Intro To Geo Essays

Introduction
Concept of environment, but not the natural and built environment.
It deals with behaviour – yours and others – and why you do what you do.
It deals with perception – how you view the world, and how these perceptions shape environments, especially urban environments
It deals with relativism, how we can all witness the same event, but have differing views of it depending on the many filters through which we view that event
It deals with how we use those perceptions, most times unknowingly, to make decisions – large and small – that comprise our lives and affect other people’s lives.
The world is comprised of a multitude of environments that exist at different scales. These scales range from personal space to neighbourhoods, communities (both towns and cities), regions, nations, and the world itself
There environments are shaped by people’s behaviour, and governed by the decisions made by individuals and groups of individuals (populations)
The decisions people make are dictated by their cultural, economic, political, social, and religious backgrounds and their gender and sexual orientations
Decisions are also influenced by their relative intellectual abilities to make decisions and the quantity and quality of info at their disposal
Layers
The layers of the environment are comprised of many environmental interpretations
It may seem obvious how something looks, it is often not obvious how it got to look that way
The layers of the city are countless, arranged and conceived by each of us according to our perceptions, from each of us according to our cognitive processes, and to the way others view us
No interpretation is wrong or right, they are just different
Some layers affect us all the time, or some of the time
The Layers of the City (pg. iv)
Terrain models
Network
Utilities
Lots/ownership
Zones/districts
Base mapping

Your geography – the spaces you occupy – is your primary reference point for locating yourself and your activities relative to all other happenings
Geographic space – as infants, learn by manipulating objects directly, and assessing reactions of others, learn people are not like you. As you grow, your space expands through direct experience to include other homes, neighbourhoods, etc. Through indirect experiences (friends, newspapers, books) you learn about parts of your city, country that never existed. All of these views are partial and incomplete
Constantly behave spatially, you act upon geographic decisions
Relative location, distance and direction from your starting place (home) to classroom
Consult Mental maps of the city and the campus and transportation options (esp. in relation to trip time)
May have noticed something new and revised those maps, or took a longer path to avoid undesirable areas
Front country behaviour – indicates you understand the unwritten as well as the written, rules of behaviour of those particular behavioural settings
Follow the unwritten rules of not invading people’s personal space (microterritory) by averting your eyes and apologizing for bumping into someone, and feel uncomfortable and anxious when others invade your personal space
As you move through locations, they have meaning for you, sense of place
Places on your journey had certain attractiveness drawing you to them = Topophilic – good memories
Topophobic – avoidance due to their unattractive as crime sites, your ex
Your negotiation across these spaces as your move through your day are your time-space path for the day
Your ability to achieve these interactions across space depended on your constraints: cognitive (what options you knew about), capability (your ability to access transportation), coupling (the need to be somewhere at a specific time), authority (The need for a TTC token)
The attractiveness of various options and the friction of distance influenced these interactions (ex. How early you left home, where you went to lunch between classes)

Your geography focuses on “you” and “yours”
We are

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