Lawrence A. Brown
![[Brown's picture]](brown.gif)
Address
Department of Geography, The
Ohio State University
1036 Derby Hall
154 North Oval Mall
Columbus, OH 43210
tel. (614) 292-2320
fax (614) 292-6213
Current Position
Distinguished University Professor and Former Chair of Geography, Ohio State University
Education and Degrees
1966 PhD Geography, Northwestern University
1963 MA Geography, Northwestern University
1960 CPA State of Pennsylvania; Currently Licensed in Ohio
1958 BS Economics (Business), University of Pennsylvania
Professional Experience
The adoption and geographic spread of new products and techniques across the earth's surface, termed more generally innovation diffusion, has been a major concern of Dr. Brown's research. His 1966 dissertation on this topic, based on field work in Sweden under the distinguished geographer Torsten Hagerstrand and reported in a Lund Studies monograph, examined communications technology. In 1973, he initiated a large scale project examining a variety of innovations in the United States, Latin America, and Africa. This NSF supported research led to the book Innovation Diffusion: A New Perspective (1981), which was termed a unique contribution by reviews in disciplines as diverse as Marketing, Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and History of Science, as well as Geography. Earlier social science research had emphasized adoption of innovations. By contrast, Brown introduced and elaborated the idea that diffusion largely reflects the actions of entities supplying innovations, which control who has the opportunity to adopt.
A second major concern of Dr. Brown's research has been population movement. Between 1966 and 1973, he focused on residential change within the city, rural-to-urban migration, and interregional movements in United States settings. Extensive surveys, designed and directed by Brown, were a central component of these studies; The Ford Foundation provided partial support. In related activities, Brown developed several algorithms for studying population movements, which also have been widely used for other research purposes. For example, a procedure for delimiting functional regions has been employed in regional planning, both domestically and in Latin America; his 'New Product Marketing Game' in marketing; an algorithm for centrographic measures and spatial transformation of point patterns in sociology, and a Markov chain based simulation model in research on the diffusion of epidemics.
In 1981 Brown shifted his focus to pursue long standing interests in Latin American and Third World development issues. Initially under NSF support, and working closely with the United Nation's Demographic Center for Latin America (Santiago Chile, San Jose Costa Rica), he directed a project on the interrelationships between development, migration, and urbanization in Third World settings. A major theme of the research was to demonstrate the high level of interrelatedness between these phenomena, which social science has tended to treat as independent of one another. Another aspect concerns the nature of development itself, which Brown sees largely as the local manifestation (articulation) of world market, or macroeconomic, forces, donor nation actions, and policies of Third World nations. This research is reported in the book Place, Migration, and Development in the Third World: An Alternative View, with Particular Reference to Population Movements, Labor Market Experiences, and Regional Change in Latin America (1991).
Brown's more current work, also supported by NSF, is concerned with frontier settlement, particularly in the Amazon Region of Ecuador. Its focus is change over time in population distribution and the transition of rudimentary trading centers to functionally mature components of a national urban system. General models of frontier development are interwoven with localized factors specific to Ecuador; also highlighted are the impacts of national-international conditions on local areas and place characteristics on individual behavior. This approach characterizes Brown's research in recent years.
Through the research described above, teaching, and lecturing Brown also has gained an understanding of broad forces underlying regional economies, changes therein, and forecasting of growth/decline tendencies. Relevant here are characteristics of and trends in the location of economic activity, economic restructuring, regional labor markets, educational attainment, labor force skills, population growth, migration, and the way these factors operate both in United States and international contexts. This perspective informed a 1990s project on socio-economic change, economic restructuring, and population shifts in locales comprising the Ohio River Valley. Supported by USDA, the research involved an interdisciplinary team from Economics, Geography, and Sociology.
Currently Brown is focusing on race/ethnicity in terms of residential patterning within urban areas and immigration profile differences among US metropolitan areas. An element of this is a new framework for understanding racial/ethnic clustering and intermixing within the city, identified as Market-Led Pluralism.
Overall, Brown's research record includes four books/monographs, approximately one-hundred-ten articles in thirty-two geography and/or social science journals, editorship of and publication in four discussion paper series that played a significant role in the development of current geographic thought; guest editorships for the prominent journal Economic Geography; editor and/or editorial board member of several major geography and social science journals, including four editorial board terms with the Annals of the Association of American Geographers and one/two with Geographical Analysis, International Regional Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly; review panel member for prominent granting organizations such as Ford, Guggenheim, National Science Foundations, and NIH; author and presenter of approximately one hundred twenty papers at national and international conferences; and several research grants, primarily from the National Science Foundation.
Brown's research record is strongly linked to advising and mentoring students; notably thirty-three PhD and seventeen Post-Doctoral advisees. Most occupy academic positions in PhD granting departments of the United States and other countries; several have developed national/international reputations in their own right including a Guggenheim Fellow, four Fulbright Fellows, three awardees of AAG Honors, one James R. Anderson Medal for Applied Geography, former editors of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers and Professional Geographer, author of a leading urban geography textbook, eight former/present members of NSF review panels, eight former/present councilors of the Association of American Geographers, one former President of the Association of American Geographers; seventeen have served as departmental chairs or equivalent administrative positions; fourteen are women and/or minorities; one has won the Distinguished Minority Alumni Award of the Ohio State University.
This record has led to several recognitions. In 1981 and 1995 Brown was included in the historical record of the Association of American Geographers, as represented by its Geographers on Film series; in 1983 he received the Honors Award of the Association of American Geographers; in 1984, the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Ohio State University; in 1985, a Guggenheim Fellowship; in 1993, the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award of the Ohio State University. and in 1996 the Distinguished Mentor Award of the National Council for Geographic Education. He was elected Vice-President of the Association of American Geographers for 1995-96, President for 1996-97. In 1996 Brown was designated as Distinguished University Professor of the Ohio State University, and served as Chair of Geography 1995-2003.
Selected Publications
Books and Monographs
Place, Migration, and Development in the Third World: An Alternative View, with Particular Reference to Population Movements, Labor Market Experiences, and Regional Change in Latin America. London and New York: Routledge, 1991.
Innovation Diffusion: A New Perspective. London and New York: Methuen, 1981. Chosen as Classic in Human Geography, Progress in Human Geography 2006.
Diffusion Dynamics: A Review and Revision of the Quantitative Theory of the Spatial Diffusion of Innovation. Lund: Gleerup, Lund Studies in Geography B-29, 1968.
Diffusion Processes and Location: A Conceptual Framework and Bibliography. Philadelphia: Regional Science Research Institute, 1968.
Recent Arcticles
Racial/Ethnic Residential Sorting in Spatial Context: Testing the Explanatory Frameworks, submitted.
Market-Led Pluralism: Rethinking Our Understanding of Racial/Ethnic Spatial Patterning in US Cities, submitted.
Immigrant Profiles of US Urban Areas and Agents of Resettlement, with Tamar E. Mott and Edward J. Malecki, The Professional Geographer 59 (2007).
Classics in human Geography revisited: Brown, L.A.: Innovation diffusion: a new perspective. Author’s Reply. Progress in Human Geography 30 (2006)
Spatial Segregation, Segregation Indices, and the Geographic Perspective, with Su-Yeul Chung, Population, Space, and Place (formerly International Journal of Population Geography) 12 (2006), 125-43.
Continuity Amidst Restructuring: The US Geographic Division of Labor in Geographic Perspective, 1970 and 1990, with Sang-Il Lee, Linda Lobao, Su-Yeul Chung, International Regional Science Review 28 (2005), 271-301.
Reaching In; Continuity and Change: Geographical Societies in the Mid to Late 1800s; The G in GIS -- Getting It Right; Continuity and Change: Carl Sauer, The Education of a Geographer; Continuity and Change: Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society; in M. Duane Nellis, Janice Monk, and Susan L. Cutter, eds., Presidential Musings from the Meridian: Reflections on the Nature of Geography by Past Presidents of the Association of American Geographers. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2004, pp 61-64, 126-29, 160-63, 163-66, 218-21.
E. Willard “Will” Miller (1915-2002), Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94 (2004), 662-73.
Old Industrial Regions and the Political Economy of Development, with Linda Lobao and Jon Moore, in W. Falk, and M. Schulman, and A. Tickameyer, eds, Communities of Work: Rural Restructuring in Local and Global Contexts. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003, 3-30
Diffusion: Geographical Aspects, in Neil Smelser and Paul Baltes, eds., International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Pergamon, 2002.
Urban System Evolution at the Ecuador Amazon Frontier, with R. Ryder, Geographical Review 90 (2000), 511-35.
The GIS/SA Interface for Substantive Research(ers): A Critical Need, Journal of Geographical Systems 2 (2000), 43-47.
Macrolevel Theory and Local-Level Inequality: Industrial Structure, Institutional Arrangements, and the Political Economy of Redistribution, 1970 and 1990, with Linda Lobao and Jamie Rulli, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 89 (1999), 571-601.
Urban Development at the Ecuador Amazon Frontier: Boom Towns or Gloom Towns?, with R. Ryder, in Yehuda Gradus and Harvey Lithwick, eds., Developing Frontier Cities: Global Perspectives -- Regional Contexts. Kluwer Scientific, 1999, 313-43.
Towards a GeoEd Research Agenda: Observations of a Concerned Bystander, Professional Geographer 51 (1999), 562-71.
Employment in Boom Towns of the Ecuador Amazon, with R. Ryder, 1998 Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 60 (1999), 75-104.
Change, Continuity, and the Pursuit of Geographic Understanding, Presidential Address, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 89 (1999): pp. 1-25.
Economic Restructuring and Migration in an Old Industrial Region: The Ohio River Valley, with Linda Lobao and Scott Digiacinto, in Kavita Pandit and Suzanne Davies-Withers, eds., Migration and Restructuring in the U.S.: A Geographic Perspective. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999, pp. 37-58.
Gender, Migration, and the Organization of Work Under Economic Devolution: Ecuador 1982-90, with Firooza Pavri and Victoria A. Lawson, International Journal of Population Geography 4 (1998), pp. 259-74.
Development Context, Regional Differences Between Young Women, and Fertility: The Ecuadorian Amazon, with Linda M. Lobao, Social Forces 76 (1998), pp. 819-49.
Regional Change as the Interplay of Global and Local, with Linda Lobao, The Korean Journal of Applied Geography 20 (1997), pp. 107-34.
The GeoEd Research Agenda: What It Is, What It Might Be, What ...?”, in Richard G. Boehm and James F. Petersen, eds., The First Assessment: Research in Geographic Education. San Marcos: Gilbert M. Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education, 1997, pp. 235-43.
Development Models, Economic Adjustment, and Occupational Composition: Ecuador 1982-90, with Jennifer L. Mandel and Victoria A. Lawson, International Regional Science Review 20 (1997): 183-209.
Continuity and Change in an Old Industrial Region, with Linda Lobao and Anthony L. Verheyen, Growth and Change 27 (1996): 175-205.
The Uprooting of People, Migration, and Labor Force Experiences: Ecuador 1982 and 1990, with Jennifer L. Mandel and Victoria A. Lawson, Journal fuer Entwicklungspolitik, 11 (1995): 331-48.
Frameworks of Urban System Evolution in Frontier Settings and the Ecuador Amazon, with Scott Digiacinto, Rodrigo Sierra, and W. Randy Smith, Geographical Research Forum, 14 (1994): 72-96; also in Yehuda Gradus and Harvey Lithwick, eds., Frontiers in Regional Development. Totowa: Rowman Littlefield, 1996, pp. 99-124.
Frontier Migration as a Multi-Stage Phenomenon Reflecting the Interplay of Macro Forces and Local Conditions: the Ecuador Amazon, with Rodrigo Sierra, Papers in Regional Science 73 (1994): 267-88.
Urban System Evolution in Frontier Settings, with Rodrigo Sierra, Scott Digiacinto, and W. Randy Smith, Geographical Review 84 (1994): 249-65.
Complementary Perspectives as a Means of Understanding Regional Change: Frontier Settlement in the Ecuador Amazon, with Rodrigo Sierra, Douglas Southgate, and Linda Lobao, Environment and Planning A 24 (1992): 939-61.
Innovation Diffusion: Retrospect and Prospect, Geography 42 (1990): 153-64 (Journal of the Korean Geographical Society).
Location, Social Categories, and Individual Labor Market Experiences in Developing Economies: the Venezuelan Case, with Kim V.L. England and Andrew R. Goetz, International Regional Science Review 12 (1989): 1-28.
Polarization Reversal, Migration Related Shifts in Human Resource Profiles, and Spatial Growth Policies: A Venezuelan Study, with Victoria A. Lawson, International Regional Science Review 12 (1989): 165-188. Reprinted in H.S. Geyer and T.M. Kontuly, eds., Differential Urbanization: Integrating Spatial Models. London: Edward Arnold, 1996, pp. 216-38.
Policy Aspects of Development and Individual Mobility: Migration and Circulation from Ecuador's Rural Sierra, with Jorge A. Brea and Andrew R. Goetz, Economic Geography 64 (1988): 147-70.
Reflections on Third World Development: Ground Level Reality, Exogenous Forces, and Conventional Paradigms, Economic Geography 64 (1988): 255-78.
Development Related Contextual Affects and Individual Attributes in Third World Migration Processes: A Venezuelan Example, with Andrew R. Goetz, Demography 24 (1987): 497-516.
Migration, Human Resource Transfers and Development Contexts: A Logit Analysis of Venezuelan Data, with Janet E. Kodras, Geographical Analysis 19 (1987): 243-63.
Cross-National Tests of a Third World Development-Migration Paradigm, With Particular Attention to Venezuela, with Richard C. Jones, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 19 (1985): 357-67.
Migration in Third World Settings, Uneven Development, and Conventional Modeling: A Case Study of Costa Rica, with Victoria A. Lawson, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 75 (1985): 29-47.
Rural Destined Migration in Third World Settings: A Neglected Phenomenon?, with Victoria A. Lawson, Regional Studies 19 (1985): 415-32.
Spatial Variation in Migration Processes and Development: A Costa Rican Example of Conventional Modeling Augmented by the Expansion Method, with John Paul Jones III, Demography 22 (1985): 327-52.
The Dissemination of Public Sector Innovations with Relevance to Regional Change in the United States, with Janet E. Kodras, in Alfred T. Thwaites and Ray .P. Oakey, eds., Regional Economic Impact of Technological Change. London: Frances Pinter, pp. 195-214, 1985.
Development Aspects of Migration in Third World Settings: A Simulation, with Implications for Urbanization, with Frank C. Stetzer, Environment and Planning A 16 (1984): 1583-1603. Reprinted in H.S. Geyer and T.M. Kontuly, eds., Differential Urbanization: Integrating Spatial Models. London: Edward Arnold, 1996. pp. 264-90.
Innovation Diffusion and Entrepreneurial Activity in a Spatial Context: Conceptual Models and Related Case Studies, with Marilyn A. Brown and C. Samuel Craig, in Jagdeth N. Sheth, ed., Research in Marketing, Volume 4. Greenwich: JAI Press, pp. 69-115, 1981.
Towards a Development Paradigm of Migration in Third World Settings, with Rickie Sanders, in Gordon DeJong and Robert Gardner, eds., Migration Decision Making: Approaches to Micro Level Theory. Oxford: Pergamon, pp., 39-73, 1981.