Map Making and Map Reading

Abstract

How is the culture of Appalachia conveyed through its foods? Local experts in Appalachian counties were asked to create a hypothetical menu for a meal that was representative of their home region. Fried chicken and ham were the preferred main dishes and dessert selections focused on apple pie and peach or blackberry cobbler. Virtually everyone would serve iced tea. Other Appalachian specialties that appeared regularly included apple stack cake, ramps, and soup beans. Several tradition foods, survivors in isolated settings, are now being revived as symbols of regional identity and pride.     

Teachers and University Faculty Cooperating to Improve Teacher Preparation

Abstract

The National Geography Standards provide an opportunity to forge close relationships with teacher-preparation programs. This article reports on strategies used by the Virginia Geographic Alliance to produce regional, crossdisciplinary teams of educators informed about the Standards. Each team will include a faculty member from every teacher preparation program in Virginia.     

Burial and exhumation history of Pennsylvanian strata, central Appalachian basin: an integrated study

An inferred burial and exhumation history of Pennsylvanian strata in the central Appalachian foreland basin is constrained by integrating palaeothermometers, geochronometers and estimated palaeogeothermal gradients. Vitrinite reflectance data and fluid inclusion homogenization temperatures indicate that burial of Lower and Upper Pennsylvanian strata of the Appalachian Plateau in West Virginia exceeded ～4.4 km during the late Permian and occurred at a rate of ～100 m Myr^?1. Exhumation rates of ～10 m Myr^?1 from the late Permian to the early Cretaceous are constrained using maximum burial conditions and published apatite fission track (AFT) ages. AFT and radiogenic helium ages indicate exhumation rates of ～30–50 m Myr^?1 from the early to late Cretaceous. Radiogenic helium dates and present day sampling depths indicate that exhumation rates from the late Cretaceous to present were ～25 m Myr^?1. Exhumation rates for Upper and Lower Pennsylvanian strata within the Appalachian Plateau are remarkably similar. Early slow exhumation was possibly driven primarily by isostatic rebound associated with Triassic rifting. The later, more rapid exhumation can be attributed to thermal expansion followed by lithospheric flexure related to sediment loading along the passive margin.     

The Nichols' Relief Model of the United States

Abstract

The agricultural system in West Pakistan is largely subsistence-oriented, and extensive areas are devoted to produce the low-value crops. Only a small portion of the total cropped area is used to raise cash crops. However, there are regional differences in cropland use in the province. The study focuses on regional variations in the cropping patterns in West Pakistan by establishing the crop combination areas. The crop combination areas also point out a land-use distinction between the areas. Also, the changes in some of the important crops in terms of their land occupancy in the area during the fifteen-year period have been analyzed.     

Rural and Urban: Using American FactFinder on the Census Bureau Web Site Lesson Plan: Grades Four through Eight

Abstract

Regional survey courses are often perceived as ancillary to the systematic foci taught by geography programs. This situation stands in contrast to the recent recovery of place and region as key elements in the practice and theory of geography. In this article, I outline one possible approach for bridging the gap between regional geography's revival in theory and research and its instruction in the classroom. This approach is described in the context of a survey course about the former Soviet Union—a region where the conventional boundaries of place have been severely questioned by political, economic, and social upheavals.     

Residential mobility trajectories and integration in Douala and Bafoussam,Cameroon

Abstract

This study examines how migrant households relocate their homes in two Cameroonian cities over the course of lifetimes or even generations. The central claim is that homeownership is the ultimate sign of integration into city life. Using qualitative and quantitative research methods (218 interviews, 30 focus groups and a household survey, sample size 686), the study argues that three key factors explain why people move: the quality of housing they can affords, the proximity to a workplace and the potential for homeownership. Three residential model trajectories are identified. The first describes a journey from being a new migrant who is a guest of family or friends in the city centre to being a married family with kids owning a home in the urban periphery. The second model continues that journey by returning back to the city centre in pursuit of more convenient, high-status home location (if finances permit). A third model describes moves to sites all over the city later in life as older individuals seek to maximize family income in the way they use multiple properties. Understanding residential mobility patterns has the potential to lead to a better public policies and more effective private investments in the housing sector.     

Characterizing streamflow response of a mountaintop-mined watershed to changing land use

Mountaintop removal mining is a dominant driver of land use/land cover changes in the Appalachian Region of the eastern United States and is expected to increase in scale in the coming decades. While several studies quantify land use/land cover changes attributed to traditional surface mining and at regional scales, no studies we are aware of focus specifically on mountaintop removal/valley fill mining practices at the watershed scale. Further, despite its scale and extent, its impact on runoff, particularly at larger spatial scales (10³ km²), is poorly understood due to the complex relationships between climate, land use, and hydrology. To explore the impacts of this practice at broader scales, we estimated land use/land cover changes using Landsat 5 TM imagery over five periods between 1994 and 2010; used a simple rainfall–runoff model to estimate hydrologic response time; and conducted non-parametric trend analyses on annual hydrologic metrics (streamflow, Q/P, response time) for the Big Coal River watershed located in the southern West Virginia coalfields. No statistically significant trends were detected in any of the timeseries. The lack of detectable trends and correlations between land use changes and hydrology at the basin scale are not entirely unexpected due to the history and mosaic of land cover changes that span timescales larger than our study period. Further interannual variation likely overwhelms our ability to detect potential changes using monotonic trend analysis at the annual time scale, particularly in light of strong streamflow seasonality. Future studies therefore should include different methods of change detection applied to different timescales to more appropriately account seasonal and interannual variations. Until the significance of this practice on water resources (quality and quality) are understood, efforts to reduce the environmental problems associated with mountaintop mining will be difficult to achieve.     

Segregation and Residential Mobility of Vietnamese Immigrants in Brisbane,Australia

The study focuses on residential mobility propensities of Vietnamese immigrants in the city of Brisbane, Australia, as a principal force contributing to the persistence or change of ethnic residential segregation over time. Using 1990 survey data, discrete-time logit models are estimated to assess the effects of locational, contextual, and personal characteristics on the likelihood of changing residence within the city. The results indicate that locational variables operate in such a way that the most dominant Vietnamese neighborhood in Brisbane increases its prominence even further, while secondary Vietnamese clusters are likely to weaken. The results also indicate that initial settlement conditions are important for the first move only, whereas personal attributes contribute to variations in mobility propensities primarily in the second move. This implies that the composition of the immigrant population potentially influences the speed at which changes in ethnic residential patterns will occur in urban areas.     

‘Locationally disadvantaged’: planning governmentalities and peri-urban agricultural futures

ABSTRACT

Peri-urban areas are the interface between urban and rural regions, with these regions traditionally acting as foodbowls for adjacent urban areas. This peri-urban agriculture provides a diverse suite of benefits to urban areas. Increasingly, however, peri-urban areas are being converted to residential uses, driven in part by higher land values secured for land converted for residential development. In Sydney, planning and development has tended to treat peri-urban areas as ‘suburbs in waiting’. Using a Foucauldian governmentality approach, this paper investigates the prevailing rationalities in metropolitan-level strategic planning documents—in particular A Plan for Growing Sydney and the Draft South West District Plan—and how these rationalities relate to peri-urban agriculture. Our analysis shows that the three overarching rationalities—the global city, the compact city and the sustainability agenda—frame the urbanisation of peri-urban agricultural lands as necessary and inevitable, and only integrate agriculture as part of the future of the city of Sydney when it can be rationalised within the ‘global city’ narrative. As a result, peri-urban areas are not considered to have unique planning needs, but are imagined as latent spaces that will enable Sydney to meet its housing and job targets through their future development.     

Planning the Next Generation of Regional Atlases: Input From Educators

Abstract

The regional atlas is an important educational resource that needs to be updated on a periodic basis to remain current and valuable. Contemporary advances in digital cartography and digital information dissemination are offering opportunities to rethink the traditional hard-bound paper atlas when working towards a new edition. It is argued in this paper that innovative atlas work ought not be undertaken without market research, including user consultation. This paper presents the results of a user survey conducted in British Columbia, Canada, to solicit educators' attitudes towards regional atlas content and design, including educators' reactions to digital atlases. Where appropriate, results are compared to a previously conducted user survey of the general public and other interest groups including grade 10 high school pupils. We learned that high school teachers in British Columbia are not ready for a digital atlas unless it also is published in paper format. Any digital initiative must also be hardware independent. We learned further that teachers emphasize simplicity and that they value high quality and up-to-date information presented in a clear and concise manner.     

Maps,Numbers, Text,and Context: Mixing Methods in Feminist Political Ecology∗

This research tests the spatial mismatch hypothesis by comparing the employment probabilities of central city versus suburban African American males in nine metropolitan areas. Treatment effects models are used to control for the effects of both individual characteristics and residential self-selection on the probability of employment. A positive effect of suburban residential location on employment is found for the residents of Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, while no effect is found for the residents of Cleveland, Houston. Jackson, Memphis, and Newark. The general conclusion to be drawn is that the spatial mismatch effect is contingent on the particular characteristics of each metropolitan area. Preliminary analysis shows that metropolitan areas with a spatial mismatch effect are large in terms of total population and total land area, and have less efficient transportation systems.     

Reply To “On Farmland Protection In Southern California”

Mounting evidence indicates that large, world-class cities have expanded their spatial markets well beyond the regional urban systems in which they are located. This has led many observers to conclude that in the contemporary economy, interdependence, interaction, and connectivity are no longer fundamental characteristics of hierarchical urban systems. Virtually all research, however, deals exclusively with the changing role of large cities, while the spatial markets of medium- and smaller-sized cities comprising an urban system have been ignored. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate whether the spatial markets of medium- and smaller-sized cities in an urban hierarchical system continue to display a systematic relationship with city size, or whether they also reveal the absence of connection, or integration, with the regional system. The analysis uses survey data collected from 480 producer service firms located in an urban hierarchy comprising 15 midwestern cities of the United States. The results indicate that the spatial market of the largest city (Chicago) extends well beyond the Midwest urban hierarchy, while the spatial markets of smaller-sized cities are more integrated within the hierarchical system.     

A COMPUTER SOLUTION FOR DETERMINING STUDENT MIGRATION∗

Western investment and trade in East-Central Europe is likely to play a key role in the economic fortunes of the region over the next decade. Currently, the capital cities and the western parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary are the primary beneficiaries of economic interaction with the West. As such, existing regional inequalities are being reinforced. Deepening regional socioeconomic disparities within individual states could complicate the economic restructuring process and jeopardize state stability in the years ahead.     

Intraurban Residential Location Of The Elderly

Abstract

Many socio-economic analyses of senior citizens presume the aged to be concentrated in the central cities of American metropolitan centers. This presumption was examined by studying the intraurban residential location patterns of the aged in Toledo, Ohio from 1940 to 1970. The residential location patterns of the elderly in each census period were mapped and discussed. Also, their residential location pattern was compared with the distributions of the non-elderly population and the black population. Although a slight concentration of aged in the central city was noted, their distribution was closely related to the distribution of the non-elderly population. Furthermore, they are much less segregated than the black population.     

Patterns and Meanings of Housing: Residential Mobility and Homeownership among Former Refugees

Abstract

This article explores the patterns of residential mobility and homeownership, and in particular the meanings that former refugees attach to housing and neighborhood. While there are numerous studies on housing among voluntary migrants, studies that focus exclusively on refugees are rare. This multi-method study is based on interviews and a questionnaire survey with participants from Burma and the African Great Lakes Region in Buffalo, New York, who had arrived in the United States since 1995. Residential mobility patterns and meanings of housing indicate substantial differences between households in the two groups. The central argument of the paper is that the patterns and the meanings of housing are shaped by: (1) current socio-economic characteristics and resources, including educational attainment, employment status, and income; (2) current housing market conditions, including housing prices and racial discrimination; and (3) pre-migration experiences, including socio-economic status, socialization, and the corresponding internalized structures of meanings with respect to residential and housing patterns.     

SEQUENTIAL ASPECTS OF RESIDENTIAL SEARCH AND SELECTION

Tversky's "elimination by aspects'' approach is used as a decision-making model in this survey of the residential choice process of a sample of intraurban migrants. Rather than attempting to examine the covert cognitive operations described in the elimination-by-aspects model, this research seeks to describe overt residential search and selection behaviors which derive from Tversky's approach. The sequence in which information on criterion variables is acquired indicates a general two-stage process for the sample of residential migrants. Residential decision makers exhibit differential use of information sources on specific variables and appear to consult information sources in a selective manner. The sequence in which the information sources are utilized exhibits a diverse pattern for the sample of all intraurban migrants. Disaggregating the sample by significant social groupings reveals several information source strategies for certain groups, along with considerable individual diversity in residential decision making.     

Understanding Ethnic Residential Cluster Formation: new perspectives from South Australia’s migrant hostels

ABSTRACT

Throughout Australia’s history, successive governments have lamented the clustering of non-English-speaking migrants in ‘ethnic enclaves’ or ‘ghettos’. From the early Chinatowns of the 1800s till today, urban concentrations of ethnic groups have raised concerns and fears in local populations and authorities alike, despite decades of international research which suggests that ethnic residential clusters actually aid long-term assimilation and adjustment. Many of the ethnic residential clusters in contemporary Australia have been claimed to be a direct consequence of the migrant hostels and reception centres which operated between 1948 and the 1990s. This paper traces migrant settlement patterns in South Australia in rich detail, revealing the complexities of lived experiences that shape migrant settlement decisions. Against the background of public and scholarly debates over ‘ethnic enclaves’, and drawing on quantitative and qualitative historical research on the lived experiences of former hostel migrants, it analyses how migrant hostels and reception centres contributed to the settlement experiences of diverse migrants. We conclude that migrant hostels were just one among various factors that led to the growth and maintenance of ethnic residential clusters.     

Water quality modeling and sensitivity analysis using Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP) in the Shenandoah River watershed

This study used the Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP) to simulate nutrients, dissolved oxygen (DO), and chlorophyll-a dynamics in the Shenandoah River basin and performed an uncertainty analysis to examine the complexity of these variables in water quality estimation and their influence on the Shenandoah River. Significant progress has been made; however, nutrient loads emitted into the Shenandoah River from nonpoint sources remain high. Modeling of three points on the Shenandoah River in Virginia and West Virginia provides an ideal case study since the river is classified by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality as being impaired. The results of a sensitivity test show that model error decreases with increasing model complexity and sensitivity. The model predicted DO values that tended to be close to the measured data, while total nitrogen and phosphorus tended to be overemphasized. Our results examine the importance of temperature, stream flow, and velocity in influencing water quality between seasons and levels on the different sections of the watershed.     

Gaps,Intellectual Enthusiasms,Personal Insecurities: Response to “Stages on Journeys”

Abstract

The Department of Geography at Arizona State University implemented a field exam as part of its PhD program requirements. This field exam requires students to develop an independent field-based research project based on a general question in the student's specialty area. A survey of current and former PhD students and faculty members document how the field exam assists students in developing skills necessary for continuing graduate research and for preparing them for the rigors of academic employment. The outcomes of the exam include both long-term, process-related benefits and more immediate tangible rewards. For some students, the preliminary fieldwork and results redirect student interests and form the basis for their eventual dissertation. The field exam is adaptable to a diversity of geography research methods, subject areas, and graduate degree programs, while remaining grounded in the discipline's vibrant, widely respected fieldwork tradition.

     

The Urban Settlement Patterns of Disadvantaged Migrants

Abstract

Disadvantaged migrants to metropolitan areas are segregated by race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status within the residential areas of central city poverty neighborhoods. Whereas black migrants are generally restricted to ghetto space, regional cultural similarities and feedback in the social communication network are important to the residential location of lower class whites. The urban settlement patterns of a sample of recent disadvantaged white migrants to Indianapolis, Indiana, vary from the clusters of migrants from Appalachia and the South to the more dispersed pattern of migrants from Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, and other metropolitan areas. The residential location of migrants from Appalachia and the South is geographically restricted by cultural constraints, and heavy reliance upon a limited network of friends and relatives in the housing search. However, the sociocultural resources of the Midwest group and the previous urban experience of metropolitan migrants increase the range of housing opportunities in Indianapolis that are available and known to them.