Interpreting What is Rural and Urban for Western U.S. Counties

The paper examines how rural and urban are interpreted and applied to counties in eleven states in the western United States. After reviewing various conceptual approaches, we turn to a three-part analysis of county commissioners' perceptions and census data to identify characteristics associated with urban-ness and rurality. The analysis involves comparing qualitative and quantitative survey and interview data, using a multiple regression analysis to correlate census variables with commissioners' perceptions of their home counties, and using cluster analysis techniques on census variables to identify patterns and unevenness in rurality and urbanness. Three characteristics mentioned by the widest range of commissioners and found to be statistically significant in the regression analysis were population concentration, total population, and the agricultural land base. Population concentration, in particular, was identified most frequently by interviewees as the single most important variable in characterizing an urban county and had the most meaningful contribution to predicting commissioners' perceptions of their home counties in the regression analysis. The cluster analysis identified five county types: largest urban centers, growing regional hubs, high growth rural, dispersed rural, and stable rural agriculture. These county types were widely distributed, reflecting the spatial unevenness of macroscale processes operating across eleven western states.     

Reasons for Returning and Not Returning to Rural U.S. Communities

Population loss persists in nonmetropolitan America, especially in isolated counties with limited natural amenities. Communities in these counties experience high levels of outmigration among high school graduates, but low in-migration is more important in distinguishing declining from growing nonmetropolitan counties, and return migration is a much more prominent component of in-migration to these locationally disadvantaged areas. This research uses a multisited, interview-based methodology to understand the factors that influence decisions of people in their late twenties to late forties to move back to rural communities and the barriers that keep others from making such moves. The life course segment considered here captures a critical “settling down” period when career and family obligations overlap and return migration peaks. Interviews at high school reunions, the only venues where stayers, return migrants, and nonreturn migrants are found together, show that limited rural employment opportunities are barriers for nonreturnees. Others intent on returning find ways to secure or create employment but are primarily influenced to move home by family concerns. Connections to the larger social and physical environment of the community are important as well. Interviews affirm that factors affecting migration decisions work in combination, and ties to both people and place are critical for understanding rural return migration.     

Immigrant Profiles of U.S. Urban Areas and Agents of Resettlement*

This article targets the role of intermediaries, such as refugee resettlement programs, in altering the geography of the foreign‐born. It argues that, under such intermediaries, destination choice within the United States is largely determined not by economic mechanisms but instead by information‐related factors such as friction of distance, migration chains, labor procurement, and resettlement intermediaries. Metropolitan statistical area (MSA) destinations are grouped into four profiles based on their mix of foreign‐born. The result is sets of MSAs differentiated by the era of immigration, immigrant origins, geographic pattern, and place characteristics that draw migrants. To evaluate intermediary impacts, monies allocated to states by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, refugee resettlement by state, and refugee movements to MSAs are expressed as a Refugee Resettlement Index and linked to MSA profiles. We conclude that although refugees constitute only a portion of total immigration, their effects are disproportionately large in terms of changing the foreign‐born profiles of MSAs and other communities, changing the fabric of society, and changing the geography of the foreign‐born in all its ramifications.     

Patterns of Irrigated Agricultural Land Conversion in a Western U.S. Watershed: Implications for Landscape-Level Water Management and Land-Use Planning

In irrigated agricultural landscapes, land-use conversion may have landscape-level social, hydrological, and ecological effects. We used geographic information systems (GIS) and interviews to analyze development effects on irrigation in the Henry's Fork Watershed, Idaho. Farmers developed irrigation there in the 19th century, and incidental recharge from canal seepage and flood irrigation raised groundwater levels and expanded wetlands. Cohesive culture in agricultural communities sustained irrigation systems until amenity-driven demographic shifts beginning in the 1970s led to development approved by local governments with land-use planning but no water-management authority. Although only 5% of irrigated land has been converted, development has fragmented irrigated landscapes and made canal-system operation more difficult, potentially reducing groundwater levels, wetland extent, and return flows critical to downstream irrigators and fish and wildlife. We discuss future scenarios, highlighting the need for increased communication among local and state governments regarding land use and water management in irrigated landscapes across the West.     

The Impact of U.S. Government Antiterrorism Policies on Canada‐U.S. Cross‐Border Commerce: An Exploratory Study from Western New York and Southern Ontario

This article examines the extant and potential impact of U.S. antiterrorism policies on Canada‐U.S. cross‐border commerce. Particular attention is focused on the cross‐border trade that takes place between southern Ontario (Canada) and western New York (United States). Evidence from a survey of Canadian and U.S. exporters suggests that U.S. antiterrorism measures have inflated the business costs of exporters on both sides of the border. These measures have also created shipment delays that ultimately imply lost revenues for producers, as well as higher prices for consumers. Security‐related initiatives motivated by a genuine concern for the well‐being of U.S. citizens may nevertheless act as nontariff barriers to bilateral trade. We argue that a potential long‐run consequence of these additional costs is trade diversion. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of the empirical findings for the geography of Canada‐U.S. bilateral trade.     

U.S. Religious Regions Revisited

Religion continues to play an important role in the public and private lives of Americans. Therefore, a reexamination of U.S. religious regions is necessary in light of the rapid demographic changes that have occurred in the past few decades. This article presents a new regionalization of religion in the United States for 1980 and 2000, produced using multivariate cluster analysis. Comparing this new regionalization with earlier attempts, it demonstrates that religious regions continue to exist today and have undergone various levels of stability and change. Furthermore, religious regions continue to be relevant because they provide scholars with a method for identifying and characterizing the societal context in which individual religious communities function.     

Racial and Social Diversity and U.S. Presidential Election Regions

Abstract

This article examines political regionalism in presidential elections from 1892 to 2000 by analyzing the percentage of the popular vote received by Democratic candidates for president using statistical methods and spatial analysis. The results indicate three long-term and stable political regions in presidential elections and a history of spatially dependent voting. The article then proposes four fluid political regions based on social diversity and recent political behavior and integrates the role of the Electoral College. This provides a framework in which political geography can integrate political regionalism, racial and social diversity, and the electoral vote in studying presidential elections.     

Racial and Social Diversity and U.S. Presidential Election Regions

This article examines political regionalism in presidential elections from 1892 to 2000 by analyzing the percentage of the popular vote received by Democratic candidates for president using statistical methods and spatial analysis. The results indicate three long‐term and stable political regions in presidential elections and a history of spatially dependent voting. The article then proposes four fluid political regions based on social diversity and recent political behavior and integrates the role of the Electoral College. This provides a framework in which political geography can integrate political regionalism, racial and social diversity, and the electoral vote in studying presidential elections.     

U.S. department of the interior U.S. geological survey: Fractal lognormal percentage analysis of the U.S. geological survey’s 1995 national assessment of conventional oil and gas resources

The U.S. Geological Survey periodically makes appraisals of the oil and gas resources of the Nation. In its 1995 National Assessment the onshore areas and adjoining State waters of the Nation were assessed. As part of the 1995 National Assessment, 274 conventional oil plays and 239 conventional nonassociated-gas plays were assessed. The two datasets of estimates studied herein are the following: (1) the mean, undiscovered, technically recoverable oil resources estimated for each of the 274 conventional oil plays, and (2) the mean, undiscovered, technically recoverable gas resources estimated for each of the 239 conventional nonassociatedgas plays. It was found that the two populations of petroleum estimates are both distributed approximately as lognormal distributions. Fractal lognormal percentage theory is developed and applied to the two populations of petroleum estimates. In both cases the theoretical percentages of total resources using the lognormal distribution are extremely close to the empirical percentages from the oil and nonassociated-gas data. For example, 20% of the 274 oil plays account for 73.05% of the total oil resources of the plays if the lognormal distribution is used, or for 75.52% if the data is used; 20% of the 239 nonassociated-gas plays account for 76.32% of the total nonassociated-gas resources of the plays if the lognormal distribution is used, or for 78.87% if the data is used     

Producer Services Research in U.S. Regional Studies

Fifteen years of academic concern about the extent, causes, and implications of the explosion of service activities as a proportion of regional and national employment and income have verified the increased proportion of employment in these activities, their tendencies toward concentration, their structural role in local economies, their potential to form part of a region's economic base, and their importance in assisting other activities in the regional economy. There has been some progress in modeling the locational needs of intermediate or producer services. Beyond this progress, however, lies much uncharted territory. This paper makes recommendations for the direction of basic research and of policy-oriented work.     

Geographical Patterns of Membership in U.S. Environmental Organizations

This county-level study examines the locational concentrations of membership in a sample of national environmental organizations. Maps of location quotients indicate distinct regions of high and low membership concentrations, with membership most concentrated in the Northeast, West, and Rocky Mountain states. The results may be helpful in identifying general patterns of environmental concern in different U.S. regions.     

The top 1% in U.S. metropolitan areas

Increases in U.S. income inequality are driven primarily by rapidly rising incomes of the top 1%. At the national scale, rising inequality is associated with negative consequences for economic growth and stability, a range of social problems and declining social mobility. To date, there is no or little work on the geography of the top 1% and their impact on the cities they inhabit. Using individual income data from the U.S. Census, the paper offers the first detailed analysis of the spatial distribution of the top 1% in the United States. The paper makes use of the range of socio-demographic variables attached to individual records to illustrate that the large majority of the top 1% lives in large cities and that women and ethnic minorities are largely excluded from membership in the top 1%. The widening gap between incomes at the top and bottom will thus lead to increasing gender and ethnic income inequalities. Exploratory analysis of the impact of the top 1% on the bottom 99% suggests that cities with large shares of the top 1% are characterized by higher levels of skill polarization, higher labour force participation rates and lower unemployment rates for those with little formal education and higher median incomes for the better educated. However, the paper shows that higher incomes are outstripped by higher housing costs indicating that any potential advantage trickling down from the top 1% to the bottom 99% is eroded by higher living costs. Preliminary analysis also suggests that cities with a higher share of the top 1% tend to be more segregated with potential implications for the supply, quality, access to and distribution of public local services.     

Retail Enterprise on the U.S. Urban Periphery: The Role of Immigrant Ethnic Groups in the Late-19th Century

This research adds to knowledge about ethnic entrepreneurship in U.S. cities by testing the hypothesis that, in the late-19th century, levels of retail enterprise of entrepreneurial ethnic groups (e.g., Russian and Polish Jews) were highest in the most remote locations of the nation's urban-regional hierarchy. This hypothesis is based on the proposition that (1) "gateway cities" in the hinterlands of a society are bustling centers of commerce that offer unusually good prospects for retail enterprise, and (2) ethnic groups that are richly endowed with entrepreneurial resources can most fully exploit the advantages of such locations. An analysis of census data, guided by the "interactionist approach" to the study of entrepreneurship, supports this hypothesis and advances the literature on the ethnic economy by suggesting that a city's position in an urban-regional hierarchy (i.e., core vs. peripheral location) is a key element of the opportunity structure for ethnic entrepreneurship in that city.     

Exports and Growth: Learning from the Case of Southern U.S. Metropolitan Areas

The relationship between exports and economic growth is a paradigmatic element of modern economic growth policy, despite the absence of strong evidence of a connection. Until recently, data on export production prevented an extensive empirical analysis of metropolitan-scale trade. This article examines the export growth dynamics across large metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) within the southern United States, a region that has been impacted by economic globalization. These analyses found that some Southern metropolitan areas differ from regional and national averages in selected measures of export performance. Additionally, the export performance of Southern cities was not correlated with all indicators of economic development. This article concludes that export dynamics should be viewed increasingly from an urban frame, with particular emphasis on the production of globally consumed knowledge products and advanced manufacturing. Moreover, export policy should be directed toward the individual strengths of urban regions.     

美国对伊朗石油禁运与全球能源安全

2018年6月美国针对伊朗启动了史上最严厉的石油禁运政策,要求所有国家于11月停止从伊朗进口石油,否则相关国家和企业都将面临美国的经济制裁,并无意给予任何国家豁免权。当前,中国、日本、韩国、印度和欧盟等世界重要的石油进口国已经做出回应,除中国明确拒绝美国的单边制裁继续保持与伊朗的石油贸易外,其他主要石油进口国都大量削减从伊朗的石油进口。沙特阿拉伯等石油生产国也承诺通过石油增产来维护全球能源市场的稳定,以支持美国对伊朗的制裁。在经济全球化的大趋势下,美国对伊朗的石油禁运,势必引发全球能源市场的动荡,改变全球石油政治格局以及相关利益方的石油权益。这些方面会涉及到全球油价的波动、不同国家的石油安全与应对政策、世界能源贸易稳定与地缘政治格局的变动等。长期关注能源地缘政治的专家学者围绕美国对伊朗的石油禁运可能产生的影响发表观点,专家们认为美国此举是战略两难的困境,短期内对将会引起世界石油短缺及油价波动,甚至可能导致OPEC减产协议崩溃,改变世界主要进口国的进口规模以及来源结构,但对世界石油市场的长期影响有限。伊朗将寻求打折出售原油、替代港口出口以及多元化出口3条生存路径,目前最大的隐患是伊朗或将封锁霍尔木兹海峡,但是此举目前可能性不大。伊朗石油禁运具有长期性和复杂性,对中国既是机遇也是挑战,中国在“一带一路”倡议下与伊朗保持正常的石油贸易是双赢的选择,但需要谨慎对待由此引发的能源地缘政治的风险,提升能源安全应对的措施。期待各方观点对伊朗石油禁运引发的能源地缘政治格局以及中国的能源安全的解析,能够为相关政策制定者提供理论借鉴。     

兰州-西宁-银川城市带与西部开发

通过对有关城市、区域的统计分析,在评述兰州-西宁-银川城市带基本特征的基础上,重点讨论其在西部大开发中四个方面的地位作用：我国内陆腹地的战略要地和开发据点,沟通我国东西部间、我国与中亚、欧洲国家间的桥梁和纽带,保障国家资源安全的能源重化工基地和重要进口通道,保障国家生态安全的重点生态建设区。并针对其在内部结构、市场化、开放度方面的主要问题,指出其发展趋势和战略选择：加快城市带交通通道建设,将潜在资源优势转化为现实经济优势,创造局部优势投资环境和开放社会,重视教育、科技和生态建设。     

Urban Form,Air Pollution,and CO2 Emissions in Large U.S. Metropolitan Areas

In this article we explore the relationships between urban form and air pollution among 86 U.S. metropolitan areas. Urban form was quantified using preexisting sprawl indexes and spatial metrics applied to remotely sensed land cover data. Air pollution data included the nonpoint source emission of the ozone (O₃) precursors nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), the concentration of O₃, the concentration and nonpoint source emission of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and the emission of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from on-road sources. Metropolitan areas that exhibited higher levels of urban sprawl, or sprawl-like urban morphologies, generally exhibited higher concentrations and emissions of air pollution and CO₂ when controlling for population, land area, and climate.     

美国在南海及周边地区的军事权力增长及军事存在演变

海洋历来是世界大国角逐的主要战场,南海因其突出的地缘战略价值也不例外。本研究借助军事权力评估模型,刻画美国在南海军事权力的增长态势,明晰美国在南海及周边地区军事存在的演变特征。结果表明：①2010—2019年,美国在南海的军事权力呈现出阶段性递增态势,可划分为2010—2016年奥巴马政府推出亚太战略时期的波动上升,以及2017—2019年特朗普政府推出印太战略时期的迅速提升两个阶段;②美国在南海及周边地区的军事存在显著增强,包括不断完善以环南海军事基地群和南海前沿军事基地群为核心的军事基地部署,加强引导双边联合军演向多边联合军演转变,着重强调“航行自由”行动的海上实战性检验以及持续强化军事侦察和情报收集的立体化网络体系构建。     

美国外商制造业直接投资区域分异模式研究

本文以美国经济区为基本地域单元，以区位商和相关系数为主要研究指标，从一般投资区位和新建投资区位两方面研究了美国外商制造业直接投资区域分异模式。主要研究结论如下：外商制造业企业就业与美国制造业企业就业的区域分布很相似，但更倾向于集中在美国东南部；外商新建投资企业相对集中在新英格兰部分地区和东南部，得克萨斯和路易丝安那海岸地区，密苏里州和伊利诺伊州西部；外商新建企业倾向于分布在高人口密度区，但相关性没有美国本国新建企业强；外商新建投资企业与外商并购企业的分布略有不同。