GEO 320 Urban Geography Fall 2007
Department of Geography and Meteorology, Valparaiso University

Approaches to Urban Geography

 

What is the City? Activity Debrefing (5 minutes)

  • What makes the urban distinctive?
  • Rural-Urban Interconnections?

Approaching Urban Geography

Environmentalism

Positivism (Quantitative approach) 

Behavioralism

 Humanism

Political Economy Approaches

Structuralism 

  • Marxian/political economy approaches
  • Managerialism

Postmodernism

Moral Philosophy

Implications of these approaches

  • Ideologies and Metaphors
  • Importance of Critical Thinking
    • How valid is a particular representation of the world?
    • Who is represented by the theory?
    • How useful are the ideas and for what are they useful?
    • What are the implications of the words, metaphors, maps, graphs, and diagrams being used?
    • Whose interests do these ideas support?

Activity: Paradigms Gone to the Dogs