Social geography

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Social geography is the study of how society affects geographical features and how environmental factors affect society.

[edit] Case Study: India

Victims of their own historical success, Indians suffer from a rural economy. The reason? A high population density, poverty and strong traditional caste system holds back any progress or urbanization, even though the caste system was outlawed in India in 1950. Even so, people still mainly hang out with their particular caste. The fertile Ganges Valley with monsoon rain and river always supported a dense rural population. Rice is the stable crop. A settled traditional agriculture is practised on small plots, but tenants are exploited by landlords. There is a large mass of landless labourers. Poverty still acute, however, the emerging middle class peasantry benefited from the Green Revolution. [1]

[edit] Areas of study

Questions in the field of social geography might include the examination of rural exodus or urban exodus or whether low-rise developments generate a different type of daily life than tower blocks. It deals also with problems of segregation and discrimination, socio-spatial variations in health, analysis of spatial crime patterns and others.

For more details on this topic, see Urban studies.

In the field of community development (or community economic development), the importance of place has been a focal point for sociologists to determine what effects geography may have on a local community's cohesiveness and the sense of community. Studies in community psychology suggest that where we are many times has an effect on who we are.[2]

For more details on this topic, see Community of place.

[edit] See also

Human geography

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	Sub-Fields	Cultural geography · Development geography · Economic geography · Historical geography · Language geography · Marketing geography · Health geography · Military geography · Political geography · Population geography · Religion geography · Social geography · Strategic geography · Time geography · Urban geography
	Approaches	Behavioral geography · Cultural Theory · Feminist geography · Marxism · Modernism (Structuralism · Semiotics) · Postmodernism (Post-structuralism · Deconstruction)