| This study draws from relevant sociological sub-fields—human ecology and urban sociology, social movements, rural sociology, and demography, for example—to develop a sociological definition of space. This definition has four components: place, relational location, scale, and physical attributes (i.e., distance, direction, size, absolute location). This dissertation examines the fourth of these components, and uses spatial data analysis techniques which explicitly measure and account for underlying spatial relationships.; The empirical analysis examines predictors of farm loss across three farming regions—Central Great Plains, Lake States, and Central Feed Grains. Predictors include climatic indicators, county characteristic measures, indexes of farming structure, and state-level effects. The dependent variable is the change in the number of farms between 1982 and 1992, the years which encompass the ‘Farm Crisis.’ Data are drawn from several sources, including the Census of Agriculture, Census of Population and Housing, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.; Although findings differ by region, the spatial regression results indicate the importance of indicators of farm structure, prime farmland, proximity to urban areas, and state-level processes. In the Feed Grains region, the findings suggest that a spatially-dependent process is occurring; counties near each other in space experienced similar types and rates of change in the number of farms during the Farm Crisis. These results raise further questions concerning the exact nature of the processes which lead to spatial dependence. These issues are discussed, with additional suggestions for further research. |
