Karin's Human Geo Blog

Satellites and Crops

2007-11-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

I thought that the description of satellite imaging in the case study of chapter eight was very intriguing. It seems that satellite images are like extremely detailed digital camera pictures. I also thought that the use of infrared bands to measure the brightness that needs to be recorded was interesting. I remember that when we were talking about maps in class, we learned that different plants reflect different infrared signals, and that because of this, satellite pictures can determine what is being grown where. For example, the police could use satellite imaging to determine if drugs are being grown among other crops in order to hide the drugs. Since, for example, corn and marijuana would reflect different infrared signals, police might be interested in searching a cornfield for marijuana if there was a patch in the corn that did not show up the same way as the rest of the field.
Besides determining what is being grown where, satellite images can help determine how well different plants of the same crop are growing. Healthy plants reflect infrared light much better than unhealthy plants do, so a darker spot on a satellite image could indicate that plants are not doing very well in a certain are. This information could be very useful for farmers, because they could then investigate to identify and solve the problem with their crops.

Food All Around the World

2007-11-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

Over the years, especially recently, the world has become more globalized. When I think of globalization, I usually think about technology. However, this chapter describes globalization in agriculture. The increase in the ease of shipping over the years has meant that it has become easier and easier to ship crops all over the world. A trip to the grocery store would demonstrate this. It is no longer necessary to find a cultural food store in order to get ingredients for specific cultural dishes. Furthermore, there are more cultural food stores in a closer proximity to other stores, rather than being hard to find. Both of these instances show how globalization or agriculture is making foods that are not native to a specific area easier to find.
Interestingly, some crops can now be grown far away from their country and climate of origin. Although not necessarily a recent development, greenhouses demonstrate this option. Foods that cannot be grown in certain areas or at certain times of the year can now be grown all over the world because of technology that allows us to reproduce specific climates.

Urban Sprawl Solutions for Colorado Springs

2007-11-04T22:40:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed reading about the various solutions to the problem of urban sprawl in Colorado in the case study of Chapter Eleven. As I read the solutions, I thought about which solutions I would prefer. I think that either the urban villages or the Northeast-Southeast extensions would be best. Urban villages would create nice suburbs around Colorado Springs. For people worried about air quality, urban villages could be beneficial because since the residential and commercial areas of the towns would be very close, there would be much less of a need for driving. Most commodities could be reached by walking or bike-riding, so there would be decreased auto-emissions. Furthermore, it seems that this option would be minimally invasive to the ecologically sensitive spaces, since the areas that would be developed are already “new-growth areas in the suburbs”. The other solution that I like would be that of the Northeast-Southeast extensions. This option also seems to be more environmentally friendly to the area, since it avoids expansion to the east, where the ecologically sensitive spaces are. I like this solution because it reduces urban sprawl by keeping the growth more contained, and in line with already developed areas. Also, there is a good diversity in the housing market, since the northeastern houses could be focused on serving the wealthier people that wish to move into the area, while the southeastern houses could be more affordable for everyone.

Modernism vs. Post-modernism

2007-10-28T23:16:00.001-07:00

I don’t entirely agree with either modernism or post-modernism. I think that both ideas have flaws that do not allow them to accurately describe society. While modernism states that are universal models for the way the world does and should work, post-modernism completely disagrees with this idea. There are certainly models that help us predict what will happen to populations and societies in the future. For example, we have Newton’s Gravity Model, which is very useful and often accurate in predicting future population change. There is also the Demographic Transition Model and Tobler’s First Law of Geography. Post-modernism would argue against the models, because it would say that human behavior cannot be predicted. While these models are never completely accurate (since human behavior cannot be perfectly predicted) they are still generally useful. Humans are creatures of habit, and habits make it possible to make predictions. Post-modernism does not seem to recognize the value or possibility of making semi-accurate predictions. However, modernism seems as though it may put too much value in these models. Even though the models may give a general idea, we cannot trust them blindly, because humans can and do go against predicted behavior. Furthermore, while modernism implies that there are ways that the world should work, I don’t think that this is the case. I would agree more with the post-modernistic idea of diversity. Even though I do think that society has created overarching ideas and perception about beauty and values, I don’t necessarily believe that these ideals are a good thing.

Cost Minimization in the Real World

2007-10-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

My dad works in the cell phone section of his company, which has been outsourcing more and more over the years. The outsourcing is how his company implements cost minimization. The location of each step in the process of creating a cell phone is chosen in order to minimize the costs based on labor. The locations are solely based on cost of labor, because the costs of transportation of materials and finished products are relatively minimal. Cell phone materials are relatively easy to ship, as are the finished phones themselves. It is more cost effective to ship these materials farther in order to manufacture the phones with cheaper workers. Because of this, my dad is frequently in contact with people from other countries; he manages a team of engineers from places like Taiwan and Singapore. All these people from different countries are working on the same product. The American engineers make decisions about how the phone should work, what it should do, and what it looks like. Then the engineers in places such as Singapore determine how to actually create the phone. Once this step has been completed, the phones are mass produced in places like China. There is a reason for having these steps located where they are. The phones are thought up and designed by American engineers because this is an American company. These ideas are actually created and made to work in Singapore because the engineers in Singapore do not cost as much as engineers in America. The engineers from Singapore do not have to be paid as much, so having them work on the phones after the ideas have been established is more cost effective. Once a specific phone is complete, it is mass produced in China because, as many other companies know, it is much less expensive to hire laborers in China rather than in America. However, something that I found interesting was the fact that there must be cell phone factories in Mexico. The Mexican government does not allow phones to be sold in the country if they were not manufactured in Mexico, because they are trying to preserve their economy. I’m not sure what the cost differences are between manufacturing in Mexico and manufacturing in China, but even if Mexican manufacturing costs more, it would still be more profitable to have cell phones sold in Mexico rather than not. The potentially higher cost of labor would just be another minimal cost that the company would have to pay in the pursuit of profit.

Segregation Today

2007-10-14T21:50:00.001-07:00

Regardless of the Civil Rights Movement or any laws resulting from it, segregation definitely still exists today. A drive through my ordinary suburban area proves it. There is clearly residential segregation in effect. The neighborhood that surrounds my middle school is almost entirely Hispanic. The houses are all about the same size, which would imply that the socioeconomic status of the residents is similar. In contrast to this neighborhood, I live in a neighborhood that is almost entirely Caucasian, with a few Asian and Indian families. Once again, the socioeconomic status of the people in my neighborhood is about the same. Why didn’t the people in my neighborhood choose to live in the neighborhood by my middle school? Why are there not more Hispanic people in my neighborhood? An explanation for this is residential segregation. Many of the students who went to middle school with me were Hispanic students who spoke Spanish in their homes, and celebrated Quinceañeras. Their families still had very strong ties to Mexico. It makes sense that these families would want to live near each other, because they shared a common culture. The neighborhood around my middle school could be considered an enclave; these immigrants were not forced to live there, but chose to, perhaps to support each other in a new place. While the people in my neighborhood do not share a common ethnicity, they still chose to live in my neighborhood for a reason. My neighborhood is not much older than I am, and there are many young families and children in my neighborhood. There is a whole group of 7th grade boys who live in my neighborhood who my brother likes to play with. There are almost many recent high school graduates in my neighborhood. These parallels make it seem as though all of these families where drawn together because of their similarities in family structure.

Vernacular Regions vs. Political Boundaries

2007-10-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

I think that the contrasts between politically determined areas, such as state or country boundaries, and vernacular regions are very interesting. Even previous to chapter two, we’ve discussed in class how people with similarities group themselves together. Because we know this, it makes a lot of sense that vernacular regions exist. If people have similarities which cause them to group themselves together, it is logical that they would consider themselves a group or a region, even if the group was not formed entirely on purpose. Vernacular regions also explain why so much variety can exist within a predetermined boundary or area. For example, I would imagine that those living in southern Illinois can probably relate more to the people in nearby Kentucky our southern Missouri than they can to people living in Chicago. After all, during the Civil War era, a significant number of southern Illinois residents supported the Confederate Army even though the state of Illinois was a Union state. People in southern Illinois do not have a Chicago accent; more likely they have a bit of a southern dialect. Illinois residents near in mid- or northern-Illinois would likely describe Illinois to be in the mid-west, but I would suspect that residents of southern Illinois, although perhaps stating that Illinois is a mid-western state because that is the way that it is labeled on regional maps, could identify more accurately with the southern region of the USA. In fact, a map in chapter two actually divides up the country into vernacular region that are not affected by state borders, and the southern-most tip of Illinois is included as part of the south.

Redistricting Reform

2007-09-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

The Redistricting Game was very difficult. I did game five, which was the reform redistricting. I had to redistrict the area so it followed the rules of the Tanner Bill. The Tanner Bill requires that not only must there be between 640,000 and 650,000 people in each district, but the district boundaries must be decided by an Independent Commissioner so that there is no partisan bias involved. This sounds like a good way to make districts equal, and I believe that it is, but it was very hard to accomplish. The Commissioner wanted the districts to be compact, and it was difficult to balance population and still have compact districts that didn’t upset either side. Since I had to divide up the districts without considering political parties, I was not even given the information about how many Republicans and Democrats were in each area. Because of this, I would make some changes, and one side would be angry, but I wouldn’t know how to fix it. Even though I was not supposed to be specifically pleasing one party, I didn’t want either party to be extremely upset, because I was afraid that when the legislature voting, my redistricting would not pass. Actually, when I finally got the districts approved by the commissioner, the Democrats were very happy with the results, but the Republicans were not. I decided to test my plan anyway, and in fact, the Republicans voted down my plan. However, the courts ruled that my redistricting was in accordance with the Tanner Bill, so it passed. It turns out that even though the representatives were originally three Republicans and one Democrat, after the next election, there were two Republicans and two Democrats elected. This change makes it seem that the Tanner Bill might be a good way to help stop sneaky gerrymandering. I think that a policy like the Tanner Bill would be a good thing to become a law, because it seems to make it a lot harder to gerrymander. When I found out that politicians manage to gerrymander without getting caught, I was angry. I don’t think that it is fair to the people that those who redraw the voting districts can have so much power over who gets elected. If the vote of the people can be so easily overruled because of which voting district they belong to, then we don’t really live in a democracy, because everyone’s vote is not actually equal. I am realizing as I get older that there are many ways in which those in power take power away from the voters. Because of this, I will definitely support any attempts to stop things like uneven redistricting.

The Need for Map Variety in Schools

2007-09-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

I thought that the different types of maps were really interesting. I realized that I’ve seen the Mollweide, Van Der Grinten, and Robinson maps in school a lot. Something similar to those maps is what I think most people think of when they picture a world map. We would probably consider those maps the most accurate, just because that is what we have always been taught in school. However, this could really be a problem when teaching students how to perceive the globe. We learn from one or two versions of the world map how the world looks, but since these maps aren’t entirely accurate, many misconceptions could be perpetuated. For example, the book stated that President Reagan used a specific map projection, the Mercator map, because it made the Soviet Union look much bigger than it actually was, which could scare people into accepting the anti-USSR views of the US government during the Cold War. Also, the book points out that most maps have their break in between North America and Asia; it seems that the distances between Russia and Alaska, and between Japan and Hawaii, should be much larger than they actually are. Students believe what they see on maps, so when they are not told that maps are not entirely accurate, or are not shown different map projections, their understanding of world geography is not complete.
From reading the book, it seems like the Dymaxion Map might actually be more accurate in representing the surface area of countries than the other maps. Unfortunately, this map was very difficult for me to read, and I had to turn the page around in order to really distinguish what was where. It also makes it harder to see the distance between the countries. Therefore, even though the Dymaxion Map is more accurate in some ways, it may not be the most useful in getting a picture of the relationships of countries. Actually, a globe is probably the most useful tool in teaching students what the world looks like. The problem with a globe is that only a few people can study a globe at one time. Perhaps in the coming years, teachers will be able to use large projection screens with digital models of the world to educate students.

Predicting Migration

2007-09-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

I thought that the case study (especially the map) in chapter four was very interesting. Usually I think of moving from country to country when I think of migration, and not necessarily from state to state. I also thought of immigration from other countries as more important than movement within a country. After all, the news coverage that we get is about the controversies about illegal immigrants from Mexico, not that more Americans from the Midwest and Northeastern United States are leaving their homes and more people are moving to the Southern states and some of the Western states. Because of reading this chapter I have realized that migration within a country is just as important as migration to or from a country, and that ways to predict migration are just as essential for the proper planning of an area. I never took into consideration that developing areas must look at their predicted growth in order to plan what to build. They cannot just wait until there seem to be a lot of people around in need of schools or doctor’s offices or grocery stores or even houses; in order to have those things built and ready by the time they are needed, or at least close to the time they are needed, construction must begin in advance, which would mean predicting how many people are coming to the area. This would also be important when planning neighborhoods; how many need to be created in order to provide housing for the people who want to move to the area. If those planning the neighborhoods could not make a prediction of the migration rate, then it is possible that too few houses would be built, which would mean that the area might end up losing some of the potential migrants to the area because they could not find a place to live. The whole future of the area could be threatened if there could not be fairly accurate predictions.