Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This study demonstrates the application of affinity propagation as a data-driven approach to identifying and mapping typologies of place along the urban-rural continuum. The authors characterize Zip Code Tabulation Areas using demographic, economic, land cover, and accessibility to transportation infrastructure, which results in 22 clusters, 15 of which have a major rural component. The spatial pattern of these clusters varies, reflecting the heterogeneity in U.S. rurality. Rural is not a single concept that can be simply defined by population density. By comparing three economic indicators before and after the global financial crisis of 2007 to 2012, the authors find that the degree of economic recovery is captured by rural typologies. They compare both the methodological results and analysis of socioeconomic resilience to two of the most used threshold-based regional typologies, one developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service and one used by the American Communities Project.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aker

S. L.

Aghaei

(2019). Comparison of business environments in oil-rich MENA countries: A clustering analysis of economic diversification and performance. Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 55(12), 2871–2885. https://doi.org/10.1080/1540496X.2018.1537185

American Communities Project (2020). Community type sheet. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.americancommunities.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/County-Type-Share.xlsx.

Andrews

H. F.

(1986). The early life of Paul de la Blanche and the makings of modern geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 11(2), 174–182. https://www.jstor.org/stable/622004 . https://doi.org/10.2307/622004

Athey

Imbens

G. W.

(2019). Machine learning methods that economists should know about . In Aghion

Rey

(Eds.), Annual review of economics (Vol. 11, pp. 685–725). https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080217-053433

Boix

Trullén

(2007). Knowledge, networks of cities and growth in regional urban systems. Papers in Regional Science, 86(4), 551–574. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1435-5957.2007.00139.x

Brown

Greenbaum

R. T.

(2016). The role of industrial diversity in economic resilience: An empirical examination across 35 years. Urban Studies, 54(6), 1347–1366. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0042098015624870

Cardille

J. A.

Lambois

(2010). From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters: Human signature nearly ubiquitous in representative US landscapes. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 8(3), 130–134. https://doi.org/10.1890/080132

Casellas

Galley

C. C.

(1999). Regional definitions in the European Union: A question of disparities? Regional Studies, 33(6), 551–558. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343409950078242

Chinni

Gimpel

(2010). Our patchwork nation: The surprising truth about the “real” America. Avery Publishing.

10.

Copus

(2015). The new rural economy and macro-scale patterns. In Copus

de Lima

(Eds.), Territorial cohesion in rural Europe: The relational turn in rural development (pp. 11–34). Routledge.

11.

Crone

T. M.

(2005). An alternative definition of economic regions in the United States based on similarities in state business cycles. Review of Economics and Statistics, 87(4), 617–626. https://doi.org/10.1162/003465305775098224

12.

Dall’erba

(2005). Distribution of regional income and regional funds in Europe 1989-1999: An exploratory spatial data analysis. Annals of Regional Science, 39(1), 121–148. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-004-0199-4

13.

Dicka

J. N.

Gessert

Snincak

(2019). Rural and nonrural municipalities in the Slovak Republic. Journal of Maps, 15(1), 84–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2019.1615010

14.

Dijkstra

Poelman

(2014). A harmonised definition of cities and rural areas: the new degree of urbanisation. (European Commission Working Paper 01/2014). Brussels, Belgium: European Commission.

15.

Dijkstra

Poelman

Rodriguez-Pose

(2020). The geography of EU discontent. Regional Studies, 54(6), 737–753. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1654603

16.

Economic Research Service (ERS) (2013). Rural-Urban Continuum – Documentation. Retrieved on January 20, 2020, from https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/90556/eib-200.pdf?v=5899.2.

17.

Fiaschetti

Graziano

Heumann

B. W.

(2021). A data-based approach to identifying regional typologies and exemplars across the urban-rural gradient in Europe using affinity propagation. Regional Studies Special Issue: Regional Approaches to Data, Environment, and Society, 55(12), 1939–1954. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2021.1871598.

18.

Frey

B. J.

Dueck

(2007). Clustering by passing messages between data points. Science (New York, N.Y.), 315(5814), 972–976. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1136800

19.

Gagliardi

Percoco

(2017). The impact of European Cohesion Policy in urban and rural regions. Regional Studies, 51(6), 857–868. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2016.1179384

20.

Giloth

R. P.

(2000). Learning from the field: Economic growth and workforce development in the 1990s. Economic Development Quarterly, 14(4), 340–359. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F089124240001400402

21.

Goss

(1995). We know who you are and we know where you live: The instrumental rationality of geodemographic systems. Economic Geography, 71(2), 171–198. https://doi.org/10.2307/144357

22.

Green

P. E.

Frank

R. E.

Robinson

P. J.

(1967). Cluster analysis in test market selection. Management Science, 13(8), B-387–B-400. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.13.8.B387

23.

Han

Goetz

S. J.

(2015). The economic resilience of U.S. counties during the great recession. The Review of Regional Studies, 45(2), 131–149. https://doi.org/10.52324/001c.8059

24.

Hassanabadi

Shea

Zhang

Valee

(2014). Clustering in vehicular ad hoc networks using affinity propagation. Ad Hoc Networks, 13(B), 535–548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adhoc.2013.10.005

25.

Heumann

B. W.

Liesch

M. E.

Bogen

N. R.

Meiter

R. A.

Graziano

(2020). The contiguous United States in eleven zip codes: Identifying and mapping socio-economic census data clusters and exemplars using affinity propagation. Journal of Maps, 16(1), 57–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2020.1736193

26.

Hird

J. A.

(1993). Environmental policy and equity: The case of superfund. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 12(2), 323–343. https://doi.org/10.2307/3325238

27.

Homer

C. G.

Dewitz

J. A.

Yang

Jin

Danielson

Xian

Coulston

Herold

N. D.

Wickham

J. D.

Megown

(2015). Completion of the 2011 national land cover database for the conterminous United States—Representing a decade of land cover change information. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 81(5), 345–354. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/asprs/pers/2015/00000081/00000005/art00002 .

28.

International Labour Office (ILO) (2017). ILO labour force estimates and projections: 1990-2030 – methodological description. Retrieved March 2021, from https://www.ilo.org/ilostat-files/Documents/LFEP.pdf.

29.

Isserman

A. M.

(2005). In the national interest: Defining rural and urban correctly in research and public policy. International Regional Science Review, 28(4), 465–499. http://irx.sagepub.com/content/28/4/465 . https://doi.org/10.1177/0160017605279000

30.

Isserman

A. M.

Feser

Warren

D. E.

(2009). Why some rural places prosper and others do not. International Regional Science Review, 32(3), 300–342. http://irx.sagepub.com/content/32/3/300 . https://doi.org/10.1177/0160017609336090

31.

Jackson

C. K.

Johnson

R. C.

Persico

(2016). The effects of school spending on educational and economic outcomes: Evidence from school finance reforms. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(1), 157–218. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv036

32.

Jain

A. K.

(2010). Data clustering: 50 years beyond K-means. Pattern Recognition Letters, 31(8), 651–666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patrec.2009.09.011

33.

Kiddle

S. J.

Windram

O. P. F.

McHattie

Mead

Beynon

Buchanan-Wollaston

Denby

K. J.

Mukherjee

(2010). Temporal clustering by affinity propagation reveals transcriptional modules in Arabidopsis thaliana. Bioinformatics (Oxford, England), 26(3), 355–362. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btp673

34.

Lagendijk

(2003). Towards conceptual quality in regional studies: The need for subtle critique – a response to Markusen. Regional Studies, 37(6–7), 719–727. https://doi.org/10.1080/0034340032000108804

35.

Lema

Liesch

Graziano

(2019). Pathways for Resilience in four Great Lakes Legacy cities . In Burayidi

Allen

Twigg

Wamsler

(Eds.), The Routledge handbook of urban resilience (pp. 272–297). Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Urban-Resilience-1st-Edition/Burayidi-Allen-Twigg-Wamsler/p/book/9781138583597

36.

Liu

Y. Q.

Zhao

G. H.

Zhao

Y. S.

(2016). An analysis of Chinese provincial carbon dioxide emission efficiencies based on energy consumption structure. Energy Policy, 96, 524–533. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.06.028

37.

Lupi

Giaccio

Mastronardi

Giannelli

Scardera

(2017). Exploring the features of agritourism and its contribution to rural development in Italy. Land Use Policy, 64, 383–390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.03.002

38.

Lynd

R. S.

Lynd

H. M.

(1929). Middletown: A study in modern American culture. Harcourt, Brace, & Co.

39.

Mimis

Georgiadis

(2013). Economic clustering of countries in the Asia-Pacific region. International Journal of Social Economics, 40(4), 355–366. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068291311305026

40.

Nelson

K. S.

Nguyen

T. D.

Brownstein

N. A.

Garcia

Walker

H. C.

Watson

J. T.

Xin

(2021). Definitions, measures, and uses of rurality: A systematic review of the empirical and quantitative literature. Journal of Rural Studies, 82, 351–365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.01.035

41.

Openshaw

(1984). The modifiable areal unit problem. Geobooks.

42.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2013). Definition of functional urban areas. Retrieved January 20, 2019, from https://www.oecd.org/cfe/regional-policy/Definition-of-Functional-Urban-Areas-for-the-OECD-metropolitan-database.pdf.

43.

Parr

J. B.

(2014). The regional economy, spatial structure and regional urban systems. Regional Studies, 48(12), 1926–1938. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2013.799759.

44.

Pierce

J. R.

Schott

P. K.

(2020). Trade liberalization and mortality: Evidence from US counties. American Economic Review: Insights, 2(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20180396

45.

Qian

Lin

Luscombe

N. M.

Gerstein

(2003). Prediction of regulatory networks: Genome-wide identification of transcription factor targets from gene expression data. Bioinformatics (Oxford, England), 22(15), 1917–1926. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btg347

46.

Rahe

M. L.

Weber

Fisher

(2019). Income inequality and county economic resistance to job loss during the great recession. The Review of Regional Studies, 49(1), 129–147. https://doi.org/10.52324/001c.7935

47.

Rowles

G. D.

(1988). What's rural about rural aging? An Appalachian perspective. Journal of Rural Studies, 4(2), 115–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/0743-0167(88)90029-0

48.

Scott

(2013). Resilience: A conceptual lens for rural studies? Geography Compass, 7(9), 597–610. http://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12066

49.

U.S. Census Bureau (2010). 2010 Decennial Census. Retrieved May 2018, from https://factfinder.census.gov/.

50.

U.S. Census Bureau (2011). Selected housing characteristics, 2008-2012 American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Retrieved May 2018, from https://factfinder.census.gov/.

51.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (2020). 2013 rural-urban continuum codes. Retrieved November 2020, from https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/53251/ruralurbancodes2013.xls?v=1506.

52.

U.S. Geological Survey National Transportation Geodatabase. Retrieved June 2019, from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/usgs-national-transportation-dataset-ntd-downloadable-data-collectionde7d2.

53.

Van Eupen

Metzger

M. J.

Perez-Soba

Verburg

P. N.

Van Doorn

Bunce

R. G. H.

(2012). A rural typology for strategic European policies. Land Use Policy, 29(3), 473–482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2011.07.007

54.

Waldorf

Kim

(2015, April). Defining and measuring rurality in the U.S.: from typologies to continuous indices. [Paper presentation]. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Keck Center, Washington, DC, United States. https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_168031.pdf.

55.

Waldorf

B. S.

(2006). A Continuous multi-dimensional measure of rurality: moving beyond threshold measures. 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association, Long Beach, CA, United States. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.21383.

56.

Wandl

Nadin

Zonneveld

Rooij

(2014). Beyond urban–rural classifications: Characterizing and mapping territories-in-between across Europe. Landscape and Urban Planning, 130, 50–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2014.06.010

57.

Web of Science (2021). Search in All fields. Retrieved March 2021, from https://www-webofscience-com.scsu.idm.oclc.org/wos/woscc/basic-search.

58.

Weiss

M. J.

(1989). The clustering of America. Harper & Row Publishers Inc.

59.

Witten

I. H.

Frank

(2005). Data mining: Practical machine learning tools and techniques (2nd ed.). Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc.

60.

C. B.

Y. N.

Dai

S. Y.

(2020). What are the critical barriers to the development of hydrogen refueling stations in China? A modified fuzzy DEMATEL approach. Energy Policy, 142, 111495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111495

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.03 MB

A Data-Driven Algorithm to Redefine the U.S. Rural Landscape: Affinity Propagation as a Mixed-Data/Mixed-Method Tool

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material