COURSE OUTLINE PAGES FOR
ggr380, spring 2004.
The following links
lead to the various segments of the course outline being used in class this
semester. By having them available on the web, you can copy and paste
them into another document and then space out the items accordingly so that
you can take notes on the outline pages. Otherwise, you can simply
follow along in class with another notebook and take additional notes as
needed.
GGR 380, Geographic Thought and Methods
Prof. Tom Paradis
Spring 2004
COURSE OUTLINE 2004
I. THE DISCIPLINE OF GEOGRAPHY
1. In what ways is the field of geography unique from all other fields?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this very diverse field of
study?
3. Geographers ask three questions:
A. What is where?
B. Why is it there?
C. So what? (What are the implications? Why is it important?)
4. The field of geography focuses on issues of space and place.
A. SPACE: A natural force, like gravity
1. Friction of Distance: Resistance
to the flow through space of ideas, people, and
materials. The effect of location, or locational relationships.
B. PLACE: A historically contingent process.
1. Components of Place:
a. Locale
b. Location
c. Sense of Place
(AKA Place Attachment or Place Identity)
2. The processes of place are materialized
(manifested) in the human landscape.
II. INFLUENCE OF THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
1. Environmental Determinism (Dominant paradigm in geography, 1900-1930s)
Human goals, values, cultures, and patterns are the result
of (are determined by) the
physical environment (the explanatory variable).
Climate and topography affect people and
determine their decisions. Individuals and cultures
are therefore passive carriers of an
environmental determinist logic: all action, ingenuity
of people are subsumed by the environment: it
controls how people behave and create.
A simple, 2-variable relationship: 1) cause == environment,
2) people == dependent variable.
A. Examples:
1. Explain why societies at higher
latitudes reveal a higher degree of technological
advancement relative to those in the
Tropics (Theory advanced by Huntingdon, 1900)
- Weather and climate
extremes, combined with relatively cool and moist climates
compell people to
be creative, leading to a sophisticated culture.
- Societies with
relatively extreme heat and dryness exhibit less sophistication and simple
technology.
These people do not maintain the energy to busily create things and act on
ideas.
Critique: geographers started asking
why, then, are the “cradles of civilization” in the Middle
East? Mesopotamia, Egypt?
2. Explain why so many mountain
men rob passing travelers.
- Thesis (1901 by
Ellen Churchill Semple): The existence of mountains and passes has
the effect of turning
mountain dwellers into robbers of passing travelers. Case by case,
it
was clear that mountaineers,
isolated from society, had to subsist by robbing travelers.
- Critique: What
about those who did not rob but lived in mountain passes? Or those
who
rob travelers but
do not live in mountains?
B. By 1920, Environmental determinism realized as an insufficient
explanation for human patterns.
2. Geographical contingencies: a useful alternative to environmental
determinism.
Human patterns, decisions, and locations are contingent
upon the characteristics of the physical
environment; they are not, however, determined by the
environment. Humans are free to make
geographical decisions, but these decisions are necessarily
contingent upon, or informed by, the
environment.
III. REGIONALISM AND SPATIAL ANALYSIS
1. Regionalism
The dominant 1930s paradigm that replaced environmental
determinism as major force in
geographical study.
A. Ushers in the “Dark Ages” of Geography, 1930s-1950s.
B. Beginnings: Richard Hartshorne’s The Nature of
Geography, 1939.
Hartshornian regionalism: advocates the dividing up of
the globe into smaller, distinct units
called regions. Goal: to describe how one region
differs from another, and offer a detailed
geographical description of each region,
both physical and human characteristics.
C. Three positive attributes to regionalism of the
1930s:
1. Unique subject matter from other
academic fields: geography of regions
2. Unique academic perspective: Focus
on space (even today, only geography does this)
3. Unique methodology: Description
of uniqueness of places/regions (rather than
generalizing and searching for universal laws and models).
2. The Language of Regionalism:
Describing differences between areas of the earth’s surface.
A. Two types of regions:
1. Uniform regions: Or, formal or homogenous
region: An area in which the
selected characteristic
is present throughout at the same degree of intensity.
The selected characteristic
is either entirely present or entirely absent.
- hard to define sometimes
- EXAMPLE: the Sunbelt, Rustbelt, Snowbelt, Bible Belt,
Midwest, South.
- Sunbelt and Snowbelt criteria: climate, population,
wealth, growth,
industry
2. Functional Region: Or, nodal region,
is an area in which an activity has a
focal point, weather
cultural, economic, political, or otherwise. Maintains a
dynamic internal
structure more than a homogeneity. The characteristic
dominates at the
central node, diffuses toward the outer part of the region, and
eventually disappears.
This tailing-off phenomenon is known as distance
decay.
3. The Decline of Regionalism:
A. Criticized for lack of explanatory power, increasing
debate about validity of true regions.
B. Replaced by a new paradigm of Spatial Analysis
in the 1950s/60s
1. Goal: to make geography like a spatial
science, much like physical sciences.
a. Reductionist
in its tendency.
b. Reduced the world
to its pure, geometrical form, namely represented by points and
lines: the rise of quantitative geography, focusing on mathematics and statistics.
4. Logical Positivism: The rise of Spatial Analysis (The “Quantitative
Revolution”)
A research approach that advances knowledge by a reference
to empirical events.
Empiricism: Cause and Effect; Things directly observable
and sensible are relevant for
geographical studies.
A. Positivist terms:
1. hypothesis. A statement capable
of being tested with empirical data. Key part of the
scientific method.
2. law. A statement that is verified
and has universal application.
3. induction. A mode, or type,
of reasoning. One generates hypotheses on the basis of
numerous numerical
observations. (from specific to general). Example: I have seen
5,000 red ducks.
Therefore, I hypothesize that all ducks are red.
4. deduction. Opposite of induction.
One obtains hypotheses through a generalized
body of knowledge
(from general to specific). Example: I know that animals exist.
I know that they
are all red. Therefore, all ducks must be red.
5. model. A simplified representation
of reality designed to reveal certain properties of
the real world.
Examples: Burgess concentric zone model (1925).
B. Primary paradigm of physical geography today.
1. Only observational statements can
have truth value. There is but one “truth”.
C. Human geography splinters in the 1970s, moves away
from positivism. Two dominant
paradigms, or schools of thought, emerge
to replace logical positivism:
1. Behavior School. Generally
believes that spatial models are not accurately
describing the world.
2. School of Relevance.
Generally rooted in liberal traditions: Seeking applied
solutions to social
and economic problems in the world. Emerges out of
social turmoil in
the US during the 1960s and 70s.
IV. THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE
1. The Cultural Landscape Approach
The variety that we observe in the landscape results from
different human actions across
the earth’s surface. Particular cultural and social
traits and actions produce distinctive
cultural landscapes. Landscapes can thus be “read”
like a text, for all to see and interpret.
A. Distinctive cultural landscapes result from three types
of differences: 1) Differences among
groups of people, 2) Differences among
periods of time, and 3) Differences across areas
of the earth’s surface.
1. Differences among groups of people
a. Culture: a body
of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits constituting a
distinct complex of tradition of ethnic, religious, or social group.
2. Differences among Periods of Time
Landscape is a biography
of a culture. It is the combined heritage of many
generations of human
effort – not just the product of contemporary communities.
Landscapes are inherited
from the past. To understand landscape is to understand a
culture, people,
and its changes through history.
a. Culture Hearth:
Heartland, source area, or major innovation center; place of origin of
a major culture. The region from which innovative ideas originate.
b. Doctrine of First
Effective Settlement: Not all cultural groups are effective in altering
the human landscape; the Native Americans in New England were first, but
they
weren’t as effective at creating cultural landscapes as the early Europeans
from
England. (Same with the French in the Midwest)
c. Diffusion: The
spread of a cultural concept across the landscape through time.
Generally related to friction of distance: cultural ideas spread faster as
friction of
distance decreases.
d. Acculturation:
the modification of a culture as a result of contact with a more powerful
and influential culture. Two main possibilties/outcomes:
1. Weaker culture is obliterated.
2. Weaker culture transformed into new culture.
e. Sequent Occupance
(Sequence of occupancy): The process of successive
occupation of the landscape by different cultural groups. Cultural landscapes
reflect the influence of different culture groups at different periods of
time. Each
group, in its turn, modifies the landscape in unique and characteristic ways.
If a
region is occupied by a group of people that possesses attitudes, objectives,
and
technical skills different from the previous occupants, the landscape will
be modified.
1. Sudden, historic “leaps”: Cultural change generally occurs in leaps, due
to
great events such as war, depressions, or inventions.
f. Heritage: Distinction
between history and heritage is vital: history explores and
explains pasts grown ever more opaque over time; heritage clarifies pasts
so as to
infuse them with present purposes. Heritage, no less than history,
is essential to
knowing and acting within a particular culture. Legends of origins
and endurance, of
victory or calamity, project the present back, the past forward.
1. Positive implications of heritage:
2. Negative implications of heritage:
3. Heritage today is more substantial, social, and secular than ever.
Three
dimensions of its enlargement merit attention:
a) From the elite and grand to the vernacular and everyday
b) from the remote
to the recent
c) from the material to the intangible.
3. Differences between areas on the
earth’s surface (at any scale).
The functional and
uniform region (see above)
2. Landscape patterns that reflect American cultural values, changing
tastes and interests.
A. Architectural Style: reflecting
large-scale cultural movements throughout American history.
1. Colonial
America: The Colonial Styles (1600 – 1790)
a. Georgian
Features: symmetrical façade, two stories, two
rooms deep, “4 over 4,” hipped or
Gable roof. Large central or
end chimneys. (Also, the “half Georgian” row house)
b. Federal
Features: Georgian with fanlights, paladian windows, balustrade,
occasional oval room.
c. Spanish Colonial
Features: simple adobe construction, vigas, flat roof,
similar to Indian pueblos.
2. Greek Revival:
the New Nationalism (popular 1800 – 1840s, through 1860s in West)
Features: classical columns, temple front, dentil cornice,
squared-off entryway
3. Romanticism:
the Romantic styles (1840s – 1880s)
a. Gothic Revival
Features: pointed arch windows, emphasis on vertical spires,
steeples, and siding;
picturesque (asymmetrical) massing
b. Italianate
Features: tall, round-arch windows, large cornice, brackets,
cupola, square tower,
low-pitched or flat roof with expansive
overhangs; symmetrical or picturesque
massing.
4. Victorian
Era: the Victorian styles (1860-1900):
a. Second Empire
Features: Mansard roof, Italianate form with pavilions
(central or end). Tall, arched
windows, occasional square tower.
b. Romanesque
Features: Heavy, masonry (stone or brick) construction,
round-arched entryway,
windows; Picturesque massing, thicker lower walls, cavernous
entryways, multi-colored.
c. Queen Anne
Features: variety of shapes, styles, features, picturesque
massing, very eclectic!
5. Eclectic Movement:
A simultaneous competition of numerous styles, both past and
modern. (strong by 1910)
a) Period styles: pure copies of historical styles (1920s)
1. Tudor Revival
2. Colonial Revival
3. Dutch Colonial
4. English (Picturesque) Cottage
5. Spanish Revival
6. Neoclassical
b) Modern styles: anti-historic: search for a new order of national architecture.
NO style.
1. Craftsman Bungalow (1903-1920s)
2. Art Deco/Art Moderne (1924-1940)
3. International (1950s-1970s)
6. Postmodernism:
Reaction to Modernity (1980s – present)
B. Front door/back door dichotomy.
1. Front door, front yard:
Expresses our public image. We invest great efforts
with our front doors, yards: we want
to impress, to keep up with neighbors and society.
The front represents semi-public
space: open for all to see; often see-through gates are
used to encourage viewing.
2. Back door, back yard:
Backs of buildings are just as important because image
is NOT a priority. The backyard
is the opposite of the front. It’s used for private
space, to entertain, to store materials not
to be seen by the public. Often, the back yard is
a private space, often an “extra room,”
for spillover from the house.
3. Cultural dichotomy: between front and back, public and private
C. Break (in the landscape)
A break in the landscape occurs when there is an abrupt, visible switch from
one type of
human landscape to another. Breaks can be subtle or obvious.
They are most often defined
by transitions in land use, street grid plans, time/era of development, or
cultural contrasts.
D. Sink
Sinks are places of last resort into which people or groups in society shunt,
shove, dump, and
Pour whatever, or whomever, they do not like or cannot use, such as auto
carcasses,
garbage, trash, minority groups. Sinks are usually found in non-public
spaces, hidden away
down alleys, stream channels, behind businesses, along railroad right-of-ways,
or on the
periphery of town.
E. The View/Viewshed
The Viewshed is simply a “seen area,”
usually a natural landscape feature, area, or corridor.
The View can be defined as “an unnamed
part of the visible universe. Now, the viewshed
has become a technical term within
planning and landscape architecture, and government
policy. Americans take views/viewsheds
very seriously, a cultural trait. We value our
“natural,” and “country” landscapes
and other open spaces for their aesthetic qualities,
our natural ecosystems, and their economic
importance for elevating property values (of
houses “with a view of the golf course”).
F. Defensive Space or Turf
Within the past generation, security
became a growth sector of the American environment,
both on national and local scales.
One of the fastest growing generic places in America
during the Cold War, security found
itself manifested in countless lobbies, entries, buildings,
neighborhoods, Indian Reservations,
and regions, the most familiar being the airport check-
in. While America attempts to
remain “secure” from foreign attack, as evidenced by the
military budget and constant reminders
of terrorist risks, neighborhood groups have created
“neighborhood watch groups” to prevent
crime and neighborhood associations and gated
communities to defend their property
values and visual appeal. We have become a very
secure-conscious culture, and it shows
up in the landscape in many ways. The idea of
“defending your turf” with “keep-out”
signs and “24-hour security” is analogous to “security”.
V. THE INFLUENECE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
1. Basic concepts of Economic Geography.
A. Scarcity: the fact that the world’s resources are limited
in their supply, and therefore
have a value.
B. Four basic questions of economic geography: will be
manifested in the landscape.
1) What should be produced, and at
what level, or scale, of production?
2) How, or with what combination of
techniques, labor, and capital inputs, should the
output be produced?
3) Where should the output be produced?
Related question: once spatially dispersed
economic activity exists, why is it there?
4) After producing the output at geographical
locations, exactly which groups should
receive what share of the goods and services? Who will receive the goods?
C. The Political Economy: regional and local economic
systems coexist with the role of
politics and the dominant political
system. There are four political economic systems of the
world:
• Pure capitalism
• Command economy (Usually associated with communism)
• Mixed political economy (fascism, socialism)
• Subsistence economies (peasant agriculture)
2. Political Economic Factors that explain American human landscapes:
A. Pure Capitalism: dominant U.S. political economic system
(AKA Market Economy)
1. Questions of entrepreneurs:
a. What: only profitable
products produced, based on supply/demand.
b. How: technology,
labor, skills, etc.
c. Where: lowering
of production costs through wise locations.
2. Location: Locational patterns of
cities/towns:
a. Transportation
centers
break of bulk point: a point in transit when bulk goods
must be removed
from one mode of transport and installed on another.
b. Specialized
function centers.
c. Central places:
all settlements are central places.
B. Economies of scale: for some industries and firms,
average costs of a firm decreases
as the scale of production increases.
Average costs decrease as output increases.
Thus, expanding output leads to lower
costs, a growth incentive. Key for understanding why
economic activities concentrate in
cities.
1. Ways in which economies of scale
come about:
a. Direct management control: decreasing labor, capital costs through
increased specialization, more efficient machines, etc.
– these lower the
average cost of firms as they grow in size.
b. Declining average costs as cities increase their scale of activity.
Cost reductions: mainly from technologies that stimulate
production at a scale
only possible through firm specialization. As a
result of transportation costs,
specialization leads to geographic clustering which in
turn promotes more
specialization and clustering.
C. Transportation costs: directly correlated with distance.
Profit-maximizing firms select sites
close to their inputs, to other firms,
or to consumers who buy their products. Incentives to
concentrate are intensified by existing
transportation routes that provide a high degree of
access to only a limited number of
geographic areas.
D. Economic Rent: the monetary return from the use of
land after the costs of production
and marketing have been deducted.
A relative measure of the advantage of one parcel of
land over another. Whichever
land use is most profitable may be the land use that takes
hold. The changing pattern of
economic rent in city can be examined through land values,
the outcome of the bidding process
for sites. Tax assessment offices and real estate
appraisers make regular estimates of
values of sites on the basis of sales of adjacent or
similar lots elsewhere in city. Thus,
it is the assessed land values (used for property tax
purposes) that are frequently used
as indicators of the theoretical economic rent at particular
locations.
E. Speculation
Amount of rent (land values) is not
determined by balance between supply and demand, or
by what people can “afford” to pay.
Instead, price is driven by competitive bidding on a fixed
resource by investors who assume that
the future price will be greater than the present one.
This is the essence of speculation,
and any investment that turns on such an envisioned
outcome can be defined as speculative.
** For places, investment
levels are set by anticipated social and economic outcomes,
by expectations of what other people
will do and expected locational situations. Thus, NO
economic principle, theoretical or
empirical, can explain when this will happen, or even if it
will happen at all. It is a social
process as much as an economic one. Property values/rent
levels are always subject to the “madness
of human beings,” as Sir Isaac Newton said of
people’s financial speculations.
3. Three dominant processes through which individuals organize to accomplish
goals and to transform place:
1. Politics (oldest of the three)
- Sphere of authority,
in which the legitimacy, power, office, or persuasiveness of some
persons induces
others to accept their judgment and command as the basis for action.
- Often symbolized/manifested
by the Government (local, state, federal levels)
2. The Market
- governed by the
principle of exchange: the free market economy based on supply
and demand.
Expansion depends upon growth of capital accumulation and investment.
3. Civil Society
- all voluntary
associations based on shared principles, loyalties, or sentiments:
families, churches,
neighborhood groups, nonprofit organizations, etc.
- Market and Politics
are imperfect social structures, do not benefit everyone.
- Civil Society
is often the only recourse to transform society for people’s benefit.
4. Use Values and Exchange Values
• A useful explanation for understanding the geographies
of contested space
• Combines social, economic, and cultural processes to
understand places.
1. Any given piece of land/real estate
has both a use value and exchange value.
Use value: the social, behavioral,
or sentimental values of property or geographic space.
Exchange value: The economic value
of land/property. The concept of property as a
Commodity, for the exchange of property
in a market economy. These values appear
as rent: outright purchases, payments
made to landlords, realtors, mortgage lenders.
The reality is that property (land,
buildings) is both a social and economic phenomenon, or a
human construct. Property (and
the human landscapes that land includes) is not a typical
commodity that subscribes only to economic
“laws” of supply and demand.
2. Example: An apartment building provides
a “home” for residents (use value) while at the
same time generating rent for the owners.
Individuals and groups differ in which aspects
of values (use or exchange) are
the most crucial to their own lives.
Sharpest conflict tends to occur between
residents, who use place to satisfy essential
use values, or needs of life, and entrepreneurs,
who strive to satisfy exchange values for
financial return, ordinarily achieved
by intensifying the use to which their property is put (e.g.
speculation).
The simultaneous push for both goals
is inherently contradictory and a continuing
source of tension, conflict, and rational
and irrational decisions and behaviors. Thus, the
economic exchange of properties must
be viewed in a social context.
5. The Urban Growth Machine (more loosely defined as growth coalitions)
1. Those seeking exchange value
often share a common interest with others who control
property, capital, and investments
in a particular place. We call them place entrepreneurs.
Place entrepreneurs attempt (at any
geographical scale), through collective action and
often in alliance with other business
people, to create conditions that will intensify future
land use in an area. A well-organized
coalition of interlocking pro-growth agents
(including both individuals and groups)
makes up what Harvey Molotch calls the
growth machine.
2. Associations within growth
machines unite behind a doctrine of value-free development,
the notion that free markets alone
should determine land use. In the entrepreneur’s view,
land-use regulation endangers both
society at large and the specific localities favored as
production sites (or for any business
venture).
3. Typical Agents/Actors belonging
to the Growth Machine (not comprehensive):
• City government (Mayor and city council)
• Chambers of commerce
• Politicians
• Local media
• Utilities
• Universities
• Business groups and corporations
• Museums, theaters, expositions
• Professional sports
• Organized Labor
• Self-employed professionals and small retailers
• Convention and visitors bureaus (CVB)
4. Because the competition for
growth does not ordinarily work on their behalf, residents
often create organizations, or interest
groups, of their own to sustain the use values of the
places in which they live.
Neighborhood scale: block clubs, neighborhood crime watch, etc.
5. Contests regarding the transformation
or development of places commonly results from
local or regional struggles between
use-value coalitions (e.g. neighborhood groups) and
exchange value coalitions (the growth
machine). Thus, contested space can also be
conceptualized as a conflict of interest
between Civil Society and Free Market (see above).
VI. Landscapes of Globalization
Globalization: the increasing interconnectedness of people
and places throughout the
world through converging processes
of economic, cultural, and political change. The major
component of globalization has been
the economic reorganization of the world – mostly
during the last 4 decades.
1. Attributes and Factors contributing
to this recent round of globalization:
• Global communication systems that link all places simultaneously.
• Global transportation systems: move goods, people by
air, land, sea more quickly.
• The rise of multinational corporations that can do business
anywhere.
• International financial institutions (i.e. New York Stock
Exchange): 24 hour trading.
• Global agreements that promote free trade (often at the
expense of local markets).
• Increasing number of planetary goods and services to
fulfill consumer demand
(real or imaginary). e.g. Coca cola, Toyotas.
• Uneven investment and benefits: as some world regions
prosper, others fall behind.
• Increasing interactivity between local, regional, and
global scales.
2. Global Accumulation
Globalization is about the organization of production and the exploitation
of
markets on a world scale. Today’s globalization: greater realization
of historical
trends toward global capitalism. Global production and marketing depend
on
reduced space-time distanciation, and enhanced ‘presence-availability’ –
via new
computer communication systems, an electronic geography.
The strategic nodes of these electronic grids are the financial centers and
skyscrapers of world cities – the command and control centers of the global
economy, dictated by MNCs.
The whole process is centered around philosophy of the global product.
3. Global product: People gain
access to global information, develop global needs, demand
global commodities, become ‘global citizens’.
Examples: Nokia cell phones, Coke, Big Macs, Suburus,
TV shows
4. Global Culture
Economic globalization holds huge implications for cultures, identities,
ways of life.
The process of cultural convergence refers to the convergence of lifestyle,
culture,
behavior among consumers around the world – the emergence of a “shared culture”.
The resourceful MNC (global conglomerate) exploits regional and local difference.
Cultural products are assembled from all over the world and turned into
commodities for a new ‘cosmopolitan’ market place: world music and tourism,
ethnic arts, fashion, cuisine, Third World writing and cinema. The
local and exotic
are torn out of place and time to be repackaged for the world bazaar.
Example: global growth of ethnic markets:
“Everywhere there is Chinese food,
pita bread, country and western
music, pizza, and jazz. The global
pervasiveness of ethnic forms
represents the cosmopolitanisation
of specialty. Again, globalization
does not mean the end of segments [local
differences]. It means,
instead, their expansion to world-wide
proportions.”
** Globalization is not just a process of de-localization, but re-localization
as well.
** Globalization is a dialectical (contradictory) process.
5. Re-localization
• Localities now bypass the nation-state to deal directly
with MNCs, world bodies, foreign governments, but they do not do so on equal
terms. Whether to attract a new car factory or the Olympic games, they
do so in competition with each other: cities and localities are struggling
fiercely against each other to attract footloose and predatory investors
to their particular place.
• Some localities successfully “switch” themselves into
the global networks,
but others remain “unswitched” or even “unplugged”.
With increased mobility of
capital and the recycling of space, even those “plugged
in” to the global system
are always vulnerable to abrupt disinvestment and withdrawal
from the global
system.
6. Enterprise Culture and Heritage
Culture
a. Enterprise culture:
a cultural process of responding to the new global conditions
of accumulation. In all sectors and industries, American capital and
companies must
adapt to new global economic conditions – from pharmaceuticals to
telecommunications, from automobiles to financial services – global effeciency
dictates that companies conform to ideals of placelessness.
Thus, enterprise culture acts to refine and dilute local cultures and identities
in
favor of an increasingly homogenous, international culture. It is the
culture of capitalism.
b. Heritage Culture:
a countering force to enterprise culture. Associated with
globalization processes is an increasing sensitivity to even small differences
of
particular locations: celebrating uniqueness and particularity in the face
of global
homogenization.
Thus, in this age of globalization, it is necessary to both minimize and
maximize traditional/local cultural forms and distinctiveness: the global-
local nexus of enterprise and heritage cultures. BOTH are manifested
in the
human landscape.
VII. The Influence of Centralized Authority
1. Centralized Authority: The decisions
and actions of federal, state, or local government
bodies and the various laws, processes,
and organizations that they put into effect. Such
actions have profoundly impacted our
human and physical landscapes, both directly and
indirectly. Central Authority
is both enabling and constraining through the laws passed.
2. Enabling legislation: The laws passed
by governing bodies that allow, control, or restrict
actions taken by municipalities, businesses,
and other organizations.
3. Examples of landscapes influenced
or created by centralized authorities
A. Federal Government
1. Township and Range Survey System
- Federal Land Ordinance of 1785.
2. U.S. Highway system and Interstate Freeway System
- Federal-aid Highway Act of 1956.
3. Government facilities, monuments, symbols in states, counties,
- Core of central authority: Washington, D.C.
4. Government-controlled public lands: National parks, BLM, Forest Service,
etc.
B. State Government
1. Capital city: hub of government activities and decision-making
2. Enabling legislation for counties and cities (municipalities)
3. State highways, state programs and their associated facilities
C. County Government
1. The County Seat: hub of government activities and decision-making
2. Zoning and land use laws: comprehensive plans
D. City Government
1. City facilities: hub of government activities and decision-making
2. Zoning and land use laws: comprehensive plans