The Place of Regional Economic Geography in the System of Geographical Sciences

The author holds that regional geography cannot be regarded as an independent geographic discipline because it lacks its own system of laws, such as the natural laws that operate in physical geography and the social laws that operate in economic geography. He agrees with the view that both physical and economic geography fall into theoretical and regional departments, and that regional studies test the localized application of the general laws formulated by the theoretical departments of the two great divisions of geography.     

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.     

Putting Geography in its Place

Work on the history of geographical knowledge and practice frequently draws inspiration from theoretical insights developed elsewhere in the academy. After briefly touching on some of these historiographical matters, I argue that geographers might make some telling interventions into this debate by attending to some of their own key concepts – space, site, location – and disclosing their significance for elucidating the history of intellectual traditions. The fact that historians of science have begun to remark on the role of ‘place’ in knowledge production and consumption further confirms the value of this ‘geographical turn’. Subsequently I dwell on the implications of a spatialised historiography for work on the history of geography itself, and urge that ‘the history of geography’ might profitably be reconceptualised as ‘the historical geography of geography’.     

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.     

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 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.     

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.     

The Work of the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1958

The author defines satellites primarily on the basis of their commuting links with the central city or cities. He discusses characteristics of satellite cities and towns and their functions, trends in the development and location of satellites, and recommendations for Soviet city planning. In the following translation, the Russian term gorod has been translated as city, and poselok gorodskogo tipa (urban-type settlement) as town.     

Applications of Mathematics to Population Geography

Three levels of application of mathematics are considered in order of increasing complexity. The first level involves measurements of processes and phenomena, the second the derivation of empirical relationships, and the third the construction of deductive models reflecting the basic mechanism of processes and phenomena. Examples of the three levels are given: Boyce's city-shape index illustrates the first; and Clark's formula for population density within cities is given as an example of the second. The second level is also illustrated by Medvedkov's procedure for forecasting the interplay of natural and mechanical movement of population, involving the use of matrix algebra. On the third level, Medvedkov constructs models of flows of pedestrians doing their shopping on their way home from work to determine an optimal distribution of retail outlets.     

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.