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macrogeography The search for macro-
scaleempirical regularities in spatial distribu-
tions as a basis for generalizations aboutspa-
tial structures. The approach was pioneered
by a physicist, John Q. Stewart (1894–1972),
and developed with William Warntz (1922–
88) in a pioneering project funded by the
American Geographical Society (cf.geog-
raphical societies). Their lasting contribu-
tions to spatial analysis/spatial science
were (a) the concept ofpopulation poten-
tial, a cartographic density surface that
generalized point (and point-in-area) distribu-
tions and was used as a measure ofaccessi-
bility, and (b) their research on thegravity
modelof spatial interaction and the related
‘law of least effort’. (See alsofractals.) rjSuggested reading
Warntz (1965).malapportionment An electoral abuse in
which districts are either defined or allowed to
remain in use with unequal popula,tions/elect-
orates, which thereby favours one party over
another in the translation of votes into seats.
The most successful malapportionment strat-
egy for a party involves defining relatively small
districts in areas where it is likely to win seats,
and larger ones elsewhere, thereby enabling it
to win more seats with the same total number of
votes than opponents who win where seats are
on average larger. Malapportionment was
deemed unconstitutional by US courts in the
1960s, under the equal treatment (14th)
Amendment to the Constitution, and all dis-
tricts within a state must be redrawn with
almost exactly the same population after
each decennial census. British legislation also
requires Parliamentary constituencies to be of
equal size, but variations are allowed and pro-
duce malapportionment-like effects in the
translation of votes into seats. rjSuggested reading
Johnston, Pattie, Dorling and Rossiter (2001).
See also http://www.aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/
bd/bdy/bdy_us/Malthusian model An influential and con-
troversial model of population andresources, proposed by Thomas Malthus
(1766–1834). Malthus read mathematics at
Cambridge and was then ordained in 1793.
He published hisEssay on the principle of popu-
lationin 1798 and soon became a controversial
figure. The first edition of theEssaywas writ-
ten as a counter to William Godwin’sEnquiry
concerning political justice(1793) and the rad-
ical interpretation of the science of politics and
the means of social improvement associated
with the French Revolution in general and
the Marquis de Condorcet in particular.
Malthus was far less optimistic than his antag-
onists, maintaining that misery and vice were
the inevitable result of the fundamental law of
nature, which was impervious to institutional
and legislative change.
Malthus specified two ‘postulata’: thatfood
was necessary for life and that the ‘passion
between the sexes’ could be regarded as a
constant. He then gave mathematical form to
his basicPrinciple: a maximum potential rate
of population growth in the form of the geo-
metric ratio (1,2,4,8,16 .. .) with an assumed
arithmetic growth (1,2,3,4,5. .. ) in food sup-
ply. Malthus recognized that population
growth would be curtailed either by a rise in
mortalityassociated with what he saw as
‘positive checks’ (war,disease, starvation) or
through a reduction in births through ‘pre-
ventative checks’ (adultery, birth control,
abortion or infanticide), although he was
inclined to regard these as all variants of ‘mis-
ery and vice’. This was a deductive model,
but it was given empirical substance through
Malthus’ interest in the population growth
that had been observed in the American popu-
lation, where large acreages of land were made
available to settlers who had few if any subsist-
ence constraints.
Malthus’ pessimism about the prospects for
England and the Old World in the first edition
was tempered somewhat in the much larger
and thoroughly researched second edition,
published in 1803, in which he was more op-
timistic than other political economists such as
Smith and Ricardo, and held out the possibil-
ity of a better balance between numbers and
resources achieved through moral restraint,
which he primarily regarded as a restraint
on marriage. He was inclined to see certainGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_M Final Proof page 433 1.4.2009 3:19pm