Transcript Spatial Thinking

Geography’s Unique Perspective:
The Spatial Perspective
Thinking about the spatial arrangement of
places and phenomena
(physical and human)
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Basic Spatial Questions:
The 3 Ws
• Where is it?
• Why is it there?
• What difference does it
make?
U.S. Median Age
Source: American Community Survey 2007
N
http://www.census.gov
What Insights Does This Map Offer?
As of 2007, the percentage of Utahns that are … members of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was 68.7
percent of the state's population. Mormons are now a minority
in Salt Lake City, while rural areas tend to be overwhelmingly
Mormon. … The church's doctrine has a strong regional
influence on politics … Historically a majority of Utah's
lawmakers have been church members; the effect has
contributed to the state's restrictiveness towards alcohol …
and gambling. Another doctrine effect can be seen in Utah's
high birth rate (25 percent higher than the national average;
the highest for a state in the U.S.). The Mormons in Utah tend
to have conservative views … and the majority of voter-age
Utahns are unaffiliated voters (60%) who vote overwhelmingly
Republican.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah
5 Key Elements of Spatial
Thinking
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Location
Distance
Space
Connectivity
Spatial Interaction
Nominal Location
Toponyms = Place Names
Absolute Location
Coordinate Systems
Most Common = Latitude and Longitude
Latitude and Longitude
Relative Location:
Site and Situation
Site: physical attributes of a location (terrain, soil,
vegetation, water sources, etc.)
Situation: location relative to other places and activities
Tobler’s First Law of
Geography
"Everything is related to everything else,
but near things are more related than
distant things.”
Waldo Tobler, Swiss-American Geographer
and Cartographer
The Friction of Distance
Distance
Absolute Distance
How Far Is It From Minneapolis to Bamako, Mali?
5377 Miles As a Crow Flies
Distance
Relative and Cognitive Distance
26+ hours travel time
14.23 hours flight time
Cost = $2652.00 RT
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Time, Effort or Cost - Real or Perceived
Time Out: Cheese Map! What Country Is This?
Space
Mathematical Space
Map Data =
Points, Lines and Areas
Cultural Regions
3 Types of Regions?
Formal, Functional and Perceptual
Formal Region
• A shared trait such as cultural trait or
physical trait.
– Spanish Speakers
Functional Region
• An area that is organized to function
politically, socially, economically
Perceptual Regions
Also called
vernacular
regions
Global, National, Regional, Local Scales …
Carbon Emissions 2000
Meth Cases 2004-2005
Percent Foreign Born 2000
Distributions
Density and Dispersion
Density of houses/square mile same or different?
Which is dispersed? Which is clustered?
Pattern
Random? Centralized? Linear?
Spatial Patterns?
In-N-Out
McDonald’s
Connectivity
Patterns?
http://users.design.ucla.edu/~akoblin/work/faa/
Accessibility
Northwest Airlines Minneapolis-St. Paul Hub Map
Globalization
The increasing interconnection of people and places and its
effects.
Key Spatial Interaction
Concepts
Complementarity: matching demand and supply
Transferability: ability to transfer goods or ideas
Intervening Opportunities: alternative origins or
destinations
Spatial Interaction
“The American Diaspora”
Hurricane Katrina Migrants
Complementarity? Transferability? Intervening Opportunities?
Spatial Diffusion
The spread of some phenomenon over space
and time from a limited number of origins.
Diffusion Is Not Random
• Distance decay: the farther
from the hearth, the less
likely an idea will be
adopted
• Time-space compression:
ideas diffuse more quickly
to places that are highly
connected
Diffusion of H1N1