Formal Regions
Formal regions are areas with defined boundaries and specific characteristics that set them apart from surrounding areas. These characteristics can be physical, cultural, or administrative in nature. Formal regions are often used in geography to study and analyze patterns and distributions of various phenomena within a specific area.
8 Key excerpts on "Formal Regions"
eBook - ePubGeographic Thought
A Critical Introduction
- Tim Cresswell(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...Chapter 4 Thinking About Regions The regional concept constitutes the core of geography. This concept holds that the face of the earth can be marked off into areas of distinctive character; and that the complex patterns and associations of phenomena in particular places possess a legible meaning as an ensemble which, added to the meanings derived from a study of all the parts and processes separately, provides additional perspective and additional depth of understanding. This focus of attention on particular places for the purpose of seeking a more complete understanding of the face of the earth has been the continuous, unbroken theme of geographic study through the ages. (James 1929: 195) Two questions have motivated geographical thinking over the past 2,000 years more than any other. These are “what is the connection between the human and physical worlds?” and “how can we account for spatial difference?” The second of these questions lay at the heart of what Varenius called “special geography” with its focus on particular areas of the earth’s surface and the qualities that make these areas different and unique from the areas around them. It is this line of enquiry that lies at the heart of human geography over the first half of the twentieth century. The concept that exemplifies this pursuit is “region.” At first glance the idea of a region seems a fairly vague one. It might, for instance, be thought of as a synonym for “area.” One question that immediately arises is at what scale a region exists. As a word that is used in everyday speech it most often suggests a subdivision of something bigger. Regional art, for instance, signifies artistic practices, styles, and products that are associated with a particular bit of a nation – say the Midwest of the United States. But we would be unlikely to label a national art form regional even if a nation is part of a larger continental or global whole...
eBook - ePubReanimating Regions
Culture, Politics, and Performance
- James Riding, Martin Jones, James Riding, Martin Jones(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Regions can also delimit economic forms relating to particular functions, for example the spaces of exchange and trading such that we can talk of discrete regional economies in global networks. Regions can also act as symbolic shapes; cultural identifiers and sources of belonging; senses of ownership for political expression and mobilisation. One helpful way of categorising these distinctions is to think about the first two descriptions (the administrative and the economic) as ‘regional spaces’ and the latter (cultural and political) as ‘spaces of regionalism’ (see Jones and MacLeod, 2004; Jones, 2004). Again, these distinctions are never out there waiting to be found; they are forged historically through political and policy struggles involving state and nonstate forces. This allows geographers to talk not about ‘regional geography’, which automatically conjures up fixity and rigidity, but about the ‘geography of regions’ – the process and practices of making and remaking regions through ‘institutionalisation’ as Paasi (1996) puts it. The remaining discussion unpacks this, using four chronological phases, to reveal how geographers have grappled with regional geography. There is a need ‘to go back’ to go ‘forward’, as Thrift (1994) has put it. An era of traditional regional geography existed during the long nineteenth century. Here, the region was treated as absolute: as an independent backdrop for, first, conducting geographical inquiry and, second, developing thereafter a world of different regional geographical types. Books such as Britain and the British Seas by Mackinder (1902) made assumptions about the interconnected nature of the human and the physical. This regional geography was an ‘ethnographical geography’ of successive phases and component elements, with (in this case) the physical environment as ‘thus analysed’...
eBook - ePubResearching Geography
The Indian Context
- Gopal Krishan, Nina Singh(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge India(Publisher)
...The phenomena may be symbolised by dots, lines, surfaces or three-dimensional models (Cole and King 1968). A geographer is expected to exercise particular attention to the arrangement of phenomena on landscape as a part or whole of the earth. A direct attention is to be given to their causal connections and relationships rather than coincidence and mere juxtaposition (Chapman 1966). The ultimate goal is to identify spatial patterns and processes. In that light it would be instructive to take a note of the recommendations of the National Council for Geographic Education constituted by the Association of American Geographers on what should go in for geography teaching. It listed five basic concepts and topics that are essential elements in any geographic inquiry at all levels of instruction. These are as follows: The significance of absolute and relative location The distinctive physical and human characteristics of place Human–environmental relationships within places Movements expressing pattern and change in human–spatial interaction Formation of regions and change therein Here some additional comments will be in order. First regional synthesis, wherein the spatial and ecological approaches are fused, is basically a geographer’s major obligation. Suitable spatial segments of the earth, usually termed regions, are identified. The intent is to comprehend their internal morphology, ecological linkages and external relations. It is only in relation to culture that parts of the earth receive specific meaning. Cultural regions, therefore, provide a better framework for geographical understanding than natural regions. Second, the scale of investigation makes a great difference in any generalisation that can be drawn from the observations made. The study of world agricultural patterns, for example, may focus upon global climatic regimes, eating habits, development levels, renting of spaces for agriculture and trade patterns...
eBook - ePubRegional Geography
Theory and Practice
- Roger Minshull(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...These may be tabulated as follows: Special, regional geography may be written in a systematic way, that is to say, working steadily through the regular plan of rock, relief, climate, soil, etc. Therefore both General and Special Geography can be systematic, and Special Geography may also be treated in a peculiar, individual way for each region when it may be known as a compage. 7 However, geographers have not been constrained by this theoretical division and the following variations and combinations may be found. Two points are to be emphasised: that regional description is just one of several methods, and that it will be strengthened by making fuller use of the other possibilities where they are more appropriate. 1. General geography of one or more topics. Usually of a physical topic such as geomorphology or climatology but sometimes of economic activities or population. 2. General geography of human phenomena on a regional basis. These are the economic, commercial and social geographies which set out to be general analytical works but in fact are often regional and descriptive. 3. Special geography of a continent or a country. The whole area is divided into regions and all the usual ‘geographic’ topics are considered, but usually in the systematic order given in the table on p. 81. 4. In contrast to 2 above, are a few books in a sense regional in that they deal with only part of the world, but which treat that area in a purely general way. For example Southwest Pacific, K. B. Cumberland (Methuen), ch. 3, ‘Australia’. 5. Special geography with a special selection of topics dealt with in the order most appropriate to each region. Very rare, see the works of Derwent Whittlesey. 6. One book with general, then special, sections. Many ‘regional’ geographies treat the relief, climate, soils and vegetation of the country or continent as a whole, then deal with the human phenomena by regions. Sometimes a concluding economic summary. 7...
eBook - ePubRunning the Numbers: A Practical Guide to Regional Economic and Social Analysis: 2014
A Practical Guide to Regional Economic and Social Analysis
- John Quinterno(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Furthermore, because the classification system is revised in the years following each decennial census, the definitional criteria tend to evolve. 52 The result is a paradox: the more accurate and refined the definitions of metropolitan and micropolitan areas become, the harder it is to conduct historical research. To circumvent such problems, many analysts organize studies around counties because county boundaries are more stable. Regardless of which geography serves as the basic building block of a study, an analyst must ensure that the selected geography actually contains the places of interest. Think of how misleading the results would be if a study concerned with the physical location of jobs in a region omitted an employment hub. At a minimum, logical coherence is the standard that should guide the definition of a region for analytical purposes. When in doubt, a region should embody an economically functional area, as economic growth typically is an overarching concern for regional citizens and leaders. R EGIONAL G EOGRAPHY : A S UMMARY Place matters when it comes to economic and social affairs. While people intuitively grasp the importance of place, defining the concept precisely enough for analytical purposes is a more complicated exercise. There is little agreement about what constitutes a region. The threshold step in any analysis is establishing a working definition of a region of interest—a process made easier thanks to the existence of the Census Bureau’s sophisticated geographical framework. With a working understanding of essential concepts related to regions and regional geography, civic leaders can begin to explore systematically the economic and social dimensions of the places they call home. N OTES 1. U.S...
eBook - ePub- Peter Knight(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The definition of a ‘region’ was also problematic. Moreover, this distinctiveness has been seen as cutting geography off from the main stream of social science, leaving it with the interstices between other, more vigorous disciplines (Smith, 1989). Developments passed geography by. Discontent with the inter-war regional studies led to the adoption of hypotheses-testing and the statistical tools of natural science in the mid-twentieth century. This, known as the quantitative revolution, took place in conjunction with the burgeoning of analytical, systematic studies, in which a theme, such as urban location or land transport systems, was pursued across regions, usually with a view to inducing some form of generalisation or law. This positivist, ‘scientific’ form of geography is still strong and well represented in professional journals, but it has been criticised in its turn, particularly on the grounds that it took the human element out of geography, reducing people to variables within equations. The critics argued that what mattered was not so much the objectivity of measured distance, for example, but rather people’s perceptions of distance. A shopping centre might lie close to a housing area, objectively, but separated by a major road system the two might subjectively be further apart than the shopping centre and a more distant area with better links. This search for understanding of the meanings which people ascribed to the spatial dimensions of their lives aligned geography with other social studies...
eBook - ePubRegional Geography (RLE Social & Cultural Geography)
Current Developments and Future Prospects
- Ron Johnston, Joost Hauer, G. Hoekveld, Ron Johnston, Joost Hauer, G. Hoekveld(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...1 Region, place and locale: an introduction to different conceptions of regional geography R.J. Johnston, Joost Hauer, and Gerard A. Hoekveld In his influential book, Ideology, Science and Human Geography (1978), Derek Gregory concluded by arguing that Ever since regional geography was declared to be dead – most fervently by those who had never been much good at it anyway – geographers, to their credit, have kept trying to revivify it in one form or another.… This is a vital task.… We need to know about the constitution of regional social formations, of regional articulations and regional transformations. (Gregory 1978:171) His advocacy had little immediate impact, and the critique of positivism that was presented in the book made a much greater impression than the call for a revised regional geography. In the ensuing decade, however, Gregory’s case has been taken up by a number of other authors who have argued for the need not to revive regional geography as it was traditionally conceived but rather to develop a new regional geography that is sensitive to the nuances of areal differentiation and can show how they were central to the operations of most aspects of past and contemporary societies. The relative decline of regional geography began in the English-speaking world in the 1950s, with the expansion of interest first in topical specialisms and then in the methodological developments that were widely represented as the ‘quantitative and theoretical revolution’. Although some adherents of the latter trend argued that they were merely improving the practice of regional geography and its emphasis on synthesis (Berry 1964), in effect regional geography was substantially downplayed (Johnston 1983) and replaced by a focus on regularities in spatial organization and behaviour...
eBook - ePub- Andrew Bell, Todd Hartman, Aneta Piekut, Alasdair Rae, Mark Taylor(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
...7 Mapping patterns and people: ‘Why does geography matter?’ Key concepts spatial aggregation, political maps, classifying people and places (geodemographics), the ecological fallacy, the ‘modifiable areal unit problem’ 7.1 Introduction This chapter tries to convey the idea that geography matters. That is, the way we apply geographic units in statistical analysis can have a big influence on how we understand the world. For example, if someone asks you ‘what’s the population of New York?’, you might be tempted to answer ‘about 8.5 million people’, because that is roughly the population of the five boroughs of New York City. Yet someone else might answer ‘about 20 million’ and they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, because this is the population of the wider Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) of which New York is a significant part. This may seem like an obvious point, yet too often these kinds of geographical questions are overlooked, and it can lead to confusion and erroneous assumptions as we will see later in the chapter. When we deal with social statistics more broadly, we often make assumptions about individuals based on data relating to larger geographic units, such as a neighbourhood or city. For example, we might assume that in an area defined as ‘poor’ using an income measure (such as wages) all individuals in that area are poor. This may be the case, but it’s more likely that there will be many people who are not poor, and a majority who are. However, it is also possible that the majority may not even fit our definition of ‘poor’ if there’s a few very poor households skewing the average. If we narrow things down to the building level, we may again find that we have a mix of people who are ‘poor’ and those who are not. The problem in statistical analysis, however, is that we often have to make assumptions about individuals based on data for larger geographical areas, and doing so can be fraught with difficulty...
