Briavel Holcomb

ENTERPRISE ZONES: THE NON-MANIPULATION OF ECONOMIC SPACE

In 1982 and 1983, legislation to establish enterprise zones in the United States was placed before Congress. The spatially targeted program is designed to stimulate economic growth in depressed inner cities. Yet an assessment of the probable spatial consequences of the zones at various scales and of their potential for affecting significant change in economic space indicates that the program is likely to do little to modify the current dynamics of metropolitan economies. Instead, enterprise zones will increase inter- and intra-state competition for investment, with only minor modification in socioeconomic equity.

The tenure review process

Abstract This paper examines the tenure review process faced by geographers in American universities from the perspectives of successful and unsuccessful candidates, a department chair, and a member of a tenure review committee. It aims to assist candidates for tenure by commenting on both formal and informal aspects of the process.

A Review of “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World”

In “Reflections,” the final segment of his book, Tuan offers a realistic assessment of human goodness. Progress in morality interests him, for it can give meaning to history. There is the bleak, black backdrop of the usual suspects of destructiveness, violence, exercise of power, greed, compartmentalization of deeds, and play with another human being. Sex as play with another human being can (and does) become evil. But I take issue that civilizing it becomes humdrum. If two people are lucky and harmonious in their love, there is no chance of that. Then there is the gray background of the enormous power over nature through cooperation and reciprocity, even with strangers, which clearly is part of human biology, which we can share with animals. But Tuan sees points of light or “high points.” The pharaoh Akhenaton established monotheism in Egypt, at least for his lifetime. There is Jasper’s “Axial period” of 800 to 300 BCE when a host of individuals gave light to human spirit. Jesus stands singularly as a point of light. Gandhi, Schweitzer, and Mandela did similarly for the twentieth century. Of the six special cases, Tuan finds commonalities, such as hard work, special abilities at play, childlike relationships with the world, no “us” versus “them” mentalities, and acknowledgment of roots. He concludes by generalizing goodness as an everyday phenomenon, grounded in biology; the goodness of the humble and unknown; and the goodness of the child as deeply rooted in the Occident and Orient (although one cannot exorcise from memory Golding’s Lord of the Flies). Then there are the exceptionally good who are inexplicably not linked to particular places, times, or cultures— although Tuan thinks that high culture and extreme goodness are linked. In a “vast, pitch-black, cold, empty, and violent” universe, consciousness—and I would add imagination—bring “light” (pp. 211–12) to human beings. As for Yi-Fu Tuan, I feel as he does about Simone Weil: I feel I am “a better and more intelligent human being” in his presence.

Greater Boston: Adapting Regional Traditions to the Present. Sam Bass Warner, Jr.; Postcards of the Night: Views of American Cities. John A. Jakle; America's New Downtowns: Revitalization of Reinvention? Larry Ford

Sam Bass Warner, Jr., is an eminent urban historian and a long-time resident of the Boston area. Both his deep scholarly knowledge and his first-hand knowledge of the region are clearly evident in this examination of how one of the country’s oldest metropolitan regions is changing at the turn of a new century. The book is the first in a series of “Metropolitan Portraits” that examine contemporary urban regions in North America. Warner examines not just the city of Boston, but its entire metropolitan region, which he defines as including most of eastern Massachusetts, all of Cape Cod, and much of southern New Hampshire. Greater Boston explores continuity and change in the region, what distinguishes metropolitan Boston from other parts of the country, and whether those differences are disappearing in a process of convergence towards a homogenous national pattern of urban and suburban development. Warner strikes a distinctly conversational tone. Taking the place of these familiar approaches to regional analysis are highly readable anecdotes about people, companies, and organizations that Warner believes capture some representative and promising facets of the Boston area. He is clearly more interested in the details of everyday life and work. Thus, readers learn a lot about the inner workings of a handful of small companies and experimental schools, but not who the mayor or governor was at the time. Warner has certainly earned the right to methodological experimentation, as the author of many previous, more traditionally academic urban histories. This background informs Greater Boston—the endnotes reveal encyclopedic knowledge of the relevant literatures— but the text remains light and accessible. This book is clearly a labor of love, and an attempt to reach a broad audience. The first chapter in particular displays how erudition can be worn lightly, as it moves quickly through the region’s physical characteristics and roughly three centuries of history, including the rise and fall of major natural resource and manufacturing industries and the effects of sequential infrastructures centered on ports, railroads, and interstates. Warner also notes the creation of an insular, conservative local culture that persists at least until the 1960s. Yet we move on quickly: Warner is more interested in where the city is going than in where it has come from. For example, there is a welcome focus on recent immigrant groups from places such as Brazil and the Cape Verde Islands, while the familiar story of Brahmins versus Irish immigrants in the nineteenth century is assumed. The second chapter examines the changing sectoral composition of the region’s economy through a set of highly detailed personal stories. In each, an individual (many recent immigrants) either starts or revitalizes a firm in one of the Boston region’s key industries. High technology, medical research and design, and financial services all receive attention here, including their ties to the region’s extraordinary concentration of universities and colleges. Warner also shows, though, that the region’s enduring capacities in “old economy” industries such as textiles and shoe manufacturing continue to attract and propel firms in the Boston area. This chapter illustrates wonderfully how industrial clusters and specialized pools of labor and venture capital form and persist. The third chapter looks at two important issues in the region’s local politics: the fate of the regionally distinctive “town meeting” form of government, and the running of K-12 schools. Warner claims that the tradition of direct self-governance thrives in New England, yet he also notes that many towns have elected to switch over to more conventional forms of government, with professional, elected politicians and city councils. Oddly, most of the issues brought up in the chapter, and essentially all of those having to do with school governance, are ubiquitous in suburbs

National Geography Awareness Week 1987: An Assessment.

Abstract National Geography Awareness Week, initiated by the National Geographic Society and supported by other geographic organisations, seeks to improve the state of geographic knowledge both in schools and among the public. The achievements and limitations of this public relations strategy are assessed. While the commemorative week generated much media attention and stimulated many celebratory activities, the image of geography as a serious academic discipline in higher education may not have been helped.

Geography in the Competitive Academic Market-Place

Abstract As college curricular requirements have been liberalized since the mid-Sixties, and departments have competed for student enrollments, geography has been quite successful in attracting students to introductory courses. Upper level courses have also grown, but more slowly. The innovative energies directed toward high school and freshman college geography in recent years could now be turned to upper division curricula with advantage.