Gordon Mulligan lunching in Squamish, B.C., in 2010 with WRSA's 52nd President, Warren Gill

The Western Regional Science Association is deeply saddened by the loss of Professor Gordon F. Mulligan, who passed away at home in British Columbia on November 12, 2023, after a short period of hospice care. Gordon lived a week and day past his 76th birthday, having been born on November 4, 1947.

Growing up in the company-owned mill town of Woodfibre, British Columbia, accessible to the outside world only by boat, Gordon's wide-ranging polymath attributes and mathematical acumen became apparent at an early age. He attended Howe Sound Secondary in the nearby central place of Squamish, B.C., where he excelled in both academics and sports.

As an undergraduate at the University of British Columbia (UBC) beginning in the mid-1960s, Gordon discovered the focus of his scholarly interests, economic geography and mathematical models, as well as a passion for academia. He loved UBC so much that he spent a full decade there. He produced a 1972 M.A. thesis, City Size Distributions: Foundations of Analysis, and a 1976 Ph.D. dissertation, Structure and Processes in the Christallerian System, that set the stage for a distinguished and prolific career in regional science. Following a pair of visiting positions at the University of Washington and Queens University, Gordon joined the faculty of the Department of Geography and Regional Development at the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 1978, where he taught until he retired in 2006.

Throughout his time in Arizona, Gordon remained personally connected to small-town British Columbia, returning each summer to visit his parents. The Woodfibre pulp mill, where his father had worked until shortly before his death and Gordon had held summer jobs, was closed by its owner, Western Forest Products, in 2006. The mill and townsite were razed and put up for sale. Today it is the location of Woodfibre Liquid Natural Gas, a large hydroelectric-powered facility. Its parent company plans to open it in 2027 to supply growing markets in Asia, touting the environmental benefits of displacing coal and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Post-retirement, Gordon moved back up to Squamish, where he kept up an active agenda as an independent scholar and continued on as Book Review editor of the WRSA's official journal, The Annals of Regional Science. An avid movie buff, he was also extremely well-read in fiction and literature. He segued from his long-time University of Arizona faculty-staff bowling career into throwing the rock on a senior curling team, and, as part of providing care for his aging mother, he no doubt raised the level of play of her bridge group.

Gordon's theoretical and empirical research contributions to regional science directly reflected the locational circumstances of his upbringing.  He listed his disciplines on ResearchGate as Transport Economics, Real Estate Economics, and Economic Geography, and among his skills and expertise, Regional Development, Regional Science, Regional and Urban Economics, Cities, and Place. The faculty group he joined in 1978 at Arizona was the last geography department at a major U.S. university to be housed within a business college. Gordon's research interests in the economic base of communities, settlement-size distributions, central place theory, transportation, regional development (in particular, the "chicken-and-egg" connections between economic and population growth), and the structure of small-town and micropolitan area economies, which were kindled in his childhood and in grad school, would be further enflamed and greatly expanded thanks to his career-long academic home base. 

As part of both its unique and highly popular business school undergraduate major in regional development (originally area development) and its geography master's degree, the University of Arizona's department offered a six-week summer traveling field camp course. Co-directed by Professors Richard Reeves (Gordon's closest Tucson personal friend) and Lay Gibson, the camp's unique curriculum featured and integrated projects in both physical and economic geography. Student teams each year carried out studies in Arizona's diverse ecosystems and in small, often remote, small-town communities. There student teams would census and then interview and assemble micro transaction and trade figures from all local businesses.  Gordon was fascinated by the potential of these nearly comprehensive data to expose the workings of functionally specialized economies and to benchmark models. Together with student and colleague collaborators, he deployed this unique Arizona community data base in a series of papers evaluating the accuracy and proposing extensions to traditional economic base multiplier methods.

In 1980–81, the Arizona department would add its third active regional scientist, David Plane from the regional science department at Penn, and in the subsequent year, under the tenure of Lay Gibson as Department Head, the geography department would leave the College of Business and Public Administration to join a fledging College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.   Gibson at this time was also assuming the leadership position (replacing Robert Monahan of Western Washington University) of the Western Regional Science Association, with Mulligan and Plane beginning what would become lifetime involvements with the Association.

In 1985, the departmental headship passed to Gordon. During his five-year term he would lay substantial groundwork for, and touch off the upcoming rise in prominence of Arizona as one of the U.S.'s top-20 geography doctoral programs and as a world-renowned center of regional science.  (Gordon would later come back to serve one-year stint as Acting Head). Gordon increased the visibility of geography and regional development on campus and externally by extending courtesy joint and adjunct faculty appointments to geographers and faculty with geographic expertise who had been hired in other units across the university.

During the 1990s, the core group of internationally active regional scientist scholars at Arizona was expanded with the hirings of University of Illinois Ph.D.'s, Adrian Esparza and Brigitte Waldorf in Geography and Regional Development, and University of Washington Ph.D., John Carruthers in the M.S. program in Planning, a group whose faculty also included Penn Regional Science Ph.D., Arthur Silvers.

The department's regional development undergraduate major numbers rose dramatically during Gordon's administration after the degree program was moved from Business and Public Administration to Social and Behavioral Sciences, and then during Plane's subsequent headships when it peaked at more than 300. Gibson, Mulligan, and Plane served as student faculty advisors and taught the majority the core curriculum. Gordon's staple, highly enrolled undergraduate courses were titled, Economic Geography, Urban Geography, Locational Analysis, and Regional Analysis. The 1980s and 1990s would also see Gordon mentoring and carrying out collaborative research with increasing numbers of graduate students.

After stepping down as Head in 1990, Gordon's extramural professional service commitments increased in 1994 when Plane was asked by longtime Journal of Regional Science Managing Editor, Ronald Miller, to move the journal's office from Philadelphia to Tucson.  Plane agreed, on the condition that Mulligan join him as Co-editor.  Their efficient working arrangement and happy tenure guiding the JRS would extend through 2002, when the editorial team reins were passed to Marlon Boarnet and Andy Haughwout.  Marlon recalls that, during the transition, Gordon told him that he and Dave had worked hard to maintain the JRS as a "classy" operation. 

Though Gordon formally retired in 2006, he did not stop his work in regional science or his devotion to it: he remained a prolific author and a stalwart mentor to junior members of the field. In February, 2010, a celebratory dinner and a series of special sessions were held in his honor at the WRSA's annual meeting in Sedona, Arizona, yielding a special (2012) issue of The Annals of Regional Science.

The year 2010 also saw Gordon's election as a Fellow of the Regional Science Association International.  Although this honor is usually conveyed at a major international conference, he chose to receive his plaque, presented by David Boyce, while hiking in Glacier National Park. The "Meet the Fellows" autobiographical article that Gordon wrote in 2015 for the RSAI Newsletter is a lively and interesting read, with the piece beginning: Imagine if you can an Allan Stilltoe novel set on a Norwegian fjord and you might have some idea about my childhood years!  

In recognition of Gordon's corpus of intellectual accomplishments and his four decades of contributions to WRSA, he was named a WRSA Fellow at the 2014 Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Up through last summer, Gordon continued to travel the globe and to present and participate at regional science conferences, in particular those of the WRSA and the British and Irish Section (BIS). At the July, 2023 BIS meeting in Newcastle, he gave a talk on the legacy and central place research contributions of John Parr in the Regional Science Academy's Great Minds session.

At the upcoming February 11–14, 2024, WRSA Annual Meeting in Monterey, California, Professor Neil Reid, University of Toledo, will present a Regional Science Academy, Great Minds in Regional Science talk on Gordon Mulligan's scholarship.

While Gordon gave talks and tended to various duties at academic meetings, he played another, very special role: he was a hub of activity, both socially and professionally. Whether it was the (late) morning, afternoon, evening, or wee hours of the night, he was with friends and colleagues, launching new projects and revisiting past explorations. His generosity with ideas was infectious, fun, and inspiring, particularly to junior colleagues. A man of tall stature, Gordon was informed and passionate about big concepts in all realms, not just those of geographic location and economic theory about which he was especially expert.

Like so many members of our field, Gordon loved models—especially gravity models and models of spatial equilibrium. It seems fitting, then, to end this description of his life and career with an analogy to a model. In the mid-1500s, the great mathematician Copernicus advanced a model of heliocentrism, placing, for the first time, the Earth and other celestial objects in orbit around the sun. A Copernican model of WRSA might well place Gordon at a central (albeit far from stationary!) location, with those of us lucky enough to be in his orbit drawn close by his gravity and warmed by the bright light of his intellect, humor, and enduring smile.

John Carruthers and David Plane

Call for Applications - Editor-in-Chief, Investigaciones Regionales – Journal of Regional Research

The Spanish Regional Science Association (https://aecr.org) seeks candidates for the position of editor-in-chief of the official journal of the association, Investigaciones Regionales / Journal of Regional Research (https://investigacionesregionales.org), starting June the 1st, 2024 for a three-year term.

Investigaciones Regionales / Journal of Regional Research is an international journal that publishes high quality papers in applied regional science. It is a well stablished paper, with high impact factor (Q2 in Scopus 2022, Q1 FECYT, and accredited with excellence by the Spanish Ministry of Science, and expecting Clarivate’s impact factor for the 2024 edition).

It welcomes papers from a range of academic disciplines including economics, political science, public policy, geography, planning, environmental science and related fields.

Candidates should be AECR members in good standing, with a wide knowledge of urban and regional phenomena as well as distinguished records of scholarly contributions internationally. Candidates should also possess strong intellectual vision, leadership and organizational abilities, and experience relevant to editing a journal in the field of regional science.

The editor’s primary responsibility is to continue to enhance the journal’s quality, reputation, and scholarship. The editor will be expected to strengthen the journal’s competitive position.

The editor will work with the existing Editorial Team of associate editors and potentially suggest some additional names. The candidate should propose also a strategy to renew the Editorial Board, both in terms of names and roles.

The Editor in Chief of Investigaciones Regionales / Journal of Regional Research reports to the AECR Council. Detailed information on responsibilities and on the process for applying for the editor-in-chief position is available below.

Letters of interest must be received within February 28th, 2024. Specific duties of the Editor-in-Chief

1. Maintaining and updating the aims and scope of the journal, editorial policies, and guidelines to authors.
2. Overseeing the manuscript peer review process through the publisher’s on-line submission portal (Open Journal System) in an unbiased, confidential, and timely manner.
3. Working with the editorial manager to check proofs and revisions to proofs.
4. Preparing and forwarding accepted manuscripts to the publisher’s production department.
5. Coordinating standards and practices across the Editorial Team and managing the workload of the Associate Editors.
6. Maintaining close and regular contact with the AECR on marketing and production matters.
7. Initiating and responding to correspondence with authors, managing editors, and reviewers.
8. Recruiting, selecting, and appointing members of the Editorial Team and Board that reflect the diversity of regional science and addressing any performance issues.
9. Appointing associate editors (to be approved by the AECR Council). The Editorial Team (editor and associate editors) will be comprised of AECR (or RSAI) members with high stature and respect in the community, and with the expertise to manage the breadth of regional science. Promoting young scholars to editorial positions is also welcomed.
10. Soliciting and managing special issues, selecting guest editors, and providing advice and assistance to guest editors.
11. Adhering to the page budget and financial structures set by AECR, and supporting the search of financial sustainability of the journal.
12. Serving as a non-voting ex officio member of the AECR Council and other governing bodies of the Association.
13. Reporting to the AECR Council through regular reports at Council meetings.
14. Reporting to the journal Editorial Board through board meetings held at least once a year.

Application process:

Interested individuals should submit an application package that includes:

• A letter of interest and qualifications;
• A vision statement for the next three to six years of publication of IIRR/JRR.
• A curriculum vitae;
• The names and contact information of three references.

All  requested  information  should  be  submitted  by  e-mail  to  the  Secretary  of  the AECR, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Call for Papers and Special Session Proposals

The APDR invites regional scientists, economists, sociologists, geographers, urban planners, policy makers, and researchers of related disciplines to participate in the 31^st APDR Congress with the theme "Regional Innovation Ecosystems and Sustainable Development" that will be held from 26th to 28th of June, 2024, at Polytechnic University of Leiria (School of Technology and Management), Leiria, Portugal.

In an era defined by dynamic global challenges, regional innovation ecosystems characterized by a strong collaboration between regional actors, both within and across regions, play a pivotal role in fostering sustainable development. As regions navigate the complex interplay between technological advancements, economic resilience, and environmental and digital transition, this congress provides a platform to discuss the diverse strategies employed across different regions to catalyze open and collaborative innovation, as a means to realize the full potential of the new opportunities available at the global level and to enhance societal well-being and sustainable development.

The call for papers and Special Session Proposals are open and your participation is very welcome!

Regular Sessions:

RS01 – Regional Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ecosystems

RS02 – Territorial Sustainability Strategies

RS03 – Natural environment, resources and rural development

RS04 – Demographic Challenges, Migrations and Integration

RS05 – Education, Skills, Labour Markets and Regional Development

RS06 – Regions and Global Value Chains

RS07 – Energy transition and Regional Development

RS08 – Digital Transition and Smart Cities

RS09 – Social innovation, integration, poverty and exclusion

RS10 – Territorial Cohesion and asymmetries

RS11 – Governance, Leadership and Regional Development

RS12 – Regional resilience and crises

RS13 – Tourism, culture, sports and sustainable development

RS14 – Territorial Responsible Marketing

RS15 – Quantitative and qualitative methods in regional science

Deadline for Special Session proposals: March 4, 2024. Proposals should be sent by email to the secretariat of the Congress (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). 

Deadline for Abstracts submissions: April 15, 2024. Authors should submit their abstracts through online submission system by following the link https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/APDR2024

All information at the congress website: http://www.apdr.pt/congresso/2024.

Looking forward to meeting you in Leiria, Portugal!

The Organizing Committee and the Board of APDR

31^st APDR Congress

The APDR invites regional scientists, economists, sociologists, geographers, urban planners, policy makers, and researchers of related disciplines to participate in the 31^st APDR Congress with the theme "Regional Innovation Ecosystems and Sustainable Development" that will be held from 26th to 28th of June, 2024, at Polytechnic University of Leiria (School of Technology and Management), Leiria, Portugal.

In an era defined by dynamic global challenges, regional innovation ecosystems characterized by a strong collaboration between regional actors, both within and across regions, play a pivotal role in fostering sustainable development. As regions navigate the complex interplay between technological advancements, economic resilience, and environmental and digital transition, this congress provides a platform to discuss the diverse strategies employed across different regions to catalyze open and collaborative innovation, as a means to realize the full potential of the new opportunities available at the global level and to enhance societal well-being and sustainable development.

The call for papers and Special Session Proposals are open and your participation is very welcome!

Regular Sessions:

RS01 – Regional Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ecosystems

RS02 – Territorial Sustainability Strategies

RS03 – Natural environment, resources and rural development

RS04 – Demographic Challenges, Migrations and Integration

RS05 – Education, Skills, Labour Markets and Regional Development

RS06 – Regions and Global Value Chains

RS07 – Energy transition and Regional Development

RS08 – Digital Transition and Smart Cities

RS09 – Social innovation, integration, poverty and exclusion

RS10 – Territorial Cohesion and asymmetries

RS11 – Governance, Leadership and Regional Development

RS12 – Regional resilience and crises

RS13 – Tourism, culture, sports and sustainable development

RS14 – Territorial Responsible Marketing

RS15 – Quantitative and qualitative methods in regional science

Deadline for Special Session proposals: March 4, 2024. Proposals should be sent by email to the secretariat of the Congress (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). 

Deadline for Abstracts submissions: April 15, 2024. Authors should submit their abstracts through online submission system by following the link https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/APDR2024

All information at the congress website: http://www.apdr.pt/congresso/2024.

Looking forward to meeting you in Leiria, Portugal!

The Organizing Committee and the Board of APDR

31^st APDR Congress

THE NEW ISSUE OF REGIONAL STATISTICS IS ALREADY AVAILABLE!

We are pleased to inform you that a new issue of the Regional Statistics has been released and now it’s available online.

https://www.ksh.hu/terstat_eng_current_issue

REGIONAL STATISTICS, 2023, VOL 13, No 6.

STUDIES

Amadeo Navarro Zapata - María Arrazola Vacas - José de Hevia Payá: Drivers of technological export performance in Spain: A regional approach, 2000–2016

http://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2023/2023_06/rs130601.pdf

György Kocziszky - Dóra Szendi: Comparative analysis of development paths in Central and Eastern European countries (V4+2) using a composite index, 1995–2020

http://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2023/2023_06/rs130602.pdf

Tibor Bareith - Adrián Csizmadia: The importance of aggregation in regional household income estimates: A case study from Hungary, 2019

http://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2023/2023_06/rs130603.pdf

József Benedek - Valér Veres: Regional development differences and cultural value patterns: The Romanian case

http://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2023/2023_06/rs130604.pdf

Pavla Jindrová - Hana Boháčová: Assessing the health system efficiency by using avoidable mortality indicators in European countries, 2019

http://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2023/2023_06/rs130605.pdf

Dženita Šiljak - Sándor Gyula Nagy: Patterns of the Western Balkans' convergence toward the EU since 2004

http://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2023/2023_06/rs130606.pdf

Petra Cselóvszki-Soltész - Gyula Zilahy: Characteristics of a regional ride-share platform – Motivations and spatial properties in Hungary, 2020

http://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2023/2023_06/rs130607.pdf

Levente Alpek - Gábor Hoványi - Róbert Tésits: Cognitive spatial perception and European Union image in a group of Hungarian high school students, 2022http://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2023/2023_06/rs130608.pdf

Join us to our social networking sites:

https://www.facebook.com/RegionalStatistics

https://ksh.academia.edu/RegionalStatistics

Regional Science Policy & Practice (RSPP)

Call for Papers Special Issue: Coordinated Regional Development to Dissolve Regional Disparity

Review of Regional Studies Special Issue:

Regional Science and Climate Change

Climate change and associated increased frequency of extreme weather events are related to many areas traditionally studied by regional scientists including trade, migration, agriculture, industry location, labor productivity, housing markets, demography, and transportation.  Regional scientists are involved in studying how these diverse areas are impacted by climate change, how these areas contribute to or have the potential to stymie climate change, and how policies might accelerate or ameliorate climate change impacts for populations, regions, and institutions. The Review of Regional Studies will be sponsoring sessions focused on these issues at the upcoming Southern Regional Science Associated Meeting held April 4-6, 2024, in Washington, DC. We will also be publishing a special issue on this topic. We invite submissions to either or both the session at the SRSA conference and/or the special issue.

Extended abstracts (1-page limit) should be submitted by February 29, 2024. The submission should indicate whether the proposed project should be considered for the conference or the special issue or both. Abstract submissions should be emailed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Authors of submitted abstracts will subsequently be invited to submit full manuscripts for the special issue. Those manuscripts will be due May 1, 2024. All manuscripts invited for the special issue will undergo peer review prior to acceptance for publication.

The Review of Regional Studies is provided as a service to the scholarly community by the Southern Regional Science Association. We publish high-quality scholarly research and provide for wide dissemination as an open access journal with no fees of any kind.

Review of Regional Studies Editors: Lei Zhang and Tammy Leonard

«The 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Regional Development in Central Asia»

Samarkand, Uzbekistan, May 6–7, 2024

Purpose of the conference

The 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Regional Development in Central Asia promoted by RSAI (the Regional Science Association International) in collaboration with Samarkand branch of Tashkent state university of economics, Samarkand, Uzbekistan.  The conference aims to bring together international speakers, and leading academic scientists, researchers and scholars across Europe and Central Asia to exchange and share their experiences and knowledge on all aspects of Regional Science and Sustainable Regional Development. It also serves as an interdisciplinary platform to present and discuss the most recent regional developments, innovations, as well as existing challenges and practical solutions adopted in the fields of Sustainable Regional Development in Central Asia.

Call for Contributions

Prospective authors are kindly invited to contribute to and help to shape the conference through submissions of their research works (abstract or paper). High-quality research contributions describing original and unpublished results of conceptual, constructive, empirical, or theoretical work in all areas of Sustainable Regional Development are encouraged for presentation at the conference.

https://conference2024.sbtsue.uz/site/submissions