Communication and Governance

• 1860: Telegraph and Letters• 1911: Airmail service• 1917: Invisible ink banned / No useful information in letters• 1940: Letters and diaries• 1990: Email• 2004: Freedom Calls• 2010: Blogs / Skype

Excellent Data Resource:Worldmapper

Internet Users

2002

1990

http://www.colorado.edu/ibs/GAD/difmov.exe

http://www.colorado.edu/IBS/GAD/spacetime.html

http://www.colorado.edu/IBS/GAD/map.html

Freedom HouseMap of Freedom

2010

http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/fiw10/FIW_2010_MOF.pdfhttp://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=505

Watersheds of the World–Population Density

Watersheds of the World - Population Density

http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/water-resources/map-278.html

Access to Safe Water• Nearly 1.1 billion people (20% of the world’s

population) lack access to safe drinking water.• Kills almost 4,500 children per day.• Worst “water stressed” countries in Sub-Saharan

Africa and South Asia.• Climate and geography, lack of water systems

and infrastructure, inadequate sanitation, high levels of arsenic and fluoride in drinking water.

• Women and young girls trek as much as six miles everyday to retrieve water.

• Obstacle to progress and development.http://www.worldwaterday.net/index.cfm?objectid=E38C787B-F1F6-6035-B9D8092D300B7548

Water Scarcity and Stress

SECOND SESSION

http://www.cartoko.com/wiki/images/c/c4/Census_US_1940_Population_Distribution.jpg

Urbanization

Urban and Rural Places• Population size and density• Thomas Jefferson’s vision• Characteristics: anonymity, social interactions

• Economic functions• Spatial arrangements• Special problems?

Scranton, USGS 1891

http://www.cartoko.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:PA_scranton_15min_USGS_1891.jpg

1889

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp/PPALL:@field(NUMBER+@band(det+4a32356))

Scranton, Pennsylvania

http://www.maplandia.com/united-states/pennsylvania/lackawanna-county/scranton/

Scranton, Pennsylvania – Google Earth

Urban Areas

• Environmental determinism: role of physical features – site and situation

• Centrifugal forces: impel functions to migrate from central zone beyond it periphery

• Centripetal forces: hold certain function in central zone and attract others

• Central place theory: size and distribution of settlements dominated by marketing function

Central Place Theory

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christaller's_central_place_theory_animation.gif

http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/oxford/Oxford_Geography/0198606737.central-place-theory.1.jpg

CommonCensus Map Project http://www.commoncensus.org/

THIRD SESSION

Immigration andWestward Expansion

Immigrant Map and Signpost/Directory to North America

Auswanderer-karte und wegweiser nach Nordamerika

Where to settle?

Where to settle?

Immigrants as a Percentage of US Population

Centers of Population http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cenpop/MeanCenter.html

Mean Population Point

The center of population is the point at which an imaginary, weightless, rigid, and flat (no elevation effects) surface representation of the 48 conterminous states and the District of Columbia (or 50 states as appropriate to the computation) would balance if weights of identical size were placed on it so that each weight represented the location on one person.

Median Center of Population

The numerical center of population, is in no sense a center of gravity. In determining the median point, distance is not taken into account and the location of the units of population is considered only in relation to the intersecting median lines - as being north or south of the median parallel and east or west of the median meridian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mean_ctr_pop_US_1790-2000.png

Thank youcoga@uccs.edu

www.uccs.edu/~coga