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Abstract
Many survey datasets have relatively high levels of error. The American Community Survey (ACS) data disseminated by the U.S. Census Bureau offer critical socio-demographic data of the U.S. and include a margin of error to indicate the reliability of an estimate for each census unit. Such feature-based reliability data should be incorporated when using ACS data in GIS such that users are informed of the data quality. This paper provides a brief review of the ACS data. Challenges to the use of ACS data quality information in GIS are discussed. The paper briefly reviews a set of mapping tools packaged as an ArcGIS extension to tackle some challenges in incorporating the data quality information in ACS data. These mapping functions can also be used to handle other survey spatial datasets with reliability information. The extension provides a foundation to build additional GIS tools to handle and analyze survey data.

The shifting of a country's age structure has far-reaching socioeconomic and policy implications. In the US, the changing age structure at the sub-national level has received little research attention. To address this gap, we examine age dependencies across states in the US between 1990 and 2010 using decennial census data. We find that dependency changes have been gradual with a distinct graying of states during this period. Within this overarching trend, the sources of states' dependencies follow complicated trajectories without clear spatiotemporal patterns. Nevertheless, changes in states' old-age dependency contributions to respective total dependencies are geographically clustered and the inverse link between old-age dependency and economic productivity across states may be waning. Additional research is justified to further unravel these trends in old-age dependencies. The analytic framework that we apply can be adopted to conduct sub-national age dependency studies for other countries, including some European nations with relatively large proportions of older adults and many developing nations with an increasing share of older adults.

Though not a new term, "social distancing" exploded onto the global stage as an expression to publicize the only means currently available to control the transmission of COVID-19. This term is increasingly being adopted and translated into the vernacular to inform and guide public behavior in most, if not all, countries around the world. However, any effective global response requires direct and unambiguous communication and sharing of ideas across communities with different cultural backgrounds as well as between researchers and responders across the disciplinary spectrum. Unfortunately, social distancing is a misnomer. The current use of social distancing – separating ourselves physically to avoid infection – is not consistent with what the term actually means. Consequently, as a diktat, social distancing is not self-explanatory, conceptually ambiguous, practically misleading, and intellectually misplaced. To highlight these problems, we present arguments from multiple perspectives, calling governments, public health officials, and the media to abandon the use of social distancing, replacing it with more intuitively accurate and meaningful terms. Such a move would ensure clear consistent messaging that is critical to retain public trust especially during global public health crises.

AbstractIn this new age of globalization, regions attempt to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) in order to achieve regionally balanced development. We revisit existing theories of regional development and FDI by analyzing recent data sets on FDI, employment, and trade in China, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. Using Chinese provincial data in 2004, 2008, and 2013 and applying panel estimations, our econometric results demonstrate that FDI remarkably influenced the concentration of employment in manufacturing, financial, and business services industries within the three Chinese macro‐regions. We also find that FDI is ever transient, always moving away from high‐cost to low‐cost production bases across different regions. This transient nature of FDI is spatially selective and biased, and not able to generate the trickle‐down effects to other neighboring regions. That is why FDI recently moved from China to Southeast and South Asia rather than from its coastal to inland regions. Furthermore, we show that this nature of FDI generally leads to polarization development for regions. As a synthesis or extension of the existing theories, we propose a leapfrog polarization pattern and strategy for vast developing countries in considering their regional development strategies.

This edited volume brings together leading researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe to look at the processes leading to segregation and its implications. With a methodological focus, the book explores new methods and data sources that can offer fresh perspectives on segregation in different contexts. It considers how the spatial patterning of segregation might be best understood and measured, outlines some of the mechanisms that drive it, and discusses its possible social outcomes. Ultimately, it demonstrates that measurements and concepts of segregation must keep pace with a changing world. This volume will be essential reading for academics and practitioners in human geography, sociology, planning and public policy