annual income per capita is typically several tens of thousands of dollars per year,
often more than one hundred times greater than in the world’s poor countries. The
measure ofPurchasing Power Parity (PPP)indicates that same magnitude of
disparity. Some economic geographers have attempted to explain at least a portion
of this gap by holding that it represents the residue ofimperialismand mercantil-
ism, as the exploitative economic relations of the 18th and 19th centuries have not
really ended. But this theory fails to adequately articulate why some regions that
were exploited by colonialism, like LatinAmerica, have fared much better than
others by most measures, such as Africa. In other words, there is a regionalization
to the underdeveloped world that presents a much more complex geography than a
theory of post-colonial, capitalistic exploitation can explain. Indeed, countries like
Argentina and Chile can hardly be described as underdeveloped at the beginning
of the 21st century, and to include them in a spatial analysis along with the poorer
states of Africa or South Asia no longer seems appropriate.
A common regional scheme encountered in the geography of economic devel-
opment is the so-called “North-South” divide, which splits the world into a well-
developed northern tier of countries that enjoy high standards of living, relatively
low rates of population growth, lowinfant mortality rates, and other positive
indicators, while the Southern Hemisphere (the “South”), with the exception of
Australia and New Zealand, is a zone of much lower personal income, higher mor-
tality rates, shorter life expectancies for both genders, etc. The North is dominated
by the Group of Eight (G-8), representing eight of the most influential economies
in the world. However, this geographic pattern may be changing, as the G-8 has
now been replaced as the main forum for the discussion of economic policy by
Economic Development, Geography of 111The Sector Model, also called the Hoyt Model, represents an attempt to conceptualize the spatial
differentiation of economic development in the urban environment. (Cieran 91/ABC-CLIO)