Robert A. Yarbrough

The Informal Economy of Veracruz State During the Fox Administration

Using recently available night lights and electricity consumption data for the 212 municipios (counties) of Veracruz state in southern Mexico, the informal economy is analyzed at the Mexican county level for the first time with such data. Most counties between 2000 and 2006 are found to have growing informal economies though the richest county, Boca Del Rio, exhibits a decline in informality suggesting a few wealthier counties may behave differently. Counties have a larger formal economy if they are in northern areas, have higher literacy rates, and more indigenous people. The informal economy appears to have reversed its declining share of total economic activity towards more growth during the Fox era though the regional government of Veracruz remained in the hands of the PRI perhaps limiting federal reform efforts.

Latino/White and Latino/Black Segregation in the Southeastern United States: Findings from Census 2000

Examining the spatial dispersion of immigrant and ethnic groups in urban settings can provide insight into the social and political relations between these groups and the majority populations with which they share urban space. With the recognition from Census 2000 that Latinos and Blacks comprise nearly the same proportion of the countrys total population, issues surrounding residential settlement patterns of Latinos vis-à-vis Whites and Blacks demand greater attention from geographers. Utilizing the dissimilarity index as a measure of residential segregation, this paper investigates the changes in Latino/White and Latino/Black segregation from 1990 to 2000 for 74 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the southeastern United States. In addition to concluding that Latino/White segregation has increased on average while Latino/Black segregation has declined, positive associations between overall population growth as well as Latino population growth and the Latino/White dissimilarity indices emerged. Finally, an inverse relationship with reference to Latino/Black segregation exists and begets questions of what forces are driving these extant urban geographies.

Plenary Paper Discussant Commentary 1

As a lifelong southerner who currently lives and works in south Georgia, I’m reticent to admit that I had not heard either the Tim McGraw or Brad Paisley tunes that Jamie Winders references in her piece (although I’m quite familiar with their impress in contemporary country music). Nevertheless, the questions and insights Winders draws from meshing her own work on Latino migration with Paisley’s celebration of a multicultural America and McGraw’s reclaiming of the South’s cultural (and arguably mythical) past are quite remarkable. That these two songs would engender questions of where and how southern geographies are being replaced vis-à-vis Latino migration only goes to show the relevance and potential contributions of the discipline of geography to understanding constructions of identity, place, region, and culture associated with the contemporary U.S. South. There is so much to like about Winders’ piece that it’s hard to know where to begin. First, I greatly appreciate the three-pronged framework for discussing the re-placement of southern geographies, as it allows for both theoretical and empirical contributions from geographers of all stripes. Secondly, because Winders’ call for a broader, sustained involvement of geographers in researching Latino migration in the South was so thoroughly convincing, I will focus most of my comments on the material and discursive aspects of this re-placing of southern geographies.