Abstract
The 1960s witnessed many remarkable changes in the character and substance of research in economic and urban geography. These changes were associated mainly with the introduction of quantitative techniques and, later in the decade, some particular research methodologies borrowed from the behavioral sciences, especially psychology. One chronicler of these developments proclaimed triumphantly that “the substitution of quantitative approaches to problems formerly treated in descriptive verbal ways” represented “one of the greatest periods of intellectual ferment in the whole history of geography”1. It now seems most unlikely that this judgement will stand the test of time. It is already clear that the so-called quantitative revolution changed mainly the research techniques employed by economic and urban geographers and did little, at least directly, to channel their attention away from a traditional concern for the static location patterns of economic activities and the flows of people, goods, and services in economic settings which were sterile in respect to any acknowledgement, let alone analysis, of the prevailing value systems, be they political, societal, or individual.2 To the extent that there was a ‘revolution’ in the sixties it was a revolution in techniques and not one in the main thrusts of intellectual inquiry in economic and urban geography.3 It is perhaps this latter revolution that is underway today; some of the evidence in support of this contention is reviewed in this paper.
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Notes
P. R. Gould, ‘Methodological Developments Since the Fifties’, in C. Board, R. J. Chorley, and P. Hackett (eds.), Progress in Geography, I, 1969, p. 3.
I. Burton in ‘The Quantitative Revolution and Theoretical Geography’, in Canadian Geographer 7 (1963), 151–62.
See A. G. Wilson, ‘Theoretical Geography: Some Speculations’, in Transactions, The Institute of British Geographers No. 57 (1972), 31–44.
S. Folke, ‘Why a Radical Geography Must be Marxist’, in Antipode 4 (1972), 17.
A. Maclntyre, ‘Ideology, Social Science and Revolution’, in Comparative Politics 5 (1973), 334.
See G. Olsson, ‘Distance and Human Interaction: A Review and Bibliography’, in Bibliography Series, Regional Science Institute, No. 2 (1965).
ALTERNATIVES TO A POSITIVE ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 209
M. Webber, ‘The Meaning of Entropy Maximizing Models’, unpublished paper presented at Conference on Mathematical Land Use Theory, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, 1975.
E. S. Sheppard, ‘Entropy, Theory Construction and Spatial Analysis’, unpublished paper presented at Annual Meeting of American Geographers, Milwaukee, 1975.
L. Curry, ‘A Spatial Analysis of Gravity Flows’, in Regional Studies 6 (1972), 131–47.
A. D. Cliff, R. L. Martin and J. K. Ord, ‘Evaluating the Friction of Distance Param- eter in Gravity Models’, in Regional Studies 8 (1974), 281–86; L. Curry, D. A. Griffith and E. S. Sheppard, ‘Those Gravity Parameters Again’, in Regional Studies,forthcoming.
W. Tobler, ‘Spatial Interaction Patterns’, in Research Report, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis No. RR-75–19 (1975).
J. Hudson, ‘Geographical Diffusion Theory’, Studies in Geography, Northwestern University, Department of Geography, No. 19 (1972).
O. Davis, ‘A Dynamic Hotelling-type Model’, in Environment and Planning 7 (1975), 153–62.
J. Wolpert, ‘Departures from the Usual Environment in Locational Analysis’, in Annals, Association of American Geographers 60 (1970), 220.
M. Dear, ‘A Paradigm for Public Facility Location Theory’, in Antipode 6 (1974),29 W. Alonso, Location and Land Use, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, 1964.
E. Casetti, ‘Equilibrium Land Values and Population Densities in an Urban Setting’, in Economic Geography 47 (1971), 16–20.
G. Papageorgiou, ‘A Generalization of the Population Density Gradient Concept’, in Geographical Analysis 3 (1971), 121–27.
G. J. Papageorgiou and E. Casetti, ‘Spatial Equilibrium Residential Land Values in a Multicenter Setting’, in Journal of Regional Science 11 (1971), 385–89.
G. J. Papageorgiou, ‘On Spatial Consumer Equilibrium’, unpublished paper presented at Conference on Mathematical Land Use Theory, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, 1975.
E. Casetti, ‘Spatial Equilibrium in an Ideal Urban Setting with Continuously Distributed Incomes’, in London Papers in Regional Science 4 (1974), 129–40.
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L. King, E. Casetti and D. Jeffrey, ‘Economic Impulses in a Regional System of Cities: A Study of Spatial Interaction’, in Regional Studies 3 (1969), 213–18.
G. Bannister, ‘Modes of Change in the Ontario Economy’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Toronto, 1974, pp. 11–12.
L. J. King and J. J. H. Forster, ‘Wage Rate Change in Urban Labor Markets and Intermarket Linkages’, in Papers, Regional Science Association 30 (1973), 183–96.
R. Weissbrod, ‘Spatial Diffusion of Relative Wage Inflation’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geography, Northwestern University, 1974.
See for example M. Brodbeck (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1968.
D. Amedeo and R. G. Golledge, An Introduction to Scientific Reasoning in Geography, J. Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1975, p. 35.
For example see M. Echenique et al., ‘A Disaggregated Model of Urban Spatial Structure’, in Environment and Planning A6 (1974), 33–63.
M. F. Dacey, ‘Some Comments on Population Density Models, Tractable and Otherwise’. in Papers, Regional Science Association 27 (1971), 119–133.
M. J. Roberts, ‘On the Nature and Condition of Social Science’, Daedalus 103 (1974), 60.
M. L. Yeates and B. J. Garner, The North American City, Harper and Row, New York, 1971, p. 15.
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J. Robinson, Economic PhilosophyPelican, London, 1970, p. 102.
M. Rein, ‘The Fact-Value Dilemma’, Working Paper, Joint Center for Urban Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, No. 28 (1974), pp. 8–21.
W. Zelinsky, ‘The Demigod’s Dilemma’, in Annals, Association of American Geographers 65 (1975), 123–43.
D. Harvey, ‘Population, Resources, and the Ideology of Science’, in Economic Geography 50 (1974), 256–77.
G. Olsson, ‘Logics and Social Engineering’, Geographical Analysis 2 (1970), 361–75; S. Gale, ‘Inexactness, Fuzzy Sets and the Foundations of Behavioural Geography’, Geographical Analysis 4 (1972), 337–49.
D. Usher, ‘Some Questions About the Regional Development Incentive Act’, in Canadian Public Policy 1 (1975), 557–75.
J. Wolpert, A. Mumphrey and J. Seley, ‘Metropolitan Neighborhoods: Participation and Conflict Over Change’, Resource Paper, Commission on College Geography, Association of American Geographers No. 16 (1972).
M. Black, Models and Metaphors, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1962, pp. 236–37. 9°. Rein, op. cit., pp. 54–60.
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© 1979 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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King, L.J. (1979). Alternatives to a Positive Economic Geography. In: Gale, S., Olsson, G. (eds) Philosophy in Geography. Theory and Decision Library, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9394-5_9
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