Unit 1 - Thinking Geographically

1.1 - Intro to Maps

• Reference Maps: Designed for people to refer to for general info about a place. There are two types:

  • Political maps

  • Physical maps

• Thematic Maps: Communication tools. They tell us how activities are distributed.

  • Cartogram: Distorts the size of regions based on their values

  • Choropleth: Colors regions based on their values; generally, darker is a higher value while lighter is less.

  • Dot Density: Places one dot for each value. All dots are the same size.

  • Isoline: Connects data points with curved lines to form regions of equal value.

    • Same concept as choropleth maps but more accurate since it’s not confined to political regions.

  • Proportional/Graduated Symbol: The size of a given symbol (commonly a dot) represents the value of a region; larger generally means larger value.

• Locations

  • Absolute Location: Where on earth a specific thing is. Can be represented with coordinates.

  • Relative Location: Where something is in relation to another place.

  • Distance: How far two things are

  • Direction: Which way something is; north, south, east, and west.

• Spatial Patterns

  • Clustering: Grouping or bunched together; agglomeration

  • Dispersal: Distributed over a large area

• Elevation: How high/low something is located on the land

• Map Projections:

  • Mercator Map

    • Shape and direction are fairly accurate

    • Size is distorted towards the poles

    • Used for navigation

  • Robinson Map

    • Compromise map; everything is distorted in small amounts.

    • Most accurate map

  • Goode

    • Continent sizes are accurate

    • Direction and distance isn’t accurate

  • Gall Peters

    • Shape of countries near the equator are distorted

    • Equal area projection

1.2 - Geographic Data

• Geospatial Data: All information including physical features and human activities

  • Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Layers of data used to make maps; useful for finding correlations between places and other factors.

    • Ex. John Snow’s cholera map

  • Global Positioning System (GPS): System of satellites used to pin point absolute location

    • Ex. Google maps

  • Remote sensing: The process of taking pictures of the earth’s surface remotely to provide a greater understanding of the Earth’s geography over large distances

    • Ex. Satellites tracking the spread of a forest fire

1.3 - The Power of Geographic Data

• Census data: An official count of individuals in a population, telling the government about the demographics

  • Age

  • Gender

  • Race

1.4 - Spatial Concepts

• Location

  • Absolute Location: Precise spot where something is located; can be represented with coordinates.

  • Relative Location: Where something is located in relation to another place.

• Space: Physical space between two locations

• Place: Human and physical characteristics of a location

  • Sense of Place: Emotions and memories attached to a place

• Distance Decay: The affect of distance on interactions between two places; interactions decrease as distances increase.

• Time-Space Compression: The increasing sense of connectivity as a result of globalization. Sense that distances are decreasing, despite them being the same.

• Pattern: The arrangement of something in an area

1.5 - Human-Environment Interaction

• Sustainability: The goal of the human race achieving equilibrium with the environment; meeting our needs while also protecting the ability of future generations to meet theirs

• Natural Resources: A physical material constituting part of the Earth that people need and value

• Environmental Determinism: Physical environments determined social development

• Possibilism: The physical environment may limit some human actions, but people control their development

1.6 - Scales of Analysis

• Scale: The relationship between the distance on the ground and the corresponding distance on a map

  • Large Scale: Shows more detail

  • Small Scale: Shows less detail

• Scale of Analysis: How zoomed in or out you are while looking at geographic data; how is it “chunked”?

  • Local

  • National

  • Regional

  • Global

1.7 - Regional Analysis

• Region: A place larger than a point and smaller than a planet; grouped together because of a measurable or perceived common feature

• Formal Region: A region based on quantitative data; also called “Uniform”

  • Political boundaries

  • The French region of Canada

  • Texas

• Functional Region: A region based around a node or focal point; also called “nodal”

  • Bus map

  • Radio station broadcast area

• Perceptual Region: A region that shares a common qualitative characteristic; only a region because people believe it is. Boundaries vary from person to person because it’s based on opinion.

  • The “midwest”

Unit 2 - Population and Migration

2.1 - Population Distribution

• Ecumene: Where people are settled on the earth’s surface

  • Physical Factors: People avoid too dry, too wet, too high, and too cold

  • Cultural Factors: Populations will be concentrated in areas with access to education, health care, and entertainment.

  • Historical Factors: Where people lived in the past tends to determine where our populations are today

• Population Densities

  • Arithmetic Density: Total number of objects in an area divided by the amount of land

    • Doesn’t tell us much on its own

  • Physiological Density: People divided by arable land

    • Tells us if a country is considered overpopulated or not

  • Agricultural Density: Total number of farmers divided by arable land

    • Tells us how developed a country is

      • MDCs tend to have less people in agriculture, since they’re more mechanized

2.2 - Consequences of Population Distribution

• Areas with larger populations have more power

  • Political: Greater control over laws and larger influence

  • Economic: Concentration of jobs, areas make more revenue

  • Social: Greater access to health care, better educational opportunities, greater cultural diversity

• As populations grow, we begin to alter our landscapes

• Carrying Capacity: The maximum size of the species that an environment can sustain

• Overpopulation: There are not enough resources for the population

2.3 - Population Composition

• Age/Sex Ratio: Comparison of the numbers of males and females of different ages. Population structure is unique to each area due to their own unique history and current condition.

• Population Pyramid: A graph of the population of an area by age and sex

  • When a population is growing rapidly, it’s a pyramid.

  • When a population is stabilizing, it’s a rectangle

  • When a population is declining, it’s an inverted pyramid

• Dependents: People too young or old to work that depend on the working population

2.4 - Population Dynamics

• Crude Birth Rate (CBR): The number of live births per one thousand people in the population

• Crude Death Rate (CDR): The number of deaths per one thousand people in the population

• Doubling Time: The time period it takes for a population to double

• Fertility: The number of live births occurring in a population

• Infant Mortality Rate (IMR): The number of children who don’t survive their first year of life per 1000 births in a population

• Mortality: The number of deaths occurring in a population

• Rate of Natural Increase (RNI or NIR): (Birth Rate - Death Rate)/10; A positive RNI means that the population is growing, while a negative RNI means that the population is shrinking.

• Total Fertility Rate (TFR): The average number of children a woman is predicted to have in her productive years

  • Social Factors: Role of genders in society, family planning, age of marriage, traditional family sizes, etc

  • Cultural Factors: Religion, ethnicity, etc

  • Governments: Reproductive laws, natalist/antinatalist policies, etc

  • Economic Factors: Women in the workforce, affordability, etc

2.5 - The Demographic Transition Model (DTM)

• 

• The Demographic Transition Model (DTM) has 5 stages that indicate different levels of development

  • Stage One: High CBR and high CDR; no population growth

    • No countries today are in stage one

  • Stage Two: Declining death rate, high CBR; population growth

    • Niger, Mali, etc

  • Stage Three: Declining CBR and CDR; still population growth

    • Egypt, Mexico, etc

  • Stage Four: Low CBR and CDR; population beginning to peak

    • USA, Canada, etc

  • Stage Five: Low CDR, lower CBR; population decline

    • Germany, Japan, etc

• Epidemiological Transition Model (ETM): Corresponds with the DTM; what’s causing the deaths in a population as it evolves?

  • Stage One: Infectious disease and parasites cause the majority of human deaths

  • Stage Two: Improved sanitation and healthcare lowers death caused by infections and parasites

  • Stage Three: Deaths begin being caused by aging-related issues

  • Stage Four: Most deaths care caused by aging; peak population

  • Stage Five: Globalization and superbugs cause the reemergence of infections

• Migration Transition Model

  • Stage One: No migration

  • Stage Two: Emigration, rural-to-urban

  • Stage Three: Suburbanization, Immigration

  • Stage Four: Suburbanization, Immigration

  • Stage Five: Suburbanization, Immigration

2.6 - Malthusian Theory

• Malthusian Theory: Populations grow exponentially but food production increases arithmetically (linear)

• Neo-Malthusian Theory: The earth can only support a finine number of people, and overpopulation can only be stopped by war and famine.

• Cornucopian: People will always find a way to produce enough food

2.7 - Population Policies

• Pronatalist Policies: A country provides incentives for people to have more children

• Antinatalist Policies: A country provides incentives for people to have fewer children

• Immigration Policies: States can set up policies that make it easier or harder to migrate into their territory

2.8 - Women and Demographic Change

• Contraception: Methods of preventing pregnancy

• Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration:

  • The majority of migrants only go a short distance

  • Migration proceeds step by step (step migration)

  • Migrants going long distances usually go to large economic centers

  • Each migrating stream produces a compensating counter-stream

  • Natives of towns are less migratory than those of rural areas; people in urban areas are less likely to migrate

  • Females are more migratory within their area of birth, and males migrate more internationally

  • Most migrants are single young adults

  • Urban areas grow more as a result of migration than births

  • As infrastructure improves, migration increases

  • Most migration is rural-to-urban

  • Most migrants are seeking jobs

2.9 - Aging Populations

• Dependency Ratio: The ratio of the number of people not in the workforce (dependents) and those in the workforce (producers)

  • Understanding the pressure on the producers

• Life Expectancy: The average number of years someone is expected to live at birth

2.10 - Causes of Migration

• Push Factors: Negatives; push people away from a place

  • Political instability, no jobs, slavery

• Pull Factors: Positives; pull people towards an area

  • Jobs, freedom, stable government

• Intervening Opportunity: The presence of a nearer opportunity that diminishes the attractiveness of sites father away

• Intervening Obstacle: A force or factor that limits human migration

2.11 - Forced and Voluntary Migration

• Chain Migration: a series of migrations within a group that begins with one person who through contact with the group, pulls people to migrate to the same area.

• Step-Migration: migration to a far away place that takes place in stages

• Guest Worker: a legal immigrant who is allowed into the country to work, usually for a relatively short time period

• Transhumance: moving herds of animals to the highlands in the summer and into the lowlands in the winter

• Transnational Migration: moving across a border into another country

• Voluntary Migration: people choosing to migrate (not being forced)

• Forced Migration: when people migrate not because the want to but because they have no other choice

  • Internally Displaced Persons (IDP): A person forced to flee their home who remains in their home country

  • Refugee: A person who flees their home country and is not able to return

  • Asylum Seeker: A person seeking residence in a country outside of their own because they fleeing persecution

2.12 - Effects of Migration

• Political Impact

  • Brain drain: when the majority of educated or skilled workers leave an area to pursue better opportunities elsewhere

• Cultural Impact - loss of culture or migrants bring in new languages

• Economic Impact - loss or gain of income dependent on the migrant flow

Unit 3 - Cultural Patterns + Processes

3.1 - Introduction to Culture

• Culture: Body of materials, customary beliefs, and social forms that together constitute the distinct tradition of a group or people.

• Material Culture: The material manifestation of culture.

  • Artifacts

    • Tools, housing, systems of land use, clothing, etc.

• Nonmaterial Culture:

  • Mentifacts

    • Shared ideas, values, and beliefs of a culture. Examples include religion, language, viewpoints, and ideas about right or wrong behaviour.

  • Sociofacts

    • Families, governments, education systems, sports organizations, religious groups

• Cultural Relativism: The culture should be judged based on its own standards, not based on another culture.

• Ethnocentrism: Judging other cultures based on the rules of your culture

• Taboo: Something that is forbidden by a culture or a religion, sometimes so forbidden that it is often not even discussed

3.2 - Cultural Landscapes

• Cultural Landscapes: The forms superimposed on the physical environment by people

  • Churches, buildings, etc

• Ethnic Neighborhoods: Neighborhood that retains some cultural distinction from a larger surrounding area

• Indigenous People: A cultural group that constitutes of the original people; distinct from the colonial, dominant population

3.3 - Cultural Patterns

• Sense of Place: A strong feeling of identity that is deeply rooted in a location

• Language: A set of mutually intelligible sounds and symbols used to communicate

  • Language Family

  • Language Branch

  • Language Group

  • Language

  • Dialect

• Religion: The belief and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a god(s).

• Ethnicity: The fact or state of belonging to a cultural group

• Gender: How men are treated differently than women

3.4 - Types of Diffusion

• Relocation Diffusion: Ideas are transmitted by their carriers during migration

• Expansion Diffusion: The ideas are spread through a population without the carriers moving.

  • Contagious: Transmission through nearby places, like a disease

  • Stimulus: The idea inspires one somewhere else

    • Ex. Beef-free burgers in Indian McDonalds

  • Hierarchical: Spreading among the most influential/largest people first, before spreading to others

  • Reverse Hierarchical: Diffusion up a hierarchy; common people to large influencers

3.5 - Historical Causes of Diffusion

• Creole: Language created by mixing two others; used as a primary language of many people and has grammar

• Pidgin: Simple language used for communication between two groups with different languages; evolves into creole

• Lingua Franca: Mutually understood language used in common by people with different native languages

• Colonialism: An effort by one country to establish a colony and impose its political, economic, and cultural practices within the territory

• Imperialism: Extending a country’s influence with the military to areas already developed

3.6 - Contemporary Causes of Diffusion

• Globalization: World connectivity has played a key role in changing culture. Ideas spread much easier today, with the help of the internet especially.

  • Media: Exposure to western television

  • Technological Change: Exposure to the internet

  • Politics: Democracies being spread globally to encourage places to have more equality

  • Economics: Trade

• Time-Space Convergence: The decline of travel time between two geographic locations as a result of increased transport and communication technology

• Cultural Convergence: Different cultures acquire common ideas, products, and traits, becoming more similar

• Cultural Divergence: Different parts of a culture are exposed to different influences and become dissimilar

3.7 - Diffusion of Religion

• Indigenous Language: A language that is native to a region and spoken by anyone as their native language

• Language Extinction: A language that is no longer spoken

• Dialect: Different forms of the same language; varies across the globe. Different vocab, grammar, pronounciations

• Nomadic Warrior Theory: Language moved through nomadic conquest (hierarchical)

• Sedentary Farmer Theory: Language moved through farmers relocating (relocation)

• Ethnic Religion: Focused on a single ethnic group and doesn’t appeal to others

  • Hinduism

  • Judaism

• Universalizing Religion: Appeals to everyone

  • Christianity

  • Islam

  • Sikhism

  • Buddhism

• Pilgrimage: A religious journey to a sacred space

3.8 - Effects of Diffusion

• Acculturation: Adoption of new cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another

• Assimilation: The process of a person or group losing the cultural traits that made them distinct from the people around them

• Multiculturalism: Various ethnic groups coexist without sacrificing their identities

• Syncretism: Blending traits from two different cultures to form a new trait

Unit 4 - Political Patterns + Processes

4.1 - Intro to Political Geography

• State: Political unit with a permanent population and boundaries that are recognized by other states that allows for the administration of laws, collection of taxes, and provision of defense.

  • Four requirements to be considered a state

    • Sovereignty

    • Territory

    • Population

    • Recognition by other states

• Nation: People who think of themselves as one based on a shared sense of culture and history

  • French

  • German

  • Indian

• Nation-States: A state with a single nation

  • Japan

  • Iceland

• Stateless Nations: A nation who do not have their own independent state

  • Palestinians

  • Kurds

• Multinational States: A state with two or more nations

  • Canada

  • USA

  • Russia

• Multistate Nations: A nation living across states. Can either have a state (Russia), a state divided in two (Korea), or be stateless (Kurds)

• Autonomous Region: An area which governs itself but is not an independent country

  • Greenland

  • Hong Kong

• Semi-Autonomous Region: An area which can govern itself in certain areas, but does not have complete power to govern

  • Nunavut in Canada

  • Indian Reservations in USA

4.2 - Political Processes

• Sovereignty: Final authority over a territory and the right to defend territorial integrity against incursion.

• Self-Determination: The process by which a country determines its own statehood and forms its own allegiances and government

• Independence Movements: An area that believes it should be its own country

• Devolution: The transfer of decision-making power from a central government to a lower level.

4.3 - Political Power and Territoriality

• Choke Point: Strategic narrow route providing passage through/to another region

  • Panama Canal

  • Strait of Gibraltar

• Neocolonialism: Modern colonialism; gaining indirect control (influencing) a country through economic pressure

• Shatterbelt: An unstable region that constantly breaks apart due to stress/colliding external forces

• Territoriality: The willingness of people to defend their land

4.4 - Defining Political Boundaries

• Boundary: A line that determines the limit of jurisdiction (the ability to make legal decisions)

  • Relict: Boundary that no longer exists

    • Berlin Wall

  • Superimposed: Drawn by outside powers (colonizers) ignoring cultural boundaries

    • Africa - Berlin Conference

  • Subsequent: Evolves as a cultural landscape takes place and changes

    • India-Pakistan

  • Antecedent: Boundary created before people occupied the land

    • US-Canada border

  • Geometric: Boundary that follows a straight line or arc; usually based off lines of latitude/ longitude.

    • US-Canada border

  • Consequent: Coincide with cultural groups

    • India-Pakistan

4.5 - The Function of Political Boundaries

• How are boundaries created?

  • Delimit: Drawing the boundary on a map

  • Demarcate: Using physical objects to define the borders of a boundary

  • Define: Treaty agreeing to having a boundary

  • Administer: Enforcing the boundary

• Demilitarized Zone: An area previously in conflict; now weapons and military forces have been removed

  • North and South Korea border

• The Berlin Conference: Meeting held in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 with the purpose of the European nations dividing Africa among them for colonization purposes. The superimposed boundaries of Africa remained in place after independence, which has led to much of the current conflict and lack of ability to establish effective leadership.

• United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS): Established rights and responsibilities of states concerning ownership/usage of the seas and their resources.

  • Marinetime Boundary: The extensions of a country's territory that extends into the oceans around them

  • Territorial Sea: zone of water adjacent to a state’s coast (12nm) in

    which a state has sovereignty

  • Contiguous Zone: 24nm from the coast; states can enforce laws

  • Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ): 200nm, where the state has a right to explore, exploit, conserve, and manage resources.

• South China Sea: China has built military installations on some disputed islands in the SCS.The SCS accounts for 10 percent of the world’s fisheries, making it a key source of food for hundreds of millions of people. The region is also home to major oil and natural gas reserves. There are so many countries in close proximity to one another, resulting in high competition for maritime resources and tension over sovereignty.

4.6 - Internal Boundaries

• Voting District: Subdivision for electing members to a legislative body

• Redistricting: Voting districts are redrawn to reflect population change

• Reapportionment: Number of seats is reapportioned to reflect population change

• Gerrymandering: Redrawing voting districts to give one party an unfair advantage.

  • Packing: Putting all of one political party into one district to give them less power

  • Cracking: Splitting up a party into multiple opposition dominated districts to ensure they don’t win any districts

4.7 - Forms of Governance

• Democracy: A form of government in which the ultimate power rests with the people through their elected representatives

• Unitary State: A country where the national government is strong and the regional governments are weak/have no power; results in quick changes and simpler laws, but less concentration on local needs

  • U.K

  • North Korea

  • China

• Federal State: A country where power is split between the national government and local governments; results in conflicting laws but more focus on local needs

  • United States

  • Canada

  • Russia

4.8 - Defining Devolutionary Factors

• Devolution: the transfer of decision-making power from a central government to a lower level.

  • Physical Geography: physical boundaries can cause devolution as it was historically hard for resources for states to maintain autonomy over difficult physical regions

  • Ethnic Separatism: Mainly religion, language, or ethnicity related differences.

    • Quebec, Canada

  • Ethnic Cleansing: The mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society

  • Terrorism: Violence against (typically) civilians for political reasons

  • Economic and Social Problems: Economic or social strife can lead to the devolution and altering of states.

  • Irredentism: When a state wants to annex a territory whose population is ethnically similar

    • Russia with Ukraine

4.9 - Challenges to Sovereignty

• Supranationalism: political and/or economic alliance of three or more states that is formed for mutual benefit to promote shared goals or resolve disputes. Can limit the economic or political actions of member states creating a challenge to state sovereignty.

  • NATO, EU, UN

• Economies of Scale: Cost advantages gained by increasing production

• Trade Agreements: Treaty between multiple states to eliminate taxes and/or tariffs to encourage trade

• Military Alliance: Alliance between two or more states who agree on mutual protection in case of crisis

  • NATO formed to defend against communist threats after WW2

4.10 - Consequences of Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces

• Centripetal Force: Force or attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for the state

  • Political: Majority/minority relationships, armed conflicts

  • Economic: Uneven development

  • Cultural: Stateless nations, ethnic movements

• Centrifugal Force: Force or attitude that divides the state

  • Political - national identity, 4th of July

  • Economic - equitable infrastructure development

  • Cultural - linguistic, religious, and ethnic similarities

Unit 5 - Agriculture and Rural Land Use

5.1 - Intro to Agriculture

• Agriculture: Modifying the environment to raise plants or animals for food or other uses’

• Mediterranean Climate: Hot/dry-summer climate, mild winter and a defined rainy season that produces certain fruits, vegetables, and grains such as grapes, olives, figs, dates, tomatoes, zucchini, wheat and barley. It prevails along the shores of the Mediterranean, in parts of California and Oregon, in central Chile, South Africa’s Cape, and in parts of Australia

• Tropical climate: hot, humid climate that produces certain plants, such as cassava, banana, sugar cane, sweet potato, papaya, rice, maize

• Extensive agriculture: agriculture that uses small amounts of labor on a large area of land

  • Shifting Cultivation: Farmers move from one field to another; aka slash-and-burn agriculture because farmers clear and fertilize the land by burning vegetation. When the soil loses fertility, the farmers move to a different plot of land and repeat.

    • Subsistence

    • Rice, maize

  • Nomadic Herding: Nomads move herds to different pastures and trade meat, milk, and hides.

    • Subsistence

    • Cattle

  • Ranching: Grazing of livestock.

    • Commercial

    • Cattle

  • Grain Farming: Farms sell their output to manufacturers of food products, such as breakfast cereals and bread.

    • Commercial

    • Wheat

• Intensive agriculture: agriculture that uses a lot of labor on a small area of land

  • Market Gardening: Some of the fruits and vegetables are sold fresh to consumers, but most are sold to large processors for canning or freezing.

    • Commercial

    • Tomatoes, lettuce

  • Plantation Agriculture: A plantation specializes in one crop that is transported for sale on the global market.

    • Commercial

    • Cotton

  • Mixed Crop/Livestock: Farming characterized by integration of crops and livestock; most of the crops are fed to animals rather than consumed by humans.

    • Commercial

    • Cows + corn

5.2 - Settlement Patterns and Survey Methods

• Clustered: A pattern of rural settlement in which the houses and farm buildings of each family are situated close to each others' fields and surround the settlement; everything is close together.

• Dispersed: Settlement pattern with people living relatively far from each other on their farms.

  • Township and range; equal squares of land

• Linear Settlement: A rural land use pattern that creates a long, narrow settlement around a river, coast, or road that looks like a line

  • French Long Lot; follows river

• Metes and Bounds: property boundaries go to physical features

  • Can be linear, dispersed, and clustered

5.3 - Agricultural Origins and Diffusion

• Fertile Crescent: A crescent-shaped area in the Middle East where settled farming first began to emerge leading leading to the rise of cities

• Columbian Exchange: A widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations, communicable diseases, and ideas between the Americas (New World) and Europe (Old World)

  • Tomato, potato, maize, turkey from New → Old

  • Wheat, cow, pig, disease Old → New

• First Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic): Transition from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture; first domestication of crops and animals

• Domestication: The process of taming plants or animals for human use

• Agricultural Hearths: The separate locations in which groups of people began to domesticate plants and animals.

• Commonalities Among Agricultural Hearths: Fertile soil in river valleys, availability of water, moderate climates, and collective societal structures

5.4 - The Second Agricultural Revolution

• Second Agricultural Revolution: Coincides with the Industrial Revolution; increasing yield and access through machines and transportation. Mechanization

  • Caused by the industrial revolution and the enclosure movement (private owned land)

  • Effects of the Second Agricultural Revolution: New technology, increased food production, better diet, longer life, and more people available for work in factories, shifting demographics (moving to cities, less farmers)

• Enclosure Movement: Land becomes private

  • Fewer and larger farms→decrease in farm owners→improvements in farming techniques→decrease in agricultural laborers→more job diversity

• Urbanization: Mass migration of people into the cities to work in newly emerging factories.

5.5 - The Green Revolution

• Green Revolution: The spread of new technologies like high yield seeds and chemical fertilizers to the developing world in the 1960s and 1970s

  • Positive

    • Able to grow more crops on same amount of land

      which decreases food prices

    • More crops grown on same size land

    • Improvement in variety

  • Negative

    • Destroying local land and traditional modes of

      agricultural production

    • Decreasing biodiversity (hybrid seeds diminish local

      plant diversity)

    • Impact of chemicals

• Biotechnology: Application of scientific techniques to modify and improve plants, animals, and microorganisms to enhance their value.

5.6 - Agricultural Production Regions

• Subsistence Agriculture: Only enough food is cultivated to survive

• Commercial Agriculture: The production of crop for sale and profit

• Monoculture: Growing one crop in a farm system each rotation

• Mono-Cropping: Growing one crop in a farm system year after year.

• Bid-Rent Theory: Price and intensive use of land will change as the distance from the central business district (CBD) increases

5.7 - Spatial Organization of Agriculture

• Commodity Chain: Activities involved in the creation of a product: design, production of raw

  materials, manufacturing and assembly, distribution

• Agribusiness: System of commercial agriculture that links various industries to the farm

• Economies of Scale: Cost advantages that come producing a large amount of an item

5.8 - Von Thunen Model

• Explains rural land use by emphasizing the importance of transportation costs associated with distance from the market Von Thünen’s rings distribute various farming activities into concentric rings around a central market city.

• Old model

• Assumes isotropic land

1. Dairy and Market Gardening: Perishable intensive food is closest to the market

2. Forest: Expensive transport and needed for heating and cooking

3. Grain Farming: Cheap transport and extensive→ requires cheaper land

4. Ranching: Animals walk themselves and extensive land use

5.9 - The Global System of Agriculture

• Global Supply Chain: Worldwide network to maximize profits in production

• Export Commodity: Commodities being sold (exported) to other places

  • Some states have become extremely dependent on these exports for their economies

5.10 - Consequences of Agricultural Practices

• Pollution: Process by which soil is contaminated by chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides)

• Land Cover Change: Agricultural areas are lost to development

• Conservation: Protection of wildlife and natural resources, like habitats and ecosystems

• Deforestation: Human-driven loss of trees

• Desertification: Area becoming arid and losing vegetation

  • Result of too much irrigation

• Irrigation: Moving water to where you need it

• Draining Wetlands: Drainage for agricultural practices

  • Fertile land once drained but bad for environment

• Pastoral Nomadism: Overgrazing can cause desertification

• Soil Salinization: Build up of salt in soil, particularly in irrigated areas, that makes soil unable to grow plants

• Terrace Farming: Method of growing crops on the sides of hills or mountains by planting on man-made steps (terraces)

• Changing Diets: We have to figure out a way to continue eating but sustainably

5.11 - Challenges of Contemporary Agriculture

• Agricultural Biotechnology: Use of scientific tools and techniques to modify plants and animals

  • Pest-resistent crops

• GMO: Organisms whos DNA has been genetically modified for a desired trait

• Aquaculture: Raising seafood in ponds or controlled water

• Value Added Crops: Foods that have been altered to increase their value

  • Berries→Jam

• Organic Farming: Crops produced without the use synthetic or industrially produced pesticides and fertilizers or genetically engineered seeds

• Fair Trade: Trade between MDC and LDC in which fair prices are paid to the producers; money is also returned to their communities

• Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA): Individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that growers and consumers provide mutual support

• Urban farming: Integrating growing crops or raising animals into an urban ecosystem

• Dietary Shifts: Movement from processed foods, meat, and sugars towards one more based in fruits and vegetables

• Food Insecurity: Being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food

• Food Desert: Geographic area where large grocery stores are scarce or missing and residents have limited access to fresh nutritious foods. Typically found in urban, low-income neighborhoods

• Weather: agricultural production is affected by high temperatures, drought, flooding, storms, freezes

5.12 - Women in Agriculture

• Women are frequently denied loans or financial support

• Women may be unable to obtain or access inputs to improve productivity (e.g., land, animals, equipment, seeds, fertilizer, or infrastructure).

• Women practicing subsistence agriculture may not be able to generate a surplus.

• Impacts of exposure to environmental hazards (agricultural pollution, chemicals, groundwater pollution) that cause health problems for women and children

• Laws and government policies preventing women from acquiring land tenure, owning, or inheriting land.

• Women may lack access to political processes (voting), and institutions (representative government); or females lack political power to improve law and policy affecting women’s issues.

• Empowering and investing in rural women has been shown to significantly:

  • Increase productivity

  • Reduce hunger and malnutrition

  • Improve rural livelihood

Unit 6 - Cities and Urban Land Use

6.1 - The Origin and Influences of Urbanization

• Site: Features at the absolute location

  • Natural Harbor

  • Natural Resources

  • Climate

  • Elevation

• Situation: Where the place is in relation to other things

  • Next to forest

  • Next to large city

  • Access to choke point

• Urbanization: The movement of people from rural areas to cities

  • Early humans were nomadic, meaning no permanent home

  • First agriculture revolution (Neolithic) created permanent settlements, typically in fertile river valleys

  • Farmers could grow more crops to support a larger population

  • More jobs

• Factors that influence Urbanization:

  • Transportation: Innovations in transportation have shaped and reshaped the layout and size of cities and their surrounding areas over time.

    • Car

  • Rural to Urban Migration: Movement of people from rural settlements to urban centers in search of jobs.

6.2 - Cities Across the World

• Megacities: 10 million inhabitants or more

  • Cairo

  • Mumbai

  • Beijing

• Metacities: 20 million inhabitants or more

  • Tokyo

  • Delhi

  • Shanghai

• Megalopolis: Region in which several large cities and surrounding areas grow together

• Metropolitan Area: Region that includes a city and its surrounding suburbs

• Suburbanization: Population shift from central urban areas into suburbs

• Urban Sprawl: Tendency of cities to grow outward in an unchecked manner

• Edge Cities: Nodes of economic activity that have developed in the periphery of large cities

  • The Domain

• Exurbs: Prosperous area beyond the suburbs.

• Boomburbs: Large, rapidly growing, incorporated communities of more than 100,000 residents

6.3 - Cities and Globalization

• World City: Control center of the global economy, in which major decisions are made about the world’s commercial networks and financial markets.

  • Tokyo

  • Paris

  • New York City

6.4 - The Size and Distribution of Cities

• Rank-Size Rule: The country's nth-largest settlement is 1/n the population of the largest

  settlement.

  • Federal government

• Primate City: Urban area that dominates its country's economy, culture, and political

  affairs and is more than twice the population of the next largest city.

  • Uneven development

• Christaller’s Central Place Theory: Explains how services are distributed and why a

  regular pattern of settlements exists

  • Threshold: # of people required to support businesses

  • Range: distance people will travel to acquire a good

  • Low-Order Goods: Used by consumers on a regular/daily basis and, as a result, people are not willing to travel far to use them

    • Gas stations

  • High-Order Goods: are used less frequently by consumers and, as a result, people are willing to travel further for it.

    • Eras tour

• Gravity Model: interaction of places based on their population, sizes, and distances between them

  • The greater the number of people in an area, the greater the number of potential customers for a service.

  • The farther people are from a particular service, the less likely they are to use it.

6.5 - The Internal Structure of Cities

• Concentric-Zone Model: Burgess

  • Divides the city into five concentric zones centered around the CBD

  • Based on Chicago

  • Rich people live on periphery (commuters)

• Sector Model: Hoyt

  • Zones expanded outward from the city center along transportation corridors creating a wedge shape.

  • As growth occurs, similar activities stay in the same area and extend outward.

  • Low income near industry

• Multiple Nuclei Model: Harris & Ullman

  • Developed countries and large expanding cities

  • CBD is scattered into several nodes, with transportation hubs near industries and airports.

  • Low income housing is found near workers while high income housing is found in elite districts.

• Galactic (Peripheral) City Model: Harris

  • Inner city, surrounded by large suburban residential and business areas and tied together by transportation nodes (edge cities)

  • Highway ring

• Latin American City Model: Griffin and Ford

  • Spine w elite housing, disamenity zone on periphery + sectors

  • Mix of sector + concentric ring

• African City Model: Harm DeBlij

  • 3 CBDs: Colonial CBD, Traditional CBD, and Market CBD.

  • The quality of residence gets poorer the farther from the CBDs.

  • No rich zones

• Southeast Asian Model: McGee

  • Old colonial port zone

  • Western commercial zone

  • Alien Commercial Zone (dominated by Chinese merchants)

  • No formal CBD

  • New suburbs + squatter settlements bc of rapid expansion

• Bid Rent Theory: Geographical economic theory that refers to how the price and demand for real estate change as the distance from the central business district increases

6.6 - Density and Land Use

• Low Density Housing: Residential homes, lots of open space fewest people per geographic unit

  • Suburbs

• Medium Density Housing: Townhomes, single unit housing

• High Density Housing: High rises, most people per unit. Land is more expensive in these areas and causes people to be more crammed into smaller apartments

  • Urban areas

• Infiling: Population density in an urban center is increased by building on underused land

6.7 - Infrastructure

• Economic development and interconnection within urban areas are dependent upon the location and quality of infrastructure

• The fastest growing cities are found in developing countries which have just recently just industrialized

• In developing countries, modern technologies in transportation and public facilities are not very available.

6.8 - Urban Sustainability

• Smart-Growth: Urban planning that avoids urban sprawl and focuses on long term implications with sustainable design initiatives and guides development into more convenient patterns and into areas where infrastructure allows growth to be sustained over the long term.

• New Urbanism: Walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces.

• Greenbelts: Areas of undeveloped land around an urban area. Limit the sprawl of urban areas.

• Slow-Growth Cities: Slowing a city’s growth to limit the problems associated with growth and improve sustainability.

• De Facto Segregation: Racial segregation that happens by fact rather than by legal requirement

• Positive of Urban Sustainability: Reduction of sprawl, improve walkability and transportation, improved and diverse housing options, and improved livability and promotion of sustainable options.

• Negatives of Urban Sustainability: Increased housing costs, possible de facto segregation, and loss of historical character.

6.9 - Urban Data

• Quantitative information about a city’s population is provided by census and survey data and provides information about changes in demographics and size in urban areas.

  • Lawmakers can create maps to look at residential and racial segregation

• Qualitative data from field studies and narratives provide information about individual attitudes toward urban change.

• Maps commonly show ethnicity of neighborhoods and other characteristics like predominant gender.

6.10 - Challenges of Urban Changes

• Redlining: Discriminatory real estate practice in North America in which members of minority groups are prevented from obtaining money to purchase homes or property

• Blockbusting: Real estate technique to encourage people to sell their property at a very low price by giving the impression that the neighborhood was changing for the worse, especially in reference to minorities moving in, Led to the “white flight” to the suburbs

• Affordable Housing: residential units that are economical for the section of society whose income is below the median household income

• Environmental Injustice: disproportionate exposure to communities of color and the poor to pollution and its effects on health and the environment

• Squatter Settlements: residential areas characterized by extreme poverty with shelters constructed of found materials that usually exist on land outside of cities that are neither owned or rented by its occupants with little or no access to necessary services.

• Inclusionary Zoning: Planning ordinances that provide affordable housing to people with low to moderate incomes

• Local Food Movements: Food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed

• Urban Renewal: Redevelopment of areas within an urban area

• Gentrification: Restoration of deteriorated urban areas by wealthier people who move into, renovate, and restore housing.

  • Negative: Impact to existing groups, displaces poorer residents, disregards the needs and interests of vulnerable groups

  • Positive: New employment opportunities, improved housing, improved infrastructure, and increase in visitors/tourism

6.11 - Challenges of Urban Sustainability

• Urban sustainability: The goal of improving the social and economic conditions of an increasingly urbanized population while maintaining environmental quality.

• Suburban Sprawl: Spreading of developments into suburban or rural areas.

• Pollution: Increased greenhouse gasses, acid rain, and ozone depletion.

• Less agriculture land + loss of habitat

• Brownfield: Property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.

• Ecological Footprint: Measure of the human pressures on the natural environment from the consumption of renewable resources

• Responses to the Challenges of Urban Sustainability:

  • Redevelopment of Brownfields,

  • Urban Growth Boundaries

  • Farmland Protection Policies

Unit 7 - Industrial and Economic Development Patterns and Processes

7.1 - The Industrial Revolution

• Industrial Revolution: A period of rapid growth caused by increased mechanization in manufacturing and production; began in the 1700s

  • Began in England

  • Caused an increase in food production

  • Urbanization

  • Increased the gap wage between the poor and the wealthy

  • Increased imperialism and colonialism as now countries need more raw materials

7.2 - Economic Sectors and Patterns

• Primary Sector: Extraction of raw materials

  • Mining

  • Fishing

  • Lumber

  • Agriculture

• Secondary Sector: Processing natural materials into finished goods

  • Manufacturing

  • Construction

  • Utilities

• Tertiary Sector: Offering services to consumers

  • Retail

  • Tourism

  • Entertainment

• Quaternary Sector: Research and administration involved often associated with technological innovation

  • Finance

  • Insurance

  • Marketing

  • Wholesale

• Quinary Sector: The highest levels of decision making in a society or economy

  • CEO

  • School superintendent

• Site Factors: Industrial location factors related to the cost of the factory’s production

  • Land: Cheap land farther from the CBD; want to be close to highways and other transport routes

  • Labor: Most important site factor globally; cost and availability of workers

  • Capital: Funds to establish new factories or expand existing ones; most important site factor in certain industries

• Labor-Intensive Industry: Wages and other compensation paid to employees are the majority of expenses

• Break-of-Bulk Point: Location where transfer is possible from one mode of transport to another

  • Plane→Truck→Ship

• Weber’s Least Cost Theory: Minimize costs in three categories to determine the location of a factory

  • Transport

    • Bulk Gaining: Product gains volume or weight during production, increasing shipping costs. Factories tend to settle closer to destination to minimize transport costs

    • Bulk Reducing: Product looses weight during production; it’s more affordable to settle near inputs

  • Labor

  • Agglomeration

    • Clustering of similar activities can reduce the price of operation

7.3 - Measures of Development

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Value of total number of goods and services produced domestically in a year

• Gross National Product (GNP): Value of all goods, services, and investments produced by a country in a year

• Gross National Income Per Capita (GNI): Value of outputs produced in a country per year, divided by the population

• Gender Inequality Index (GII): Measure of the extent of each country’s gender inequality

• Human Development Index (HDI): Level of development in each country; takes into account multiple factors to be more accurate.

  • Literacy rate

  • Income

  • Education

  • Life expectancy

7.4 - Women and Economic Development

• As countries develop, more women enter the workforce

• They do not necessarily have equal wages

• Microloans: Small loans given to people in LDCs to start a business

  • Helps women start their own businesses

7.5 - Theories of Development

• Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth: Assumes that all countries want to modernize like the United States. Aligns with DTM

  • Stage One: Traditional Society

    • Subsistence Agriculture

    • No countries today are in this stage

  • Stage Two: Preconditions to Take Off

    • Improvements in infrastructure

    • Mali, Niger

  • Stage Three: Take Off

    • Industrialization

    • India

  • Stage Four: Drive to Maturity

    • Less reliance on imports

    • Diversification of jobs

    • Innovations

    • China

  • Stage Five: High Mass Consumption

    • Consumer-oriented economy

    • Tertiary sector is dominant

    • USA

• Dependency Theory: LDCs are dependent on technology from MDCs to provide infrastructure and employment. This creates a cycle of dependency on MDCs and prevents their economies from fully developing

• Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory: Attempts to explain the relationship between the core and periphery countries.

  • The core benefits from the periphery and semi-periphery.

  • The semi-periphery can benefit from the periphery while still benefiting the core.

7.6 - Trade and the World Economy

• Complementarity: One place has what another wants

  • Flow of seasonal fruits and vegetables from California's Valley to urban markets of the American Midwest and East

• Comparative Advantage: Ability of a country to produce goods and/or services at a lower

  opportunity cost than others

• Neoliberal Policies: Policies that favor free markets and trade

  • Reduce taxes and tarrifs

• Free Trade Agreements: Eliminating trade barriers to encourage trade

• European Union (EU): Economic union of 28 member states that are located in Europe; trade bloc

• World Trade Organization (WTO): Negotiate rules of trade among the member states

• MERCOSUR: Economic bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. Essentially EU for South America

• Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC): Control worldwide prices of gas.

• Tariffs: Taxes on items leaving or entering a country, often used to raise the price of imported goods

• International Monetary Fund (IMF): Provides loans to countries experiencing economic problems that threaten expansion of international trade.

7.7 - Changes as a Result of the World Economy

• Outsourcing: Hiring people from outside of your company to do things for you

• Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs): The NICs are Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and Mexico

• Special Economic Zones (SEZs): Specific areas within a country in which tax and investment incentives are implemented to attract foreign businesses and investment.

• Free-Trade Zones: No tariffs between countries; special zones in which all trade barriers between two countries are eliminated.

  • Maquiladoras → Mexico

• Export Processing Zones (EPZs): Provide incentives for foreign companies to conduct their business in developing regions.

  • Foreign investments

  • Improved employment opportunities.

• International Division of Labor: Transfer of some types of jobs, especially those requiring low-paid less skilled workers, from MDCs → LDCs

• Fordism: Form of mass production in which each worker is assigned one specific task to perform repeatedly

  • Assembly line

• Post-Fordism: Adoption by companies of flexible work rules, such as the allocation of workers to teams that perform a variety of tasks

• Economies of Scale: Increase In efficiency of production as the number of goods being produced increases

• Service Sector: The portion of the economy concerned with services

  • Transport

  • Communication

  • Retail

7.8 - Sustainable Development

• Sustainable Development: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

• Ecotourism: Tourism that doesn't harm the environment + benefits local people. Usually a small-scale activity with a small number of visitors in an area at a time.

  • National parks

• UN’s Sustainable Development Goals: A declaration with the goal of improving the living conditions of people in the least developed countries. The goals were:

  • Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

  • Achieve universal primary education

  • Promote gender equality and empower women

  • Reduce child mortality

  • Improve maternal health

  • Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

  • Ensure environmental sustainability

  • Develop a global partnership for development