The Relationship Between Timber Production, Local Historical Events, and Community Social Change: A Quantitative Case Study

This paper reports on a case study examining the relationship between timber production, local history, and community social change in a timber-dependent community over a 60-yr period. We hypothesize that community social change is associated with changes in the production level of the local resource system and/or local historical events. Regression models were developed for four community social change variables: size (number of employees), structure (number of churches), cohesion (number of marriages), and anomie (number of arrests). Indicators of timber production and local historical events were treated as independent variables influencing community social change. Local history events were divided into four categories: (1) nontimber related economic development, (2) timber-related development, (3) natural disasters, and (4) social unrest. The arrests model has a coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.86. This model included four independent variables: (1) mill production, (2) natural disasters, (3) national forest harvest, and (4) nontimber development. The model for the number of employees in timber-related jobs, with an R² of 0.58, includes both timber production and local history independent variables. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the development of theory concerning timber-dependent communities. For. Sci. 39(4): 722-742.

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