Factorial Ecology

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how factorial ecology continues to be of interest to those conducting marketing research, although radiocentric approaches tend to be more "en vogue" at the moment, especially when considering the development of new, as opposed to existing, city populations, such as in the American South, or in cities undergoing profound ethnic changes unprecedented in their history, such as Toronto. It looks at how cities undergoing physical transformations, such as New York after September 11th, also offer uncharted waters for radiocentric explanations as well. It concludes that factorial ecology's more coherent, if not always more accurate, sociological analysis is not only seductive, but also often instructive for students attempting to make a more coherent theoretical narrative about the ideological reasons for a city's shifting and changing image.

Outline
Introduction
What Are the Factors that Predict Which Model is Explanatory?
What Are the Weaknesses of Each Model?
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Toronto is a mosaic-like city of ethnic and regional composition, one reason that radiocentric explanations are fairly popular in understanding its development. As with New York, the map-like spreading out of different communities are often instructive to how certain ethnicities have become part of the nation's fabric and to what extent they participate in a city's centrality or sectors of prosperity or poverty. However, once a city grows in age and second and third generation members become more integrated and dispersed within a city's fold, radiocentric explanations become more difficult to offer, unless specific communities continue built around specific urban industries, such as the city's garment district, or, to use another example, the case of Silicon Valley and its outer-lying suburbs, where an hitherto empty area of growth becomes filled because of its location around a certain nexus of the computer industry."

More papers on Factorial Ecology:

• Essay # 31403 : "The City of Toronto"
• Essay # 68068 : "Pennsylvania's Natural Resources"
• Analytical Essay # 106240 : "Southeast Asia Regional Issues and Architecture"

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