60th Annual SEDAAG Meeting West Palm Beach, FL, Nov., 2005
Index with Links to Paper Abstracts
All the papers with
abstracts shown here have been accepted into the program.
The surnames of paper authors listed below are linked to
the abstracts of the papers. Please check to make sure your
abstract is listed correctly. Also, let me know if there are any
broken or mis-assigned links.
--
Allan James, SEDAAG 2005 Program Co-Chair, AJames@sc.edu
B Bacon, Michael
and James Fraser. Examining Neighborhood Revitalization
and Crime: Using Cluster Detection Techniques to Analyze Shifts in Crime
Patterns. Barker, David and Clinton Beckford.
Yam farming and the yam stick problem in Jamaica: the
role of farmers' indigenous knowledge in the search for sustainable solutions. Bell, Thomas L. Place and Popular Culture in Selected Works of Playwright Neil LaBute. Berry, M. Victoria Potential
Contributions of Amerindians to Caribbean Folk Medicine. Birdsall, Steve S. Collective Memory and Memorial Landscapes: Scenes from America’s High
Plains. Blackden,
Chris The WTO as a Quasi-State.
Bowen, Dawn S. Race, Residence
and Mobility in Richmond, Virginia: 1900 – 1930.
C Carr, Edward R. Losing the Local in Postdevelopment. Chapman,
Thomas and Jonathan
Leib. Political Geographies Of Same-Sex Marriage
In Georgia. Chapura, Mitch. Hunger,
Hope and Hubris: The Green Revolution and Current Debates on Agricultural
Biotechnology. Cobb, Sharon C. Credit
Union marketing strategies and their spatial implications in Florida. Cochran, David M., Jr.“Who Will Work
the Land?” Emergent Market Economies and the Future of Shifting Cultivation
in the Mosquitia Region of Eastern Honduras. Connor, Georgeta Stoian. A
New Context for Theorizing European Integration: Bulgaria’s and
Romania’s Integration Into The European Union. Cowen, David J.A Glimpse at the Future of South Carolina: A Geographic
Perspective on Demographic and Economic Trends and Forecasts.
Crawford, Thomas W.Time-Space Characterization of Residential Sprawl
in a Coastal Setting. Crutcher, Michael E.
Your South or Mine: Contemporary Expressions of Southern
Black Identity. Curtis, Scott.
ENSO Impacts on the Climatology of Winter Extratropical Cyclones
in the Southeast U.S.
D Deck, Ben. Alternative agriculture: A case study in northeast
North Carolina. Denny, Micheala. The Politics
of Space at the Florida State University. Diem, Jeremy E.Northward
Extension of Intense Monsoonal Activity into the Southwestern United States. Dittmer, Jason.
Ian Fleming’s Jamaica: Spaces of Legitimation and the Bond-age
of Popular Culture. Dodman, David.Mixing
Methods In Montego Bay: Contrasting Findings From Constrasting Techniques. Doran, David J. , Jr.Wharves to Waterfalls: The
Geo-politics of the Massachusetts Economy. A Geographical Analysis:
1804 – 1837.
E Erlien,
C.M., C.F. Mena, and S.J. Walsh. Land Use and Land Cover
Change in and Around Protected Areas: The Case of the Cuyabeno Wildlife
Production Reserve, Ecuador.
F Foulds, Abigail.
I Want to Live in the Sun! Expatriates in the Contemporary
Global Community. Futamura, Taro.What
is Our “Local Food,” and Where Does It Come From? A Critical Examination
of Food Localism and Identities of Place In Kentucky’s County Festivals.
H Hankins, Katherine
B. Producing, Consuming, and Rescaling Community through
the Creation of a Charter School. Hartshorn, Truman A.Decentralization and Recentralization: Whither Metropolitan
Regions? Recent Evidence from Atlanta and South Florida. Head, Harlow Z.Paris Red Belt—the
Landscape of the Communist Suburbs. Herbert, Jonathan. The
Climate of Big Bend National Park, Texas. Houser, Chris,
Ian Walker, and Dilumie Abeysirigunawardena.Morphodynamics
of a Low-Amplitude Ridge on a Macrotidal Beach. Hughey, Erin P.Island
Nations and All-Hazard Planning: The Commonwealth of The Bahamas. Hu, Zhiyong.
Stochastic Modeling of Land Use Dynamics in Atlanta,
Georgia.
J Jamieson, Claire. Transformations
of the Southern Mill Village Landscape: Newry, South Carolina. Johnson, Tamara
and Linda Quiquivix.Spatial Challenges to Immigrant
Assimilation and Transnationalism Research: A case study of Dominican
immigrants in urban New York City and suburban North Carolina.
K Kalafsky, Ronald V.Transitions
in new industrial environments: the case of Charlotte manufacturers. Kar, Bandana.A GIS-Based
Suitability Model to Determine Emergency Evacuation Shelters. Keough, Sara Beth.
Definitions of Local Culture in Community Radio Broadcasts: An
Ethnographic Case Study of WDVX, Knoxville, Tennessee.
Kolivras, Korine N.Stigma and mosquito-borne disease: A case study of the 2001-2002
Hawaiian dengue outbreak. Konrad,
Charles E., II, Baker Perry and Adam Smith, II.Regional
Variations in the Synoptic Patterns associated with Warm Season Heavy Rainfall
across the Eastern United States. Kopf, J. Hybridity
in colonial East Africa.
L Laing, Craig R.
Meth in the Mountains: Methamphetamine’s Growth in Appalachia. Lannon, Heidi.
Geomorphic variability and the suitability of coastal land use, Northeast
Florida. Larsen, Soren. Negril
in the News: Content Analysis of a Contested Paradise. Leonard,
James and Sarah Brinegar. Economic Segregation and
Urban Expansion 1970-2000: A Comparative Analysis of the Metropolitan Regions
of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio. Lepofsky, Jonathan D. Territorializing the Local: The Spatial Politics of Ethics and Community
in a Complementary Currency. Leppman, Elizabeth J.
Hurricane Katrina in Political Cartoons. Ludden, Thomas
M. and Barbara B. John.The Effect of Neighborhood Schools
on Housing Values in Charlotte, NC.
M Mains, Susan P.Island
Village, Tourist World: Understanding Design, Development, and Destination
in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Martin, Jeff.Tropical
Storm Induced Tree Damage in an Urban Landscape. Matyas, Corene. Relating
Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Patterns To Storm Size. McDaniel, Paul N.
“¿Cuál es su trabajo?”: Labor Characteristics of the
Hispanic Community in Birmingham, Alabama. McGowin, Daniel.Geographic
Bias on ESPN’s SportsCenter and its Influence on Major League Baseball’s
All-Star Voting. Meentemeyer, Ross K., David M. Rizzo, Walter Mark, and Brian L. Anacker,
Early detection and estimation of the distribution of the invasive pathogen
causing Sudden Oak Death in California. Mena, Carlos F.Demographic,
Socieconomic, and Biophysical Factors Affecting Land Use and Land Cover
Change in the Northern Equadorian Amazon: Drivers, Statistical Models and
Spatial Explicit Models. Mills, Beth.The Transnational
Community as an Agent for Caribbean Development. Moore, Tyrel
G. and Gerald L. Ingalls. Old But Newsworthy:
Textile Mill Reuse In The Charlotte Urban Region, 2001-2005.
P Palis,
Joseph. Filming The National: Identity and Nationhood in Two
Filipino Films. Parnell, Darren B.
Late Spring Frost Damage Across The Southeast United States.
Perry,
Baker and Charles E. Konrad, II. Synoptic Climatology
of Northwest Flow Snowfall in the Southern Appalachians.
R Reader, Daniel B. The
Ethics of Sustainability and Globalization. Rees, Amanda.Constructing the American
West: Dude Ranching, Class, and Popular Culture 1920-1945. Rhiney, Kevon. Tourism
and its Linkage with the Local Food-Supply Network: A Case Study of Negril,
Jamaica.
U Ueland, Jeff.
An examination of recent historical trends in sea surface temperature in
the Caribbean Basin and Jamaica.
W Walcott, Susan M. Metropolitan Atlanta’s New Borders:
Pushing the Limit? Wang, Gang
and Russel Taylor. Uncertainty Analysis of A
GIS Based Hydrological Model: A Case Study for the Middle Tallapoosa River
Watershed of Alabama. Wang, Linda. The
Power of Interracial Communication: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in South Africa. Wang, Qingfang.
Earnings Effect of Ethnic Labor Market Segmentation in Multi-Racial Metropolitan
Contexts. Warf, Barney.
Political Economy of the Palm Beach County Biotechnology Research Park Weber, Joe
and Selima Sultana. A Fine Scale Analysis
of Urban Sprawl and Commuting in Alabama. Webster, Gerald R., Jerrod Bowman, Daniel McGowin, and Heath Robinson.
Research On The Political Geography Of The South, 1980-2005. Worthen, Holly.
Finding a Way: Women, Corn, and Migration in Veracruz, Mexico.
Y Yao, Xiaobai Computation
of Conditioned Network Distance.
Alderman, Derrick H. and Amy
L. Nicholson.The Writing on the Plywood:
An Analysis of Hurricane Graffiti in the Southeastern U.S.,
East Carolina University. aldermand@mail.ecu.edu.
People often paint graffiti-like messages on the plywood
used to cover windows and doors during a hurricane. The content
of these landscape inscriptions ranges from practical information to expressions
of hope, anger, and even humor. Hurricane graffiti is an under-analyzed
yet potentially useful indicator of the range of social interests, needs,
and tensions circulating within disaster-stressed communities.
The purpose of this paper is two-fold. The first purpose is to begin
establishing the analytical significance of hurricane graffiti.
We suggest that these messages represent a strategy for coping with the
social, psychological, and physical challenges of living in hurricane-stressed
areas, a means of being heard when faced with the possibility of the storm
challenging and marginalizing one’s right to claim and make place.
The second purpose of this paper is to identify the types of landscape inscriptions
made by people in the southeastern United States during the 2004 and 2005
hurricane seasons. Several specific themes are evident when analyzing
the discourse found in hurricane graffiti—history, defiance, desperation,
territoriality, intertextual humor, and prayer. Samples of graffiti
messages were drawn from news photographs taken in Florida, Alabama, and
Mississippi. More theoretical and empirical work is needed to understand
the full importance of cultural landscape expression during times of natural
hazards such as hurricanes.
Algeo, Katie. Cultivating
the Grape in a Dry Climate. Western Kentucky University.
In Wine and the Vine, Tim Unwin (1991) points out that
ideology has historically been a powerful factor in the production of
viticultural landscapes, manifesting itself, in part, through the deployment
of symbols. At the start of the twenty first century, Kentucky is
a battleground for competing ideologies in which the material reality of
vineyard and winery have very different meanings. The moral landscape
of prohibition, which for many negated Kentucky’s position as a border state
and solidified its Southern identity, is slowly giving way to a new landscape,
a landscape of agrotourism and restaurant-retail complexes, a landscape
in which economic development is the ideological imperative. That
transformation is partial and frequently contested. Change and resistance
are enacted at several scales -- state, county, and community. The
purpose of this paper is to map the shifting moral landscape of viticulture
in Kentucky and to identify agents and structures associated with that transition.
By delineating the components of change, we may reach a better understand
the workings of ideology on the landscape.
Aycock, William
C. and Yong Wang.Study of citizen drainage
complaints using the 100-year flood zones of the flood maps and stream buffers
outside the flood zones, Wilson City, North Carolina. waycock@wilsonnc.org,
City of Wilson, NC 27984. wangy@mail.ecu.edu, Dept. of Geography,
East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858
In November 2004 the new Digital Flood Insurance
Rate Maps (DFIRMs) that replace the original flood insurance rate maps
(FIRMs) became official for the City of Wilson, North Carolina. The DFIRMs
are the products of the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program (http://www.floodmaps.com).
In a study conducted prior to the DFIRMs becoming official, Aycock and
Wang (2004) compared records of flooding from past events to both the
DFIRMs and FIRMs, and they found that the new maps did improve the identification
of flooded parcels and intersections, but not significantly so. This paper
seeks to further the analysis of the new as well as old flood maps and
three sets of buffer zones along streams by comparing citizen drainage
complaints that flooding occurs at his/her property. The buffers are outside
the 100-year flood zones of the DFIRMs, are derived from the USGS 1:24,000
hydrology digital line graphs, the NRCS soil survey maps, and the modeling
results from the ESRI’s Arc Hydro Tools, respectively. The objectives are
to determine if the DFIRMs and buffers can do a better job of identifying
areas prone to drainage related problems, and to answer whether the DFIRMs
and buffers are a useful tool for predicting drainage complaints. If so,
one can use them to devise mitigation strategies for easing/solving drainage
problems in the City of Wilson in the future.
Bacon,
Michael1 and James Fraser2.
Examining Neighborhood Revitalization and Crime:
Using Cluster Detection Techniques to Analyze Shifts in Crime Patterns.
1Department of Geography, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. 2Center for Urban and Regional Studies,
Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The federal Hope VI public housing and neighborhood
revitalization program has been responsible for the demolition of decades
old public housing complexes in many US cities, providing funds for rebuilding
the surrounding neighborhoods with a mix of subsidized housing with market
rate housing. While a major goal of this initiative is to decrease
crime by breaking up concentrations of families with low income, it is unclear
whether observed reductions in localized crime represent real reductions
or merely a displacement of crime to other areas of the city. We use
the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic to explore trends in police reported robbery
data between 2002 and 2004 in central Durham, NC. In a report
of work in progress, we find some evidence for displacement hypothesis of
crime. However, limitations of the analytical capabilities of the Gi*
statistic will require further analysis to draw stronger conclusions.
Barker, David1
and Clinton Beckford. Yam farming and the
yam stick problem in Jamaica: the role of farmers' indigenous knowledge
in the search for sustainable solutions. 1Department
of Geography & Geology, University of the West Indies, Mona campus,
Kingston, Jamaica. 2Faculty of Education, University
of Windsor, Windsor, Canada.
Over the last 20 years, the production of yams
by small farmers in central Jamaica has increased significantly. But expanded
and intensified commercial production has created a yam stick problem that
threatens the economic viability of yam farming, and has put pressure on
the world renowned Cockpit Country, a wet limestone rainforest which is slated
to become a National Park. Yam stick saplings, between three and six metres
in height, are used traditionally by small farmers to support the aerial
biomass of the yam vine. The yam stick problem, as defined by farmers, refers
to the increasing scarcity, poor quality and high prices of the sticks they
use to stake yam hills. We estimate that over 40 million sticks are cut
annually from Jamaica’s depleted forests, and sold to farmers through an
informal commercial trade. By working with small farmers, we have explored
a number of alternatives to the traditional yam stick method of cultivation,
including the non-adoption of new technology (mini-sett yams) and the possibility
of manufacturing plastic yam sticks. Farmers’ ability to evaluate these
alternatives for themselves clearly demonstrates the importance of their
indigenous knowledge, and underscores the need to involve them intimately
in the search for workable and practical solutions that are economically
viable and environmentally sustainable.
Bell, Thomas L.Place and Popular Culture in Selected Works of Playwright
Neil LaBute. Department of Geography, University
of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0925.
Media critics have described LaBute as the new
Edward Albee of theater for his unflinching exposure of evil, hypocrisy,
and ennui in modern American life. His plays are sometimes difficult
to watch because of their shocking and unexpected conclusions. They are
also difficult to analyze geographically until you realize that placeless,
generic landscapes can be archetypes for universal cultural truths. Characters
in LaBute’s plays often revert to popular culture references as a common
denominator in their interpersonal conversations rather than directly
confronting the emptiness of their lives. Aspects of popular culture
are used to expose the gap between rich and poor, black and white, and
especially between male and female. LaBute has been accused of being a
misogynist because of the cruelty shown to women in some of his plays.
But he is, in reality, an equal opportunity offender.
Berry, M. Victoria.
Potential Contributions of Amerindians to Caribbean Folk Medicine.
Department of Social Sciences, Winston-Salem State
University.
This presentation is a shorter version of the
article published in the Special Edition of the Southeastern Geographer
Fall 2005. That article is an initial examination of possible Amerindian
contributions to West Indian folk medicine using Montserrat as a case study.
Montserratian folk medicine is compared with Dominican Carib, a surrogate
for Amerindian data. Despite limitations in the comparison, the data suggest
that perhaps 15 percent of the Montserratian pharmacopoeia may derive
from Amerindian sources. It calls for particular searching of Spanish,
French, and Dutch historical documents in sorting out cultural information.
It suggests “repeat ethnobotanies” be used to document and analyze culture
change, especially in an ever increasing age of globalization and commodification
of knowledge, as seen in the evolving debates of intellectual property.
Birdsall, Stephen S.Collective Memory and Memorial Landscapes: Scenes from
America’s High Plains. University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.
Memories are not easily defined and yet are essential
to personal survival and social cohesion. Personalized and culture-specific
memorials are landscape expressions of the wish to sustain a memory or
to create an image that will nourish collective memory. The idea of a
memorial as a marker of legendary collective memory is questioned. To
what extent is a constructed memorial the receptacle from which to draw
remembered images of the past and to what extent is it an expression of
a desired future? The landscape context and symbolism of the Crazy Horse
memorial sculpture in South Dakota’s Black Hills is examined as an example
of collective memory still under construction.
Blackden, Chris.The WTO as a Quasi-State. University of
Kentucky
The emergence of multilateral institutions of
global governance like the WTO complicates traditional understandings of
the state. Such bodies do not fit into the package of the Westphalian
nation state, where sovereignty and territory neatly correspond.
Nor is the conventional neoliberal view that the nation state is withdrawing
to make way for the operation of ‘natural’ market-forces adequate to explain
contemporary circumstances. If we replace the notion of the state
as mutually exclusive and territorially-contained, with a view of the
state as a shared abstraction that coordinates power relationships, then
we can conceive of the WTO as an emerging quasi-state, whose power overlaps
without replacing the power of the states that compose it.
Bowen, Dawn S.Race,
Residence and Mobility in Richmond, Virginia: 1900 – 1930.
University of Mary Washington.
Racial transformation of neighborhoods, particularly
those in the center city, has been a long standing phenomena and one
that is largely taken for granted. Few studies, however, have sought
to document that change at the block level. This paper, an outgrowth
of a larger project on African American neighborhood formation in Richmond,
Virginia, uses manuscript census information for a 15 block sample area
to illustrate the process of change during the first three decades of the
twentieth century. It demonstrates that there was a slow outward movement
from a concentrated core of black residence into blocks that had been occupied
by whites. This detailed analysis also shows that the shift was not
limited simply to race, but involved significant changes in residents’
socio-economic status.
Carr, Edward R. Losing
the Local in Postdevelopment. Department of Geography,
University of South Carolina, carr@sc.edu
In this paper I consider the ways in which the
despairing character of postdevelopment is tied to a general failure
to consider the local within this framework. This “loss of the
local” is a product of postdevelopment’s reading of Foucauldian power,
a reading that conflates two disparate concepts, biopower and sovereign
power. This conflation puts postdevelopment on uneasy ground when
approaching a “local” that is assumed powerless. By failing to discuss
the relationships and institutions of the developing themselves, postdevelopment
hinders the consideration of alternatives to development, and enhances
the dichotomy between development studies and postdevelopment.
Chapman, Thomas
and Jonathan Leib. Political Geographies Of
Same-Sex Marriage In Georgia. Florida State University,
Tallahassee, FL 32306-2190, Tec03c@garnet.acns.fsu.edu and
jleib@fsu.edu
In 2004, eleven states across the U.S. held and
approved statewide referenda to codify the definition of marriage as the
union of one man and one woman into state constitutions. Of the states,
the most lopsided results were found in the U.S. South. In this presentation,
we examine the vote in one of these states, Georgia. The debate
over writing this definition of marriage into the state’s constitution
was intense in Georgia in 2004; first in the Spring during the state legislative
session, and then in the Fall when the issue went before Georgia’s voters.
We begin with background on the issue of same-sex
marriage votes in the U.S. After a brief literature review, the remainder
of the paper examines the same-sex marriage issue in Georgia. We
first discuss the same-sex marriage debate as it played out in the Georgia
state legislature. We then provide a preliminary analysis of the geography
of the votes over the issue in the state, examining both the statewide
referendum and the vote in the state House of Representatives. The
issue of same-sex marriage in Georgia takes on a spatiality of cultural
politics tied to the state's historical and geographical development,
and in which the ongoing "culture wars" in the state (and elsewhere) clearly
play a leading role.
Chapura, Mitch.
Hunger, Hope and Hubris: The Green Revolution and Current Debates
on Agricultural Biotechnology. The University of Georgia.
Contemporary debate surrounding the impacts of
agricultural biotechnology is often framed as a conflict between the
goals of reducing global malnutrition and preserving the ecological integrity
of agricultural systems. Through an examination of the Green Revolution
this paper challenges the underlying Malthusian assumptions upon which
the first half of this dichotomy is premised. Failure to consider
the socio-economic contexts into which new agricultural technologies and
practices are introduced, it is argued, may yield a counterintuitive situation
in which increasing agricultural production exacerbates, rather than alleviates,
existing rates of malnutrition.
Cobb, Sharon C.Credit Union marketing strategies and their spatial implications
in Florida. University of North Florida.
Social scientists have largely neglected research
addressing the Credit Union industry with most contributions to the literature
coming from those in the disciplines of banking and finance. This paper
will explore strategies employed by the CU sector in Florida to further
increase customer base. CUs are different from more traditional banks because
of their not-for-profit tax-exempt status facilitating lower costs of operation,
translating to higher interest rates for savers and lower rates for borrowers.
Based upon preliminary evidence from a small case study in Florida that
identified the practice of charter conversion as a possible marketing strategy
for growth, this paper will further analyze the phenomenon of charter conversion
by documenting evidence of such practice throughout the state. For
CUs, regulatory approval is needed not only to legitimize the type of financial
product sold, but also can be used to legitimize the geographical extent
over which the institution can operate. Importantly, federal-to-state charter
conversions provide a strategy for growth because state regulations maybe
interpreted more broadly than federal guidelines and the cost of state
chartering is less.
Cochran, David M., Jr.“Who Will Work the Land?” Emergent Market Economies
and the Future of Shifting Cultivation in the Mosquitia Region of Eastern
Honduras. Department of Geography and Geology, University
of Southern Mississippi.
This paper is based on research conducted on
the middle Río Patuca in the Mosquitia of eastern Honduras.
It provides a look at how shifting cultivation performs in relation to
nonagricultural activities in a rapidly changing tropical frontier with
an emergent market economy. Subsistence activities remain central
elements of life in the study area, but cash earning is also important
and is growing at the expense of shifting cultivation and other customary
land use activities. In fact, households that rely on land-based
subsistence were among the least affluent in terms of cash income.
By contrast, households specializing in civil and professional activities
form the upper socioeconomic tiers of the study area. Young adults
are better educated, proportionally more involved in civil and professional
occupations than their elders, and increasingly turning away from subsistence
work. If nonagricultural, cash-earning activities become more prevalent
in the study area, shifting cultivation may experience long-term declines
as greater proportions of the population pursue more lucrative, nonagricultural
cash opportunities.
Connor, Georgeta Stoian.
A New Context for Theorizing European Integration:
Bulgaria’s and Romania’s Integration Into The European Union. University
of Georgia.
The idea for this paper resides in a puzzle:
Why were Bulgaria and Romania excluded from the first wave of Central
and Eastern European countries’ integration into the European Union (EU)?
The answer has to be found in an understanding of the European integration
process and the recent politics of the EU toward the former communist countries
after the 1989 democratic revolutions. The purpose of this study is
to explore and understand the puzzle raised by the Eastern enlargement
of the EU, focusing on the failure of Bulgaria’s and Romania’s integration
into the EU in 2004. More specifically, the study surveys the complex
conceptual issues and scholarly debates regarding the process of European
integration, the enlargement to the East especially, putting forward a
theoretical argument that explains this puzzle. In offering these
explanations, my analysis rests on several political theories, particularly
liberal intergovernmentalism and sociological institutionalism, considered
the most significant approaches to economic and political integration.
KEY WORDS: Bulgaria, Romania, European Union, Eastern
enlargement, integration failure, political theories
Cowen, David J.A Glimpse at the Future of South Carolina: A Geographic
Perspective on Demographic and Economic Trends and Forecasts.
Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Columbia,
SC 29208, Cowend@sc.edu.
This paper presents an in depth analysis of demographic
and economic trends and forecasts that are likely to impact the future
of South Carolina. This research was prepared for the South Carolina
Education Oversight Committee as part of a major long range planning session
known as Common Ground. The research utilizes forecasts from the
Bureau of the Census, the Department of Labor Statistics, the National
Center for Educational Statistics and several state agencies to identify
the significant changes that will reshape the future landscape of South
Carolina. Significant changes in the age distribution and employment
opportunities are linked to dramatic changes in the geographic distribution
of the population and labor force. Of particular importance is the fact
that there will be a 28% increase in population between 2000 and 2030 while
the proportion of the population 65 and older will increase from 12.1 %
to 22%. The predicted loss of 8,600 manufacturing jobs before
2010 will be off set by substantial increases in jobs in the service sector.
Consequently, these changes are likely to have a pronounced impact on public
school enrollment and challenge the public education system that has the
lowest high school graduation rate in the nation.
Crawford, Thomas W.Time-Space Characterization of Residential Sprawl in a
Coastal Setting. Department of Geography, East Carolina
University.
Coastal population growth and landscape change
impact coastal ecosystems and communities in various ways. Recently,
attention has focused on the issue of coastal sprawl, a subset of the more
general concept of sprawl. This research uses a GIS approach to extend
prior urban sprawl metrics to New Hanover County, North Carolina.
If coastal sprawl is somehow distinct from sprawl in general, then time-space
signatures should differ for regions defined along a least coastal to most
coastal gradient. Results for metrics over the period 1970-2000 at
five year increments showed non-linearly dynamic signatures. Least
coastal regions were the least sprawling. Transitional regions located
intermediate between the coast and interior were the most sprawling.
This approach enables research to distinguish specifically coastal patterns
of sprawl and offers the potential to link them to policy processes.
Crutcher, Michael E.Your South or Mine: Contemporary Expressions of Southern
Black Identity. University of Kentucky.
After generations of living in the
Southern United States, contributing heavily to its culture and economy,
African Americans in the twentieth century had little claim to a Southern
identity. The concept of southern-ness was strictly policed by whites
who used historical memory to equate Southern-ness with lost cause ideology.
African Americans themselves often reveled in their southern culture only
to reluctantly claim the region as a marker of identity. In the past
three decades however, African Americans have increasingly adopted a positive
Southern identity, in part based on a return migration to the South from
other areas. This paper reviews the reasons for African American’s
odd relationship to the concept of Southern-ness and looks to Appalachian
Blackness to illustrate the specific problems of regional black identity
in Kentucky.
Curtis, Scott.ENSO
Impacts on the Climatology of Winter Extratropical Cyclones in the Southeast
U.S. East Carolina University, Department of Geography.
An investigation of extratropical storms in the
southeastern U.S. and adjacent waters of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic
Ocean over the winter half-year (November to April) from 1961 to 1998
reveals a March peak in observations. During El Niño events
the peak in population shifts to February, and a large number of intense
storms are observed. Also, during El Niño events there are three
hot spots of equally favored extratropical cyclogenesis east of the Rockies
– near the Oklahoma panhandle, the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico,
and off the coast of North Carolina. During La Niña and Neutral
winters, cyclogenesis primarily occurs in just the first geographical region.
No significant trend in storm observations was found in the 38-yr record.
Deck, Ben. Alternative
agriculture: A case study in northeast North Carolina. Department
of Geography, East Carolina University.
Globalizing economic trends have put pressure
on farmers in the U.S., and a common competitive rationale calls for maximizing
yields and efficiency – a trend leading to ever-larger farms employing
intense industrial techniques. Uli Bennewitz came to the U.S. in 1980 to
manage large-scale farming operations, which he continues to do today, but
his heart, he said, has always been closer to natural foods and small family
farms. The efficiency of large-scale operations comes at a health costs, and
the lion's share of the profits from such efficiencies do not find their way
to the producer. Bennewitz is currently seeking to employ his philosophy of
smaller, natural-based – although not necessarily organic – farms to create
an economically viable application. In this paper I intend to explore Bennewitz'
methodology in order to determine which practices he has found to be economically
viable – particularly the niche he sees his model filling in the marketplace;
whether his model includes requires consumers to break from the dominant
supermarket paradigm; and the connection he sees between the farm and the
marketplace.
Denny, Micheala. The
Politics of Space at the Florida State University. Florida
State University.
This paper analyzes a case study that has been
conducted the Florida State University Women’s Center (FSU WC) in Tallahassee,
Florida. It is argued that the FSU WC is a space comprised of complex
social interactions that produce social-geographical boundaries.
Further, it is argued that these boundaries require that analysis go beyond
constructions of the formal/informal and public/private spheres to reconceptualize
what activities are considered political.
Diem, Jeremy E. Northward
Extension of Intense Monsoonal Activity into the Southwestern United States.
Georgia State University.
Although it is centered in northwestern Mexico,
the Mexican monsoon also has been shown to impact portions of the southwestern
United States. To provide more information about the spatial distribution
of monsoonal impacts in the Southwest, this study employed multiple linear
regression modeling to reduce local topographic impacts on monsoonal precipitation
to reveal intense monsoonal activity within the Gila River basin.
The precipitation data were daily precipitation totals from 115 stations
from June 16-September 15 of 1996-2002. An intense monsoonal zone
was found in the south-central portion of the basin. Therefore, intense
monsoonal activity associated with the Sierra Madre Occidental in northwestern
Mexico extended into south-central and southeastern Arizona but not into
New Mexico.
Dittmer, Jason.
Ian Fleming’s Jamaica: Spaces of Legitimation and the Bond-age of
Popular Culture. Georgia Southern University.
This paper seeks to draw out the connections between
popular culture and the geographic imagination. This is accomplished
through an analysis of representations of Jamaica within the frames of
the James Bond comic strips run in the UK’s Daily Express newspaper from
1958-1977. These comic strips helped British readers to reference
a geopolitical framework in which Britain’s Great Power status was not in
decline and in which Britain’s geopolitical actors (like Bond) are mobile
across the globe. This inflation of British prestige occurs relationally,
with Jamaica portrayed as reciprocally dependent on British tutelage and
racially ‘othered’. The paper concludes with a discussion of the connections
between geopolitical visions and tourist landscapes, with the material ramifications
of the representations of Jamaica as a playground of James Bond explored
as a basis for that juxtaposition. Key words: Comic strips, Jamaica, national identity,
popular geopolitics, James Bond
Dodman, David. Mixing
Methods In Montego Bay: Contrasting Findings From Constrasting Techniques.Department of Geography and Geology, Univ. West Indies,
Mona, Kingston 7, Jamaica, Tel: (876) 927-2129, david.dodman@uwimona.edu.jm
The city of Montego Bay is the largest urban centre
on Jamaica’s north coast with a population of approximately 100,000. The
city is Jamaica’s main tourist destination, and has undergone several decades
of rapid population and economic growth. However, many of the city’s residents
have not received the benefits of this process, as the city’s population
has outstripped its housing and infrastructural resources.
In this paper, I discuss the process of conducting
a large socio-economic and environmental survey of Montego Bay’s inner-city
communities. Rather than focussing on the results of this survey, I focus
on the methodology involved, which involved training community residents
as researchers and a combined sensitisation and research exercise. Traditional
quantitative methodologies were used alongside techniques borrowed from
participatory rapid appraisal, and presented contrasting yet complementary
visions of the challenges facing the city and its communities. The strengths
and weaknesses of these methodologies are assessed in order to shed light
on the practical and philosophical aspects of conducting geographical and
social research in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean.
Doran, David J. , Jr.
Wharves to Waterfalls: The Geo-politics of the Massachusetts
Economy. A Geographical Analysis: 1804 – 1837. Georgia
State University.
This research maps location and flows between
ports of the North Atlantic basin and the interior of Massachusetts, from
1804 - 1837. The oceans were boundary-less, connecting people globally
through the diffusion of commerce, information, and technology. The major
research question concerns the transition of capital investment from coastal
shipping to textile manufacturing in the Massachusetts hinterland. The
objective of this research is to examine how the political economy of the
infant North American republic, during the golden age of shipping, acted
as the catalyst to launch the United States into the Industrial Revolution.
Vance's mercantile model explains the role of the Massachusetts merchants
from Boston, Newburyport and Salem and their global linkages in the early
19th century world system. This research demonstrates how Massachusetts
Bay merchants transformed the U. S. economy from mercantilism to early
industrialization and urbanization, despite the congressional legislation
that favored sectionalism and devastated the coastal economy of the region.
Boston emerged as the primate city of New England in 1835 with the nation’s
first hub-and-spoke railroad network, which connected Boston’s CBD to the
industrial satellite cities of Lowell, Providence, and Worcester.
Methodology: This research includes academic texts
and articles by historical geographers along with on-site research in the
archives of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. The Phillips
Library at the PEM contained the East India Marine Society Papers (1790-1959),
which included shiplogs, family genealogy, and newspapers. Key Words: Mercantilism, Industrialization,
Federalist Era
Erlien,
C.M., C.F. Mena, and S.J. Walsh. Land Use and Land Cover Change
in and Around Protected Areas: The Case of the Cuyabeno Wildlife
Production Reserve, Ecuador.
Development and land use/landcover (LULC) change
have altered the landscape in and around the Cuyabeno Wildlife Production
Reserve in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. The Reserve today covers approximately
600,000 hectares and is home to many endemic plants and animals as well
as multiple indigenous groups, including the Cofán, Siona, Secoya,
Quichua, and Shuar. This study examines LULC change in and around the Reserve
for the period 1986-2002, drawing upon national census data and a satellite
image time-series. Changes in land tenure regimes, settlement patterns and
population characteristics, as well as petroleum exploration and production
influence LULC patterns within and adjacent to the Reserve.
Foulds, Abigail. I
Want to Live in the Sun! Expatriates in the Contemporary Global Community.
University of Kentucky.
Many people are choosing to live abroad for a
variety of reasons today and in this paper, I seek to provide a survey
of the current state of expatriates in the globalized world. Although
expatriates are a growing segment of international migration, they are
largely ignored. Just who is an expatriate remains problematic.
While there is growing research examining retirees who migrate internationally,
as well as significant research focusing on the differences between tourists
and residents, the term “expatriate” is rarely addressed in these studies.
In this paper, I define who is and is not an expatriate, and I address
some of the commonalities and differences of lifestyle choices and migration
motivations among the heterogeneous group. There is a rapidly growing
expatriate community moving to the third world who require further analysis
as there is little research examining this community. This paper
seeks to offer an introduction to this burgeoning and potentially influential
group. Keywords: expatriates, tourism, globalization,
migration
Futamura, Taro. What
is Our “Local Food,” and Where Does It Come From? A Critical Examination
of Food Localism and Identities of Place In Kentucky’s County Festivals.
University of Kentucky.
This paper examines representations of localism
in the branding of Kentucky food products. The term "localism" is used
to describe producers' and consumers' preference for "local" scale production
and consumption over a larger scale such as "national" or "global." Since
the collapse of tobacco-based agricultural economies, several agencies
such as the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, non-profit organizations,
farm producers and consumers have sought alternative products to establish
profitable production systems. Meanwhile, for decades many counties in Kentucky
have facilitated various county fairs and festivals, some of which involve
utilizing products that are grown in their own counties. My observations
and personal interviews have shown, however, that theme food products sold
and consumed in county festivals are not necessarily derived from the county
or even the state. I argue that county festivals are the ideal measurement
to consider the identity of place and the opportunity to practice localism.
In the case of Kentucky, however, promoting localism of food and agriculture
as to expand direct sales will be critical to supplement the post-tobacco
agricultural economy.
Gamble, Douglas W. Spatial
Analysis of the Caribbean Mid-Summer Drought.
Department of Earth Sciences, UNC Wilmington.
Annual rainfall in the Caribbean region exhibits
a bimodal structure with two rainfall maxima (May-June and September-October)
separated by what has been termed as a ‘mid-summer’ drought (MSD).
The cause of the MSD in the region has been somewhat of an enigma with few
studies detailing the reasons for the variability. The purpose of
this research is to better understand the Caribbean MSD through analysis
of the timing and magnitude of March-October precipitation across the Caribbean.
A principal component analysis identifies five MSD regions, the Northwestern
Caribbean, the Central Caribbean, the Periphery Caribbean, Coastal Columbia,
and Barbados. A review of the month of MSD occurrence suggests that
the Bermuda High may be linked to the timing of the Caribbean MSD.
Specifically, it is hypothesized that the high pressure cell expands into
the region in early spring causing a decrease in rainfall through stronger
trade winds, cooler SSTs, and general subsidence in the eastern and central
portion of the Caribbean and then in July its expansion begins to influence
the northeastern Caribbean. Future research will assess the timing
of the MSD with daily precipitation data and correlate atmospheric pressure
and precipitation to test the validity of the Bermuda High hypothesis.
Graves, William
and Stuart Hair. Money, Regulation
and Information: Identifying the New Geography of Modern Banks.
UNC Charlotte, Department of Geography and Earth Sciences.
Geographically generated information asymmetries
have long been viewed as a primary constraint on the location of financial
firms. The deregulation of the banking industry provides a unique opportunity
to examine the importance of information availability in industry restructuring.
Data on the income generated from retail and investment business segments
was gathered for a sample of regional and money center banks from annual
reports. Previous studies of the role of information in finance suggest
that the banks which are the most distant from financial markets will be
disadvantaged in the competition for investment banking opportunities and
are expected to generate smaller portions of their total revenues from investment
activities. This relationship, coupled with the changing competitive landscape
of retail bank activities (e.g. increasing competition from mortgage brokers
and underwriters, brokerage firms etc.) will provide insight into the future
viability of the regional banking industry.
Gray, Charles
Alan, II and Dr. Seth Appiah-Opoku. Culture
and Natural Resource Exploitation in Ghana: Observations from Alabama in
Ghana Summer Abroad Trip. University of Alabama, Department
of Geography.
This paper discusses how Ghanaian cultural values
influence environmental discourses in the country. It is based on
observations made when our university participated in a summer abroad field
studies in Ghana during the summer of 2005. It focuses on mining
and timber operations in the country. The findings and recommendations
are from the perspectives of an American student; and join the chorus against
Ghana’s heavy reliance on the outside world for solutions to the myriad
socioeconomic problems confronting the country. It is the thesis of this
paper that the extent to which Ghana’s natural resources such as gold and
timber are being extracted and transported out of country is not beneficial
to Ghanaians as a whole. The paper concludes with suggestions to the
people of Ghana.
Greene, Richard P. Job
Growth Trends in the Employment Centers of Los Angeles: 1990 to 2000.
Department of Geography, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115
(rgreene@niu.edu)
In a previous study, 120 job centers were defined
for the Los Angeles metropolitan area using the ratio of employment to
resident workers (E/R ratio), reflecting the balance of workers and jobs.
An advantage of the E/R ratio is that it emphasizes in-commuting to job
centers which is important for capturing job centers like airports and
suburban industrial parks having a lot of land that are often missed with
the job-density measure. This paper will update the previous study
which used 1990 geography and commuting data. The 2000 commuting data
will allow for a comparison of the trends in the growth of these job centers
over an interesting decade in the evolution of edge cities. In addition,
the comparison of 1990 and 2000 Los Angeles job centers with consistent definitions
will allow for a systematic and empirical analysis of the changing urban
structure of this city, much more so than the analysis that has been introduced
in postmodern terms by the LA School of urban studies.
Gregg, Kelly
D. and Jami Hill. The Jacobs Brothers - Jewish Merchants on
the Arizona frontier: A study in the geography of transportation.
Jacksonville State University, Alabama
A variety of primary documents
were used to study the business ventures of Lionel and Barron Jacobs, two
young Jewish merchants who in 1867 opened a general merchandise store in
Tucson, Arizona. Transportation geography dictated a choice of three
different routes by which retail goods could reach Tucson, depending on
variables such as cost, speed, location of trailheads or railroad terminals,
danger from bandits or Apaches, and problems with Mexican customs officials.
Regardless of how goods arrived, letters and invoices demonstrate that life
on this frontier was rarely as exciting as portrayed in the media, instead
focusing on the mundane necessities of everyday life. The approach
of the railroad in the late 1870s prompted the brothers to abandon retailing
and to focus on the trading of various forms of exchange. Overcoming
the financial isolation of the frontier by utilizing the transportation
links they had created for their retail business, they become very successful
money-traders, eventually opening the first Bank in southern Arizona in
1879.
Gripshover, Margaret
M. The Tale of the Dragon: How US 129 Went to Wheelie Hell.Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville,
TN 37996-0925.
The portion of US 129 that runs through Tennessee
and North Carolina that is known to motorcyclists as, “The Dragon,” is
a unique cultural and economic landscape. Motorcyclists and sports
car enthusiasts from around the world converge on this stretch of road that
offers 318 curves over 11 miles of a narrow, mountainous two-lane U.S. highway.
The Dragon has been portrayed on maps that draw from the cultural and physical
landscape as well as from motorcycle culture itself. What is most
unique and the focus of this paper is how the cartographers have created
their own interpretation of the landscape by applying place names to various
points along the Dragon route. This paper analyzes the place names
found on the “Tail of the Dragon,” map, their meaning and significance. Keywords: place names, US 129,
The Dragon, cartography, Tennessee, North Carolina
Hankins, Katherine B.
Producing, Consuming, and Rescaling Community through the Creation
of a Charter School. Department of Geography, University
of Georgia, Athens. khankins@uga.edu
Using the case study of the creation of a charter
school in Atlanta, Georgia, this paper examines the link between state
restructuring and new spaces for community activism and identity.
“Community” is used strategically in charter school legislation at the state
and Atlanta school-district levels to mean a variety of different groups
and identities. Furthermore, archival data and interviews with charter-school
activists reveal that the operationalization of community can be fraught
with social and territorial conflict—particularly in a gentrifying neighborhood
with complicated class and racial dynamics. This case study exposes
complexities around social and territorial identities that are linked to
the practice of community—community that is simultaneously tasked to and
embraced by local actors in a neoliberalizing state.
Hartshorn, Truman A. Decentralization
and Recentralization: Whither Metropolitan Regions? Recent
Evidence from Atlanta and South Florida. Georgia State
University.
While population and employment decentralization
has transformed metropolitan areas from a single centered region at the
end of WW II to a polycentric edge city form in the 1970s and 1980s area
and more recently to an edgeless city form, it appears that recentralization
fueled by the back to the city movement is gaining momentum. Recent evidence
is reported here on trends in metropolitan Atlanta and South Florida. It
appears that two-thirds of metropolitan employment now exists in edgeless
locations. Higher energy costs and traffic congestion are fueling the
back to the city movement while the car culture continues to create more
decentralization.
Head, Harlow Z. Paris
Red Belt—the Landscape of the Communist Suburbs. Barton
College
The three La Petite Departments surrounding the
city of Paris have sections where the Parti Communiste Francais (PCF)
has traditionally been strong. The term “Red Belt” was applied to
this area as early as 1927. As Communist support has declined in
most of Europe and in much of France the suburbs of Paris elected a total
of eight Communist deputies to the Assemblée Nationale in the 2002
legislative elections. The same area provided support much above
the national average to the Communist candidate for President of France
in the 2002 election. The Red Belt also voted strongly against ratification
of European Union constitution in May 2005. A visitor to this area
will note that most of the cultural features in the landscape are similar
to what is found in rest of France. The main feature that visually
distinguishes the Red Belt suburbs is the naming of the streets. Many
of the major streets area named after figures such as Vladimir Lenin, Maurice
Thorez, Gabriel Peri, et al.
Herbert, Jonathan. The
Climate of Big Bend National Park, Texas. Physical
and Earth Sciences, Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville,
AL 36265, E-mail: jherbert@jsu.edu
Big Bend National Park, Texas, has a varied physical
geography and climate. The area was first surveyed in the 1840s and
the National Park created in the 1940s. The park has 5 weather stations,
with varying periods of record. This article summarizes the climate of the
park for the first time using monthly climate normal data, and uses regression
analysis on monthly time series data to detect and describe recent climate
change. Keywords: Texas, Trans-Pecos, Big Bend National
Park, Climate.
Houser, Chris1,
Ian Walker2, and Dilumie Abeysirigunawardena2.
Morphodynamics of a Low-Amplitude Ridge on a Macrotidal Beach. 1Department of Environmental Studies, University of West
Florida, 11000 University Parkway, Pensacola, Florida, 32514 2Department of Geography, University of Victoria, PO Box
3050, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8W 3P5
Suspended sediment transport and morphological changes of a low-amplitude
ridge on a macrotidal beach were examined over a range of incident wave
conditions. The magnitude and direction of suspended sediment transport
varied with the ratio of the significant wave height to the water depth
(Hs h-1), with the transition between onshore and offshore transport associated
with the breaking of the significant wave (Hs h-1»0.3). Landward
of the breakpoint (Hs h-1>0.3), sediment transport is directed offshore
by a combination of mean currents (undertow) and gravity waves. Seaward
of the breakpoint (Hs h-1<0.3), sediment transport is onshore at gravity
wave frequencies, but the ridge does not migrate landward. The stability
of the bar appears to be controlled by the transport of sediment alongshore
in the troughs and offshore transport by mean currents under more dissipative
conditions. It is concluded that ridge and runnels are morphodynamically
different than swash bars due to the presence of subtidal bars (in the
latter) to attenuate incident wave energy.
Hughey, Erin P. Island
Nations and All-Hazard Planning: The Commonwealth of The Bahamas.
University of South Florida.
This research examines the effectiveness of all-hazard
planning strategies for the Islands of The Bahamas. While there is an extensive
literature on hazard planning approaches, gaps exist with regards to the
most effective hazard planning strategies for island nations. This
case study documents and analyzes the planning process from development and
training through implementation and testing. Research was undertaken
in The Bahamas over a four year period from 2002 through 2005, and is ongoing.
Throughout the planning process both hazard specific and all-hazard planning
theories were considered in an attempt to create an emergency management
structure that would best meet the nation’s needs. The model was tested
during Hurricanes Isabel (2003), Frances and Jeanne (2004). Research findings
indicate that the all-hazard planning approaches helped to create a coordinated
disaster management structure which improved national response capabilities.
Further research is necessary to test the model under different conditions
and in different political systems. This research has lead to
the development of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA); a national
emergency management structure which links all the islands of The Bahamas
under a central agency for disaster planning, training, response and recovery.
Hu, Zhiyong. Stochastic
Modeling of Land Use Dynamics in Atlanta, Georgia. Department
of Environmental Studies, University of West Florida.
This paper presents a method that combines satellite
remote sensing, GIS, and Markov chain modeling to characterize spatio-temporal
changes in land uses and to predict the quantities of land uses in the
future in the Atlanta metropolitan region. Bi-temporal Landsat TM images
(1987 and 1997) were classified into urban, bare land, cropland or grassland,
forest, and water using the Support Vector Machine algorithm. Land use map
overall accuracies are 89.98% and 90.26% for the 1987 and 1997 maps respectively.
Post-classification comparison of the two maps revealed that vast amount
of urban growth was found at the expense of forest, cropland or grassland,
and open space. Urban area had increased by 34.81% from 3345.40 km2 to 4509.83
km2. The most dramatic land use change was deforestation for urban development.
Forest area had decreased by 10.62% from 9217.04 km2 to 8238.28 km2. The
Markov chain analysis predicted that urban growth will continue at the
expense of forest, cropland and grassland. The proportion of urban area
was 20.93% in 1987 and will increase to 35.45% in 2020, while forest will
decrease from 57.67% to 43.64%. Findings are useful for the guiding of
decision making in the management of the land resources in the region.
Jamieson, Claire.Transformations of the Southern Mill Village Landscape: Newry,
South Carolina. University of Tennessee.
The Case of Newry, South Carolina, demonstrates
how watersheds in the history of the Southern textile industry formed
and transformed mill villages in the region. First, in the 1880s
through the 1920s, early mills constructed villages as if housing was
as integral to milling operations as looms. In the 1940s and 1950s,
the mills relinquished paternalistic control of the villages and sold
the homes to residents. The villages were henceforth open to change.
Today, recent mill closures worry South Carolinians who fear that the
villages will become ghost towns. Newry weathered its 1975 closure,
has transformed into a bedroom community, and gives hope to many observers.
Johnson, Tamara
and Linda Quiquivix. Spatial Challenges to Immigrant Assimilation
and Transnationalism Research: A case study of Dominican immigrants
in urban New York City and suburban North Carolina. Geography
Department, UNC Chapel Hill.
Spatial assimilation theory predicts that as immigrants
and their descendants living in segregated ethnic enclaves move up the
socioeconomic ladder, they will chose to move away from the enclave and
will quickly acculturate into “mainstream” American society. Currently challenging
assimilation is the phenomena of transnationalism: the economic, political,
and social set of practices immigrants continue to engage in, in their
countries of origin although physically living in the U.S. Current
settlement patterns among new immigrants into the United States show that
many immigrants are now moving into suburban areas upon initial arrival.
Will this spatial settlement change cause today’s immigrants to assimilate
into mainstream American lifestyles more quickly, thus impeding the transnational
practices flourishing inside the country’s ethnic enclaves? This study
examines the cultural transnational differences between two geographically
distinct Dominican populations: the crowded, urban, established New York
Dominican enclave of Washington Heights and the scattered, suburban, newer
Dominican populations found in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Kalafsky, Ronald V.
Transitions in new industrial environments: the case of Charlotte manufacturers.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dept. Geography
and Earth Sciences.
Manufacturing employment has steadily declined
in the Charlotte metropolitan area, with significant losses occurring in
textiles, apparel, and related industries. At the same time, secondary
sector activity remains widespread in the region, both in terms of the
number of manufacturers and the number of industries in which they are
involved. Evidence from a survey of Charlotte-area manufacturers indicates
that a number of firms continue to succeed in a difficult market environment.
The survey data also suggest that some of the most successful manufacturers
sell across a wider geographic area. These firms often employ advanced manufacturing
technologies and processes, which in turn demand a highly skilled workforce.
Human capital concerns and other competitive issues will also be discussed.
Overall, manufacturers across the region are in a period of rapid transition.
Kar, Bandana. A GIS-Based
Suitability Model to Determine Emergency Evacuation Shelters.
University of South Carolina.
One of the vital aspects of disaster preparedness
is to reduce human mortality by evacuating people from potential hazard
zone. Hence it is essential to determine suitable shelter locations for
evacuation during emergency situation. This study implements a GIS-based
suitable model to identify suitable evacuation shelters from existing infrastructure
facilities for 17 coastal counties of Florida. Based on a set of social
and physical variables, Weighted Linear Combination method along with Pass/Fail
screening technique was used to assign suitability scores to infrastructure
facilities. For validation, visually output of the model was compared with
existing shelter locations. According to this study about 4.1% of the total
available facilities (churches, community centers and schools) are utilized
as evacuation shelters, and mostly schools and educational institutions
are the potential shelters in recent time. About 38.9% of the total facilities
(hotels, churches, schools, community centers) are suitable for evacuation
purpose. Out of the 38.9% of the suitable facilities, about 29.7% of community
centers, 31.25% of hotels, and 48.3% of churches are suitable for emergency
rescue purpose. It is also found out from the study that about 92% of churches,
schools, hotels, community centers reside within 5 miles of existing shelters.
Keough, Sara Beth. Definitions
of Local Culture in Community Radio Broadcasts: An Ethnographic Case Study
of WDVX, Knoxville, Tennessee. University of Tennessee.
Music is an art form through which a connection
to place is often expressed. The study of mediums through which music
is conveyed can help explain the connections among place, music, and everyday
activities. Radio broadcasting is one medium through which people establish
a connection to place. In today’s world of marketing concerns and Top
40 hits, however, commercial radio has become a placeless medium. The
same music and programs can be heard nation-wide, free of references to
the location of their broadcast. One exception to this form of cultural
homogenization is community radio. This study uses WDVX in Knoxville,
Tennessee as an exemplar for understanding how the music broadcast on a
station can be local in its content, but still subject to global influences.
Through qualitative interviews and observations, I argue that this particular
radio station reflects, rather than defines, the local culture of east
Tennessee.
Kolivras, Korine N.
Stigma and mosquito-borne disease: A case study of the 2001-2002 Hawaiian
dengue outbreak. Virginia Tech.
The 2001-2002 dengue outbreak in Hawaii, centered
on Maui, was the first experienced there since the 1940s. Uncertainty
and misinformation was present through the early stages of the outbreak.
In this study, the potential stigmatization of those living in the outbreak
region of Maui is examined using content and discourse analyses.
An examination of newspaper articles about the outbreak indicates that stigmatization
did occur among residents who lived in the outbreak region, regardless
of disease status. Instances of stigmatization followed public appeals
for the quarantine of those living in the outbreak area. Interviews
and surveys with residents of Maui also reveal stigmatization, and indicate
that while newspapers are an extremely common source of information regarding
the outbreak a variety of information sources were important during the
Maui outbreak. The results are applicable to Hawaii as well as other
regions in which the mosquito vector is present that may experience a dengue
outbreak for the first time. Recommendations include education on
the spread and control of dengue early in the outbreak and an immediate response
by public officials to resolve misinformation.
Konrad,
Charles E., II1, Baker Perry1,2 and Adam
Smith, II3. Regional Variations in the Synoptic Patterns
associated with Warm Season Heavy Rainfall across the Eastern United States.
1Department of Geography, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill 2Department of Geography and Planning, Appalachian State
University 3The National Climate Data Center
In this study, synoptic fields associated with
a large sample of heavy precipitation events are compared across nine sub-regions
of the eastern two thirds of the U.S. Heavy precipitation events
are identified over 47 warm seasons (May –September). NCEP Reanalysis
data are used to estimate the values of 10 synoptic fields over the center
of the region of heaviest rainfall for each event. The proportion
of events associated with exceptionally high and low synoptic field values
are calculated and compared across nine sub-regions and three commonly
occurring synoptic situations. Marked regional differences are found with
two general regional gradients identified: First, a southwest to northeast
gradient extends from Gulf Coast to New England, where the proportion of
events associated with a weak circulation and high water vapor contents
increases markedly. Second, an east to west gradient extends from the
East Coast towards the Midwest and Great Plains, where the proportion of
events associated with high lapse rates, high equivalent potential temperatures,
and warm advection in the lower troposphere increases rapidly.
Kopf, J. Hybridity in colonial
East Africa. Georgia Southern University.
This paper examines hybridity in coastal East
Africa during the German colonial era in three contexts: Zanzibar
and East Africa prior to colonization, the German colonial view of hybridity,
and an attempt to introduce hybridity into German schools via the endowment
of a government school open to all students, offering Islamic instruction
alongside other subjects. This discussion recovers “hybridity” from
its fate as a theoretical trope, showing its usefulness in understanding
colonization. The paper also suggests that people sought to continue
past relations through the use of ante-colonial discourses. This discourse
is askew of the colonial project, but is not called into being by colonization.
Laing, Craig R. Meth
in the Mountains: Methamphetamine’s Growth in Appalachia.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
In the early 20th century, moonshine production
became synonymous with Appalachia. By the later half of the 20th
century, the region became one of the country’s leading producers of marijuana.
At the beginning of the 21st century, methamphetamine (or meth) appeared
in the region and became firmly implanted in some areas. The purpose
of this paper is to describe methamphetamine and document the drug’s growing
threat in Appalachia with a focus on the experience in Tennessee.
United States Drug Enforcement Administration data shows that since 1999,
the West experienced a decline in the number of methamphetamine laboratory
incidents while the Midwest and South experienced increases. Tennessee
ranked third in the nation in the number of all methamphetamine lab incidents
in 2004 and fifth in the rate of lab incidents. The spatial distribution
of methamphetamine labs in Tennessee shows a concentration in the southeastern
part of the state, particularly along the Georgia border. This area
is adjacent to the hearth area of methamphetamine production in east Tennessee
and is near Dalton, Georgia, a major drug distribution point for north
Georgia and southeast Tennessee.
Lannon, Heidi.
Geomorphic variability and the suitability of coastal land use,
Northeast Florida. Gainesville Regional Utilities.
The influence of local coastal geomorphology on
the suitability of existing and planned future development patterns was
investigated. Future land use designations of Brevard and St. Johns
County (located on the east coast of Florida) provided base data for development
of a policy-evaluation model. Impacts of the characteristics of
the coastline (beach width, maximum dune height, crest position, and shoreline
change) on the number and density of dwelling units, impervious area, and
development potential were evaluated at 1-kilometer intervals.
Results supported anticipated relationships among
wider beach width, greater impervious area, density, commercial hectares,
and future land use. However, development was more intense in areas
with lower dunes, suggesting that low dunes are a preferential condition.
Intensity of development was consistent with long-term coastal change.
Contrasting results at the county level showed beach width was a determining
variable in St. Johns County, whereas dune height was important in Brevard
County. Determining relationships between the physical parameters
and types of development provides tools to help coastal managers, geomorphologists,
and land use planners to maximize access, while minimizing unintended impacts
in coastal areas.
Larsen, Soren. Negril
in the News: Content Analysis of a Contested Paradise. University
of Missouri.
This paper presents the results of a content analysis
of over 500 articles about Negril, Jamaica, a one-time fishing village
on the island’s west coast that became a popular tourist destination beginning
in the late 1970s. The objective was to understand the ways Negril
was represented in Jamaican and North American news outlets, and to explore
how those place images found expression through distinctive types of journalistic
prose and stylistic conventions. The overarching goal was to identify
the prevailing scripts about the place -- that is, the explicit narratives
that appeared regularly in articles on Negril -- and then to relate those
scripts to the real-world production, consumption, and transformation of
the place as a tourist destination. The findings suggest that writers
have used distinctive forms of prose to construct Negril in three ways
-- a tourist boomtown, a paradise for disaffected Westerners, and a place
of inequity and injustice. Specific stylistic conventions are associated
with these imageries. Finally, the analysis uncovers some of the ways that
aspects of the news production process -- particularly its steady production
stream, syndication, and travel junkets -- have promoted certain images
for Negril at different points in time.
Leonard, James
and Sarah Brinegar. Economic Segregation and Urban Expansion 1970-2000:
A Comparative Analysis of the Metropolitan Regions of Cincinnati, Cleveland,
and Columbus, Ohio. Geography Department.
Huntington, WV.
The purpose of this research is to investigate
the changes in economic segregation through a comparative analysis of the
distribution of poverty and wealth in the metropolitan regions of Cincinnati,
Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio from 1970 to 2000. Since the
early 1970s, concomitant with an economic slowdown, nationwide studies
suggest that the spatial concentration of poverty has increased, while
practically no studies address the concept of spatial concentration of
wealth in metropolitan regions. Using dissimilarity indices, we find
a slight increase in the concentration of poverty, but a mixed picture for
the concentration of wealth over the last three decades. Cartographic
analysis shows a steady expansion of poor neighborhoods over time in all three
metropolitan areas, centered on the CBD (Figures 3-5). Wealthy neighborhoods
have also grown in number and area, but show remarkable locational stability,
with expansion generally to nearby neighborhoods rather than to more suburban
or exurban locales.
Lepofsky, Jonathan D.
Territorializing the Local: The Spatial Politics of Ethics and
Community in a Complementary Currency. Department
of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This paper draws from research on a complementary
currency initiative in central North Carolina to ask: how does the territorialization
of community engender geographical imaginaries of responsibility?
In central North Carolina, the leadership of and participants in the PLENTY
complementary currency appear to be territorializing community through the
local scale. Yet the PLENTY's "local" monetary space is ambiguously
defined and ambivalently local. This paper argues that the ambiguity
and ambivalence of the PLENTY as a spatial intervention into regional community
and economic geographies is both an unrealized potential and a limitation
to the success of the initiative. Lacking a coherent spatial politics
of community, the PLENTY reinscribes already existing regional community
and economic geographies and curtails its own production of a new geographical
imaginary of responsibility.
Leppman, Elizabeth J.
Hurricane Katrina in Political Cartoons. Eastern
Kentucky University.
Political cartoons, like maps, extract selected ideas, facts, and
emotions from a complex event and portray them in simplified artistry
and symbolism. They form an attention-grabbing commentary on an
event or condition of major importance to their readership, with the intention
of changing their readers' point of view and inspiring the public to action.
Hurricane Katrina, an exceptionally powerful storm that struck the Gulf
Coast of the United States, was such a dramatic event, and it also revealed
underlying public issues such as the controversy over global warming and
racism/classism in society. It inspired editorial cartoonists all
over the world. This paper discusses cartoons related to the topics
of the site of New Orleans, the nature of hurricanes, racism and classism
in the storm's effects, and views of New Orleans and of the United States
as a result, showing their use of symbols and allusions to the familiar
content of the readers' culture to target particular issues.
Ludden, Thomas
M. and Barbara B. John. The Effect of Neighborhood Schools on
Housing Values in Charlotte, NC. The University of North
Carolina at Charlotte.
Is there a relationship between the percentage
of students living in a census tract who attend their neighborhood schools
and the percentage change in the value of the housing? This research explores
one particular component of residential decision-making: whether
or not those individuals seeking to buy single-family residences in Charlotte,
North Carolina, are incorporating information regarding the quality of
public schools into their decision-making process. This study strongly
suggests that the change from a student assignment policy based on racial
balance to one focused on neighborhood schools influences the local housing
market. Although changes in housing values are also affected by other
factors, the results of this analysis indicate that houses in certain neighborhoods
of Charlotte are appreciating in value more dramatically than those in other
neighborhoods. Consumers considering purchasing houses are impacted
by their perceptions regarding neighborhood school quality. Census
tracts located in areas of Mecklenburg County, particularly those in the
outer-ring suburban areas, have higher percentages of students attending
their neighborhood schools which reflect this behavior.
Mains, Susan P. Island
Village, Tourist World: Understanding Design, Development, and Destination
in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.University of the West Indies-Mona
Tourism, combined with remittances, is one of
Jamaica’s major earners of foreign exchange. One effort to diversify the
tourism product can be seen in the example of a recent development, Island
Village. This site, located in Ocho Rios, on Jamaica’s North Coast—a key
destination for cruise ships traveling through the Caribbean—has been developed
as part of a plan to provide a “designed” tourist environment, through a
self contained mixed use development combining elements of larger resorts.
Promotional material emphasizes that tourists can experience the world
in this idyllic village island, without the need to travel further afield.
In this paper I examine the ways in which Island Village illustrates specific
notions of taste, development, difference, and mobility. Through an analysis
of promotional materials, landscape observations, newspaper coverage, and
interviews I explore the ways in which the notion of a global “village,”
relies on a parochial vision of the Caribbean and of “local culture.” At
the same time I interrogate the coalescing and competing travel itineraries
that this case study signifies.
Martin, Jeff. Tropical
Storm Induced Tree Damage in an Urban Landscape. Jacksonville
University.
The primary cause of damage in Jacksonville, Florida
during Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne was tree blow over. This research
analyzes wind destruction in an urban environment by treating the campus
of Jacksonville University as a case study. Downed trees were inventoried
after both events. Species, direction of treethrow, and cause of
failure were surveyed. Out of a campus population of approximately
1200 trees, twenty-six trees were downed during Hurricane Frances.
Twenty-five trees fell in the same direction (southwest), twenty-four were
water oaks, and every fallen tree was already damaged, old, or weak.
During Hurricane Jeanne, which was similar in terms of wind intensity and
duration, only eight trees were damaged and all trees fell in variable directions,
indicating one weak tornadic incident. This validates the importance
of tropical storms as natural components of landscape maintenance in Florida.
High-risk trees were culled in the first wind event, Frances, so that the
impact from the second storm, Jeanne, was substantially reduced. Key words: Tree blow over, treethrow, hurricane,
tropical storm, sustained wind, wind gust.
Matyas, Corene. Relating
Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Patterns To Storm Size. University
of Florida.
This study examines the relationship between tropical
cyclone (TC) size and the rainfall patterns of twelve landfalling storms.
Using a GIS, radar data is interpolated and sectioned utilizing two sets
of annular rings and quadrants. The first set of rings is utilized for all
TCs, a method employed by previous researchers. The spacing of the second
set is unique to each TC as it is dictated by storm size. The data collected
for each TC includes the areal coverage of precipitation with each section
of the storm and other data such as intensity and forward velocity. Separate
principal components analyses are performed on these two datasets. Results
show that precipitation in the TCs’ inner and outer regions do not vary
in the same way. Several difficulties arise when utilizing the annular
rings based on TC size, including asymmetrically-shaped TCs and a reduction
in the spatial resolution of data collected for large storms. Future work
will increase the sample size and investigate other methods of calculating
the size of asymmetrical TCs before further investigating the relationship
between TC size and rainfall patterns.
McDaniel, Paul N.
“¿Cuál es su trabajo?”: Labor Characteristics
of the Hispanic Community in Birmingham, Alabama. University
of Tennessee.
Southern states now have the highest percent growth
of Hispanics in the United States. One area that has received little
attention regarding the explosive growth of the Hispanic population in
the South is the Birmingham metropolitan area, Alabama’s largest city.
This paper addresses Hispanic employment characteristics in the Birmingham
metropolitan area. What are the aspects of employment among Hispanics
in Birmingham? Why does Birmingham continue to draw Hispanics in
at a high rate? Through archival and academic sources I attempt to
answer these questions. I also discuss the various roles Hispanics
play in Birmingham, from day laborers working in construction and landscaping
to entrepreneurs who own restaurants and markets, and where they are concentrated.
Hispanic immigrants, the majority of whom are from Mexico, come to Alabama
because of higher wages than in their homeland or along the U.S./Mexico
border, and because it is safer than the border region from their perspective.
This research, along with research by other scholars, contributes to the
broader body of knowledge about the timely issue of immigration to the South. Keywords: Immigration, Hispanic
Migration, Labor, Birmingham, the New South
McGowin, Daniel. Geographic
Bias on ESPN’s SportsCenter and its Influence on Major League Baseball’s
All-Star Voting.University
of Alabama.
Since its humble beginnings in the late summer of 1979, ESPN's SportsCenter
has blossomed into a cultural icon of sorts. With its blend of hip-hop
culture and sarcastic humor with sports statistics, SportsCenter has created
a following not unlike a local sports team. It is this loyalty that
allows SportsCenter to become culturally influential in the lives of its
viewers. In turn, viewers are more likely to be familiar with the players
and teams prominently featured on SportsCenter.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the pattern
of Major League Baseball game highlights on SportsCenter. Is there a geographic
bias in the program's coverage towards Major League Baseball teams located
in certain regions of the country? If so, does this bias have a direct effect
on fan voting for baseball's All-Star Game? This paper finds that
in terms of those teams involved in what are defined as "important games,"
SportsCenter does indeed have a general coverage bias towards Eastern teams.
However, this paper also concludes that All-Star voting is not directly affected
by this geographic bias.
Meentemeyer, Ross K1., David
M. Rizzo2, Walter Mark3,
and Brian L. Anacker4,
Early detection and estimation of the distribution of the invasive pathogen
causing Sudden Oak Death in California. 1Department of Geography
and Earth Sciences, UNC Charlotte,
2Department of Plant Pathology, University
of California at Davis,
3Department of Natural Resources Management,
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, 4Department of Geography,
Sonoma State University
Identifying the establishment of invasive organisms
and monitoring their spread is essential for preventing and minimizing
their impacts. We present two years (2003-2004) of results from California’s
early detection ground survey for Phytophthora ramorum, causal agent of
the emerging forest disease Sudden Oak Death. California forests were
mapped using a model that evaluates the risk of P. ramorum establishment
and spread. Within threatened areas, 495 sites were randomly targeted
for early detection monitoring. Leaf samples were collected from hosts
with P. ramorum symptoms along two transects at each site. The pathogen
was detected at 33 of the 495 locations assessed over the two-year period.
Logistic regression indicates that P. ramorum is less likely to occur at
increasing distances from known centers of infection and its probability
of presence decreases substantially beyond 20 km. Application of the
model in a GIS predicts that 623 km2 of California (0.15%) is affected by
P. ramorum (6.7% of California’s susceptible forests). The combination
of random sampling and risk-based site selection appears to be an effective
approach for early detection monitoring of disease outbreaks. This study
is one of a few examples using a spatially-explicit model of invasive species
spread for guiding management decisions.
Mena, Carlos F. Demographic,
Socieconomic, and Biophysical Factors Affecting Land Use and Land Cover
Change in the Northern Equadorian Amazon: Drivers, Statistical Models and
Spatial Explicit Models. Carolina Population Center
and Geography Department, UNC at Chapel Hill. phone: (919) 962-3870.
mena@email.unc.edu
Investigations of land cover/land use (LULC) change
and forest management are limited by a lack of understanding of how socio-economic
and demographic factors combine with geographical and biophysical factors
in affecting LULC patterns and change trajectories. The objectives of this
paper are (a) to quantify deforestation in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon,
(b) to determine the significance and magnitude of the effects of socio-economic,
demographic, geographic and biophysical factors on deforestation and secondary
forest succession at the farm level, and (c) use spatially-explicit models
(i.e., Cellular Automata) and significant demographic, socioeconomic and
demographic variables to create future LULC scenarios interpreted within
a policy-relevant context. Socioeconomic and demographic survey data are
used to describe the household characteristics of spontaneous colonists who
have in-migrated into this frontier environment and remote sensing is used
to acquire information on the spatial pattern of LULC change.
Mills, Beth. The Transnational
Community as an Agent for Caribbean Development. Santa
Fe County.
Small island economies of the Caribbean have traditionally
relied on remittances from family members working abroad to sustain them
in their limited circumstances. The responsibility to provide for those
back home has evolved as the communities of Afro-Caribbean people in North
America have prospered. For some islands, like Grenada and its dependencies
of Carriacou and Petite Martinique, the present transnational network has
become a complex and sophisticated vehicle for initiating and completing
development projects in the Caribbean. Community social organization
abroad, as well as access to the Internet as an organizing tool, allow transnational
connections to flourish and provide much needed aid to the home community.
Although these islands have a long history of migration and remittances,
the transnational network fosters an organized and effective way of providing
development aid at a larger, community-wide scale.
Moore, Tyrel
G. and Gerald L. Ingalls. Old But Newsworthy:
Textile Mill Reuse In The Charlotte Urban Region, 2001-2005.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Textile mill reuse builds tangible bridges between
old 19th and 20th century and new 21st century economies of the Southern
Piedmont of the Carolinas. The place-defining continuity inherent
in renewed functions for old mills wraps a sense of heritage, place and
community into new economic and social environments. In a previous
study of textile mill reuse, we found only two references to news articles
on the topic. Between September 2001 and September 2005, the Charlotte
Observer carried 46 news articles on the region’s textile industry.
Nearly half of them focused on mill reuse initiatives. We conduct a
content analysis of those articles to develop a typology of these projects.
The results illuminate the place-specific process of textile mill reuse
in the region.
Oberhauser,
Ann M. and Kobena Hanson.Re-Scaling Household
Strategies: Livelihood Diversification in Accra, Ghana.
West Virginia University.
This paper addresses livelihood diversification
in the context of neo-liberal reforms through a case study of a rapidly
urbanizing area in the capital city of Accra, Ghana. Existing literature
on urban livelihoods suggests that adjustment policies and other neo-liberal
reforms both impact and are affected by socio-economic and material resources
available to households. Our discussion seeks to examine the shifting nature
of urban livelihood strategies in the face of increased integration into
the global economy. This research will also explore how the intersections
of gender, generation, and social positioning in society shape the patterns
and/or outcomes of this livelihood diversification. The study provides
background information and more detailed insight about how individuals, households,
and communities make a living in the face of structural adjustment and neoliberal
globalization in Ghana. Through a triangulation of quantitative and
qualitative methods, the research provides in-depth analyses of people’s
everyday lives as well as an overview of the broad processes affecting livelihoods
in the context of globalization. The findings indicate how livelihood
strategies in urban households relate to economic shifts at the national
and international levels.
Oldakowski, Raymond K.
Active Learning Exercises to Improve Place Awareness.Jacksonville University.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness
of a series of active learning exercises in improving the mental maps and
place awareness of elementary and secondary school students. These
exercises included in-class geography lessons with local maps and aerial
photographs, and field trips to provide the students with direct interaction
with a place. The results indicate that initial levels of place awareness
among elementary and secondary school students is extremely low, especially
among lower socioeconomic status students. However, the in-class geography
lessons and field trips generated significant improvements in the mental
maps and place awareness of the students.
Palis, Joseph. Filming
The National: Identity and Nationhood in Two Filipino Films.
Department of Geography, UNC at Chapel Hill.
My paper aims to look at the various ways the
national is articulated and represented through two Filipino films that
I selected as case studies – Kidlat Tahimik’s “Perfumed Nightmare” and
Lino Brocka’s “My Country: Clutching the Edge of the Knife”.
My paper aims to examine how the nation seeks to create a feeling of unity
out of a diverse reality by constructing perceptions of commonality. “Unity
in diversity” using Giulina Bruno’s theoretical text, is a rhetorical strategy
to incorporate diverse minority voices into a larger group and to persuade
the group of its strong identity. I am particularly interested in two Filipino
films as case studies to explore themes of nationhood in relation to the
Philippines as a nation-state. I do not intend to produce a textual
analysis of these films but as a strategy to map the connections and interrelations
between actors, institutions and the chosen image of representability.
Parnell, Darren B.
Late Spring Frost Damage Across The Southeast United States.
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.
This study focuses on agricultural impacts produced
by the extreme frost events at the beginning of the vegetable and peach
growing season from 1950-1999. Twenty-five extreme frost events were
identified based upon the timing and geographic extent of the freezing
temperatures. A content analysis and a historical assessment of
agricultural impacts from the extreme frosts was completed using newspaper
articles from six major newspaper sources. The overall severity of
each frost event was quantified using a numerical index system. The
frost severity rankings were verified using a reliability test. The
results of the reliability test indicate that the overall agreement of
frost severity rankings between the author and the testing subjects is 74.4
percent. Two-thirds of the frost events with newspaper reports of
agricultural damage produced light to moderate damage and in some cases
were considered beneficial to farmers. The remaining frost events
either produced considerable damage or no damage at all. This study
indicates that the increased use of preventative measures and the decreasing
acreage of farmland across the southeastern United States have reduced the
agricultural losses of frost events in recent times.
Perry, Baker1,2
and Charles E. Konrad, II2
. Synoptic Climatology of Northwest Flow Snowfall in the Southern
Appalachians. 1 Department of Geography and Planning, Appalachian
State University, Boone, NC 28608 2 Department of Geography, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
Northwest flow snowfall (NWFS) events are common
occurrences at higher elevations and on windward slopes in the Southern
Appalachians. The cold temperatures and considerable blowing and drifting
of snow, coupled with the significant spatial variability of snowfall,
substantially increase the societal impacts. This paper develops a synoptic
classification of NWFS events in the Southern Appalachians using 72-hour
backward air trajectory analyses. Hourly observations from first-order stations
and daily snowfall data from cooperative observer stations are used to
define snowfall events. NCEP reanalysis data are utilized to identify northwest
flow snowfall events on the basis of 850-hPa northwesterly flow (270 to
360 degrees) at event maturation hour. The NOAA Hysplit Trajectory Tool
is used to calculate 72-hour backward air trajectories at the event maturation
hour and composite trajectories are mapped in a GIS. Analyses of vertical
soundings are coupled with NCEP reanalysis data to determine the synoptic
characteristics associated with each trajectory class. Significant variability
of trajectories and synoptic patterns is evident from the analyses, resulting
in seven different backward air trajectory classes. Additional findings
indicate the importance of low-level moisture of Great Lakes origin in producing
heavier NWFS.
Reader, Daniel B. The
Ethics of Sustainability and Globalization. Western
Kentucky University.
Globalization has long been an effector of change
on cultures and, more recently, on states. The impact of globalization
on such human pursuits as business and international relations has been
tremendous; what is questionable is whether such effects are beneficial
– or sustainable. This paper examines the ethics of such interactions
from the standpoints of globalization’s proponents and opponents, and from
those of both the advocates of sustainability and its detractors.
Ethical conclusions are offered regarding the viability of sustainability
in the face of globalization.
Rees, Amanda. Constructing the
American West: Dude Ranching, Class, and Popular Culture 1920-1945.
Geographers and historians have long claimed that tourism
has been a powerful shaper of regional perceptions, and that dude ranching
has played an important roll in continuing the romance of the American West.
Combining field research in Grand Teton National Park, archival materials
on dude ranching promotional materials, and dude ranch films produced before
and during Hollywood’s Studio Era (1930-1945), this paper looks at how dude
ranchers produced a particular regional perspective on the West, dramatically
shaped by class.
Rhiney, Kevon. Tourism
and its Linkage with the Local Food-Supply Network: A Case Study of Negril,
Jamaica. Department of Geography and Geology, University
of the West Indies, Mona.
Very little research has been undertaken in the
Caribbean on the linkages between local agriculture and tourism, and most
studies were undertaken more than two decades ago. Since then, both tourism
and agriculture have changed, and some scholars suggest the possibility
of deeper linkages between the two sectors as new market opportunities arise
through the globalization of tourism and food production. The empirical
research reported here is based on data collected through surveys and in-depth
interviews with key elements and players within Negril’s supply-demand network.
Surveys have been conducted on the food procurement strategies employed
and supply areas for different categories of hotels and restaurants. In
addition, interviews have been undertaken with local food suppliers (formal
businesses, middle men and informal higglers), as well as a survey of the
food preferences of tourists. Research aims to analyze the nature of the
relationship between tourism and agriculture, and to highlight the social,
economic and geographical linkages that characterize local food supply
areas and systems. This paper focuses on Negril’s all-inclusive hotels
and their linkages with the local food supply network. While all-inclusive
hotels represent a small share of the survey, they account for the largest
proportion of food consumed in Negril. These hotels usually carry out intensive
food operations and thus require high quality and large quantities of food
on a consistent basis. An analysis of all-inclusive operations provides
an in-depth insight into the ability of the local food supply network to
forge and maintain sustainable linkages with tourism.
Sánchez, Luis. The
Political Status, a question of identity?: The Case of Cuban and
Dominicans in Puerto Rico. Florida State University.
After centuries of foreign domination, the political
future of Puerto Rico is still uncertain. Likewise the question of
whether Puerto Ricans have the right to self-determination and decolonization
remains unanswered.
There have been three popular referenda on the
island offering statehood, commonwealth, and independence as options for
a final political status. Those referendums in 1967, 1993, and 1998
by local authorities has not been approved nor endorsed by the government
of the United States, which has ignored the demands of the Puerto Rican
people for a final solution to their political limbo.
The problem is aggravated by the fact that there
are nearly 140,000 naturalized immigrants, plus their descendants, on the
island. These immigrants have the right to vote on any electoral event,
including status referendums. Nevertheless, the flow of immigrants to Puerto
Rico has been increasing over the present times, and none of the local
authorities have any records to show the electoral behavior of those immigrants
on these status referendums. Likewise, the factors that can be affecting
and shaping the electoral behavior of those immigrants; although of critical
importance on the decisions that will affect the future political status
of Puerto Rico, is largely unknown.
Shankman, David
1, Barry D. Keim2, and Jie Song3. Flood
Prediction in China’s Poyang Lake Region. 1Department of Geography, University of Alabama. 2Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State
University 3Department of Geography, Northern Illinios University
Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province is the largest
freshwater lake in China and is historically a region of significant floods.
Annual peak lake stage and the number of severe flood events have increased
dramatically during the past few decades. This trend is related primarily
to levee construction at the periphery of the lake and along the middle
Changjiang (Yangtze River) that protects a large rural population.
These levees reduce the area formerly available for floodwater storage resulting
in higher lake stages during the summer flood season and catastrophic levee
failures. Poyang Lake’s most severe floods since 1950, and ranked from
highest to lowest, occurred in 1998, 1995, 1954, 1983, 1992, 1973, and 1977.
All of these floods occurred during or immediately following El Nino events,
which are directly linked to rainfall in central China. The 2-year
recurrence interval for maximum annual lake stage during El Nino years is
1.2 m higher than during non-El-Nino years. The 10-year recurrence
interval is 1.4 m higher during El Nino years than during non El Nino years.
Slinger-Friedman, Vanessa.
Ecotourism in Dominica: Studying the Potential for Economic Development
and Nature Preservation. Kennesaw State University
This study is an attempt to determine whether
ecotourism is having the anticipated impacts at the grassroots level on
the small Caribbean island nation of Dominica. Many people see ecotourism
as a type of tourism that accomplishes financial gain, local benefits, and
cultural and environmental maintenance. This has not been happening
as anticipated in some ecotourism destinations in Latin America and Africa.
Dominica presents a unique place to study ecotourism
as it is a small island nation developing a comprehensive ecotourism product.
The findings of this research suggests that ecotourism in Dominica is creating
linkages with other parts of the Dominica economy, including the agriculture
sector, and boosting more diverse regional development on the island.
It appears that involvement in the ecotourism industry, and a related
reliance on the surrounding environment are strong motivating factors
in getting people more concerned about their environment and practicing
conservation measures.
Smirnova,
Olga and Jerry Ingalls. The Influence Of State Annexation Laws
on the Growth of Selected Southern Cities. UNC at
Charlotte, Public Policy and the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences,
respectively.
A major theme in the study of the modern North
American city is the disparity between the central city and its suburbs.
This paper addresses one facet of this issue by exploring the relationship
among metropolitan population growth, types of annexation legislation,
growth of special districts and the health of central cities as measured
by rates of population growth. We ask: does annexation policy influence
central city growth?
To test these linkages we employ a classic typology
of state annexation laws, which gauges the range of options for public
involvement in the decision to annex. Data describing growth in population
and in the number of special districts and municipalities within MSAs in
a sample of nine southern states are used to test three hypotheses.
The states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
North and South Carolina and Tennessee.
Our results suggest that the more restrictive
the annexation legislation, the greater the level of political fragmentation
in the form of increased development of special districts. On the other
hand, we find that less strict annexation legislation provides more latitude
for the central city growth.
Smith, Heather
A. and Owen J. Furuseth. Making Real the Mythical Latino Community
in a New South City. UNC at Charlotte, Department of
Geography and Earth Sciences.
In Charlotte, NC, a place where ‘race’ and ‘belonging’
have long been shaped by ‘black’ and ‘white’ constructs, Latinos have emerged
from the shadows to become a highly visible thread of the urban fabric.
While awareness of their growing presence in the city is widespread, understanding
of who Latinos are and what they are contributing to Charlotte’s social,
economic and political landscapes remains misinformed. Through media reporting
and public discourse a mythical image has evolved framing Charlotte’s Latino
community as homogenous, male, Mexican and undocumented. Using a mixed
methodology of statistical analysis, key informant interviews and media
content analysis, this paper offers a more complex and “real” portrait
of the city’s diverse and evolving Latino communities and discusses how
an unproductive tension between the myth and reality not only shapes the
local attitudes and policies that Latino newcomers encounter but lays a
foundation for continued failure to better engage the human assets offered
by new migrants and to provide services and leadership that address the
diverse community needs of Latinos in an effective and sensitive fashion.
Speights-Binet, Jennifer.
Framing Community: A New Urban Case Study. University
of Houston, Clear Lake, Geography Program, speightsbinet@cl.uh.edu
This paper critically considers Plan Baton Rouge,
a planning process in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that is attempting to revitalize
the city’s downtown and promote economic and cultural vitality while implementing
the design practices of New Urbanism, a planning methodology that promises
to build “authentic bonds of community.” During the Plan Baton Rouge
process, public participation was encouraged through a town-planning format.
The rhetoric and promise of “community” was strategically used throughout
the planning process to garner support for the downtown plan, as well as
to solicit specific kinds of public participation. Using both archival
and participatory, qualitative data, this paper examines the creation
of a community discourse throughout the planning process. Additionally,
this paper argues that such a notion of community is inherently problematic,
as it depends upon a nostalgic and therefore reductive view of the past.
Stallins, J. Anthony.
Suburban hotspots: patterns of lightning flash production in Atlanta,
Georgia. Department of Geography, Florida State University.
Based on twelve years of flash data (1992-2003)
from the National Lightning Detection Network, annual average cloud-to
ground flash densities peaked at 6-8 flashes per square kilometer around
Atlanta. These values are 50 to 75% higher than adjoining rural areas and
comparable to flash densities along the Georgia coast. The largest contiguous
area of high flash production, as defined by a metric combining flash density
and flash day frequency, occurs to the northeast of the city over suburban
Gwinnett County. Atlanta's flash density hotspots develop when the atmospheric
setting favors widespread lightning. Flash events producing a large number
of flashes contribute disproportionately more to total flash counts. High
flash densities associated with air mass thunderstorms were weakly clustered
around urban and high-density suburban land uses. Frontal flash densities
were more evenly dispersed over the study area. Decreases in the percentage
of positive flashes extend well beyond the suburban periphery of Atlanta,
suggesting that urban pollutants modify thunderstorm electrical properties
at considerable distance downwind. Statistical and case-study approaches
are needed to verify the anthropogenic contribution to these patterns.
Strait, John
B. and Cherisha N. Williams. Rubbing Elbows
in the Big Easy: The Impacts of Compositional and Redistributive Forces
on Residential Segregation Among Racial and Ethnic Groups in New Orleans,
Louisiana; 1990-2000. Louisiana Tech University.
Most residential segregation studies have focused
strictly on the residential experiences of African-Americans and whites,
usually relying upon measures of residential evenness to gauge the level
of segregation between these two populations. This research broadens
the analysis of residential segregation by investigating changes in two
different dimensions of segregation evident among the four main racial
and/or ethnic groups in New Orleans, Louisiana from 1990 to 2000.
Measures of residential exposure were decomposed in order to investigate
the relative impacts of metropolitan-wide compositional change and intra-urban
redistributive change on segregation. During the 1990s all non-white
groups became increasingly segregated from whites and increasingly integrated
with one another. Evidence suggests that whites, Hispanics and Asians
exhibited some degree of “ethnic (or racial) self-selectivity” that functioned
to concentrate these groups residentially, although these forces were generally
overwhelmed by other redistributive and compositional changes. The
evidence further suggests that the isolation of African-Americans and the
levels of segregation experienced by this group were strongly impacted by
the residential behavior of whites and Hispanics. Meanwhile, Asians
and African-Americans became increasingly integrated, largely as a result
of members of these two racial groups relocating to the same neighborhoods.
Key words: residential segregation,
race, ethnicity, New Orleans.
Sultana, Selima
and Joe Weber. Employment Sprawl and the Journey
to Work: Linking the Home and Workplace. University
of North Carolina at Greensboro and University of Alabama.
Studies of residential sprawl have shown that
longer commutes are typical for residents of these areas, but the effect
of sprawling workplace locations on journey to work patterns has not yet
been closely examined. This paper uses commuting data from the 2000 Census
Transportation Planning Package to examine the impact of employment sprawl
on commuting, and its differing impacts on black and white workers within
Alabama metropolitan areas. Surprisingly, this analysis finds that workers
who commute to sprawling areas jobs travel shorter distances, often spend
less time commuting, are less likely to drive alone, are more likely to
bike and walk, and do not earn as much as workers in urban areas. However,
sprawl has different impacts on blacks and whites, suggesting the importance
of cross-commuting between black and white areas.
Taylor,
Russel and Gang Wang. Modeling
Nutrient Dynamics for the Tallapoosa River Watershed Using a GIS Based
Hydrological Model. Department of Geography, The University
of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
It is important that there is high quality freshwater
available for human use. It is necessary to monitor our water
to determine the amounts of pollution in it, but it is also important to
determine where the pollution is coming from. Using the GIS based
hydrological model SWAT, it is possible to simulate the flow of nutrients
in a watershed. The SWAT model pinpoints trouble areas in the watershed
by modeling nonpoint sources of pollution based on the land use/land cover,
soils, and precipitation that occurs within the watershed. The purpose
of this paper is to discuss data preparation as well as SWAT model results
Terry, Billy.
Taking a Critical Cruise. Geography Dept., Univ.
South Carolina.
Cruise ship tourism is a leisure activity and
economic sector ripe for critical engagement by human geographers.
Critical perspectives on tourism provide a means of approaching complex
questions about human activities in one of the world’s largest industries.
As human geographers continue to push the boundaries of knowledge production
in this field of study, it is important to question just how we are to push
these boundaries. This paper is an attempt to explore the theoretical implications
of critical inquiry into the workings of the cruise ship industry.
I focus here on three potential areas of study, all of which relate to the
cruise ship as a very specific yet mobile place. The first of these deals
with gaining an understanding of the ship as a place of consumption. This
is followed by a discussion of the complex social relationships embedded
in the working atmosphere of the ship. Finally, I discuss the mobile
nature of the ship itself and the possible psychological underpinnings of
what this means for passengers, crewpeople, and people in port. These areas
of discussion are not meant to be exhaustive but rather preliminary attempts
to identify underexplored aspects of the cruise industry. This work, therefore,
serves as a starting point for thinking about the theoretical basis and potential
methodologies for doing critical work on cruise ship tourism in geography.
Thompson, Deborah.
Spaces of Hope: Intentional Communities in Appalachia.
University of Kentucky.
While Appalachia is not the hub of communes and
experimental living that California has been in the last century or New
England was in the eighteenth century, there have been many intentional
communities here throughout its history, and there are significant concentrations
today near Asheville, NC; Athens, OH; and Blacksburg, VA. Utopian experiments
often look to the mountains for refuge and isolation, a place to separate
themselves from the wider world. In addition to this ideological motivation
is the very practical availability of inexpensive land in areas far from
the metropolis. Back-to-the-landers of the last thirty years are attracted
to their perception of the region as one awash in traditional skills practitioners.
The communities run the gamut, from The Kingdom of Paradise, begun in 1736
by a German to improve life for the Cherokee; to the Susan B. Anthony Memorial
UnRest Home, a community for women in contemporary Ohio. Intentional
communities are intriguing phenomena because they provide “a rare opportunity
to view the interaction of human dreams with the ‘realities’ of the human
condition” (Wagner 1992).
Tobin, Graham
A. and Heather M. Bell. Social
Vulnerability of Relocation Park Residents in the Wake of Hurricane Charley.
Department of Geography, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL.
gtobin@cas.usf.edu
On Friday, August 13, 2004 Hurricane Charley made
landfall in South West Florida at Charlotte Harbor. It caused devastation
in several coastal counties and then moved rapidly north-northeastwards
through the state, creating a narrow swath of damage from Boca Grande and
Port Charlotte on the coast through the Orlando area, leaving the state
at Daytona Beach. While storm surge and flooding were minimal, the destruction
from high winds was extensive. Hurricane Charley was the most intense storm
to make landfall in Florida since Andrew in 1992; three more hurricanes
followed (Frances, Ivan and Jeanne), creating problems throughout the state.
In order to explore issues of social vulnerability, evaluate response and
recovery efforts, as well as identify areas of needed improvement, several
surveys utilizing in-take interviews and structured questionnaires were
conducted at a FEMA relocation center for displaced persons. The surveys
were used to assess perception of immediate and ongoing needs in this vulnerable
population and evaluate how well those needs had been met. Pre and post
event behavior patterns were examined. Results indicated that differences
in vulnerability exacerbated problems for park residents. Specifically,
(i) emergency management had met most of the immediate needs of the vulnerable
population; (ii) choice of evacuation site or aid contact had influenced
the effectiveness of longer-term recovery; (iii) transportation issues
remained ongoing problems affecting both short and long term recovery;
(iv) disparities existed in treatment and needs satisfaction of certain
social groups; and (v) respondents were generally very appreciative of FEMA’s
efforts. It is suggested that emergency managers re-examine their target
populations and improve mitigation and planning in light of some of these
findings. Key Words: Social vulnerability, Hurricane hazard,
Florida
Towers, George
1, Joseph Manzo1, Todd Sink2,
and Eric Combs1. Rural Sprawl without
Population Growth? Measuring Sprawl’s Impact in Southern West Virginia* 1Department of Geography, Concord University, Athens, WV
24712; 2Department of Geography, Geology, and Anthropology, Indiana
State University, Terre Haute, IN 47809.
* This research is funded by a grant from the National Geographic
Society.
Rural sprawl is steadily gaining notice. Research
interest in rural sprawl, however, concentrates on places experiencing
dramatic population growth. In our rural study area, Mercer, Raleigh, and
Summers Counties in southern West Virginia, rapid sprawl is occurring in
the absence of population growth. We will document the extent of rural
sprawl, gauge its environmental effects, and measure its impact on the
quality of life.
Paralleling researchers’ priorities, local leaders
are not particularly concerned about sprawl in slow-growth areas. Among
economic development officials in our region, residential dispersion is
a concern only in that the juxtaposing of incompatible land uses may hem in
potential development. We intend that our documentation of sprawl and its
consequences will expand land use considerations to include mitigating sprawl’s
claims on the local environment and residents’ quality of life.
Trendell,
Harold R. and Agatino La Rosa. Growth Patterns
of Latino Businesses in Cobb County, Georgia. Kennesaw
State University.
The premise of this research is that Latino migration
is not an aberration or temporary phenomenon in the Southeast. Latino migrants
are putting down roots and becoming an integral part of the cultural and
economic fabric of various communities, cities and states in the region.
One way to assess this phenomenon is to observe the growth of Latino businesses
as a measure of the Latino economic and residential commitment to their
chosen locations. This study uses county health inspection digital
data bases and GIS mapping techniques to locate Latino restaurants and food
stores in Cobb County, Georgia, situated within the metropolitan area of
Atlanta. These sites are compared with Latino residential location
from the 2000 U.S. Census to show spatial differentials between Latino-owned
restaurant and food store location and service to Latino populations.
Both restaurants and food stores appear to follow predictable patterns of
location along major arteries in the county, but food stores appear to be
a greater predictor of Latino population given the specialty foods and products
they offer the resident Latino population. The efficacy of this research
methodology is analyzed and proposals are engendered concerning the future
study of the spatial aspects of Latino economic development.
Keywords: Latino business location,
economic assimilation, suburban county, residential patterns, restaurants,
food stores, address matching, Cobb County, Georgia
Turkington, Alice.
Microtopography of Limestone in a Semi-Arid Area. Department
of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington.
Micro-scale weathering forms on limestone bedrock
surfaces were examined in New Mexico, USA, through a morphometric study
of surface pitting. Micro-scale pits, often termed rain-splash pits, may
be diagnostic of moisture-limited environments, and appear to display autogenic
pattern formation, in which their shape and size attain regularity. Pit
development may be a function of the interaction of biogeochemical processes,
solution and physical disruption, with the relative magnitude, frequency
and sequence of each determining the persistence or decay of surface pits.
Limestone bedrock at differing elevations was sampled to investigate the
applicability of a conditionally unstable model of weathering to pit formation
in the Sacramento Mountains and Guadalupe Mountains, USA.
Ueland, Jeff.
An examination of recent historical trends in sea surface temperature in
the Caribbean Basin and Jamaica. Ohio University, Department
of Geography. Sea surface temperature (SST) serves
as a key indicator in understanding and evaluating the health of coastal
and marine systems. Much has been made recently about anomalously
high SST and its association with coral bleaching events and increasing tropical
storm and cyclone intensity. The Caribbean is particularly susceptible
to the ill effects of these events given its geographic location and the
region’s reliance on the marine environment for tourism, a key component of
the region’s economic viability.
This paper examines the change in SST monthly,
from 1985 until the present, at two different scales: the Caribbean Basin
and the immediate waters around Jamaica. To this end, AVHRR Pathfinder
data at a spatial resolution of 4km will be employed offering a more detailed
examination of spatial variation in SST for this regional-scale study than
the commonly used Hadley Center data that has a spatial resolution of one
degree. Utilizing spatial modeling and simulation techniques, this
study seeks to better understand current and future trends of SST at local
levels where these large-scale processes influence everyday life.
Walcott, Susan M.
Metropolitan Atlanta’s New Borders: Pushing the Limit? Georgia
State University.
This research examines the extension of metropolitan
Atlanta’s formal and functional borders over the past decade (1995-2005),
including consideration of the causes, composition and consequences of
rapid land use changes on the periphery. While a large body of literature
describes the ill-defined phenomena of “sprawl” that Atlanta clearly illustrates,
critically important demographic, environmental, economic and political
aspects remain under examined. Utilizing the Atlanta Regional Commission’s
‘LandPro’ dataset classifying detailed land use changes from 1990 to 1995,
2001 and 2003 permits an evidence-based assessment of the degree and type
of shifts in the core 20 counties. Additional analysis of housing permits
and population growth extends consideration of overall effects on the region.
Wang, Gang
and Russel Taylor. Uncertainty Analysis of A
GIS Based Hydrological Model: A Case Study for the Middle Tallapoosa River
Watershed of Alabama. Department of Geography, The
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) provides
choices of using either skewed normal or mixed exponential method to calculate
rainfall and options of using either the model generated or historically
recorded weather data as input. Also, it lets you input a threshold level
used for subdividing the watershed. These different setups can affect a watershed
modeling process and subsequent output results. The goal of this study is
to examine the SWAT output differences caused by these different input setups
using an example from the Middle Tallapoosa River Watershed located in east-central
Alabama. The results indicate that: (1) the two different rainfall calculation
methods produced a big difference on output results; (2) the two methods
of generating weather data resulted in different results; (3) the number
of subbasins selected had little impact on the final output. Validation was
conducted for six sampling points around Lake Martin. Based on the
analysis of correlation coefficients, we concluded that the mixed exponential
rainfall calculation method and the historically recorded weather data may
be better in producing more accurate results.
Wang, Linda. The
Power of Interracial Communication: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in South Africa. Department of Sociology/Geography,
University of South Carolina Aiken, Aiken, SC. (803) 641-3624, lindawa@usca.edu.
Attempting reconciliation though acknowledgement
of truth under amnesty has become a model of political transition for many
societies in contemporary times after periods of atrocity and tyranny.
This paper discusses the challenge of interracial reconciliation in South
Africa with focus on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Although
the process did not yield reconciliation for all major population groups
in South Africa, it did facilitate a departing point for the future. As
imperfect as seeking reconciliation through truth and as costly as amnesty
entailed for ordinary victims may have been, the South African experience
impressed the world with a fundamentally peaceful transition of power from
a minority apartheid regime to a new majority government. In the process,
salutary impacts of interracial communication on possible racial reconciliation
seem to be promising.
Wang, Qingfang.
Earnings Effect of Ethnic Labor Market Segmentation in Multi-Racial Metropolitan
Contexts. University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
With the huge influx of immigrants to the United
States, it is a well-observed phenomenon that a large number of ethnic
minorities concentrate in a particular set of labor market sectors. Although
considerable literature suggests that metropolitan contexts have significant
effect on the job earnings of different racial and ethnic groups, there
is a missing link between the metropolitan context and the earnings effect
of ethnic niche employment. Using data from the 2000 Census data, this study
deploys a multilevel research approach to compare job earnings of white,
black, Hispanic and Asian workers in their respective niche and non-niche
sectors, and to examine how the metropolitan urban labor market contexts
influence these earnings. The findings show that engaging in ethnic niches
is the main source of earning inequalities among different ethnic groups
and contextual conditions have great impacts on job earnings between ethnic
niches and non-niches, and between different groups. Key Words: Context, ethnic labor market,
concentration, earnings inequality, immigrants
Warf, Barney.
Political Economy of the Palm Beach County Biotechnology Research Park.
Dept. of Geography, Florida State University.
This paper examines the proposed Palm Beach County
Biotechnology Research Park, an offshoot of the Scripps Institute in San
Diego, in light of the dynamics of regional competitiveness, innovation,
and technological spin-offs in the biotechnology industry. It opens
with an overview of locational clusters, emphasizing the forces that generate
agglomerative districts. Special attention is paid to the forces underlying
synergies, knowledge spillovers, and positive external economies of scale
as well as tacit, unstandardized knowledge and informal linkages.
Second, it turns to the dynamics of the biotechnology industry, including
the role of venture capital, its high degree of risk, and the existence of
several biotech clusters in the U.S. The role of public policy is
emphasized. Third, it turns to Florida’s biotech sector, which, while
small, offers great potential for growth. The role of state government
subsidies and educational programs is delimited in detail. Finally,
it explores the specifics of the Palm Beach County Biotech Park, including
its likely impacts on the state economy and its feasibility as a center
of innovation in light of the local infrastructure, educational system,
amenities, and ability to attract venture capital. The conclusion dwells
upon the potential of new centers of biotech to compete with older, established
ones.
Weber, Joe
and Selima Sultana. A Fine Scale Analysis of
Urban Sprawl and Commuting in Alabama. Department
of Geography, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, jweber2@bama.ua.edu and
Department of Geography, UNC at Greensboro, s_sultan@uncg.edu
One of the largest negative consequences of urban
sprawl is invariably said to be its effects on travel patterns and mode
choice. Despite this, there is a lack of research assessing the impact of
sprawl on the journey to work. This research will address this problem using
the 2000 Census Transportation Planning Packages to identify and map sprawl
areas at a fine scale independently of political boundaries. The extent
to which workers living in sprawl areas commute farther to work than those
living in higher density areas of the city is examined, with workers commuting
from sprawl to urban areas having the longest commutes.
Webster, Gerald R.,
Jerrod Bowman, Daniel McGowin, and Heath Robinson.
Research On The Political Geography Of The South, 1980-2005. University
of Alabama.
The American South has witnessed dramatic demographic,
social, economic and political change during the past quarter century.
Arguably no aspect of life in the region has experienced more change than
those evident on its political landscape. Most southern states are
now reliable supporters of the Republican Party in presidential elections,
and the GOP dominates the region’s congressional delegations, governorships
and state legislatures.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a status
report on published research on the political geography of the South during
the past quarter century. Have political geographers responded in
their research agendas to the tremendous political change experienced across
the region? If so, what are the principal topics of political geography
research on the South? This paper finds that there has been a substantial
increase in political geography research on the South, including a strong
focus on the region’s electoral landscape. Not surprisingly, we also
find that the Southeastern Geographer and Political Geography are the primary
outlets for political geography publications on the region.
Worthen, Holly.
Finding a Way: Women, Corn, and Migration in Veracruz, Mexico. UNC-Chapel
Hill.
This study looks at male migration and its effects
on agriculture and food security in Ixhuapan, Veracruz, Mexico. The
effects of increasing economic liberalization in Mexico over the last decade
have been felt in Ixhuapan, as migration has become more common in line
with falling corn prices and scarce land. An examination of gender
roles, gender division of labor, migration patterns, remittances, and the
importance of corn in the community, demonstrate that this recently new
male migration does little to help the malnourished and impoverished community
of Ixhuapan.
Yao, Xiaobai.
Computation of Conditioned Network Distance.
Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Athens, GA xyao@uga.edu.
Current network distance or generalized cost calculation
is based on a premise that the necessary information for the calculation
is constant for each segment of a network. Although the premise holds true
in most cases, there are situations when additional layer of underlying
geographical information is required for distance calculation. One example
is the inclusion of elevation information for distance calculation. This
additional underlying layer is called the conditioning layer. This paper
presents a general model to compute network distances under conditioned
by one or more layers. This model takes each conditioning layer as a new
dimension in space. Thus the problem becomes a matter of calculating distance
on a 3-D (or even higher dimension) surface. My method obtains the conditioned
network distance from the sum of integrals for each member segments.
Two application examples are discussed.
Zandbergen, Paul. Which
US County has been hit the most by Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes?
Department of Geography, University of South Florida,
Tampa, FL . @cas.usf.edu.
Exposure of Counties in the continental United
States to tropical storm and hurricane conditions was determined using
the most complete historic record of storm tracks for the period 1851 to
2003. Two approaches were used to determine exposure: 1) cumulative number
of hits, with a hit occurring when the storm’s path crosses a County; and
2) cumulative exposure factor, which describes how much of the County has
been exposed to tropical storm, hurricane and intense hurricane-force winds.
In both approaches the top 10 Counties in terms of cumulative exposure are
in coastal Florida, North Carolina and Louisiana. An explanatory model was
developed to describe the patterns in the documented exposure, which included
distance to coast, latitude, and longitude. Multivariate linear regression
confirmed that much of the spatial variability in exposure to storm conditions
can be explained with these simple parameters.
Zook, Matthew
A. and Mark Graham. GoogleSpace and the Variable Geometries
of DigiPlace. Department of Geography, University of Kentucky.
The Google search engine leverages existing socio-cultural
connections present in the Internet to weight the relevancy of web searches,
making it a lens through which the dynamic interconnections of the Web
can be understood and mapped. Top ranked sites at Google mark the
delineation between core and periphery in the online world.
This Google-defined visibility has increasing
implications for the off-line world, most notably via "GoogleLocal" which
allows surfers to locate businesses and services in specific geographic
locations. Combined with "Google SMS," a service that allows people
to access Google Local via mobile devices, there is an increasingly tight
bond between online presence and offline accessibility. A new type of
individualized hybrid space (DigiPlace) is emerging via the simultaneous
interaction with soft-ware (information) and hard-where (place).
This paper explores both the theoretical implications
of DigiPlace with a particular eye towards its effect on the use of urban
places by mobile users. It also engages in an empirical study of
the results obtained from GoogleLocal for a number of business types and
activities in a range of urban, suburban and rural locations.
