Agricultural and Urban Settlement Geodemographic Restructuring in the Great Plains

Keywords: Population geography, agricultural geography, urban geography, US Great Plains
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

This poster overviews agricultural and urban settlement geodemographic restructuring in the Great Plains. The Great Plains extend across ten states, from Montana and North Dakota on the north to New Mexico and Texas on the south. Because of agricultural mechanization and farm consolidation farm population plummeted from nearly 6.2 million in 1930 to merely 662,000 in 2000. The effects on nonfarm population, however, were geodemographically variable and usually very localized. Farmers questioned in 1950 about distance to the “trading center visited most frequently” responded with averages of 7 to 15 miles for the ten states of the Great Plains Larger urban and metropolitan centers are generally much further apart than these distances so the effects on smaller urban places need to be studied as well. Moreover, attention needs to be directed at “farm population services” versus “farm production services” because agricultural restructuring has been more “people oriented” than “land oriented”. The land area in farms in the ten Great Plains states declined marginally from 987 million acres in 1930 to 945 million acres in 2000; and the number of cattle on farms and ranches increased from 34.7 million in 1930 to 60.4 million in 2000. The urban landscape effects can be quite distinctive: many stressed hamlets still have a grain elevator and a farm implement dealer, and perhaps a church and a tavern; but the elementary school and the medical clinic likely were shuttered long ago. Maps and graphs depict geodemographic restructuring at state, county and incorporated place scales.