Anticipating the Next Half‐Century of Geographical Analysis

Prompted by a series of panel sessions at a recent American Association of Geographers annual meeting entitled “A Globe‐Shaped Crystal Ball: The Next Fifty Years of Geographical Analysis,” participants were asked to speculate on the future of the journal, which of course has broader implications for spatial and geographic analytics. In what follows, I provide my thoughts on the journal as a reader, contributor, referee, and former editor of Geographical Analysis. The major points touched upon include the following. First, application to address substantive concerns will come to dominate the field. Second, the spatial data deluge will continue unabated, but will lead to important advances because of better detail and less abstraction of reality. Third, analytical methods will evolve specifically for big data. Fourth, the point‐and‐click revolution will result in ever more use of spatial analytics, but also will lend itself to greater and more widespread abuse of these methods. Fifth, addressing assumptions and theoretical foundations of long utilized approaches will revolutionize a new generation of spatial analytics. Sixth, geographic uncertainty and bias will be more than an afterthought, and methods will emerge to support meaningful analysis. Finally, spatial optimization will have increased prominence in fundamental analysis, particularly associated with establishing and evaluating significance.     

Cities and Privatization

Cities across America look for management strategies useful for accomplishing their responsibilities and programs. While some cities include privatization strategies in their management portfolios, others do not, and the underlying reasons are not readily apparent. This study seeks to gain some insight into this disparity through several questions: Why do some cities use more privatization than others? Are privatization levels higher in fiscally healthy or fiscally stressed cities? Where are the cities that use privatization located? This study attributes municipal privatization levels in medium-sized cities, in part, to degree of wealth, fiscal stress, and location. The findings suggest that privatization levels are higher in wealthy, fiscally healthy, suburban cities.     

New Technologies,Employment and Labour Markets in Developing Countries

This article is concerned with the impact of new technologies - especially, but not entirely, those that are related to microelectronics - on employment and labour markets in developing countries. Taking the form of a literature survey it looks at those impacts that have already occurred as well as effects that seem likely to occur in the future. Both sets of issues are addressed within an analytical framework that views the impact of technical change as the end result of a process which begins with the generation and proceeds via the diffusion of new technologies. The need for so broad an approach is shown to stem from the multiplicity of ways in which the generation and diffusion of new technologies influence each other and condition the ultimate impact of these technologies on employment and labour markets. Because many such mechanisms have not yet received much attention in the literature, there appears to be substantial scope for further research.