Migration,Sources of Income,and Community Change in the Nonmetropolitan Northwest

During the late 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, the nonmetropolitan Northwest grew quite rapidly, narrowing the gap between the growth rates of the metropolitan Northwest, and oupacing national rates. This growth was largely the result of in-migration from regional and national metropolitan areas. Traditional economic base theory does not explain the recent growth, as employment levels in in the region's basic industries continue to stagnate and decline, and the sources of income for these in-migrants remain a mystery. This paper utilizes data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) to determine the extent to which metropolitan-origin migrants are measurably different from oldtime nonmetropolitan residents on certain socioeconomic variables, in an attempt to understand the ways in which the newcomers survive financially. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows that newcomers are younger, earn less in wages and salary, receive more nonearnings income, and reside in more valuable housing compared with the resident population. Discriminant analysis shows that differences in the earned income measures are largely explained by age differences, while the nonearnings income and value of residence remainsignificantly higher for the metropolitan origin migrants even when age and earned income are controlled. While the analysis indicates that measurable socioeconomic differences do exist between the two populations, it appears that the current wave of growth and change in the nonmetropolitan Northwest is much more complicated than a simple newcomer-oldtimer dichotomy.     

Anglo Intrusion on the Old Sangre de Cristo Land Grant

Positioned on the northern edge of the Hispano homeland, the southern portion of the old Sangre de Cristo Land Grant (present-day Costilla County, Colorado) provides an interesting empirical study of cultural change. After economically displacing Spanish-American residents from villages throughout the homeland's core, incoming Anglos have adopted the region's rich Spanish culture as their own. On the homeland's periphery, however, the cultural traditions of Hispanos and Anglos have been, for the most part, at odds. Most resident Hispanos desire to maintain ties to their traditional past, while the younger generations embrace Anglo cultural norms. Considering the vital role it plays in the maintenance of culture, religion provides a window to the study area's modified cultural environment. In 1900 the population in this region was predominantly Catholic Hispano; by 1990 Protestant-dominated Anglos comprised a sizeable proportion of the population. Comparisons are made between traditional Hispano and Anglo-influenced religious landscapes. Changes in church affiliation, the distribution of active Penitente moradas, and the characteristics of community cemeteries demonstrate ongoing cultural change. Geographically isolated communities, where Anglo intrusion is limited, retain their strong Hispano cultural integrity.     

Representations of utopian urbanism and the feminist geopolitics of “new city” development

Increasingly over the past few years the building of new cities “from scratch” has become a key strategy to promote development across much of the Global South. While several projects are currently under construction, many others exist primarily as proposals awaiting adequate investment or government action. This paper builds on previous literature that considers representations of such projects – promotional materials, digitally-produced video simulations, and master plans – as key components in the production of imagined urban futures. Through an exploration of the proposed Zone for Economic Development and Employment (ZEDE) in Honduras, this article demonstrates a feminist geopolitical approach focused on how such representations of utopian urbanism circulate through the local communities slated for new city development. I examine how representations of future urban spaces and future urban governance regimes become appropriated by local residents in organizing opposition or otherwise making sense of the proposed project’s potential impact on their lives.     

“They want to live in the Tremé, but they want it for their ways of living”: gentrification and neighborhood practice in Tremé, New Orleans

In this study, I deploy an ethnographic approach to analyze the detrimental effects of gentrification on longstanding residents in New Orleans’ Tremé neighborhood. I focus on conflicts between long-established residents and gentrifiers over the use of neighborhood space on a day-to-day basis as a means for examining the consequent changes in neighborhood life. As their neighborhood gentrifies, long-term residents of Tremé must contend with greater policing, the erosion of place-based knowledge, practices, and cultural traditions, the loss of social networks, and the closure of vital neighborhood institutions. These changes in neighborhood life provide a starting point from which to begin to understand the broader effects (beyond displacement) that longstanding residents experience as a result of gentrification.     

MAIN STREET TRANSFORMED: COMMUNITY SENSE OF PLACE FOR NONMETROPOLITAN TOURISM BUSINESS DISTRICTS

This case study applies the segment approach to investigate community sense of place for a small-town tourism business district (TBD). A stratified random sample of residents from Galena, Illinois (population 3,647), is analyzed to identify personal values and behaviors most closely associated with sense of place for downtown. Despite Galena's extreme orientation to tourism, natives and middle-class newcomers generally were found to be equally, and highly, involved with their TBD. Consequently, respondents claimed sentiments of "at-homeness" (or sense of place) for downtown regardless of their duration of residence. However, natives and newcomers collectively valued downtown for different reasons. One implication is that sense of place for downtown can translate into local agency-based projects and interest groups that promote or oppose the transformation of place. In turn, community cohesiveness can be threatened through the process of transforming a historic downtown into a TBD. [Key words: tourism business district (TBD), sense of place, downtown redevelopment, main street, small town.]     

利用小波方法分析新43泉气氡异常特征

2010年7月2日、2012年1月8日先后在新疆和硕县境内发生MS4.7和MS5.0两次地震,新43泉距两次地震震中均小于200 km,利用小波变换对气氡资料进行分析后发现,两次地震前3～6个月气氡资料出现异常.又对2012年轮台、和静两次5级以上震例进行验证,结果令人满意,认为小波分析方法是地震前兆数据处理的一种有效方法.     

Spatial multi-objective land use optimization: extensions to the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II

A spatial multi-objective land use optimization model defined by the acronym ‘NSGA-II-MOLU’ or the ‘non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II for multi-objective optimization of land use’ is proposed for searching for optimal land use scenarios which embrace multiple objectives and constraints extracted from the requirements of users, as well as providing support to the land use planning process. In this application, we took the MOLU model which was initially developed to integrate multiple objectives and coupled this with a revised version of the genetic algorithm NSGA-II which is based on specific crossover and mutation operators. The resulting NSGA-II-MOLU model is able to offer the possibility of efficiently searching over tens of thousands of solutions for trade-off sets which define non-dominated plans on the classical Pareto frontier. In this application, we chose the example of Tongzhou New Town, China, to demonstrate how the model could be employed to meet three conflicting objectives based on minimizing conversion costs, maximizing accessibility, and maximizing compatibilities between land uses. Our case study clearly shows the ability of the model to generate diversified land use planning scenarios which form the core of a land use planning support system. It also demonstrates the potential of the model to consider more complicated spatial objectives and variables with open-ended characteristics. The breakthroughs in spatial optimization that this model provides lead directly to other properties of the process in which further efficiencies in the process of optimization, more vivid visualizations, and more interactive planning support are possible. These form directions for future research.     

Urban Underclass: The Wayward Travels of a Chaotic Concept

This commentary critically engages with arguments made by Loïc Wacquant in his book Urban Outcasts on the nature of public discourse regarding concentrated urban poverty in the United States. In particular, it elaborates a critical reading of the international circulation of social-scientific analyses of urban poverty—in particular the concept of the "urban underclass"—which rose to prominence through research on Chicago neighborhoods. This concept has subsequently influenced scholarly and public policy approaches to characterizing and combating entrenched urban poverty and long-term unemployment in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. I challenge the appropriateness of the concept as well as the direction of public policymaking that has downplayed, if not ignored, questions of job availability and job quality in urban areas.     

Evaluating the Effects of Geographic Contexts on Individual Accessibility: A Multilevel Approach1

Centrality within a city and neighborhood characteristics have often been used as indicators of access to employment and services in statements about urban form and accessibility, but there are reasons to question the appropriateness of doing so. This paper evaluates the importance of geographic context within the urban environment (both location within cities as well as neighborhoods characteristics) for individuals in Portland, Oregon. Because conventional accessibility measures cannot incorporate individual characteristics, space-time individual accessibility measures were used with multilevel modeling to isolate the effects of individual level variations from that of geographical context. The results show that the influence of context on individual accessibility is weak, as accessibility tends to reflect individual and household characteristics rather than the local urban environment. Accessibility cannot be determined from location within cities, or from land uses around an individual's home, implying that the use of urban design to influence accessibility is inappropriate.