Premium
Civic Community in Small‐Town America: How Civic Welfare Is Influenced by Local Capitalism and Civic Engagement *
Author(s) -
Tolbert Charles M.,
Irwin Michael D.,
Lyson Thomas A.,
Nucci Alfred R.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
rural sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.083
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1549-0831
pISSN - 0036-0112
DOI - 10.1111/j.1549-0831.2002.tb00095.x
Subject(s) - microdata (statistics) , civic engagement , capitalism , poverty , population , sociology , welfare , american community survey , economic growth , demographic economics , census , political science , economics , law , demography , politics
The aims of this paper are twofold: first, to gain a fuller understanding of factors that foster community cohesion and contribute to the residents' social and economic well‐being; and, second, to move beyond previous research that used larger spatial units such as states, counties, or aggregates of counties and to focus instead on American small towns (population 2,500–20,000). The data on small towns are drawn from public‐use files and from confidential microdata from various economic censuses. From these sources we construct measures of locally oriented firms, self‐employment, business establishments that serve as gathering places, and associations. The local capitalism and civic engagement variables generally perform as hypothesized; in some cases they are related quite strongly to civic welfare outcomes such as income levels, poverty rates, and nonmigration rates. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of working with place‐level data and suggest some strategies for subsequent work on small towns and other incorporated places.