The Ncar East in the 21st Century

Kenichi Ohmae: Macht der Triade, Wiesbaden 1985;

John Friedmann: The World city Hypothesis (in Development

and Change 17, p. 69-83, 1996. Both papers are

early surveys of the world system and its core-regions.

Older data after M. & E. Wohlfahrt: Das neue /fgypten;

Berlin 1962, p. 375; recent figures after Fisher-Wcltalmanach

and other statistics.

Robert Malthus a British philosopher stated some 250

years ago that populations would grow at a geometric

rate (exponentially) whereas their means of subsistence

increase only arithmetically. Nature and human society

provide the calamities that keep populations in check.

This thesis might find confirmation in the Near East. A

solution of the population problems through emigration

of the necessary numbers will be impossible.

Hijrah means 'emigration' and is known from the prophet

Mohammed's emigration to Medinah. In Arabia

this term is used generally for migrations of people, not

wholly voluntary, to new settlements.

Transit between Egypt and Jordan through Israel is legally

possible. There was, however, no bigger use made

of this possibility when the present author visited Northern

Sinai in 1997.

Hans Bobek: fran (Frankfurt 1962, p. 9). Bobek states

his argument in connection with his theory of oriental

'rental capitalism'.

Wigand Ritter: Leichtindustrie und produzierendes Gewerbe

in den kleinen arabishen Golfstaaten. Tn: Wiirzburger

Geogr. Manuskripte 36, 1995, p. 115-126, not 122f.

Wigand Ritter: Die arabishe Halbinsel im We/thande/. In:

Gcogr. Rundschau 1999/11, p. 613-617.

Wigand Ritter: A Transrapid-Network for the Near East?

In : Promet II, Portoroz-Trieste 1999, p. 129-133.

The functioning and the technical conditions of the

North-American transcontinental land-bridges are discussed

in: Markus Exler: Containe!Verkehr, Niirnberg

, p. 131ff.