Patterns of Racial Diversity and Segregation in the United States: 1990–2010

The growing ethnic and racial diversity of the United States is evident at all spatial scales. One of the striking features of this new mixture of peoples, however, is that this new diversity often occurs in tandem with racial concentration. This article surveys these new geographies from four points of view: the nation as a whole, states, large metropolitan areas, and neighborhoods. The analysis at each scale relies on a new taxonomy of racial composition that simultaneously appraises both diversity and the lack thereof (Holloway, Wright, and Ellis 2012). Urban analysis often posits neighborhood racial segregation and diversity as either endpoints on a continuum of racial dominance or mirror images of one another. We disturb that perspective and stress that segregation and diversity must be jointly understood—they are necessarily related, although not as inevitable binary opposites. Using census data from 1990, 2000, and 2010, the research points to how patterns of racial diversity and dominance interact across varying spatial scales. This investigation helps answer some basic questions about the changing geographies of racialized groups, setting the stage for the following articles that explore the relationship between geography and the participation of underrepresented groups in higher education.     

Spatial and Longitudinal Patterns in County Age-Specific Net Migration in the United States 1950–2010

Many migration studies describe various counties by adopting a priori county typologies, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service county typology, which might not be suitable for identifying different age migration patterns of the U.S. counties. This study employs a spatial clustering method that exhaustively compares all U.S. counties on their age migration similarity and spatial proximity to investigate signature age-specific net migration profiles across six decades of U.S. county age-specific net migration data from 1950 to 2010. All of the six-decade data are integrated into a common spatial county boundary on which counties below a population threshold are merged with the nearest county to mitigate the small population problem in net migration rates. As counties are merged by increasing large population thresholds, the Getis-Ord Gi* spatial autocorrelation statistic is applied to examine how the spatial migration patterns are affected. It is found that U.S. county age-specific net migration profiles exhibit four signature patterns. Although these patterns are persistent across the past six decades, their spatial distributions have experienced dramatic variation. The small population problem in net migration rates affects the extent and location of the significant spatial migration patterns.     

An analysis of intra-event precipitation variability for the United States (1980–2010)

Hourly precipitation data were collected from 143 first-order US weather stations during the period from 1980 to 2009 to assess the internal distribution of precipitation events lasting at least three hours. A total of 46,595 individual precipitation events were identified and evaluated using the mean, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, and the number of peaks occurring within an event. Mean event duration is longest along the West and Northwest coasts, the Mid-South, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Northeast; while shorter-duration events are more frequent in the Rocky Mountains, the Southwest, and the Great Plains. Mean event precipitation and standard deviation are greatest along the Gulf Coast and decrease inland. Precipitation events are positively skewed, indicating that more precipitation tends to occur earlier in the event. The most positively-skewed events are also located in regions flanking the Gulf of Mexico, while less-skewed events are common in the Northwest and Rocky Mountain regions. Event kurtosis is negative throughout the entire USA, with the highest negative values generally west of the Front Range, where cyclonic development and transition produce more evenly distributed precipitation within storms. Intra-event precipitation maxima were also evaluated, with western Florida and the desert Southwest having the greatest number per event.     

Why majority-minority cities form: non-White municipal incorporation in the United States, 1990–2010

Forty-four majority-minority cities formed in the United States between 1990 and 2010. Why did these cities form in Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native-American majority and other non-White communities? Do these cities form to escape annexation, improve services, and control land use, as most new cities do? Or are other factors at play, such as race and social justice? Using a detailed content analysis, we explore the genesis of newly incorporated municipalities in non-White communities. Our findings reveal that while most majority-minority cities form due to standard stimuli, some majority-minority cities form in direct response to racism (rebound incorporations, environmental racism, and under-provision of services). Moreover, when compared to all new cities, majority-minority cities form more often due to nuisances and less often due to annexation threats and growth control, thus illuminating the role institutional racism plays in municipal incorporation.     

Disaster Declarations and Major Hazard Occurrences in the United States∗

This article examines the potential geographic inequities between major hazard events and U.S. presidential disaster declarations at the county level from 1965 through 2004. The previous literature suggests that the disaster declaration process is highly politicized and not necessarily based on need. We hypothesize that there is a spatial inequity between the receipt of disaster declarations and the distribution of major hazard events. The results indicate that the geographic distribution of disaster declarations is not totally explained by the spatial pattern of major hazard events. In some locales, state experience in submitting disaster requests and achieving success translates into more disaster declarations (holding everything else constant), providing further evidence of the political nature of the process.     

Working in a Landscape of Recession and Expansion: Academic Jobs in Geography in the United States, 1990–2011

The recent economic recession brought much university hiring to a standstill in the United States. Geography, in spite of strong prerecession growth, was no exception. Without a sense of how the academic geography job market has changed over the past decades, however, it is difficult to assess any recession-related decline or the relative strength of any recovery. This article presents an analysis of academic job postings in the field of geography from 1990 through 2011. Using data aggregated from the AAG Newsletter, which acts as an informal clearinghouse for most academic openings for geographers at four-year colleges and universities in the United States, we assess changes in the overall magnitude in numbers of academic job openings, with the particular goal of placing the recession-based paucity of openings within its broader historical context. Our results indicate that, indeed, the recession led to a very sharp decline in advertisements, but compared to previous recessions, the recovery appears to have occurred very quickly. Open-rank and temporary/non-tenure-track positions appear to have been fairly robust to the poor economic conditions, whereas assistant professor openings were particularly hard hit.     

Geography Deserts: State and Regional Variation in the Formal Opportunity to Learn Geography in the United States, 2005–2015

The formal opportunity to learn geography in the United States is unevenly distributed across space, creating possible geography deserts. Data on the number of exams taken in Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) and bachelor’s degrees earned in geography are mapped at the state and regional scales. Normalized rates are ranked and grouped into quintiles. For APHG exams, states in the southeastern region of the United States are in the uppermost quintiles while states in the northeastern region are in the lowermost quintiles. The pattern for bachelor’s degrees in geography is somewhat the spatial inverse of that for APHG.     

Tropical cyclone Ivan’s tornado cluster in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States on 17–18 September 2004

This paper presents a case study of a cluster of tornadoes produced by tropical cyclone (TC) Ivan in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States on 17–18 September 2004. Ivan produced 118 tornadoes between 15 and 18 September, but 57 of these occurred in a period of only 10 h on the last two days. The number of tornadoes that occurred in this event is anomalous when compared to regional tornado climatology and to other TC tornado events. Furthermore, a significantly large number of the tornadoes, when compared to other TC tornadoes, were rated strong according to the Fujita Scale, and they were anomalously long- and wide-tracked. Ivan was in a synoptically favorable environment when these tornadoes were produced, and the tornadoes occurred in a favorable local-scale environment near a front with spatially overlapping shear and buoyancy.     

Is there diversity in the New Urbanism? Analyzing the demographic characteristics of New Urbanist neighborhoods in the United States

The New Urbanism (NU) planning movement aspires to create socially diverse neighborhoods. It is unclear, however, whether this movement lives up to its aspirations in practice. In an effort to systematically examine this aspect of the movement, this paper analyzes age, family type, income, and race data of 70 NU neighborhoods in the United States. The paper uses a diversity index to compare the NU neighborhoods with control sites. Findings show that NU neighborhoods have lower racial diversity, but may have higher income diversity. Consideration of variations within the way NU is implemented reveals that the low racial diversity is associated with a single approach, but higher income diversity is associated with all variants. This paper argues that NU generates places that are more socially diverse than what is described in the literature and uses two case studies to explore the ways in which diversity is produced and its relation to gentrification.     

Planning in the spirit of Deleuze and Guattari? Considering community-based food projects in the United States and Mexico

In this article we argue that planning theory and practice should engage more with the normative political vision of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. They reject the transcendent authority of the State and arguably by extension, planning. As planners we should be concerned: need we reconceptualize, or abandon the planning project? We outline their vision, highlighting key concepts including lines of flight, revolution, the new land, and immanent organization, and use two cases from the United States and Mexico, the Food Commons and Center for Integral Farmer Development in the Mixteca, to show that planning in accordance with Deleuze and Guattari may indeed be possible. We end with questions: is what we describe planning? And what is planning – or what should it be?     

Population development in rural areas of the United States in the 1980s: turnaround of trends or continuity?

"The article analyses the population growth in rural counties of the U.S.A. for 1970-80 and 1980-86. The growth rates are examined on different levels of aggregation (individual counties, subregions and regions) and in relation to several possible determinants of growth. The main objective of the study is to examine whether the growth patterns in the eighties support the hypothesis of a turnaround in the population development of rural areas.... The results reveal a diversity of growth patterns and significant regional differences. Rural counties within the daily urban system of a metropolitan area have significantly higher growth rates than peripheral rural counties. The results do not support the notion of a turnaround of long established trends. The trends in the eighties bear more resemblance to traditional growth patterns of rural areas." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

Calibrating a neural network‐based urban change model for two metropolitan areas of the Upper Midwest of the United States

We parameterized neural net‐based models for the Detroit and Twin Cities metropolitan areas in the US and attempted to test whether they were transferable across both metropolitan areas. Three different types of models were developed. First, we trained and tested the neural nets within each region and compared them against observed change. Second, we used the training weights from one area and applied them to the other. Third, we selected a small subset (～1%) of the Twin Cities area where a lot of urban change occurred. Four model performance metrics are reported: (1) Kappa; (2) the scale which correct and paired omission/commission errors exceed 50%; (3) landscape pattern metrics; and (4) percentage of cells in agreement between model simulations. We found that the neural net model in most cases performed well on pattern but not location using Kappa. The model performed well only in one case where the neural net weights from one area were used to simulate the other. We suggest that landscape metrics are good to judge model performance of land use change models but that Kappa might not be reliable for situations where a small percentage of urban areas change.     

Factors Influencing Recreational Boaters’ Intentions to Comply with Right Whale Regulations in the Southeastern United States

Regulations for boaters can help mitigate adverse effects on threatened marine mammals. One management tool to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales is a 460-m distance restriction rule for all vessels. This study is the first effort to analyze factors that influence recreational boaters’ intentions to comply with this regulation. Using the theory of planned behavior, we analyzed 362 mail surveys of recreational boaters using the offshore waters of the southeastern United States. We found that two constructs of the theory significantly explained 58% of the intention to comply with the rule: (1) positive attitude toward the rule and (2) stronger belief that other people are complying. Boaters recommended increasing knowledge about whales to improve compliance, but they were divided with respect to increasing fines for violators to increase compliance. This information can be useful for designing outreach strategies to protect whales.     

Productivity Profiles of PhD-Granting Geography Departments in the Unites States: 1980–1994

In our study, 48 U.S. departments that grant geography PhDs are compared along four measures of academic productivity. Using 1980–1994 as the base period, research productivity of faculty was assessed by counting book titles, as well as authorships in 77 journals. Teaching productivity was determined by placement of PhDs in graduate programs of geography in North America, and by a weighted index of teaching outcomes. Data were summed for departments, but are reported primarily as productivity per person (per FTE count). The results point to a wide variety of departmental profiles, from those departments that appear to emphasize teaching outcomes to those that are more productive in book publishing and journal authorship, with several exhibiting a balance between teaching and research.     

“The Corner of Avenue A and Twenty-Third Street”: Geographies of Street Numbering in the United States

The designation of streets by number is one of the hallmarks of North American urbanism, yet very few studies have examined the geographies of street numbering in U.S. cities and towns. This article provides one of the first comprehensive, nationwide assessments of the spatial distribution of street numbering and lettering practices across the United States. Drawing on data collected from Google Maps, census records, state almanacs, and related sources, we analyze the proportion of incorporated places in all fifty U.S. states that have adopted some form of street numbering or lettering; the regional variation in the prevalence of alphanumerical systems of street designation and the relationships between the occurrence of street numbering, population size, and date of incorporation. In doing so, the broader aim of this study is to undertake the empirical groundwork needed to develop a more nuanced critical theory of the social production of calculable space.     

Urbanization of the United States over two centuries: an approach based on a long-term database (1790–2010)

This paper presents an original methodology for the construction of a harmonized database for urban areas in the United States from 1790 to 2010 (a period with a census every 10 years, amounting to 23 dates). Upstream, this method is based on a theoretical choice, the use of a spatio-temporal reference frame to construct urban areas over the long term, defined by a maximum range of one hour’s travel for each period. We used an automatic aggregation from a Reilly model. Urban measures (growth, concentration) derived from this harmonized database are then presented, providing a unified picture of urbanization in the United States over more than two centuries. They are compared with results derived from more classical databases established using the official figures from the Census Bureau, or from other constructions differing from the present system. The results diverge considerably in some instances, which confirms the impact of the method of delineation of geographical areas in measures of growth.     

A Review of “Putting “America” on the Map: The Story of the Most Important Graphic Document in the History of the United States”

Leinbach, Thomas R. and Brunn, Stanley D. (eds.) Worlds of E-Commerce: Economic, Geographical, and Social Dimensions

Calthorpe, Peter and Fulton, William The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl

Furuseth, Owen J. and Lapping, Mark B. (eds.) Contested Countryside: The Rural-Urban Fringe in North America

Sharp, Joanne P. Condensing the Cold War: Reader's Digest and American Identity

Gleeson, Brendan and Low, Nicholas (eds.) Governing for the Environment: Global Problems, Ethics, and Democracy

Isenberg, Andrew The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750 – 1920

Albert, Donald P., Gesler, Wilbert M. and Levergood, Barbara (eds.) Spatial Analysis, GIS, and Remote Sensing Applications in the Health Sciences

Wright, Dawn J. and Bartlett, Darius J. (eds.) Marine and Coastal Geographical Information Systems

Jankowski, Piotr and Nyerges, Timothy Geographic Information Systems for Group Decision Making: Towards a Participatory Geographic Information Science

Gerber, Rod and Chuan, Goh Kim (eds.) Fieldwork in Geography: Reflections, Perspectives, and Actions

Craige, Betty Jean Eugene Odom: Ecosystem Ecologist and Environmentalist

Lowenthal, David George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation

Schroeder, Richard Shady Practices: Agroforestry and Gender Practices in The Gambia

Lovell, W. George A Beauty that Hurts: Life and Death in Guatemala

Lichtenberger, Elisabeth Austria: Society and Regions     

Practical Implementation of Random Forest-Based Mineral Potential Mapping for Porphyry Cu–Au Mineralization in the Eastern Lachlan Orogen,NSW, Australia

Natural Resources Research - With the increasing use of machine learning for big data analytics, several methods have been implemented for the purpose of exploration targeting using mineral...