The Dictionary of Human Geography

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human geographers and, although directed at

individuals, is delivered to areas, as with the

location of healthcare clinics: if the world op-

erates through spatial aggregates, then it

should be analysed accordingly (though not

exclusively so).

Similarly, whatever the immense variety of

human spatial behaviour, the public policy

that intervenes in it in some way (and much

private-sector policy too) is almost invariably

phrased in aggregate terms. New highways are

planned to link places where demand either

currently outstrips supply or modelling sug-

gests that it soon will. New commercial estab-

lishments are located where potential

(unfulfilled) demand is deemed greatest (and

usually implies some distance-decay pattern

in usage, as represented by the gravity

model): muchapplied geography(such as

that usinggeodemographicsand other spatial

analytical procedures) is based on this aspect

of Tobler’s law.

Many aspects of the positivist approach

have long been abandoned by almost all spa-

tial scientists: they adopt some of its precepts –

particularly that the things they study can be

observed and measured; that the statements

which they derive can be tested for their ver-

acity; and that their studies can be replicated.

For them, knowledge-production involves

careful observation, measurement, analysis

and interpretation, generating statements that

identify synoptic patterns – the broad pictures

that might then be decomposed to see how

they are produced and what they mean for

the people who live in them. They do not –

as Fotheringham (2006, p. 239) puts it – ig-

nore ‘all the emotions and thought processes

that are behind what is sometimes ... highly

idiosyncratic behaviour’: they accept those as

valid topics for study, calling for different ap-

proaches. For spatial scientists, a whole range

of subjects can be addressed at the aggregate

level using quantitative methods, from which

valid generalizations can be drawn to illumin-

ate aspects of the human condition. And these

can be linked to studies using non-quantitative

practices – as proponents of ‘mixed-method’

stress. Quantitative methods thus remain at

the core of the geographical enterprise. rj

Selected reading

Fotheringham, Brunsdon and Charlton (2000);

Haggett (1990); Wilson and Bennett (1985).

quantitative revolution The ‘radical trans-

formation of spirit and purpose’ (Burton,

1963, p. 151) that Anglo-Americangeography

experienced during the 1950s and 1960s fol-

lowing the widespread adoption of both infer-

ential statistical techniques and abstract

modelsand theories. In the process, the dom-

inance of an oldidiographicgeography char-

acterized by a focus onareal differentiation

was displaced by a newnomotheticgeog-

raphy conducted asspatial science.

The quantitative revolution first emerged in

the mid-1950s as a series of local affairs crys-

tallized around one or two key individuals. In

the USA, the Department of Geography at the

University of Washington in Seattle was key,

as was the University of Iowa in Iowa City. At

Washington, it was the presence of Edward

Ullman and William Garrison that was crucial,

and at Iowa, Harold McCarty. In 1954 Gar-

rison gave the first advanced course in statis-

tics in a US Department of Geography, and

the following year his Washington students,

nicknamed the ‘space cadets’, were among

the first on campus to make use of the new

IBM 604 computer (also a national first).

Those students subsequently proved critical

in diffusing the quantitative message, which

they did by quickly establishing themselves

and their research agenda at several presti-

gious US universities during the early 1960s,

including Chicago, Northwestern and Michi-

gan. Outside the USA, Peter Haggett and

Richard Chorley in the UK (affectionately de-

scribed by David Harvey as the ‘terrible twins’

of British geography) and Torsten Ha ̈ger-

strand in Sweden were central in establishing

a European beachhead.

By the mid-1960s, a network was in place

that connected quantitative researchers and

Departments of Geography on both sides of

the Atlantic. Holding it together were two new

sets of geographical practices:technique-based

practicesthat included computerization, and

the study and application of ever more com-

plex statistical andquantitative methods;

andtheory-based practicesthat involved concep-

tualizinglocation andspace in rigorously

abstract terms. Before the 1950s, human

geography was resolutely a-theoretical (see

alsoempiricism). The quantitative revolution

brought a cornucopia of theoretical models

typically imported from other disciplines.

From physics came gravity models and

laterentropy-maximizing models; from eco-

nomics, often by way ofregional science,

came the models of a dispersed German

school oflocation theory; from sociology

came the urban models of the chicago

school, together with urbanfactorial ecol-

ogy and the rank size rule; and from

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_Q Final Proof page 611 31.3.2009 7:14pm Compositor Name: ARaju

QUANTITATIVE REVOLUTION