TIME-SPACE CONVERGENCE

What the syllabus says… Explain how a reduction in the friction of distance results in time- space convergence

What do you think? Has the world become ‘smaller’? Is it right to use the term ‘global village’? List and briefly comment on changes in communications that have taken place in the last 20 years that could be used to answer the two questions above.

We tend to think of distance in terms of travel times. Travel times are being reduced because of the increase in air travel. Also air travel is becoming more affordable. For example in the year 2000 Bratislava to London. £75 by bus 22 hours Bratislava to London. £40 by low cost airline 2.5 hours.

Definitions Time-space convergence - Distance decay - Friction of distance - Remember - the greater the distance we travel, the more likely we are to use time as the measurement of the journey. This means that travel time is often more relevant than travel distance

Time-space convergence – Reduction in the time taken to travel between two places due to improvements in transportation or communication technology Distance decay – The further you are from a place the less likely you are to travel to it. (Is this always the case?) Friction of distance – The concept of friction of distance is based on the notion that distance usually requires some amount of effort, money, and/or energy to overcome. Because of this "friction," spatial interactions will tend to take place more often over shorter distances; quantity of interaction will decline with distance.

So a reduction in the friction of distance results in time- space convergence. And therefore increase the interactions between places

Time for you to think Briefly list the consequences of time- space convergence. Now attempt to group these consequences into groups. Think in terms of economic, sociocultural, environmental, political

AND NOW THE REASONS…. It’s clear that there has been time- space convergence. It’s also clear that this has had a number of consequences and impacts on our daily life It’s also clear that this is one of the main reasons leading to globalization. So how has this all taken place in, for example, Europe?

Cheap oil!

IMPROVEMENTS POLITICAL CHANGE European integration Schengen treaty Common currency Disappearance of Warsaw Pact and Communism ECONOMIC IMPROVEMENTS Increased affluence Fall in relative cost of transport and communications TRANSPORT IMPROVEMENTS More airports Low budget airlines Motorway network Fast rail links Containerisation

Containerisation and relatively low fuel costs have meant that the transport costs for each unit transported is very low. It costs around 1500 to 2500 Euros to transport a TEU container from Singapore to Rotterdam.

Container Traffic (in thousands TEU Twenty foot equivalent containers)

Aviation transports more than 2.2 billion passengers annually Aviation carries over 44 million tonnes of freight annually and 35% of interregional exports of goods by value IATA (International Air Transport Association) 2008

We now live in a “shrinking” world where space and distance are irrelevant and places have become homogeneous? Geography is irrelevant?

Nonsense!! Think how different your life would be if you were born in a village in Niger. We all still spend most of our lives in local space.

Nonsense!! As it becomes easier to transcend space, an understanding of the differences between places becomes even more important. It is now possible for even small companies to seek a competitive advantage by producing and selling their products in another place. The decision is, which place?

Nonsense!! The process of globalisation is not uniform. Change does not occur everywhere in the same way and at the same time. The particular character of individual countries, regions and even localities interacts with the larger scale general processes of change to produce quite specific outcomes. (P Dicken – Global Shift)

Time space convergence is socially differentiated. Discuss… (Massey, Globalisation topic Master page 24)