Regions Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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A region is an important way in which the spatial organization of both human society and the natural world can be represented, analyzed, and managed. A region denotes a land area that might be defined by administrative, political, or economical boundaries; a particular sphere of interest (such as commercial); or a common natural phenomenon. In addition to these physical parameters, it might contain certain social or physical features that characterize its distinction. In terms of their scale, regions might range from a few hundred square kilometers to the size of entire continents. Thinking in terms of regions facilitates the management of transportation, industrial activity, business development, planning, administration, and democracy. More theoretically, writers have paid attention to how regions are historically, economically, politically, and culturally produced (such as through empire) and reproduced (such as by heritage industries).

The concept of region lies at the heart of the discipline of human geography, which grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a recognizable academic discipline by carefully describing and mapping all human activity captured within regions. Indeed, regions were considered to be the basic building block of bigger orders such as nation-states or the world. The justification for the scale of analysis was made by Mackinder’s influential 1919 book Democratic Ideas and Reality. Mackinder argued that the region could serve as the basic explanatory unit of human life because regional identities and activities had the ability to transcend and dissipate social divisions. The most well-known works at the turn of the 20th century included Patrick Geddes’s regional survey, which studied regions through the interrelationship of their area, and the work and folk held “within.” In the same tradition, during the 1930s, Dudley Stamp published detailed regional landuse maps from his Land Utilization Survey of the United Kingdom. Greater interpretation of human attachment to place was displayed by the French geographer, Vidal de la Blanch, who described French regions in terms of the interrelationship of local cultures and local landscapes in works including Tableau de la Geographie de la France (1903) and Principles in Human Geography (1921).

For analytical purposes, regions can be classified into four broad types: natural, formal or administrative, functional, and vernacular. Natural regionssuch as the Arctic or the Amazon-refer to areas that share similar climate, soil, flora and fauna, and landform features. The concept of the natural region is useful in describing and analyzing habitats, ecological communities, and biomes. Formal or administrative regions refer to the territorial segments with which a country can be organized and usually have government functions and powers. Depending on the political context, regional administrations may be responsible for the delivery of health, housing, and recreation and regulating economic policy. A good example of this type of region would be the special administrative regions created in China to facilitate free-market economic development. Formal regions may also be supra-national. Regional trading blocs, such as the European Union (EU) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), are types of formal regions.

A functional region is distinguished by its socioeconomic rather than administrative and political elements. Functional regions are usually characterized by a high concentration of economic and social interactions and usually consist of urban areas connected by infrastructural and economic networks and clusters. The concept of the functional regions illustrates well the interdependencies between people, organizations, and economic activities in space. These regions are commonly identified in regional planning and city-regional governance. In contrast, vernacular regions are primarily defined around social and cultural characteristics. In the United States, “the South” is often described as a vernacular region, where cultural identity is expressed in terms of accent, food, religion, and way of life. “Regional consciousness,” based on shared senses of history, belief, and political affiliation, is a common characteristic of vernacular regions. The meaning and identity of vernacular regions are often represented in art and literature. The cultural power of vernacular regions frequently forms the basis of regionalism, a socio-political movement which can fuel claims for greater independence from central government.

For environmental management, the concept of the region is essential, though problematic. Traditional managerial jurisdictions for overseeing water, land, or wildlife resources have historically followed political boundaries (e.g., county or state lines). Environmental materials and systems, however, tend to follow their own patterns and flows, making such regional management territories extremely problematic. A recent shift to watershed management, where integrated decision making occurs in a region whose boundaries are determined by the flow of water within a drainage system, has sought to ameliorate this problem. Though a promising effort, it is important to remember that not all environmental systems (e.g., air pollutants) may follow watershed boundaries. The process of determining and using regions, therefore, must be geared to the context of decision making, which may itself change over time. Since there are no “natural” regions, our use of boundaries to manage society and nature must always be considered partial and incomplete.

Bibliography:

Michael Bradshaw et al., Contemporary World Regional Geography: Global Connections, Local Voices (McGraw Hill, 2004);
Vidal de la Blanch, Principles in Human Geography (Constable, 1921); Harold Mackinder, Democratic Ideas and Reality (Penguin, 1919).