GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

There are many types of housing development patterns throughout the world.  This article provides a summary of approximately 20 different housing patterns with a visual example demonstrate the impact on the urban footprint (Pictured above is an example of new urbanism in Boulder, CO).  Each neighborhood has distinct cultural amenities and attracts particular socioeconomic market segments. 

Questions to Ponder: What housing patterns are you drawn to?  How come?  What are the advantages for the residents to live in that type of community?  What are the impacts that the housing pattern has on the physical environment and the urban system?  What systems are most profitable for developers?  How does the layout of the neighborhood alter the sense of place?  

Tags: housing, urban, planning, density, urbanism, unit 7 cities.

The highway system (and the widespread usage of air conditioning) in the later half of the 20th century dramatically changed the population settlement patterns of the United States and reshaping our cities.

Tags: transportation, urban, planning, density, unit 7 cities.

This startling image is a powerful testament to the adaptive nature of many species to the urban environment.  Some species will adapt in beautiful ways such as this tree, while other will adapt is ways that go against our plan for that urban space (think rats, pigeons and cockroaches).  We adapt to our environment and the environment adapts to us as well; but that relationship is not always peaceful and symbiotic.  We can also destroy ecosystems that are fragile and not as resilient to change as this tree is.  See this same tree’s root network one year later. 

Tags: urban ecology, environment adapt, sustainability, biogeography.

Citizen cartographers have edited Google’s North Korea map, putting information on what was previously an absence of data concerning one of the most secretive countries in the world.  In essence, as explained in this video, Google is crowd-sourcing the map.  How might this geographic knowledge change our perception of North Korea?  How might the dissemination of this information affect North Korea?  

 Tags: North Korea, mapping, cartography.

This can work if authors and publishers walk away from a lucrative industry…(I’m not holding my breath).  As long as there is money to be made and until the highest quality textbooks in the field are free, there won’t be a major changes in the industry.  Personally though, I LOVE the idea.   

France is famous for trying to slow the linguistic diffusion of globalization’s most powerful online language (which also happens to belong to their age-old cultural and political rival).  France has a commission dedicated to removing new words that have English origins with one’s that have linguistic roots in French.  Recently then have done away with the Twitter term #hashtag to #mot-dièses.  This video criticizes this cultural practice and it is also derided in this NPR article. 

However this does not mean that France is immune to cultural pressure to change linguistic traditions.  There was been a movement to alter the term Mademoiselle from official documents with a new title that allows women the freedom to choose the form of address that they prefer (and not to force them to reveal their marital status–think Ms. vs Miss).

Questions to Ponder: Why (and how) do languages change over time?  Is it possible to keep a language ‘pure?’

Tags: language, culture, globalization, unit 3 culture, France.

Pictured above is a still image of an interactive digital globe with population density data with colored bar graphs to symbolize the data.  This is a great open-source platform for geographic data visualization. There are not many data layers currently, but possibly there will be more in the future (best viewed in Google Chrome).  

Tags:  population, demographics, unit 2 population, visualization, mapping.

“There is perhaps nothing more closely bound up with one’s national identity than food. Specific local dishes are often seen as the embodiment of various cultures and many nations promote their food as a celebration of national identity. Sometimes, however, a country’s cuisine can also be used to highlight national rivalries.” 

This opening paragraph nicely shows how cultural traditions from a similar cultural hearth may have much in common.  However, since these groups are neighbors, the geopolitical relationship may be strained despite the cultural commonalities. 

Tags: food, culture, unit 3 culture.