University of Virginia Library

Gottman Lectures On Cities

By Parkes Brittain

Photo by Charley Sands

Jean Gottman, Professor Of Geography At The University Of Oxford

Discusses "The People And Their Territory: Reconsideration Of A Basic Relationship

Culminating his three-day
Page-Barbour Lecture Series entitled
"The People and Their Territory;
Reconsideration of a Basic Relationship,"
Professor Jean Gottman of Oxford
College spoke on "Crossroads and
Frontiers amidst Modern Fluidity and
Nomadism" Thursday night at Gilmer
Hall.

The famed geographer and author of
"Megalopolis" noted that technology has
drastically changed accessibility of "any
kind of space." He said that twenty years
ago Europeans would still joke that it
took the same time for Napoleon to go
from Paris to Rome as it took Caesar to
go from Rome to Paris.

Professor Gottman informed the audience
that "security used to be measured by
distance... we now know that we can strike
from any point on earth at any other point on
earth in less than an hour in most cases."

"Possession of territory is less important
than it ever was," he said, "...yet we see
countries fight to obtain new territory... within
nations, too."

He added that one of history's clearest
examples of mass movements of people is the
result of "people in search of the opportunity
of employment." Even countries who consider
themselves over-populated have received
migrant workers as a source of cheap labor on
contractual agreement. He cited West Germany
and Switzerland as examples.

Equating the terms "frontier" and
"boundary," the professor noted that frontiers
are a "matter of growth, a matter of
opportunity, not a matter of security." He
described a "revision of the notion of territory
and extents."

"Cities today are expanding into something
wider," he said. Government on the local level
is becoming much more complicated, especially
with the relatively new metropolitan system.

The professor depicted the evolution of
American cities as decreasing in population and
employment in the central city, with mass
movements to the suburbs. There results a
"complementarity of neighboring cities as well
as struggle between them."

He added, "The city is evolving... as a
crossroad ... for a variety of people who are
coming from many parts of the horizon to
perform some business." They do not live in
the crossroad, but they work there.