Talk:Economic geography

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Glad to see that some geographers have been working on this. I added some links to retail geography and industrial geography, two variants of economic geography (however unsexy and out-of-date that may be perceived). I think Huntington is probably relevant if we begin to discuss the evolution of the sub-discipline, though I tend to think of it as being something that might be found in older versions of cultural geography from the days before even Carl Sauer walked the earth. Glad to see the more recent references to scholars(e.g., Doreen Massey)and scholarly journals. 18 May 2007. jboggs

I'm currently studying Economic Geography at my University. I'll clean this up and add to it, if I see fit, when my exams are out of the way. --Scarfo 20:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I've made some changes on 3rd April. It needs improvement (also in spelling, english is not my first language). But I think is much better than it was. Huntington theory is is relevant from historical point of view (I mean the period of environmental determinism). I agree it is not much relevant today. I fyou have some time please improve the article.GeoW 07:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

As a former student of economic geography I recall no teaching of the Huntington-theory, nor does it seem relevant. Also the article direly needs some cleaning, as it is in its current state not very well written (perhaps due to cut and paste). 10.04.2006

As an economic geographer trained in geography but also with coursework in economics, I would suggest that this post in its current form has little to do with the contemporary field of economic geography, and instead seems to be dealing in part with what is sometimes called geographical economics, and in part with debates nearly a century old. Most professors appointed as economic geographers in Geography Departments would more or less agree with Rubenstein, and disagree mightily with Extro.

I am fairly certain that Landes is an economic historian and not an economist. By geographers trained in geography departments, Hungtington is considered an environmental determinist, regardless of Jeffrey Sachs attempts to rehabilitate Huntington's work in discussions of Africa's peripheral position in the world economy.

I take it you wouldn't mind if some actual _geographers_ contributed something here?

User:jboggs

I restored what you removed. You can add more issues to the page, or edit what is there, but Huntington's ideas are relevant to the to the topic (he appears to have been correct about the influence of climate on economics). I will add that some economists find Huntington's ideas uncomfortable.

User:Extro

I removed the following from the article:

He noted that the Northern, cold regions like the U.S., Britain, Europe and Japan had large, well-developed economies while the hot, tropical countries were less well endowed—the so-called equatorial paradox. Huntington ascribed the differences in economic performance to differences in climate.

According to Huntington, these differences in economic performance also affected political structures—tropical states tend to have unstable political histories.

Other factors in this model affecting economic performance are access to the sea and the presence of raw materials like oil. Singapore, for example, occupies a key position as a seaport, while the wealth of Saudi Arabia depends almost entirely on oil.

These aspects of economics were noted by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations and have also been studied by modern economists like David Landes at Harvard University.

Here is why I deleted it: it is not "Economic Geography." Indeed, virtually all of Economic Geography is a reaction against Huntington, who is better labeled an "environmental determinist" and not an economic geographer. There is a real sibdiscipline of geography out there called "economic geography," and this article ought to introduce readers to that subdiscipline -- and not instead provide an argument that economic geography dismisses. Slrubenstein

[edit] Economic geographies

Certainly but there are many 'Economic geographies' rather than an 'Economic geography' so I think there needs to be an emphasis on the plural as do many other geographers. Supposed 07:30, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that there's one economic geography. You can also divide the discipline thematically, for e.g. into geography of agriculture, geography of industry, geography of transportation, geography of services ... and so on, but there are always disputes if these (sub)disciplines are parts of economic geography or also parts of other geographical disciplines or stay on their own. There's no need to divide this from theoretical point of view because transportation, agriculture, industry, services are all part of a spatial system that theoretical (economic) geography tries to understand. For e.g. the theory(ies) of core and pheriphery or central place theory.
BTW, this discussion is quite a mess (some contributions are written from top to bottom some reversely). We should better delete it and start anew (if it does not break some Wikipedia rules).GeoW 15:20, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

"for e.g. into geography of agriculture, geography of industry, geography of transportation, geography of services". There are geographies of services etc hich then may be economic geographies, health geographies etc , it's ok to use the term 'geography' to refer to a discipline but the correct usage of the term should at least be stressed in the article or at least somewhere on wikipedia. Supposed 23:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

You mean the meaning of the term geography as an ordered arrangement of constituent elements (definition from a thesaurus)? Actually a map showing some kind of distribution of particular phenomena? Geography deals not only with distribution of things, it examines also linkages with different environments and also processes and principles that aplly in the world and create actual arrangement of things. I'm not native english speaker. What you mean exactly by geographies of services? I have many times seen to use the term geographical as a synonym for spatial, but it is not quite the same. It is more apparent in physical geography than in human geography where maps are much broadly used. GeoW 09:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stubs!

All the articles regarding Economic geography, Regional science, Urban studies, Regional economics are either of very poor quality or are stubs. Moreover, there is no categorization and cross-linkage. Citations are almost totally absent, and the whole discussion revolves around the question if Mr. Huntington--a supporter of single factor fallacies about climate and culture--has a place in the article. So far there has been no clear-defined project and nobody knows where to contribute. I'll try to have those articles nominated for help pick next week's article. Donnerstag 16:39, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

As a practicing economic geographer, the current entry is a farce. It sounds like it's written by an economist wanting to colonize the sub-discipline. The material on Huntington is absolutely irrelevant.

[edit] Organization

The sections on "Approaches to Study" and "Subdivision" are very bizarre. It's not that no one has written on the "Geography of Agriculture", but this is not a way that economic geography is usually borken up. The Approaches to Study include some real things that sort of conform to approaches that I know of, and some, like "regional economic geography", that I've never seen broken out into a distinct area of study. Again, it's not that no one has ever done the economic geography of a particular region, but this is not a defined subfield.

I think the subdivisions section should be removed, and Approaches to Study should be substantially reworked with expanded definitions. It is currently little more than a list. Leehach (talk) 02:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)