categories are used to interrogate historical geographical situations and through this interrogation, gain empirical substance. This substance becomes the basis for more concrete and specific analytical categories that take on forms and meanings consistent with the questions and regional setting under consideration. The implied methodology involves continual movements among general and specific levels of analysis or ’determinations’, around a set of core formalizations such as the labour process, class structure and cultural practice. Related tasks are distinguishing among relations of necessity and contingency that define and explain the object of study. Methodological underpinnings of reconstructed regional geography are typically revealed in a theoretical exegesis introducing the interpretive account. For example, Gregory (1981) and Pred (1986) both spell out theoretical vocabularies in first chapters, and then permit theory to speak through subsequent empirical accounts. Gregory has explained the rationale for separating conceptual and empirical discussions: ’ I have not continually stopped the narrative and separated out systems and structures, because this would have stopped the narrative and cut into the continuities of structuration. Instead, I have used all these propositions to inform my account and what I have tried to

Arguments within regional geography

/pdf/toward-the-construction-of-kentucky-food-in-the-twenty-first-4dxl10rtsm.pdf

Toward the construction of "kentucky food" in the twenty-first century: food localism and commodification of place identity under post-tobacco agricultural restructuring, 1990-2006.

Settlement in the American Great Plains started in Kansas and Nebraska on the eve of the Civil War and spread throughout the region as railroad companies laid tracks heading west Pioneers from Pennsylvania, the Ohio River Valley, and Europe moved into the region, creating small farming communities that dotted the landscape In Kansas, the population grew by 403 percent between 1870 and 1900 (USBC 2011) Moreover, in 1885 the Sunflower State had the largest percentage of European-born population in the United States (12 percent) (Kansas Statistical Abstract 2011) The 818 counties that comprise the Great Plains are a curious hodgepodge of shapes and sizes (Wishart 2004) A handful of counties cover very large areas (Cherry County, Nebraska--6,010 square miles; Chaves County, New Mexico --6,075 square miles) Most counties in the Great Plains, however, are relatively small in size (approximately 1,000 square miles) and square or rectangular in shape (especially in the central and southern Great Plains) County configuration suggests that state governments in this region were more concerned with quickly establishing political units that would encourage population settlement than drawing boundaries that fit with the natural environment During the early 1900s, most counties in the Great Plains grew in total population After arriving, however, many small-scale farmers quickly realized that land promoters had deceived them (Wishart 2013) The region lacks abundant rainfall, rendering the land ill suited for small-scale dry-land farming (Webb 1931); many pioneers left soon after their crops failed (Mather 1972; Shortridge 1995) ? The Dust Bowl of the 1930s compelled even more settlers to abandon farming and leave the region (White 1994) Since World War II, the total population in the Great Plains has decreased dramatically; over two-thirds of all counties in the region have lost population, with some counties losing between 60 percent and 80 percent of their permanent residents since 1900 (Popper and Popper 1987) The population density in many counties has dropped to less than five people per square mile (Lavin and others 2011) Throughout much of the Great Plains the population has become so sparse that only one or two sizeable communities exist within most counties (Wishart 2013) As such, in the rural plains the county seat is commonly the most important urbanized place within the county and residents regard the county seat as the primary symbol of the county A number of people, including scholars and government officials, are beginning to question the logic of having so many small counties in such a sparsely populated part of the country (Nasser 2009) Clark Archer suggests that the number of administrative units in the Great Plains defies practical logic and there is considerable redundancy in governmental services (2004) Increasingly, the idea of county consolidation is being considered Just as rural school districts throughout the United States have been forced to consolidate for the past half century due to dwindling student populations, now some counties may be facing the same fate Beginning in the early 1990s, numerous North Dakota state senators have proposed consolidating the state's fifty-three counties into fewer political units In 1996, Mark Krause examined the potential repercussions of county consolidation and found that combining counties would save the state $12 million annually in most government expenditures (Krause 1996) More recently Paul Burger and Jason Combs (2009) conducted a preliminary study that examined the costs and benefits that would accrue to the state of Nebraska if it were to reapportion its ninety-three counties into twenty Consolidated County Centers (CCCs) Other states with dwindling rural populations are also considering combining counties so as to reduce government expenditures (Nasser 2009) County consolidation became a particularly hot topic during the Great Recession of the late 2000s as conservative candidates campaigned on the platform of fiscal austerity and greater responsibility in government spending (Economist 2011) …

Understanding place attachment to the county in the american great plains

Share with Wildlife program of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and State Wildlife Grant [T-32-4]

/pdf/westward-expansion-of-the-evening-bat-nycticeius-humeralis-48tf2nzzjo.pdf

Westward Expansion of the Evening Bat (Nycticeius humeralis) in the United States, with Notes on the First Record from New Mexico

The Great Plains are sometimes characterized as an economically lagging region. To shed some light on the region sprospects, the locational and structural changes in employment patterns in the northern and central Great Plains were examinedfor the 1980 to 1990 period. County-level data were drawn from CD-ROM census publications and matched with locational references using Atlas *GIS . Shift-share computations were undertaken for the region as a whole and for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties. Employment declined sharply in agriculture and construction, but increased in the service sectors. Compared with the nation as a whole, the region competed poorly in many sectors, though it performed superbly in manufacturing and came close to holding its own in the business service and public administration sectors. Prospects appear brightfor the metropolitan centers on the region s periphery, but the bulk of the territory will likely see only localized points ofgrowth. The Great Plains increasingly have been treated as a distinct major region of the United States (Mather 1972), one noted for its immense size and limited topographic expression, semiarid grassland environment, harsh winters, and a traditional focus on grain and livestock production. The population density is low except in or near metropolitan areas on the eastern and western periphery, and ongoing population loss characterizes a majority of counties (Archer 1992). The farm population has been declining since the 1930s as modernization brought extensive farm consolidation (Baltensperger . 1987). With alternative employment opportunities limited in rural areas, people migrated to the growing urban centers on the outer margin of the Plains or to a more distant destination like California. A clear dichotomy has evolved: the largely rural and small-town core of the study area and the set of metropolitan areas on the periphery. While there is general optimism about the future for the metropolitan areas, there is much pessimism regarding the largely nonmetropolitan core. Some observers predict widespread

/pdf/changing-employment-patterns-on-the-northern-and-central-1u6etfn2dx.pdf

Changing Employment Patterns on the Northern and Central Great Plains

Despite the economic and physical diversity of the Great Plains region, certain cultural traits have persisted since early white settlement and are prominent throughout the region. The romantic aura of the cowboy has had both regional and national ramifications, and the regional fancy has been captivated by big ventures and much movement.

E. Cotton Mather

Papers

The american great plains