Grouping and Regionalizing: Some Methodological and Technical Observations

This paper is not a review of the procedures of grouping and regionalizing used in geography, for such a task has recently been performed elsewhere [84], nor does it attempt the presumptuous task of indicating the "best" procedures for geographers to follow. Instead, a number of observations are presented on some methodological and technical problems noted in the recent literature, and suggestions are made on some as yet unexplored aspects of the topic. In approach, therefore, the paper follows an earlier essay [44] (whose arguments are not repeated here) which was inspired by a claim that geographers could at long last replicate their regions [14]; see also Lankford [53].1 The main arguments are that groupings should be performed for specific tasks within a hypothesis-testing methodology so organized that the chances of Type I Errors are minimized, and that there are no differences between the general procedure of grouping and the geographer's task of regionalizing.

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