Sunbelt Research Articles

Sociodemographic Determinants of Extreme Heat and Ozone Risk Among Older Adults in 3 Sun Belt Cities.

Vulnerable populations across the United States are frequently exposed to extreme heat, which is becoming more intense due to a combination of climate change and urban-induced warming. Extreme heat can be particularly detrimental to the health and well-being of older citizens when it is combined with ozone. Although population-based studies have demonstrated associations between ozone, extreme heat, and human health, few studies focused on the role of social and behavioral factors that increase indoor risk and exposure among older adults. We conducted a household survey that aimed to understand how older adults are affected by extreme heat and ozone pollution inside and outside of their homes across Houston, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. We examine contributing factors to the risk of self-reported health effects using a generalized linear mixed-effects regression model of telephone survey data of 909 older adults in 2017. We found an increased occurrence of self-reported symptoms for extreme heat with preexisting respiratory health conditions and a lack of air conditioning access; self-reported ozone symptoms were more likely with preexisting respiratory health conditions. The risk of heat-related symptoms was slightly higher in Los Angeles than Houston and Phoenix. We found several demographic, housing, and behavioral characteristics that influenced the risk of heat- and ozone-related symptoms. The increased risk among older adults based on specific social and behavioral factors identified in this study can inform public health policy and help cities tailor their heat and ozone response plans to the specific needs of this vulnerable population.

Snow Belt to Sun Belt Migration: End of an Era?

Snow Belt to Sun Belt Migration: End of an Era?

Windshield bias is real: 2019 news coverage of pedestrian traffic fatalities in the United States

Framing pedestrian traffic fatalities episodically rather than thematically, attributing responsibility to pedestrians for their own deaths and non-agential descriptions of traffic crashes reflects windshield bias. Pedestrian traffic fatality rates increased dramatically in the U.S. over the previous decade. Findings from this content analysis of 2019 U.S. news coverage supports conclusions that windshield bias is national in scope, varies between cities in the Sun Belt and Frost Belt, and is associated with reduced walkability and greater partisan segregation of cities. The 2016 vote for Republican Donald Trump was also positively associated with episodic framing. An inverse association between word length and windshield bias was also established. The data set analyzed included 366 news articles drawn from 78 news sources in 74 cities located in 30 states.

From Charity to Commerce: Bondholders, Women's Auxiliaries, and Community Health Care in Arizona.

This article contrasts women's auxiliaries as volunteers and fundraisers at a voluntary sanatorium and a community hospital in metropolitan Phoenix. Their experience highlights the rising importance of private investors in nonprofit health care. Nonprofit community hospitals depended on volunteer labor from women's auxiliaries to keep their doors open in the mid-twentieth-century United States. However, their position became subordinate to financial demands from bondholders-these (and other) financial influences eroded the social capital created by charitable labor. At Maryvale Hospital, one of the "eight-percenter" mortgage bond hospitals built across the Sun Belt during the early sixties, bondholders assumed much of the fundraising and advocacy activities reserved for women's auxiliaries. Once bondholders assumed the duties of women's auxiliaries, their profitability became the determinant for success in nonprofit health care. Their rise reflects a shift from the social capital associated with charitable volunteers to the bond markets necessary for modern metropolitan development.

"All Done in Secret": The Sun Belt's Un-Democratic Origins

"All Done in Secret": The Sun Belt's Un-Democratic Origins

Housing Price Cycle Interdependencies and Comovement: A Markov-Switching Approach

This paper uses a Markov-switching approach to examine why there is house price cycle comovement across some U.S. metropolitan areas (MSAs) but not others, and which MSAs cluster together for each of these reasons. Past studies have attributed common housing downturns in different regions as possible explanations for comovement. We explore other channels, and find some clusters based on common industry concentration (such as information technology), house price elasticity, as well as a cluster of MSAs that are desirable for retirees (in the sun belt). We find seven clusters of MSAs, where each cluster experiences idiosyncratic house price downturns, plus one distinct national house price cycle. Notably, only the housing downturn associated with the Great Recession spread across all the MSAs in our sample; all other house price downturns remained contained to a single cluster. We also identify MSA economic and geographic characteristics that correlate with housing price cluster membership, which implies comovement due to mobility of residents. In addition, while prior research has found housing and business cycles to be related closely at the national level, we find very different house price comovement and employment comovement across clusters and across MSAs.

Constraints on City and Neighborhood Growth: The Central Role of Housing Supply

The US urban population increased by almost 50 percent between 1980 and 2020, with this growth heavily concentrated in the Sun Belt and at the fringes of metropolitan areas. This paper considers the role of housing supply in shaping the growth of cities and neighborhoods. Housing supply constraints have meant that demand growth has increasingly manifested as price growth rather than as increases in housing units or population in larger and denser metropolitan areas and neighborhoods. New housing is provided at increasingly higher cost in areas that have higher intensity of existing development and more restrictive regulatory environments. Both forces have strengthened over time, making quantity supplied less responsive to growing demand, driving housing price growth in many areas, and pushing housing quantity growth further out into urban fringes. As a result of such pressures on the cost of new construction, the US has recently experienced more rapid price growth and a declining influence of new construction on the housing stock.

James P. Kraft. Havoc and Reform: Workplace Disasters in Modern America.

James Kraft’s history of recent workplace disasters fills a necessary hole in the historiography of labor in the late twentieth century. As he points out, we have a significant historiography of workplace disasters, but it is firmly entrenched in nineteenth and early twentieth century disasters such as the Triangle Fire and coal mining disasters. However, the modern workplace also remains unsafe, and historians have largely ignored how recent workplace disasters impacted the nation. I have long been struck by the lack of scholarly literature on post-World War II workplace disasters, and, thus, I find Kraft’s intervention extremely useful. Focusing on the Southwest, where Sun Belt growth and anti-union politics created a lightly regulated workplace, Kraft explores five deadly workplace disasters from the 1940s to the 1990s, advancing a simple yet correct thesis: that it takes massive death on the job to convince governments and employers to make workplaces safer. Kraft’s five stories often expand beyond what most of us think of when we consider workplace disasters. His first story is one of the worst disasters in American workplace history, the Texas City explosion of 1947 that killed 568 people. It is astounding that such a catastrophic event has received almost no attention from historians until now. If the Texas City explosion does fit our vision of a classic workplace disaster, Kraft’s chapter on the 1956 mid-air crash between two airliners over the Grand Canyon, which killed 128 workers and passengers, might not; this is also true for the chapter on the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building attack. After all, far more customers than employees died in the former and a terrorist attack feels like a different category of disaster. But in a service-based economy, workplace disasters are more likely to kill persons using the services than workers. Kraft reminds us of this, which should lead to preemptive demands for safety regulations before disasters occur, uniting the consumer and labor movements over issues of safety.

Next-Month Prediction of Hourly Solar Irradiance based on Long Short-Term Memory Network

Today, in parallel with the population growth and the advancement of technology, development concerns have started to arise in terms of country administrators. Therefore, alternative solutions to classical energy sources are sought. Renewable energy sources are one of the preferred energy sources today. The popularity of renewable energy sources, including solar energy, is increasing day by day. Solar energy has the potential and accessibility to spread faster than other renewable energy sources. Since Türkiye is located in a region with a high potential in terms of solar energy, which is generally called the sun belt, it is a right decision to prefer solar energy as an energy source in our region. In this study, time series prediction using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Network method is used for short-term solar irradiance estimation. In order to demonstrate the success of the results, a comparison was made with the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) method. Finally, prediction results of solar irradiance were compared with statistical tests and error analyzes were given in numerically.

Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America by Angie Schmitt

Reviewed by: Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America by Angie Schmitt Cade Gouin and Yujie Hu Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America Angie Schmitt. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2020. 248 pp. $28.00 paperback (ISBN 9781642830835). Over the last 100 years, the automobile zeitgeist has evolved into an unforgiving powerhouse, sinking its talons deep into the cultural psyche of the United States. Accompanying and underlying the dominion of the automobile is a disturbing and inequitable epidemic of violence against pedestrians, the second-rate users of an infrastructure which was systematically developed against their best interests. As the vehicles we drive and the roadways we use become more hostile to pedestrians, the consequences of this problem are distributed unequally across the population—as is the case with many systemic problems in the US. This dynamic is the motivating force behind Angie Schmitt's Right of Way, an illuminating, exhaustively researched yet intimate and down-to-earth exploration of the "silent epidemic" of traffic violence and pedestrian deaths. Right of Way presents the facts and the research, explores how we arrived where we are, and points toward a better future, illustrating cold statistics with raw, personal stories of key players in the movement for pedestrian safety—many of whom were thrust into their roles without warning and without desire—instead born out of necessity and desperation. The introduction chapter provides a broad overview of the topics covered in the book, including the central systemic problem, explanations for why the problem exists, and the response to the problem from society at large. Kicking off chapter 1 with the story of a Philadelphia family almost entirely wiped out by night-time street racers, "the Geography of Risk" explores the idea that the danger to pedestrians is not distributed evenly across space. But this is not just an idea, it is reality; firstly, pedestrian-friendly infrastructure (crosswalks, crossing signals, protected shelters and bus stops, protected bike lanes, etc.) is often severely lacking in low-income, transit-dependent, and minority communities. To make matters worse, these communities—which are also typically lacking in political power—frequently find their neighborhoods split mercilessly by the most dangerous type of roads we build—wide, high-speed, entirely car-centric roadways called "suburban arterials." Most pedestrian deaths within any given city are concentrated on these roads. Current demographic trends show an upper-class return to the city from suburbia, forcing the lower class outward to areas that were designed [End Page 119] specifically around car commuting. Regional culture, politics, and the era in which a city developed are also predictors of the level of pedestrian support. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 center on the victims and their plight against the vehicular paradigm. Simply put, the biggest risk factors associated with victimization to traffic violence include being black or brown, being elderly, being low-income, having less than a high school education, speaking a primary language other than English, being homeless, abusing drugs or alcohol, living in the Sun Belt (due to most cities being developed almost completely under the car-centric paradigm), and walking at night. Importantly, these pedestrian risk factors are intersectional and additive, meaning that an individual with multiple risk factors is orders of magnitude more likely to be a victim. Despite unquestionably being the more vulnerable of the two parties in an interaction between a pedestrian and a vehicle moving at speed, the burden of responsibility is culturally placed on pedestrians much more than drivers, evidenced by the language used by the media, by traffic safety officials, and by policymakers. This culture of "pedestrian shaming" or "windshield bias" has led to increasingly strict criminalization of walking, despite drivers, developers, and policymakers having more power to change their own behavior, and despite much evidence of widespread failure by drivers to appropriately yield to pedestrians where required by existing laws. Chapter 5 directly challenges the most popular vehicle design trends of today, and Chapter 6 goes head-to-head with the norms of the traffic engineering profession. The rise of "killer cars" may sound dramatic, but it is true: Americans have become obsessed...

A Review on Techno-Economic Study for Supporting Building with PV-Grid-Connected Systems under Saudi Regulations

As the demand for electricity continues to grow in Saudi Arabia, finding ways to increase power generation becomes increasingly important. However, conventional power generation methods such as burning fossil fuels contribute significantly to environmental pollution and harm human health through the emissions of greenhouse gases. One potential solution to this problem is the use of solar energy, which has the advantage of being abundant in Saudi Arabia due to its location in the sun belt. When compared to conventional power generation methods, solar energy is a viable alternative, particularly when the indirect costs of fossil fuels, such as harm to the environment and human health, are considered. Using photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electrical energy is a key method for producing clean energy. Despite the initial cost of investing in solar energy infrastructure, it is ultimately less expensive than electricity derived from fossil fuels. In recognition of the potential of solar energy, the Saudi government has outlined an ambitious plan to install 41 GW of solar capacity and invest USD 108.9 billion by 2032. Additionally, financing and significant tax benefits have been provided to promote the development of the solar industry. This research article reviews the techno-economic analysis of PV power plants and examines previous policy papers and the existing research on the topic.

Electrical energy future of Saudi Arabia: Challenges and opportunities

The economy of Saudi Arabia is primarily oil-based, and the energy system is heavily dependent on fossil fuel sources. Electrical demand in Saudi Arabia has been overgrowing due to the high rates of both population and economy. The real problem is that most of this demand has been met by polluting sources, which in turn causes severe economic and environmental challenges. Despite the abundant amount of clean and freely available renewable sources, the practice of benefiting from these sources is minimal and modest. Therefore, the country has launched a promising vision, one pillar of which is diversifying energy sources and reducing dependence on oil. Since Saudi Arabia is located within the equatorial Sun Belt area, the country is a candidate for leading the World’s renewable energy industry, particularly solar energy. This paper discusses the current energy policy in Saudi Arabia, the associated main energy-related challenges and promising opportunities, and the efforts and actions taken by the country’s policymakers to address these challenges and to take advantage of available opportunities–especially those related to electrical energy–to assure continued future prosperity for subsequent generations.

Evaluation of potential sites in Iran to localize solar farms using a GIS-based Fermatean Fuzzy TOPSIS

Iran's energy consumption is constantly and rapidly increasing. Due to the country's geographical placement on the Sun Belt of the Earth, there is a great potential for photovoltaic (PV) energy to be used; however, it necessitates an evidence-based selection of appropriate locations to develop solar farms. In this paper, we used a new approach to prioritize potential PV plant sites employing geographical information system (GIS)-based Fermatean Fuzzy (FF) TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution). We considered economic, geographic, climatic, infrastructures, and demographic criteria in GIS-based FF-TOPSIS and compared outputs with earlier versions of the TOPSIS method (crisp and triangular fuzzy numbers (TFN)). Although all three versions indicated high correlations of >0.89, 20.88% of pixels' priority differed depending on the chosen method's logic. Regarding the sensitivity analysis, the GIS-based FF-TOPSIS in terms of criteria's weight was substantially more resistant to uncertainty than the TNF-TOPSIS. Besides, the GIS-based FF-TOPSIS has rational sensitivity (i.e., tolerance) to the accuracy of input data. The GIS-based FF-TOPSIS method demonstrated sensitivity or robustness depending on the degree of uncertainty in the numbers, which can be altered depending on the expertise and mastery of experts. Our findings indicated that approximately 13.81% of the entire country has the potential for solar power plants. According to the results of the GIS-based FF-TOPSIS approach, the provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, Hormozgan, Fars, and Khuzestan have the largest potential for solar power farms in Iran.

World map of low-layer atmospheric extinction values for solar power tower plants projects

Atmospheric extinction is defined as the ability of the atmosphere to attenuate the solar radiation beam. In the case of concentrating solar power tower plants, low-layer atmospheric extinction plays an important role in the assessment of the solar resource by attenuating the radiation on its way from the heliostats to the receivers. The lack of values of the low-layer atmospheric extinction could lead to incorrect decisions in solar projects and investments. In this paper, we present a world map of annual low-layer atmospheric extinction values. The world map has been elaborated by processing the 30-year database provided by MERRA-2 and the use of atmospheric radiative transfer codes. The results show that the atmospheric extinction values are not negligible and reach high values in many areas of the sun belt. Global daily averages of atmospheric extinction are between approximately 3% and 30%, implying the similar values of annual energy losses in solar power tower plants. The southern hemisphere is characterised by low extinction values, while hight attenuation values are found in the northern hemisphere, especially in West and Central Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Turkmenistan, India, and China, where annual atmospheric extinction exceeds 20%, reaching values of 30% in some places. These results have a major impact on the economic evaluation of solar tower projects. For atmospheric extinction values above 20%, the impact on the Levelized Cost Of Energy implies upward corrections of more than 25%, approaching 50% for values such as those obtained in Chat or Niger. Geographical information of low-layer atmospheric extinction values will help to reduce uncertainty margins in studies related to tower technology solar plants.

Social bonding strategies in the context of retirement migration to nonmetropolitan areas in the United States—Insights from Michigan and North Carolina

AbstractThis article aims to explore social bonding strategies of 35 older Americans who in‐migrated to nonmetropolitan areas in the United States upon their retirement. The qualitative research covered Leelanau County in Michigan and Transylvania County in North Carolina as examples of important but less studied retirement destinations compared to the elderly's residential mobility to the Sun Belt region. The main research problem addressed was to what extent older in‐migrants create and develop social bonds in their new places of residence, how and with whom. The analysis showed that the interviewees connect with others mostly through volunteering and community engagement, practices related to hobbies and leisure, as well as by joining local churches and religious groups. Their social relationships, however, are often limited to other ‘transplants’, and raise concerns about support needed when their health deteriorates.

Author Response

Author Response

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Systems to Solve the Problem of the Increasing in Electricity Demand in the Summer Season in Iraq

Concentrated solar power (CSP) is the conversion of the sun's energy into thermal energy by concentrating the solar radiation by means of mirrors or any other optical element such as lenses on a receiver containing a liquid such as water, molten salt, industrial oil or compressed gas to provide heat for heating and for industrial purposes or to generate steam that rotates a turbine to produce electricity. CSP plants may contain thermal storage units to provide electrical and thermal energy during the night or when the weather is cloudy. Concentrated thermal and electrical energy generation requires high direct solar radiation (DNI) which represents 90% of the sunlight on a sunny day and its value is neglected on a cloudy day, so (CSP) is effective in the sun belt regions, which are located at latitudes between 15 and 40 degrees north and south of the equator, these regions include: the Middle East, North Africa, South Africa, India, southwestern United States, Mexico, Chile, Peru, eastern China, Australia, southern Europe and Turkey. Also, solar radiation is high at high latitudes, as dispersion is low. The best areas to install CSP plants are the areas where direct solar radiation (DNI) is greater than (2800 kwh/m2 per year). The time taken to build CSP plants is from (1-3) years depending on the size of the plant, and its operational life is more than 30 years. The area needed by these plants is 2 hectares per megawatt. This article highlights on the systems for generating electric power from concentrated solar energy and presents the different fluids used in heat transfer, as well as the methods of thermal storage.

Impacts of model structure, framework, and flexibility on perspectives of 100% renewable energy transition decision-making

As the discourse surrounding 100% renewable energy systems has evolved, several energy system modelling tools have been developed to demonstrate the technical feasibility and economic viability of fully sustainable, sector coupled energy systems. While the characteristics of these tools vary among each other, their purpose remains consistent in integrating renewable energy technologies into future energy systems. This paper examines two such energy system models, the LUT Energy System Transition model, an optimisation model, and the EnergyPLAN simulation tool, a simulation model, and develops cost-optimal scenarios under identical assumptions. This paper further analyses different novel modelling approaches used by modellers. Scenarios are developed using the LUT model for Sun Belt countries, for the case of Bolivia, to examine the effects of multi and single-node structuring, and the effects of overnight and energy transition scenarios are analysed. Results for all scenarios indicate a solar PV dominated energy system; however, limitations arise in the sector coupling capabilities in EnergyPLAN, leading it to have noticeably higher annualised costs compared to the single-node scenario from the LUT model despite similar primary levelised costs of electricity. Multi-nodal results reveal that for countries with rich solar resources, high transmission from regions of best solar resources adds little value compared to fully decentralised systems. Finally, compared to the overnight scenarios, transition scenarios demonstrate the impact of considering legacy energy systems in sustainable energy system analyses.

The Cost Benefit Analysis of Commercial 100 MW Solar PV: The Plant Quaid-e-Azam Solar Power Pvt Ltd.

The energy crisis in Pakistan has crippled the country’s economy with an energy shortfall reaching up to 6000 MW. Fortunately, Pakistan lies close to the Sun Belt and therefore receives very high irradiation. To this end, in the beginning of 2014 the Pakistani government sanctioned a solar photovoltaic project namely Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park which was rated at 1000 MW. In this study, a cost benefit analysis for the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park has been developed. The model uses RETScreen software. In fact, a literature review pointed out that most of the previous research work with reference to cost benefit analysis for solar projects has been mainly carried out on smaller power plants. The outcome of the study shows promising results with the simple payback period coming out at 5.6 years. Furthermore, this analysis can serve as guideline for future solar photovoltaic projects in Pakistan and can help in the development and utilization of the huge solar potential of the country, thus aiding in the reduction of energy shortage. In its proposal, our research is unique and innovative in the Pakistani context. The results aim to serve as a guideline for decision makers and researchers interested in this topic.

Redefining the Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War by Uzma Quraishi

Reviewed by: Redefining the Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War by Uzma Quraishi David Reimers Redefining the Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War. By Uzma Quraishi. New Directions in Southern Studies. ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. xviii, 315. Paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-5519-2; cloth, $90.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-5518-5.) Uzma Quraishi has written a well-documented and engaging book. It was a pleasure to read. Her focus is on changing immigration to Houston, Texas, and she reminds us that this city belongs to both the South and the Sun Belt. The author relates the story of Houston's rapid growth since the 1950s, with its boom-and-bust economy. Quraishi touches on the large increase of the Latinx population, but her study centers on the much smaller populations of South Asians, in particular Indians and Pakistanis. She combines census data and other sources with in-depth oral histories. She studies the first generation of South Asians in Houston after 1965 and gives a picture that is not common among histories of immigration. Why the inclusion of the Cold War in the title? The migration of South Asians to America during the Cold War was part of the U.S. government's attempt to win allies as it promoted programs overseas. The main such program was established by the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act (1948), which attempted to present the best possible view of the United States. Embedded in this program was the educational exchange of Americans and South Asians. South Asians had been severely restricted by regular U.S. immigration channels, which limited immigrants to one hundred per year, until the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. When pushing for the 1965 act's passage, Lyndon B. Johnson administration officials suggested that only eight thousand Indians would come to the United States. But the educational exchanges had already opened a path to the United States that proved the 1965 predictions to be gross underestimates. Quraishi points out that some of the South Asian migrants had no initial intention of staying in the United States but decided to stay after favorable experiences with the educational opportunities in Houston. After the economic elite became established, immigrants arriving under family unification followed, thus expanding the community. It should be noted that she does emphasize the difficulties of the highly educated in India to find employment in their home country, which also encouraged them to find their futures in the United States. In any case, "For Indians and Pakistanis in the postwar era, the idea of migration to the United States emerged as an unintended consequence of U.S. State programs abroad" (p. 2). The second part of the book rests on thirty-eight intensive interviews with first-generation South Asian immigrants. Some readers might believe that this sample is too small, but this reviewer was not bothered by a limited group. Quraishi blends the interviews with data about the growth of the community and its presence in Houston. It is important to note that these immigrants were an elite group—as she puts it, middle-class, or "upper caste" (p. 23). What emerges from her interviews is the significance of education in her subjects' lives. It was education that made their success in Houston possible, and their faith in education for their children was the key to sustaining that success. [End Page 197] A major part of the story Quraishi tells is about the growing opportunities for these immigrants due to the expansion of Houston's suburbs. Their search for housing took them to older (but basically new) neighborhoods with quality public schools. As she demonstrates, these neighborhoods were usually white with some other Asians. Rather than challenging segregation, the resulting neighborhoods supported it, with Blacks and Mexicans largely confined to poorer neighborhoods. These South Asians were thus incorporated into a Jim Crow Houston shaped by class and racial hierarchies. David Reimers New York University Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association