SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? PART 2

Push and pull factors are influenced by:

Place utility: an individual’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a place.

Two related concepts are “distance decay” and “intervening opportunities/obstacles.”

Movers seek to minimize friction of distance.

Migrants tend to choose the closer locations if all other factors are equal. Information about distant areas is less complete.

Spatially, there are a number of patterns of migration.

Step Migration: a series of small, less extreme locational changes. While a migration stream may seem long over time, it consists of many smaller moves..

Chain Migration: The idea that there exists an established lineage or chain from the point of origin of migrants to their destination.

This is usually assisted by migrants who already live in the destination.

Chain migration establishes migration fields, or areas that dominate a locale's in and out migration patterns. Many Mexican Americans from the state of Jalisco in Mexico migrate to Chicago’s “migration field.”

In a simple case of the luck of Geography, there are often intervening opportunities that improve chances of migration.

There are a number of barriers to migration:

Migration can be limited by a knowledge of opportunities of other places, i.e., information.

Migration can be limited by costs, both financial and emotional. It is difficult to leave one’s home to try a completely new way of life.

A physical restriction to migration would be intervening obstacles.

Why don’t we have more immigration from Africa to the USA?

Migration can be limited by political restrictions.

Migration can be limited by personal characteristics.

Culture, age, gender, education, and economic status.

Migration can also be enhanced by education and economic status.

Today, what type of migrant is most desired?

Well educated males between the ages of 18-34 who are affluent are the most mobile; poorly educated females who are old and poor are the least mobile.

IMPACTS OF MIGRATION

Migration affects population patterns and characteristic of social and cultural patterns. As people move, their ideas move along with them, creating and modifying cultural landscapes.

Diffusion: certain characteristics (culture traits, ideas, disease) that spread over time.

Relocation diffusion: ideas, culture traits, etc.. That move with people from one place to another and do not remain at the point of diffusion.

Historic expulsion .

How were the migration patterns of the English and Spanish colonies different in the Americas?

Relocation/expansion diffusion: Ideas, culture traits, etc… that move with people from one place to another but are not lost at the point of origin, such as language or religion.

Name examples of expansion diffusion we see in Houston on a daily basis.

Cultural Markers: Structures or artifacts (e.g. buildings, spiritual places, architectural styles etc..) that reflect the cures history and histories of those who constructed or occupy them.

Europe today is dealing with the issue of immigration from North African and Middle Eastern countries.

The children and grandchildren of Muslim immigrants from the 50’s and 60’s make up the bulk of the Muslim population in France today (estimated as high as 10% of the French population.)

While European countries have tried to limit new, legal immigration, why has the number of immigrants continued to grow?

A centerpiece of immigration policy is still family reunification.

Major Human Migrations

Migration has had a significant impact on world Geography and History.

It has contributed to:

Evolution and development of separate cultures.

Diffusion of cultures by exchange and communication.

Complex mix of people and cultures found in different regions of the world today.

Make a list of four people around you.

Name the source countries of each person’s heritage (as many as are known.)

Name the number of countries each person has lived in.

The number of states.

The number of cities.

The number of homes.