Population Change and Its Driving Factors in Rural, Suburban, and Urban Areas of Wisconsin, USA, 1970–2000

Guangqing Chi,Stephen J Ventura

doi:10.1155/2011/856534

Abstract

Population growth (or decline) is influenced by many factors that fall into the broad realms of demographic characteristics, socioeconomic conditions, transportation infrastructure, natural amenities, and land use and development across space and time. This paper adopts an integrated spatial regression approach to investigate the spatial and temporal variations of these factors′ effects on population change. Specifically, we conduct the analysis at the minor civil division level in Wisconsin, USA, from 1970 to 2000. The results suggest that the factors have varying effects on population change over time and across rural, suburban, and urban areas. Their effects depend upon the general trend of population redistribution processes, local dynamics, and areal characteristics. Overall, a systematic examination of population change should consider a variety of factors, temporal and spatial variation of their effects, and spatial spillover effects. The examination should have the flexibility to identify and incorporate influential factors at a given point in time and space, not to adhere to a single set of drivers in all circumstances. The findings have important implications for population predictions used for local and regional planning.

Highlights

Land-use conflicts, regional/tribal warfare, environmental degradation, and competition for scarce resources are all exacerbated by growing populations
We report the results from two perspectives: the relative importance of the driving factors in explaining population change over time and their relative importance across rural, suburban, and urban areas
The 5nearest neighbor weights matrix captures the highest spatial dependence of all models’ residuals. We chose it for further detecting the type of spatial dependence in the ordinary least squares (OLSs) model residuals as well as for accounting for spatial dependence in spatial regression models

Summary

Introduction

Land-use conflicts, regional/tribal warfare, environmental degradation, and competition for scarce resources are all exacerbated by growing populations. The majority of existing research is focused on only some of the factors and influences and does not consider others [5] This might be due to the fact that development and population change are complex and require interdisciplinary knowledge, but existing studies are often conducted within disciplinary boundaries [3, 6]. Because the various studies tend to focus on specific factors and influences within disciplinary boundaries and omit others, the existing research on population change often generates different and sometimes conflicting findings [8]. This had led to a gap in the literature of a systematic view of population change. This study provides a more dynamic and less biased estimates of the effects and a more comprehensive understanding of population change

Methods

Results

Conclusion