Here and There (but mostly Here)

I wish I knew more about Human Geography. (I wish that in the same way I wish I weighed less and had more money.) As I understand it, Human Geography has something to do with why people live where they do, how they got there, and what's the possibility of them going somewhere else.

In Plan B world, human geography is everything; in Plan A world, it's virtually nothing. I can demonstrate this by applying the first law of (human) geography according to Waldo Tobler: "Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." In Plan B world, just like the aboriginal / nomadic people of yesteryear and today, people live AT the source of food, shelter, and clothing (hereinafter f/s/c). To the reindeer herders of Lapland or Siberia, the existence of prime beef in the grocery store meat department means very little - they're not here. In Plan A world, geography is completely irrelevant. My beef comes from Brazil (or so it is alleged), my mangoes swim in from Burma, my crab legs are dangerously caught by hearty Alaskans, my grapes climb to me from the climes of Chile, and my tequil... no strike that, my shoes, cars, and cocaine all arrive courtesy of Mexico.

But the Industrial Revolution (hereinafter: IR) has brought further innovations. Apparently, iron ore and scrap metal from the Alleghenies are boated up and shipped to China which processes them into new iron which is shipped back to the US for our sophisticated use. The Information Age (hereinafter: I Heart Google) has made it possible to lay on your backside on a beach in San Diego and develop the intranet website for Staples corporate identity division which is housed somewhere inside Cheyenne Mountain. Go ahead, call me a liar.

The point is, once again, Plan A world is a wonderfilled, economic Disneyland. You think there is a fairy princess castle and six foot rodents with outsized heads, but it's not "real". You may think you have a food source near you - personally I prefer the employee-owned Hy-Vee where there's a helpful smile in every aisle - but, shut down deliveries to a store for three weeks and see what kind of food is available there. You may think you've got "running water" in your house, but let the pumps go unfed for 24 hours and tell me what you're drinking. We live in a fantasy world. And it's fantastic

The early chapters of the Human Geography 101 textbook (or so I must assume, never having actually handled one of 'em) tell the story of people congregating, dispersing, and moving about in search of f/s/c. Some of these movements make sense. The fertile regions of the northern hemisphere beckon nomads to sit a'spell with plenty of arable land and potable water (law #1 - if what is near is good, distant stuff doesn't matter). I can even see how a native Tahitian might wake up one day and say to himself, "Self, there are better lands than this, but they all require wearing clothes in the winter. Let's stay right here." But what I can't bring myself to understand is how and why someone winds up in a place like Little Diomede or Barrow - both in Alaska. Forget how they wound up there, why did they stay there when they got there? I hope Chapter 8 will explain this.

The Clark H Smith Family of Wife and Children are going to Alaska in June 2009. We're going to Fairbanks where I was born. Fairbanks is a mosquito bog 8000 miles from nowhere. There is no reason whatsoever that either aborigines or western European invaders should ever drive a stake there. It has wonderful, volcanic soil loaded with humus (or is it hummus, I need to look that up) and little rainfall, but plenty of potable water in the form of snow melt. The growing season is short in terms of days, but just as long as any other place in terms of daylight hours (it's complicated). On the whole, the place is no better than Ossawatomie, Kansas which has better lineage politically. What Fairbanks has (or had) that made that distant place a destination was gold. And because of gold, Fairbanks became a place which is near, not distant, and dear to thousands.

Fairbanks doesn't produce gold anymore. It produces virtually nothing that can't be got somewhere else and cheaper. If the whole town dried up and blew away (or floated away as almost happened in 1967), no one would miss it except for the childhood memories that couldn't be reclaimed or revisited. There would be no dent in the world economy and the Smith Family would just have to go somewhere else this summer for their all-Gid-can-eat salmon fest. But this is where law #1 comes in again

"Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." Clark's corollary to law #1 is "the strength of relatedness is measured as *value* (value being the commitment made to things)". We make stronger commitments to things close by because we are familiar with them, we understand how to manipulate them for our own survival, safety, and comfort. I call this the "the Crocodile Dundee effect". Millions of people live in New York City and find it has value to them. Only 237 people live in the Australian outback and find value there for themselves. Why, therefore, did CrocDun feel out of place on his metaphorical trip to NYC? Clearly there is much value there. But the value, thanks to the explanation rolled out in HG Chapter 9, was not his human geographic value. SoHo antique shops, Mulberry Street cafes, the Chrysler Building, the constellations in the ceiling of Grand Central Station, and those wonderful Jewish deli breakfasts were not part of his economy, his value set. And so to him, the place was as easy to put behind as a bad memory or an old girlfriend.

It is nearness then that dictates the relationships we have with the things of our world. If we have no gold, and we deeply desire it, we will go far to get it. If we deeply desire food, shelter, and clothing - and fear the supply of them may be deeply altered - we will do what is necessary to situate ourselves in the best circumstance to provide those things. That's what Plan B is all about. And so I must assume, for my fellow man in Barrow and Diomede, they've found their Plan B. It strikes me as a harsh, joyless existence. But I confess, that is only in comparison to the well-stuffed life I have in Plan A. When SHTF, I reckon I'll find a good deal more value in the aborigine's life. And he'll smile at the thought that I now want what he's got.