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This paper examines patterns of annexation, including municipal "underbounding," in nonmetropolitan towns in the South; that is, whether blacks living adjacent to municipalities are systematically excluded from incorporation. Annexation--or the lack of annexation--can be a political tool used by municipal leaders to exclude disadvantaged or low-income populations, including minorities, from voting in local elections and from receiving access to public utilities and other community services. To address this question, we use Tiger files, GIS, and other geographically disaggregated data from the Summary Files of the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses. Overall, 22.6 percent of the fringe areas "at risk" of annexation in our study communities was African American, while 20.7 percent of the areas that were actually annexed during the 1990s was African American. However, communities with large black populations at the fringe were significantly less likely than other communities to annex at all--either black or white population. Largely white communities that faced a "black threat"--which we defined in instances where the county "percent black" was higher than the place "percent black"--were also less likely to annex black populations during the 1990s. Finally, predominately white communities were much less likely to annex black populations, even when we controlled for the size of the black fringe population at risk of annexation. Such results provide evidence of racial exclusion in small southern towns. (Contains 1 figure, 6 tables, and 10 footnotes.)

The paper examines the relationship among household agriculture, wages and household structure using panel data on urban households from 1994-2003. Experts using cross-sectional data differ on whether Russian "dachas" or garden houses are a survival strategy that households use in times of economic difficulty or a hobby of the more affluent. This analysis uses time-series data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to assess the effect of household status on the likelihood of participation in agriculture in subsequent years. These data show that households turn to gardening after the onset of economic uncertainty. Estimates of the value of the harvest from dacha gardens suggest that they are profitable and that households make economic calculations. Finally, the regional labor-market participation rate is modeled as a function of garden land to show that where gardens are more prevalent, labor markets allocate a smaller fraction of the working-age population. (Contains 3 figures, 7 footnotes and 8 tables.)

During the early decades of the 20th century in the American Midwest young farming families achieved social mobility by moving up an 'agricultural ladder' through a series of rungs, from unpaid family work, to wage labor, to tenant farming, to a mortgaged farm, and, finally, to full ownership of a farm. In this paper we use the concept of an agricultural ladder to understand processes of social mobility in a Third World setting. A case study of a small rural community in the Ecuadorian Amazon reveals that while the young think in terms of an agricultural ladder, they see temporary labor migration to distant places, rather than local wage labor, as the only way that they can amass the capital necessary to purchase land and reach the top rung on the ladder.

This paper combines three issues that have previously been considered separately; economic restructuring, gender, and participation in the informal economy. Drawing on two complementary data sets of interviews with the residents of a rural county, the paper first suggests that the participation in the informal economy is extensive. The second major finding is that households whose members have held on to "good" work in the formal economy participate in the informal economy in a different way than do households whose members are less fortunate. Third, the paper demonstrates that participation in the informal economy is highly differentiated by gender. Finally the intersections among location in the formal economy, gender, and informal economic activities are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has thoroughly documented how out-migration of the educated and skilled from rural areas leaves behind a poorer population and creates pockets of rural poverty. Recently, studies have recognized that the poor are also geographically mobile and that poverty migration patterns can reinforce rural poverty concentrations. In this process, certain impoverished rural communities in economically depressed regions receive a disproportionate share of poverty migrants, concentrating poverty in certain locations. This paper examines the conditions and processes through which poor rural communities become likely destinations for a highly mobile segment of the rural poor and near-poor. Utilizing case studies of depressed rural Illinois communities, it investigates how the interplay of community factors and the behavior of migrants transforms rural communities from residentially stable to highly mobile, impoverished places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a qualitative case study of peasant-organized forestry in Durango, Mexico, this paper examines how neoliberal policy reform is reshaping the community forestry sector. Post-1992 agrarian and forestry laws facilitate the emergence of new forms of association in ejidos (collective property communities created by agrarian reform) and agrarian communities, and reorganize the delivery of forestry technical services. These developments indirectly undermine peasants' capacity to deal with the sector's long-standing internal problems, putting at risk their ability to provide themselves with the services they need for sustainable community livelihoods and forest exploitation. Nevertheless, this study of a forest peasant federation shows that institutional change is a process peopled by groups of social agents who respond creatively to external structure from local organizational and community contexts. Ethnographic methods can be used fruitfully to study complex interactions between multiple levels of political-economic structure and local action, which both constrain and provide opportunities for the organization of common-pool resource management regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A theoretical framework is provided to understand a cultural group's definition of and relationship with nature and the environment. The framework draws on a social constructionist perspective that includes aspects of phenomenology and symbolic interactionism to define "land- scape" as the symbolic environment created by a human act of conferring meaning on nature and the environment. This landscape reflects the self- definitions of the people within a particular cultural context. Attention is directed to transformation of the physical environment into landscapes that reflect people's definitions of themselves and on how these landscapes are reconstructed in response to people's changing definitions of' themselves. Case studies from sociology and anthropology illustrate the social construction of nature and the environment. A discussion of the applied implications of the theoretical framework in social impact assess- went and the global implications in the shifting power struggle over competing landscapes concludes the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the border of western Iowa, a new landform—the “Loess Hills,” is being created. While scientific discourse surrounding the landform has been on going for a century, “discovery” of the landform by local residents is a recent occurrence, stimulated by socioeconomic changes resulting from the “farm crisis.” As this case study shows, the initial scientific discourse and claims, as presented in a series of publications, established the uniqueness and rarity of the hills in scientific terms. Through a complexity of discursive practices, this internalized scientific community discussion was brought into broader public conversations. Aspects of the discursive practices have been taken on by residents at the local level and appropriation of the “Loess Hills” name and facts attributed to the landform has resulted in reshaping place identity among rural residents and altering the traditional power position within the region, with “hill people” now becoming “Loess Hills People.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to environmental and safety concerns, hazardous facilities pose threats to collective identity. For a community, such identity issues involve processes of negotiation rather than fixed change and impact. Qualitative research enables access to complex definitions and accounts of community change in dynamic settings. Using ethnographic, interview, and content analysis data from a case study, I show how informants offered insights about the relationships between stigmatization , community reputation, and development. Although community members did not seek stigmatization due to living near perceived threats, they imputed positive and negative consequences to such a reputation. For example, many respondents who identified with the local area hoped that the stigma attached to their community would prevent additional growth. These findings suggest that immediate and more tangible concerns, such as effects on the community due to rapid residential growth, may take precedence over concerns associated with the chronic uncertainties of risks form hazardous waste management facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological literature dealing with social and economic consequences of large-scale energy facility developments has undergone a dramatic quantitative expansion in recent years. However, several limitations to this literature base restrict the qualitative expansion of knowledge regarding "socioeconomic impacts" of energy developments. A scenario of pathological social disruptions characteristic of boom-growth developments in isolated areas of the West has tended to be generalized to other dissimilar energy development situation, despite evidence that even in such places those persons directly experiencing the development held highly positive perceptions of the consequences. The bulk of prior research has been based on case studies, further restricting the generalizability of the findings, and few attempts have been made to adequately test hypotheses regarding impact causes. The present analysis attempts to move toward a partial resolution of these limitations by examining perceptions of impacts and their potential determinants for a sample of 57 communities in the eastern United States which have experienced the effects of large-scale electric generating station development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Case studies of black farmers identified as successful were made to identify individual and institutional factors which facilitated or inhibited their achievement as farm operators over time. The cases were dispersed among 10 communities in three census divisions. They were heterogeneous in characteristics such as education and family composition. Key shared characteristics related to the success of the selected cases were (1) preference for farming as an occupation, (2) strong work orientation, (3) access to land resources, (4) commitment to learn and development of managerial skills (5) effective linkages with farm and non-farm organizations and activities, and (6) strong family support and high educational aspirations for their children. The value of land ownership for blacks goes beyond the value of the land as a production factor, as evidenced by the community and organizational leadership roles held. Discrimination encountered in farm programs in the past and problems in obtaining access to credit to acquire land were obstacles to overcome. The interrelationship of the variables over time fits Myrdal's principle of circular and cumulative causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrialization has generally been thought of as beneficial for communities. Case studies have shown that industrializing communities experienced increases in aggregate, median family, and per capitaincome, and in the equitable distribution of income. This study investigates the impact of industrialization on changes in income levels and distribution between 1960 and 1970 for all Iowa towns of 2,500 to 10,000 population (N = 75). Relationships between change in manufacturing and change in levels of income found support when employment data were used but not when institutional data on firms were examined. No support was found for relationship between changes in manufacturing activity and the distribution of income. Controls for population size and change, distance to SMSA, and type of industry did not change the original relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]