Geographers From The United States

"Whether one works with texts, historical maps, or any other kind of source, cultivating a spatial and visual imagination makes it easier to recognize the place-based information and spatial relationships embedded in historical evidence."

"“A final caveat: because this book is intended for general readers, academic geographers will notice little reference here to poststructural critical theorists, who’ve said much about maps in recent years but little about toponyms. Simply put, I’ve not found their work particularly useful, especially when tedious regurgitation of Foucault crowds out case studies and fosters gratuitous assumptions about power and impact.”"

"Has cartography become GIS? It's a moot point. I guess a lot of people in the GIS arena wouldn't agree that what they are doing is cartography. There's also the annoying tendency among academics to rename things, as occurred when we went from geographic information systems to geographic information science, to geospatial technologies, a term that acknowledges that the important role of GPS and what's called `location-based services'. If you look beyond GIS, you'll see a wider enterprise in which GIS as we know it now (mostly buffering and map overlay) is a relatively small part of macrocartography. But I don't have a crystal ball."

"Nowadays, when I confess to being skeptical about theory, I'm especially concerned that proponents of social criticism of cartography don't really seem to be very committed to communication. They litter their essays with elitist language, which I don't think takes anybody, except maybe them, further down the road toward understanding."

"Such a critique seems trivial insofar as it's the situation that makes a technology good or bad. Plumbing is good when it solves an otherwise messy public health problem, for instance, and bad when it facilitates Nazi gas chambers. Of course, we need to critique the use of geospatial technologies. And we also need to critique the critique of geospatial technology."

"No one can use maps or make maps safely and effectively without understanding map scales, map projections, and map symbols."

"Not only is it easy to lie with maps, it is essential. To portray meaningful relationships for a complex, three-dimensional world on a flat sheet of paper or screen, a map must distort reality."

"Whenever a map of count data makes sense, perhaps to place a map of rates in perspective, graphic theory condemns using a choropleth map because its ink (or toner) metaphor is misleading."

"Although cartographic journals have been rigorously reviewing software for nearly a decade, the profession today seems as powerless against stupidly designed software as it was against the flagrant misuse of the Mercator projection."

"Publication of my commentary in the Communications from Readers section might be one way for The American Cartographer to affirm a commitment to openness, and to demonstrate once again that efforts to stifle dissenting opinion tend to backfire."

"I have made no secret that I am stepping down principally because of a strong disagreement with those now in control of ACSM over the importance to the profession of federal personnel qualifications standards which recognize the value of a comprehensive cartographic education to those accepting the title and responsibilities of Cartographer. But I have few regrets for having worked with The American Cartographer since 1977...."

"There is no longer any need to preach for aerial photography-not in the United States- for so widespread has become its use and so great its value that even the farmer who plants his fields in a remote corner of the country knows its value."

"Dr. Tobler’s contribution to the field of Geographic Information Systems cannot be overstated–in fact, some would say that he is one of the most influential geographers in the last century."

"The academic contributions of Waldo Tobler are noteworthy and significant, spanning essentially all disciplines that involve the study of geographic phenomena."

"Waldo Tobler was a genius. Very few people are, far fewer than the normal proportions banded around, but Waldo was one. He appeared to greatly dislike being singled out in this way, but now he is dead it has to be said."

"Tobler’s first major achievement was the transformation of geographical cartography from a field basically concerned with visualization to one where graphical methods could be recast as mathematical operations, and where computers began to be accepted as essential tools for the map-maker."

"Soldiers have medals, scholars have publications."

"Philosophically, the phenomenon external to an area of interest affects what goes on in the inside; a sufficiently common occurrence as to warrant being called the second law of geography."

"I invoke the first law of geography: everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things"

"Maps are generalized representations since it is clearly impossible to display reality in all its complexity at a reduced scale. Not too surprisingly, map makers are unable to provide explicit abstract statements about the process of map generalization, but some empirical evidence suggests constancy of information content per map centimeter squared, regardless of map scale."

"Science proceeds by detecting structures embedded in observational data. It is no simple matter to separate these general structures from the specific details."

"It seems that some basic tasks, common to all cartography, may in the future be largely automated, and that the volume of maps produced in a given time will be increased while the cost is reduced."

"The conceptualization of a map as a data-storage medium leads directly to the concept of it as a computer input element."

"The first thing I tell students is that geography is the field that has the most intellectual freedom of any part of the academy. To me the beautiful part about geography is that you have no excuse for ever being bored. Every week, when you go into colloquium, you’re hearing about something totally different and outside of the normal academic arena that you’re used to, and I love that about geography."

"I think that it’s very helpful that I was 30 when I started my PhD. I took time to do other things between high school and college, and college and my masters, and masters and my PhD. So it meant that when my initial committee said no, I thought, "Well, you’re not the boss of me. I’m here for my own intellectual path, and I’m going to figure out how to do what I want to do." I don’t think I would have had the confidence to do that at age 21—speaking just about myself at 21."

"Nations which renounce the power struggle and deliberately choose impotence will cease to influence international relations either for evil or good."

"[A] political equilibrium is neither a gift of the gods nor an inherently stable condition. It results from the active intervention of man, from the operation of political forces. States cannot afford to wait passively for the happy time when a miraculously achieved balance of power will bring peace and security. If they wish to survive, they must be willing to go to war to preserve a balance against the growing hegemonic power of the period."

"There are not many instances in history which show great and powerful states creating alliances and organizations to limit their own strength. States are always engaged in curbing the force of some other state. The truth of the matter is that states are interested only in a balance which is in their favor. Not an equilibrium, but a generous margin is their objective. There is no real security in being just as strong as a potential enemy; there is security only in being a little stronger. There is no possibility of action if one's strength is fully checked; there is a chance for a positive foreign policy only if there is a margin of force which can be freely used. Whatever the theory and rationalization, the practical objective is the constant improvement of the state's own relative power position. The balance desired is the one which neutralizes other states, leaving the home state free to be the deciding force and the deciding voice."

"Plans for far-reaching changes in the character of international society are an intellectual by-product of all great wars."

"Geography is the most fundamental factor in foreign policy because it is the most permanent."

"The facts of location do not change. The significant of such facts changes with every shift in the means of communication, in routes of communication, in the technique of war, and in the centers of world power, and the full meaning of a given location can be obtained only by considering the specific area in relations to two systems of reference: a geographic system of reference from which we derive the facts of location, and a historical system of reference by which we evaluate those facts."

"Geography is that discipline that seeks to describe and interpret the variable character from place to place of the earth as the world of man."

"Jacques Bertin's books Semiology of Graphics and Graphics and Graphic Information Processing have been stimuli for my own thinking about the representation and analysis of geographic information. I have also used both books as core readings for graduate seminars and they have generated lively discussion and prompted innovative research. I often ask graduate students to consider how cartographic research and practice in the U.S. might be different today if the English edition of Semiology of Graphics had appeared in 1967 (when it was published in French), rather than in 1983. I know that my own work would have been dramatically different if I had encountered these ideas a decade and a half sooner."

"The fact that map is a fuzzy and radial, rather than a precisely defined, category is important because what a viewer interprets a display to be will influence her expectations about the display and how she interacts with it."

"The representational nature of maps, however, is often ignored – what we see when looking at a map is not the word, but an abstract representation that we find convenient to use in place of the world. When we build these abstract representations we are not revealing knowledge as much as are creating it."

"Understanding how maps work and why maps work (or do not work) as representations in their own right and as prompts to further representations, and what it means for a map to work, are critical issues as we embark on a visual information age."

"Cartography is about representation. This statement may seem obvious, but it has been overlooked in our search for organizing principles for the field. Rather than restricting research in cartography to maps that present well-defined messages (and suggesting a single, map-engineering approach to improving the transmission of these messages, as the communication approach did), attention to maps as spatial representation expands the field."

"Exploring maps as representation forges important links between cartography and a variety of cognate fields concerned with this topic in its various facets (including geographical information systems [GIs] and remote sensing, as well as art, cognitive science, sociology, cognitive and environmental psychology, semiotics, and even the history and philosophy of science)."

"Two developments of the past four decades played crucial roles in establishing a research agenda for the study of map symbolization and design. The first was Arthur H. Robinson's dissertation (published as The Look of Maps in 1952), with its call for objective research, and the second was the adoption in the 1970s of a paradigm of cartography as communication science."

"Robinson (1952) pointed out some limits to approaching map symbolization and design from a purely artistic viewpoint, as he suggested was the guiding perspective at the time. Maps, like buildings that are designed primarily for artistic impact, are often not functional... Robinson (1952) argued that treating maps as art can lead to "arbitrary and capricious" decisions. He saw only two alternatives: either standardize everything so that no confusion can result about the meaning of symbols, or study and analyze characteristics of perception as they apply to maps so that symbolization and design decisions can be based on "objective" rules... Robinson's dissertation, then, signaled the beginning of a more objective approach to map symbolization and design based on testing the effectiveness of alternatives, an approach that followed the positivist model of physical science. In his dissertation, Robinson cited several aspects of cartographic method for which he felt more objective guidelines were required (e.g., lettering, color, and map design). He also suggested that this objective look at cartographic methods should begin by considering the limitations of human perception. One goal he proposed was identification of the "least practical differences" in map symbols (e.g., the smallest difference in lettering size that would be noticeable to most readers)."

"Treating cartography as a formal communication system implies that we can improve map communication if we can reduce the filtering or loss of information at various points in the system where in the system should have a positive effect, and an information loss should be impossible to overcome. Most efforts to study cartographic communication have been directed to the middle stages in the system: the cartographer's transformation of selected information into the map and the initial extraction of information from the map by the user."

"During the 1960s and 1970s, when cartographers were embracing the communication model and a behavioral approach to empirical research, psychology was undergoing a revolution in its perspective on what to study and how to study it. Psychologists began to realize that stimulus-response laws do not explain human perception or behavior (any more than the gravity models used by geographers can explain spatial interaction)."

"A new view of the role of art and science in cartography is clearly needed. It is probably a mistake to view maps as objects that contain varied amounts of scientific or artistic content for which we must determine an appropriate balance (as both Keates, 1984, and Robinson, 1952, seem to, with Keates arguing for more art and Robinson for more science). Instead, it makes more sense to consider complementary artistic and scientific approaches to studying and improving maps, both of which can be applied to any given cartographic problem. The artistic approach is intuitive and holistic, achieving improvements through experience supplemented by critical examination (where critical examination implies expert appraisal of the results of our cartographic decision-making efforts). It draws on science in using perspective, understanding of human vision, color theory, and so on."

"Without categorization, maps would not be possible."

"To make maps that work, we must depict categories using methods that match the structures of human mental categorization."

"It may be that the human brain not only perceives but stores the essentials of a visual scene using the same geometrical, quasi-symbolic, minimalist vocabulary found in maps."

"According to Charles W. Morris, syntactics is the relation between a given sign-vehicle and other sign-vehicles. There is a critical distinction here (that many cartographers have missed) between Morris's "syntactics" and the linguistic subcategory of "syntax". While syntax puts emphasis on word order and parsing (i.e., on a linear sequence), syntactics is much broader in scope. Syntactics allows for any kind of among-sign relationships. Morris (1938, p. 16) makes this point explicitly in his statement that there are "syntactical problems in the fields of perceptual signs, aesthetic signs, the practical use of signs, and general linguistics."... At least three kinds of sign relationships seem to fall under Morris's umbrella of syntactics (Posner, 1985, in French; cited in Nöth, 1990, p. 51). These include: (1) ”the consideration of signs and sign combinations so far as they are subject of syntactical rules” (Morris, 1938, p. 14), (2) ”the way in which signs of various classes are combined to form compound signs” (Morris, 1946/1971, p. 367), and (3) ”the formal relations of signs to one another” (Morris, 1938, p. 6)."

"When visualization tools act as a catalyst to early visual thinking about a relatively unexplored problem, neither the semantics nor the pragmatics of map signs is a dominant factor. On the other hand, syntactics (or how the sign-vehicles, through variation in the visual variables used to construct them, relate logically to one another) are of critical importance."

"Maps, due to their melding of scientific and artistic approaches, always involve complex interaction between the denotative and the connotative meanings of signs they contain."

"The nature of maps and of their use in science and society is in the midst of remarkable change - change that is stimulated by a combination of new scientific and societal needs for geo-referenced information and rapidly evolving technologies that can provide that information in innovative ways. A key issue at the heart of this change is the concept of "visualization.""