1. FIELD NOTE
1.1. Timbuktu, Mali is the renowned intellectual, spiritual, and economic center of the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries
1.2. when trade patterns shifted with the development of sea trade routes along the west coast of Africa, Timbuktu lost its strategic position
1.3. a commodity chain is a series of links connecting the many places of production and distribution and resulting in a commodity that is then exchanged on the market
1.4. sophisticated technology, high skill levels, extensive research and development, and high salaries tend to be associated with the segment of global commodity chains located in the core
1.5. the segments located in the periphery tend to be associated with low technology, less education,, little research and development, and lower wages
2. HOW IS DEVELOPMENT DEFINED AND MEASURED?
2.1. wealth does not depend solely on what is produced; it depends in large part on how and where it is produced
2.2. to say a country is developing, then is to say progress is being made in technology, production, and socioeconomic well-being
2.3. Gross National Income
2.3.1. ways of measureing development fit into three major areas of concern:
2.3.1.1. economic welfare
2.3.1.2. development in technology and production
2.3.1.3. development in social welfare
2.3.2. beginning with the 1960s, the most common way of comparing development in economic welfare was to use the index economists created to compare countries, the gross national product
2.3.3. Gross national product (GNP) is a measure of the total value of the officially recorded goods and services produced by the citizens and corporations of a country in a given year
2.3.3.1. it includes things produced both inside and outside the country's territory
2.3.4. Gross domestic product (GDP), which encompasses only goods and services produced within a country during a given year
2.3.5. Gross national income (GNI), which calculates the monetary worth of what is produced within a country plus income received from investments outside the country minus income payments to other countries around the world
2.3.6. formal economy - the legal economy that governments tax and monitor
2.3.7. informal economy - the uncounted or illegal economy that governemnts do not tax and keep track of
2.3.8. GNI per capita also masks extremes in the distribution of wealth within a country
2.3.9. GNI per capita is that it measures only outputs
2.3.10. productivity per worker is examined by summing production over the course of a year and dividing it by the total number of persons in the labor force
2.3.11. to measure access to technology, some analysts use transportation and communications facilities per person
2.3.12. other analysts focus on social welfare to measure development
2.3.13. one way to measure social welfare is the dependency ratio, a measure of the number of dependents, young and old, that each 100 employed people must support
3. HOW DOES GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION AFFECT DEVELOPMENT?
3.1. development happens in context: it reflects what is happening in a place as a result of forces operation concurrently at multiple scales. to understand why some countries are poor and others are wealth, we need to consider the context not only at the state scale, but also at the local, regional, and global scales
3.2. Dependency Theory
3.2.1. dependency theory which holds that the political and economic relationships between countries and regions of the world control and limit the economic development possibilities of poorer areas
3.2.2. dependency helps sustain the prosperity of dominant regions and the poverty of other regions,e ven after decolonization occurs
3.2.3. many poorer countries tie their currency to a wealthy country's currency, either by tying the value of their currency to the wealthy country's currency or by completely adopting the wealthy country's currency as their own
3.2.3.1. El Salvador went through a process of dollarization, whereby the country's currency, the colon, was abandoned in favor of the dollar
3.3. Geography and Context
3.3.1. Imannuel Wallerstein's world-systems theory provided a useful framework for many
3.3.1.1. we focus on how world systems theory helps us understand the geography of development
3.3.2. three-tier structure
3.3.2.1. core, periphery, and semi-periphery
3.3.2.1.1. helps explain the interconnections between places in the global economy
3.3.3. Geographer Peter J. Taylor envisions different places in the world as tadpoles and explains that not all tadpoles can survive to develop into tadpoles
4. WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS TO AND THE COSTS OF DEVELOPMENT?
4.1. international organizations and governments measure development and then create programs to help improve the condition of humans around the world
4.2. ones of the most widely referenced measurements of development today is the United Nations Human Development Index
4.3. according to the UN, the Human Development Index goes beyond economics and incorporates the "three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living"
4.4. several statistics, including per capita GDP, literacy rates, school enrollment rates, and life expectancy at birth, factor into the calculation of the Human Development Index
4.5. in 2000, the UN held a high profile summit, during which 189 world leaders adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, with the goal of improving the condition of the people in the countries with the lowest standards of human development
4.6. at the summit, world leaders recognized the principal barriers to economic development and identified eight key development goals to be achieved by the year 2015
4.6.1. eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
4.6.2. achieve universal primary education
4.6.3. promote gender equality and empower women
4.6.4. reduce child mortality
4.6.5. imporve maternal health
4.6.6. combat AIDS/HIV, malaria, and other diseases
4.6.7. ensure environmental sustainability
4.6.8. develop a global partnership for development
4.7. as 2015 approaches it is becoming increasingly clear that many of the goals will not be met
4.7.1. for example, HIV infection rates remain high
4.8. Barriers to Economic Development
4.8.1. numerous factors serve as barriers to the economic development of the periphery
4.8.2. conditions within the periphery, such as high population growth rates, lack of education, foreign debt, autocratic (and often corrupt) leadership, political instability, and widespread disease hamper development
4.8.3. Social Conditions
4.8.3.1. most of the less well-off countries have relatively high birth rates and low life expectancies at birth
4.8.3.2. across the global periphery, as much as half the population is 15 years old or younger
4.8.3.3. lack of access to educations is also a major problem in the periphery
4.8.3.4. illiteracy rates are high
4.8.3.5. girls often stop attending school and instead work in the city to pay for their brothers' school fees
4.8.3.6. trafficking happens when "adults and children fleeing poverty or seeking better prospects are manipulated, deceived, and bullied into working in conditions that they would not choose"
4.8.3.7. this phenomenon is not considered slavery because the family does not sell a child; instead the child is sent away with a recruiter in the hopes that the recruiter will send money and the child will earn money to send home
4.8.3.8. two million children currently in primary schools, only half reach the sixth year of school
4.8.4. Foreign Debt
4.8.4.1. structural adjustment loans are
4.8.4.2. neoliberism is that the government intervention into markets is inefficient and undesirable, and should be resisted wherever possible
4.8.5. Disease
4.8.5.1. these circumstances directly affect economic development, making survival difficult for many people, orphaning children, and weakening the labor force
4.8.5.2. vectored disease are diseases spread by one host (person) to another by an intermediate host or vecotr
4.8.5.3. the warm and moist climates of tropical environment enhance biological activity
4.8.5.4. malaria is a "silent tsunami"
4.8.5.5. malaria is an infectious disease spread by mosquitoes that carry the parasite in their saliva
4.8.5.6. the disease manifests itself through recurrent fever and chills, with associated symptoms such as anemia and an enlarged spleen
4.8.5.7. antimalarial drugs exist, but to defeat malaria, afflicted regions must eliminate the vector, the mosquito
4.8.5.8. during the 1940s, the government of Sri Lanka launched a massive attack on the mosquito with the aid of a pesticide called dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane (DDT)
4.8.5.9. today the war against malaria is taking a new tack: genetic interference with the mosquito so that its capacity to transmit the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, is destroyed
4.8.5.10. by introducing "engineered" mosquitoes into the general population, health experts hope that the number of nonvirulent mosquitoes will rise significantly
4.8.6. Political Corruption and Instability
4.8.6.1. establishing a stable, legitimate government that can maintain control over and lead a low-income country can be a daunting task
4.8.6.2. in places where poverty is rampant, politicians often become corrupt, misusing aid and exacerbating the plight of the poor
4.8.6.3. when governments become excessively corrupt, other countries and non-governmental organizations sometimes cut off development aid to the country
4.9. Costs of Economic Development
4.9.1. Inudstrialization
4.9.1.1. export processing zones (EPZs) offer favorable tax, regulatory, and trade arrangements to foreign firms
4.9.1.1.1. two of the best known of these zones are the Mexican maquiladoras and the special economic zones of China
4.9.1.2. the plants are controversial both in Mexico and the United States, as corporations that have relocated there avoid the employment and environmental regulations that are in forces just a few miles to the north
4.9.1.3. many maquiladora factories hire young women and men for low pay and few if any benefits, putting them to w work in repetitive jobs, often in environmentally questionable conditions
4.9.1.4. violent crime has become a particularly serious problem in Juarez, even as El Paso remains comparatively safe, and the slums of Tijuana are a world apart from much of San Diego
4.9.1.5. although NAFTA was designed to foster increased interaction in North America, cross-border disparities have worked together with growing U.S. concerns over illegal immigration and the infiltration of foreign terrorists to make the US-Mexico border more tightly controlled and more difficult to cross than in prior decades
4.9.2. Agriculture
4.9.2.1. in peripheral countries, agriculture typically focuses on personal consumption or on production for a large agricultural conglomerate
4.9.2.2. impoverished farmers can ill afford such luxuries as fertilizers, and educational levels are typically too low to achieve widespread soil conservation
4.9.2.3. sever soil erosion in areas with dry or semiarid climates around deserts results in extreme degradation of the land and the spread of the desert into these lands
4.9.2.4. the process of desertification is more often exacerbated by humans destroying vegetation and eroding soils through the overuse of lands for livestock grazing or crop production
4.9.2.5. desertification has hit Africa harder than any of the other continents
4.9.2.6. more than half of Africa is arid or semiarid
4.9.2.7. lands that are available for farming or ranching may be used more intensively in order to increase agricultural production
4.9.3. Tourism
4.9.3.1. in economic terms, to develop tourism the "host" country must make a substantial investment
4.9.3.2. tourism frequently strains the fabric of local communities as well
5. HOW DO POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS INFLUENCE UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT WITHIN STATES?
5.1. The Role of Governments
5.1.1. the actions of governments influence whether, how, and where wealth is produced
5.1.1.1. this is because the distribution of wealth is affected by tariffs, trade agreements, taxation structures, land ownership rules, environmental regulations, and many other manifestations of governmental authority
5.1.2. Ninth Ward in New Orleans - where Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005
5.1.2.1. flooding of the parts of New Orleans was the result of the government decisions decades ago to build levies and settle flood-prone areas
5.1.3. rural Wisconsin and rural Appalachia
5.1.3.1. in rural WI, many of the surviving family farmers are educated at land-grant universities in plant and animal sciences and in agribusiness
5.1.3.2. they may well be running a highly mechanized dairy farm
5.1.3.3. in parts of rural Appalachia hardscrable farming is the norm
5.1.3.4. farmers have limited education and there is little mechanization
5.2. Islands of Development
5.2.1. the capital city is the political nerve center of the country, its national headquarers and seat of government
5.2.2. capital cities are home to government buildings and jobs; they often house universities, museums, heritage centers, convention centers, and the headquarters of large corporations
5.2.3. after gaining independence, many former colonial states spent lavishly on their capitals because the states wanted to showcase their independence, their futures, and create a national treasure
5.2.4. some newly independent states have built new capital cities, away from the colonial headquarters
5.2.5. their goals in doing so are to separate themselves from their colonizers, to bring together diverse groups
5.2.5.1. Examples include Nigera, Malawi, Pakistan, and Brazil
5.2.6. corporations can also make cities focal points of development by concentrating corporate activities in a particular place
5.2.7. when a government or corporation builds up and concentrates economic development in a certain city or small region, its an island of development
5.3. Creating Growth in the Periphery of the Periphery
5.3.1. Nongovermental organizations (NGOs) are not run by state or local governments
5.3.2. they operate independently and the term is usually reserved for entities that operate as non-profits
5.3.3. churches and charities are examples of NGOs
5.3.4. microcredit program is simple: give loans to poor people, particularly women, to encourage development of small businesses