I used to be a geographer. That sounds like a made-up career to many people, but it’s true and it’s a lot more involved than just making maps. I have a Master of Science degree in geography and even completed a few years of doctoral work as well before happily ejecting myself from the academic machine (glutton for punishment, I suppose). What exactly does it mean to be a geographer (and why am I writing about it in a Hawaii real estate blog)? Basically, geographers look at PATTERNS of physical and social relationships and phenomena. Put another way, we look at changes in physical or social characteristics between different places and how these characteristics evolve over time.
So now you’re probably thinking: “Ok, that sounds nice and all, but how does that relate to Hawaii real estate and housing?” Great question! 🙂 The answer is actually quite simple. I’m going to coin a phrase here: “property expression of society”. Real estate is the property expression of a society’s values. There are reasons that we settle where we do and where we don’t. Do we want to be near the beach? How close to the beach? Or do we prefer to be back in the valleys? How far back? Which side of a northeast facing slope?
Where do the different ethnics groups concentrate? Chinatown is called that for a reason but WHY THERE? Waipahu has a high Filipino population, but WHY THERE? These are questions we don’t ask ourselves because, for most of us, they are largely academic. We take it for granted – it just is what it is. Imagine taking a snapshot of Oahu or metro Honolulu and coloring in where the different groups have decided to buy or rent property. How would that finished colored photo look?
Now imagine doing that once a year for ten or twenty years! How would those colors shift through time? Would you see the patterns changing from year to year? What if you could do it historically and analyze the changing patterns of property ownership for the past 50 years? What might you find? A geographer analyzing Hawaii real estate would do just that: collect data on previous property ownership records, try to assess the different demographic groups to which the owners belonged, and model the change of ownership of those different demographic groups over time and between different places. They’d likely use a GIS (geographic information system) for the data compilation and analysis and output them in print and/or digital maps.
Once you have a deeper understanding and appreciation of these patterns, now comes the big question: WHAT DOES IT MEAN? What are the underlying forces behind these settlement patterns of different people in different places? What causes certain groups to live in certain areas? Is it for social reasons? Economic incentives or job availability? Do these causes themselves change over time? If so, what do these changes in causes or social/economic priorities mean?
That’s how a geographer would view Hawaii real estate – as the outward property expression of a society’s values, its wants and needs reflected in the decision to plant roots in certain places. It’s a lot more than just who lives where. It’s digging deeper and understanding that there are real reasons, many of which we’re not aware of, that determine the decisions we make in real estate. The questions to ponder are: what are these reasons? why do they change? are these changes uniform across Hawaii or are they unique to each island or each town?
The next time you find yourself with a nice view over part of whichever island you live on (I hike a lot, so I see lots of bird’s eye views over Oahu), take a moment and look out over the nearest town, settled area, etc. Try to imagine coloring in different groups (ethnicity, age, job type, etc.) of the photo in your mind and see the landscape for more than just rows of houses and streets. There are reasons that you see the pattern you’re seeing.