Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 2.1
The classic model of time-space convergence.
access to every technology as well as their uneven impacts. Abler (1977) and
Abler and Falk (1981, 1985) extended this line of thought to include com-
munications technologies such as the telephone, which similarly reduce (or
even eliminate) the time-distance among places, at least with respect to
fl
ows
of information if not people or goods.
In the context of late twentieth-century globalization and technological
changes, falling transport times created a steadily “shrinking world” that
changed the suite of opportunities and constraints faced by places,
rms, and
individuals. Because markets are shaped by the distances beyond which goods
and information cannot circulate in a timely manner, transport and com-
munications costs limit their geographic size. As Fields (2004:27) notes,
“Transport and communications technologies shape the parameters of e
fi
-
ciency by recalibrating the costs of basic elements in producing, buying, and
selling.” For competitive
fi
firms, the steadily declining friction of distance
was a signi
ts were not so
clear: as transport costs dropped and the spatial division of labor expanded
fi
cant economic bene
fi
t. For other
fi
rms, the bene
fi
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