Spatially Integrated Social Science

Spatially integrated social science may be defined as the empirical and theoretical practice where space and place are integrating mechanisms across social science disciplines as well as central considerations both as inputs and as outcomes of theories and models. This definition is rooted in the increasingly implemented practice of examining social, political, and economic data and problems in a spatially explicit context using geographic information systems (GIS), geovisualization, and spatial analysis. Space and place serve as input measures in models and analyses, as spatial concepts (e.g., distance, location, connectivity/topology, proximity) and spatial aggregates of place (e.g., neighborhood and region) are incorporated as units of analysis. In addition, processes that are the targets of inference and models are also very often contingent on space or space-time ...