Forecasting in Economic Geography

Economic-geographic forecasting is intended to predict the dynamics of the interplay between nature and society and to serve as the basis for economic development plans. Because of the large number of variables involved, probability analysis may be expected to play an important role in economic-geographic forecasts. One approach suggested is the analysis of chain reactions involved in various energy-and-production cycles, the name given to integrated economic-geographic systems based on the use of a given set of energy and raw-material sources.     

历史经济地理学的问题和机遇——以近代经济地理为例

对历史经济地理进行清晰的学科边界界定,既无必要,亦无可能,不妨将其视为一个研究领域.该领域关注的核心问题应是历史时期的经济活动在空间上的展开过程和空间分布.这个领域是历史学、经济学、地理学三个学科的交叉地带.     

Methodological Problems in Economic Geography

The author uses the techniques of paleogeography and archeology to trace climatic fluctuations in inner Asia and the rise of nomadism in the 1st millennium B. C. replacing a settled mode of stock herding and agriculture. Previous papers in this series appeared in Soviet Geography, June 1964 and February 1966.     

A Classification of Models in Economic Geography

Models used in economic geography are classified on the basis of a general scientific classification of models which distinguishes two broad categories: ideal and material models. Ideal models are further categorized as visual, symbolic, and mathematical models, and material models as natural, physical, and mathematical models. Examples of each type are suggested. Other possible typologies of models can be devised; for example, logical, graphic, and mathematical models, representing a logical progression of scientific research. Models can be divided into general and particular models, depending on whether they treat aggregates or individual aspects. The complete model of a regional territorial-production complex would be a system of general and particular models. In terms of content, models can be classified as structural, functional, or synthetic (structural-functional) models. Finally, there could be a typology distinguishing static and dynamic models, nonoptimized and optimized models, and varying categories of prediction (models of an existing situation, planning models, predictive models).     

Teaching Economic Geography in Two Contrasting Asian Contexts: Decentering Anglo-American Economic Geography in China and Singapore

Teaching economic geography outside Anglo-American countries presents a particular pedagogical challenge, as theories and concepts developed in these countries might not be directly applicable outside their intellectual and national contexts. In this paper, the authors show how the peculiar institutional and development environments in China and Singapore have shaped the ways in which the economic geography curriculum is developed and taught in institutions of higher education. They also examine how students respond to the intellectual challenges presented to them. In their view, successful pedagogy in teaching economic geography requires a significant degree of localization of the curriculum.     

蓟、燕分封与北京地区早期城市地理问题

周初在今北京地区分封蓟、燕二国,蓟在北,燕在南,两国各自建有都城,所知北京地区城市发展的历史即由此二城开始。蓟为武王褒封,代表当地旧族。燕为成王时封,时间略晚于蓟,代表周人北进势力。后燕盛,灭蓟,徙都蓟城。从历史地理角度观察,燕城（董家林古城）虽在政治上强大一时,但因交通地理条件所碍,遂被放弃。而蓟城位置优于燕城,故为历代沿用,发展壮大。蓟城是北京城市历史地理本质的代表者,是严格意义的今北京城的前身。     

近代经济地理的研究历程

近代经济地理学经过二十多年的发展,现已成为历史地理诸学科中重要的学科方向,并受到历史学、地理学、经济学等相关学科的重视.对近代经济地理研究进行必要的学术史回顾,为下一步的研究指出新的学术起点,意义是不言而喻的.     

On new Directions in the Development of Soviet Economic Geography

A review of new research areas in Soviet economic geography distinguishes three categories of topics in terms of the level of advance and the volume of research being done. The most viable new areas, with a large number of studies, include the resource-oriented approach to economic geography and the systems approach to settlement geography. In other research areas, such as the geography of services and the geography of land use, only the first steps are being made. The lag in land-use studies behind the West is explained in terms of the large territory of the USSR, which is said to have made this type of research unnecessary until recently. The potentialities of some research areas are only just beginning to be perceived, notably in the case of studies on spatial value relationships, involving regional accounts and balance of payments.     

Socialist Geography in England: J. F. Horrabin and a Workers' Economic and Political Geography

This paper examines the life and geographical writings of the English socialist J.F.("Frank") Horrabin (1884–1962) and his attempts to construct a socialist geography. Horrabin was an active socialist in the Labour Party, Fabian Society, and other leftwing groups and very involved in working-class education through the Plebs League and National Council of Labour Colleges. He was also a journalist, cartoonist, and gifted cartographer. His 1923 text An Outline of Economic Geography , which sold in large numbers and was translated into nine other languages, attempted to provide workers with an account of economic (and political and historical) geography that used bourgeois "pure geography" but put it within a socialist and historical–materialist framework. Unlike Germany and some other countries, England did not have a strong Marxist theoretical tradition, and Horrabin's approach does not develop theory (though it did attract the admiration of the German Marxist Karl Wittfogel). Rather, it sets out to be engaged in practical political education. Horrabin's work was developed within a particular context, but his geographical writings (and pioneering political cartography) exemplify one way of linking geography with political practice, and this paper examines these relationships. Many of Horrabin's concerns find echoes in current radical geography, and his work deserves belated recognition and a place in the history of geography.     

The use of Savings-Bank Statistics in Economic Geography

Soviet savings-bank statistics are examined as a potential source of data in economic-geographic research, with particular reference to four distinctive areas of Donetsk Oblast (Yenakiyevo, a large coal-steel city; Debal'tsevo, a middle-size railroad town; a suburban rural area; and a purely rural area). The average deposit balance in rural areas tends to be larger and more stable than in cities. City dwellers view savings banks as a place for keeping temporarily available money while rural residents use the banks for savings for particular purposes (home building, automobile purchase, etc.). The coefficient of territorial concentration (the ratio of the mean deposit in the local area to the mean deposit in the oblast as a whole) reflects differences in income levels. The mean deposit tends to be highest in suburban rural areas, where employment in the central city is supplemented by the sale of produce from private garden plots. Income levels in Yenakiyevo, with its high-paid labor force in the coal and steel industries, are higher than among the railroad workers of Debal'tsevo. Changes in deposit balances through the year also reflect urban and rural peculiarities in family incomes and expenditures.     

Economic Geography at the 1960 International Geographical Congress

The author compares the scope of economic-geography papers at the Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm congresses, discusses William William-Olsson's book on Stockholm, and analyzes a number of congress papers with an economic-geographic content.