AP Human Geography Unit 7: Industrial and Economic Development Patterns

Economic Geography

• Economic geography studies the flow of goods and services through space and how people provide for themselves in different places and geographic patterns of inequality.

Scales of Economic Organization

• Economic geographers study economic patterns and processes at various scales, from local to global.

Influences on Economic Geography

• Economic geographers have been influenced by classical economic theory and capitalism.
• The opening of markets and international economic flows have led to a focus on international economic alliances, cycles of industrialization, poverty, globalization, and development.

Key Concepts

Agglomeration

• Grouping of many firms from the same industry in a single area for collective or cooperative use of infrastructure and sharing of labor resources.

Ancillary Activities

• Economic activities that surround and support large-scale industries such as shipping and food service.

Backwash Effects

• Negative effects on one region that result from economic growth within another region.

Break-bulk Point

• Location where large shipments of goods are broken up into smaller containers for delivery to local markets.

Brick-and-Mortar Businesses

• Traditional businesses with actual stores in which trade or retail occurs; they do not exist solely on the internet.

Bulk-Gaining Industries

• Industries whose products weigh more after assembly than they did previously in their constituent parts; tend to have production facilities close to their markets.

Bulk-Reducing Industries

• Industries whose final products weigh less than their constituent parts; processing facilities tend to be located close to sources of raw materials.

Commodity Dependence

• When peripheral economies rely too heavily on the export of raw materials, placing them on unequal terms of exchange with more-developed countries that export higher-value goods.

Conglomerate Corporation

• Firm comprising many smaller firms that serve several different functions.

Core

• National or global regions where economic power, in terms of wealth, innovation, and advanced technology, is concentrated.

Core-Periphery Model

• Model of the spatial structure of development in which underdeveloped countries are defined by their dependence on a developed core region.

Cottage Industry

• Industry in which the production of goods and services is based in homes, as opposed to factories.

Deglomeration

• Dispersal of an industry that formerly existed in an established agglomeration.

Deindustrialization

• Loss of industrial activity in a region.

Development

• Process of economic growth, expansion, or realization of regional resource potential.

E-commerce

• Web-based economic activities.

Economic Backwaters

• Regions that fail to gain from national economic development.

Ecotourism

• Form of tourism based on the enjoyment of scenic areas or natural wonders, aiming to provide an experience of nature or culture in an environmentally sustainable way.

Export-Processing Zone

• Area where governments create favorable investment and trading conditions to attract export-oriented industries.

Fast World

• Areas of the world, usually the economic core, that experience greater levels of connection due to high-speed telecommunications and transportation technologies.

Footloose Firms

• Manufacturing activities in which the cost of transporting both raw materials and finished products is significant, making the location of the factory flexible.