The Character of Geography

Geography is the discipline which seeks answers to place questions. Without realizing it, every person uses geographical principles as they go about their day. Most of the time, geographic decisions involve how to find the quickest way between two points, or how best to arrange furniture in a room, or how to plan a garden. The big difference between the layman's geography and that of the professional is that the professional attempts to explain why phenomena are where they are.

Place decisions are critical to the establishment and continuation of business - real estate agents say that the three most important words in a decision to buy land are "location, location, and location." Economic geographers vigorously pursue all manner of place questions, using theories of best functional effectiveness. Because geographers understand the relationships of costing, equity flow, and place, a single geographer using geographic information system software can make better decisions on where to start a business, how to track products, even how to lay out an assembly line than a room full of MBA's - and far faster. Using trained geographers makes sense both in terms of best use of resources, but also as a means of keeping employee costs at the lowest feasible level.

Geographers also work in government. Federal agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Academy of Sciences use geographers as place experts, resources for better planning of domestic and foreign policy. State agencies use geographers as transportation experts, city and regional planners, or reservoire flow engineers. Some geographers even work in sewerage flow planning and operations. All come to their tasks with the special knowledge of place dynamics that are at the heart of geography.

Some geographers are found in fields as diverse as soil and agricultural studies, local and regional weather prediction, industrial location, environmental economics, transportation planning, and military theory. In each case, the geographer's understanding of spatial arrangements, whether used through analytical mathematics or verbal presentation, is what sets him apart.

Finally, geographers work as teachers, the grade level dictating the complexity of explanation. Our federal government has stated its intention that all Americans become geographically competent, meaning not just that they know where California is, for example, but what that state's complex resources, climates, agricultural land, and urbanization mean today, and how they got to be the way they are.

Today, with release from outmoded means of making the basic tool of geography - the map - geographers of all specialization are using computers to test spatial explanations with ever-increasing speed. Enrollments are rising in geography classes all around the country, both because people in general need its window on the world, but also because geographers can make decisions which help understand environments, social problems, and future needs of societies through a much wider array of data forms than any other discipline.