Spatial behaviour: a geographic perspective

Abstract

This book is about spatial problems. It provides some indication of how different people over time have solved spatial problems. It examines problems at widely different scales from individual behaviour in maginary settings or in the confines of a laboratory to the activities of corporations and governments. Topics covered include human decision making and choice behaviour at scales ranging from the individual and the private and corporate capitalist to the state. The first chapter looks at some social and behavioural constraints on human behaviour. Chapter 2 introduces a conceptual model of the individual decision-making process. It later expands this to the context of private and corporate capitalists and state decision making for planning and policy purposes. The two following chapters discuss the changing operational milieu. Initially, it examines the process and impact of economic, social; and technological change along with the practices of globalization and internationalization of economies and societies. The next chapter complements this by emphasizing the demographic and economic changes that have been instrumental in producing the decline of regions at various scales. The next three chapters discuss disaggregate behavioural processes. Chapter 10 discusses the related topics of consumer behaviour and retail center location. The role of imagery in consumer decision making is stressed as are other topics such as search and learning and feedback. Store and center images are presented as factors influencing location by retailers, and this leads to a historical overview of the development of retail centers in the US, their locational characteristics and attributes, and the physical and perceptual factors that influence consumer patronage. The affective components of place and space are discussed in Chapter 11. In Chapter 12, the more or less permanent moves across the landscape (known as migration) are discussed in both the original deterministic and alter probabilistic forms. Types of migration and the beliefs, values, aspirations, and stresses underlying the decision to move are evaluated. Chapter 13 returns to a disaggregate approach and examines residential site selection processes in the context of short-term intracity moves, a process usually referred to as mobility. The final few chapters cover relatively new topics in geography - the spatial characteristics and problems of special populations.