The quantitative revolution in urban geography

The quantitative revolution in urban-economic geography flourished in the 1960s at a time when United States domestic policy focused on cities, problems of race and poverty, urban renewal and housing, land use and transportation, and environmental pollution. Theoretical work in previous decades in economic geography, spatial analysis, and quantitative social science had set the stage for the 1960s. After computers came along, psychology and economics moved briskly into theoretical areas, with application of quantitative analysis and statistical analysis, while applied mathematics vaguely promised to unify theoretical and applied realms of social science. Geography's main research agendas through the 1950s had been dominated by physical geography and regional analysis, but a new generation of scholars at Washington, Northwestern, Michigan, Ohio State, Chicago, Minnesota, and Penn State pushed ahead with serious attention to theory development and quantification in human geography and statistical cartography. Scholars working on the fringes of other disciplines (e.g., Isard) as well as inside geography (e.g., Hagerstrand, Berry, Garrison, Haggett, Chorley, Harvey) produced work attractive to the new geography. Mayer and Kohn assembled a stimulating reader illustrating theoretical and applied urban problems using the new approaches. Despite advances in the 1960s and early 1970s, the results of the quantitative revolution in human geography in general-and in urban geography in particular-fell well short of their promise. New ideas, approaches, methods, and problems were never fully exploited or pursued. The reasons are unclear-perhaps we should try to find out why.