Uneven Development

Uneven development refers to the unequal distribution of people, resources, and wealth that is a fundamental characteristic of human geography. Uneven development is evident at the global, regional, national, and urban scales. Concern with uneven development stems from the fact that vast differences in human well-being exist at each of these scales.

Human geographers seek to describe and explain the processes by which uneven development is created. Furthermore, many human geographers are concerned with addressing the social injustices that are part and parcel of uneven development.

Early attempts to explain differential patterns of human geography relied on environmentally based explanations. Here the argument is that uneven development reflects the widely varying resource endowments of different locations. Thus, the rapid development of European industrialization was said to be the result of the availability of resources such as coal.

When taken to their extremes, such explanations were unabashedly determinist. Among their most egregious claims, environmental determinists contended that climatic variations were responsible for the allegedly pronounced spatial variation in human intelligence and behavior. According to Ellsworth Huntington, the climatic variability typical of mid-latitude climates produced vigorous and entrepreneurial people, whereas the unchanging tropical climate caused the lassitude and lack of ambition claimed to be characteristic of humans who lived in tropical locations.

Environmental determinism was not supported by empirical evidence and was soundly rejected by human geographers early in the 20th century. In its stead came theories such as possibilism. Possibilists argued that spatial patterns of uneven development were caused by differences in the ways in which humans used the resource endowments available to them. Spatial variation in human activity was not determined by natural resources; rather, levels of development depended on choices made in how to use[Page 509] available resources. However, possibilists also argued that some regions were better endowed with natural resources than were others.

Uneven development has also been studied through the lens of regional geography. Regional geographers contended that uneven development was the product of distinctive regional ensembles of culture and nature. Space was viewed as a set of containers, with each one holding a distinctive combination of natural resources and human culture. With this in mind, regional geographers set themselves with the task of identifying and explaining the evident (to them) patterns of regional differentiation. Uneven development was simply taken for granted as the natural outcome of the many unique combinations of culture and resource endowment.

The emphasis on regional geography largely disappeared during the quantitative revolution of the 1960s. Statistically oriented human geographers rejected the notion of unique regions. Instead, quantitative economic geographers argued that spatial variation in factors of production such as labor and transportation cost explained why some places specialized in the production of manufactured goods while other locations produced agricultural products. Therefore, uneven development is reflective of spatial variation in cost of production. Location choices are made according to economically rational criteria; whatever can be produced for the least cost (and thereby the most profit) is what will be produced in a particular location. According to this model, locational specialization occurs as each place concentrates on what it can produce most efficiently (i.e., at the least cost). Because it is most efficient for each place to specialize, patterns of trade develop and enable each location to secure what it needs while focusing on what it can produce most efficiently. It is argued that as economically efficient specialization increases over time, regional convergence will occur, thereby reducing—if not eliminating—uneven development. Uneven development is viewed as a temporary situation that will, in time, disappear.

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