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"In a context of disciplinary division between human and physical geography, the book seeks to reassert the unity of the field through an emphasis on a shared focus on the geographic configuration of things and how and why configuration is important. It first examines previous approaches to re-establishing unity, and why they have failed, before moving on to an explanation of fundamental differences in what is being studied and how. The role of configuration looms large in both. This is in the sense of contingency and the idea of emergence, suggesting that reconstruction of unity can proceed through an exchange of models of understanding. This book will appeal to those teaching courses or seminars in geographic thought or in the history of geographic thought"--

Out of place and out of step -- The annexation policy and its dilemmas -- Fighting the image and trying to catch up -- The "postindustrial" city comes to Columbus -- Property development and the pursuit of rent -- Scorched earth -- How the developers get their way -- Whose city? -- The contested city.

A very peculiar practice -- Prolegomenon to "urban and regional development" -- Local economic development and the search for monopoly rent -- Planning the "good geography" -- Moving in tandem, but still far apart -- Locations in question -- Contesting the "good geography" -- A very American practice

4. Social Theory and Human Geography: Worlds of MeaningHumanistic Geography; The Posts -- A Balance Sheet; 5. New Understandings of Space; Context; Understanding Relational Space; Case Studies; Concluding Comments; 6. Methods in Question; Quantitative-Qualitative; Analytic-Interpretive; Categorial-Dialectical; Pluralizing-Totalizing; Concluding Comments; 7. Human Geography and How and Why Things Happen; The Structure-Agency Debate; Structure-Agency: Some Critical Notes; Back to How and Why Things Happenin Human Geography; 8. Making Space for Human Geography in the Social Sciences.

AbstractThe paper positions itself in contrast to some themes in work on local and regional development. These have included an emphasis on policy rather than politics, tendencies to over-generalize across countries, and to abstract from the more global context. The empirical context for the discussion is the shifting character of geographically uneven development since the Second World War: first a convergence and then, after the mid-1970s, a divergence. Convergence is held to be the result of what some have called spatial Keynesianism. The conditions for this and for its demise, resulting in divergence, are traced out with particular reference to how the shifting pressures and opportunities were refracted by the specificities of countries. State form emerges as particularly important in understanding different trajectories, along with a neo-liberal globalisation that has been in contrast to the monetary and trading regime inaugurated by the Bretton Woods agreements.