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AP Human Geography Summer Reading 2013-2014

Study Guide

Book: Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping by Paco Underhill (ISBN 0743235924)

IMPORTANT: Read the entire study guide before you read the book.

Introduction: Welcome to Advanced Placement Human Geography! Geography means to picture or draw the world; that is a tremendous task, and consequently geography incorporates knowledge from most every other class you might take (including sciences, history, math, international languages, and the arts). I think you will find the class one of the most useful you take in the upper school, as it deals with “real world” issues and is focused on problem-solving. I can guarantee that you will learn a lot of pragmatic knowledge about the world in which we live and learn a lot of things that you can apply to other classes.

So what exactly is geography? The Merriam-Webster On-Line Dictionary defines geography as “a science that deals with the description, distribution, and interaction of the diverse physical, biological, and cultural features of the earth's surface.” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/geography) This is similar to most every other dictionary definition of geography, but it does little to narrow down the scope of what the class will cover. Perhaps the most important term in the definition is that geography is a “science.” Don’t call geography a “history” class, because it is not. Of course there will be some history in the class, as there is in all classes, and there is nothing wrong with history, but rather than telling stories about the past we will be applying models to the “interaction of physical, biological, and cultural features” of the earth in order to try to understand them. Because the class focuses on human geography and not physical geography, we will not be discussing plate tectonics, subduction zones, types of rocks, or the location of rivers and mountain ranges. These are all interesting topics, but are outside of the range of human geography. In this class we will focus on the part of the earth that can be called the ecumene (if you don’t know what that word means, I suggest you look it up.), why these regions are the ecumene and how human interactions with the biosphere in these areas have shaped human culture and the environment. We will be concerned with topics ranging from languages, religions, politics, economics, and urban planning. Most people think geography is memorizing capital cities and mountain ranges. When you finish this summer reading assignment, you will see that geography is much more than this.

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Ok, I’ll confess that I hate shopping malls. They combine several things I dislike: confined space, uniform landscapes (you will learn about this below), and crowds of people. So, you might ask, why would I select a summer reading book on shopping malls (besides the fact that it has the term “geography” in its subtitle). There are three reasons: (1) Shopping malls are obviously important modern human creations that affect human culture and the environment—so they are an important part of human geography; (2) Paco Underhill is an entertaining writer and it isn’t always possible to find entertaining writing about geography and economics, as much of it is fairly technical; and (3) What I like isn’t the deciding factor. I may not like shopping malls, but I do find their development interesting and a good way to consider all of the major themes of human geography. Over the years, I have found that there is almost always an interesting way to approach most every topic. When you can consider shopping malls from a geographic perspective, even they become interesting to me. We will be using this rather slim book about a topic that is not often encountered in school to approach all of the seven major themes of human geography.

On the following pages you will find a study guide that takes you through the seven major themes of human geography and asks you to use information from the book to answer question or apply concepts. It is probably best that you read over the study guide and then read through the book. As you read through the book, mark information that you think will be useful to complete what the study guide asks. Often, the information to answer a question will be spread among several chapters in the book. You might copy the study guide to a word file and type useful information under the question it can help answer as you read through the book. Attempt to do all that this study guide asks you to do. If you don’t fully understand something, that is ok. We have the whole year to clear things up. Feel free to discuss the assignment with other students in the class and/or to contact me at mike.kelley@stratford.org anytime over the summer. I will try to answer your questions as quickly as possible. See you in August.

The Shopping Mall and the Themes of Geography

Mr. Underhill asserts his thesis on page 4:

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…by studying the mall and what goes on there, we can learn quite a lot about ourselves—about the state of the nation andits inhabitants—from a variety of perspectives: economic, aesthetic, geographic, spiritual, emotional, psychological,sartorial.

This sounds a lot like the goal of a human geography course. Below I have an outline of the seven topics covered in human geography and some assignments or questions under each for you to complete based upon your reading of the book. All assignments are identified by the word assignment in bold print. All answers should be typed (except for the part that is to be drawn) and is due on the first full day of class.

1. Basic tools of geography. There are two major tools that we use in geography. One is map-making or cartography. The second is the concept of regions.

a. Cartography is the science of map making. In making a map of some portion of the earth’s surface, cartographers must first decide the scale of the map. Scale is the ratio of distance on the map to the distance on the earth’s surface. Unless a map is the same size as portion of the surface of the earth that it is portraying, it needs to have a scale. For example, one inch on the map may represent 1 mile on the earth’s surface. This would be a fairly large scale map. An inch on a map might represent 100 miles on the earth’s surface. This would be a smaller-scale map. In addition to scale, cartographers do the following four things in making a map.

i. Simplification—a cartographer must decide what is important to show in the map and what is not. No map can show every detail of the space that it is portraying: something is always left out. This means that no map can be an accurate portrayal but it also allows a map to focus on what the cartographer wishes to draw attention to. For example, a political map would emphasize political borders and perhaps leave out physical features. A road map would emphasize roads and perhaps leave out features that were not along the roads.

ii. Symbolization—the cartographer must decide how to represent features on a map. As it is impossible to represent features exactly as they are in nature, the cartographer will used easily recognized symbols to

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represent these features. Below is a chart of commonly used cartographic symbols.

iii. Classification—A cartographer will also group features together for simplification and possibly aesthetic purposes. Therefore, all cities between certain population limits might be represented by the same symbol whereas those above the limit might me represented by another. These

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classifications are often explained in a legend. For example, below is a road map legend.

Notice that the bright yellow shapes represent cities over 100,000 in population. These make them more visible on a map and appear important. A city with 90,000 only receives a small yellow circle. If the classification were changed to 90,000 plus receiving the bright yellow shapes, cities between 90,000 and 100,000 would look more important.

iv. Induction—Cartographers seldom know every detail of the area they are mapping, or if they do, cannot possibly show it accurately. Induction is the process in cartography by which a cartographer will imply information about a place by reference to places near it. For example, a cartographer may know the feet above sea level at the base of a mountain and the feet above sea level at the

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peak of the mountain. He or she would then infer on the map that the mountain steadily gains in elevation from the base to the peak even though in reality it is probably not as steady. Induction is the process of assuming that unknown areas on the map will have similar characteristics to known areas that are near them.

Assignment. You are to make a map, from memory, of a mall. It can be a local mall (Shoppes at River Crossing, Macon Mall) or one you have visited elsewhere. You must specify what your scale is (approximately—I don’t expect you to go out and measure) and provide a legend that has symbols and classifications as explained above. You should also explain where you used simplification and induction. Do the best you can. I don’t expect professional maps. Remember it is from memory, so you will probably forget some things. That is ok. Part of this assignment is to see what you remember and how you remember it. You can draw the map on a standard sheet of computer paper or graphing paper. You may draw it on larger paper, if you wish.

b. Regionalism—is the second major tool we use in geography. A region is a place with defining characteristics—that is it has one or more characteristics that make it unique. There are three types of regions.

i. Formal—a region that has one or more characteristics that are mostly uniform across the region. An example is the “Corn Belt,” which is a region of the US where corn is the major crop. Countries and states are also formal regions in that most everyone within their boundaries is a citizen.

ii. Vernacular/Perceptual—are regions that have no formal characteristics in common but that people identify as distinct places. “Dixie” is a perceptual region that covers most but not all of the Southern states. When someone refers to “the neighborhood,” that is also a perceptual region—it exists in his or her mind.

iii. Functional—are regions that are centered on a node or a core area. Functional regions include market areas; these are the areas from which businesses draw customers. The node of such a region is the business.

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Assignment: Explain why a shopping mall would be the node of a functional region. Explain THREE characteristics of people that would make up the functional region around a shopping mall. (That is people that the mall would serve a gathering place—a node—for.)

2. Population and Migration. We will be looking at three aspects of populations: growth, composition and movement in human geography. The study of population is called demographics.

a. Composition of Population. Population is measured in cohorts of 5 years. That means, 0-5, 6-10, 11-15, etc. Obviously a region with a more youthful population might differ from one that has an older population.

Assignment: What age groups are most attracted to shopping malls? Why is this so? How are malls designed to encourage these cohorts to visit?

b. Movement of Population. The movement of groups of people is called a migration. The migration that most concerns us is an internal migration (one within a country) that occurred after the Second World War. This is the movement of middle class Americans from central cities to suburbs.

Assignment: Explain THREE reasons middle class Americans moved from central cities to suburbs after the Second World War. Explain why this lead to the creation of shopping malls.

3. Cultural Patterns and Processes. Culture is the ideas, social practices, and objects that have meaning for people. Folk culture is a localized culture that is tradition-based and seldom spreads (we call this diffusion) beyond the region in which it originated. Popular culture is trend-based, global, and diffuses across the world—usually first to big cities and then to smaller ones on down to the countryside. Popular culture is diffused by the mass media. Some major elements of culture are language, religion, dress, architecture, ritual, and ethnicity.

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Assignment: Popular Culture. In the book, Mr. Underhill interviews several teenagers and they reveal various cultural groups which come to the mall and the stores that each group prefers. What are these groups? How do these groups learn the norms (rules) by which their group is to act and behave (what they think is cool or not)? What stores does each of the groups prefer?

Assignment: Gender. Throughout the book, Mr. Underhill makes the point that malls attract far more women than men and that this is by design. Explain THREE ways that malls are designed to attract women. Explain THREE aspects of mall design that discourages men from shopping at them.

Assignment: Globalization. Globalization is the diffusion of an idea or an object throughout the world. One result of globalization is that it produces uniform landscapes—that is everything looks the same anywhere in the world. (ie. McDonalds restaurants look the same whether they are in Macon, Georgia; Paris, France; or Tokyo, Japan.) Provide THREE examples from the book of how shopping malls have produced uniform landscapes throughout the world.

Assignment: Glocalization. Glocalization is the process through which a product that is available globally is customized in somewhat to make it more attractive to a local market. This usually means adapting some element of the local folk culture (for example, in India, McDonald’s does not sell beef hamburgers but sells lamb and vegetarian burgers because most Indian’s do not eat beef). Provide THREE examples of how shopping malls have been glocalized in various locations around the world.

4. Political Geography is the study of states, governments, laws, boundaries, and the influence that countries have on each other.

Assignment: Provide THREE examples of how the influence of the United States is evident in shopping malls in other countries.

5. Agriculture and Rural Landscapes. Agriculture is the basis of all modern civilization. Most major accomplishments in modern civilizations occur in cities, but to have a city, you have to be able to produce agricultural surpluses that can feed city dwellers (who do not grow food for themselves.)

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Assignment: Most shopping malls are built on what was once agricultural land. Explain TWO reasons why former agricultural land is a good location for a mall.

Assignment: If the number of people who live in cities and suburbs has been increasing (and it has), and malls and suburbs are located on former agricultural land (which they are), then how are we producing enough food to feed all these people, given we have less agricultural land? If you can come up with TWO reasons for this, you are really thinking like a skilled geographer!!

6. Industry and Economic Development. Modern societies have gone through a number of industrial revolutions that have enabled them to produce an abundance of goods and the affluent lifestyles that enable their people to purchase these good. Not all countries have gone through these revolutions successfully, however. The first industrial revolution occurred in the United States in the mid-19th century and involved the use of fossil fuels to power steam engines. The second industrial revolution occurred in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and involved the mass production of metal goods and chemical products. The most current industrial revolution, the third by most counts, centers on computers, telecommunications technologies, and bioengineering.

Assignment: Malls were the products of the end of the second industrial revolution. They are monuments to mass production and products made from metals (cars, building techniques, etc.). As Mr. Underhill indicates in the chapter titled “The Postmall World,” malls are largely a thing of the past. Some will survive, but most will cease to exist in a few years. The technologies of the third industrial revolution are putting and end to malls. Explain THREE reasons why malls are on the decline due to the technologies of this third industrial revolution.

7. Urban Patterns. Cities are the greatest creation of humankind and are the ultimate focus of human geography. The same Greek word from which we derived city is also the word rom which we derived citizenship and civilization. Humanity has always had a love-hate relationship with cities. They are both places of wonder and places of

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evil; places to aspire to and places to flee from. One thing is constant, however, you can’t have a great civilization without great cities.

Assignment: Explain how changes in transportation led people to move from cities to suburbs. What is causing many people to move back to cities?

Assignment: Explain THREE differences in how people shop in city department stores verses how they shop in malls. How are each of these differences reflected in the design of urban stores and shopping malls?

Final Note: You might notice that besides instructions, some terms are in bold print. These are terms that you should know. We will be using them a lot.