ABSTRACT

In his seminal paper, ‘Problems of geography’, Bill Kirk introduced the concept of the behavioural environment to a wide audience.1 In retrospect, this is sometimes interpreted as an early essay heralding the development of what are now known as behavioural geography and humanistic geography, and indeed there is much in what he said that is consistent with such a view. Nevertheless, the paper was not widely cited in the years after its publication.2 The present chapter suggests why this was so, and extends Kirk’s treatment in ways that are important for contemporary human geography.