David Slater, Emeritus Professor of Political Geography at Loughborough University, UK, who was a leading critical development geographer and known for his work on Latin America, passed away on October 20, 2016.
Slater studied for a bachelor’s degree in geography at Durham University in the mid-1960s which was when he first became interested in geopolitics, seeking to understand international relations in a spatial context. He went on to the London School of Economics, where he completed a doctorate in geography in 1972.
His long career saw him teach at universities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, North American and Europe. He was based at CEDLA (the Interuniversity Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation) in The Netherlands for a number of years before moving to the Department of Geography at Loughborough University as Professor of Political Geography from 1994 to 2011. During that time he also served as the editor of Political Geography (1999-2004). In 2011 he became Emeritus Professor at Loughborough University and was also an Associate Fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London.
During the 1970s Slater emerged as a distinctive voice in radical development geography, critiquing mainstream development concepts, models and theories. He used a Marxist framework to explain the spatial characteristics of development, specifically how underdevelopment in the ‘Third World’ was shaped and perpetuated by relationships with the West. His pair of papers published in Antipode on “Geography and Underdevelopment” (1973 and 1977) were particularly influential and remain widely cited to this day. He wrote them while working in Tanzania at the University of Dar Es Salaam, during which time he was inspired by scholars from Africa, Asia and Latin America who were explaining inequality and underdevelopment in terms of colonial exploitation, political domination and dependency.
During the 1980s, Slater focused much of his attention on Latin America. Among his significant publications during that period was the book Territory and State Power in Latin America: The Peruvian Case (Palgrave Macmillan 1989) which examined the central spatial tendencies of capitalist development and state-society relations in Peru between 1914 and 1984, but with wider applicability to other countries in the region. He also edited Social Movements and Political Change in Latin America (CEDLA 1985), a compilation of papers from a CEDLA workshop held in 1983 on the topic of new social movements and the state in Latin America.
It is difficult to select examples from someone who had such a prolific writing output and published consistently in leading journals of geography, development studies, and political science. Certainly worthy of mention and exemplifying one of the major themes in his work is the article “On the borders of social theory: learning from other regions” (Environment and Planning D 1992) which was a criticism of Western ethnocentrism. He argued that ‘First World’ geographers should examine the West’s relationship with the ‘Third World’ in order to appreciate their own societies. His argument about ‘learning from other regions’ was quite influential as human geography began to grapple with postcolonial thought and remains very relevant today.
A number of Slater’s publications examined US power. The American Century: Consensus and Coercion in the Projection of American Power (Wiley-Blackwell 1999), jointly edited with Loughborough University colleague Peter Taylor, brought together studies of Americanization and American imperialism to assess how far the twentieth century can be seen as the ‘American Century.’ Following this, his much lauded book, entitled Geopolitics and the Post-Colonial: Rethinking North-South Relations (Wiley-Blackwell 2004), focused onUS-Latin American encounters and theorized an alternative postcolonial perspective for understanding contemporary political and economic globalization.
Over many decades, Slater’s work consistently challenged Western hegemony. His critical analyses of North-South relations exposed long-standing, ongoing and acute asymmetries of power and geopolitical injustice. While he was a provocative voice, he was also very highly regarded as a scholar. His complex theoretical work was deftly written and grounded in real examples. He was an inspiration to many students who were drawn to his critical perspectives on development studies and political geography. He will be fondly remembered by many colleagues at Loughborough University and beyond.
Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.
Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).
Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.
Larry Hamilton, emeritus professor of natural resources at Cornell University, who played a leading role in the worldwide conservation of mountain areas, passed away on October 6, 2016, at the age of 91.
Lawrence Stanley Hamilton was born in Toronto in 1925. He couldn’t wait to get out of the city and started working in logging camps in the North Woods during the summers while he was still a teenager. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm as a pilot. Both his early connection to forests and his exposure to the horrors of war went on to shape the rest of his life.
After the war Hamilton enrolled at the University of Toronto to study forestry while also working as Zone Forester in Ontario. For postgraduate studies he moved to the College of Forestry at Syracuse University, completing his master’s degree in 1950 with a dissertation entitled “An economic analysis of the cutting of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) in small woodlots in the vicinity of Syracuse.” This was followed by a doctorate in natural resource policy at the University of Michigan; his dissertation, completed in 1962, was entitled “An analysis of New York State’s Forest Practice Act.”
Hamilton joined the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University in 1951 and stayed there for 30 years before becoming professor emeritus. He was an exceptional educator, advisor, and pioneer of courses in forest ecology, watershed studies, interdisciplinary collaboration, and international resource issues. In the early 1970s, he produced one of the first documentations of tropical rainforest deforestation (Venezuela) and mangrove destruction (Trinidad).
In 1980 he moved to Hawaii and spent the next 13 years as a Senior Fellow in the Environment and Policy Institute at the East-West Center, an institution which aims to promote technological and cultural interchange between people in the United States, Asia and the Pacific region. He traveled all over the region including Thailand, Western Samoa, Nepal, Indonesia, and Australia doing pioneering education in forest hydrology and tropical forestry, convening workshops and authoring hundreds of applied conservation publications.
While in Asia Hamilton became interested in mountains, recognizing them as unique and very delicate ecosystems, and suggesting that conservation efforts that work in many other environments can be devastating for mountains.
Since the 1970s he had been a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas (subsequently known as the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA)), but it was during the 1980s that he began to draw the Commission’s attention to mountains.
Hamilton and a small group of fellow scientists launched a concerted call for mountain conservation, publishing “The State of the World’s Mountains: A Global Report.” They took their message to a wider audience as “An Appeal for the Mountains,” which was presented to the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Earth Summit) and became the basis for the mountain chapter in Agenda 21. This effort, and the ensuing awareness of mountain ecology, is the work of which Hamilton said he was most proud.
Over the next 25 years, under his leadership, the mountain theme became an important element of the WCPA’s work and he built a strong global network of mountain enthusiasts and experts. He brought them together in numerous WCPA mountain workshops including Hawaii (1991), Australia (1995), Canada (1996) and South Africa (2003).
On the ground he provided guidance and advice to mountain protected areas including parks and reserves in Australia, Bhutan, Canada, Ecuador, USA and Nepal. He championed tropical montane cloud forests, corridors of ecological connectivity, trans-border cooperation for conservation and peace, understanding of mountains as water towers, and the spiritual/cultural values of mountains.
His formidable paper legacy is to be found in almost 400 publications including: IUCN guidelines on Transboundary Protected Areas for Peace and Co-operation (2001) and Planning and Managing Mountain Protected Areas (2004); and Managing Mountain Protected Areas: Challenges and Responses for the 21st Century (2004). He made special mountain contributions to PARKS (1996), the IUCN Bulletin (2002), and a World Heritage publication (2002). From 1992 until 2015, he also edited 89 editions of the quarterly newsletter Mountain Protected Areas Update.
For his work Hamilton received the New York State Conservation Council’s Forest Conservationist of the Year award (1969); the Environmental Achiever Award from the UN Environment Program (1987); the IUCN/WCPA Packard International Parks Merit Award (2003); Hawai’i University’s Distinguished Scientist award for work on Cloud Forest Conservation (2004); the Gold Medal for Mountain Conservation Leadership from the King Albert I Memorial Foundation in Switzerland (2004); and Honorary IUCN Membership (2008).
In 1993 Hamilton and his wife moved to Vermont to be near family. They set up home in the small rural community of Charlotte where they loved the natural surroundings and the four seasons. They also liked the sense of neighborliness and civic participation, and Hamilton was proud to be a local tree warden. He also served for over two decades as a trustee of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Vermont where he shared his expertise through many local conservation initiatives. Just two days before his death, he was delighted to learn that they named the trail in the local TNC forest preserve the “Hamilton Trail.”
As well as the local engagement, bigger conservation issues continued to concern him. For example, in 2011 he travelled to Washington, DC to protest at the White House against the Tar Sands Pipeline Initiative. Beyond his conservation activism, he was also a pacifist and was an active member of Veterans for Peace.
Lawrence Hamilton’s life was grounded in a love of nature. He said, “If I can be responsible for saving one little chunk, I will have had a successful life.” In reality, his life’s work ensured the protection of mountain areas passing through whole continents, and their preservation as biological and cultural treasures for our future generations. He will be remembered for his vision, commitment, enthusiasm and youthful energy. Although not a geographer per se, his academic work and practical action was an inspiration to many, including members of the AAG’s Mountain Geography Specialty Group.
Larry is survived by his wife of 36 years, Linda; children Bruce, Anne and Lynne; as well as seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Ary Lamme, a cultural and historical geographer and professor emeritus at the University of Florida, passed away in September 2016 at the age of 76.
Ary Johannes Lamme III was born in New York on June 30, 1940. His grandfather, Ary Johannes Lamme Sr. had emigrated from Holland in the late nineteenth century and settled in New York.
By the time he was a small boy, the family had moved to Westminster in western Maryland, although his father still worked in New York and commuted home at weekends. From there the family had regular outings to the battlefields at Gettysburg and Lamme remembered enjoying the countryside, the war stories, and having picnics together. This was perhaps the gestation of a lifelong interest in historic landscapes, and Gettysburg would be a central example in one of his major works later in his professional life.
At McDonogh School on the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland, Lamme enjoyed mathematics and the social sciences. He then went on to Principia College, Illinois, for undergraduate studies, graduating in 1962. He later acknowledged the role of particular geography, history and English professors there who enabled him to develop and use important scholarly tools.
Next Lamme moved to the University of Illinois for a master’s degree in geography, graduating in 1965. Military service then intervened and he served as an instructor squadron commander in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam.
After an unexpected release from the military, one of his former professors from Illinois enabled him to enter Syracuse University for a doctorate. There he was particularly influenced by David Sopher and Donald Meinig and their work on historic and cultural landscapes. His dissertation, completed in 1968, was entitled “The Spatial and Ecological Characteristics of the Diffusion of Christian Science in the United States: 1875-1910.”
His first teaching position was at the State University of New York at Cortland before moving to the University of Florida at Gainesville in the early 1970s, where he stayed for over three decades.
Lamme was interested in different aspects of cultural and historical geography, as reflected in his publications which cover topics including the historical development and spatial distribution of religious groups, the cultural landscape of the Amish homelands, the sense of vernacular regional identity in Florida, and a comparison of the physical characteristics of spaces where people were enslaved and where they were freed.
One of his most noted publications was the book “America’s Historic Landscapes: Community Power and the Preservation of Four National Historic Sites” (1990) which explored historic landscapes and how they acquire meaning. He used four case studies – St Augustine in Florida, Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia, Sackets Harbor in New York, and Gettysburg in Pennsylvania – to explore the community power issues involved in landscape preservation.
Lamme was a long-time member of the American Association of Geographers and recognized for 50 years of continuous membership in 2014. He was also involved in the Southeast Division (SEDAAG) and had presented his work at the Race, Ethnicity and Place Conference.
Ary Lamme will be remembered fondly by many former colleagues. He leaves behind his wife, Sandra, and two adult children, Laurel and Ary Johannes IV.
Sally Eden, professor of Human Geography at the University of Hull, UK, whose research explored issues of environmental perception, sustainable food production and consumption, passed away peacefully in September 2016 after a period of illness.
Sally E. Eden was born in 1967. She studied for a bachelor’s degree at the University of Durham followed by a doctorate at the University of Leeds.
Her first academic posts were at the University of Bristol and Middlesex University where she taught geography and environmental studies before joining the Department of Geography at the University of Hull in 1998 where she served for the last 18 years.
Eden’s research explored how people relate to the environment through consumption, leisure, knowledge and policy.
One strand of work investigated how nongovernmental organizations use and communicate environmental information, and how environmental science is used to influence policy and consumption. For this she focused on water environments, researching how river restoration is designed and justified and how laypeople get involved with and make sense of river management in the UK.
Another area of research was how ideas of sustainable consumption, environmentally friendly products and green lifestyles are constructed, legitimated, sold, understood and put into practice (or not). She explored these issues through case studies such as the environmental certification of organic food, sustainably farmed fish and well managed forests.
From 2013-15 she was Co-Investigator on a major project funded jointly by the UK Research Councils called Digital Economy: Food Trust. The goal was to explore how digital tools can promote more sustainable production and consumption of food through connecting producers and consumers. It involved the creation of three prototype apps – ‘Food Cloud’, ‘FoodCrowd’ and ‘Shopstamp.’ One of these, for example, enabled shoppers to scan QR codes on food products to access information about the farm where the item was produced.
Eden’s work was widely published in leading journals of geography, environment and rural studies. Sadly she passed away before publication of her book, Environmental Publics (Routledge, December 2016). This volume explores how ordinary people think about the environment as they go about their daily lives; how they engage with environmental issues in different contexts of work, leisure and home; and whether thinking about the environment make them do things differently.
Eden was a member of the AAG and a regular attendee at the Annual Meetings. She was also one of the Section Editors for the AAG’s The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology (Wiley, 2017). She was responsible for the “Environmental Policy, Management, and Governance” section, and also wrote three entries for the encyclopedia: Environmental Science, Environmental Restoration, and Environmental Issues and Public Understanding (the latter with Hilary Geoghegan). The AAG team will remember her as an excellent editor as well as a lovely person with whom to work. Her colleagues at the University of Hull and beyond will miss her greatly.
Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.
Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).
Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.
AAG Launches New Undergraduate Student Affinity Group
The American Association of Geographers will launch a new affinity group specifically for undergraduate students. The Undergraduate Student Affinity Group (USAG) will be an international community of students studying geography, offering opportunities to network and socialize, get advice on graduate study and careers, and take part in academic events.
USAG will work closely with the Graduate Student Affinity Group (GSAG) to plan and develop joint events and workshops that are run by students for students. These may include mentoring and advice on applying to grad school.
USAG membership is open to undergraduate students at a college or university anywhere in the world who are studying geography or a closely related subject (e.g., environmental studies, urban and regional planning, GIScience, geoscience, global studies, or social science education), and are members of the AAG—joining AAG and USAG can happen simultaneously.
Undergraduate students can join the AAG for just $38 and receive full membership benefits including access to scholarly journals and publications, exclusive access to the Jobs in Geography listings, participation in the knowledge communities, and reduced rates for Annual Meeting and other event registration. They can join USAG for an additional $1.
We are also looking for a few students to form the inaugural board of USAG and shape the future of this group. Nominations are welcome throughout the fall and winter, and officers will be selected during the first Business Meeting of USAG held during the AAG Annual Meeting in Boston, April 5-9, 2017. Please let us know if you know particularly enthusiastic students in their sophomore or junior years who might be keen to serve as an officer of this group for two years.
AAG Welcomes Julio Arguello Jr. as Social Media and Website Content Manager
The AAG is pleased to announce that Julio Arguello, Jr. has joined the association as the Social Media and Website Content Manager at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Julio has more than 15 years of digital communications, IT, membership and publications management experience in the nonprofit sector. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Towson State University.
Julio previously worked for the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs (AMCHP) where he was the Digital Communications Manager in charge of online communications and social media strategies, including AMCHP’s website. Prior to that position, Julio served as the organization’s Publications & Member Services Manager.
Julio will collaborate with AAG’s communications group to oversee AAG’s engagement across its social media communities, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. He will monitor media channels, post information, interact with users, and curate and write web content. He will also contribute to organizing project-related campaigns.
In his free time, Julio enjoys playing tennis, taking long walks and exploring Washington, D.C., watching films, and the theater and opera.
Those of us alive today are witnessing one of the most profound events in all of human history — and it is an event, which is fundamentally geographic in nature. The transformation we are experiencing is the concentration of the majority of the world’s population into urban areas. Although much has been made of the United Nations report that declared as of 2008 half the world’s population live in urban areas, this trend has been a long-term feature of the 20th and 21st centuries. In 1900 only about 10 percent to 15 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas. The trend towards greater urbanization accelerated from the 1950s and shows no indication of stopping. The United Nations estimates that by 2050 some 70 percent of the world population will live in urban areas. In terms of absolute numbers that means in just 34 years there will be some 6.4 billion city dwellers.
Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects, The 2007 Revision Highlights
It is not just the proportion of the world’s population living in cities that is increasing. We are also witnessing an agglomerative effect wherein the relative population size of certain cities and their metropolitan areas is increasing at a remarkable pace. This is creating a global constellation of megacities which have populations greater than 10 million. As of 2015 there were at least 35 such megacities. For comparison, in 1985 there were less than 10.
The trend of rural exodus is not confined to the developed world. Between 2007 and 2050 rural populations in the world’s less developed regions are expected to decline by 17 percent or some 440 million people. Unlike the 20th century, it is outmigration from the countryside in least developed regions that will drive the global rural exodus numbers going forward.
Although the urbanization we are witnessing is a global phenomenon it can hardly be called flat and featureless in terms of finer scale geographic detail. At present the percentage of the population living in urban areas varies greatly by country and world region. According to data from the World Bank, 82 percent of the population in North America live in urban areas. In contrast, the urban percentage in Sub Saharan Africa is 38 percent. In East Asia the percentage of urban dwellers is 57 percent, but this represents a remarkable rise from a base of 22 percent in 1960. Over that same period China has seen its percentage of urban population more than triple, from 16 percent to 56 percent. The distribution and growth of megacities also shows geographic patterning. Tokyo, with approximately 40 million people, is the world’s largest megacity. However, Shanghai and Jakarta are not far behind and growth in the latter may well make Indonesia the home of the world’s largest megacity in the near future. It is notable that eight of the 10 largest megacities are in Asia. In fact, contrasting with the relatively high proportions of urban dwellers in Europe and the United States, only a handful of megacities are found in these regions. These include Moscow, Paris, London, New York and Los Angeles. As a final point, this agglomerative process is likely to intensify in Asia and Africa as overall populations grow and rural exodus accelerates.
The trajectory towards increasing urbanization presents two sets of research challenges to geographers. The first revolves around the fundamental question of how do we classify a specific place, a population or a process as being ‘urban’? Carl Haub, senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, has raised this question. He points out that the U.N. focuses upon population sizes typical of larger cities. However, many people living in smaller communities may well follow a relatively urban lifestyle and consider themselves more urbanite than rural. The U.N. itself recognizes this difficulty and has no universal definition, “Because of national differences in the characteristics that distinguish urban from rural areas, the distinction between the urban and the rural population is not yet amenable to a single definition that would be applicable to all countries or, for the most part, even to the countries within a region” (U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs). Some of the apparent shift from rural to urban in the U.N. data reflects the growth of smaller communities to a population size that crosses the urban classification threshold in that country. In fact though, not much may have changed for the inhabitants. An alternative would be to classify livelihood as agrarian versus non-agrarian, but this too is nebulous. As geographer Michael Pacione instructs in his text, “Urban Geography: A Global Perspective,” urban can mean many things — population size and density, economic base, administrative structure, etc.
The spatial designation of one locale as urban and one place as rural is also problematic. An interesting remote sensing study published in 2009 by Annemarie Schneider of the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin and her co-authors grappled with this. They pointed out that multiple criteria exist to make such a distinction when classifying imagery as urban or rural. Schneider et al favored an approach of developing regional specific criteria for classifying a given locale as urban. From their analysis they concluded that only about 0.5 percent of the earth’s land area could be classified as urban. When one reflects on the large proportion of humans now occupying urban areas this is a remarkable spatial concentration of people. However, things may not be so simple. Geographer Karen Seto, now at the Yale School of Forestry and the Environment, and her colleagues in their paper, “Urban land teleconnections and sustainability,” have also grappled with how one defines urban. They point out that place-based classifications, such as those typical of remote-sensing land-use products, make an artificial dichotomy between the urban and the rural when in fact there is a continuum of land uses and very indistinct spatial boundaries. Using a processes-based perspective that appreciates this continuum and the flows that connect across it is more realistic, and would appreciably expand the land area we might consider urban.
One can imagine that as the nature of economies, telecommunications and the geographies of employment change and become less spatially limited, so too will the geographies of the urban and the urban-rural continuum. In addition, rural economies, demographies and geographies are changing. In the Unites States family farms are replaced by large corporate farms. Mechanization further decreases agricultural workforce needs. At the same time networked urbanites find affordable accommodations or space for start-ups in these increasingly available rural locales. Though agglomeration of these networked or commuting exurbanite populations increase, types of labor shift to non-agrarian and rural regions become increasingly urbanized in function if not in physical form. The hinterlands surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area are an example. At the same time, the inner city cores which experienced depressed real estate markets due to the flight of upper and middle classes and manufacturing are being redeveloped and gentrified in many cities. This in turn is pulling people back to denser urban cores.
Cairo, Egypt, is one of the world’s megacities with a population estimated to be around 20 million people. (Photo courtesy Glen M. MacDonald)
Geographers have a major role in studying and determining how the term urban is defined. In this case the focus will need to be both on the spatial and the process-oriented perspectives. Considering the paragraph above we might ask what is the comparative experience in the new Asian megacities in terms of spatial form and processes that link urban populations? Will the patterns of urban evolution experienced in more developed countries also occur in less developed countries? Geographers have been at the lead of considering such questions. Karen Seto’s work is one recent example. We might also consider work in the tradition of the late Neil Smith as represented in his 2002 paper, “New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy.” In it he not only spoke about the global spread of the gentrification, but also provided a much wider take on globalization, urbanism and the rise of the Asian, South American and African megacities.
The second set of questions in geography’s wheel house concern the socioeconomic, cultural and environmental implications of increasing urbanization and the growth of global megacities. Here geographers have been at the forefront. Work spans from the quantitative study of regional economic geography and the agglomerative process of urban growth to the qualitative analysis of how ethnicity, gender of sexual orientation shape individual experiences and perceptions of urban space and place. Geographers such as Michael Dear, Allen Scott, Edward Soja, Michael Storper and Jennifer Wolch of the Los Angeles School of Urbanism have had global impact through their work on the functioning and increasing economic, social and cultural dominance of the world’s global cities. The rise of Critical GIS, which directly links geography’s growing technical capacity for spatial analysis with social theory and qualitative methods is a newer and particularly exciting development. Geographer Mae-Po Kwan and her students have been recognized leaders in these efforts. Here is an approach that can provide new insights not just on the geographies within cities, but also help come to terms with the spatial and functional complexity of the urban-rural continuum.
Geographers have, to their credit, been aware that we are not just studying regression models and pixels, but the lives and futures of real people. There is the deep vein of social awareness and advocacy that permeates much of the work of urban geographers. David Harvey, who arguably stands as the preeminent urban social theorist of our time, has led the way to a melding of scholarship and social responsibility. For over 40 years, starting with the seminal work “Social Justice in the City” and continuing with a multitude of deeply reasoned works including the 2012 book, “Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution”, Harvey and his students have set the standard for the discipline.
The relationship between urbanization and the environment in the 21st century is also critical and an area where geographers have much to contribute in terms of research and education. This matters both in terms of urban impacts on the physical and biological environment and in terms of the environmental quality for urbanites. As one of many examples of the former, a paper published this week in Nature authored by Sean Maxwell, a Ph.D. student in the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management at the University of Queensland in Australia, concluded that urban development was the third greatest extinction threat to species classified as threatened or near-threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List. In fact, the threat to biodiversity by urbanization was found to be almost twice as great as that offered by climate change. From the study of urban heat islands, spatial patterns of air, water and soil pollutants, and health threats to the geographies of parks and outdoor recreational spaces for cities and their neighborhoods, geographers have a strong role to play in the study of urban environmental quality and urban environmental justice. In her 2000 Annals article, “Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California,” Laura Pulido, formerly of the University of Southern California and now a Professor of Geography at the University of Oregon, brings together the strands of environment, social justice and racism in a critical assessment of how cities can fail to serve their citizens and the geographies of such injustices. This follows the tradition in urban human geography where scholarship is combined with advocacy.
In closing I reflect upon a figure entitled “The nature of human geography” in Michael Pacione’s text, “Urban Geography: A Global Perspective” in which he has placed Urban Geography at the center of all the other sub-disciplines from Physical Geography to Social Geography to Cultural Geography, etc. This might appear to be hubris, but in the 21st century and for our discipline it is not unreasonable. With most of the world’s population arguably urbanized and this trend to continue, and with cities and megacities having such impacts on global economies, culture, politics, health, the environment, etc., urban geography is indeed of critical importance. We have had a strong tradition in this area and going forward I would hope to see that urban geography can indeed form a center of gravity which brings human and physical geographers to work as teams tackling the research, education and policy challenges that the urbanized 21st century brings. This is also an important nexus where those geography departments which are twinned with planning can build bridges and collaborations that will benefit both parties. There is a long history of urban geographers receiving training in planning or being appointed to planning departments as faculty. Let’s capitalize more on these linkages. It seems to me the AAG Annual Meeting can serve as an ideal venue to bring together human geographers, physical geographers and planners in focused sessions to share work and plot collaborations on urban issues. I wonder how our journals might also serve as catalysts? The 21st century is the world of the city, and geography can capitalize upon great traditions and great potential to help understand and improve this evolving new world. Your ideas on how the AAG can help are welcome!
Join the conversation and share your thoughts on Twitter #PresidentAAG.
Geoffrey Martin Receives the Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship in Geography
The AAG Review of Books (AAGRB) is proud to announce the selection of Prof. Geoffrey Martin’s monumental book, American Geography and Geographers, as the inaugural recipient of the Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship in Geography.
The award was selected from all of the books reviewed during the first four years of the AAG Review of Books. The selection committee chaired by the Editor-in-Chief of the AAGRB unanimously agreed on selection of American Geography and Geographers as the inaugural awardee for the Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship in Geography.
The Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship was established to recognize the single book reviewed in the AAG Review of Books judged to be a work that not only represents geographic scholarship at its best, but a book that also promises enduring scholarly value and importance. The author receives an honorarium of $1,000 as well.
Published by Oxford University Press in 2015, American Geography and Geographers has been characterized by Ron Abler as “unparalleled in the scope and depth of its research” and by Harm De Blij as “a monumental and magisterial work, exhaustively researched and documented.” William Koelsch added, “This landmark study will be a resource for teachers and students of the discipline for years to come, and an important first reference for scholars seeking to expand the breadth and depth of the field.”
The selection of the AAGRB Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship in Geography will be made every four years, from the books reviewed in the AAGRB during the prior four years.
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Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
The American Association of Geographers will launch a new affinity group specifically for undergraduate students. The Undergraduate Student Affinity Group (USAG) will be an international community of students studying geography, offering opportunities to network and socialize, get advice on graduate study and careers, and take part in academic events.
The AAG is pleased to announce that Julio Arguello, Jr. has joined the association as the Social Media and Website Content Manager at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Julio has more than 15 years of digital communications, IT, membership and publications management experience in the nonprofit sector. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Towson State University.
Those of us alive today are witnessing one of the most profound events in all of human history — and it is an event, which is fundamentally geographic in nature. The transformation we are experiencing is the concentration of the majority of the world’s population into urban areas. Although much has been made of the 
The trend of rural exodus is not confined to the developed world. Between 2007 and 2050 rural populations in the world’s less developed regions are expected to decline by 17 percent or some 440 million people. Unlike the 20th century, it is outmigration from the countryside in least developed regions that will drive the global rural exodus numbers going forward.