Michael D. Irwin

There's No Place like Home: Nonmigration and Civic Engagement

Demographic stability in local areas is achieved by maintaining a population core that does not move. However, relatively little is known about contextual factors related to nonmigration. What research exists on nonmigration suggests that the factors anchoring people to places may be different than the factors that are primary determinants of migration. In this paper we discuss the social foundations that anchor people to places and present an analysis that demonstrates an interrelationship between community social institutions and nonmigration. Specifically, we show that the proportion of persons remaining between 1985 and 1990 in 3024 US counties varies directly with the number of locally owned small-scale retail establishments, the number of small-scale manufacturing firms and family farms, the number of local civic associations, and the proportion of the local population in civically active religious denominations.

Why People Stay: The Impact of Community Context on Nonmigration in the USA

La plupart des travaux sur les migrations americaines reposent sur des explications de la mobilite au niveau individuel. Notre etude va plus loin en examinant l’effet du contexte local sur les probabilites de ne pas migrer entre 1985 et 1990. En utilisant les donnees individuelles extraites des bulletins complets du recensement de 1990, nous rattachons les adultes recenses en 1990 a leur comte de residence en 1985. Ensuite, en exploitant les caracteristiques macro-structurelles des comtes d’origine (fournies par le recensement de l’economie) et les caracteristiques des individus (fournies par le recensement decennal), nous elaborons un modele lineaire hierarchique a deux niveaux. Au niveau 1, nous construisons une equation logistique qui modelise les probabilites individuelles de ne pas migrer. Au niveau 2, nous modelisons d’abord les effets contextuels additifs de la localite d’origine sur ces probabilites, puis les effets d’interaction (inter-niveaux). Les facteurs locaux se classent en deux categories : 1) la situation economique, qui comprend les habituels facteurs « repulsifs » au niveau agrege; 2) les caracteristiques de la collectivite locale qui tendent a retenir les gens la ou ils vivent. Les resultats precisent le lien qui existe entre le contexte local et les migrations individuelles et montrent les effets des structures economiques et sociales locales sur ces comportements individuels. Nous constatons que, une fois controles les facteurs economiques locaux et les caracteristiques individuelles, les particularites sociologiques des localites sont associees sur un mode additif a la propension a rester ou l’on est. De plus, nous observons que certaines caracteristiques des communautes locales interagissent avec les caracteristiques individuelles et familiales pour conditionner les effets des facteurs individuels sur la probabilite de migrer.

Suburban sprawl, regional diffusion, and the fate of small retailers in a large retail environment, 1977-1996

Abstract Research on the decline of public life in the United States has largely overlooked the role of Main Street retailers that provide public spaces for the maintenance of informal social ties. A central factor shaping the viability of small retailers is the development of big box chain stores that offer one-stop shopping and price out smaller competitors. Although prior studies have considered the transition from small to large retailers as a national phenomenon, arguing for the importance of place effects, we document the spatial variation in this process for nonmetropolitan counties in the United States. We hypothesize that the economic downturns in agriculture and manufacturing during the 1980s, combined with suburban sprawl into nonmetropolitan counties, facilitated the decline of small retailing in specific locales. Employing data from the 1977–1996 U.S. County Business Patterns, we test our hypotheses concerning the spatial variability in the decline of small retailing. Our results point to a marked decline in the number of establishments and employment in selected retail industries for nonmetropolitan counties near metropolitan areas in the South, Midwest, and West. These findings highlight the importance of considering local business enterprises as an important dimension of public life and local leadership in community affairs. We conclude our study by outlining the social consequences of the decline of small retail activity and suggest directions for future research.

Measuring Migration: Profiling Residential Mobility across Two Decades

The demography of a local population is a central aspect of applied social science research. Although birth and death rates influence a population, the key contributing factor influencing the demographics of a locality is almost always internal migration—the movement of persons between U.S. regions, states, and localities. Current definitions of internal migration used by the U.S. Census Bureau are limited because confidentiality restrictions require that detailed current and former place of residence geographic information be suppressed in publicly available files. In this paper we report the results of our work with confidential versions of the 1990 and 2000 decennial census microdata to develop an improved measurement of migration in order to develop a profile of internal migration in the United States. We perform our analysis for two contrasting time periods, 1985–1990 and 1995–2000. Our interest here is to assess the stability of the profile of migrants during a time period of economic contraction and expansion. Using confidential internal versions of the 1990 and 2000 Census long-form microdata, we estimate logistic models of the likelihood that individuals will migrate. The geographic detail in the internal Census data permits us to measure migration in ways that are not possible with public-domain Census data on persons. We develop migration definitions that distinguish between local residential mobility likely associated with life course transitions from migration out of the labor market area that may be driven more by employment and other socioeconomic considerations. Using logistic modeling, we find that the same individual attributes predict migration reasonably well during both periods. We also compute some illustrative probabilities of migration that show temporal stability in migration predictors could be lessened by certain changes in population composition.

Socio-spatial Holes in the Advocacy Umbrella: The Spatial Diffusion of Risk and Network Response Among Environmental Organizations in the Marcellus Hydro-fracturing Region

This chapter examines the effect of the spatial distribution of hydro-fracturing activity in Pennsylvania on the formation of networks of interaction among environmental advocacy organizations. These advocacy coalitions emerged as geographically widespread mechanisms for mobilization of resources and information. From a policy view, these environmental networks play a vital advocacy role, providing resources and information for local citizenry in the small towns and rural areas of Pennsylvania. In areas where these coalitions create effective organizational networks, advocacy resources are rich. Where such network connections are sparse, organizational resources are also sparse. The scope, structure, and density of these networks constitute important dimensions of mobilization in social movements, but are seldom analyzed along spatial dimensions. We show that the structure of this network can be described using spatial gravity models. These models add an important dimension to community factors influencing mobilization not covered in the social movement literature. However, we note that there are holes in the structure of this network that leave specific communities underserved and more at risk for environmental impacts. These communities are far more isolated in this network than would be predicted by gravity models and call for additional analysis using methods developed in social movement studies. We end with a discussion of areas for productive overlap between social movement and socio-spatial approaches, as well as a discussion of implications for mobilization and advocacy from a spatial network perspective.

Pourquoi certains ne migrent pas :. L'impact du contexte local sur la sédentarité aux États-Unis

La plupart des travaux sur les migrations americaines reposent sur des explications de la mobilite au niveau individuel. Notre etude va plus loin en examinant l’effet du contexte local sur les probabilites de ne pas migrer entre 1985 et 1990. En utilisant les donnees individuelles extraites des bulletins complets du recensement de 1990, nous rattachons les adultes recenses en 1990 a leur comte de residence en 1985. Ensuite, en exploitant les caracteristiques macro-structurelles des comtes d’origine (fournies par le recensement de l’economie) et les caracteristiques des individus (fournies par le recensement decennal), nous elaborons un modele lineaire hierarchique a deux niveaux. Au niveau 1, nous construisons une equation logistique qui modelise les probabilites individuelles de ne pas migrer. Au niveau 2, nous modelisons d’abord les effets contextuels additifs de la localite d’origine sur ces probabilites, puis les effets d’interaction (inter-niveaux). Les facteurs locaux se classent en deux categories : 1) la situation economique, qui comprend les habituels facteurs « repulsifs » au niveau agrege ; 2) les caracteristiques de la collectivite locale qui tendent a retenir les gens la ou ils vivent. Les resultats precisent le lien qui existe entre le contexte local et les migrations individuelles et montrent les effets des structures economiques et sociales locales sur ces comportements individuels. Nous constatons que, une fois controles les facteurs economiques locaux et les caracteristiques individuelles, les particularites sociologiques des localites exercent des effets additifs sur la propension a rester ou l’on est. De plus, nous observons que certaines caracteristiques des communautes locales interagissent avec les caracteristiques individuelles et familiales pour conditionner les effets des facteurs individuels sur la probabilite de migrer.

Georeferencing School-Age Population Projections: Methodology for a Rapidly Growing District

Schools and other public service providers often require detailed information about local populations to accommodate geographically specific population growth and decline with necessary resources. Faced with relentless middle-class population growth, the Ascension Parish School District requires fine-grained population projections of its school enrollment to ensure sufficient facilities and balanced attendance zones in coming years. In this paper we outline the method we created to integrate standard projected population values with GIS to forecast any number of sub-parish population settlement geographies. With this approach, Ascension Parish School District is able to locate future school facilities and easily negotiate multiple possible attendance zone boundaries by systematically disaggregating and recombining standard population projections through GIS.

The Concept of Community as Theoretical Ground: Contention and Compatibility Across Levels of Analysis and Standpoints of Social Processes

This chapter provides an overview of the concept of community as a theoretical construct. The major theme of the chapter is that the concept of community provides a theoretical construct that is critical to understanding association among individuals and the linkages between the individual and society. Linking the experiential world of the individual to the abstraction of society and culture has been an enduring analytic and theoretical problem. Society, however influential on daily lives, is not readily perceived as an object or as context by individuals. And if these lines of influence lack experiential reality, then the processes by which individuals are integrated into society and culture are equally indefinite. The concept of community provides a theoretical counter to this ambiguity. Community is a tangible social and cultural milieu that is part of daily individual experience. It also provides an accessible unit for studying social processes. Here the spatial character of community becomes of central importance. For these reasons at least, community is an enduring focus in social theory. However, the nature of that focus reflects the underlying theoretical propositions about individuals’ relationship with society at large. In this, the concept of community is used to support theories of social integration. This chapter summarizes these propositions about the concept of community in classic and contemporary theory and analysis. The chapter then discusses the application of these propositions about social integration to the concept of community in the coming century.