ions are only partly described by lines on a map; they are bounded, too, by [regulation of] access to territory." And Bade argues that the reactions to immigration crises, whether in Germany or Los Angeles or London, have made it appear that multicultural coexistence cannot be realized with any ease. But these problems must be considered in the light of the fact that in the past few decades the increasing debt in less-developed nations and the inability of the rich North to supply greater and greater amounts of aid have resulted in significant changes in many aspects of immigration--such as the work that immigrants can hope to find in the industrialized nations or the desire of present residents to hold onto jobs traditionally taken by immigrants. The nationalism and ethnic rivalry noted by Bade and Smith is, in fact, a response to the "unprecedented global mobility" which threatens "spatial boundaries." The reality of changes in the nature of spatial practices, rather than the impossibility of such changes, is what is indicated by the increasingly nationalist response to immigration.
In the year 2015 the balance of geopolitical power will be spread among a number of regional groups that will be modeled roughly on the same degree of economic (not political) integration that has emerged thus far in the European Union. The groups of the wealthy North (the EU, North America, and, possibly some form of Russian federation) will predominate in terms of the possession of the world's wealth. But they will be in the process of being seriously challenged by the new regional unions that will have emerged in the meantime. At a minimum there will be a South American group, possibly centered around Brazil, a Southeast Asian group with Indonesia or Malaysia as its dominant member, and there will be at least one African group--with either Nigeria or South Africa as the major economic power. While it is also possible that regional interes...