Wonks on the Web: E M Risse

The Shape of the Future



 

 

Geographic Illiteracy

 

Americans cannot function effectively as citizens until they master the six components of their geographic surroundings.


 

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: 

  • Basic Orientation

  • Urban Context

  • Regional Context

  • Critical Spacial Relationships

  • Regional Metrics

  • Vocabulary

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:

  • What direction is North (and East, South and West) from this location?

  • In what watershed is this site? Which direction is “down stream”? And, if one were to go downstream, where would they end up?

  • From what direction do the prevailing winds blow?

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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