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Learning to Think Spatially: GIS as a Support System in the K-12 Curriculum http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11019.html SPATIAL THINKING IN EVERYDAY LIFE, AT WORK, AND IN SCIENCE 89 FIGURE 3.31 Diagram of central places in southern Germany. SOURCE: Baskin, 1957. 3.8.2 The Roots of Walter Christaller’s Work Three sets of formative influences shaped Christaller’s work: those derived from his childhood, from his career, and from the intellectual context in which he worked. One of the formative influences in his childhood was the gift of an atlas from an aunt, a gift suggested by Christaller’s mother: “My aunt was quite disappointed that she ‘just’ sent a ‘useful’ gift, and not something to play with, which would really make one happy” (Christaller, 1972, p. 601). Reflecting a view that would be echoed by many geographers, Christaller saw the atlas in a different light: “The atlas then became a plaything, not only something to look at and study. I drew in new railroad lines, put a new city somewhere or other, or changed the borders of nations, straightening them out or delineating them along mountain ranges” (Christaller, 1972, p. 601). The world is not a given to be captured and frozen, as is, on the map: a world is but one possible world to be depicted, as we choose to imagine it, on a map. To a geographer, human patterns are contingent possibilities, not necessities entailed and determined by environmental constraints. Christaller was visualizing and drawing hypothetical worlds, albeit worlds that had to conform to some geographical rationale. There is a logic to placing borders along the mountain ranges that separate groups of people or to dividing human systems on the basis of physical systems, in this case watersheds. The playfulness of this activity is crucial: the map was the inspiration for possible worlds. Another childhood formative influence is what Christaller (1972, pp. 601–602) called “statistics”: I designed new administrative divisions and calculated their populations—because I also had a passion for statistics. When I found a statistical handbook advertised for about two marks, I pleaded with my father to buy it for me. He, who was only interested in literature, tried to dissuade me. From disappointment, I broke into tears, and then, nevertheless, was given the statistical handbook. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Learning to Think Spatially: GIS as a Support System in the K-12 Curriculum http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11019.html 90 LEARNING TO THINK SPATIALLY We would refer to statistics as data, although the calculation of the population of administrative divisions is close to a modern approach to statistical analysis. We can also see this as a passion for collecting and using geospatial data. The third childhood formative influence that Christaller (1972, p. 602) reports is the deliberate fostering of an inquiring mind as a result of active field work: In school in Darmstadt I had an excellent geography teacher. Often we went with him through the woods and fields; suddenly he stood still and asked: What do you see here? We discovered, more or less, that the beech tree branches on one side were green with lichens, and not on the other side. And we found the explanation: on the moist windward side the lichens can grow, but on the dry lee side they cannot. Our geography teacher Völsing taught us to observe and look for causes. The young Christaller exemplifies the development of a spatial thinker: he was fascinated by maps and data and patterns, emboldened to imagine and depict alternative worlds, grounded in the description and explanation of actual worlds, and prompted to ask questions about existing patterns and relationships. His career shows both the power of these childhood formative influences and the effects of persistence, constraint, and opportunity. He began to study the idea of national economy at university, but those studies were interrupted by World War I. Even here, the passions of his childhood came through strongly: When I was wounded in the First World War at Stralsand and put in a military hospital, and my mother asked me what I would like sent to me, I wrote: a Perth Pocket Atlas. In my bed I completely painted this atlas, and I always took it with me, when I was cured and returned to the front. (Christaller, 1972, p. 602) World War I was followed by marriage, a family, and the need to earn money. This led to a career in city planning, particularly in Berlin, work whose connection with spatial thinking is clear. The third set of formative influences come from the intellectual context in which Christaller worked. In 1930, he returned to university at Erlangen, working on a doctorate in economics: “Due to personal interest, I . . . went to lectures of Robert Gradmann. My old love for geography awoke in all its force and drew me, as . . . almost a forty-year-old man, completely under its power” (Christaller, 1972, p. 602). Christaller includes an extended passage from a seminar paper that he wrote for Gradmann, commenting on two articles. In this passage, we can see some of the intellectual roots of his thinking, views that shaped his dissertation research. Christaller wrote about the nature of spaces (abstract and concrete); about the search for “laws, causalities, and functional relations”; about location theory; and about the evolution of spatial patterns—all of which underpinned his discovery of central place theory. 3.8.3 The Discovery of Central Place Theory Christaller was determined to solve an age-old problem in human geography: how to explain the fundamental properties (size, number, and location) of settlements. Prior accounts had approached explanations in terms of geographic necessity: a city “had” to be here, not there, because of something particular about the site. It could be on a promontory near a river or at the intersection of several transportation routes. Such explanations failed because there were often comparable sites at which cities had not developed, and the transportation route explanation failed on grounds of cause and effect. Which came first? Which accounted for which? Historical studies of the formation, growth, and demise of particular cities were rich, fascinating accounts that described what happened in a particular place, but even if such accounts were obtained for all cities, it was not clear that any general rules would emerge. Statistical accounts could describe patterns and develop classifications, but not necessarily generate the rules or laws that Christaller sought. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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