The chapter considers potential futures for globalization and human geography. New technologies like biotechnology, materials technologies, and information technologies will reshape human geographies. However, these changes may also bring critical issues around cultural dissonance, regional integration and fragmentation, and sustainability. The future will see an uneven impact of globalization across the world, with some regions experiencing more benefits while others face stresses to resources, environment, and livelihoods. The structure of the global social hierarchy may polarize into elite, middle, and marginalized groups in the coming decades.

1. Human Geography: Places
and Regions in Global
Context, 5e
Chapter 12: Future Geographies
Paul L. Knox & Sallie A. Marston
PowerPoint Author: Keith M. Bell

2. Overview
This concluding chapter considers the world’s future. Given twentieth-century
trends, what will the world look like in a few decades from the present? Students
should be aware that knowledge of human geography—the topics covered in the
textbook—may help in understanding what the future will bring.
The basic theme of this textbook is globalization. Each of the book’s chapters
has focused on this theme, noting how the processes of globalization originated
and how they have shaped nature and society. Chapter 12 sums up these
impacts and considers the future especially in terms of the future of resources,
technology, and spatial change. The chapter concludes with a discussion of
sustainable development, a vision of development that may help address many
of the problems initiated by globalization.

3. Chapter Objectives
• The objectives of this chapter are to:
– Examine both global and local prospects
– Survey future resources, technology, and
spatial change
– Examine cultural dissonance and
sustainability

4. Chapter Outline
• Mapping Our Futures (p. 456)
– How is globalization changing the world?
• Resources, Technology, and Spatial Change (p. 458)
– Transportation technologies
– Biotechnology
– Materials technologies
– Information technologies
• Regional Prospects (p. 460)
– Uneven development
– The United States, Europe, China, and India, and a New World Order?
– Life on the margins
• Critical Issues and Threats (p. 468)
– Cultural dissonance
– Regional integration and fragmentation
– Sustainability
• Conclusion (p. 472)

5. Geography Matters
• 12.1 Geography Matters—Dark Age Ahead?
(p. 458)
– Is American society in decline? Some thoughts of
Jane Jacobs on the subject
• 12.2 Geography Matters—How the World
Sees the United States (p. 466)
– Asian, African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and
European thoughts on the United States
• 12.3 Geography Matters—The Asian Brown
Cloud (p. 471)
– Air pollution over Asia

6. Future Geographies
In some ways, the future is already here,
embedded in the world’s institutional structures
and the dynamics of its populations.
New and emerging technologies that are likely to
have the most impact in reshaping human
geographies include advanced transportation
technologies, biotechnology, materials
technologies, and information technologies.
The changes involved in shaping future
geographies will inevitably bring with them some
critical issues, conflicts, and threats including
important geographical issues that center on
scale, boundaries, and territories; on cultural
dissonance, and on sustainability.

7. Mapping Our Futures
• How will the forces of broadening global connectivity
—and the popular reactions to them—change the
fates and fortunes of world regions?
• Optimistic Scenarios
– Potential for technological innovations
– New resources
– New transportation and communication linkages
• Pessimistic Scenarios
– Finite nature of Earth’s natural resources
– Irretrievable environmental degradation
– Economic polarization
– Breakdown of law and order

8. The 2020 Global Landscape

9. Dark Age Ahead?
• Jane Jacobs argues that the United States is
slipping toward the beginnings of a new “Dark
Age” as a result of the deterioration of five pillars
of modern society:
– Community and family
– Higher education
– The application of science and technology
– The integrity of the professions
– The role of government in relation to society’s needs
and potential

10. A Dark Age Ahead? (Part 2)
• Jacobs fears of an incipient Dark Age go well beyond her past
concerns for urban development, centering as they do on several
important aspects of higher education.
• The roots of her concerns are based on evidence of:
– Corporate immorality in the marketplace instead of entrepreneurship
bonded to social justice
– Universities that serve employers and act as credentials factories, stripping
the music, art, ethics, idealism, and notion of the public good out of
education
– Scientific research increasingly and immorally being bought by corporations
or suppressed and ignored by governments
– A neoliberal political economy that is intent on abandoning the stewardship
of urban and regional development
• “A culture is unsalvageable if stabilizing forces themselves become
ruined.” (Jane Jacobs)

11. Global Social Hierarchy: United Kingdom
The “elite stratum” of the new social hierarchy, core countries will
continue to advance as traditional geographic groupings will
increasingly lose salience in international relations. The elite are
participants in—and beneficiaries of—the fast world of new
transport and communications technologies, globalized production
networks, and global consumer culture.

12. Global Social Hierarchy: Mexico
The “middle stratum” of the new social hierarchy, the embattled
semiperiphery are also participants in the global economy.
However, they have fewer benefits and limited opportunities:
assembly-line workers in offshore commodity chains, for example.

13. Global Social Hierarchy: Haiti
The “marginalized stratum” of the new social hierarchy is part of
the periphery. These countries and people will have to survive in
the slow world, largely disconnected from formal economies and
the dynamics of globalization.

14. Disruptive Technologies
• The United States National Intelligence Council has identified six
potentially disruptive technologies that could emerge in the coming
years.
• A disruptive technology is a technology with the potential to cause
a—even if temporary—degradation or enhancement of one of the
key elements of U.S. national power (geopolitical, military,
economic, or social cohesion).
• The six disruptive technologies most likely to enhance or degrade
U.S. national power to 2025 are:
– Energy storage technologies
– Biofuels and bio-based chemicals
– Clean coal technologies
– “Biogerontechnology”
– An Internet of Things

15. Geographic Information
Systems
• Geographic information
systems have rapidly grown to
become one of the most important
methods of geographic analysis,
particularly in military and
commercial worlds.
• Between 2000 and 2005, GIS
services grew at a rate of around
10 percent per year.
• Many GIS operations in the United
States, Europe, Japan, and
Australia have begun to contract
out such work to firms in countries
where labor is cheaper. India has
emerged as a major data-
conversion center for GIS.

16. Index of Income Inequality
Dark green countries have large disparities between the “haves” and the
“have-nots” across the globe, indicating a small middle class. Light green
countries show more balance in income earnings.

17. European Growth Axes
Most of Europe’s major cities and advanced manufacturing regions lie along a
crescent-shaped axis. European industries are world leaders in chemicals,
insurance, engineering, construction, and aerospace industries.

18. A New World Order?
• The old order of the “short” twentieth century (1914–1989),
dominated economically and politically by the United States, is
rapidly disappearing; we are coming to an end of a geopolitical
leadership cycle. Who will the new player for dominance be?
– The United States of America
• Reigning hegemon with the world’s largest economy; remains the strongest contender,
but with many challenges ahead
– The European Union
• Successful enlargement to 27 members, combined with already-successful monetary
union and economic integrations, leave Europe poised for leadership; too much
expansion too soon will test the institutions; immigration is a key concern
– China and India
• “Pacific Destiny” for China as it has extended its “open-door” policy and allowed foreign
investment; India as well continues to invest in emerging technologies; conflict and
cooperation will play a huge role for both
– At the Margins

19. At the Margins
• The worse-off regions face
unprecedented levels of
demographic, environmental,
economic, and societal stress.
• The next 15–20 years reveal
that peripheral nations have
scarce basic resources,
serious environmental
degradation, overpopulation,
disease, unprovoked crime,
refugee migrations, and
criminal anarchy.
• While some African countries
are doing well, many still
depend on commodity exports
and have reduced purchasing
power.

20. Future Prospects in Antarctica
• Even the uninhabitable
terrain of Antarctica has
become a site for
competition among states.
• The radial lines are
cartographic devices
designed to formalize and
legitimate colonial designs
on the regions.
• The mineral wealth of this
continent will likely be a
source of conflict and
compromise, and is
behind much of the
territorial claims.

21. The Asian Brown Cloud
A study of the Asian Brown Cloud (ABC) sponsored by the UN Environmental
Program and involving more than 200 scientists suggests that the ABC not only
influences local weather but also may have worldwide consequences. (This view
faces southeast over China’s Shandong Peninsula and the Yellow Sea.)

22. China’s Changing Role in the World
Economy
China’s emergence as a significant player in the world economy is reflected in
trends of manufacturing output and exports. But one shortcoming in China’s
development is creativity. Currently their endeavors are more about mimicking
established manufacturing techniques than delving out into new technologies and
products.

23. Darfur
In the Sudan, the brutal oppression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide
sponsored by the central government allowed Arab rebels, known as
the janjaweed, to slaughter thousands of people in the Darfur region,
causing the mass displacement of an estimate one million refugees.
Janjaweed means “Devil on horseback,” referring to the horsemen that
kill and terrorize the local inhabitants.

24. Wild Zones
“Wild zones” are places where national governments have lost control
over economic development, ethnic conflict, and environmental
degradation.

25. Surveillance Societies
• Social, economic, and ethnic
polarization in the cities of the
world’s core countries has led
to an increase in the electronic
surveillance of both public and
private spaces.
• Increased presence of private
security personnel in upscale
settings (i.e., “fortress
mentality”).
• The genuine possibility for
anarchy and intercommunal
violence exists unless a
common cause (like religious
zeal) can unify the masses.

26. How the World Sees the United
States
• A report by the U.S. National Intelligence Council reflects on the world that President
Obama has inherited. It is one that as the sole superpower has many variables that
he (and we Americans) must seek to understand and change.
• Asia
– Our focus on Middle East affairs (or lack of attention in East Asia) has left a power vacuum
that China may likely fill.
• Sub-Saharan Africa
– African countries feel that Westerners will see it as “hopeless” and only focus on the
people/countries that offer some form of commodity or human labor market.
• Latin America
– Latinos feel Americans have focused on the “War on Terror” at the expense of “America’s
Backyard.”
• Middle East
– Feel U.S. foreign policy has focused too much on corrupt leaders rather than emerging
leadership (e.g., the Saudis, Hosni Mubarak, Hamid Karzai, etc.).
• Europe and Eurasia
– Experts feel the U.S.–Europe relationship may deteriorate if our focus shifts to the far east
(i.e., China).

27. Growth of IGOs and INGOs
• Intergovernmental
organizations (IGOs) and
international non-
governmental
organizations (INGOs)
have experienced
dramatic growth since the
1960s.
• Many national
governments have ceded
some responsibilities to
these institutions.
• What is the likely impact
in the future of these
entities?

28. Future
Realizations
• If we are to have a better future,
we must use our understanding of
the world—and of geographical
patterns and processes—to work
toward more desirable outcomes.
• Geography: Where else can the
science of the environment be
married with an understanding of
economic, technological, social,
political, and cultural change?
• Who but geographers can cope
with the diversity of environments
and the sheer range of scales at
which it is necessary to manage
global change?
• We cannot reach sustainability in
all ways, all at once, but we
deserve scorn and resentment of
future generations if we do not try.

29. End of Chapter 12

30. Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes
• Using Table 12.1 and the text on pages
456–458 of the textbook, discuss with the
class the portrayal of the 2020 Global
Landscape. Why are some aspects
relative certainties while others are relative
uncertainties?
– This question can be used to elicit students’
views on the future.

31. • Some scholars have suggested that China, with its
huge population and increasing level of technology,
might become the next world power. Is this likely?
What factors might prevent China from becoming a
dominant world power?
– China still has a long way to go before becoming the next
world power. It is still primarily an agrarian country with widely
uneven levels of regional development. Check recent journals
and newspapers for the debates on China’s role in world
affairs. Also see the book by Harm de Blij, Why Geography
Matters: Three Challenges Facing America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005).
Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes

32. • Do you think that the role of the United States
as a world power is increasing or declining?
What evidence is there for your answer?
– Numerous books published in the 1980s and 1990s
reflected on the United States’s position as a world
power—many of them arguing that the U.S. was in
danger of losing its prime position to Japan. This
debate continues, though the Asian financial crisis
and the United States’s recent military actions have
shifted the nature of the debate.
Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes

33. • What are some of the positive and negative impacts of
the globalization of culture?
– Globalization has brought about a homogenization of culture
through the language of consumer goods. Many consumer
goods—such as Coca-Cola, Nike shoes, Sony Walkmans, and
Gap clothing, to name only a few—are now desired around the
world. In some respects, individuals may find it easier to
identify with people who share their consumer tastes. On the
other hand, homogenization of culture has also led to
resistance, as people seek to reaffirm their own cultural
identity in the face of globalization—and sometimes do so
violently. Globalization also affects people differently: some
profit from it and see their standard of living rise, while others
fall by the wayside.
Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes

34. • What is meant by sustainability? Can you give
some examples of sustainability initiatives in
your own area?
– Common themes in sustainability include
recognition of environmental problems as being
global in nature; acknowledgement of the
relationship between economy and environment;
advocacy of local control of resources; avoiding
reliance on non-renewable resources; recognition of
the importance of social and cultural traditions; the
need to eradicate poverty, hunger, and disease; and
the recognition that these factors must also be
viewed with future generations in mind.
Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes