Richard Ulack

Cognitive Maps of Appalachia

OGNITIVE maps influence the geographical relationships between persons and places. Individuals constantly interact with an environment that is too complex to comprehend or understand fully. Cultural values, needs, and experiences provide a context in which persons observe their environment and order or eliminate the information that they may garner from it. The sorted cognitive information is functional because it becomes the basis for certain types of geographical behavior in relation to the environment. Roger M. Downs and David Stea suggested that individuals use three methods to order their geographical experiences.l By concentrating on the similarities among places or objects in the environment, individuals classify their environment in sets of characteristics that describe different parts of it. Simplified information from the environment is classified according to geographical relationships in order to produce cognitive images of places. Individuals may categorize information regionally. This process involves simplification of information to stereotypes of people and landscapes that may or may not be accurate. But individuals behave as if the images were correct, and consequently geographical behavior is molded or modified by these images.2 Another issue is how groups of individuals process environmental information. Members of a group share knowledge, experiences, and beliefs about places, including stereotypes that range from reality through myth to valuebased emotional distortions.3 When members of a particular group are asked to portray their cognitive images in the form of a graphic map, the results tend to exhibit a consistent set of characteristics. The principle of proximity influences the number of characteristics that are recognized and the range of the geographical content in which the characteristics are placed.4 In a graphic portrayal of cognitive images, the places that are closest to the observer are usually the best known and the easiest to recall in detail. Graphic representations of nearby environments are generally abundant in details in comparison with maps of distant environments or places that were not observed or experienced firsthand. A qualification of this generalization is that highly publicized events in some distant area might provide information about the place that would

Appalachian Vernacular Regions

The name Appalachia has wide recognition across America. It is associated with the upland sections of at least 13 eastern states and has become associated with coal mining, poverty, welfare programs and traditional social values. But do the people who live within the region recognize Appalachia as a place that fits the name? A survey of college students in and adjacent to the region revealed that residents use a variety of directional and topographical terms as vernacular regional names. The term Appalachia has limited use and is largely restricted to the central and southern highlands.

Migration and regional population aging in the Philippines.

There is a growing realization that developing countries will be affected in the future by the problems associated with population aging. Although internal migration could exacerbate the problems of aging at subnational levels, there remains a paucity of research on the role of migration in elderly population change for the developing countries of the world. This study uses 1980 census data for the Philippines to explore the spatial and temporal dynamics of the countrys elderly population. Through examination of internal migration patterns among the thirteen regions of the country and population projections, this paper demonstrates the potentially large role that migration plays in determining local patterns of aging.The National Capital Region, which is a primary destination of labor force migrants, exhibits the greatest projected increase in the share of the nations elderly population, while the centrally located Visayas regions show rapid reductions in the future. The Visayas regions, however, may be expected to have the highest concentrations of elderly in their populations. Such findings suggest that labor force migration patterns, with subsequent aging-in-place, will most strongly influence near future distributions and concentrations of the elderly, and that national planning for the futures elderly population should incorporate regional examinations as a means of appropriately distributing financial and service related support.

Circulation in the Philippines

Based on a survey of 2741 randomly selected households this study examines the characteristics and effects of circular migration. Individuals who participate in this type of migration are young relatively well educated single and economically motivated. Circulation is an alternative to permanent migration and should be accommodated by planners and policymakers. The setting for this case study is Cebu and Misamis Oriental provinces the Philippines. (EXCERPT)

Mobility and Employment in Urban Southeast Asia: Examples from Indonesia and the Philippines

This study compares and contrasts the population movements and employment characteristics of a set of secondary cities in Southeast Asia (Medan in Indonesia and Cebu in the Philippines) along with smaller cities (Pematang Siantar and Tebing Tinggi in Indonesia and Capayan de Oro in the Philippines). The authors used questionnaires and interviews to obtain data in 1982 and 1983. Sample sizes were: 1100 in Medan 250 in Pematang Siantar 150 in Tebing Tinggi 1000 in Cebu and 800 in Cagayan de Oro. All the cities 1) are intermediate in a size 2) are important nodes in their respective regions and 3) have had steady population growth in recent years. The socioeconomic demographic and migration characteristics of household heads in the 5 cities are similar in many respects. A comparison of the characteristics of migrants coming to the 5 cities with those of urban nonmigrants shows that 1) most migrant household heads moved to the city while they were still young and unmarried 2) their educational attainment was at least equal to that of nonmigrants 3) their occupations were somewhat higher in status and 4) migrants were somewhat less likely to become squatters. The following results support the individual decision-making model of migration: 1) most respondents assert that it was they not another family member who had decided to move to the city; and 2) the most common reasons for moving are economic rather than family-oriented. Other results include: 1) a functional connection exists between geographic and social mobility 2) most migrants have not sent remittances to their homeplaces 3) government service provides a much larger share of employment in Indonesia while manufacturing accounts for more jobs in the Philippines and 4) the informal sector is more dominant in the Indonesian cities. Formal to informal sector movements are more common than the reverse. Relatively few respondents plan to leave their present communities. Those who do plan to migrate tend to prefer another urban place but not the nations primate center. Socioeconomic factors are the most important factors in migration decisions. Indonesian and Philippine populations are quite similar in levels of satisfaction with current residence residential preferences plans to migrate and value-expectancies. Levels of circulation are high which would increase population estimates for those cities. Circulation should be facilitated as it is an important coping strategy and a significant alternative to migration. Finally the authors discuss policy implications for migration and employment patterns.