POTENTIAL FOR FRICTION
Although I inteded the index to be reflective of change, not static levels, the method was much more accurate on the macro level. The methodology, while admittedly rudimentary, succeeded in making sense of the population change experienced by so many communities. Clearly, on the macro level, population is increasing much more rapidly in the West. When analyzed in a predictive index, the trend seems to point towards land disputes in the West.
Due in part to data limitiations (I could not normalize the total acreage of counties by including only non-federal, or available, land) and the chaotic nature of dynamic systems, I did not see the pattern replicated on the micro level. Rather, the West was just as likely to experience land disputes (according to the FPS Index) as other regions. However, when normalized through GIS by the proximity to federal lands, and the results allowed for a larger number of counties (and not just the outliers), the trend did again appear. Of the top 100 FPS scorers, almost 30% dropped out when normalized by federal lands. Of the top 500, 22% dropped out. Of the counties that dropped out, all were in regions other than the West.
Upon further examination, however, I found that looking at such a narrow band of counties was contradictory to what
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