The Geography of United States Poverty by Wendy Shaw

Author:Wendy Shaw [Shaw, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Human Geography
ISBN: 9781317340973
Google: cXz4CgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-11-19T02:50:38+00:00

VI

A Spatially and Temporally Varying Model of Poverty

INTRODUCTION

The previous chapter explored the spatial distribution of poverty in the United States and identified five major cores of poverty. A general model of poverty for the nation as a whole was developed. The model illustrated the relative importance of the various concomitants of income poverty and characteristics of the poverty population.

This chapter looks at spatial variation in the general model of poverty. The focus is on variation between urban and rural counties and also spatial variation by region. The national spatially invariant model may mask important spatial variations in the importance of identified dimensions of poverty.

This section also tests the temporal stability of the general model of poverty from 1980 to 1990. Changes may have occurred in the importance of the various dimensions associated with income poverty. Dimensions strongly associated with poverty in 1980 may have either strengthened or weakened during the the 1980s.

SPATIAL VARIATION IN THE CONCOMITANTS OF POVERTY AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POVERTY POPULATION

Data and Methodology

The factors generated by the Principal Components Analysis are used in two ways to explore the spatial variation in the concomitants of income poverty and characteristics of the poverty population. First, the factors are mapped in Figures 7 to 18. These maps visually display the spatial variation at the national level of the dimensions identified within the original data set by the Principal Components Analysis.

The second step of the analysis seeks to explore spatial variation in the nature of poverty. This is accomplished by looking for spatial variation in the general model of poverty (Equation 5.1) by use of the Expansion Method (Casetti 1972). The general model is first “expanded” to explore urban versus rural distinctions in poverty. This seems appropriate since the existing literature consistently draws the distinction between urban and rural poverty, rather than viewing urbanness as a continuum. Much has been written about “urban” poverty as separate and distinct from “rural” poverty. In this study any county with a population that was less than 50 percent urban (as defined in the U.S. Census) was categorized as rural. All other counties were classified as urban (Figure 19). Secondly, spatial variation in poverty by region is investigated by expansion of the spatially invariant national model. The regionalization selected is that of the geographic division as defined by the Bureau of the Census (Note: Alaska and Hawaii were excluded from the “Pacific” division in this study). There are nine geographic divisions, composed of aggregations of states, that are widely used by the Bureau of the Census (Figure 20). These census geographic divisions were selected as the preferred regionalization for two reasons. First, these geographic divisions have been used by the Bureau of the Census since 1910. Thus, their use allows comparison of results with a majority of available information and research. Second, these divisions were defined so as to be relatively homogeneous in terms of physical characteristics, characteristics of the population, and social and economic characteristics (Kaplan and Van Valey 1980). The definition of these

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