Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
This queue is for a visit to Alcatraz
Prison.
For the cultural geographer with an interest in leisure, the interest is less about the
resulting spatial patterns of supply, but how the cultural dimension conditions, affects and
impacts upon the spatial interactions between supply and demand.
HOW HAS THE GEOGRAPHER APPROACHED THE ANALYSIS
OF RECREATIONAL SUPPLY ISSUES?
The geographer's approach is epitomised in many of the classic recreational texts (e.g.
Patmore 1970; Lavery 1971c; I.G.Simmons 1974; Pigram 1983) where the supply
perspective is largely dependent upon the evaluation and assessment of resources for
recreation. The concept of a resource may often be taken to include those tangible objects
in nature which are of economic value and used for productive purposes. But when
looking at leisure and recreation natural resources have an important bearing, particularly
those such as water bodies, countryside and open space. The fact that resources have a
physical form (i.e. coal and iron ore) does not actually mean they constitute a resource.
Such elements become a resource only when society's subjective evaluation of their
potential leads to their recognition as a resource to satisfy human wants and needs
(O'Riordan 1971).
Yet a resource is far from just a passive element—it has to be used creatively to meet
certain socially valued goals. Thus recreational resources are 'an element of the natural or
man-modified environment which provides an opportunity to satisfy recreational wants.
Implicit is a continuum ranging from biophysical resources to man-made facilities'
Plate 3.2:
Alcatraz Prison, San
Francisco.
(Kreutzwiser 1989:22). However, according to Glyptis (1989a:135), to 'couple
recreational with resources complicates definitions…. In a recreational context resources
are the natural resources of land, water and landscape, together with manmade resources
including sport centres, swimming pools, parks and playing fields', though she also notes
