MODELS IN GEOGRAPHY

But first, what is a model ? Geographers frequently refer to Peter Haggetts classic 1965
definition : "a simplified version of reality, built in order to demonstrate certain of the
properties of reality". Unfortunately, this formula is often translated into French as "simplified
representation with a view to demonstration", a regrettable double shift in meaning. The
word modlewas imported into French in the 15 th century* from Italian modello, an alteration
of Latin modulus meaning "mould". The model is thus a figure used to make reproductions.
The root is med, found in words like "medicine" and "meditate", and denotes "measure". This
idea of measuring gives the concept of model a sense of evaluation and adjustment. Alain Rey
defines the model as a "system representing the essential structures of a reality". This is a
long way from the idea of simplification, but not from that of essence, which has other
requirements.
5Several concepts are close to these definitions, when we cannot, do not wish to, or do not
know how to talk about models. The type has often been used instead of the model, and
typologies have existed for a long time in geography. But type comes from Latin typus,
meaning "image" or "model", and derives from Greek tupos, "matrix" or "mark", itself derived
from Indo-European steu, "strike" (stamp, contusion, stupor, and even study), i.e. "that
which is marked by an identifier". However, the type differs from the model in that it suggests
sorting and arrangement, while the model is a reference, a term of comparison. In short, the
type presupposes the model. The case is frequently used for its exemplary value. However,
this word has two meanings : we can "take" an example from among several to illustrate
something ; or we can "take something as" an example, "make" an example of something, i.e.
seek the exemplarity in something. Yet the case and the example are in turn models. They are
considered in their singularity, but with a view to deriving something of general scope from
them. From their complex singularity, we extract data of general scope that are found in other
individuals illustrated by the case. If I show this map of Yekaterinburg around 1890 (1), I am
taking a case. If I emphasise its essential features, i.e. a) a grid plan, b) the foundry at the
foot of the dam in the centre of the town, plus c) the barracks and d) the monastery, which
form the base of a triangle, the apex of which is the factory, I am referring to a typethe
classic Urals town. The type says a great deal about associations of power, through four linked
elements that form a structure. This is clearly a model, which can be seen through the exact
map of the city. I can choose to keep the map as it is with all its details and talk about it in
that way. I can also extract these four representative elements from it and produce a
transportable schema, which can be compared to the image of other towns. Either way, it will
be a model.
6Better still : any definition of an object proposes a model. The definition of cuesta is a
description of a model, which all cuestas resemble, although no two cuestas are identical. The
definitions of volcano, island, laminar or turbulent flow, city, bocage or peripheral shopping
centre with hypermarket all conjure up a general image and, immediately, a plethora of
particular images, requiring predicates : rocky island, tropical island, sugar-cane-growing
island, low-lying island soon to be submerged by the greenhouse effect, etc. Every time we
define a category of objects, a type within the category, or an exemplary case to illustrate the
type, we are using models and need to use models to understand and explain.

7Some of these models are iconic, i.e. they are in pictorial form. This is only one category of
model, however. Philosophers, for example, seldom use iconic models, although they have
produced a large quantity of models. Geographers frequently use iconic models, which some
philosophers and historians would see as sign of weakness, as evidence of difficulty in
attaining the level of pure thought. However, the hypothesis that this may be a strength or is
inherent to the object of study itself is not completely excluded. Iconic models come in a wide
variety of forms, including mathematical curves, hexagons (the ideal Thiessen polygon), grid
plans and florid representations of the "modern metropolis" with legends of 40 or 50 symbols.
8Models are widely used in geomorphology, which is how I became acquainted with them. The
elementary exercise of geomorphology consists in identifying forms and conjecturing their
origin, by classing them according to precise definitions, with types and models, as in any
"natural science". Human geography was for a long time much less advanced, with only a few
typologies, which were much more formal than structural, more descriptive than explicative,
and limited to villages and farms, with vague overtones of a certain French disdain for the
Germanic mania for classifying.
9This is when the avalanche of models struck in the 1960s, triggered by a significant change
of attitude (2). The ambition of mathematics, in its two aspects of measuring and forecasting,
was fundamental to this. Old models, often derived from economics, which was quite
advanced in this area, were transposed or rediscovered. Models that could make links between
equations, curves and spatial forms were obviously the most promising. This marked the
triumph of the four large families : von Thnen ; Christaller revised by Lsch ; Reilly and
Thiessen ; and, less congruously, Zipf. Diffusion models that involved the calculation of
probabilities and games appeared. These were followed by simulation models that aimed to
reproduce dynamic systems and thus anticipate the likelihood or the effects of a change. At
the same time, models of spatial configurations, particularly networks, began to appear, and
the use of flow charts to model systems began to develop.
10The only way to understand and explain something, as Borges wrote, is to compare it to
something we know and therefore already understand. Fortunately, on a world scale and, in
principle, on the scale of a scientific community, the sum of what is known and understood
increases every instantshort of cases of regression and collective amnesia, a hypothesis that
admittedly cannot be ruled out. In a geographical configuration, we can thus seek the
manifestations (or absence of manifestation, which is no less interesting) of established
models, such as zonal or meridian climatic dissymmetry, Fordism or metropolisation, i.e.
models that are already understood. And if none of these models "works", then we need to
imagine some other kind of model, prove its legitimacy and seek other manifestations of it, all
of which is very exciting. Either way, we are working on interpretative comparisons, and not
limiting ourselves to strictly formal comparisons of the old typologies, which put all street
villages or all houses with inner courtyards in the same group as a matter of form.

Refutations
11The conscious use of models has made a substantial contribution to geographical research,
profoundly transforming it in the last third of the 20 th century. It has also provoked criticisms,

apparently of all kinds, but among which it is not too difficult to identify a few models (3). I
shall attempt this exercise in half a dozen points.
121. Modelling is simplification, which means a loss of information. I have no intention of
being ironic about detail-mad geographers who need every indentation in a shoreline and
every meander of a river and are distressed by straight lines. I too am attached to tiny river
bends, to place names and to the details of particular villages, and have initiated a number of
meticulously detailed inventories, atlases and geographical dictionaries. But we need to
distinguish between objectives and scales. We should not mistake noise for information, which
is its exact opposite. Understanding and explaining the geography of a region or a country, like
any object of knowledge, implies distinguishing between the fundamental and the secondary,
which requires effort. This is what Husserl termed rather pompously as eidetic reduction, i.e.
the art of going to the essential. Only a poor researcher or teacher would not do this. Some of
those who reject modelling as "simplification" may well give excellent lectures by "simplifying"
themselves.
132. Some models are so complicated that they are illegible. This is perfectly true : some flow
charts and iconic models (particularly urban ones) are impossible to decipher and have
therefore failed to achieve their objective. The people who produced them did not want not to
"leave anything out". This does not condemn modelling as a whole, since these attempts at
models are a negation of the idea of a model. When a model expresses the essential in a
legible fashion, the way a summary expresses the contents of a book, it is always possible to
change scale later and examine the details, the unexplained, opening the "black boxes" one
after another.
143. The singularity of each place, of each geographical object, prohibits generalisation. This
apparently fundamentalist affirmation is simply nonsense, because it can be said about
anything, and no science or knowledge would have been possible if it had been followed. In
Antiquity, the Greeks enjoyed the false debate between Herodotus, who supported this kind of
foolishness, and Hecataeus of Miletus, whose intellectual requirements were somewhat
different. But narrating unverified and unverifiable "histories" is not the same as thinking. In
the context of scientific work, Hecataeus and the Eleatics were models, and Herodotus an
antimodel. Any description needs models, without which it expresses nothing. The worst is
that ordinary descriptions use and abuse clichs, which are nothing other than overused
models. "Rustic", "hedgerows", "scenic", "pleasant", "many and varied"one simply has to
read the descriptions of landscapes in many guidebooks and ordinary regional geographies.
154. The models used in geography come from elsewhere. This is partly true. So ? Others may
have worked better and earlier than we have. It is therefore intelligent and fruitful to take
inspiration from their ideas when these contribute to our understanding of the production of
geographical space. This is not a reason to forget that geographers have produced an
abundance of their own models, which are no less useful : piedmont, huerta, estuary region,
frontier, march, dead ground, distribution models of free ports and tax havens, and world
megalopolises. Furthermore, some imports and analogies are worth being re-exported : in my
view, the gravity model (the bigger and the closer, the more attractive) is infinitely easier to
understand in geographical space than in cosmic space, simply because, in everyday life we
clearly understand the reasons, i.e. the nature of the "energy" in question.

165. Modellers are dangerous, because their ambition is prediction and application and they
want to force reality to fit their models. Apparently Christaller tried to persuade Hitler to
"rectify" the network of Polish towns to coincide with his model. Even if trueand the
anecdote needs to be verifiedthe undertaking did not succeed. At the same time, a plethora
of territory-makers, neither geographers nor scientists, have attempted, sometimes
successfully, to design or redesign spatial organisations to meet their requirements. This has
nothing to do with the idea of models, except in the vulgar, prescriptive sense of the word.
This argument is simply groundless accusation and is even comical in that it credits
geographers with powers they have never had.
176. What is behind the model ? It seems to me that the only serious criticism that can be
made of some of the forms of modelling that appeared in this whole period is the one least
mentioned : because of their strictly formal character, some models may neglect processes of
society. The ambition to measure and calculate at all costs has produced an economistic
tendency or a focus on calculation techniques for their own sake. Researchers sometimes seek
purely mathematical adjustments, without thinking about the processes at work. Factor
analysis is useful for highlighting strong correlations and facilitating typologies. But what
happens when we turn the axes around ? What is behind autocorrelation models or sector
models of urban morphology ? What is the significance of calculating a fractal measure ? What
is the purpose of concluding that all geographical forms are fractal simply because we can
always make this measurement ? When a researcher finds a complex mathematical model that
fits a distribution, what does this model really describe and does it offer something more than
a coincidence in the profound sense of the word ? Since the organisation of geographical space
is the work of human beings (performed in a particular environment filled with memories,
people, issues and strategies), I only consider myself enlightened if the results resemble
explanations, if we can perceive the reasons and means behind them, i.e. if they have a social
legitimation, even if we have to allow for an element of "chance" in this "necessity". In my
view, this criticism does not apply to modelling as a whole, but only to a purely technical
approach to modelling, using the tool for its own sake, which has developed in the past 30 or
so years.
18I believe we can draw three provisional conclusions from the above. The first is that almost
all these efforts and a few of these debates have taught us a great deal. The second is an
appeal in favour of memory and integration. In my view, science does not progress by
successive negations, by fashions that replace fashions, but by accretion. At every instant,
sometimes through fashion, science incorporates the best of new acquisitions. We should not
forget these efforts and debates, but rather integrate the most resilient of their contributions.
For example, to contest "quantitative" approaches, some geographers emphasised the role of
firms and production relationships in spatial behaviour, and therefore in the production of
geographical space, while others focused on the role of representations and myth. Both have
benefited geographical knowledge in general. These contributions should be integrated into
geography teaching alongside calculation and modelling methods, rather than replace them.
The third conclusion is that, through these successive or simultaneous contributions, we
should be seeking to base geographical modelling on logics of production of space, particularly
by working on models that best express the organisation and differentiation of geographical
space.

19This discussion of models naturally raises questions about research practice in geography. In
this regard, we have all learned, created and acquired a great deal over the period under
review. The parascientific (or antiscientific) phase that some groups of geographers appear to
be going through may make us lose some of what has been acquired. Perhaps it will also
enrich our scientific culture, if there is a move from egology to ontology, i.e. from the navel to
the brain. Augustin Berque has made some suggestions in this direction (4). My feeling is that
we are about to enter a new phase of construction, where thinking on and knowledge of
systems, models and even some Grundrisse will be reinterpreted and better employed, in a
world where even shareholders in pension funds will realise that the maximisation of their
profit depends on some regulation and where scientific work will offer more than researchers
self-contemplation in re-enchanted nature.

Source: http://cybergeo.revues.org/4288