Items Vol. 24 No. 2 (1970)

Page 1

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

VOLUME 24 NUMBER 2 JUNE 1970 230 PARK AVENUE¡ NEW YORK, N.Y. 10017

GEOGRAPHY AS A SOCIAL SCIENCE: EXCERPTS FROM THE REPORT OF THE GEOGRAPHY PANEL OF THE BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES SURVEY * selected by Edward

have long been concerned with providing accurate descriptions and explanations of man's spatial organization of his environment. In both regional and topical studies, considerable emphasis has been placed upon map analysis, both to portray complex spatial patterns and processes in a simplified fashion and to examine the manner in which they coincide with each other. Earlier work in agricultural geography examined relationships between the patterns shown on agricultural land-use maps and such physical patterns as landforms and soil. Later studies greatly expanded the number and nature of the variables considered. Patterns of settlement, transportation, voting behavior, social attitudes, and a variety of other measures of human activity were examined and compared at different geographic scales. An example of the study of spatial patterns is the urban geographer's work on the interrelation between land values, population densities, and distance from the center of the city. Maps of land values have consistently shown a decline with distance from the central business district. A study by Knos shows a typical decline of land values in relation to distance from a central business GEOGRAPHERS

• These selections are reprinted (with minor changes) by permission of the publisher from GeograPhy, edited by Edward J. Taaffe (a Spectrum Book copyright by Prentice-Hall, Inc., and published on May 15, 1970). The Behavioral and Social Sciences Survey was jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council and the Social Science Research Council and conducted by a central planning committee whose members were chairmen and cochairmen of panels in various social science fields. The report of the Geography Panel is the fourth panel report published (see page 24 infra).

J. Taaffe

district in Topeka, Kansas. l The extraordinary steepness of this decline illustrates the high value placed on central locations in American cities. As in many other metropolitan areas of the United States, the land value surface can be approximated by postulating that values decline exponentially with distance from the central business district. More general descriptive equations were developed to express not only the relation between land values and distance, but other important variables such as proximity to major thoroughfares, proximity to smaller secondary nodes of commercial activity in the city, and location within different socioeconomic areas of the city. The variation of such relationships with time has been illustrated by studies of the changes in land value surfaces in Chicago. In 1910 there was a close relationship between land values and distance from the central business district, as well as from the elevated railway lines. In succeeding decades both land-value and population-density slopes tended to flatten out. 2 In 1960 there was no longer a consistent decline in land values in all directions from the central business district. s Low land values were concentrated in the western and southern parts of the city, showing the increasingly strong influence of such factors as racial composition 1 Duane S. Knos, The Distribution of Land Values in Topeka, Kansas, University of Kansas, Bureau of Business and Economic Research, May 1962, especially Figures 1-5. 2 Brian J. L. Berry, Geography of Market Centers and Retail Distribution, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967, Figure 6.5. 3 Maurice Yeates, "Some Factors Affecting the Spatial Distribution of Chicago Land Values, 1910-1960," Economic Geography, 41(1):57-70 (1965), Figures I, 2.

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