(a) Why is radicalism seen as a major paradigm shift in geography? Explain its causes, approaches and criticism. (20 marks) (b)…

(a) Radicalism as a paradigm shift in geography

Radical geography arose in the late 1960s and 1970s as a break from the value-free, quantitative and positivist geography of the 1950s–60s. It treats geography as a tool to expose and change unjust social and spatial conditions.

Causes: the quantitative revolution described patterns but did not explain poverty, racial segregation, urban decay or regional inequality; the Vietnam War, civil rights movements and environmental concerns raised moral questions; and geographers found theoretical neutrality hollow. The journal Antipode (1969), Bunge's Detroit expeditions and Harvey's Social Justice and the City (1973) gave it form.

Approaches: Marxist geography (Harvey, Smith), which links space to capital accumulation and uneven development; anarchist geography (Kropotkin, Reclus), stressing mutual aid and decentralisation; welfare geography and later feminist and anti-racist work. All ask who gains and who loses from spatial arrangements.

Criticism: it was seen as ideological and politically biased; economic determinism and over-emphasis on structure left little room for human agency and culture (humanist and postmodern critics); it produced much theory but little empirical work or workable policy; and it largely ignored gender and race at first. It is still a paradigm shift because it moved geography from description to critique.

(b) Consequences of an ageing population

A population is ageing when the share of those over 60 or 65 rises, owing to low fertility and longer life. Japan has about 29 per cent aged 65 and above; Italy, Germany and South Korea are also ageing, and China's population has begun to shrink. In India, the elderly share was 8.6 per cent in 2011, with Kerala highest, and is projected to be about one-fifth by 2050 (UN, UNFPA).

Economic consequences: a higher old-age dependency ratio, a shrinking workforce and labour shortages, lower savings and slower growth, and heavy pension and health-care costs on the state. Demand shifts from schools to health and care services, and firms face a smaller market.

Social consequences: loneliness and neglect as joint families decline, abuse of the elderly, feminisation of old age with widows and poverty, and strain on caregivers, mostly women.

Responses: raising the retirement age and encouraging older workers, pension schemes (NPS, Atal Pension Yojana), geriatric health care and insurance, supported immigration, family-friendly policy, and a silver economy.

(c) Weber's theory of industrial location: a critical account

Alfred Weber (1909) proposed that an industry sits where its total cost is least. He used three factors: transport cost (weight × distance), labour cost and agglomeration. Assumptions: a uniform plain, fixed raw-material sources, immobile labour, perfect competition.

First, transport minimises cost at a point in the location triangle of two raw-material sources and one market. The material index (weight of local material ÷ weight of product) shows the pull: above 1 the industry goes to the raw material (steel, cement); below 1 to the market. Next, cheap labour pulls plants away from the transport optimum if savings exceed added transport cost, shown by isodapanes and the critical isodapane. Finally, agglomeration economies may draw firms together.

Criticisms: it is static and ignores demand and market competition; assumes a single product and perfect knowledge; overlooks government policy, capital, technology, entrepreneur behaviour and transport rates not proportional to distance. Later work (Hoover, Isard, Smith, Greenhut) added these. The theory remains a useful base for resource-based industries.