Industrialization and Economic Development
in Advanced Placement Human Geography
Adrian J. Bailey
ABSTRACT
This article discusses the contents
and significance of the industrialization
and economic development section of
the Advanced Placement human geography course. It also describes how the
course outline breaks into four sections
the concern of economic geographers
with the analysis of the spatial character of economic activity. In summarizing the content of these sections attention is given to links with other course
modules and to the use of effective
pedagogies for articulating key concepts.
Key words: high school geography,
Advanced Placement human geography,
global economy, globalization
Adrian Bailey is Senior Lecturer in the
School of Geography, University of Leeds,
Leeds LSI 9JT UK.
Over the last quarter of the recent millennium few processes have
matched the power of industrialization i n transforming our environmental and cultural surroundings. Thus, the economic acts of workers,
consumers, and institutions are central to an understanding of h u m a n
geography. Today's urban and rural landscapes carry the i m p r i n t of economic activities and, as a yardstick of the success of economic activity,
support a global population now i n excess of 6 billion persons . H o w e v er, patterns of industrialization and economic development are notoriously uneven at a variety of geographic scales. The subdiscipline of economic geography studies these inequalities. Most generally, economic
geographers examine the spatial organization of acts of production and
consumption, and consider the broader impacts of that organization.
1
The reemergence of human geography as a central element of a
high school curriculum has m u c h to do w i t h a rising awareness of h o w
connected i n an economic sense today's w o r l d has become. Financial
and commodity markets never sleep; Europe watches activity i n Asia,
where traders have been responding to events on Wall Street, and so on;
a long established local firm's decision to close may be partly reflective
of wage conditions thousands of miles away; our wardrobes, our cars,
our media reports have all been assembled from far flung raw materials. Such interdependence permeates an analysis of economic geography. Recent shifts i n the nature of economic organization are bringing
human communities i n ever closer contact—in the process changing our
understanding of concepts like culture and nation-state. Furthermore,
some regions w h i c h experienced industrial growth over a century ago
now face problems of de-industriahzation, including pollution and
environmental degradation.
It is the analysis of the spatial character of economic activity that
forms the leitmotif of the Industrialization and Economic Development
module of the Advanced Placement (AP) human geography course and
lends distinction to the geographic approach. The module, and thus this
article, is structured into four sections. The first t w o sections introduce
basic concepts and describe the growth and emergence of the global
economy. Section three portrays contemporary patterns of industrialization and economic development. The fourth section introduces some of
the broader social, cultural, and environmental impacts of economic
change. Thus, this module helps students appreciate contemporary
(economic) landscapes i n their historic context. This i n t u r n helps flag a
set of key concepts that empower students to analyze the landscapes
they observe. I n addition to signposting topics, concepts, and resources
Journal of Geography 99:142-152
©2000 National Council for Geographic Education
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Industrialization and Economic Development
w h i c h can stimulate such analysis, this article also
aims to demonstrate h o w human geographers
study economic activities i n relation to the other
topics of the A P human geography course.
T H E C H A R A C T E R OF INDUSTRIALIZATION
Broadly understood as the ascendance of industrial activity i n the economy of a region or country,
the passage of industrialization is associated by
many i n N o r t h America w i t h the replacement of
farming and resource extraction as a means of maki n g a living by manufacturing and service activity.
As students w i l l expect, this transition takes different forms i n different places at different times and,
for economic geographers, this spatial variation i n
industrialization yields important clues about
underlying processes (i.e., h o w economies w o r k ) .
Thus, the geographies of industrialization and economic development are important both as ends i n
themselves (reflecting and influencing differences
i n quality of life across the world) and as means to
making sense of future g r o w t h patterns.
To describe these variations i t is helpful to
break u p the activities of a regional or national
economy into four or five sectors. The p r i m a r y sector covers economic activities directly concerned
w i t h the use of the natural environment. Farming,
fishing, forestry, hunting, and m i n i n g variously
derive value f r o m extracting either renewable (e.g.,
managed forests) or nonrenewable (e.g., diamonds)
resources. Indeed, m i n i n g activities were recently
cited as the main reason w h y the Mozambican
economy was predicted to be the world's fastest
growing economy i n 2000. Students can gain an
appreciation of the ways i n w h i c h the primary sector continues to be important i n the U.S. and Canada by referring to the agriculture section of the
course and by examining regional and local variations i n employment patterns.
The secondary sector involves the processing of
products f r o m the p r i m a r y sector (i.e., raw materials) and the fabrication of objects w i t h value.
Stereotypes of industrialization often call u p images
of belching smokestacks, black factories juxtaposed
on green fields, and male assembly-line workers.
However, manufacturing involves more than men
making things. The secondary sector today covers
designer-name shirts being stitched by immigrant
w o m e n i n sweatshops i n Philadelphia and Toronto,
the assembly of jet aircraft i n Seattle and Long
Beach, the bottling of Coca-Cola i n Atlanta and Sao
Paulo, and production of silicon chips i n Scotland.
2
3
4
Most economic activities of the modern N o r t h
American economy belong to the tertiary sector.
Here, value is added by providing a service by, perhaps, facilitating the exchange or consumption of a
primary or secondary sector product. The service
sector covers a great number of activities, including
distribution (wholesaling, retailing), transportation
(airlines, trucking firms) and, of increasing importance i n many large cities, the provision of professional and business services (finance, insurance,
real estate: FIRE activities). Such is the scope of service activity that it is useful to further identify those
tertiary acts concerned w i t h adding value b y
exchanging and applying information, knowledge,
a n d / o r capital (the quaternary sector). Indeed, the
growing diversity of this category i n today's k n o w l edge economy has promoted the use of the term
quinary sector to refer to higher order, complex, and
specialist tasks of control, production, and management.
Over the course of the so-called industrial revolution the share of U.S. and Canadian employment
belonging to each of the above sectors has shifted
dramatically. D r a w i n g on materials i n the agriculture and urban sections of the course students can
appreciate h o w the increase of urbanization is associated w i t h steady declines i n primary sector
employment, early increases followed by stability
and decline i n secondary employment, and increasi n g service sector g r o w t h . Exactly h o w and w h y
national economies are transformed over time is a
tale human geographers premise on several key
ideas.
The first of these is the concept of comparative
advantage. This is the competitive edge, i n the f o r m
of lower production costs or cheaper raw materials,
enjoyed by one location over another. Assuming an
established demand for a commodity like coffee, w e
might expect places w i t h favorable growing conditions, cheap or pliant labor, a n d / o r the most imaginative marketing campaigns to capture market
share. Silicon Valley can specialize i n technology
innovation partly because its pool of highly skilled
labor gives i t a comparative advantage over a
region of net out-migration, for example
Appalachia. As a result of such comparative advantage some locations begin to specialize.
However, w i t h o u t the means to move raw
materials and products between locations, specialization and economic growth cannot proceed.
Transport and communication systems help raw
materials move to sites of processing/fabrication
and semicomplete or end products reach interven-
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ing sites of manufacture or final markets. As w i t h
all movement across space, the concepts of the U l l man triad f o r m a basis for understanding the v o l ume and timing of such flows (such concepts apply
widely across the course and may have been introduced before this particular section). Complementarity refers to the needs of one region matching the
products of another region (e.g., Christmas trees
being shipped f r o m rural N e w England to Manhattan i n late November); intervening opportunity
refers to the presence of a nearer opportunity w h i c h
reduces the attractiveness of a more distant location
(e.g., fewer Mexican migrants f r o m Baja California
reach Seattle because of the employment possibilities i n California); and transferability, w h i c h refers
to the physical ability to move items (e.g., g r o w t h of
skiing as a significant leisure activity enjoyed by
many was contingent upon i m p r o v i n g the accessibility of suitable mountain areas for consumers).
However, the topological and technological
characteristics of transport and communications
systems themselves also play a part i n shaping economic growth. Movement across space needs fixed
investments i n , for example, canals, railroad tracks,
airports, and roads. Even something as virtual as
the Internet requires a series of physical connections that may include cables capable of high speed
transmission of information, networks of nodes
including satellites, and the support of groundbased distribution systems to ensure final product
delivery to the consumer. Because these fixed
investments are expensive and risky, they are often
constructed first i n places w i t h existing locational
resources. Contemporary investment i n Internet
facilities illustrate the connected idea of cumulative
causation, w i t h most g r o w t h occurring i n countries
that have h i g h levels of per capita income.
Furthermore, once constructed and embossed
on the landscape, transport and communications
systems may constrain future economic growth
(e.g., Knox and Marston [1998, 84] discuss the case
of colonial railroads). Colonial lines of communication helped the flow of materials out of many
colonies b u t do little to enable internal flows
between remote parts of these n o w independent
nations. However, the relationship between transport and communications systems and economic
growth does vary considerably over time and
space. Indeed, the past may not always be the best
guide to the future. A number of geographically
dispersed groups see the internet as a communication system that can enable effective constituencies
to be built around such issues as human rights,
unfair workplace practices, ecological destruction,
and racism. The Institute for Global Communications gateway (listed i n the Appendix A ) provides
an example of some of these communities, including PeaceNet, Anti-RacismNet, and EcoNet.
A t the center of the geographic understanding
of circulation systems is a concern w i t h h o w technology enables distance to be manipulated (or, the
friction of distance to be reduced). Industrial location theory asks just this question: how does distance, reflected through transport or labor costs,
affect the location of economic activity? For example, Hotelling's seemingly trivial consideration of
where t w o ice cream vendors stand on a beach sets
the stage for an appreciation of locational interdependence. His choice of beach was clever because i t
simplified the complex w o r l d to a one-dimensional
plane, on w h i c h he further assumed that consumers
w o u l d be equally spaced. Concerned to serve all
beach goers (by not locating too far f r o m any part
of the beach) and concerned to maximize their o w n
market share, Hotelling argued that the t w o vendors w o u l d stand back-to-back at the center of the
beach; i n other words, one's location was dependent upon the other's.
Alfred Weber built an industrial location theory
that described where a manufacturing plant w o u l d
locate on a two-dimensional plane, featureless
except for discrete raw materials and market sites.
Weber demonstrated that the effect of distance was
contingent upon the type of process that occurred
inside the factory. If the manufacturing process
involved weight loss, such as w o u l d occur i n a
paper m i l l , the factory location w o u l d favor the site
of raw materials, so that the costs of transporting
(heavy) lumber could be minimized. Such resourceoriented activities contrast to market-oriented activities (e.g., bread making and dairying before the
advent of refrigeration). This insight can be extended to cover other aspects of the production process
like fragility, perishability, hazard, and so on. The
w o r k of other location theorists—notably Walter
Christaller and August Losch—illustrates how distance affects the market areas of enterprises.
Although some might f i n d the assumptions of these
1930s approaches somewhat irrelevant to a w o r l d
w i t h the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs
(GATT) and socially responsible corporations, the
models themselves do contain a system of logic and
concepts w i t h an extended shelf life.
Combining the concern w i t h locational interdependence and characteristics and needs of the production process draws attention to the advantages
5
Industrialization and Economic Development
and disadvantages of flocking together, that is
agglomerating (Figure 1). Indeed, the "theory"
behind malls, industrial estates, and business parks
assums agglomeration economies (the savings to
clustering) exceed deglomeration costs. The former
can accrue under three conditions. First, savings
occur w h e n clusters of activities together exert
enough demand for support services i n a particular
place (e.g., temporary workers, restaurants, legal
advisors, specialist engineers). Second, activities
concerned w i t h information exchange, innovation,
and control thrive on finely tuned networks of
news, information, gossip, and trust. They at least
perceive that they can reduce uncertainty and raise
trust (particularly important i n the financial sector)
by h u d d l i n g together. Third, clusters of activities
are more likely to generate demands for infrastructure developments (e.g., schools, theaters) than are
isolated industries. This infrastructure i n t u r n
attracts labor and capital investment i n the area.
By contrast, deglomeration (deconcentration
due to technological change or increased costs of
continued clustering) occurs w h e n too many activities, perhaps of the w r o n g type, are too close
together. Signs of deglomeration include traffic congestion, pollution, delays, increased unreliability,
labor shortages, capital shortages, supply shortages,
inflation (perhaps driven by strong demand for
scarce housing), increased land prices, and a general decay of infrastructure because of intense use.
By the conclusion of the first section of the
course outline, students can begin to describe and
account for the geography of economic activities on
the bases of several factors (absolute location, rela6
145
tive location, distance, accessibility, linkages, interdependencies) at the f i r m scale. Clearly, there are
different scales to consider (the individual entrepreneur and consumer, the national or global context)
and many assumptions to relax, for example those
about imperfect information and the role of government. The student examines the relevance of these
broader concerns i n the second section.
SPATIAL A S P E C T S OF T H E R I S E OF INDUSTRIAL
ECONOMIES
The second section takes the largely abstract
concepts f r o m above and uses them to describe
h o w industrial economies emerged over the past
400 years. H o w have we come b y the striking patterns of uneven development seen today? Are the
gulfs separating prosperity and poverty seen at the
national scale also evident regionally, or between
rural, suburban, and urban areas, or perhaps
between neighborhoods i n a city? Are similar
processes at w o r k across different scales? H o w
important are geographic factors (like diffusion and
selective migration) i n explaining geographic patterns? Are these geographic factors becoming less
or more important i n a shrinking world? I n analyzing the story of change i n the European, N o r t h
American, and global economy students become
aware of the interdependence between economic
development and the matters raised i n other course
modules.
The first key theme of this section explores h o w
energy sources and technology together affect the
timing and pace of industrialization. The rise of
machine-production, and thus the unofficial onset
of the industrial revolution, is widely tagged to the
textile industry i n Lancashire i n N o r t h West England. Technology, i n the f o r m of the mechanical
loom, which greatly sped u p the production of
cloth, could only be applied i n places w i t h a sufficient energy supply that were close to sources of
early venture capital. The t w i n importance of
absolute and relative location was, of course, technology dependent, as history showed w h e n water
power was replaced b y coal power.
Similarly, the industrial revolution i n N o r t h
America also first took place i n rural areas w i t h
adequate energy supplies (waterfalls), technology
raw materials, capital, and access to domestic markets. The growth of textiles i n N e w England exemplifies this pattern. Clearly, technology and energy
Figure 1. Malls, such as this New Jersey example, exemplify
have
always played a key role i n industrialization;
the advantages of agglomeration economies, but also some disit is the spatial and temporal context of this relaadvantages from clustering, such as overcrowded parking lots
at holiday times.
Bailey
146
tionship that the A P course teases out. It is helpful,
for example, to point to the changing relationship
between industrialization and " u r b a n " location.
The first proto-industrial establishments i n England
(to a lesser extent i n N e w England) were rural; the
mass production factories of the early 1900s were
urban based; the expansion of tertiary and some
quaternary activities is closely associated w i t h the
g r o w t h of suburban areas (e.g., shopping malls,
edge cities).
The early emergence of distinct cores of industrial activity, w i t h particular forms of economic
organization, comprises a second important theme.
Economic geographers tend to use the term core to
describe regions w i t h concentrations of employment, capital, and economic control. Descriptions of
northern England i n the period 1790-1850, northwest Europe between 1850 and 1870, and much of
Europe by the First World War show h o w clusters
of industry based on particular technologies developed i n core areas. These industries often took
advantage of agglomeration economies to reduce
costs. Industry brought new investment to the core
through backward linkages (supplying firms w i t h
components and services), forward linkages (helping firms find uses and destinations for their products), and ancillary industries (attracted to a core
when a critical threshold of economic activity was
reached). By now, an u p w a r d spiral of economic
growth was underway, fueled by the arrival of i n migrants and, later, immigrants, w h o were often
young, ambitious, and eager to w o r k . Furthermore,
profits were reinvested into infrastructure developments w h i c h further improved the competitive
advantage of the core relative to other areas (e.g.,
improved accessibility w o u l d cut production costs).
Profits were also used to develop new forms of
technology that could launch new waves of industrial expansion.
The g r o w t h of industrial cores cannot be understood w i t h o u t an examination of the situation of
peripheries. Generally, economic geographers use
the term periphery to refer to regions often distant
from economic cores and certainly marginal to
them. Concerned w i t h understanding the economic
fortunes of regions w i t h i n a nation, a group of
scholars applied the idea of cumulative causation
to chart the interdependent g r o w t h of cores and
peripheries. They noted that a core dominated a set
of peripheries because the beneficial effects of the
core u p o n the periphery (spread effects) were
eclipsed by the negative impact of the core upon
the periphery (backwash effects). As a regional eco-
nomic core developed, raw materials, skilled
migrants, and capital (e.g., savings) w o u l d flow
f r o m the periphery to the core. It was only at a later
stage of development, and perhaps w i t h government intervention through grants, loans, road
building, special enterprise zones and the like, that
the core w o u l d have a positive impact upon economic activities i n the surrounding periphery.
This account of economic activity is useful
because i t suggests there may be recognizable
stages of economic growth, and because it stresses
core-periphery interdependence. It can also be juxtaposed w i t h the w o r k of structuralists, w h o
believed that the g r o w t h of the core was actually
predicated on the systematic underdevelopment of
the periphery. Wallerstein's w o r l d systems model
also turns on core-periphery relations, but at the
global scale (Figure 2).
By studying the emergence of specific industrial cores, for example the N o r t h American Manufacturing Belt ( N A M B ) , students can appreciate how
the diffusion of ideas, innovations, and knowledge
affects the course of industrialization. A n analysis
of the emergence of the Japanese industrial core i n
the 1920s through the 1950s could show h o w position i n the emerging global economy affects the rise
of new cores.
The third theme of this section explores h o w
the single global economy arose. This material, vast
but generally well-surveyed i n the texts, gives students an opportunity to stitch together what they
know about industrialization i n their o w n local
area, the concepts of scale, locational interdependence, agglomeration, cumulative causation, coreperiphery, and place context, and their understand8
7
Figure 2. World systems theory helps explain some of the
anomolies seen in modern cities, as illustrated in Pretoria,
South Africa.
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Industrialization and Economic Development
ing of the way cultural and geopolitical systems
changed over the past 600 years globally. There is
useful synergy w i t h the political module of the
course. For example, the colonial organization of
much of the w o r l d i n the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries was associated w i t h the international division of labor. Colonies w i t h particular
comparative advantages specialized i n the production of raw materials and foods, provided they d i d
not compete w i t h existing core interests (i.e., complementarity). These items were then supplied to
the core as inputs to the manufacturing sector, w i t h
some of the finished goods shipped back to the
periphery. Clearly, this system of organization was
predicated u p o n military, economic, and cultural
control of the periphery by the core, the ability of
technology to offer enough of a profit margin on
quite hazardous transactions, and a degree of p o l i t i cal stability.
Turn of the century imperialism on the part of
Europe, the United States, and later Japan helped
bind the global periphery into the emerging w o r l d
system. Earlier economic specializations and terms
of trade, new rounds of infrastructure investment,
brain drain, and capital depletion increased the
dependency of most of the world's population on a
few core nations. W i t h the USSR and China traveling d o w n a Second World state-planned economic
road following the Second World War, i t was the
N o r t h American economy, w i t h Europe trailing and
Japan catching u p , w h i c h dominated economic
growth i n the expansionary 1960s. This First World
dominated an increasingly politically independent
Third World. West German Chancellor Brandt drew
his n o w famous North-South line on the map of
economic development i n the late 1960s.
Teachers may choose to apply these empirical
themes to help students to a geographic appreciation of some of the widespread models of economic
development. I n a neoclassical economic vein, Rostow's stages of economic development model
argues that an isolated (e.g., island) economy is d r i ven through a series of stages by economic processes, including income inelasticities of demand (the
idea that the demand for, say, brussels sprouts
doesn't increase as y o u get richer). Sociologist
Immanuel Wallerstein's contributions to an understanding of the emergence of a w o r l d system, d o m i nated by a core-semiperiphery-periphery structure,
is more obviously spatial i n orientation, and
includes a dynamic element that describes how
economies may wax and wane w i t h the passage of
technology and political systems.
9
CONTEMPORARY G L O B A L PATTERNS OF
INDUSTRIALIZATION A N D R E S O U R C E
EXTRACTION
The third section of the module helps students
appreciate both differences and continuities
between past economic landscapes and today's
global economy. The term globalization is increasingly used (and overused) to describe the abstract (e.g.,
the experience of time and space) and material (e.g.,
production practices) elements of the highly integrated global economy. This section focuses mostly
on the transnational (spanning t w o or more
nations), national, and regional variations i n economic activity of the past 30 years. Finer scale variations, particularly i n rural and urban contexts, are
further discussed i n the agriculture and urban sections of the course.
The t w i n concepts of linkage and interdependence help bring globalization into focus. Technological innovation i n space-shrinking (jet engines)
and time-saving (e-mail, fax, robotics) processes
have enabled industrial organizations to stay efficiently coordinated w h i l e they grow i n size and
scope of operation. Transnational companies
(TNCs) or multinational companies (MNCs), like
Ford and Exxon, n o w produce more than many
countries do. General Motors recently reported $130
billion i n sales, almost double Pakistan's GNP! The
ability of producers to move production sites
around, and to renegotiate contracts w i t h suppliers,
wholesalers, retailers, labor, and even governments
is described under the umbrella heading of flexible
accumulation, to distinguish it from the more r i g i d
production relationships that previously characterized Fordism.
The size and footloose strategies of TNCs, combined w i t h reports of repressive practices and
exploitative local relations, have p u t the spotlight
on contemporary locational strategies. What is
interesting for geography students is that some of
these strategies are explicitly spatial. Company
case-studies can be used to illustrate the point. The
Body Shop w o u l d like us to think of i t as a multilocal company. This is a claim students can consider
i n the broader context of commodity chains and
global sourcing. Certainly, the Asian inspired m o n umentalist design of company headquarters, located just outside a fading seaside resort t o w n i n England, projects an image of a company trying to
redefine what is meant by local.
10
Linkages have also facilitated travel, tourism,
and the diffusion of western, particularly American,
Bailey
148
consumer culture around the globe. Tourism has
g r o w n into a major global industry and helped fuel
the demand for images and news of far-flung
places. As well as illustrating a global phenomenon,
the geography of tourism enables students to
appreciate a number of course themes at the local
level. Many towns actively promote tourism to supplement economic development. Students can
undertake field w o r k w h i c h collects data to assess
the costs and benefits of tourism on the local econom y and use concepts like basic/nonbasic employment and multipliers to summarize these trends.
Many tourists are attracted to places because of the
images of these places, and so tourism is an important w i n d o w u p o n how we (like to) see geographic
landscapes. It is helpful to examine promotional literature, guidebooks, and picture postcards to see
what kinds of images of local places are being projected to visitor and tourists.
What we see by examining contemporary
industrial processes i n any economic sector is an
increase i n interdependency. I n the quaternary and
quinary sectors, the internationalization of finance
and investment means that an old adage " w h e n
Boston sneezes N e w England catches c o l d " should
be rewritten. Recent examples may include " w h e n
Mexico sneezes, Texas/California catch cold" (e.g.,
the peso devaluation of the mid-1990s), and " w h e n
southeast Asia sneezes, the industrial N o r t h catches
cold" (e.g., the 1998 crisis). More generally, the socalled new international division of labor describes
how periphery regions are n o w dependent u p o n
the core for creating manufacturing jobs, w h i l e core
TNCs are likewise dependent upon the periphery
for the opportunity to obtain cheap wages, production regimes unfettered by complex costly environmental regulations, and access to expanding markets.
As w i l l be anticipated by many students, representing these complex, shifting industrial geographies on choropleth maps w h i c h use nation-state
lines misses what is distinctive about globalization
(see Castells 1996 for a depiction of network society). The global economy does have its core region
(a tripolar core connecting the post-industrial
economies of Japan and southeast Asia, N o r t h
America, and Europe) but it operates through networks of flows between particular control points
(world cities, places w i t h a disproportionate share
of economic, political, and cultural influence).
Major industrial regions of the w o r l d are n o w
woven into this web of control.
Students should thus be encouraged to glimpse
the contours of these new industrial geographies
and their impacts at multiple geographic scales b y
using multiple markers. Standard texts all provide
maps of levels of economic development including
variations i n per capita gross national product,
gross domestic product, and income across nations.
Cartograms make effective points about the global
economic dominance of the few. Alternative measures of output, especially those that p u t i t i n the
context of what is affordable to residents (e.g., the
purchasing power parity) are also useful. The
World Bank maintains a Web site w h i c h includes
access to the w o r l d development indicators and the
w o r l d development reports.
Likewise, the specific geography of production
and consumption can also be appreciated at m u l t i ple scales. Firm level analyses demonstrate interdependency: see, for example, diagrams of end products that show source regions for components. The
Internet is a wonderful place for students interested
in finding out more about the geographic operations of particular companies.
By depicting the contemporary landscapes of
the w o r l d economy, students have the opportunity
to apply the concepts of sections one and t w o and
to develop conclusions about the nature of the global economy. What are its distinctive features? I t
should be possible to see h o w the replacement of
secondary activities w i t h higher order activities i n
the many industrialized countries, and the simultaneous replacement of primary activities w i t h secondary activities i n many industrializing countries
has led to growth for some and decline for others.
The newly industrializing countries (NICs), part of
the semiperiphery of w o r l d systems theory, provides an excellent recent example of some winners.
Of these, the four Asian Tigers—South Korea, Taiwan, H o n g Kong, and Singapore—are often cited as
exemplars of modern economic development. South
Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore all appeared i n the
list of the U.S.'s top 10 total trading partners i n
mid-1998. These places successfully attracted the
high labor intensive production activities (e.g., shoe
production and textiles) away from locations i n the
United States and Europe, where labor costs were
much greater.
The experience of the " w i n n i n g " tigers can be
juxtaposed alongside the years of steady industrial
decline caused by a loss of local jobs i n manufacturing and seen at a regional level i n the communities
of the N A M B . The topic of deindustrialization
encourages students to apply their understanding
of place to economic change. Industrial activity is
11
12
13
Industrialization and Economic Development
149
tan area ranked i n the top 10 of all U.S. metropolitan areas i n 1998 for average income level.
I n describing contemporary global patterns of
industrialization, there are numerous opportunities
to discuss the pivotal role played by governments
in promoting economic development. Examples of
the importance of government or state actions
designed to create a productive environment for
economic accumulation, also called regulation,
abound at all scales. Internationally, the trade agreements negotiated by members of the GATT help
define the playing field of global trade. Governments provide development assistance bilaterally or
through international agencies like the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and
regional agencies like the Asian Development Bank
and the InterAmerican Development Bank. Governments may sue other nations and / o r economic entities over economic matters: the U.S. has taken
China to court over the copying of music CDs;
Britain went to war w i t h Iceland over cod reserves;
India sought to recover damages after the Bhopal
tragedy i n 1984.
Governments have devised export processing
zones, maquiladoras, empowerment zones, and tax
free zones to attract and retain economic investment. Other strategies include the reduction of
trade tariffs to promote the free movement of
goods, capital, and i n some cases labor across
national borders (compare the EU and NAFTA),
and the facilitation of access to national markets for
firms w h o produce locally. I n Singapore aggressive
industrial policy was matched by complementary
social policy that allocated very scarce housing to
the right (in terms of age, marital status, and ethnicity) workforce. Governments may also find i t economically, politically, and morally undesirable to
accept large regional disparities i n economic
growth. The creation of growth poles, regional
development agencies, and even forward thrust
capitals, together w i t h the decentralization of public
sector activities, have all been used to address these
spatial inequalities i n a domestic setting.
Finally, government can do a great deal to
influence the direction of local economic development. First, governments spend money at the local
level that can spur growth (e.g., by building a new
sewer line to a greenfield site for industrial expansion or through grants to small business). Realizing
the potential of tourism, local governments of some
U.S. towns have spruced up their main streets and
Figure 3. Landscapes of deindustrialization include deteriorat- competed for federal funds to promote visitor
ing factories, such as these in New Hampshire that had become attractions and spectacles. I t is at the local level
a safety and environmental hazard.
unevenly located through space because of the
ways that innovation diffuses and the high fixed
costs that stick or embed certain activities, technologies, and industries to place. Those regions w i t h
high labor costs and old technology experience
deindustrialization as new technologies can be
more cheaply appropriated elsewhere. The higher
amenity values, lower rates of unionization, government contracts, and availability of greenfield
sites all helped spark the economic development of
the U.S. Sunbelt around key technologies (e.g., aerospace, defense, refining). This drew investment
away f r o m the N A M B , where sunset industries
were already i n decline, due partly to foreign competition from the NICs, and the term rust belt began
to be used (Figure 3). Locations w i t h high fixed
costs, where industry and workers were embedded,
were worse hit (e.g., A k r o n , Ohio, and Wheeling,
West Virginia).
However, other parts of the o l d N A M B (e.g.,
Columbus, Ohio) had a sufficiently diverse industrial heritage and escaped from having all their
industrial eggs i n one basket. They were able to
attract investment based on traditional locational
advantages (e.g., accessibility). Retailing and other
services grew strongly. Still other parts of the
N A M B reindustrialized on the back of Japanese
investment i n new autoplants. Some of this growth
can be linked to the forward-looking and aggressive
government actions i n promoting the region and to
the remaining pools of skilled labor and k n o w l edge. I n the case of Detroit, Michigan, the Renaissance Center was constructed as a symbol of the
planned rebirth of that economy. According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics , the Detroit metropoli14
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150
where differences i n economic development
philosophies are often most evident and where the
importance of attributes like personality, going to
the right college/university, gender, and race can be
seen. Setting up a student-moderated debate on
topics such as redevelopment between representatives of local business/chambers of commerce on
the one side, and planners on the other side can be
very illuminating (Figure 4).
IMPACTS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION
This final component serves as a bridge to other
parts of the AP human geography course. Here,
four brief examples of the kinds of links that may
be interesting to students are introduced. Throughout, the recursive relation between economic
change and all other elements of human geography
is stressed.
H u m a n geographers, i n particular David Harvey, have achieved recognition for their discussions
of the cultural impacts of globalization (see, for
example, Harvey 1989). The notion of time-space
compression refers to the new balance between
time, space, and the material worlds of human
geography, and derives f r o m geographers' earlier
observation that, as technology enables travel times
to be sped u p , places appear to get closer together.
The twist i n the tale is that while some places really
do seem to be culturally more similar and accessible to more people (e.g., an overnight at the San
Salvador Intercontinental w o u l d feel no different
than one at the Atlanta Marriot), other residents of
other places are less connected and more isolated.
Nigel Thrift (1995, ch. 2) has coined the terms fast
w o r l d and slow w o r l d to suggest that time-space
compression means very different things for different groups of people. Possession of a couple of
credit cards, an advanced degree, a passport or t w o ,
and a basic knowledge of a technology means the
w o r l d is your oyster. For those without a career,
w h o perhaps rely on transfer payments, have no
bank account, have little post high school education, and no access to technology, the slow w o r l d is
an isolated and restricting w o r l d . A n examination
of the location of bank branches or automatic teller
machines (ATMs) compared to sociodemographic
variables (e.g., educational qualifications, poverty
levels) can provide students w i t h a local and often
very powerful test of this hypothesis.
15
What might be the implications of reconfigured
experiences of time and space for future economic
activity? Does this represent, as some have
observed, the end of geography? Or is place more
important? Certainly, minute differences i n production costs between places (i.e., locational advantages) can n o w be monitored and exploited by
high-speed technology systems. Furthermore,
places themselves have been commodified, and
must be carefully managed and presented to the
watching public. Is Kenya one of the most dangerous and repressive places i n the w o r l d (a view f r o m
Amnesty International) or is i t part of the pleasure
periphery (a v i e w from A i r Kenya)?
Social impacts of industrialization can be illustrated by how the new international division of
labor has tended to create particular clusters of jobs
i n particular places. I n w o r l d cities, a polarized (or
dual) labor market structure seems to be emerging.
Well-educated professionals take advantage of
lucrative employment positions i n FIRE and have
well-paying career posts that include health insurance. I n N o r t h American cities the primary labor
market is still dominated by white men (although
this situation is slowly changing, and there is great
variation between cities). These quaternary and
quinary sector jobs are serviced by an army of
cleaners, domestics, nannies, retailers, chauffeurs,
message delivery agents, Fedex drivers, and the
like. Members of the secondary labor market overrepresent immigrants, minorities, and women; are
employed on a fixed contract, part-time, or even
under-the-table basis; lack representation and benefits; and are minimally remunerated.
16
H o w might this geography of production and
consumption seen i n these polarized w o r l d cities
impact future economic activity? One way to
approach this broad question that has direct appeal
Figure 4. Public-private partnerships offer an important means
to many students is to examine the access the next
to spark employment growth in many cities.
generation has to education. I n many N o r t h A m e r i -
Industrialization and Economic Development
can cities, secondary labor market workers are often
constrained to live i n areas w i t h poor schools (see
the urban section). Lacking technology investment
(6 Tuathail and McCormack 1998) and positive role
models, and exposed to decaying infrastructure and
health insults (see below), some of these workers'
children w i l l develop insufficient skills to join the
fast w o r l d . Students might be encouraged to think
through statements like "geography as destiny" to
develop their understanding of the role of external
forces (e.g., macroeconomic change, welfare policy,
racism, sexism) and individual factors (e.g., family
circumstance, drive) i n shaping future social geographies.
Industrialization changes h u m a n health and
thus affects the quality of life, morbidity, mortality,
and broader population dynamics. Many industrial
processes have the effect of concentrating h a r m f u l
materials near human settlements, risking exposure
and poor health. Examples include elevated rates of
leukemia and cancer around nuclear reactors, lung
and throat cancers i n miners, lead poisoning i n the
blood of children w h o live near smelters, and
increased rates of asthma i n inner city areas. Deindustrial regions may be particularly unhealthy
places to live, as the by-products of yesterday's
industrial processes often decay slowly, and industries/ governments may not have the resources to
clean u p polluted land due to lack of spare cash.
Broader processes of globalization have also
been linked, positively and negatively, to health
outcomes. For example, increases i n tourism, overseas travel, the size of planes, and immigration
bring different risk groups i n contact w i t h different
sources of infection. Infectious diseases like H I V AIDS and parasitic diseases spread more quickly i n
areas of impoverishment, such as overurbanized
cities i n industrializing countries, where the industrial base provides too few jobs for an expanding
population. Geopolitical instability associated w i t h
the diffusion of Western capitalism and the break
up of former republics has created vast refugee
flows that are comprised of persons at particular
risk of infection. However, early warning and m o n i toring technologies have enabled more precise reactions to emerging diseases (e.g., the Ebola virus),
and the g r o w t h of innovation i n biotechnology has
led to the production and dissemination of increasingly effective drugs.
Health risks are of course part of the broader
suite of changes made to the natural environment
by processes of industrial change. I n remrning to
our original theme—the relationship between
nature and society—students can consider how
17
151
ozone depletion, global w a r m i n g and climate
change, acid rain, the production and disposal of
wastes, and loss of biodiversity (among others) are
global-scale environmental modifications directly
tied to patterns of industrialization. The IPAT
framework (which equates impact upon environment to population, affluence, and technology variables) clearly ties environmental changes to the
process of industrialization and to the production
and consumption acts of people and institutions i n
a group of rich, industrialized nations.
Given the degree of interdependence between
national events (e.g., the one-time Chernobyl disaster or the daily b u r n i n g of fossil fuel i n the U.S.
Midwest) and global environmental systems, it is
not surprising that international bodies are increasingly involved i n raising awareness. A l t h o u g h the
doomsday predictions of the 1960s limits to g r o w t h
model may seem far fetched, food supply shocks,
the debate over genetically modified foods, and climatic trends make discussions of sustainability
timely.
18
CONCLUSIONS
The industrialization and economic development module of the A P human geography course is
a crucial element that introduces students to the
increasingly interconnected w o r l d system. H u m a n
geographers use concepts like scale, space, place,
and linkage to understand where today's winners
and losers are, w h y they are there, and what w i l l be
the likely ramifications for the next generation. As
we have seen, population, cultural, and geopolitical
systems continue to be transformed by the emergence of a global economy.
It is hoped that this module w i l l encourage students to delve deeper into the topics of economic
change and development. W i t h a solid geographic
analysis of economic patterns and processes, students may j o i n and contribute to debates about the
notion of development and the extent to w h i c h the
term itself perpetuates a dependent and patronizing
relationship between industrialized and industrializing countries. They may explore h o w w o m e n
have been central to many recent development policies and h o w the acts of w o r k i n g men and w o m e n
are contributing to a new understanding of what is
meant by economic geography (Herod 1999). I n
many ways this course module discusses materials
that most students w i l l directly encounter i n their
w o r k i n g lives. Economic geography is relevant,
vibrant, and a crucial component of a successful A P
human geography course.
19
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152
Author's Note: Many discussions with the present and past members
of the AP Human Geography Test Development Committee and students in various human geography courses at Indiana University and
Dartmouth College have all informed the contents of this article. Particular thanks are due to Megan Blake, Alec Murphy, and Martha
Sharmafor their specific and very useful feedback. An earlier version
was presented at the Advanced Placement in Human Geography Panel
at the World HistoryfWorld Geography Conference in Austin, Texas,
February 12, 2000. Contents are the responsibility of the author.
13
14
15
16
NOTES
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
See U.S. Census Bureau Web site <http://www.census.
gov> for a current estimate.
See any of the dictionaries listed in Appendix A for a full
definition and further discussion of the terms used
throughout the text.
This prediction was made in December 1999 and prior to
the devastating floods of early 2000. For further information see World Outlook accessed through the EIU Web site
at <http://www.eiu.com>.
See the Bureau of Labor Statistics <http:/ /www.bls.gov>
or any of the regional Federal Reserve Bank Web sites (e.g.,
<http://www.ny.frb.org>) for recent data.
See the World Trade Organization Web site
<http://www.wto.org>. For an example of a socially
responsible corporation see the Ben and Jerry's Web site
<http: / / www.benandjerrys.com/mission.html>.
Although most introductory texts discuss the topic, this
section is based on Knox and Agnew (1989) and Knox and
Marston (1998).
This group includes Myrdal, Friedmann, and Hirschman.
This group includes Frank, Peet, and Santos.
See, for example, Knox and Marston (1998, ch. 2) and De
Blij and Murphy (1999, ch. 23 and ch. 24).
The Body Shop can be found at <http:/ /www.
thebodyshop.co.uk>.
The world development indicators can be found at
<http://www.worldbank.org/data/wdi/> and the world
development reports can be found at <http://www.
worldbank.org / data / wdr>.
Read, for example, about Starbucks' policy of store concentration in existing markets and cannibalization problems.
This can be found in Starbucks' 1999 annual report on the
17
18
19
Web at <http://www.starbucks.com/company/
investor.asp?&#annualreport>.
A current list can be found on the U.S. Census Bureau Web
site <http: / /www.census.gov/foreign-trade/www/
balance.html>.
See the Bureau of Labor Statistics <http://www.bls.gov>.
Bank Web sites normally carry information on the location
of their facilities as this is information of value to clients.
See, for example, Fleet Bank's site at <http:/ /www.fleet.
com/afblba.html>.
See the Social Security Administration Web site at
<http://www.ssa.gov> for relevant data.
See the World Health Organization Web site at
<http://www.who.org> for data.
See, for example, the Greenpeace Web site at
<http://www.greenpeace.orgx
See, for example, the Association for Women in Development Web site at <http://www.awid.org>.
REFERENCES
Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.
De Blij, H., and A. Murphy. 1999. Human Geography. Sixth edition. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Dicken, P. 1986. Global Shift. London: Harper and Row.
Haggett, P. 1983. Geography: A Modern Synthesis. London: Harper
and Row.
Harvey, D. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity. Cambridge: Basil
Blackwell.
Herod, A. 1999. Using industrial disputes to teach about economic geography. Journal of Geography 98:229-241.
Knox, P., and J. Agnew. 1989. The Geography of the World Economy.
New York: Edward Arnold.
Knox, P., and S. Marston. 1998. Places and Regions in Global Context. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
6 Tuathail, G., and D. McCormack. 1998. The technoliteracy
challenge: Teaching globalization using the Internet. Journal
of Geography in Higher Education 22: 347-261.
Thrift, N. 1995. A hyperactive world. In Geographies of Global
Change, eds., R. J. Johnston, P. J. Taylor, and M . J. Watts, pp.
18-35. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Appendix A. Resource list.
Association for Women in Development - <http:/ /www.awid.
org>
Association of South East Asian Nations - <http://www.
asean.or.id>
Bureau of Labor Statistics - <http:/ /www.bls.gov>
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) - <http://www.caricom.
org/expframes2.htm>
Economist Intelligence Unit - <http:/ /www.eiu.com>
Federal Reserve Bank locator map - <http://www.ny.frb.org/
links.html>
General Motors - <http://www.generalmotors.com>
Goodall. B. 1987. Dictionary of Human Geography. Middlesex, England: Penguin.
Institute for Global Communications - <http://www.igc.org/
igc / gateway / index.html>
Includes links to PeaceNet, EcoNet, WomensNet, and AntiRacismNet.
International Labor Organization - <http://www.ilo.org>
Johnson, R. J., D. Gregory, G. Pratt, and M. Watts. 2000. The Dictionary of Human Geography. Fourth edition. Oxford, U.K.:
Blackwell.
Mayhew, S. 1997. A Dictionary of Geography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development <http: / / www.oecd.org>
Social Security Administration - <http://www.ssa.gov>
United Nation - <http://www.un.org>
United States Census Bureau - <http://www.census.gov>
World Bank World Development Report - <http://www.
worldbank.org/data/wdr>
World Health Organization - <http://www.who.org>
World Trade Organization - <http://www.wto.org>