Introduction

Abstract

With this issue, I am truly honored to assume the challenging duties of the ninth editor of the journal as it enters its 40th year of publication. I am pleased to announce that Robert Haining is returning, joining Stewart Fotheringham and Mei-Po Kwan as an associate editor. The leadership of the eight preceding editors, from Leslie King to Alan Murray, together with their editorial boards and cadre of reviewers, has established and maintained a stellar interdisciplinary reputation of quality for the journal, one of only a handful of journals across all disciplines to earn a 2008 WU-Wien journal ranking of A+. In addition, because a journal is only as good as the caliber of its submissions, coupled with the standards of peer review to which these submissions are subjected, members of the analytical geography community deserve many thanks for contributing to the long-run success of the journal; the continued commitment of this community of scholars is essential to the ongoing success of Geographical Analysis. In keeping with its international focus, the journal has received support from researchers in many countries and continues to welcome papers from scholars in not only North America and Europe but also South America, Africa, Oceania, and Asia. Addressing what has been perceived by other prominent journals (e.g., Gálvez et al. 2000; Martin 2001; Yeung 2001) to be a publishing bias, several distinguished Asian scholars have accepted my invitation to join the editorial board, and the online version of Geographical Analysis will begin to include abstracts published in Chinese and Spanish, as well as in English. The goal here is to broaden the scope of scholars who use the journal as both an outlet for their research and a source for their citations. The phrase “theoretical geography” appears in the journal's subtitle. Narrowly speaking, pure spatial theory involves general principles linked to ideal assumptions through logic and renders a concise systematic view of some geographic phenomenon that ultimately allows its explanation and/or prediction. In contrast, the journal's view is more catholic: although theory means more than merely abstract thought, it transcends mathematical and statistical characterizations of geographic phenomena and includes spatial optimization and innovative spatial analytical methodology, as well as the uncovering of empirical regularities that achieve a sufficient degree of generality and, when systematically joined together, can yield conceptual frameworks. In other words, theoretical geography refers to the formulation, model specification, articulation, formalization, and testing of spatial theory across a wide range of thematic areas, whether it be inductive or deductive in nature. As editor, my commitment is to maintain and, when possible, improve upon, the high quality of innovative scholarship about both human and physical topics that is published in the journal, as well as to maintain its well-earned reputation as a flagship journal for analytical geography. I seek to continue the tradition that a paper appearing in Geographical Analysis constitutes a prestigious contribution to the scientific literature. I also intend to continue the practice, when possible, of supplementing major research pieces with research notes and comments, publishing comprehensive overviews that furnish invaluable retrospection and producing special issues. To this latter end, a special issue will appear later this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the seminal paper by Cliff and Ord (1969) that set the stage for their classic book and spawned the spatial autocorrelation revolution; another special issue will appear in 2010 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Alan Wilson's 1970 book Entropy in Urban and Regional Modelling. I also am negotiating an experimental collaboration with a cognate field journal whose purpose is to create cross-exposure of the two journals by coordinating a pair of issues, one from each. My initial efforts here focus on graph theory and the “new network science,” a project in collaboration with Sandra and William Arlinghaus. We intend to feature a previously unpublished, posthumous manuscript by the late Frank Harary. In closing, I thank the Executive Committee for its confidence in me and for giving me this opportunity to serve Geographical Analysis as editor. I extend thanks to the members of an exceptional editorial board who have agreed to serve on it for at least 3 years, the tenure of my initial appointment. I also welcome Yongwan Chun as my assistant editor and Kay Steinmetz as my principal copyeditor. New submissions can be sent to geographical_analysis@utdallas.edu.