HISPANIC MIGRATION AND POPULATION REDISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES*

The US Hispanic population has grown rapidly over the last two decades and remains geographically concentrated in nine states. Redistribution away from core states through internal migration has been largely offset by heavy immigration to traditional areas of Hispanic concentration. Geographical patterns of Hispanic miration show broad similarities to overall patterns of population redistribution in the United States. New York and California serve as key spatial redistributors or pivots in the Hispanic migration system.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF NONEMPLOYMENT SOURCES OF INCOME IN CANADIAN METROPOLITAN AREAS*

The use of nonemployment sources of income as a supplement to labor force data in the determination of the urban economic base was investigated for major Canadian cities. It was found that investment and pension-government, the main nonemployment sources, were of increasing importance and that the cities, with one exception, were differentiated into two groups, one based more strongly on investment and the other on pension-government income.     

EXPANSION OF GOLF COURSES IN THE UNITED STATES*

ABSTRACT. Twenty‐five million Americans play golf on the nation's 16,000 courses each year. These golf courses constitute a significant national landscape feature. Since 1878, when the game arrived in the United States, golf has filtered down the urban, economic, and social hierarchies to become accepted by and accessible to most Americans. During the ensuing thirteen decades the number, location, and layout of the nation's golf courses have responded to many of the same driving forces that impacted the nation, including decentralization, growth of the middle class, war, economic depression, suburbanization, and the increasing role of the federal government. Four epochs of golf‐course growth and diffusion show the growing acceptance of the sport and depict where courses were most likely to be constructed as a result of the prevailing forces of each epoch.     

ETHNIC RESIDENTIAL CONCENTRATIONS IN UNITED STATES METROPOLITAN AREAS

ABSTRACT. Although residential concentrations of immigrant ethnic groups in cities were common a century ago, it is not clear to what extent members of more recently arrived groups live near each other. We attempt to determine how common such clustered settlement is today, using 2000 census data to measure concentrations of Asians, Hispanics, and their larger ethnic subgroups in fifteen large metropolitan areas. The percentage of an ethnic group that is residentially concentrated correlated significantly with the group's proportion in an area. With metropolitan areas weighted equally, 38 percent of Hispanics and 13 percent of Asians were concentrated. However, when we analyzed eight specific nationality groups, the residentially concentrated proportion ranged from 14 to 59 percent. Level of cultural assimilation appears to explain group differences in level of concentration. Although ethnic concentrations were more pronounced in the largest metropolitan areas, important concentrations were also found in many of the smaller areas in our study.     

ETHNIC AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES OF AFRICANS IN THE UNITED STATES*

ABSTRACT. The emerging scholarly literature on contemporary African migration to the United States has primarily focused on populations concentrated in large urban areas. In contrast, this study considers the experiences of African university students living in two distinctly different places, Eugene, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., to examine how the context of the local host community shapes ethnic and national identities. Specific contextual variations under consideration are the extent to which newcomers have contact with coethnics/conationals and access to material and nonmaterial culture. Results based on thirty‐six in‐depth interviews show that, despite easy access to coethnics, some students in the Washington metropolitan area readily identified with conationals. Likewise, in the absence of coethnics in Eugene, many students described strengthening national identities; and, in the absence of conationals, they have constructed panethnic African identities. Additional research into the experiences of newcomers in various host‐community contexts is needed.     

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION AND ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION IN THE UNITED STATES*

ABSTRACT. Levels of alcohol consumption are a major public health issue. This study aims to gain a better understanding of how geographical patterns of religious affiliation in the United States relate to geographical patterns of alcohol consumption. We explored state‐level correlations between alcohol consumption and religious adherence. Although we found no statistically significant correlation between overall religious adherence rates and current or binge drinking rates, states with higher adherence rates were significantly more likely to have high proportions of binge drinking among current drinkers. Yet, regionally, we found a strong inverse correlation in the Southeast and a strong positive correlation in the Midwest and Northeast between adherence rates and current and binge drinking rates. These geographical differences were largely explained after stratifying by major religious denominational groupings. States with high Catholic adherence rates tended to have higher drinking rates, whereas states with high Evangelical Protestant adherence rates tended to have lower drinking rates. These findings suggest that the relationship between religion and alcohol may be denomination‐specific and challenge the lay perception that religious adherence per se is associated with less alcohol consumption and less excessive drinking among those who drink.     

TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL DIMENSIONS OF NEWLY INCORPORATED MUNICIPALITIES IN THE UNITED STATES*

Scholarly literature on newly incorporated municipalities (nims ) often focuses on why nims form. Instead of asking why nims formed, however, we ask why nims stopped forming. We first establish a temporal context for nims from 1950 to 2010, revealing an 86.2 percent decline in nim formation. The decline, triggered by stricter laws, smaller annexations, declining suburbanization, and boundary ossification, has profound implications for metropolitan fragmentation and public choice. We then establish a state‐level spatial context, revealing distinct high‐nim , low‐nim , and flux states due to boundary ossification, growth, and state/regional policy stimuli such as consolidation efforts, grants, and growth management provisions.     

HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR GEOMORPHOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THE UNITED STATES*

The use of historical sources in geomorphological analysis has had a long tradition in geography and is now undergoing a resurgence. A substantial body of data is available, and the search for it should extend from the National Archives to state and company records and county and city offices.     

AVOIDING THE DEMISE OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES

This is the second of two articles about challenges that confront geography departments in a changing academic environment. College enrollment trends and tightening budgets are placing geography programs in jeopardy because the discipline is not considered by society to be indispensable. Departmental survival in a period of retrenchment may depend upon successfully demonstrating utility and quality, identifying unfilled niches in individual institutions, developing new interdisciplinary organizational arrangements, or finding ways to strengthen geography's position in governmental definitions of useful academic training.     

THE INTRAMETROPOLITAN LOCATION OF SERVICES IN THE UNITED STATES

In metropolitan areas, firms trade-off land and information costs. Firms that gain the most from access to the knowledge and know-how of other firms in the same sector are willing and able to pay for expensive central city land. We found that legal services, advertising, and accounting and auditing services are the most centralized services in the 74 largest metropolitan areas of the United States. Maps of seven fast-growing business and professional services in Phoenix, Arizona, show that central city services are mainly located in the CBD. Using a logarithmic function, we found that service jobs are more decentralized in the larger metropolitan areas and in metropolitan areas outside the Northeast. Analysis of disaggregate service sectors shows significant intersectoral variation in this relationship.     

OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT OF LATINO IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES

ABSTRACT. Acquiring good jobs is vital for the economic success of immigrants, yet occupational attainment is understudied in the immigration literature. One particularly neglected aspect is the role of ethnicity in occupations beyond the ethnic niche. This study examines the occupational attainment of long‐term Latin American immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba, Ecuador, and Colombia in four metropolitan areas with large Latino populations. The findings show that occupational attainment varies considerably by country of origin across these areas, although important human and social capital factors also are significant variables. These findings lend support to the proposition that, for immigrants, place of origin and destination play an important role in job‐queue position.     

REGIONAL PATTERNS OF FEMALE STATUS IN THE UNITED STATES

Two measures of female status displayed dissimilar spatial distributions. Absolute status, measured by income, education, and occupation, was highest in the West and Northeast and lowest in the South. Female status was high where male status was high. The relative status of women compared to men, however, was high in the West and the rural Middle West and South but low in the Mountain West and industrial Northeast. Nationwide, where men enjoyed high absolute status, the relative status of women compared with men was poor.