Regional science in a physical/virtual more/less world

Abstract

In this paper, originally presented as my Presidential Address at the 55th WRSA Annual Meeting, I discuss how demographic trends currently underway will need a regional science that responds to the needs of a more/less rather than a more/more world. I ponder the concepts of daily activity and awareness spaces and the ways in which some of the most important questions in regional science have been fundamentally altered by the Internet, cell phones, social media, and other new forms of communications and ways to conduct transactions. I speculate about the nature of distance and other locational concepts in the cyberspace, and I contend that as people live in both physical and virtual activity spaces, the local realm has actually assumed newly increased importance.