Articles by brankin
place-name etymology
Posted June 08, 2006 at 10:13 PM
Two kinds of colonial naming: erasure and appropriation. But when it's always the colonists doing the naming, is one really preferable to the other? The recently created Nunavut (Inuktitut for "our land") is perhaps the only exception in the hemisphere.
Colored regions show names from the same language family (as categorized by the [...]
empires
Posted June 04, 2006 at 12:55 AM
UK Empire Map: At its height, the United Kingdom included one quarter of the world's population and one third of its land area. Other colonial empires c.1921 are shown in light colors.
US Economic and Territories Map: Simple web research Photoshop = look at the geographic scope of the United States. GDP data from the World Bank, [...]
north american mass transit
Posted June 03, 2006 at 11:55 PM
At a glance, many metros seem to be comparable in scale, but what separates New York from Baltimore is density: station-to-station distance, line overlap, and linkages.
Most systems are ogranized as a hub with spokes; the two notable exceptions are New York and Mexicop City, both of which are more like nets.
us megalopolises
Posted June 03, 2006 at 11:13 PM
When the term "Megalopolis" was first introduced by Jean Gottmann in 1961, the Eastern seabord of the US was already seen as a new urban form: what he called "BosWash." Gottmann predicted that two other regions -- "SanSan" and "ChiPitts" -- would also form megalopolises as they continued to build shared transportation and communication [...]
north american rail
Posted June 03, 2006 at 11:05 PM
The rail network of North America continues to consolidate, but it is beginning to become transnational as well. Since NAFTA, Canadian National has acquired several US regional railways, and Kansas City Southern has purchased Transportacion Ferroviaria Mexicana -- both part of a drive towards a "NAFTA Rail" alliance. Together the eight Class I [...]
