Spatial concentration patterns of South Asian low-skilled immigrants in Oman: A spatial analysis of residential geographies

Oman is a major recipient of South Asian labor immigrants, and correspondingly, the demographic statistics reveal that the non-Omani populations primarily are constituted of the Asians. This research examines whether the largest immigrant groups (Indian, Bangladesh, Pakistani and Sri Lankan) in Oman form residential clusters according to their work skills (higher and lower skills). The residential geographies of South Asian workers at the subnational administrative boundaries have been investigated in the current study. Empirically, the study employs the use of Location Quotients (LQ) and Entropy Index within the GIS environment to spatially analyze the immigrant residential distributions based on their work skills. Interestingly, the findings of this research confirm the primary influence of geography on the residential patterns of the low-skilled immigrants. Initially, Al-Batnah governorates constituted the main destinations of low-skilled Bangladeshis. Further, the research also highlights significant clusters of Indian and Pakistani high-skilled immigrants in urban residential communities within the Muscat governorate. In addition, the South Asian are found to be a relatively constant stream of immigrants to inhabit the Omani urban areas, with employments in various public and private economic sectors (e.g. educational, health, manufacturing, finance, business etc.). This concentration pattern of low skilled immigrants is attributable to the need to labor shortages of native populations in certain jobs. The research results also indicate that the rural and suburban communities of Al-Batnah coastal plain not only have a greater number of low skilled immigrants but also display equitable distributions of the four South Asian groups in the residential settlements. For policy makers, it is imperative to understand the spatial patterns of low and high-skilled immigrants in Oman, which exert several geographic, economic, social and demographic implications. The significant role of immigration in development necessitates the identification of the predominant destinations for immigrants. It has been observed that the immigrants are crucial to several sectors of Omani urban economy, and urban areas with a large number of immigrants are more likely to grow and expand faster. In addition, the immigrants’ laborers offer potential economic benefits to the host country, which include fostering entrepreneurial activities, small businesses and reducing wages, especially in unskilled jobs. Despite the negative impacts of immigration (e.g. losing national cultural and creating socio-spatial segregation), the diverse and distinctive locational patterns of immigrant groups in Oman contribute crucially to the socioeconomic development and immigration policy. Yet understanding of the spatial dynamics of immigration in structuring the Omani regions and its influences remains very limited. Thus, further research accounting for the different spatial and attribute ancillary data is necessitated.     

Mexican and Central American immigrant communities in the boom and bust housing markets of the 2000s

Classic immigrant enclaves, largely voluntary and temporary, have historically served as a strong platform for integration in United States metropolitan areas. However, trends in the early 2000s, including new destinations and skyrocketing housing costs, may have reshaped the landscape, particularly for numerically dominant immigrant groups with very low socioeconomic status. In this article, I use data for 56 metropolitan areas and 31,563 census tracts from the 2000 Census and the 2005–2009 American Community Survey to examine the relationship between the change in concentration of Mexican and Central American immigrants and the characteristics of neighborhoods in 2000. The analyses suggest that, across metropolitan areas, these immigrant communities consolidated in neighborhoods with low home values, adequate but overcrowded housing, relatively small shares of their own immigrant group, and large shares of other Hispanics. Demographic dynamics may have weakened immigrant support networks, leaving Mexican and Central American immigrants vulnerable, particularly in a subset of metropolitan areas where this population grew most substantially outside the central cities.     

Changing patterns of residential and workplace segregation in the Stockholm metropolitan area

Immigrant–native segregation is present in the spaces in which individuals from different ethnic/racial groups practice their everyday lives; interact with others and develop their ethnic, social and spatial networks. The overwhelming majority of academic research on immigrant segregation has focused on the residential domain, thus largely overlooking other arenas of daily interaction. The present study contributes to the emerging literature on immigrant residential and workplace segregation by examining changes in patterns of residential and workplace segregation over time. We draw our data from the Stockholm metropolitan region, Sweden’s main port of entry for immigrants. The results suggest a close association between residential and workplace segregation. Immigrant groups that are more segregated at home are also more segregated in workplace neighborhoods. More importantly, we found that a changing segregation level in one domain tends to involve a similar trend in the other domain.     

Immigration,local policy,and national identity in the suburban United States

Since 2000, the American suburb has emerged as a principal destination for new immigrants to the United States, both documented and undocumented. Whereas some suburban communities have responded to perceived undocumented immigrants with hostility in the form of exclusionary local immigration policies, others have introduced policies designed to welcome immigrants independent of federal legal status. In this article, I employ a qualitative comparative case study analysis of four local immigration policies in the Chicago and Washington DC metropolitan areas to explain how suburbs justify their policy positions. I find that these suburban communities relied on conceptions of American identity and the ‘American Dream’ in support of their policies, but leveraged these tropes in vastly different ways depending on the broader strategic purposes of the policies. These divergent suburban immigration policies both challenge traditional notions of suburban political and cultural homogeneity and reveal how such heterogeneity has produced a distinct unevenness in contemporary local policy responses to undocumented immigration within metropolitan regions.     

Race,region and the territorial politics of immigration in the US

Zelinsky and Lee recently unveiled a model of the sociospatial process of immigrant settlement designed to augment and possibly supplant the well-known theories of assimilation and pluralism. Although in some ways new, their work continues a tradition in social science that treats the settlement geography of immigrants as a measure of their more general fit into American society. The authors question the prevailing assumption that immigrant settlement patterns represent a barometer of their adaptation, or lack thereof, to a host society. This critique of the concepts of assimilation, pluralism and Zelinsky and Lee's alternative "heterolocal" model of immigrant settlement pivots around the issues of spatial scale and race. The authors argue that the contestations over immigration and how well immigrants fit into society are increasingly constructed at the regional scale. The authors also assert that questions race infuse almost all aspects of these debates. The transformation of America's largest city-regions into places of non-White immigrants, and the shifting political balance of power to states like California through immigration-driven reapportionment, are touchstones for anti-immigration initiatives and associated local and national debate. Fear of racial regional changes underpins an increasingly powerful response to immigration. The reactions elicited by these settlement geographies fall under the heading the authors call the "territorial politics of immigration".     

The typology of the American metropolis: monocentricity,polycentricity, or generalized dispersion?

Although the spatial structure of employment in large US metropolitan regions is a well-researched topic, few studies focus on medium-sized and small US metropolitan regions. Consequently, there is no overall typology relating small-to-medium urban form to employment distribution. We address this gap by investigating the spatial structure of employment in 356 metropolitan regions. We conceptualize six typologies based on three categories that have overlapping properties: “monocentricity,” “polycentricity,” and “generalized dispersion.” The study has three main findings. First, the three types of urban form that we identify as “hybrid” outnumber the three “pure” types by almost four to one. Second, job dispersion is a dominant characteristic in almost 70% of all metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) (including the hybrid types), and polycentricity (56.7% of MSAs) is somewhat more common than monocentricity. Third, there is a strong relationship between population size and density. The population of medium-sized metropolitan areas is generally more dispersed than that of small and large metropolitan areas. Polycentricy emerges mostly in large metropolitan regions, while monocentrity is found in both small and large metropolitan regions.     

The validity of the monocentric city model in a polycentric age: US metropolitan areas in 1990, 2000 and 2010

In this article, we use local indicators of spatial association (LISA) and other spatial analysis techniques to analyze the distribution of centers with high employment density within metropolitan areas. We examine the 359 metropolitan areas across the United States at three points in time (1990, 2000, and 2010) to provide a spatio-temporal panoramic of urban spatial structure. Our analysis highlights three key findings. (1) The monocentric structure persists in a majority of metropolitan areas: 56.5% in 1990, 64.1% in 2000, and 57.7% in 2010. (2) The pattern of employment centers remains stable for most metropolitan areas: the number of centers remained the same for 74.9% of metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2000 and for 85.2% between 2000 and 2010. (3) Compared with monocentric metropolitan areas, polycentric metros are larger and more dense, with higher per-capita incomes and lower poverty rates.     

Assembling insurgent citizenship: immigrant advocacy struggles in the Washington DC metropolitan area

This article examines the political and spatial registers of struggles against exclusionary local immigration policies and for more welcoming policies in the Washington DC metropolitan area, one of the hotspots for both local anti-immigration policies and immigrant advocacy in the United States. We conceptualize immigrant advocacy not simply as an alliance, but instead as an assemblage that brings together a diverse set of differently positioned actors and nonhuman actants. The assemblage enacts a diverse politics that deploys different forms of activism, while engaging different publics (e.g., religious communities, unions, the larger public sphere in public spaces, etc.) and the state in complex ways. From acting outside the state to engaging in claims-making towards the state, immigrant advocates are making claims and actions that challenge and go beyond dominant conceptions of citizenship rights and liberal democratic politics. The spatial register is similarly diverse. The immigrant advocacy assemblage is confronted with and enacts a different politics of place in central cities and inner- and outer-ring suburbs. Contestations of exclusionary local policies, however, are not simply about a local politics of place. To the contrary, some actors and actants in the assemblage are actively involved in extra-local networking, collaborating across jurisdictional boundaries—between central cities and inner-and outer-ring suburbs within the Washington DC metropolitan area and across the United States. The complexities of these contestations call into question post-political narratives of “proper” politics, underscoring the need for an empirically grounded critical theory of democracy. This article contributes to this task by providing a geographically and historically sensitive analysis of the immigrant advocacy assemblage.     

ASIANS IN AMERICA'S SUBURBS: PATTERNS AND CONSEQUENCES OF SETTLEMENT*

ABSTRACT. In an effort to provide a more complex and multifaceted understanding of the process of spatial assimilation, this article explores alternative paths in understanding racial/ ethnic minority residential patterns. It scrutinizes patterns of contemporary Asian Indian and Chinese settlement in two metropolitan areas: Austin, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona. Though not particularly evolved in terms of their Asian immigrant settlement or dynamics, Austin and Phoenix represent the growing number of newly emergent Asian centers throughout the nation that have developed with the rapid rise of immigration from these two countries in the past several decades. The analysis utilizes records from the 2000 census to document and map Asian Indian and Chinese settlement within each metropolitan area and to investigate whether‐and to what degree‐each group is clustered or dispersed. The article then raises important questions about the consequences of concentration and dispersal for the incorporation of Asian Indian and Chinese residents.     

Responding to Negative Public Attitudes towards Immigration through Analysis and Policy: regional and unemployment dimensions

ABSTRACT

This paper examines two key dimensions of the impact of immigration for Australia and related policy aspects. One is sub-national and the other is national. They are, first, the regional location aspects of immigration and, second, the aggregate unemployment implications of immigration. These are chosen so as to focus on two important issues that condition public attitudes towards immigration. In relation to the first, there is a common positive view that channelling migration towards regional areas assists regional development and reduces pressure on metropolitan areas. The paper reviews regional concepts embodied in Australian immigration policy and the ways in which visa arrangements have implemented policies geared towards the regional dispersal of immigrants. Using official data, it discusses the demographic impacts of these policies and, in particular, considers the extent to which immigrants to regional Australia remain there over the longer term. In relation to unemployment, a common concern is that immigrants take jobs from local workers. The paper examines—using statistical regression methodology—the relationship between immigration and national aggregate unemployment in Australia. It evaluates the net consequences of immigration for both existing residents and new arrivals together. The paper concludes that, with good policy design in each case, regional location encouragement can be effective for immigrants and that immigrants need not take more jobs than they create. The analysis demonstrates that mixed-methods approaches to important social science issues can be productive, and helpful also for policy. Evidence, such as that presented in this paper, offers a powerful basis from which to counter negative public and political discourses surrounding immigration in contemporary Australia.     

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.     

Immigrant Concentration and Domestic Migrant Dispersal: Is Movement to Nonometropolitan Areas “White flight”?

This article examines linkages between recent domestic out-migration from immigrant gateway metropolitan areas and nonmetropolitan migration gains, based on data of the 1990 census, 1996 Current Population Survey, and population estimates for the 1990–1996 period from the Bureau of Census. Our analysis of these data suggests that there is a mirror image of migration patterns between high immigration metropolitan area losses and nonmetropolitan area gains. This is especially evident in the West with the relationship between Los Angeles and San Francisco areas' losses on the one hand, and the region's nonmetropolitan gains on the other. While pre-elderly and elderly retirees have contributed to these nonmetropolitan gains, much of it is attributable to the destination choices of suburban-like populations—Whites with children, not college educated, and with lower incomes—that have been leaving high immigration metropolitan areas. This new, more dispersed form of “White flight” holds the potential for reinvigorating smaller, nonmetropolitan communities, but creating, as well, new demographic divisions across space.     

Immigration impacts on internal migration of the poor: 1990 census evidence for U.S. states

"This article presents newly-available migration data from the 1990 U.S. census to assess immigration and internal migration components as they affect state poverty populations. New immigrant waves are heavily focused on only a few 'port-of-entry' states. It is suggested that these immigrants have begun to impact upon internal migration into and out of these 'high immigration states', and have also altered the national system of internal migration patterns. This article addresses three questions: How do the magnitudes of poverty population out-migration from high immigration states compare with those of other states? Is this out-migration selective on particular social and demographic groups? Is immigration a significant determinant of internal migration of the poor population? The results of this analysis are consistent with the view that recent, focused immigration is associated with out-migration among a state's poor longer-term residents."     

THE GEOGRAPHY PLACEMENT SEMINAR: A COURSE SYLLABUS

This article examines linkages between recent domestic out-migration from immigrant gateway metropolitan areas and nonmetropolitan migration gains, based on data of the 1990 census, 1996 Current Population Survey, and population estimates for the 1990–1996 period from the Bureau of Census. Our analysis of these data suggests that there is a mirror image of migration patterns between high immigration metropolitan area losses and nonmetropolitan area gains. This is especially evident in the West with the relationship between Los Angeles and San Francisco areas' losses on the one hand, and the region's nonmetropolitan gains on the other. While pre-elderly and elderly retirees have contributed to these nonmetropolitan gains, much of it is attributable to the destination choices of suburban-like populations—Whites with children, not college educated, and with lower incomes—that have been leaving high immigration metropolitan areas. This new, more dispersed form of “White flight” holds the potential for reinvigorating smaller, nonmetropolitan communities, but creating, as well, new demographic divisions across space.     

人口集聚区吸纳人口迁入的影响因素——以东莞市为例

人口集聚区的地域特征差异对人口迁移行为产生较大影响,从地域特征出发研究人口集聚区对于迁入人口的作用机制可为地域功能区划和配置公共服务设施提供参考。本文以人口迁移的推拉理论为基础,构建人口集聚区对迁入人口拉力作用的指标体系。以东莞市为案例,综合运用主成分分析和多元回归分析方法,识别人口集聚区对迁入人口的作用力以及各类拉力的作用强度。结果显示：① 东莞市各乡镇人口集聚程度差异较大,且空间分布不均衡;在1995-2000年全市人口迅速集聚期,区域人口集聚度主要与地区就业岗位增加、人均收入水平提高、人口迁移的路径依赖相关。② 该市以劳动密集型加工业为主的产业特色给迁入人口提供了更多的就业机会;其相对较高的工资水平,对外来人口形成了强大的吸引力。③ 人口以路径依赖的形式进行链式迁移可以减低迁移过程中的风险和成本。④ 对人口集聚作用由强到弱依次为：路径依赖拉力、就业岗位拉力、收入水平拉力;综合的区域拉力与人口集聚度呈三次曲线关系。     

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.     

IDENTITY AND ASSIMILATION AMONG YOUNG ETHIOPIAN IMMIGRANTS IN METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON*

ABSTRACT. Ethiopians are a recent immigrant group in the United States, having entered the country in significant numbers during the 1980s and 1990s. This preliminary study examines the ethnic and racial identities of children of first‐generation Ethiopian immigrants living in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The results of twenty in‐depth interviews demonstrate that race is a much more fluid and contested form of identification than is ethnicity to the young immigrants, who equate the latter unilaterally with their Ethiopian heritage. Immigrants also adopt different subject identities in various locales, favoring those that are most in accordance with their needs and sense of self.     

Gendering Job Competition: Immigration and African American Employment in Chicago, 1990-2000

This investigation of demographic changes between 1990 and 2000 within African American employment concentrations in Chicago finds that the effects of immigration on African American employment differ by gender. Black women increasingly shared their niche industries with immigrant women without being displaced, a pattern of coexistence that indicates the primacy of gender in sorting women into employment. By contrast, similar patterns were absent between African American and immigrant men, and several niche industries reflected competition. Yet economic restructuring more significantly affected African American male and female employment than immigration. Among women, these same trends also affected immigrants. Both groups were adversely affected by the growth of low-wage employment in female-dominated, care-work jobs—their primary industries of overlap. These findings underscore the significance of gender in problematizing ethnic/racial divisions of labor and the need to consider economic consequences that cross these divisions as well as derive from them within urban economies.     

Foreign‐Born Status and Geographic Patterns of Tuberculosis Genotypes in Tarrant County,Texas

Regardless of destination, immigrants arrive with health profiles typical of people in their previous surroundings. Thus, immigrants change the epidemiological profile of destination communities, and immigrant neighborhoods may represent islands of infectious disease. Genotyping has emerged as a useful surveillance tool to track the spread of disease at the molecular level. Yet the spatial distribution of infectious disease at the molecular level associated with migration and immigrant neighborhoods has received little attention. Using molecular genotyping to characterize M. tuberculosis isolated from tuberculosis cases, this article analyzes spatial variations of unique molecular M. tuberculosis strains by zip code in Tarrant County, Texas. The results suggest that immigrant neighborhoods have higher rates of unique isolates of tuberculosis (suggestive of remote transmission) compared to neighborhoods occupied by the native‐born. Neighborhoods dominated by the native‐born have higher rates of clustered isolates (suggestive of recent transmission). Therefore, in addition to being culturally distinct, immigrant neighborhoods may also be pathogenically distinct from surrounding neighborhoods.     

上海大都市区软件产业空间集聚与郊区化

随着信息经济发展壮大,软件产业日益成为城市经济的新引擎,其空间区位对城市空间结构影响不断加深.文章以上海市软件企业名录为数据基础,运用GIS 技术、社会网络分析等方法,探讨了上海大都市区软件产业的空间分布、演变特征及影响因素.研究发现,2002 年及2008年上海软件产业空间分布的集聚化特征明显,但产业集聚中心位置发生了从中心城区转向郊区的偏移.6 年间,软件企业的空间格局呈现出"大都市区尺度上的扩散以及园区尺度的再集聚"的时空特征.不同类型企业空间集聚与扩散的特征不同,以嵌入式软件企业为主的中小企业呈现出向远郊区扩散的特征.在影响因素的分析上,负二项回归的结果表明交通通达性、政府政策影响下的科技园区建设、产业历史基础对软件企业的区位选择具有显著影响.内外资企业区位影响因素的比较分析发现,交通通达性、自然环境及办公楼条件对外资企业区位影响较大,内资企业对政府政策更为敏感.