Relative
Location
Location is one of the central concepts in geography.
Geographers typically describe places in terms of
their absolute and relative location. The absolute
location of a place can be defined in terms of its
latitude and longitude; that is, a mathematically
established network of lines projected onto the earth's
surface. In simplest terms, this system of measuring
allows us to give a unique address to every place
on the earth. Relative location, on the other hand,
is based on functionality. This is an extremely powerful
idea that implies that location is a function of spatial
interaction, interdependence, and accessibility. The
location of one place relative to another tells us
much about the forces that lead to urban settlement
and urban growth.
Twin
Cities, Divided Lives focuses on the relationship
between the cities of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and EI
Paso, Texas. The relative location of Ciudad Juarez
near the U.S. border helps answer a functional question:
Why are maquiladora assembly plants located in this
particular place? One answer: the area and its growing
job-seeking population are ideally positioned for
providing inexpensive labor to produce goods destined
for the United States.
One
of the most useful ways to assess the fate or fortune
of a place is to look at its relative location --
where it is vis-à-vis other places. And, as
the case study shows, the concept of relative location
helps us understand a whole set of patterns on the
surface of the earth, ranging from the distribution
of parts suppliers for the U.S. auto industry, to
the perceived strategic location of St. Petersburg
in Russia, to the site of Lanzhou along the historic
Silk Road.
Case Study 2 -- Operation
Hold the Line
Spatial
Perspective
The concepts of relative location, human/environment
interaction, regions, and scale all combine to create
a spatial perspective. To think in spatial terms,
then, is to think like a geographer, to understand
what is located where as well as how and why spatial
variation can be identified across the face of the
earth. The acquisition of a spatial perspective means
that one has the ability to describe and analyze spatial
organization -- the patterns of people, places, and
environments -- on the earth's surface.
Operation
Hold the Line challenges us to look at the regions
shared by the borderland cities of Ciudad Juarez and
El Paso by using the concepts of a spatial perspective.
Relative location, for example, explains why Ciudad
Juarez is located where it is and why Latino people
and culture disperse across the boundary between the
U.S. and Mexico. In terms of human/environment interaction,
the prospects for future rapid growth of the settlements
on both sides of the Rio Grande can be examined in
terms of the less-than-careful water management that
takes place as humans interact with this semi-arid
environment.
The
study of this area as the meeting of the regions of
North America and Latin America -- one developed and
the other developing -- helps us understand the motivation
to migrate and showcases the unique issues facing
people who live in a zone that combines the elements
of two different regions. Using the concept of scale,
one can organize a multiplicity of images into a complete
picture of rich and poor communities coexisting in
the same metropolitan region but not, of course, in
the same exact location.
A
spatial perspective grants insight into the reality
of a borderland region. Through this perspective one
can understand in new and profound ways both particular
issues such as illegal immigration as well as broad
patterns of spatial organization on the surface of
the earth.
