bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Dramatic Erosion of a Tobacco Field at Vanceboro, North Carolina
Authors: Slattery Michael C. , Burt Timothy P. , Gares Paul A.
Published: July 2013

Recent research has shown that soil erosion on the Atlantic Coastal Plain is more rapid and extensive than was long believed to be the case. This paper describes serious erosion on a 4.5-ha field of tobacco at Vanceboro, North Carolina, as a result of a severe thunderstorm during the summer of 1995. A total of 15.2 t of soil was lost via a network of rills from the field; this represents a rate of soil loss of 3.4 t ha -1 . Despite alluvial soils that are well drained, the study confirms that intense rain and long flow lengths, especially along compacted wheelings, can generate large amounts of runoff and erosion even on flat ground with good crop cover.
To Restructure or not to Restructure: Contemplations on Postwar Industrial Geography in the U.S. South
Authors: Johnson Merrill L.
Published: July 2013

Excitement over the "New South" extends to the changing southern manufacturing landscape, but this landscape may not always reflect the promise of a new economic order. The purpose of this study is to offer a broadly based review of industrial change in the post-World War II South, with the goal of separating reality from myth. Past industrial patterns are examined briefly to provide a framework for investigating postwar trends. These trends relate to the role of production costs, the urban contrast, the marketing of location, industrial succession, flexible production, automation, and policy cultures. Final comments examine future industrial spaces in the South and how the promise of the New South may still be within reach.
The Great Southern Agricultural Transformation and Its Social Consequences
Authors: Winsberg Morton D.
Published: July 2013

The great agricultural transformation within the South began early in this century, but between 1950 and 1980 reached its greatest intensity. This transformation dislocated many lives, most particularly blacks. Whereas there was a precipitous decline in both the white and black farm population during the transformation, whites were able to enter the southern rural nonfarm population more easily than the blacks. Blacks mainly left for large cities, mostly in the North. Today southern agriculture is practiced on a far larger scale than in the past, and much of it has become highly mechanized. In areas of the region's agriculture that have experienced little mechanization, Hispanics—many undocumented and thus vulnerable to exploitation—now meet much of the labor demand. Contract labor is replacing hired because farmers find it cheaper. Despite the modernization of much of the region's agriculture, there has been little change in its geographical distribution. As in the past, many southern counties continue to depend heavily on the sale of one agricultural commodity. Today, however, it is more frequently broiler chickens than cotton or tobacco.
Post-1980 Black Population Redistribution Trends in the United States
Authors: Johnson James H. , Grant David M.
Published: July 2013

Using data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) and other U.S. census documents, this paper demonstrates how three rather dramatic shifts in the migration behavior of blacks, which took shape during the 1970s, continued to contribute to the geographical redistribution of the black population down the urban hierarchy during the 1980s. Analyses of black migration flows into six metropolitan areas suggest that liberal welfare benefits play, at best, a minor role in contemporary black population redistribution trends. Kinship ties (i.e., location-specific capital), the search for affordable housing, and employment in the hospitality services industry appear to be the dominant forces influencing black migration into the case-study communities.
Reinterpreting Organized Labor's Experience in the Southeast: 1947 to Present
Authors: Herod Andrew
Published: July 2013

This paper examines the changing landscape of organized labor in the Southeast between 1947 and today. To do so, it looks at several indicators of organized labor's experience in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The indicators examined are percentage of the nonagricultural workforce that belongs to a trade union; numbers of unfair labor practice charges filed against both unions and employers; numbers of representation elections held and percentage won by unions; and numbers of decertification elections held and percentage won by unions. The analyses show that the Southeastern United States is not uniformly anti-union in culture and that levels of class conflict, at least when measured by such variables, have often been higher in the region than in the nation as a whole. Such findings suggest the need to rethink the nature of organized labor's experience and the geography of class struggle in the region.
Exploring the Virtual South: The Idea of a Distinctive Region on "The Web"
Authors: Alderman Derek H. , Good Daniel B.
Published: July 2013

The notion of a culturally distinctive South is an ideology that has long served as a way of organizing, representing, and structuring life in America. Functioning as electronic folklore, the mass media creates distinctions between places and thus operationalizes the idea of a distinct regional culture. The emergence of the Internet, particularly the World Wide Web, offers a new conduit through which images, meanings, and identities of people and places are constructed and conveyed symbolically. The purpose of this article is to explore, theoretically and empirically, the Virtual South—the production of the idea of a distinct American South through the cultural discourse and new electronic folklore of cyberspace. Specifically, our objectives are: (1) to show what the Virtual South looks like and where on "the Web" the idea of a distinctive South is being (re)constructed, (2) to identify some of the social contexts, groups, and interests underlying the use of the Web to advocate the ideology of a distinctive southern regional culture, and (3) to reflect on the possible differences between the cyber-representation of place and more traditional mediums of geographic portrayal. Using evidence from sites on the Web. the authors investigate three cyber-contexts in which the ideology of a distinct South is developed and deployed: promoting/marketing cities in cyberspace; preparing for the 1996 Olympic Games in cyberspace; and expressing regional identity in cyberspace. This work attempts to build a greater understanding of the cultural geography of the Web, the place of the South in current American social thought/practice, and the politics of representing this region and others in the telecommunications media.
The Southern Migration Turnaround and Current Patterns
Authors: Pandit Kavita
Published: July 2013

During the decade of the 1970s, the South experienced a remarkable reversal in its historical migration patterns. Traditionally a region with net out-migration to the rest of the country, the South began receiving large volumes of migrants from the Midwest and the Northeast and showing a net gain through migration. This paper documents this turnaround and the numerous reasons behind it. National economic restructuring in the 1970s and 1980s prompted a regional shift of industry and employment from the North to the South. This coincided with the coming of age of the Baby Boom generation, which greatly increased the volume of the flows to the South. The growth of elderly migration and the unprecedented reverse migration of blacks to the South gave further impetus to the Southward movement. Finally, metropolitan growth within the South substantially reduced the out-migration from the region, thereby increasing net migration. The paper also examines the current and emerging geography of Southern migration. Florida and Texas have received a significant share of in-migrants to the South in past decades. Recent patterns suggest that the growth is diffusing to other states such as Georgia and North Carolina that have experienced strong metropolitan development. While immigration to the South has always been low, a growing number of foreign-born have been making a secondary move to the South after entering the country elsewhere. Overall the data suggest that the South will continue to be a region of net in-migration into the next millennium.
The Rise Of Tobacco as a Southern Appalachian Staple: Madison County, North Carolina
Authors: Alegeo Katie
Published: July 2013

This paper traces the development of the farm system in Madison County, North Carolina from the mid-19th century to the present, describing processes that contributed to the rise of tobacco as a Southern Appalachian staple, including the diffusion of technological and biological innovations, regional economic development, the changing political economy of tobacco manufacturing, and federal intervention. Using census data, published historical accounts, and contemporary newspaper articles, this paper details two eras of commercial tobacco production in western North Carolina. The Flue-Cured Era lasted from the 1870s into the first decade of the 20th century. The Burley Era started in the mid-1920s and continues to the present, tempered recently by the development of an amenity landscape.
Southern Services in the Late Twentieth Century
Authors: Warf Barney , Grimes John
Published: July 2013

The vast majority of Southerners, like those in the rest of the United States, are employed in services of various sorts. This paper reviews definitions of "services" and the forces underlying their growth. Second, it examines the geography of the service economy. Third, it focuses on the spatial structure of private (non-government) southern service industries and their growth patterns between 1964 and 1994. Southern services tend to agglomerate in large metropolitan areas, particularly Washington, DC, Atlanta, and southern Florida; rural areas exhibited relatively low levels of employment. The most rapid growth rates, however, largely were on the periphery of, but not within, metropolitan areas.
The Relationship Between Drainage Basin Area and Annual Peak-Flood Seasonality in the Southeastern United States
Authors: Gamble Douglas W.
Published: July 2013

This study examines relationships between drainage basin area and flood seasonality in the southeastern United States. To assess this relationship, a flood seasonality analysis of annual peak flood series for 84 individual drainage basins is completed, identifying five distinct annual peak-flood seasonality regions: the Tennessee, the Gulf Coast, Peninsular Florida, the Carolinas, and the Georgia Coastal Plain. These results confirm previous research except for the Carolina region, which possesses no dominant season in annual peak-flood frequency. Further statistical analysis indicates that the Georgia Coastal Plain is the only region of the five with a statistically significant relationship between drainage basin area and annual peak-flood seasonality. The statistical relationships for this region are interpreted as spring annual peak floods occurring more frequently on larger drainage basins because of high soil moisture and frequent extratropical-cyclone passage. Weak, significant statistical relationships exist between drainage basin area and annual peak-flood seasonality when all streams are placed in a single data set representing the entire southeastern United States. These results suggest the need for a wide range in drainage-basin area to identify a relationship between drainage-basin area and annual peak-flood seasonality.
The Changed South, 1947-1997
Authors: Hartshorn Truman A.
Published: July 2013

This paper traces change in the South in recent decades that has resulted from industrialization, the Sunbelt attraction, urbanization, and development of the service economy. The "Boombelt" along 1-85 in the Piedmont region attracted much of the industrial expansion, particularly in North and South Carolina, and Georgia. The largest metropolitan areas in the region now account for the largest share of manufacturing output. City-building has also been propelled by the expansion of white-collar service industries, including headquarters locations which are disproportionately concentrated in Virginia, Florida, and Georgia. The role of Atlanta at the top of the urban hierarchy in the region and the tremendous rate of growth of urban corridors on the southeast and west coasts of Florida stand out. Along with dramatic socio-economic change, the South also experienced significant political realignment, agricultural restructuring, and ethnicity shifts in the past fifty years making the region more like the rest of the nation. The South has become a major global player in economic growth but rural areas still lag behind.
The Changing South: Transportation and Communications Since 1947
Authors: Mitchelson Ronald L. , Pitts Timothy C. , Curtis Andrew J. , Calhoun Kevin L.
Published: July 2013

Dramatic changes in socioeconomic activities and social relations within the South have been accompanied by equally dramatic changes in southern spatial interaction. This paper describes changes to southern infrastructure and flows that have occurred since World War II. Movement industries dealing with people, goods, and information are examined. The volume, velocity, and spatial extent of movement have expanded greatly during the post World War II era. Urbanization, globalization, feminization, and deregulation manifest altered patterns of infrastructure and spatial interaction. Despite capacities to move huge quantities of southern people, goods, and information, the level of accessibility to local, regional, national, and global systems of interaction varies significantly and increasingly across the southern landscape. This spatial variation (in concert with the environmental impacts of our movement systems) provides sources of concern for the nature of future southern development.
Assessing the Impact of Hurricane Hugo on Coastal South Carolina through Digital Image Change Detection
Authors: Collins Richard F.
Published: July 2013

The coastal regions of the world are highly dynamic. Physical processes coupled with human activities constantly produce both positive and negative impacts. The detection of these impacts is important to an understanding of the processes themselves. Most of these impacts take several years to detect, but in a short-term event like a hurricane, they can happen in a matter of a few hours. This paper illustrates the utility of digital-image change-detection techniques in assessing the physical impacts of hurricanes on coastal areas. Four change-detection techniques were used to detect the effects of Hurricane Hugo's landfall near Charleston, South Carolina. The results of the comparisons indicate that no single change-detection technique locates all modifications. However, when the digital techniques are combined with the visual "heads-up" technique, a more detailed and comprehensive assessment of change to the coastal region is attained.
Fifty Years of Political Change in the South: Electing African Americans and Women to Public Office
Authors: Ingalls Gerald L. , Webster Gerald R. , Leib Jonathan I.
Published: July 2013

In the 50 years since the founding of SEDAAG there has been marked political change in the South. In this article, we examine one aspect of change in southern politics—the election of women and African Americans to public office. Historically excluded from political power in the South, these two groups are in many ways highly indicative of the consequences of the changing politics of the region. This aspect of the changing South is examined through a historical summary of the success over time of African Americans and women in gaining access to political office in the region. We conclude that while recent increases in the levels of black representation in the region have been impressive (albeit thanks to federal pressure), the South continues to lag behind the rest of the country in electing women to public office.
A Geographic Assessment of Health-Care Coverage in Two "Rural" North Carolina Communities
Authors: Gesler Wilbert M. , Jordan Joanne M. , Dragomir Anca , Luta Gheorghe , Fryer John G.
Published: July 2013

The study shows the value of using basic geographic techniques to examine two key concepts of health-care delivery—service coverage and location of a community along a rural-urban continuum. Three types of coverage are discussed for two small North Carolina communities: the availability of physicians of all types, the accessibility to hospitals of all sizes, and the utilization of primary-care physicians. The usefulness of the concept of a rural-urban continuum in helping to define degree of rurality and how this concept affects coverage is demonstrated by looking at two towns midway along the continuum. Although the towns are only nine miles apart, they have very different coverage profiles, indicating that unique local health-care-delivery situations must be taken into account. The study towns do not fit the rural stereotype of poor availability and accessibility, although these two types of coverage could be improved. The micro-scale study of the utilization of primary care physicians revealed that several sociodemographic factors were not important, but that measuring perceived travel time, whether or not people had to be driven to care, perceived health status, and health insurance status were important.
The Appalachian Regional Commission in Kentucky: A Question of Boundaries
Authors: Strickland Jamie L.
Published: July 2013

Recent scholarly and popular attention has been drawn to the problem of regional definitions of Appalachia and the effectiveness of the programs of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). In 1978, the ARC's delineation of Appalachia was statistically evaluated with respect to socioeconomic and physical criteria. It was concluded that while the federal region was relatively homogeneous, there was significant variation on the periphery of the region. The primary purpose of this paper is to determine whether the ARC's delineation of Appalachian Kentucky continues to bound an area of relatively homogeneous socioeconomic characteristics during the 1980s and 1990s. Discriminant analysis is used to classify counties as lying within or outside the ARC region on the basis of 17 socioeconomic variables. The results suggest that the federal definition of Appalachian Kentucky has remained remarkably durable. Few counties were reclassified as having socioeconomic characteristics that were "non-Appalachian." This durability, however, raises questions about the level of success of ARC programs in helping an economically lagging region.
Precipitation Annual Maxima as a Measure of Change in Extreme Rainfall Magnitudes in the Southeastern United States over the Past Century
Authors: Keim Barry D.
Published: July 2013

During the past few decades, excessive rainstorms in the southeastern United States have been abundant and the magnitudes impressive. For this reason, magnitudes of heavy rainfall were analyzed across the region for long-term trends and to evaluate storm magnitudes with temperature fluctuations. Statistical analysis found a tendency toward increasing values region-wide. Further, associations with temperature demonstrated spatial coherence in Texas, where cooler periods lead to larger annual storm events, but this pattern broke down in states farther east. Spatial patterns in precipitation annual maxima time series are also discussed through means of summary statistics.
New Urbanism, Pedestrianism, and Inner-City Charlotte Neighborhoods
Authors: Furuseth Owen J.
Published: July 2013

New Urbanism is a design approach to land planning that advocates a revival of classical and vernacular urban form as an alternative to conventional post-World War II suburban planning. Proponents of New Urbanism argue that this planning genre creates a greater sense of community and social interaction through the redesign of streetscapes and livable public places. In practical terms, New Urbanists use design elements to construct a sanitized urban landscape. Middle-class consumers are attracted to New Urbanism as a modern reincarnation of community juxtaposed with a simulated historical or culturally significant urban place. Visual images and constructed marketing narratives link New Urbanist developments to trendy antecedents like Charleston, Savannah, Williamsburg, and Old Salem (NC). Pedestrian-friendly land use patterns are at the center of this movement. Indeed, New Urbanists claim that pedestrian friendliness is a key difference between modern suburban land development and earlier community-centered land planning. New Urbanism is historiocentric—i.e., the older the neighborhood, the better the neighborhood. This paper examines pedestrian orientation of 73 neighborhoods in central Charlotte. These study areas were developed between 1860 and post-1962. The research finds that older neighborhoods do exhibit pedestrian orientation, but that age alone does not singularly explain walkability. Indeed, the strongest pedestrian neighborhoods are public housing communities. As a commercial product New Urbanist communities carefully identify their historical templates. Accordingly, reference to low income neighborhoods is not acknowledged.
Spatial Investment Strategies of Federal Assistance to Appalachia
Authors: Laing Craig R.
Published: July 2013

The federal government has been involved in Appalachia's development since 1965, when President Johnson signed the Appalachian Regional Development Act creating the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). The ARC is a unique federal-state program aimed at stimulating economic development and ameliorating the social and economic malaise in Appalachia. ARC programs comprise two broad initiatives—highway and area development. The purpose of this paper is to identify the spatial strategies used in carrying out ARC's area development programs—particularly health, education, and community development—and, through cartographic analysis, to examine the resultant investment patterns. This research relied primarily on ARC policy documents and a database of funded projects, provided by the agency. Most ARC spatial investment strategies made certain that all areas were eligible for funds. Two exceptions to this strategy were early health care expenditures and funds for health, education, and community development after 1982. Spatial patterns of expenditures reflect these different strategies. Today's leading strategy sets aside additional funding for the most economically depressed counties and makes economically strong counties ineligible for funding.
150 Years of Environmental Degradation and Reclamation in the Copper Basin, Tennessee
Authors: Mathews Louise , Harden Carol
Published: July 2013

The Copper Basin, Tennessee, is unique in the southeastern United States for the extent and persistence of its treeless landscape. Reclamation has been slow and costly, but the basin has finally lost the appearance of a desert and is now green again. Reviewing the environmental history of the Copper Basin since 1847, we find a treeless landscape to have resulted and persisted due to a set of interrelated human activities that included grazing, burning, building, and charcoal-production as well as mining and sulfuric-acid recovery. Reclamation efforts, chronicled in this paper, became increasingly successful after the 1970s as a result of new techniques and sheer effort. Reclamation focused primarily on reducing erosion and downstream sedimentation until recently, when other water quality issues have received increased attention. Changing land ownership in the basin threatens to reverse some of the changes achieved by reclamation projects.
Premium Standard Farms and the Transformation of Livestock Geography in Northern Missouri
Authors: Smith Jonathan Vaughan
Published: July 2013

Industrial hog farming came of age in the Carolinas in the 1980s. The 1990s was the decade of its diffusion across the American landscape. Missouri was an important stage in the spatial development of industrial pork production. One company, Premium Standard Farms, led Missouri into this new era with innovative and geographically sensitive operations in northern Missouri. Their economic successes were offset by environmental and social conflicts. Ultimately, Continental Grain Company (now known as ContiGroup Companies, Inc.) bought controlling interest in their unique operation, merging it with mainstream, urban-centered agribusiness. The result is a transformed rural landscape in a regulatory environment again resistant to change.
Science and Technology Capability and Economic Development in Lagging States: The Case of West Virginia Manufacturing
Authors: Calzonetti F. J. , Allison T. , Gatrell Jay
Published: July 2013

The importance of local infrastructure, institutions, and service providers to the development of a competitive technology-based economy has been well established in recent years. Rural states, which lack many of the ingredients found in successful technology districts, must overcome serious problems in efforts to build a technologically-based economy. Problems include the lack of major metropolitan areas, limited research capabilities of the local universities, limited industrial research and development, a lack of research infrastructure, an over dependency on a resource-based economy, and the problem of competing with well-established technology regions. West Virginia is an example of such a state in the southeastern United States. This paper examines the status of West Virginia's research and development competitiveness and the relationship of factors associated with competitiveness of manufacturing establishments in the state. Results of a survey of manufacturers are presented. The survey shows that establishments with scientific and engineering staff, and those that purchase advanced business services, are more likely to have nationally competitive primary products or processes. West Virginia is taking steps to improve its science and technology position, and policymakers in West Virginia, as well as in other lagging states, need to understand the depth of support needed for long-term technology-based industrial development.
Wet-Dry Referenda in Kentucky and the Persistence of Prohibition Forces
Authors: Brunn Stanley D. , Appleton Thomas H.
Published: July 2013

Kentucky's history and present is marked by stark contrasts in alcohol production and sales. While the distillery industry has a long history in German-settled areas around Louisville and along the Ohio River, there have been religious and temperance groups since early in the nineteenth century opposed to sales. The strength of prohibition forces was evident in gubernatorial races and legislative proposals that led up to enactment of statewide prohibition in 1919. This proposed amendment to the Kentucky Constitution was narrowly approved by voters; in 1933 the "wet" or repeal voters again were in the majority, but not without much opposition from Southern Baptists and other fundamentalist denominations. During the past three decades, the "dry" forces have continued to influence proposed alcoholic beverage sales petitions in much of small-city and rural Kentucky. While the "dry" forces consider the question of sales a moral issue, supporters of sales tout potential convention and tourist dollars and attracting outside industries. Persistence of prohibition forces is evident in the state's having 75 dry and 30 wet counties and 15 "moist" counties (dry counties that contain wet cities).
Racial Differences in Mortgage Lending in the Southeastern United States
Authors: Coffey Brian , Roberts Charles
Published: July 2013

Twenty to 30 years after passage of laws designed to eliminate racial discrimination and redlining on the part of mortgage lenders questions regarding race and lending persist. Studies regularly reveal that race and location do affect lending decisions. However, few studies examine variation in approval rates by city size, the impact of location on White and Black applicants, or racial lending patterns in a given region. The present study considers these elements of lending for one major region of the United States, the Southeast. Examination of more that 600,000 mortgage applications from 15 metropolitan areas throughout the Southeast reveals sharp disparities in mortgage approval rates between Black and White applicants. For all cities in the region Whites were more likely to gain lenders' approval than Black applicants, even when controlling for income and loan amount, although there is considerable variation among cities in the degree to which Whites fare better than Blacks. The data reveal that city size affects approval rates of Blacks but not of Whites. Furthermore, Whites seeking loans of up to $100,000 in minority areas are less likely to receive them than are Blacks requesting similar loan amounts. Also, lower-income Blacks requesting small loans for houses in minority areas are more successful than lower-income Blacks requesting small loans for dwellings in White neighborhoods. The results of the study point to a need for greater efforts on the part of the lending industry to invest in minority areas and to provide Blacks with increased opportunities for home ownership and the associated process of capital accumulation.
Heart of Dixie Revisited: An Update on the Geography of Naming in the American South
Authors: Alderman Derek H. , Beavers Robert Maxwell
Published: July 2013

This research revisits and updates John Shelton Reed's "Heart of Dixie," a classic in the fields of cultural geography and southern studies. Reed mapped the perceptual or vernacular boundaries of the American South by examining the naming patterns of businesses and organizations listed in metropolitan telephone directories. First published in 1976, his study identified a strong southeastern regional pattern in the ratio of nonresidential establishments that used the word "Dixie" in their name versus those using the label "American." Later, in a 1990 update, Reed and colleagues found a dramatic shrinkage in the core area of Dixie naming, which they attributed to the waning of sectional feelings among southerners. We revisit this seminal study in light of recent struggles over identity in the American South, particularly between Black and White southerners, and recent changes in the region's place-name landscape. Three new trends are observable within the South's geography of naming: de-Confederatization, African Americanization, and re-Confederatization. We replicated Reed's methodology and generated an updated rendering of the "Heart of Dixie" using current data collected from the Internet, revealing a de-Confederatization in the naming of businesses and organizations (although wholesale, regionwide declines in references to Dixie—both in absolute and relative terms—are not evident). In addition to remapping the boundaries of Dixie as Reed defined it, we suggest that the study of southern naming should go beyond simply analyzing geographic patterns and move toward an investigation of the "politics of naming." Such an approach involves examining the social and political relations that underlie naming as people attempt to redefine and reclaim the region symbolically.
Tea Production in South Carolina
Authors: Walcott Susan M.
Published: July 2013

Tea has been grown in the southeastern United States for over 200 years, but commercial success has, until recently, eluded a succession of plantation entrepreneurs despite the favorable physical setting. The labor-intensive nature of tea cultivation and processing, combined with poor transportation access for market distribution from the South, required a daunting creativity. Technological innovations by individual owners, and integration of this region into national and global production chains, hold promise for the long-elusive addition of a popular crop to the list of Southern agricultural outputs.
Spatial Aspects of Technology Transfer: Evidence from Kentucky
Authors: Mitchelson Ronald L.
Published: July 2013

This paper reports the investigation of the geographies of new technologic ideas and their transfer from the realm of ideas and laboratories to the realm of commercialization. Kentucky's economic development strategies have slowly drifted from a dominant focus on the recruitment of branch manufacturing plants to the facilitation of a more entrepreneurial economy. Careful examination of the spatial distributions of patents, venture capital, federal grants for small businesses, and government facilities designed to support technologic ventures clearly indicates Kentucky's existing disadvantages for this important form of economic development. Additionally, spatial variation within Kentucky clearly demonstrates the initiation of programs that will result in another round of uneven development. Appalachian Kentucky, in particular, is not prepared to participate in economic development that is based on the creation and commercialization of new technologies.
Relationships between Mid-Tropospheric Flow Patterns and January Precipitation Totals in the Southeastern United States
Authors: Anzelmo Joseph R. , Soulé Peter T.
Published: July 2013

We systematically examine relationships between mid-tropospheric flow patterns and precipitation totals in the southeastern United States. While many have examined relationships between 700 hPa and 500 hPa geopotential heights and precipitation directly, the use of zonal and meridional indices to specify precipitation has not been used as frequently. For the mid-winter month of January we use a 24-year record of 500 hPa heights to calculate four zonal and six meridional indices. These values are then correlated with monthly precipitation totals at 60 climatic divisions in the contiguous United States, and the resultant patterns are mapped. Relationships between height differences and precipitation totals were strongest at sites close to one another. Strong and consistent relationships were found throughout the lower Mississippi Valley, which experiences frequent cyclogenesis in winter. By examining relationships between zonal and meridional indices it was possible to identify teleconnected patterns such as the prevailing mid-winter Pacific-North American teleconnection pattern. We conclude that variations in 500 hPa heights along discrete profiles (i.e., zonal and meridional indices) can be used to examine spatial variability in the control of precipitation.
Searching for Color Boundaries on Maps
Authors: Bunch Ricky L.
Published: July 2013

Searching for critical information is a fundamental component for most map-reading processes. The mapmaker, therefore, must understand the underlying processes involved in human visual search and consider these processes when designing maps. Color is often used as a tool to clarify maps. To fully understand the use of color and visual search processes, mapmakers need to go beyond subjective techniques for applying color to maps. This entails a deeper understanding based on knowledge of the physical, physiological, and perceptual nature of color and human visual processes. The purpose of this study is to examine the interaction between color and the visual processes people use to search maps. An experiment was designed to determine the effectiveness of color using perceptually unique hues defined by Abramov and Gordon (1994). An analysis of variance on reaction times indicated that color strongly affected visual search, especially if the color was yellow. The Euclidean distance between target color had a significant effect on search time, although it appeared to be nonlinear. Whether the target boundary was based on luminance, hue, or both luminance and hue also had a significant effect on reaction times. In addition, geographers appear to have an advantage over nongeographers when searching for information on maps.
Dendrohydrological Evidence of Flooding Along a Small Appalachian Stream
Authors: Royall Dan
Published: July 2013

Tree-ring records from flood-damaged trees have been most frequently used for reconstructing flood histories along large streams. Rarely has this approach been taken to gain hydrological information about small headwater channels. In this study, I analyze dendrohydrological evidence of flooding along two headwater streams in Virginia to determine its usefulness for hydrologic and geomorphic investigations of small, unmonitored watersheds. Easily obtained tree-ring dates for corrasion scars, adventitious sprouts and thin-ring sequences comprise the fundamental data set. The most noteworthy aspects of the data set are the youthfulness of most samples and a large corrasion scar peak in 1989. Elevations of corrasion scars above the channel bed indicate higher peak 1989 discharge than that expected based on field observations. These observations, coupled with hydrological monitoring data from closest stations and HEC-1 modeling results, emphasize the importance of wet antecedent conditions and repeated moderate events in scar creation. Earlier studies of lake sediment do not resolve sediment yield from year-1989 flooding, and average sediment yield was generally low at this time. Geomorphic work accomplished and/or sediment delivery may have been lower during 1989 than those associated with the Hurricane Agnes event in 1972. Although botanical flood evidence from small streams, and in particular corrasion scarring, are demonstrated to be useful for some hydrologic analyses, their use in reconstructing flood chronology is limited to recent decades by rapid tree healing.
Retail Saturation: What The Experts Say
Authors: Lord J. Dennis
Published: July 2013

The issue of saturation in U.S. retail markets is examined by investigating the perspectives and opinions of "experts" in the industry. A survey was administered to a sample of research analysts who worked for retail firms, developers, consulting companies, and investment institutions. Respondents were asked to define retail saturation and to indicate if the condition exists today in U.S. markets. They also were asked to identify the indicators of saturation and to select the single best measurement for use in determining the relative levels of retail saturation across geographic markets. A majority of respondents indicated that saturation was a prevalent condition in U.S. markets, but answers often included qualifiers or cautions. Measures of retail floorspace productivity, retail provision, and real estate market conditions were identified as indicators of saturation. Sales per square foot and square feet per capita were the most frequently cited measures to assess relative levels of saturation across geographic markets.
Seasonality of Flooding in North Carolina
Authors: Lecce Scott A.
Published: July 2013

This paper examines spatial patterns in the timing of floods in North Carolina. Regions with distinctly different seasonal flood regimes were identified using cluster analysis of monthly flood frequencies for the annual and partial duration series. The partial duration series produced results similar to those using the annual flood series, which was used to delineate three regions: the Appalachian Region, the Piedmont Region, and the Coastal Plain Region. In the Appalachian Region, about three-fourths of all floods occur during winter and early spring (December-April), while less than one fourth occur from May to November. The Appalachian Mountains are an effective barrier to warm, moist air masses that influence the rest of the state during the summer and fall. The frequency of floods in summer and fall increases to the east in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain regions, where maximum frequencies (~25-30%) occur during August-October. Although flooding in summer and fall is greater than in the Appalachian Region, floods still occur most frequently from January to April in the Piedmont (44%) and Coastal Plain (55%) regions. The smallest watersheds tend to experience a larger proportion of floods in summer and fall.
The Worldviews of Southern Seminaries: Images, Mission Statements, and Curricula
Authors: Brunn Stanley D. , Long Esther
Published: July 2013

Seminaries and divinity schools are significant components of a region's religious heritage and cultural landscape. While training ministerial professionals, they often proselytize among local residents and take moral positions on regional and global issues that are consistent with their theological stances. These "inside" and "outside" missions are integral elements of a seminary's worldview. In order to analyze the worldviews of 46 accredited theological seminaries and divinity schools in the American South, we examine their promotional materials in three ways: we study their use of visual images, their mission statements, and the global/intercultural content of their curricula. While evangelical seminaries share much in terms of mission statements and types of courses offered, this research shows that a number of schools, especially those serving Catholic, Hispanic, African American, and "mainline" groups, hold a diverse collection of worldviews. Christian theological schools in the contemporary South reflect strong elements of both an evangelical tradition and postmodern perspectives.
Regional, Interregional, and International Structures of Southern Legal Services
Authors: Warf Barney
Published: July 2013

The rapid growth of legal services has been accompanied by a mounting complexity in their geographic structure. Large law firms play a disproportionate role in the evolving corporate organization of this sector, offering specialized expertise to clients located in a wide variety of sectors and places. This paper opens with a brief review of the forces that have contributed to their growth. Next it turns to the spatial distribution of employment of legal services in the South, including the distribution of corporate headquarters, major areas of practice, and the racial and gender composition of employment. It also examines interstate locations of branch offices, including non-Southern extensions of Southern firms and those headquartered outside of the South but with operations within the region. Finally, it summarizes the international employment of attorneys working for Southern legal services firms.
Geographical Patterns of Religious Denomination Affiliation in Georgia, 1970-1990: Population Change and Growing Urban Diversity
Authors: Webster Gerald R.
Published: July 2013

The religious landscape of the South has long been dominated by a small number of evangelical Protestant denominations, most particularly the Baptists and Methodists. But the region has experienced a tremendous rate of in-migration from both inside and outside the United States in recent decades. Have these in-migrants altered the South's traditional geographic patterns of religious denomination affiliation? The central purpose of this study is to examine Georgia's denominational landscape between 1970 and 1990 to determine if changes have occurred, and are likely to continue in coming decades. The study's primary focus is upon seven denominations including Southern Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Mormons, and Pentecostals. Among its findings are that Southern Baptists and Methodists are slowly declining in their proportion of the state's population, most particularly in the state's metropolitan areas. In contrast, Catholics are rapidly increasing in the state's urban areas, and both Mormons and Pentecostals are growing very rapidly in a diverse set of rural and urban locations.
Corporate Headquarters in Metropolitan Atlanta, 1960-1997: A Region Comes of Age
Authors: Walcott Susan M.
Published: July 2013

A surge in urban economic development in the southern United States, unprecedented in scope and scale for this region, occurred during the four decades from 1960 through the 1990s. The location pattern and sectoral composition of corporate headquarters located in Atlanta, the Deep South's largest city, reflect the nature of this movement, transforming a region's economic landscape. A detailed corporate data set and survey of managers in selected companies in the top employment sectors enables analysis of firm type, size, and location for each decade. Explosive growth in a northern suburban wedge between major interstate highways follows the extension of transportation arteries outward from the urban core to formerly peripheral locations. Semple and Phipps' model of corporate headquarters distribution over time is amended in this demonstration of location variance by sector, by combination of firm size categories in the same general location, and with the emergence of an economy based on "white collar" occupations.
The Dixie Diaspora: The "Loss" of the Small Southern Jewish Community
Authors: Sheskin Ira M.
Published: July 2013

The major purpose of this paper is to describe recent changes in the geographic distribution of the Jewish population of the U.S. South and to discuss competing theories as to why small southern Jewish communities have been declining over the past few decades. First, this paper discusses the increase in Jewish population of the South Census Division, from 330,000 in 1937 to 1,264,000 in 1997. However, when one defines a "Jewish South," omitting Florida and Maryland/DC, the increase is not nearly as striking, and most of it is spatially concentrated in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and northern Virginia. Second, this paper examines the geographic distribution of the Jewish population in the South in 1997. At the MSA scale, Southeast Florida (507,000) and the Washington/Baltimore corridor (244,000) are the two largest centers. Atlanta (77,000), Dallas (45,000), and Houston (42,000) can be seen as secondary centers. Third, this paper discusses the significant gains made by some larger metropolitan areas and the loss of small southern Jewish communities. By 1997, 44 southern Jewish communities that had existed in 1960 had ceased to exist, or had dropped below 100 members. More than 20 other small (100-499 person) Jewish communities lost population during this period. Only six small Jewish communities (three in Florida) showed significant growth. Finally, the paper examines the history of anti-Semitism in the South, the changing occupational structure of southern Jews, the intermarriage and assimilation of the southern Jewish population, and the general population decline of small southern towns. All these factors help provide explanation for the decline of the Jewish population in small southern towns.
An Empirical Study of Institutional Characteristics of Regional Financial Markets: Evidence from Rural Kentucky
Authors: Zhou Bin , Shaw Wendy
Published: July 2013

This paper offers an empirical analysis of institutional characteristics of regional financial markets using rural Kentucky as the study area. The study adopts a logit model to distinguish rural Appalachian banks from rural non-Appalachian banks, using a vector of uncorrelated indices extracted from a principal component analysis of various bank behavioral and structural variables. The study finds that, compared with non-Appalachia banks, banks in Appalachia maintain a more traditional liability portfolio, demonstrate a higher degree of risk aversion by holding securities as a source of liquidity as well as income, operate in more concentrated markets, face higher barriers to enter the market, and display lower capital productivity. This study does not find evidence supporting the notion that banks in less developed regions tend to maintain a higher reserve-to-deposit ratio, and a lower commercial lending-to-asset ratio, and that the public tends to hold more in transaction accounts than in nontransaction accounts. These findings point to the need for financial development and changing asset holding by financial institutions as part of regional policy.