Watching the superb and sublimely acted recent film A Complete Unknown has inspired me to revisit the songs of Bob Dylan. In doing so, I have once again been impressed with his geographical vision, marked by effective invocations of place. His frequent use of place names in lyrics has even drawn cartographic attention, as can […] The post Highway 61 Revisited Revisited in 2024: Bob Dylan, Geography, and the Blues appeared first on GeoCurrents.

The second GeoCurrents YouTube video has been posted, which examines the current debate between anti-natalists, who think that the world is severely overpopulated and therefore want to reduce birthrates, and pro-natalist, who are concerned about plunging fertility and therefore want to increase birthrates.   I do not take a side in this debate on this […] The post New Demography Video: Pro-Natalism vs. Anti-Natalism appeared first on GeoCurrents.

I have posted the first of an estimated 16 illustrated lectures on global population on the GeoCurrents YouTube channel. These lectures are derived from a class that I am currently teaching in Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program (adult education) called “Population Explosion or Birth Dearth? Understanding Global Demography. The course is framed around the contentious […] The post New GeoCurrents Lecture Series on Global Demography appeared first on GeoCurrents.

A recent GeoCurrents post on Utah’s declining birth rate included maps of the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the U.S. by state in 2008 and 2022. Comparing the state-by-state data from these two years yields a map of total fertility change during this period (posted below). As this map shows, the fertility drop was, in […] The post Declining Human Fertility and Urbanization in the United States appeared first on GeoCurrents.