GEO-201-A Economic
Geography
Spring 2009
Department of Geography
and Meteorology
Valparaiso University
Consider the above photograph of the beach in Michigan City, Indiana. At first, it might seem to be a simple picture of a power plant and a beach. Yet, we can ask all kinds of questions about the economic geography that produces this landscape. Why for instance is the power plant located on the lakeshore? What areas does it serve and what economic activities does it make possible? How does the presence of the power plant affect income from tourism? How does the economic activity of both tourism and power generation affect the lakeshore environment? These are only a sampling of some of the possible questions.
Economic geography differs from the discipline of economics in that place and space are its primary concerns. Traditional economic theory often ignores the spatiality of economic processes and treats the world as if specific places do not matter. Once spatial differences are considered, economic theory becomes much more complicated. One of the most valuable aspects of economic geography is that it makes a connection between seemingly abstract economic processes and their effects in specific places. Thus economic geography is often less about abstract models than it is about how economic processes work themselves out for specific people in specific places.
Course Objectives
After this course is over, students will
1. Understand and remember major concepts in economic geography including friction of distance, spatial interaction, time-space compression, etc.
2. Understand and remember major conceptual models in economic geography including transportation models, the gravity model, urban land use models, central place theory, industrial location models, and theories of development, models of economic growth and decline (among others). Students will also understand the strengths and weaknesses of these models.
3. Be able to use conceptual models and theories from economic geography to interpret the economic geography of specific places.
4. Be able to recognize and analyze the geographical dimensions of economic problems they encounter in the media, in their future studies, or in their future vocations.
5. Be prepared to identify the interaction between economic geography and other subfields of human geography (including urban geography, social geography, population geography, environmental geography, etc.) or their own majors and vocational aspirations.
6. Understand how economic processes connect their own lives to those of others and how economic choices they make affect the lives of other people.
7. Be able to assess how economic processes help to structure specific places and the lives of people living in those places.
8. Develop a greater interest in how economic processes shape the geography of places and of people’s lives.
9. Be familiar with a number of sources of data for understanding economic geography of regions.
10. Be able to understand economic and geographic models and ideas and students encounter in the future.
Course Web Site and E-mail List
The course website will have the most up-to date information about the course. On the website you will find this syllabus, a detailed schedule, links to interesting internet resources, and copies of your homework assignments. I will also use the e-mail list to send you important reminders or to comment further on material covered in class. You may also use the e-mail list to extend discussion after class. Sometimes our best ideas occur to us after we have been thinking about things awhile. Feel free to use the e-mail list to share your important insights with me and with the rest of the class.
The Student’s Responsibility for Learning Course Content
It is the student’s responsibility to learn the content of the course (theories, concepts, ideas, etc.) by doing the reading, thinking about it before class, and talking to the professor about gaps in understanding. Our class sessions will be devoted to reviewing the material you have read in order to solidify your understanding, answering questions prompted by the reading, introducing new material where appropriate, applying what you have learned to understand specific cases, and critically analyzing the material you have read. You should expect to do two to three hours of work outside of class for every hour in class. Please manage your time appropriately.
Policy on Late AssignmentsYou must hand in all of your assignments on time. If because of circumstances beyond your control you need more time to complete an assignment please see me ahead of time (at least a day in advance) to ask for an extension. Extensions may or may not be granted depending upon the circumstances. If you must turn in an assignment late and you did not ask for an extension, include a written explanation of the reason for its tardiness along with the assignment. If the explanation is judged to be inadequate the assignment will not be accepted or will be accepted for reduced credit.
Assignments
Readings
You need to purchase the following textbook
Coe, Neil, Philip Kelly, and Henry Yeung. 2007. Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
You will need to do the assigned reading before each class meeting. You should also review relevant sections of the text after each class meeting to cement your understanding. The text provides an introduction to some critical debates in Economic Geography. You will need to do more than casual reading to fully understand many of the concepts and models the text introduces. When reading, first skim the text for important concepts (it is good to make a list) and then do a detailed reading. Make sure that you pay attention to the diagrams and understand what they mean. If necessary go back and re-read to make sure that you understand the text.
Several additional readings will be required and will be made available either through the course web site or on reserve at the library. Specific details will be provided during the semester.
Studying Between Classes
Many students only study when it comes time for final exams. You should spend at least an hour, if not more, studying and reviewing the concepts and ideas discussed in the text and in lecture in-between class sessions. When possible your professor will provide lists of concepts and ideas to pay attention to as you read the text as well as outlines for each day’s lecture on the course web site. Before class, be sure you have done the reading and that you understand the listed concepts. After each class be sure that you review what was said in lecture as well as the important ideas from the text.
Homework Assignments and In Class Assignments
One of the most exciting aspects of economic geography is the extent to which the ideas and models we discuss can be applied to examine real-world or fictional data and case studies. Working out examples and applying models and theories to interpret specific cases will be the major focus of your homework and in-class assignments. You will have three types of homework and in-class assignments.
1. On any given day I may ask you to make some observations, find examples, or reflect in writing on ideas we will discuss in the next class period. These assignments will be vital for discussion in the next class period so do not forget to do them. If they are graded they will be graded on a pass fail basis, however, they will not always be graded.
2. A second type of homework or in-class assignments will typically ask you to work through examples of models covered in class, or you will be asked to respond to questions about applications of theory in economic geography. These assignments will be graded based upon the quality of the work you hand in. You can expect to do between four and six of these type assignments during the semester.
3. There will be two occasions when an extended assignment will be assigned. For the first assignment you will conduct a field study of Lincolnway that will require both field work in class and work outside of class interpreting the results of the field study. For the second, you will keep track of your consumption for a week and report on the geography of your consumption habits.
Analytical Essay
You will be asked to write a short analytical essay evaluating an article. You will need to complete a draft of your essay on the day we discuss the article so that you are prepared for discussion. A final revised paper is due the next class period. This will allow you to refine your arguments and improve you paper based upon what you learn in discussion. The assignment is as follows: For the analytical essay you will read The Sweet Hearafter by Paul Roberts and write a 4-5 (double spaced, stapled, one inch margins) essay that very briefly summarizes the important points of the article (no more than one or two paragraphs or one page maximum) and then raises a question (or series of questions) about the article and then attempts to answer them. In the process of raising and answering questions you will also need to connect the ideas in the article with what we have discussed in class. Use section headings to separate the two parts of the paper and subheadings as necessary.
Attendance and Participation
I expect on-time attendance for all class sessions unless you are ill, you are required to attend a university event, you have a family emergency, or you have made prior arrangements with me. If you must miss class for these reasons please provide me with a written note or an e-mail so that I can excuse your absence in my records. If you send me e-mail please place the words “GEO101 Absence” in the subject line to help me in my record keeping. Absences for any other reason will lower your grade. Please be on time to class. Coming in late distracts your professor and your fellow students and often some of the most important ideas are presented at the beginning of class. You will lose attendance points if you are consistently late.
I will be assessing participation during the semester by taking notes on both the quantity and quality of your contributions to our formal discussions. The course will involve a combination of both lecture and discussion and you should have plenty of opportunities to participate. I will also count out of class office visits and interactions via IM and e-mail where discussion of the course material takes place as participation. If you have difficulty speaking up in class, come see me and we can find some strategies to make you more comfortable. I will do my best to provide a comfortable and welcoming environment for discussion.
Exams
There will be three exams in this course; two midterms and a final exam. They will be a combination of short answer and essay questions. They may also include some multiple choice. The exams will focus primarily upon the topics discussed in the preceding section of the course. However, the second midterm and the final exam will also ask you to integrate knowledge gained throughout the course. Thus while the exams are not comprehensive, you will not be able to forget everything you learned in the previous section of the course.
Research Project
Your final project will be to use the concepts and theories learned in this course to do an analysis of some aspect of Northwest Indiana's or Chicago's Economic Geography. For instance, you might want to use theories from economic geography to help explain the locations of a certain category of businesses in Valparaiso or Chicago. You might report on the impact of economic restructuring on Gary and the surrounding region or on efforts to compensate for the loss of industrial sector jobs. You could report on the effects of industrial development on the environment in NW Indiana. You might want to look at issues of poverty or economic aspects of transportation issues. Although your project focus is upon this region, this does not mean that it necessarily is local in concern. For instance, you may want to consider how changes within the global economy affect this region or trace economic flows among this region and other regions. Your project may employ the use of GIS analysis if that is something that you are familiar and comfortable with.
You will need to complete a final written report (approximately 7-10 pages). Your final written report will consist of two parts. The first part will explain in depth the theories and concepts that are relevant to your particular project. The second part will apply those theories and concepts to the analysis of local economic geographies.
You will likely rely on a number of sources of information for you project. For the first part of the paper explaining theories and concepts your primary source will be your text along with a few additional sources (see the ends of the chapters for good lists of additional sources). For the second part of the paper, an initial source of inspiration may be the landscape itself. For instance, the picture on the front of this syllabus spurs any number of questions about the economic geography of Michigan City. Other initial sources will be current and archived newspaper or magazine articles and potentially the yellow pages of the phone book. You should be able to find archives online but will likely need to visit the library and use a newspaper index to locate relevant articles. Other sources might include city and county government agencies or representatives of businesses that you may be analyzing. You may also find journal articles or even books on the economic geography of this region. Historical and contemporary maps will also be relevant and useful for most projects.
We will not cover all aspects of economic geography until the end of the semester. That does not mean that you have to limit your analysis to issues we discuss at the beginning of class--you may read ahead if something discussed later in the course is of interest to you.
To facilitate getting the project you need to observe the following due dates.
· February 27 A research proposal that includes a general research question, identifies the concepts and theories that you think will be relevant for your analysis, and a statement about the sources of data that you plan to employ in answering your research question. (Worth 5 points or 1% of final grade)
· April 20 A draft of your paper. (Worth 5 points or 1% of final grade)
· Monday May 4 Final Paper Due
Failure to hand in the research proposal, the first draft, or to hand in the final draft on time will result in a deduction from the final grade on your paper.
Standards for Written Work
Your written work (the analytical essays and the final paper, etc.) should conform to the following standards:
· Papers should be typed, double spaced with one inch margins, using a Times Roman or other similar serif font. Courier style fonts are not to be used). Papers should be stapled in the upper left hand corner. Plastic report covers should not be used.
· Papers should cite sources and use the author date style of referencing commonly used in the discipline of geography. See a copy of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers for examples.
· Research papers should make use of sources from the World Wide Web only when the source is a government agency or other reliable institution, and online version of a print resource (i.e. article databases), or when it is the online source itself that is the subject of the research. See your professor concerning the appropriateness of using sources from the Web. You should not use Wikipedia or other online encyclopedic references in a college level paper.
· Papers should be free of mechanical and grammatical errors.
· Papers should conform to the requirements of the specific assignments (given above).
Grading
| Attendance and Participation (5% each) | 10% | 50 points |
| Homework and in class work | 6% | 30 points |
| Lincolnway Field Study | 6% | 30 points |
| Consumption Project | 6% | 30 points |
| Analytical Essay | 10% | 50 points |
|
Research Project (30% for paper 10%for proposal and draft) |
32% | 160 points |
| Exams (3 @ 10% each) | 30% | 150 |
| Total | 100% | 500 points |
Accommodations for Students With Disabilities
If you have specific physical, psychiatric, or learning disabilities and require accommodations, please let me know during the first week of class so that your learning needs may be appropriately met. All discussions will remain confidential.
Authorized Aid and the Honor Code
The Honor Code will be upheld in this course. Authorized aid in this class will be limited to your own personal knowledge during exams and your own work on all written exercises. When preparing your homework you may discuss the assignments with others but your written answers should be your own. You are encouraged to use the services of the writing center and you should have someone else proofread or offer suggestions on your essay assignments before handing them in.
You must use quotation marks for direct quotes, cite your sources, and include a list of works cited on your essay assignments. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism and may be considered unauthorized aid because you are essentially representing someone else’s work as your own. Many first year students mistakenly believe that it is OK to cut and paste text from web sites into their papers without providing both quotation marks and a proper citation. Web sites are no different from any other source and need to be cited fully. If you do not know how to cite your sources or have any questions about this, please ask your professor. Finally sharing your papers written for this class with others on the Internet without notifying the professor first or downloading papers written by others to hand in (either in part or in their entirety) constitutes unauthorized aid.
