Geography Chapter 3

Spatial Interaction and Spatial Behavior

  1. Spatial interaction - the movement of goods, people, and ideas within and between areas. Resources and human efforts are not uniformly distributed.
     
    1. Interaction flows are shaped by flow-determining factors:
       
      • Complementarity Factors - compare supply at one point with demand elsewhere. (core/periphery relationships)
         
      • Transferability Factors - compare cost of movement to the value gained. (expression of commodity mobility)
         
        • Inter-related conditions:
           
          • Characteristics/value of product
             
          • Movement distance (time, money, other factors)
             
          • Ability of commodity to bear cost of movement
       
    2. Intervening Opportunity - closer alternatives that reduce the attractiveness of longer-distance interactions.
       
      • Friction of distance - distance has a retarding effect on interaction due to increasing penalties in time and cost.
         
      • Gravity Model (a model of spatial interaction) - The attractive force existing between areas is related to the force of gravity.
         
        • Distance is often calculated as travel time or cost.
           
        • Suggests that the size of interacting places as well as the distance between them is important in predicting spatial exchanges.
         
      • Law of Retail Gravitation - explains how large cities have greater drawing power than smaller ones.
         
        • Where you shop, according to this model depends upon where you are in relationship between the 2 cities.
           
        • Are the goods available at a larger city worth the cost of travel?
         
      • Interaction Potential - since the world is more than just 2 places (we are usually offered more than 2 opportunities in choice making) all places within a region act upon each other.
         
      • Potential model - tells the relative position of each point in relation to all other points - maps the intensity of spatial interaction.
       
    3. Patterns of spatial interaction, once established, tend to affect the conditions under which future interactions will occur.
       
      • These patterns result in:
         
        • Movement bias - determines the regularity of flow.
           
        • Distance bias - short distance over long.
           
        • Direction bias - actual flows are restricted to a few directions.
           
        • Network bias - A network is a set of routes and the places they connect. The presence or absence of connecting channels (roads, bus routes, air routes, etc.) strongly affects the likelihood of spatial interaction.
     
  2. Human Spatial Behavior
     
    1. Mobility vs.Migration
       
      • Mobility - all types of human territorial movement. Temporary uses of space that requires no relocation of residence.
         
      • Migration - Permanently leave a territory (a place).
       
    2. Individual Activity Space
       
      • Territoriality - emotional attachment and defense of a home ground.
         
      • Activity Space - area in which a person operates. The extent of activity differs in accordance with that person's age, sex, wealth, employment, etc. Daily activities are both space and time consuming.
         
      • Space-time Prism - the volume of space and length of time within which activities must be confined.
        Women's prisms tend to be more restrictive than men's.
      • Critical Distance - distance where cost, effort and means strongly influence willingness to travel.
       
    3. Information flows are a form of spatial interaction - space is different regarding information.
       
        Type of Information Flows:
         
        • Personal communication - person-to-person (informal, unstructured transmission of information).
           
        • Mass communication - source-to-area (formal, structured transmission of information).
       
    4. Mental maps summarize a person's acquired information and perceptions.
       
      • Near places are better known and preferred to distant ones.
           
      • Direction Bias - created by barriers to information flow, reflecting greater information flow in one direction regardless of the distance involved.
         
      • Perceptions of favorable climatic and other attractions and considerations of recognized natural hazards may also influence mental maps and bias.
         
        • Perception of Natural Hazards
           
          • Low-level hazards don't create negative space perceptions.
             
          • High-hazard areas - often posses desirable topographic characteristics (beaches, view, hillslopes, etc.).
             
          • Perception of natural hazard is a luxury - the poor don't have the option to relocate from areas with high levels of natural hazards.
       
    5. Migration - permanent relocation of a residential place.
      Migration has contributed to the evolution of human culture.
      3% of world population live in a country other than that of birth.
      • Principal Migration Patterns:
         
        • Intercontinental - historical spread of human activity and culture.
           
        • Intracontinental-Interregional - reflects a flight from dangerous environmental, political, economic or political conditions.
           
        • Rural-to-Urban - increasing as poor farmers move to cities to look for jobs or escape unrest. This movement puts pressure on urban resources and infrastructure - more so in developing countries than developed.
         
      • Types of Migration:
         
        • Forced migration - 12 million Africans brought to Western hemisphere as slaves.
           
        • Reluctant migration - international refugees or government colonization plans.
           
        • Voluntary migration - the majority of human migration.
         
      • Motivation for Migration:

        • Poverty - 30% of world population make less than $1/day.
           
        • Environmental refugees abandon land that can no longer support them.
         
      • Controls on Migration:
         
        • Place Perceptions are basic to decisions to migrate. Those decisions at any of several scales from intercontinental to local are affected by:
           
          • "pull factors" (positive) of perceived improvement in personal condition
             
          • "push factors" (negative) considerations of escape from home area dissatisfactions
           
        • Place Utility - the value placed on potential residential locations.
           
          • The decision to migrate is colored by personal factors of age, sex, career stage, and so forth.
             
          • The move may be reluctant rather than voluntary and therefore under different control mechanisms.
           
        • Incentives to migrate may be counterbalanced by migration barriers.
           
          • Resistance to or rejection of legal and illegal migrants by destination countries restricts free international movement.
         
      • Other Migration Terms:
         
        • Step Migration - movement from rural to urban environment in small steps:

          Rural → Small town → Small city → Large city → Urban
           
        • Chain Migration - established migrant flow where advance group of migrants provides links to others.
           
        • Counter Migration - return migration - 25% of migrants return to their place of origin.
           
        • Migration field - the area from which a place draws migrants.
           
        • Channelized Migration - tendency for migration to flow between areas linked economically, historically, culturally, etc.