For millions of gamers and students alike, city building games (CBGs) like SimCity and the more recent Cities: Skylines present a compelling initial introduction to the world of urban planning and development. As such, these games have great potential to shape players' understanding and expectations of real urban patterns and processes. In this…

Most towns were crucial to the initial colonization and economic development of the Great Plains. Many were, directly or indirectly, creatures of railroad corporate planning, owing their location as well as their physical layout to the townsite companies controlled by railroad officials. This article examines how these facts shaped the fundamental…

University instructors are increasingly drawing on active learning exercises to engender critical thinking skills among students. In this article, we introduce the design and implementation of an active learning exercise about mobility and transportation that we assigned in an introductory human geography class at the University of Georgia. The…

Examines the structure, role, and needs of Africa's national and intracontinental transportation system. Characteristics of rail, water, road, and air transportation are examined. The conclusion is that high investment in transportation systems is essential to the development process. (Author/KC)

The development of new transport systems has been an important and highly visible component of economic development and spatial reorganization in the past two centuries. The Ideal-Typical Sequence of network development has been a widely used model of transport development. This paper shows that this model has been used in several different ways,…

A learning experience is described for upper elementary or junior high students involving the manufacture, transportation, and marketing of a product for consumers. Steps are given and roles are assigned for students to convert raw material (paper) to a finished product (paper airplanes) and to sell it. (AV)

Provides a brief synopsis of how geographic features molded transportation history in the United States. Special emphasis is put on the relationship between river transportation and the formation of towns. Included are examples which show how topographic maps illustrate why certain locations were chosen for settlements. (JDH)

The concepts of time-space convergence and human extensibility provide important insights relating the impacts of transportation and communications advances with the human organization of space. This paper explains these concepts and suggests how they may be used for structuring classroom projects. (Author)

For teaching about urban geography, it is suggested that students first examine self-contained buildings and treat them as miniature cities, then advance to more traditional concerns of the discipline. (Author/ND)

Inquiry-discovery learning of processes involved in determining transportation patterns form the core of this teaching model. Promotes understanding of human behavior and geographic change and is sufficiently general for use at several teaching levels. (Author/JB)

Explains how geography teachers can use data from recent airline guides to help students understand graphic relationships between areas of the globe. Facts about air travel can reveal connections and interactions between urban centers and introduce locational concepts such as centrality, accessibility, periphery, and distributional patterns.…

Richard Boyer and David Savageau's book "Places Rated Almanac" is described, and ways the book can be used in secondary and college geography classes are discussed. The book rates the quality of the following aspects of urban life: climate and terrain, housing, health care, environment, crime, transportation, education, and recreation.…