Understanding
the existence of “Geographic Illiteracy”, the
lack of spacial and geographic orientation, is an
important step in comprehension of human
settlement patterns.
The
existence of pervasive Geographic Illiteracy
(citizens do not know where they are) is the
second of the Nine Fundamental Theses presented in
Chapter 1, Box 1, of The Shape of the Future.
In Chapter 2, the book pinpoints Geographic
Illiteracy as a prime cause for citizens' failure
to understand human settlement patterns. All of
Chapter 16 is devoted to the causes of Spacial and
Geographic Illiteracy (Chapter 16). There are 16
references to the phrase throughout the book,
however, Appendix One, The Lexicon, does not
include a definition. Here is a definition plus a
description of the understandings (tools)
necessary to overcome Geographic Illiteracy.
Geographic
Illiteracy is the inability to comprehend,
understand and make intelligent decisions at all
scales of human settlement patterns. Geographic
Illiteracy is an individual and collective malady
that limits the ability of individuals and groups
to function in the economic, social and physical
spheres of contemporary human activity.
The
larger the number of citizens and organizations
who cannot comprehend the location, pattern and
scale (unit/family, dooryard, cluster,
neighborhood, village, community and region), the
worse the economic, social and physical impact.
There
are six understandings (or tools) that must be
mastered by individuals and groups to eliminate
Geographic Illiteracy:
The
following is an outline of the components needed
to overcome Geographic Illiteracy.
1.
Basic Orientation: Citizens, whether living
in the Urbanside or in the Countryside, needs a
basic orientation to their context and the sites
they visit. Citizens must be able to intuitively
answer locational questions such as:
Informed
navigation in the Countryside requires this
information. This information is also useful in
the Urbanside. It is required to have a working
knowledge of climate, weather and, in fact, all
fundamental ecological relationships.
2.
Urban Context. Citizens need a functional
system for “finding their way around” in urban
areas. Even those who live most of their lives in
the Countryside need a way to navigate in the
Urbanside. Application of Countryside navigation
skills such as those learned in scouting,
orienting, hiking or backcountry hunting are
valuable in urban navigation.
MIT’s
Kevin Lynch studied and documented humans’
perceptions of their urban surroundings. His 1960
book The Image of the City, is a classic
examination of how humans relate to their urban
environment and how they see and use buildings,
spaces and landmarks to navigate.
3.
Regional Context. The title of Lynch’s
book is a clue to the scope of the third tool
needed to overcome Geographic Illiteracy.
Citizen’s urban context is now the region,
not the “city.” Much of Lynch’s work related
to foot travel. Moving to the regional scale means
that there must be an understanding of the Basic
Orientation and the Urban Context, but these
skills must be applied in settlement pattern
context that is spread over a vastly larger area
and with a lower intensity of identifiable
landmarks.
An
understanding of regional context is clouded by
differing modes of travel. The sequencing of
travel by different modes at different speeds and
using different nomenclature is baffling to most.
Chapters 8 and 9 of The Shape of the Future examine
the role of Zip Codes, Area Codes, municipal
borders, school service areas, postal addresses,
subdivision names and other arbitrary borders and
terms in creating confusion about one’s cluster,
neighborhood and village much less the location of
other destinations spread over millions of acres.
(See “Where
is Northern Virginia?,” Aug. 11, 2003.)
To
make matters worse, much of the region looks just
the same–three blocks east of which
Starbucks? Tony Hiss’s 1990 book, The
Experience of Place added important
insights about understanding specific landscapes
and urban contexts. Many authors have decried the
banality of the “suburban” experience. The
level of tourism is a guide to the quality and
uniqueness of places. Almost no one intentionally
vacations is Springfield, Short Pump or Chuckatuck.
Superficial attacks on the “suburban”
landscape mask the important malady of Geographic
Illiteracy.
The
Regional Context is the most difficult Geographic
Literacy tool for citizens to master.
Among
the relationships that are most complex to grasp
are those that reflect the First Natural Law of
Human Settlement Patterns:A= PiR2The
power of A= PiR2 is
demonstrated in “Land
Conservation Quandary”, March 28, 2005.
4.
Critical Spacial Relationships. In order to
understand Regional Context, it is useful to have
a set of Basic Relationships or “elements of
regional reality” to anchor an understanding of
spacial distribution. These Basic Relationships
differ from region to region. This is an area to
which S/PI has devoted considerable attention. For
the National Capital Subregion, S/PI has
identified five critical spacial relationships
that are particularly important. They can be found
in “Five
Critical Realities That Shape the Future”,
Dec. 15, 2003. Depending upon one's interest,
there may be many Critical Spacial Relationships
that help create an understanding (aka, cognitive
map) of one’s region and subregion.
5.
Regional Metrics. The next important tool
necessary to overcome Geographic Illiteracy is a
set of ratios and relationships that can be used
to relate one set of data (e.g. the number of
dwellings projected for the next decade) to
another (e.g. the number of acres at minimum
density that these units will occupy).
It
is essential to have “guidelines” or
“yardsticks” to test and put into context the
ratios and relationships of Regional Metrics.
Yardsticks have been developed by S/PI for
Subregional and Regional Tours in the United
States and for those visiting urban areas in
Western Europe.
Among
the most useful yardsticks are the overall
parameters of Planned New Communities (e.g.
Reston, Columbia, Fairfax Center, The Woodlands
and Irvine, as well as Planned New Communities in
Great Britain and France). These places were
designed to have a balance of jobs/housing/
services/recreation/amenity and have a community-wide
minimum intensity of 10 persons per acre.
For
areas served by a shared vehicle system (aka,
public transit) the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in
Virginia provides a good yardstick for station
area density of 100 person per acre.
Also
important is a clear understanding of the units of
scale and relationships such as density including
gross and net densities.
6.
Vocabulary. The final tool needed to
overcome Geographic Illiteracy is a robust and
consistent vocabulary. Chapter 3 of The Shape
of the Future documents the need for a
comprehensive and consistent vocabulary to
understand human settlement patterns. Appendix One
(LEXICON) and Appendix Two (CORE CONFUSING WORDS)
establishes a common basis for communicating about
the human settlement pattern. One key is to avoid
using words that have several meanings or which
have been intentionally distorted or are used to
confuse locational relationships. Core Confusing
Words include “rural,” “suburban,”
“city” and “local.” The use of new phrases
or capitalization to indicate a specific meaning
is intended often help.
Overcoming
Geographic Illiteracy and achieving Geographic
Literacy is one of the most important objectives
of education programs intended to prepare citizens
to support Fundamental Change. It is made more
difficult and more important by the intentional
use of terms and maps to confuse or
obfuscate–e.g. home-builder maps of context and
location of projects. One of the primary
objectives of publishing The Shape of the
Future is provide citizens with
references to other resources they need to overcome
Geographic Illiteracy.
--
April 11, 2005
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