Never before has ‘freedom from’ so worryingly related to ‘freedom to.’ Nearly three billion people currently live under lockdowns enacted by governments. In these uncertain times, most of us remain confined to our homes and accept these unprecedented restrictions as a temporary but necessary sacrifice in the fight against a deadly virus. We understand that lockdowns are part of a short-lived trade-off between liberty and safety. But how comfortable are we with the idea that this state of emergency could last long enough to leave a permanent imprint on the social, economic and political fabric of our communities? What could be the institutional aftermath of this pandemic?…..
The concept of happiness is the cornerstone of the assumptions of positive psychology. Happiness is characterised by the experience of more frequent positive affective states than negative ones as well as a perception that one is progressing toward important life goals (Tkach & Lyubomirsky, 2006).
In the pursuit of understanding happiness, there are two main theoretical perspectives that focus on addressing the question of what makes people feel good and happy. These are the hedonic andeudaimonic approaches to happiness (Keyes, Shmotkin, & Ryff, 2002).
Hedonic wellbeing
Hedonic wellbeing is based on the notion that increased pleasure and decreased pain leads to happiness. Hedonic concepts are based on the notion of subjective wellbeing. Subjective well-being is a scientific term that is commonly used to denote the ‘happy or good life’. It comprises of an affective component (high positive affect and low negative affect) and a cognitive component (satisfaction with life). It is proposed that an individual experiences happiness when positive affect and satisfaction with life are both high (Carruthers & Hood, 2004).
Eudaimonic wellbeing
Eudaimonic wellbeing, on the other hand, is strongly reliant on Maslow’s ideas of self actualisation and Roger’s concept of the fully functioning person and their subjective well being. Eudaimonic happiness is therefore based on the premise that people feel happy if they experience life purpose, challenges and growth. This approach adopts Self-Determination Theory to conceptualise happiness (Keyes et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000). Self determination theory suggests that happiness is related to fulfilment in the areas of autonomy and competence.
From this perspective, by engaging in eudaimonic pursuits, subjective well being (happiness) will occur as a by product. Thus, life purpose and higher order meaning are believed to produce happiness. It appears that the general consensus is that happiness does not result from the pursuit of pleasure but from the development of individual strengths and virtues which ties in with the concept of positive psychology (Vella-Brodrick, Park & Peterson, 2009). The differences between eudaimonic and hedonic happiness are listed below.
Hedonic (Subjective Wellbeing)
Presence of positive mood
Absence of negative mood
Satisfaction with various domains of life (e.g. work, leisure)
Positive psychologists view happiness from both the hedonistic and eudaimonic view in which they define happiness in terms of the pleasant life, the good life and the meaningful life (Norrish & Vella-Brodrick, 2008). Peterson et al., identified three pathways to happiness from the positive psychological view:
Pleasure is the process of maximising positive emotion and minimising negative emotion and is referred to as the pleasant life which involves enjoyable and positive experiences.
Engagement is the process of being immersed and absorbed in the task at hand and is referred to as the good life which involves being actively involved in life and all that it requires and demands. Thus the good life is considered to result from the individual cultivating and investing their signature strengths and virtues into their relationships, work and leisure (Seligman, 2002) thus applying the best of self during challenging activities that results in growth and a feeling of competence and satisfaction that brings about happiness.
Meaning is the process of having a higher purpose in life than our selves and is referred to as the meaningful life which involves using our strengths and personal qualities to serve this higher purpose. The meaningful life, like the good life, involves the individual applying their signature strengths in activities, but the difference is that these activities are perceived to contribute to the greater good in the meaningful life.
Ultimately, it is a combination of each of these three elements described above that positive psychology suggests would constitute authentic and stable happiness (Vella-Brodrick, Park & Peterson, 2009; Carruthers & Hood, 2004).
Starting in the 1930s, German geographer August Lösch began to build upon and modify Christaller’s model. He did this, in part, because he noticed that the variation in K is very important in shaping the organizations of centers and the numbers of centers at each level in a hierarchy. Because Christaller arbitrarily choose the K=3, K=4, and K-7 values, Lösch argued that, in such a model, no particular K value could be considered sacrosanct. From the point of view of Lösch, Christaller’s three locational principles were simply interesting special cases. Lösch suggests that, in fact, a large number of K values can be used. The only restriction, according to Lösch, is that a hexagonal pattern must be maintained in the model. In contrast to Christaller K=7 hierarchy of 1,6,42,294, Lösch put forth that a K=7 hierarchy would be more efficient if it were arranged 7, 13, and 19 because, in these cases, places are not divided among several different centers.
Figure 4.26: Lösch Theory of Urban Settlement Distribution.
This modification of Christaller’s original model is important because many market areas of sizes K=3, 4, . . ., n are situated so that they all have at least one common center, and with the rotation of these hexagons we are able to achieve six sectors with central places that include many types of businesses. Additionally, this process creates a maximization of agglomeration relative to production locations, maximized local purchases, and minimizes the total distance between production points. The resultant pattern results in city-rich and city-poor sectors. This arrangement of linear clusters of central places conforms to the principle of least effort (that people will generally attempt to minimize the effort needed to do business, i.e., all else equal, they will trade at the nearest retail establishment). The graphic above provides a visual demonstration of this concept. The basic properties of the city-rich part of the model are that the greatest numbers of locations coincide, local purchases are maximized, distances between central places are minimized, and the volume of shipments and the total length of transportation routes are minimized. The city-poor parts of the model account for an uneven distribution of population, cities, and businesses.
Löschian Model. Credit: Lösch (1954, cited in Gore 1984)
In order to arrive at these modifications, Lösch identified the three smallest market areas. Lösch worked on the assumption that a farmer at a given location (A1) produces a commodity in excess of the need in his market area and therefore sells the excess to customers in adjacent market areas (A2 and 3). This results in a triangular market area. If A1 increases output, it may become a central place (B1) and the farmer will then sell his output in a hexagon consisting of six triangles. The market area of B1 would then be increased by encroaching on the market areas of neighboring central places (B2 and 3), by either rotating the hexagon around B1 or by rotating and enlarging the hexagon so that it expands into open space without touching any other settlement (see graphic above). Lösch indicated that the smallest market areas are only the smallest in an infinite series. The multiple rotations and enlargements of hexagons created market areas with K values of 9, 12, 13, 16, 19, 21, and 25. The landscape, according to Lösch, is made up of a discontinuous series of central place possibilities, because there are variations in the efficiencies of the various possible arrangements.
Therefore, the models developed by Christaller and Lösch are very different because they result in markedly different systems. The permanent K constraint in Christaller’s model means that all places at the same level in a hierarchy have the same business types, and all higher-order places must contain all the business types contained in lower-order places. Lösch noted that this does not accurately reflect the spatial organization of central places in the “real world.” Thus, the model developed by Lösch presents a less definite hierarchical arrangement than does Christaller’s. In the Löschian system, settlements of the same size are not required to have the same arrangement of business types, and higher-order central places do not need to have all the functions available in lower-order places (although they will probably tend to have most of them).
Whereas central-place theory provides great insights into the hierarchy of urban places, it has shortcomings. For one thing, these models are simply descriptive in nature. Additionally, they do not take into account non-optimal human decisions and fail to consider the historical process through which capitalism developed as the framework in which places come to positions of dominance. Moreover, central-place theory deals only with relationships between consumers and producers in a region. It does not consider settlement patterns that are the result of long-distance trade between regions. Furthermore, central-place theory rests on the assumption of uniformity of space.
Eye-opening, powerful words are now used to describe plummeting CO2 emissions in 2020.
It “would be the largest decrease in emissions ever recorded,” the International Energy Agency said Thursday. Spurred by an unprecedented energy shock, carbon emissions would take “a far bigger drop than at any point during the Great Depression or at the end of World War II, when much of Europe lay in ruins,” noted the New York Times.
This is all likely true. We’re headed for some major emission declines. But, critically, the true number global warming cares about — the amount of carbon dioxide saturating the atmosphere — will barely be impacted by an unprecedented drop in carbon emissions this year, a drop the International Energy Agency estimates at nearly eight percent (compared with historic 2019 levels).
That’s because atmospheric CO2 levels are like a massive bank account that’s been accruing more…
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