papers cover critical regions but there is clearly a bias toward the Western World. Jorges Gaspar’s paper focuses on Western and Southern Europe. Whereas the historical origins of applied geography are considered, his real emphasis is on geographers as key players in the regional planning movement and on the emergence of the European Community and it’s role in stimulating the demand for applied geographers. He also discusses the shifting fortunes of geography as a primary and secondary school subject and the implications of these shifts for university based geography departments.
Gy¨orgy Enyedi’s paper focuses on East-Central Europe. In a nominal way he deals with some of the same topics that Gasper deals with but the real story in this paper is the move away from communism and to capitalism. The implications for applied geographers have been enormous; as some opportunities disapper, others come into play. In some respects applied geographers in this realm have needed to totally reinvent themselves.
The final paper in this section is a review of applied geography in North America. John Frazier approaches applied geography from all sides. He talks about the influence of individuals, about the roles of academic departments, and he talks about the emergence of applied geography both as a part of the agenda of the Association of American Geographers and as the agenda of the free-standing national Applied Geography Conference which is now in its 26th year. Frazier ends his chapter with a thoughtful essay on “The Future of Applied Geography in North America.”
The third and final group of papers is found in Part 3, Case Studies. This collection of five papers focuses on different settings where geography has or can make a contribution to finding answers to real questions and solutions to real problem.
Reginald Golledge is the author of two papers in this section, whereas his papers deal with very different topics and they share a common attribute – both have substantial significance for the business of helping those with physical disabilities deal with the world around them. The movement of people in the aggregate, over time has been successfully modeled by migration models. But knowledge of why people move, particularly with regard to individual or household daily decision, is still in its infancy. The emphasis in Golledge’s wayfinding paper is on the process of wayfinding by humans. Specifically, the paper focuses on an activity approach in general, discusses the cognitive basis of human wayfinding, and examines how this knowledge is being integrated by applied geographers into agent-based computational and simulation models.
Golledge’s other contribution deals with disability, disadvantages, and discrimination which in his opinion has received too little attention by geographers. In the first part of this chapter he discusses alternative definitions of disability and he surveys the nature of disability in the United States and elsewhere. He then moves on to an examination of enabling legislation that provides an umbrella for disability research and he discusses avenues of future research for which the applied geographer is eminently suited to pursue.
In the chapter on international trade, Jessie Poon and James McConnell note that since the early 1990’s, geographers have been on the forefront of the debate on globalization and the shape of the contemporary world economy. While the number of geographers researching international trade issues remains relatively small, the authors argue that these specialists have nonetheless contributed to applied geography by sensitizing trade issues, models, and interaction. By rescaling trade analyses through their works at the urban and regional levels, trade geographers potentially pave the path for a more bottomup as opposed to the more dominant top-down approach in formulating and assessing trade and industry policies at regional and national levels.
Antoine Bailly is one of the key figures in the field of regional medicometry – the study of medical provider and facility locations and the role that location plays in meeting patient needs. His chapter presents the epistemological foundations of regional medicometry and its five criteria: ethical, economic, social, spatial, and temporal. By its global approach, medicometry, studys’ the direct and indirect effects of medical infrastructure and employment on society and its quality of life. Two case studies, one dealing with an urban hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, the other with peripheral hospitals, give a step-by-step example of the multiplier effect approach. Detailed measures of economic and social impacts of hospitals are given to show that medical planning needs a careful and long-term analysis.
The final paper, by Robert Stimson, is based on the observation that measuring and benchmarking how regions and local communities perform and cope with socioeconomic change is a methodological issue of interest to geographers. His chapter outlines two approaches used in projects in which he has been involved. The first involves monitoring and evaluating the performance of three of Australia’s metropolitan cities on a range of indicators relating to population and employment, investment in economic activities and housing markets. The second involves developing a multivariate model to measure the socio-economic performance of local communities across Australia’s cities and towns.
Applied Geography: A World Perspective is not just about geographic approaches. It is about trained geographers using geographic approaches to evaluate real-world problems. We hope that you will agree that this collection builds the case for the special place that we think geographers and geography deserve in industry, government, and in NGO’s.
We are extremely grateful for the assistance that Gerard Widmer has provided through- ´ out all the phases of this publication. His knowledge of graphical packages, ability to manipulate texts, producing tables and figures were extremely useful as his critical analysis of the texts. We thank him for all of his hard work in making this publication happen.
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