Why the future of geography is cheap

We live in a world transformed by big (geo)data: from Facebook likes and satellites, to Oyster cards and drones, the process of collecting and analysing data about the world around us is becoming very, very cheap. Twenty years ago, gathering data about the human and physical environment was expensive, but now a lot of it is generated as the ‘exhaust’ of day-to-day activity: tapping on to the bus or train, taking photos (whether from a satellite, drone, or disposable camera), making phone calls, using our credit cards, and surfing the web. As the costs of capturing, curating, and processing these data sets falls, the discipline of geography is changing; so in this short, deliberately provocative, piece I hope to get you thinking about how the rise of ‘cheap’ creates opportunities that geography students are uniquely positioned to observe, but perhaps poorly trained to exploit

Teaching on Jupyter: Using notebooks to accelerate learning and curriculum development

The proliferation of large, complex data spatial data sets presents challenges to the way that regional science --- and geography more widely -- is researched and taught. Increasingly, it is not 'just' quantitative skills that are needed, but computational ones. However, the majority of undergraduate programmes have yet to offer much more than a one-off ‘GIS programming’ class since such courses are seen as challenging not only for students to take, but for staff to deliver. Using evaluation criterion of minimal complexity, maximal flexibility, interactivity, utility, and maintainability, we show how the technical features of Jupyter notebooks -- particularly when combined with the popularity of Anaconda Python and Docker -- enabled us to develop and deliver a suite of three 'geocomputation' modules to Geography undergraduates, with some progressing to data science and analytics roles

Teaching on Jupyter - Using notebooks to accelerate learning and curriculum development

The proliferation of large, complex data spatial data sets presents challenges to the way that regional science - and geography more widely - is researched and taught. Increasingly, it is not ‘just’ quantitative skills that are needed, but computational ones. However, the majority of undergraduate programmes have yet to offer much more than a one-off ‘GIS programming’ class since such courses are seen as challenging not only for students to take, but for staff to deliver. Using evaluation criterion of minimal complexity, maximal flexibility, interactivity, utility, and maintainability, we show how the technical features of Jupyter notebooks - particularly when combined with the popularity of Anaconda Python and Docker - enabled us to develop and deliver a suite of three ‘geocomputation’ modules to Geography undergraduates, with some progressing to data science and analytics roles

Mapping changes in the affordability of London with open-source software and open data:1997–2012

This work shows how open data and open-source software can be used to create sophisticated maps from large spatial data sets. The resulting maps enable both the fine-grained details of London’s property boom and the overarching impact that this is having on households with median earnings to be explored

The geography of taste: analyzing cell-phone mobility and social events

This paper deals with the analysis of crowd mobility during special events. We analyze nearly 1 million cell-phone traces and associate their destinations with social events. We show that the origins of people attending an event are strongly correlated to the type of event, with implications in city management, since the knowledge of additive flows can be a critical information on which to take decisions about events management and congestion mitigation

Finding the female geographers: The gendered dynamics of UK geography PhD study

This article examines the gendered dynamics of geography PhD study in the United Kingdom, addressing historical, spatial, and disciplinary patterns of female representation. Using metadata from the British Library’s E-Theses Online Service (EThOS), we see a marked rise in female PhD graduates since the 1980s, with the gender gap narrowing significantly in recent decades. The year of PhD completion explains 18 percent of the variance observed in the data, but institutional and disciplinary disparities persist: Human geography PhDs are more gender-balanced, whereas physical geography remains male-skewed. Although Oxford, University College London, Birmingham, and Cambridge dominate in PhD completions, industrial heritage and the dynamics of institutional prestige also feature. Limitations in metadata completeness and a reliance on gender inferencing algorithms challenge inclusivity, pointing to the need for more comprehensive, intersectional studies to address inequalities across ethnicity and disability. By advancing knowledge of gender representation in UK geography PhD programs, the study contributes to ongoing efforts to promote diversity and inclusion within the discipline as a whole

Interplay between telecommunications and face-to-face interactions - a study using mobile phone data

In this study we analyze one year of anonymized telecommunications data for over one million customers from a large European cellphone operator, and we investigate the relationship between people's calls and their physical location. We discover that more than 90% of users who have called each other have also shared the same space (cell tower), even if they live far apart. Moreover, we find that close to 70% of users who call each other frequently (at least once per month on average) have shared the same space at the same time - an instance that we call co-location. Co-locations appear indicative of coordination calls, which occur just before face-to-face meetings. Their number is highly predictable based on the amount of calls between two users and the distance between their home locations - suggesting a new way to quantify the interplay between telecommunications and face-to-face interactions

Spatiotemporal correlations of handset-based service usages

We study spatiotemporal correlations and temporal diversities of handset-based service usages by analyzing a dataset that includes detailed information about locations and service usages of 124 users over 16 months. By constructing the spatiotemporal trajectories of the users we detect several meaningful places or contexts for each one of them and show how the context affects the service usage patterns. We find that temporal patterns of service usages are bound to the typical weekly cycles of humans, yet they show maximal activities at different times. We first discuss their temporal correlations and then investigate the time-ordering behavior of communication services like calls being followed by the non-communication services like applications. We also find that the behavioral overlap network based on the clustering of temporal patterns is comparable to the communication network of users. Our approach provides a useful framework for handset-based data analysis and helps us to understand the complexities of information and communications technology enabled human behavior.Comment: 11 pages, 15 figure

Mind the Gap:Implications of Overseas Investment for Regional House Prices Divergence in Britain

The UK has had a long standing regional house price gap with London much less affordable than the rest of the UK. Using price data from 1969-2017 we track price differentials through several cycles of boom and bust, and note the growing divergence of London, particularly central London, from the rest of Britain. In explaining this divergence, we highlight the growing importance of international investment since the global financial crisis. We conclude that, although 'Brexit' may have brought the latest long London boom to a close, there is nothing to suggest that the regional house price gap will close. Given the ongoing importance of global financial inflows to major world cities, this has significant implications for how governments approach affordability and housing policy