Geographical Perspectives - A Geographer's Thoughts on Business, Real Estate, and Education.

Top 20 Graduate Geography Programs in the U.S.

[highlight color=”options: yellow, black”]This post was written in February 2012. Since then I’ve posted 2013 Geography Program Rankings, 2014 GIS Graduate Program Rankings and, more recently, 2015 Top Graduate Programs for Spatial Careers . Please check out these newer rankings! [/highlight]

I love lists and, especially, ranked lists. Even though I never seriously considered going to medical school or engineering school I was always very interested to find out which programs were ranked at the top. I routinely read the US News & World Report annual rankings of top colleges and graduate programs and I’ve since followed the Wall Street Journal and Economist MBA rankings. When I became interested in pursuing a graduate degree in geography, I was disappointed to find that there were no publications that ranked graduate geography programs. So, I’ve decided to create my own rankings and post them here.

The only available basis for developing rankings of graduate geography programs (that I’m aware of – please comment if you can suggest another good source) comes from the U.S. National Research Council’s survey of doctoral programs. Although some have been critical of the methodology used to develop the rankings, this is as good as it gets for small disciplines like geography. [If you don’t like the rankings below, take my survey and let your opinion be counted!]

Unfortunately, because these rankings were produced by academic types who are masters of creating difficult-to-understand prose for publication in peer review journals, you almost need a PhD to interpret their rankings. So, I’ve tried to clarify these rankings by simply aggregating them together to form a single ranking. So, without further ado, here are my top 20 geography programs in the United States:

Geospatial MBA: a win-win for business schools and geography

I recently posed the following question to a group of geography academic types on LinkedIn:

Why don’t more Geography departments team up with Business Schools to offer joint MBA-MA degrees (or undergraduate double majors)?

It seems to me that this combination would be valuable to many businesses and would serve to promote the discipline of geography while pumping new life into once glorious but now in a bit of a decline MBA programs. For example, business schools would benefit tremendously from geographical analysis methods. There are real estate and finance faculty who have discovered the benefits of geography/GIS and are using it regularly (Susan Wachter at UPenn/Wharton comes to mind) but this seems to be despite the discipline of geography rather than due to encouragement from within.

As a geography person I’m clearly biased but I don’t see why geography shouldn’t be an integral part of a good business education

Geospatial Visualization in Business: Bringing John Snow into the Boardroom

John Snow was a physician in London in the 19th Century and he is famous for having used maps to identify the source of the Broad Street cholera outbreak in 1854. Dr. Snow’s work is often cited as the founding event in epidemiology. For me, it represents a key event in applied geography, demonstrating the power of maps and their ability to illuminate patterns in data.

643px-Snow-cholera-map-1 — Original map made by John Snow in 1854. Cholera cases are highlighted in black.

Here’s another map of the same data using modern cartography.

Just like the citizens of London who were trying to figure out what was causing the cholera outbreak, business analysts throughout the world are trying to diagnose pain points in their business.

How to Launch a GIS Career

I was recently asked to respond to the following inquiry. My response here is also posted on the Association of American Geographer’s (AAG) website under their Jobs and Careers FAQ

I have heard that the field of geography is growing, especially in the area of GIS. I graduated with a degree in geography a couple of years ago, but I cannot seem to find a job. It seems like there are hundreds of applicants for each position, and no one will give me a chance. Are there too many geographers out there or not enough employers who understand what geographers can do for them?

I think there are a few things going on here:

(1) it’s a tough environment for relatively new graduates to find work. I think this is true across most fields of study.

(2) GIS technologies and GIS careers are constantly evolving and the technology you learned as an undergrad is almost certainly well behind the curve now. You have to keep up with the latest and greatest.

(3) Perhaps most importantly, you need to define a career path that you want to follow for at least a few years. Unfortunately, geography departments don’t really provide much guidance on careers in the private sector (wouldn’t a GIS + MBA skill set be nice?) and just looking for a GIS job isn’t really focused enough.

Top 25 Sunniest US Cities Ranked by Housing Cost

I recently put together a way to calculate the price of a day of annual sunshine. I thought some people might be interested in finding just the sunniest places in America ranked by the cost of owning a home in those locations. Abilene is #1 and Texas dominates with 5 of the top 7 locations. California also has 5 cities in the top 25 but most of them are near the bottom due to high housing costs. Cities in Arizona (4), Colorado (3), Nevada (2), Florida (2), Louisiana (1), Oklahoma (1), New Mexico (1), and Hawaii (1) complete the list.

Here are the Top 25. Or, check out this map.

The Price of a Sunny Day: Top 5 Bargain Cities for Sunshine

I recently learned that my hometown, Pueblo, Colorado, receives more sunshine than San Diego, California. I was really surprised and began to wonder who pays the most and who pays the least for sunshine in America? So I decided to take a look and see what I could find out.

This simple analysis assumes that all you care about is getting the most sunshine at the lowest price of housing (owning rather than renting) in the US. According to my calculations, the best deal can be found in Abilene, Texas at $252.45 per day of annual sunshine and the worst deal would be San Francisco, California at $2,720.22 per day.

You can find the whole list at the bottom of this post or click here to see a map. Here are the top 5 for each of the four census regions in the US:

Moneyball and the Automotive Aftermarket on AftermarketAnalytics.com

I recently made a post on the aftermarketanalytics.com blog on Moneyball & the Automotive Aftermarket. Please check it out and, as always, leave a comment and let me know what you think! Just to give you an idea of what the article is all about, here are the first couple paragraphs:

“I recently watched the movie Moneyball starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. It was a good movie and it made me think about parallels with the Automotive Aftermarket.

In Moneyball, a bold GM for the cash-strapped Oakland A’s begins using a flavor of analytics called Sabermetrics to identify undervalued baseball players who can help the team win without breaking the bank. Despite resistance from baseball’s old-school veterans, the approach is successful and the A’s overachieve by posting a winning season despite a payroll that is dwarfed in comparison to the New York Yankees and most of the rest of the league.

The use of analytics now seems to be firmly established as an important component in professional baseball management. Sabermetrics doesn’t replace the need for veterans of the game who can identify talent and the intangibles that make great baseball players and winning baseball teams, but it does add a critical and previously missing element to the business of baseball. I see the Automotive Aftermarket embarking on a similar journey in the coming years, although I’m not expecting Brad Pitt to star as the CEO of NAPA in a blockbuster movie anytime soon..”

Why Relocate to Pueblo Colorado

[After you read this you can check out my Pueblo 5-year Report Card]

I’m one of the growing numbers of fortunate people who are able to work from a home office and can live just about anywhere in the US. My only key work requirements are a good phone line, a solid internet connection and a major airport within driving distance (well, a quiet room and a pot of coffee are pretty important as well). After a lot of data gathering, analysis and pro-con list making, my wife and I have chosen to relocate from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Pueblo, Colorado. Our decision was biased by a variety of factors but I’ve been singing Pueblo’s praises for a few years now as a great place to invest in real estate and I’ve decided that living in the community is a way to put my money where my mouth is. Now that we’ve committed to the move, it seems to be a good time to make a written case for Pueblo. So, here goes.