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The politics of location: An introduction
Book reviews
350
inclusion of past values of the dependent variables as independent variables.) Strangely, Friedland’s focus on corporate and union power is inexplicably absent from Chapters 7 and 9. This book is an example of a rare breed, a quantitative empirical study addressed to significant theoretical questions. This type of comparative study is an essential step in evaluating the conclusions of single-city case studies. On the whole I found the theoretical argument about urban renewal more convincing than the empirical evidence, and would be reluctant to accept Friedland’s claims about corporate and union power. This is partly because of the simple measures of these concepts, but equally because of the significance of excluded variables suggested by the low explanatory power of many of the regression analyses as well as by theoretical considerations. For example, while socio-economic variables are well represented, variables relating to political processes are much less so, and financial and property interests (see p. 124) also deserve inclusion. But this is a very stimulating study which can be recommended to anyone wishing to be abreast of the latest thinking about urban renewal in the United States. C. G. Pickvance
Reference FRIEDLAND, R., PIVEN,R. F. ANDALFORD,R. (1977). Political conflict, urban structure and the fiscal crisis, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 1, 447-47 1.
The P&tics of Location: Andrew Kirby, Methuen, 220 pp., 25.95.
An
~~tro~~~ctj~~,
London,
1982,
Modern political geographers are currently struggling with the theoretical relevance of locational issues in social science. Geography seems to be caught up with the ‘explanatory fever’ that infected sociology and political science some years ago, Political geographers are asking whether location is an important independent variable in explaining human interactions, or whether location is an epiphenomenon of more basic social and political forces, an empty stage on which the great social forces of economics and politics contend. Andrew Kirby has written a concise yet
thoughtful overview of the issues facing modern political geographers. He addresses important theoretical issues, yet he grounds his work in the empirical literature on such topics as access to health and medical care, electoral organization, and the distributional effects of the United Kingdom’s rate support grant to local governments. The self-conscious attention to both theory and empiricism make this a book worth reading by geographers, political scientists and urban planners. The debate in political geography over the unique contribution of location in explaining social interaction parallels one in political science concerning whether ‘politics matters’, or whether all variability among political systems can be explained by social and economic variables, Both disciplines must meet the challenge of modern Marxism, which would define away a role for both location and politics. In the case of location, there exists ‘a spatial logic to the economic structures in society’ (p. 9), but that location does not influence the development of economic structures. Social differentiation is manifested in ‘people poverty’, and ‘place poverty’ is simply a consequence of this basic economic fact. Salvaging political geography as a social science discipline capable of independent explanatory power, in Kirby’s view, hinges on two arguments. The first is that social conflict occurs in modem society on both production and consumption issues. Production issues raise class-based cleavages; consumption issues raise status-based cleavages. Kirby bases his argument here both on the sociology of Max Weber and on empirical observations of social conflict. For example, he argues that home ownership gives individuals of similar class locations different views on social issues; moreover, residents of council estates view the political world differentiy than do renters in the private market, even where class is constant. The second link in Kirby’s chain of reasoning is that location is an independent contributor to status-type conflicts. In support of this proposition Kirby presents a thorough overview of geographical concepts, and in particular the notion of the spatial externality. He argues that location affects the access to social amenities and necessities independently of class; for example, his review of the literature on health care indicates that space friction affects the working class more severely than the middle class. In a very fine chapter on electoral organization, the author presents material on ‘partisan cartography‘ and ‘spatial lobbies’. In case studies of the Third London Airport and the location of public roads, Kirby shows how locational issues
Book reviews can generate protest groups whose members are unified only by their proximities to the externality. While I am much impressed with Kirby’s ability to focus the important theoretical issues and to bring to bear empirical studies and examples on these issues, I have two criticisms. The first concerns the lack of integration of a rich American literature on: (1) the effect of suburbanization on the consumption of public goods and services, and (2) on the intra-jurisdictional variation in the consumptioon of public goods. Both speak directly to the issue of location as more than a container of social forces. For example, the literature on citizen-initiated contacts indicates that local governments deliver services according to citizen demands, and that these demands stem primarily from citizen proximity to negative externalities. Hence patterns of intra-jurisdictional service distribution are a function of place poverty in addition to people poverty. My second criticism is that Kirby virtually ignores the symbolic and perpetual aspects of location. In a beautifully done concluding chapter, Kirby explains by example the dangers of reifying space. This occurs when the analyst uses a spatial explanation for a phenom~on when spatial variability simply reflects socioeconomic variability. Yet humans reify space all the time. They continually rate places based on their desirability, or accessibility, or whatever, when other ‘more basic’ social and economic forces have conspired to make a place what it is. These symbolic shortcuts then become causes for behavior. Deep down in the human psyche is an attachment to (and revulsion for) place. It is this attachment to place that makes political boundaries symbolic signposts and guides to action. It is the sentiment that causes citizens to follow their leaders to war, and may well cause their leaders to go to war. It is why different places get different colors on geographers’ maps. It is common for a discipline experiencing rapid change to engage in a great deal of ‘bleating plaintively about why they are not taken too seriously by others’ (p. 190). Yet others outside of a discipline may not understand the ‘bleating’ because they take it for granted that the discipline’s subject-matter is important. As political science moved from a descriptive discipline to an explanatory one, a process that began with the Chicago school in the 1920s and continued through the 1950s a self-deprecation similar to that which geography has been going through during the last decade occurred. Yet few outside doubted the importance of studying politics, even though many political scientists did.
351
Having thoroughly studied Andrew Kirby’s book, I am even more convinced that political geographers have much to offer their felIow social scientists. While it is true that a vigorous political geography probably rests on a theoretical foundation of Web&an sociology, there may well be a secondary foundation for the discipline in the continual reification of space that occurs in the minds of humans everywhere. I am much impressed with the thoroughness of Kirby’s presentation, but as an outsider I do think that he has sold his discipline somewhat short. Bryan D. Jones Defartment of Political Science Wayne State University, Detroit
Political Districting and Geographic Theory, Richard L. Morrill, Association of American Geographers, Washington, 1981,76 pp., $5.00. Representation and Redistricting Issues, Bernard Grofman et al., eds, Lexington Books, Lexington, 1982, 283 pp., $20.00. R~~~o~ion~e~t Politics: The History oj Redist~ting in the 50 States, Imoy Hardy, Alan Heslop and Stuart Anderson, eds, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, 1981, 357 pp., f18.75 (paperback). The ‘reapportionment revolution’ in the United States is a continuing process. Having decided in the early 1960s that population equality should be the dominant criterion for electoral redistricting, the Supreme Court not only stimulated the growth of a ‘redistricting industry’ but also opened the door for potential litigation on a range of criteria. The books reviewed here reflect both consequences. Redistricting involves drawing boundaries on maps, and so is of interest to geographers. Indeed, one eminent North American geographer, Dick Merrill, was chosen by a State Court to produce a redistricting plan, a task which he completed satisfactorily and which led to his involvement as a consultant on other redistricting cases. Thus he is well placed to provide an introductory review of the nature of redistricting in the United States. His book is something of a disappointment. Its detailed insights are valuable, and the general overview useful. (Unfortunately, it was probably written a year too soon, before the fruits of O’Loughlin’s work in several states and parallel work in the UK became available.) But there are two issues on which Morrill does not convince. The first concerns the second term in his titlegeographic theory. He is never explicit as to the
350
inclusion of past values of the dependent variables as independent variables.) Strangely, Friedland’s focus on corporate and union power is inexplicably absent from Chapters 7 and 9. This book is an example of a rare breed, a quantitative empirical study addressed to significant theoretical questions. This type of comparative study is an essential step in evaluating the conclusions of single-city case studies. On the whole I found the theoretical argument about urban renewal more convincing than the empirical evidence, and would be reluctant to accept Friedland’s claims about corporate and union power. This is partly because of the simple measures of these concepts, but equally because of the significance of excluded variables suggested by the low explanatory power of many of the regression analyses as well as by theoretical considerations. For example, while socio-economic variables are well represented, variables relating to political processes are much less so, and financial and property interests (see p. 124) also deserve inclusion. But this is a very stimulating study which can be recommended to anyone wishing to be abreast of the latest thinking about urban renewal in the United States. C. G. Pickvance
Reference FRIEDLAND, R., PIVEN,R. F. ANDALFORD,R. (1977). Political conflict, urban structure and the fiscal crisis, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 1, 447-47 1.
The P&tics of Location: Andrew Kirby, Methuen, 220 pp., 25.95.
An
~~tro~~~ctj~~,
London,
1982,
Modern political geographers are currently struggling with the theoretical relevance of locational issues in social science. Geography seems to be caught up with the ‘explanatory fever’ that infected sociology and political science some years ago, Political geographers are asking whether location is an important independent variable in explaining human interactions, or whether location is an epiphenomenon of more basic social and political forces, an empty stage on which the great social forces of economics and politics contend. Andrew Kirby has written a concise yet
thoughtful overview of the issues facing modern political geographers. He addresses important theoretical issues, yet he grounds his work in the empirical literature on such topics as access to health and medical care, electoral organization, and the distributional effects of the United Kingdom’s rate support grant to local governments. The self-conscious attention to both theory and empiricism make this a book worth reading by geographers, political scientists and urban planners. The debate in political geography over the unique contribution of location in explaining social interaction parallels one in political science concerning whether ‘politics matters’, or whether all variability among political systems can be explained by social and economic variables, Both disciplines must meet the challenge of modern Marxism, which would define away a role for both location and politics. In the case of location, there exists ‘a spatial logic to the economic structures in society’ (p. 9), but that location does not influence the development of economic structures. Social differentiation is manifested in ‘people poverty’, and ‘place poverty’ is simply a consequence of this basic economic fact. Salvaging political geography as a social science discipline capable of independent explanatory power, in Kirby’s view, hinges on two arguments. The first is that social conflict occurs in modem society on both production and consumption issues. Production issues raise class-based cleavages; consumption issues raise status-based cleavages. Kirby bases his argument here both on the sociology of Max Weber and on empirical observations of social conflict. For example, he argues that home ownership gives individuals of similar class locations different views on social issues; moreover, residents of council estates view the political world differentiy than do renters in the private market, even where class is constant. The second link in Kirby’s chain of reasoning is that location is an independent contributor to status-type conflicts. In support of this proposition Kirby presents a thorough overview of geographical concepts, and in particular the notion of the spatial externality. He argues that location affects the access to social amenities and necessities independently of class; for example, his review of the literature on health care indicates that space friction affects the working class more severely than the middle class. In a very fine chapter on electoral organization, the author presents material on ‘partisan cartography‘ and ‘spatial lobbies’. In case studies of the Third London Airport and the location of public roads, Kirby shows how locational issues
Book reviews can generate protest groups whose members are unified only by their proximities to the externality. While I am much impressed with Kirby’s ability to focus the important theoretical issues and to bring to bear empirical studies and examples on these issues, I have two criticisms. The first concerns the lack of integration of a rich American literature on: (1) the effect of suburbanization on the consumption of public goods and services, and (2) on the intra-jurisdictional variation in the consumptioon of public goods. Both speak directly to the issue of location as more than a container of social forces. For example, the literature on citizen-initiated contacts indicates that local governments deliver services according to citizen demands, and that these demands stem primarily from citizen proximity to negative externalities. Hence patterns of intra-jurisdictional service distribution are a function of place poverty in addition to people poverty. My second criticism is that Kirby virtually ignores the symbolic and perpetual aspects of location. In a beautifully done concluding chapter, Kirby explains by example the dangers of reifying space. This occurs when the analyst uses a spatial explanation for a phenom~on when spatial variability simply reflects socioeconomic variability. Yet humans reify space all the time. They continually rate places based on their desirability, or accessibility, or whatever, when other ‘more basic’ social and economic forces have conspired to make a place what it is. These symbolic shortcuts then become causes for behavior. Deep down in the human psyche is an attachment to (and revulsion for) place. It is this attachment to place that makes political boundaries symbolic signposts and guides to action. It is the sentiment that causes citizens to follow their leaders to war, and may well cause their leaders to go to war. It is why different places get different colors on geographers’ maps. It is common for a discipline experiencing rapid change to engage in a great deal of ‘bleating plaintively about why they are not taken too seriously by others’ (p. 190). Yet others outside of a discipline may not understand the ‘bleating’ because they take it for granted that the discipline’s subject-matter is important. As political science moved from a descriptive discipline to an explanatory one, a process that began with the Chicago school in the 1920s and continued through the 1950s a self-deprecation similar to that which geography has been going through during the last decade occurred. Yet few outside doubted the importance of studying politics, even though many political scientists did.
351
Having thoroughly studied Andrew Kirby’s book, I am even more convinced that political geographers have much to offer their felIow social scientists. While it is true that a vigorous political geography probably rests on a theoretical foundation of Web&an sociology, there may well be a secondary foundation for the discipline in the continual reification of space that occurs in the minds of humans everywhere. I am much impressed with the thoroughness of Kirby’s presentation, but as an outsider I do think that he has sold his discipline somewhat short. Bryan D. Jones Defartment of Political Science Wayne State University, Detroit
Political Districting and Geographic Theory, Richard L. Morrill, Association of American Geographers, Washington, 1981,76 pp., $5.00. Representation and Redistricting Issues, Bernard Grofman et al., eds, Lexington Books, Lexington, 1982, 283 pp., $20.00. R~~~o~ion~e~t Politics: The History oj Redist~ting in the 50 States, Imoy Hardy, Alan Heslop and Stuart Anderson, eds, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, 1981, 357 pp., f18.75 (paperback). The ‘reapportionment revolution’ in the United States is a continuing process. Having decided in the early 1960s that population equality should be the dominant criterion for electoral redistricting, the Supreme Court not only stimulated the growth of a ‘redistricting industry’ but also opened the door for potential litigation on a range of criteria. The books reviewed here reflect both consequences. Redistricting involves drawing boundaries on maps, and so is of interest to geographers. Indeed, one eminent North American geographer, Dick Merrill, was chosen by a State Court to produce a redistricting plan, a task which he completed satisfactorily and which led to his involvement as a consultant on other redistricting cases. Thus he is well placed to provide an introductory review of the nature of redistricting in the United States. His book is something of a disappointment. Its detailed insights are valuable, and the general overview useful. (Unfortunately, it was probably written a year too soon, before the fruits of O’Loughlin’s work in several states and parallel work in the UK became available.) But there are two issues on which Morrill does not convince. The first concerns the second term in his titlegeographic theory. He is never explicit as to the