Urban Economic Geography Research Articles

THE QUANTITATIVE REVOLUTION IN URBAN GEOGRAPHY

The quantitative revolution in urban-economic geography flourished in the 1960s at a time when United States domestic policy focused on cities, problems of race and poverty, urban renewal and housing, land use and transportation, and environmental pollution. Theoretical work in previous decades in economic geography, spatial analysis, and quantitative social science had set the stage for the 1960s. After computers came along, psychology and economics moved briskly into theoretical areas, with application of quantitative analysis and statistical analysis, while applied mathematics vaguely promised to unify theoretical and applied realms of social science. Geography's main research agendas through the 1950s had been dominated by physical geography and regional analysis, but a new generation of scholars at Washington, Northwestern, Michigan, Ohio State, Chicago, Minnesota, and Penn State pushed ahead with serious attention to theory development and quantification in human geography and statistical cartography. Scholars working on the fringes of other disciplines (e.g., Isard) as well as inside geography (e.g., Hägerstrand, Berry, Garrison, Haggett, Chorley, Harvey) produced work attractive to the new geography. Mayer and Kohn assembled a stimulating reader illustrating theoretical and applied urban problems using the new approaches. Despite advances in the 1960s and early 1970s, the results of the quantitative revolution in human geography in general—and in urban geography in particular—fell well short of their promise. New ideas, approaches, methods, and problems were never fully exploited or pursued. The reasons are unclear—perhaps we should try to find out why. [Key words: theoretical geography, quantitative revolution in geography, history of geography, geographic thought, spatial analysis, quantitative geography.]

An Argument for Critical and Comparative Research on the Urban Economic Geography of the Americas

The authors identify problems associated with the treatment of Latin American topics in the Anglo-American social science literature, particularly in geography. Latin American research has been peripheralized and the flow of concepts and learning between Latin and Anglo America has been almost entirely from North to South. To explain why research by Latin Americans, and by Latin Americanists, has had relatively limited influence on recent geographic debates over theory and method, the authors employ contemporary discourse analysis. This method assists us in (1) deciphering how development geography presents Latin America, (2) in posing questions about the character and origins of the concepts that shape writing and, indeed, thinking, and (3) in identifying the perspective biases that must be confronted for interregional dialogue to occur. This critical commentary on Latin and Anglo-American research is highly relevant to reconstructed regional geography. It, too, is confronting issues such as the role of theory in contextually grounded research, and how to operationalize research that spans several geographical scales of analysis.

Perspectives on Theoretical Studies Related to Urban Economic Geography

Perspectives on Theoretical Studies Related to Urban Economic Geography

Spatial Patterns of Urban Activities in Osaka City: an attempt for examination and integration by applying of spatial autocorrelation concepts

The study of spatial patterns of urban activities has been approached from two main points of view, factorial ecology and urban economic geography, whose major empasises are quite different. Factorial ecology pays particular attension to the spatial distribution of socio-economic characteristics of urban residents based on a nighttime urban structure. Urban economic geography, on the other hand, analyzes the areal arrangement of economic activities within a daytime urban structure.In their approaches to spatial analysis and pattern specification, two defects are common to both points of view:1) Quasi-subjective identification of spatial patterns, and2) failure to integrate diverse aspects of urban activities according to their time-serial occurence.The present article is a search for synthetic explanation of spatial structure of diverse urban activities, by applying spatial autocorrelation concepts to obtain pattern identification and integration. The research is divided into three major phases, outlined below:The dynamic process of spatial patterns produced by urban activities occurs, and should be investigated, at various time. In this paper, the annual time series and the 24-hour cycle constitute the two major time spans. The annual time series is used in reference to changes in spatial patterns of economic activities, and the 24-hour cycle refers to the inter-transformation of spatial patterns of quotidian urban activities, appropriately represented by daytime, nighttime and intermediate population characteristics.b) Spatial autocorrelation concepts, defined as spatial interdependency based on contiguity, are very useful in undertaking exact spatial pattern analysis. The coefficient I, devised by Moran and improved by Cliff and Ord, is used for test of pattern. I is evaluated from I=(n/W)∑(2)WijZiZj/n∑iZi2(i≠j)……(1) Spatial interdependency, which is significant as underyling spatial structure, is expressed in the weight matrix.c) Combining the two above analysis, we can proceed to an explanation of spatial-temporal processes of patterns. They are modeled on the independent variables of spatial and/or spatial-temporal lag components, which are equivalent to the received influences of each cell from the neighbors and evaluated from the most valid weight matrix in the test of spatial autocorrelation.The data were collected in Osaka City, the second largest economic metropolis in Japan, a city that shows a remarkable transformation of spatial patterns of urban activities within 24 hours. All the data were compiled into 1, 010 meshes covering whole city, each mesh measuring 500m×500m.1) Spatial Patterns of Daytime ActivitiesThe principal component analysis consists of 26 economic activity variables for 1975.From the results obtained, the first component can be identified as an economic activity agglomerated in the central zone of the city. (Tab. 1) The second component is activity densely distributed in the inner city zone. The two components show clear centered and ring-like patterns respectively. (Fig. 2 and 3) Both patterns were examined by testing spatial autocorrelation based on isotropic weight (QUEENG). How-ever, to improve the power of the test, an attempt was made to construct a center-to-periphery type of weight, which is properly named as ‘diffusional’. My newly devised ‘diffusional’ weight confirms more clearly the underlying spatial structure of both patterns, which have a strong directional bias. (Tab. 3. a, b).Statistical explanation of the observed patterns is attempted by using the spatial lag components calculated from the most effective ‘diffusional’weight matrix.

Labor-Shed, Employment Field, and Dynamic Analysis in Urban Geography

M / -UCH attention has been given in recent years to the complex structure of urban areas. Intra-city circulation as well as the role of the suburb as an integral part of the functional city have been investigated. It has come to be accepted that not only the residential but also the commercial and industrial segments of urban activity have shifted toward a decentralized position. A dynamic concept of city structure has grown in the minds of students of urbanism. It seems fully appreciated that the oftmentioned urban complex is complex in change as well as constitution. Slowly we are coming to the conclusion that metamorphosis springs from factors additional to absolute growth; particularly, it would seem, from changing technology and transportation patterns. Within the field of urban geography the concern for circulatory patterns is more at home than the detailed consideration of technology. I t is proposed, in this paper, to look at the influence of changing circulation within the city region on the functional structure of the area. This paper attempts to do three things: (1) establish a system of dynamic analysis which is oriented toward handling evolving factors of urban economic geography, (2) establish a model of city structure along dynamic lines to exemplify that evolution, notably with respect to transportation, and (3) test the method of anacilysis mc1ic the model against actual conditions.