Applications of Mathematics to Some Problems in Economic Geography

The author, a staff member of the Institute of Scientific Information of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, discusses some aspects of the use of mathematics in research on settlement geography. He develops a number of methods originated abroad, such as the nearest-neighbor distance and the Zipf rule on city-size distribution, and applies them to the study of patterns of urban settlements and the size and spacing of cities in national and regional systems.     

The Geography of Population and the Geography of Services

In discussing a methodology for a geography of services, a new branch of Soviet geographic research, the authors propose geographically meaningful classifications of services, the use of value and labor-input indicators, the problem of a typology of service regions, and other aspects of research in this new discipline. The geography of services is found to be closely related to population geography because of the correlation between the distribution of services and the distribution of population.     

Computer Simulation in Population Geography

Two concepts of models in geography are distinguished: one is a model in the form of an equation or system of equations; the other is a computer program that uses a simulation algorithm. The paper deals with the computer simulation aspect, distinguishing four levels of machine modeling: (1) programs for the methods of analysis generally used in geography, particularly, correlation and regression analysis; (2) programs for the analysis of settlement maps; (3) computer simulation of complex processes, such as R. L. Morrill's model of town growth in southern Sweden, using Monte Carlo simulation; (4) the use of computers in the analysis of theoretical problems, illustrated by R. S. Yuill's study of diffusion waves, also using the Monte Carlo method.     

The Place of Population Geography in the System of Population Sciences

The area of research that is considered the proper domain of population geography is defined. In addition to an areal approach to the analysis of various aspects of population, such as growth, structure, migration and settlement patterns, there is great need for synthetic regional population studies, integrating all aspects of population within a particular territory. Causal relationships must be explained and the study of population must be related to the study of economic location.     

The Second Interagency Conference on Population Geography

A theory that areal variations in economic development in the USSR (analyzed at the oblast level for most republics) depend on regional economic structure, economic policy, cultural factors, and the center-periphery dichotomy is tested via simple regression analysis, using retail sales per capita as the indicator of economic level. The independent variables are: share of urban population (for economic structure), investments (for economic policy), percentage of Moslem population (for the cultural factor), and distance from Moscow (for the periphery effect). All of these variables except distance were significant in explaining the real variation in retail sales per capita.     

Basic Trends in the Population Geography of Contemporary Cuba

Population changes in Cuba are analyzed on the basis of differential growth rates in provinces and urban centers. Three types of areas are distinguished: (1) those where population continues to be concentrated as a result of high growth rates exceeding the national average (notably major industrial towns and ports and rapidly developing agricultural areas); (2) areas recording absolute population increases, but at lower rates of growth than the national average; (3) areas in which population is declining.     

Dimensional Analysis: Some Applications In Human Geography

Dimensional analysis is introduced, and applications of it to human geography are considered. Primary and secondary dimensions are selected; techniques of dimensional analysis are used to derive and check a functional relationship drawn from central place theory, to test the dimensional implications of a power function (the Pareto gravity model), to disaggregate a theoretical parameter (the exponential distance decay coefficient), and to simplify a complex system of variables in agricultural location theory to a system of dimensionless products. Difficulties inherent in the application of dimensional analysis to human geography are discussed.     

The Planning of the Distribution of Production in Population Centers and Some Problems in Population Geography

A government official outlines some of the Soviet problems of settlement to which answers are expected from population geographers. They include: restrictions on excessive growth of large cities; promotion of industrial plant location in small and medium-size cities suffering from underemployment; prediction of ultimate population of large cities; determination of the optimal size and type of rural population centers. Population geographers are called upon to study large cities with a view to determining where further concentration of industry should be prohibited, and to select small cities suitable for plant location.     

Some Results of the Second National Interagency Conference on Population Geography

Population geography in the Soviet Union is found to be developing mainly in breadth without adequate theoretical gounding. Because of the growing interest in mathematical methods, which have yet to demonstrate their real research value, long-tested traditional methods (statistical, comparative, cartographic) are being neglected. The usefulness of large conferences as compared with small meetings on a specific topic is questioned. The present active interest in population geography is resulting in neglect of other branches of economic geography in the Soviet Union.     

九十年代我国人口地理学研究的瞻望

本文在分析我国人口形势的基础上,提出了九十年代结合我国人口实际情况开展人口地理研究的主要课题.同时对人口地理研究中理论与方法的提高也进行了讨论.     

Demographic Modeling of the Geography of Migration and Population: A Multiregional Perspective

This article focuses on the development and evolution of migration and population redistribution modeling within the spatial context of multiregional demography. It begins in 1965, when the state-of-the-art consisted largely of ideas and techniques imported from other disciplines (regression analysis, gravity models, Markov chains, and matrix cohort-survival population projection models) and then continues on to tell the story of multiregional demography, its evolution and emergence as a fully developed paradigm for studying the spatial dynamics of migration and population redistribution and, more recently, its approach for estimating the necessary migration input measures from inadequate data.     

Changes in the Geography of Population Centers in Connection with Creation of the Tsimlyansk Reservoir

The author discusses some of the problems involved in the resettlement of population from lands flooded by the filling of the Tsimlyansk Reservoir on the lower Don River in 1952 in connection with construction of the Volga-Don Canal.