This dissertation proposes a new, synthesized perspective for explaining the
âÂÂNonmetropolitan Turnaroundâ in the 1970s and 1990s. By studying the definition of
urbanization carefully, using the human ecological perspective, many processes
happening during the âÂÂNonmetropolitan Turnaroundâ in the 1970s and 1990s, such as
suburbanization, deconcentration, and counterurbanization, can be understood as
different forms of the urbanization processes. When the majority of the population was
rural, the dominant pattern of urbanization was rural-urban migration. When the majority
of the population became urban, the dominant urbanization pattern reversed to urbanrural
migration because urban centers had reached beyond their optimal density and
processes operated to reduce their density. This paper hypothesizes that the two
âÂÂturnaroundsâ were simply the result of different aspects of urbanization complicated by
metropolitan status reclassifications. The perspectives of suburbanization,
counterurbanization and deconcentration are integrated into the urbanization perspective.
Using migration flow data compiled by the Census Bureau from 1975 to 1980 and from 1995 to 2000, the summary analyses confirmed that the net migration due to the three
forms of urbanization largely accounted for all of the net migrant flows. This dissertation
further tested the validity of optimal density theory with net migration data and
confirmed the utility of this perspective in predicting the direction of net migration.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/4947 |
| Date | 25 April 2007 |
| Creators | Wang, Xiaodong |
| Contributors | McIntosh, William A., Murdock, Steve |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 350137 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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