The Dictionary of Human Geography

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became a secularized keyword in nineteenth-

and twentieth-centuryphilosophyandsocial

theoryvia G.W.F. Hegel’s writings, particu-

larly hisPhenomenology of the spirit(1808) and

Philosophy of right(1821), and their critical

adaptation by Karl Marx in his early writings

(1843–5). InPhenomenology, Hegel contended

that the object world (nature, religion,

art etc.), which loomed independent of

man’s consciousness, epitomized alienation.

Accordingly, absolute knowledge or freedom

consisted in overcoming alienation by under-

standing the external world as emanation of

Spirit – a facet of the human subject’sownself-

consciousness or essence. Rejecting the polit-

ically conservative implications of Hegel’s

philosophy, which anointed thestateand its

order of private property as the culmination of

substantive freedom (i.e. as the essence and

end product of man’s striving for self-con-

sciousness), Karl Marx instead proposed that

capitalist production organized around state-

protected private property rights and that cal-

culative reason wasthesource of radical dis-

harmony among individuals, who ended up

estranged from their social existence; between

individuals and their creative life activity or

labour; and between individuals and means

of production (seecapitalism; class). The

concept of alienation entered geography via

the work of Bertell Ollman (1976) and his

interlocutors. vg

Suggested reading

Marx (1988 [1844]).

Alonso model A model of the zonal struc-

turing of land use within an urban area. Using

accessibility (measured as transport time

and cost: cf.friction of distance) as the

key variable, it accounts for intra-urban vari-

ations in land values, land use and land-use

intensity. Its simplest form assumes that all

journeys are focused on the city centre. Land

users balance transport costs to that point

against those for land and property, with the

highest prices being bid for the most accessible

inner-city land – which only commercial and

industrial enterprises can afford. The result

(shown in the figure) is adistance-decayre-

lationship between location-rent and distance

from the centre, with residential uses (which

have the lowestbid-rent curves) confined to

the outer zone. Alonso’s now largely obsolete

model of a unicentric city can be modified to

accommodate a multi-centred organization of

urban land use (seecentrifugal and centri-

petal forces;decentralization;edge city;

Alonso model Concentric intra-urban land-use zones generated by the bid-rent curves for retailing, industrial

and residential land uses(Cadwallader, 1985)

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_A Final Proof page 23 31.3.2009 9:44pm

ALONSO MODEL