Articles
Presidential Address: Alaska’s Great Land Experiments by Roger Pearson, 9
Mexican Farm Labor Networks and Population Increase in the Pacific Northwest
by Michael S. McGlade, 28
Abstract: As in many areas of the United States, there has been a rapid increase in the Hispanic population of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The largest contributors to this growth are in-migration from Mexico and California. In general, the areas with the highest population shares of Hispanic origin are in irrigated rural counties. However, the greatest part of the total Hispanic population increase has been in cities, largely consisting of people of Mexican origin. The urban areas experiencing the most rapid growth are near areas of significant, labor-intensive agriculture. Farm labor networks in urban fringe areas tap primarily into rural Mexican communities and the Southwest, bringing mostly people with low levels of human capital. A significant sorting of socioeconomic status is found in metropolitan areas far removed from areas of labor-intensive agriculture, where proportionately smaller Hispanic populations tend to have superior English skills, greater academic achievement, and lower levels of poverty. These metropolitan areas, including Spokane, the Puget Sound, and Eugene, have seen only limited transfers of rural-based poverty. The Mexican-origin population expansion in urban areas, because of its sheer size, is evidence that there are many people moving directly from Mexico to Pacific Northwest cities, circumventing rural residence and farm employment entirely.
The Trouble with Preservation, or, Getting Back to the Wrong Term for Wilderness Protection: A Case Study at Point Reyes National Seashore
by Laura A. Watt, 55
Abstract: How “untrammeled” must a wilderness be at the time it is designated as such? Should the intent behind designating wilderness areas be to protect existing areas that meet the official definition, or to create new ones through management actions? This question is explored by looking at the historical evolution of the Philip Burton Wilderness Area in Point Reyes National Seashore, which gradually has been transformed from a dairy ranching landscape to an apparently pristine wilderness. In the process, the history of human habitation and use of the area has been downplayed or overlooked. This case raises questions about the interplay between considerations of ecological functioning, recreation demands, and simple aesthetics in defining managed wilderness. It also suggests that new terminology for wilderness protection that differentiates between varying degrees of previous human use could help to avoid the erasure of history from preserved natural areas.
Quality of Life in the U.S. States: 1970 and 2000
by Gordon Mulligan and Rachel Burke, 73
Abstract: Social scientists are showing renewed interest in quality of life (QOL) issues at a variety of geographic scales. David Smith’s (1973) study of social well-being across the continental U.S. states is now recognized as being a landmark among the earlier contributions. Using an array of 47 variables spread across six major categories (income, housing, health, education, social disorganization, alienation and participation), Smith attempted to capture the wide diversity of factors that comprise QOL. In this paper, we update Smith’s data set to the present and fully replicate his analysis. We begin by pursuing his initial line of inquiry, computing standard scores for the same six QOL categories and then rank-ordering the states according to both their category-specific and their overall performances. Then we follow Smith’s second line of inquiry, applying well-known multivariate techniques in order to allocate the states to a small number of relatively homogeneous groups. A remarkable degree of QOL stability—both in the state rankings and in the state groupings—is our main finding, although there are cases of exceptional change. The correlation coefficient between state-level QOL in 1970 and state-level QOL in 2000 is remarkably high (r = 0.872), although the degree of stability is much higher in some QOL categories (income and housing) than in others (social disorganization, alienation and participation). Based on the overall standard scores—capturing QOL performance across all 47 variables—the biggest state losers (e.g., Arizona and California) were generally found in the nation’s Southwest and Midwest, and the biggest state winners (e.g., North Carolina and Vermont) were generally found in the nation’s Northeast and South.
“Bowling for Dollars”: Economic Conflicts and Challenges in Contemporary Cuba
by Edward L. Jackiewicz, 98
Abstract: This paper has two primary and interrelated objectives. The first is to examine how the very nature of Cuban society has been instrumental in the fractured perseverance of socialism in Cuba. The second objective is to assess the impact of “dollarization” (the legalization of the US dollar) on social and political relations. The social relations that were fostered during the “high period” of socialism in Cuba have been challenged like never before during the “Special Period,” placing extreme pressures on the Socialist state. Oddly enough, capitalist-inspired remedies such as the hyper-development of tourism, the legalization of the dollar, and an emergent self-employment sector have dramatically altered the social landscape of the country while providing economic stability and, in turn, helping to preserve the government. In addition to providing stability, these policies have also generated new social conflicts or divides such as those between people who possess or can access dollars and those who cannot. While this paper avoids any hasty predictions about the future of Cuba, it does hope to broaden the dialogue by incorporating certain societal elements that are unique to this island nation and often absent from discussions about the future of Cuba.
Regional Dependence on Tourism: The Significance of Seasonality
by Lay James Gibson and Bryant Evans, 112
Abstract: Seasonal swings in employment and income flows can have significant implications for the economic health of regions. Resource-based industries such as forestry, agriculture, and outdoor recreation are notorious for being highly seasonal and for underutilizing both human resources and hard infrastructure during periods of the year. The development of a ski area housed within an Indian Reservation in east-central Arizona has helped reduce seasonal swings in demand for locally available goods by enhancing opportunities for winter tourism. This paper looks at winter tourism in general and skiing-driven tourism in particular. It also underscores the role and importance of the ski area on the region’s economy as well as how it is connected to the close but generally under appreciated relationship that exists between the Indian and non-Indian communities. Findings indicate that additional investments in the ski area would likely leverage existing investments and support income growth throughout the region. These findings are intended to inform policy makers who are asked to increase public investment in the ski resort.
Essay: Our Intellectual Heritage from the End of the First and the Beginning of the Second Millennia
by Donald F. Lynch, 128
Abstract: A thousand revolutions of the earth around the sun is but a brief time, given the presumed history of both the earth and solar system. Mentally and scientifically, however, we find this time span to be of enormous length without realizing how we in our minds and most of the inhabitants of the earth today in their way of living still remain in the world of a thousand years ago. Exploration then, as today, was a search for knowledge, for mastery of the earth’s resources, as well as a means of worshiping God’s Creation. I try in this brief presentation to explore what of the world of a thousand years ago remains our heritage today, both in our understanding of the world in which we live and of the questions we ask, and in the mental approach we use. We ask today the same questions, we have today the same disputes, and we travel the same age-old physical and mental routes. Although we may use different words, our modern approaches to the search for knowledge would contain few surprises to the scholars of a thousand years ago, although the results they might find both astounding and iniquitous.
Presidential Plenary Session
The 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill
by Roger W. Pearson, 146
Remarks by Walter J. Hickel
by Walter Hickel, 149
Geography—A Sense of Place or a Sense of Price? Or: Walter Hickel in Santa Barbara
by Robert Sollen, 154
The Santa Barbara Oil Spill: A Retrospective
by Keith C. Clarke and Jeffrey J. Hemphill, 157
Book Reviews
Yingnong Xu, The Chinese City in Space and Time: The Development of Urban Form in Suzhou, 163
Reviewed by Yifei Sun
John Walton, Storied Land: Community and Memory in Monterey, 167
Reviewed by Dennis J. Dingemans
Report on the Sixty-fourth Annual Meeting, 171
APCG Distinguished Service Award, 175
APCG Student Paper Award Winners, 176
Resolutions of the Sixty-fourth Annual Meeting, 177
Editorial Notes, 180
Abstracts of Papers Presented, 181
