Social Geography in International Perspective

Book excerpt: Social geography has been one of the great growth areas in geography in recent decades. It has brought within geographical analysis a wide range of new subject matter that has proved extremely invigorating for the discipline, such as ethnic segregation, crime and environment, differences in residential housing and public service provision, and inner city problems. At the same time the growth of social geography has heightened geographers' awareness of social questions and given rise to the so-called "welfare approach" whereby geographers express their social conscience and call for greater social justice in the spatial distribution of social services. The social geography movement however has not been evenly spread throughout the worldódifferent parts of the world vary in the emphasis they give to topics. This book surveys the current international situation of the social geography school. It discusses the contemporary trends, the leading figures, issues of concern, and differences of approach that are now to be found in social geography around the world.