Thinking Geographically

KEY ISSUE 1- Basic Concepts

• Contemporary Geography is the scientific study of the location of people and activities across Earth and the reasons for distribution

  • Historians organize material by the time

    • They understand that action at one point in time can result from past actions and can affect future ones

  • Geographers organize material by place

    • They understand that something happening at one place can result from something that happened elsewhere and can affect conditions in other places

• Geographers give a precise meaning to the words, location, and distribution

  • Geographers observe that people are being pulled in opposite directions by two factors, globalization, and local diversity

    • Modern communications and technology have fostered globalization

• Geographers ask where things are located and why

  • Example: Geographers are interested in the location of McDonald's restaurants around the world, not just around a U.S. interstate exit.

  • They are interested in understanding the economic and cultural conditions that encouraged companies to spread

    • In the 21st century, Geographers also recognize global forces have not eliminated local diversity and economic conditions

• The word “geography” was invented by the ancient Greek scholar Eratosthenes

  • It’s based on two Greek words, “geo” meaning "Earth" and “graphy” meaning "to write"

  • Geography is the study of where things are found on Earth's surface and the reasons for the location

    • Geography is divided broadly into two categories, human geography, and physical geography

      • Human geography is the study of where and why human activities are located

        • For example, religions, businesses, and cities

      • Physical geography studies where and why natural forces occur

        • For example, climates, landforms, and types of vegetation

• A place is a specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic

• A region is an area of Earth distinguished by a distinctive combination of cultural and physical features

• The scale is the relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole

• Space refers to the physical gap or interval between two objects

• Connections are relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space

How Do Geographers Describe Where Things Are?

• Maps

  • Maps can be used as a reference tool

    • We consult maps to learn where in the world something is found

  • Maps can also be used as a communication tool

• Early Mapmaking

  • The earliest surviving maps were drawn in the Middle East in the seventh or sixth century BC

  • Thales applied principles of geometry to measuring land area

    • His student Anaximander made a world map based on information from sailors, though he portrayed Earth’s shape as a cylinder

    • Hecateus may have produced the first geography book around 500 BC

  • Aristotle was the first to demonstrate that Earth was spherical

    • Observed that matter falls together toward a common center, that Earth’s shadow on the Moon is circular during an eclipse, and that the visible groups of stars change as one travels north or south

    • Eratosthenes was the first person of record to use the word geography

      • He prepared one of the earliest maps

  • The Greek Ptolemy wrote an eight-volume Guide to Geography

    • He codified the basic principles of mapmaking and prepared numerous maps

  • Ancient Greek and Roman maps were complied in the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

  • After Ptolemy, little progress in mapmaking or geographical thought was made in Europe for several centuries.

  • The oldest Chinese geographical writing, from the fifth century BC, describes the economic resources of the country’s different provinces.

    • Phei Hsiu, “the father of Chinese cartography” produced an elaborate map of the country in AD 267

  • The Muslim geographer al-Idrisi prepared a world map and geography text in 1154 building on Ptolemy’s long-neglected work.

  • Ibn-Battutah wrote Rihlah (“Travel”) based on 3 decades of journeys covering more than 120000 kilometers through the Muslim world of northern Africa, southern Europe, and much of Asia

• Geography and mapmaking made a revival during the Age of Exploration and Discovery

  • By the seventeenth century, maps accurately displayed the outline of most continents and the positions of oceans

Map Scale

• Cartographers have to decide how much of Eart’s surface will be depicted on the map

  • The level of detail on a map depended on the scale of a map

• A ratio or fraction shows the numerical ratio between distances on the map and Earth’s surface

• A written scale describes this relationship between the map and Earth distances in words

• A graphic usually consists of a bar line marked to show distance on Earth’s service

  • Maps often display scale in more than one of these three ways

Projection

• Earth is very nearly a sphere and therefore is accurately represented in the form of a globe

  • However, a globe is an extremely limited tool with which to communicate information above the Earth’s surface

    • A small globe doesn’t have enough space to display detailed information, but a large globe is too bulky and cumbersome to use

• Distortion

  • The shape of an area can be distorted so that it appears more elongated or squat than in reality

  • The distance between two points may become increased or decreased

  • The relative size of different areas may be altered, so that one area may appear smaller

  • The direction from one place to another can be distorted

    • The primary benefit of this type of projection is that the relative sizes of the landmasses on the map are the same as in reality

      • Also minimizes distortion in the shapes of most landmasses

U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785

• The Land Ordinance of 1785 divided much of the country into a system of townships and ranges to facilitate the sale of land to settlers in the West

  • Initial surveying was done by Thomas Hutchins, who was appointed geographer to the US in 1781

    • After Hutchins  died in 1789, responsibility for surveying was transferred to the Surveyor General

  • In this system, a township is a square 6 miles on each side. Some of the north-south lines separating the townships are called principal meridians, and some east-west lines are designated baselines

    • Each township has a number corresponding to its distance north or south of a particular baseline

    • Each township also has a second number, known as the range, corresponding to its location east or west of a principal meridian

  • A township is divided into 36 sections, each of which is 1 mile by 1 mile

    • The township and range system remains important in understanding the location of objects across much of the United States

Contemporary Tools

• Satellite-based Imagery

  • GIScience is made possible by satellites in orbit above Earth sending info to electronic devices on Earth to record and interpret information

  • The system that accurately determines the precise position of something on Earth is GPS

    • Global Positioning System

  • The GPS system in the U.S. include three elements

    • Satellites placed in predetermined orbits by the U.S. military

    • Tracking stations to monitor and control the satellites

    • A receiver that can locate at least 4 satellites, figure out the distance to each, and use this information to pinpoint its own

  • GPS is most commonly used for navigation

    • Pilots of aircraft and ships stay on course with GPS

    • On land, GPS detects a vehicle’s current position and gives instructions on how to reach the destination

• Remote Sensing

  • The acquisition of data about Earth’s surface from a satellite orbiting Earth or from other long-distance methods is known as remote sensing

    • Remote-sensing satellites scan Earth’s surface and its images are transmitted in digital form to a receiving station on Earth

• GIS

  • A computer system that can capture, store, query, analyze, and display geographic data in a GIS (geographic information system)

    • The key to GIS is geocoding: The position of any object on Earth can be measured and recorded with mathematical precision and then stored in a computer

  • GIS can be used to produce maps that are more accurate and attractive than those drawn by hand

    • GIS is more efficient for making a map than pen and ink

      • Objects can be added or removed, colors can be brightened or toned down, and mistakes can be removed

    • Each type of information can be stored in a layer

  • The value of GIS extends beyond the ability to make complex maps more easily

    • Layers can be compared to show relationships among different kinds of information

  • Scottish environmentalist Ian McHarg pioneered a technique of comparing layers of various physical and social features to determine where new roads and houses should be built and where the landscape should be protected from development

    • When McHarg was developing the technique during the 1960s (before GIS), he created layers bu laying hand-drawn plastic transparencies on top of each other

    • Now, half a century later, his pioneering technique can be replicated quickly on a desktop computer with GIS software

  • GIS enables geographers to calculate whether relationships between objects on a map are significant or merely coincidental

  • The term mash-up refers to the practice of overlaying from one source on top of one of them, mapping service comes from the hip-hop practice of mixing two or more Mash-up maps that can show the locations of businesses and ties near a particular street or within a neighborhood city

    • In some cities, mash-ups assist in finding housing

KEY ISSUE 2 - Why is Each Point on Earth Unique?

• Each place on Earth is in some respects unique and in other respects similar to other places

  • Two basic concepts that help geographers explain why every point on Earth is unique is place and region

• Place: Unique Location of a Feature

  • Describing the feature of a place or region is an essential building block for geographers to explain similarities, differences, and where particular places and regions are located

  • Geographers describe a features place on Earth by identifying its location

    • The position that something occupies on Earth’s surface, and in doing so consider four ways to identify location: place name, site, situation, and mathematical location

• Place Names

  • Best way to describe a particular location is by referring to its place name

    • A toponym is a name given to a place on Earth

    • People select place names associated with religion, physical features, or political upheavals

  • Places can change names

  • The Board of Geographical Names, established by the US Geological Survey, was established in the late nineteenth century

• Site

  • 2nds way that geographers describe the location of a place is my site

    • Site is the physical character of a place

  • Important site factors include climate, water sources, topography, soil, vegetation, latitude, and elevation

    • Humans can modify these factors

• Situation

  • Situation is the location of a place relative to other places

    • Situation helps find an unfamiliar place and understanding its importance

    • Situtation also helps us understand the importance of a location

• Mathematical Location

  • A meridian is an arc drawn between the North and South poles

    • Location of each meridian is identified on Earth’s surface according to a numbering system knows as longitude

    • The meridian that passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich England is 0 degrees longitude, also called the prime meridian

    • All other meridians have numbers between 0 degrees and 180 degrees longitude

• A parallel is a circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians

  • The numbering system to indicate the location of a parallel is called latitude

• Latitude and longitude are used together to identify locations

• GPS systems divide degrees into decimal fractions rather than minutes and seconds

• Measuring latitude and longitude is a good example of how geography is partly a natural science and partly a study of human behavior

• The contemporary cultural landscape approach in geography

Regions: Areas of Unique Characteristics

• Cultural Landscape

  • A region derives its unified character through the cultural landscape

    • Cultural landscape is a combination of cultural features such as language and religion, economic features such as agriculture and industry, and physical features such as climate and vegetation

  • The contemporary cultural landscape approach in geometry is sometimes called regional studies approach which was initiated in France by Paul Vidal de la Blache and Jean Brunhes

  • Cultural landscape geographers argued that each region has its own distinctive landscape that results from a unique combination of social relationships and physical processes

  • A geographer’s job is to sort out the associations among various social characteristics, each of which is  uniquely distributed across Earth’s surface

• Types of Regions

  • The designation of region can be applied to any area larger than a point and smaller than the entire planet

    • Geographers most often apply the concept at one of two scales:

      • Several neighboring countries share important features, such as those in Latin America

      • Many localities within a country, such as those  in southern California

  • A particular place can be included in more than one region depending on how the region is defined

    • The three types of regions are formal, functional, and vernacular

  • FORMAL REGION: a formal region also called a uniform region or homogeneous region, is an area within which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics

  • Longitude plays an important role in calculating time

    • Earth as a sphere is divided into 360 degrees of longitude

    • Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or Universal Time (UT) is the master of reference time for all points on Earth

  • When you cross the International Date Line, which for the most part follows 180 degrees longitude, you move the clock back 24 hours

  • FUNCTIONAL REGION: a functional region, also called a nodal region, is an area organized around a node or focal point

    • Geographers often use functional regions to display information about economic areas

  • VERNACULAR REGION: a vernacular region, or perceptual region, is a place that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity

  • A useful way to identify a  perceptual region is to get someone to draw a mental map, which is an internal representation of a portion of the Earth’s surface

• Spatial Association

• A region can be constructed to encompass an area of widely varying scale, from a very small portion of Earth to a very large portion

  • Maps showing regions of high and low cancer rates do not communicate useful information to someone who knows little about the regions

  • At the national scale, the Great Lakes region may have higher cancer rates in part because the distribution of cancer is spatially associated with the distribution of factories

Regional Integration of Culture

• In thinking about why each region is distinctive, geographers refer to culture, which is the body of customary beliefs, material traits, and social forms that together constitute the distinct tradition of a group of people

  • Geographers distinguish groups of people according to important cultural characteristics and describe where particular cultural groups are distributed.

  • In everyday language, we think of culture as the collection of novels, paintings, symphonies, and other works produced by talented individuals

    • A person with a taste for these intellectual outputs is said to be “cultured”

  • Culture also refers to small living organisms, such as those found under a microscope or in your yogurt

  • Agriculture is a term for the growing of living material at a much larger scale than in a test tube

  • The origin of the word culture is the Latin cultus which means “to care for”

    • Culture is complex because to care for something has two very different meanings

      • To care about is to adore or worship something, as in the modern word cult

      • To take care of is to nurse or look after something, as in the modern word cultivate

  • Geography looks at both of these facets of the concept of culture to see why each region in the world is unique

• WHAT PEOPLE CARE ABOUT

  • Geographers study why the customary ideas, beliefs, and values of a people produce a distinctive

  • Language is a system of signs, sounds, gestures, and marks that have meanings understood within a cultural group

  • Religion is an important cultural value because it is the principal system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices through which people worship in a formal, organized way

  • Ethnicity encompasses a group’s language, religion, and other cultural values, as well as its physical characteristics

• WHAT PEOPLE TAKE CARE OF

  • The second element of culture of interest to geographers is the production of material wealth (food, clothing, and shelter)

  • Geographers divide the world into regions of more developed countries (MDCs) and regions of less developed or developing countries (LDCs)

    • Possession of wealth and material goods is high in MDCs because of different types of economic activities than those in LDCs

Cultural Ecology

• In constructing regions, geographers consider environmental as well as cultural factors

  • The geographic study of human-environment relationships is known as cultural ecology

  • According to Humboldt and Ritter (pioneering human geographers), human geographers should apply laws from natural sciences to understand relationships between the physical environment and human actions

    • They concentrated on how the physical environment caused social development, and an approach called environmental determinism

• HUMAN AND PHYSICAL FACTORS

  • According to possibilism, the physical environment may limit some human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to their environment

  • Humans endow the physical environment with cultural values by regarding it as a collection of resources, which are substances that are useful to people, economically and technologically feasible to access, and socially acceptable to use

  • Some human impacts on the environment are casual, some are based on deep-seated cultural values

• PHYSICAL PROCESSES: CLIMATE

  • Human geographers need some familiarity with global environmental processes to understand the distribution of human activities, such as where people live and how they earn a living

  • Climate is the long-term average weather condition at a particular location

    • Tropical Climates

    • Dry Climates

    • Warm Mid-Latitude Climates

    • Cold Mid-Latitude Climates

    • Polar Climates

  • Humans have limited tolerance for extreme temperature and precipitation levels and this avoid living in places that are too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry

    • The climate of a particular location influences human activities, especially the production of the food needed to survive

• PHYSICAL PROCESSES: VEGETATION

  • Plant life covers nearly the entire land surface of Earth.

  • Earth’s land vegetation includes four major forms of plant communities called biomes

  • Forest Biome: Trees form a continuous canopy over the ground, and grasses and shrubs may grow beneath the cover

  • Savanna Biome: The trees do not form a continuous canopy, and the resultant lack of shade allows grass to grow

  • Grassland Biome: Land is covered by grass rather than trees, few trees grow in the region because of low precipitation

  • Desert Biome: Although many desert areas have essentially no vegetation, the regions contain dispersed patches of plants adapted to dry conditions

• PHYSICAL PROCESSES: SOIL

  • Soil, the material that forms on Earth's surface, is the thin interface between the air and the rocks

    • The US Comprehensive Soil Classification System divides global soil types into twelve orders

  • Two basic problems contribute to the destruction of soil

    • Erosion occurs when the silk washes away in the rain or blows away in the wind

    • Nutrients are depleted when plants withdraw more nutrients than natural processes can replace

• PHYSICAL PROCESSES: LANDFORMS

  • Earth’s surface features, or landforms, vary from relatively flat to mountainous

    • The study of Earth’s landforms is called geomorphology

  • Topographic maps show remarkable detail of physical features and cultural features

Modifying the Environment

• Modern technology has altered the historic relationship between people and the environment

  • Human actions can deplete scarce environmental resources, destroy irreplaceable resources, and use resources inefficiently

• THE NETHERLANDS: SENSITIVE ENVIRONMENTAL MODIFICATION

  • The Dutch have a saying that “God made the Earth, but the Dutch made the Netherlands”

  • The Dutch have modified their environment with two distinctive types of construction projects - polders and dikes

    • A polder is a piece of land that is created by draining water from an area

    • The second distinctive modification of the landscape in the Netherlands is the construction of massive dikes to prevent the North Sea from flooding much of the country

  • Global warming could threaten the Netherlands by raising the level of the sea around the country by 20 to 58 centimeters within the next 100 years

    • Rather than build new dikes and polders, the Dutch have become world leaders in reducing the causes of global warming by acting to reduce industrial pollution and increase solar and wind power use, among other actions

• SOUTH FLORIDA: NOT-SO-SENSITIVE ENVIRONMENTAL MODIFICATION:

  • Sensitive environmental areas in South Florida include barrier islands along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the wetlands between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades National Par, and the Kissimmee River between Lake Kissimmee and Lake Okeechobee

  • The Everglades was once a very wide and shallow freshwater river

    • A sensitive ecosystem of plants and animals once thrived in this river, but much of it has been destroyed by human actions

  • Polluted water mainly from cattle grazing along the banks of the canals flowed into Lake Okeechobee, which is the source of fresh water for half of Florida’s population

KEY ISSUE 3 - Scale: From Local to Global

• Geographers think about scale at many levels, from local to global

  • On a local scale, such as an urban neighborhood, geographers ten to see unique features.

  • On a global scale, encompassing the entire world, geographers tend to see broad patterns.

• A generation ago, people concerned with environmental quality proclaimed, “Think global, act local.”

  • This meant that the environment was being harmed by processes such as global warming that were global in scale, but it could be improved by actions, such as consuming less gasoline, that were local in scale.

• Geography master in the contemporary world because it can explain human actions at all scales, from local to global.

Globalization of Economy

• Scale is an increasingly important concept in geography because of globalization, which is a force or process that involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope.

  • Globalization means that the scale of the world is shrinking-not literally in size, but in the ability of a person, object, or idea to interact with a person, object, or idea in another place.

• People are plugged into a global economy and culture, producing a world that is more uniform, integrated, and interdependent.

  • A few people living in very remote regions of the world may be able to provide all of their daily necessities.

• Globalization of the economy has been led primarily by transnational corporations, sometimes called multinational corporations.

  • A transnational corporation conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters and principal shareholders are located.

  • Every place in the world is part of the global economy, but globalization has led to more specialization.

  • Globalization of the economy has heightened economic differences among places.

Globalization of Culture

• Geographers observe that increasingly uniform cultural preferences produce uniform “global” landscapes of material artifacts and of cultural values.

  • Regardless of local cultural traditions, people around the world aspire to drive an automobile, watch television, and own a house.

    • The survival of a local culture’s distinctive beliefs, forms, and traits may be threatened by interaction with certain social customs.

• As more people become aware of elements of global culture and aspire to possess them, local cultural beliefs, forms, and traits are threatened with extinction.

  • The communications revolution that promotes the globalization of culture permits the preservation of cultural diversity.

    • With the globalization of communications, people in two distant places can watch the same television program.

    • Strong determination on the part of a group to retain its local cultural tradition in the face of globalization of culture can lead to intolerance of people who display other beliefs, social forms, and material traits.

• Culturally, people residing in different places are displaying fewer differences and more similarities in their cultural preferences.

Space: Distribution of Features

• Chess and computer games, where pieces are placed on a grid-shaped playing surface, require thinking about space.

  • To excel at these a player needs spatial skill

  • Spatial thinking is the most fundamental skill that geographers possess to understand the arraignment of objects across surfaces considerably larger than a game board

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

• Geographers identify the location of important places and explain why human activities are located beside one another in space.

  • History and geography differ in one especially important manner.

    • A historian cannot enter a time machine to study other eras firsthand; however, a geographer can enter an automobile or airplane to study other spaces.

Distribution

• Each building and community, as well as every other human or natural object, occupies a unique space on Earth, and geographers explain how these features are arranged across Earth.

  • On Earth as a whole, or within an area of Earth, features may be numerous or scarce, close together or far apart.

    • The arrangement of a feature in space is known as its distribution.

• Geographers identify three main properties of distribution across the Earth— density, concentration, and pattern.

Density

• The frequency with which something occurs in space is its density.

• Arithmetic density, which is the total number of objects in an area, is commonly used to compare the distribution of population in different countries.

  • A large population does not necessarily lead to a  high density.

  • Arithmetic density involves two measures: the number of people and the land area.

• High population density is also unrelated to poverty.

• Geographers measure density in other ways, depending on the subject being studied.

  • A high physiological density—the number of persons per unit of area for suitable agriculture—may mean that a country has difficulty growing enough food to sustain its population.

  • A high agricultural density—the number of farmers per unit area of farmland—may mean that a country has inefficient agriculture

  • A high housing density—the number of dwelling units per unit of area—may mean that people live in overcrowded housing.

CONCENTRATION

• The extent of a feature’s spread over space is its concentration.

  • If the objects in an area are close together, they are clustered; if relatively far apart, they are dispersed.

• Geographers use concentration to describe changes in distribution.

• Concentration is not the same as density.

  • We can illustrate the difference between density and concentration at a far larger scale than a neighborhood.

PATTERN

• The third property of distribution is pattern, which is the geometric arrangement of objects in space.

  • Geographers observe that many objects form a linear distribution.

  • Objects are frequently arranged in a square or rectangular pattern.

Gender and Ethnic Diversity in Space

• Patterns in space vary according to gender and ethnicity.

  • Mose American women are now employed at work outside the home, adding a substantial complication to an already complex pattern of moving across urban space.

• The importance of gender in space is learned as a child.

  • If a family consisted of a person of color, its connection with space would change.

  • Although it is illegal to discriminate against people of color, segregation persists in part because people want to reinforce their cultural identity by living near persons of similar background and in part because persons of color have lower-than-average incomes.

  • Openly homosexual men and lesbian women may be attracted to some locations to reinforce spatial interaction with other gays.

• Cultural identity is a source of pride to people on the local scale and an inspiration for personal values.

• All academic disciplines and workplaces have proclaimed sensitivity to issues of cultural diversity

Connections Between Places

• Geographers increasingly think about connections among places and regions

• Geographers apply the term space-time compression to describe the reduction in the time it takes for something to reach another place.

  • Space-time compression promotes rapid change.

  • Geographers explain the process, called diffusion, by which connections are made between regions, as well as the mechanism by which connections are maintained through networks.

Spatial Interaction

• In the past, most forms of interaction among cultural groups required the physical movement of settlers, explorers, and plunderers from one location to another.

  • As recently as 1800 AD people have traveled in the same ways and at about the same speeds as in 1800 BC.

    • Today, travel by motor vehicle or airplane is much quicker.

  • When places are connected to each other through a network, geographers say there is spatial interaction between them.

• Transportation systems also form networks that connect places to each other.

• Interaction among groups can be retarded by barriers.

  • These can be physical or cultural.

  • Contact diminishes with increasing distance and eventually disappears. This trailing-off phenomenon is called distance decay.

• In reality, geography matters even more than before.

Diffusion

• Diffusion is the process by which a characteristic spreads across space from one place to another over time.

• The place from which an innovation originates is called a hearth.

  • Geographers document the location of nodes and the process by which diffusion carries things elsewhere over time.

• For a person, object, or idea to have interaction with persons, objects, or ideas in other regions, diffusion must occur.

  • Geographers observe two basic types of diffusion—relocation and expansion.

RELOCATION DIFFUSION

• The spread of an idea through the physical movement of people from one place to another is termed relocation diffusion.

  • The most commonly spoken languages in North and South America are Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese, primarily because several hundred years ago Europeans who pose those languages comprised the largest number of migrants.

    • Thus these languages spread through relocation diffusion.

• Relocation diffusion helps us understand the distribution of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) within the United States.

  • Relocation diffusion can explain the rapid rise in the number of AIDS cases in the United States during the 1980s and early 1990s, but not the rapid decline beginning in the mid-1990s.

EXPANSION DIFFUSION

• The spread of a feature from one place to another in a snowballing process is expansion diffusion.

  • The expansion may result from one of three processes.

    • Hierarchical diffusion

    • Contagious diffusion

    • Stimulus diffusion

• Hierarchical diffusion is the spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places.

  • Innovations may also originate in a particular node or place of power, such as a large urban center, and diffuse later to isolated rural areas.

• Contagious diffusion is the rapid, widespread diffusion of a character throughout the population.

  • The rapid adoption throughout the United States of AIDS prevention methods and new medicines is an example of contagious diffusion.

• Stimulus diffusion is the spread of an underlying principle, even though a characteristic itself apparently fails to diffuse.

• Expansion diffusion occurs much more rapidly in the contemporary world than in the past.

  • Hierarchical diffusion is encouraged by modern methods of communications, such as computers, facsimile machines, and electronic mail systems.

  • Contagious diffusion is encouraged by the use of the Internet, especially the World Wide Web.

  • Stimulus diffusion is encouraged by all of the new technologies.

• Diffusion from one place to another can be instantaneous in time, even if the physical distance between two places—as measured in kilometers or miles—is large.

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE AND ECONOMY

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

• Global culture and economy are increasingly centered on the three core or hearth regions of North America, Western Europe, and Japan.

• Countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America contain three-fourths of the world’s population and nearly all of its population growth, but they find themselves on a periphery, or outer edge, of global investment that arrives through hierarchical diffusion of decisions made by transnational corporations through hierarchical diffusion.

  • The increasing gap in economic conditions between regions in the core and periphery that results from the globalization of the economy is known as uneven development.

• Many people take for granted the ability to watch events in distant places through television, speak to others in distant places by telephone, and travel to far-off places by motor vehicle.