Income Inequality In Urban Areas

Gateway communities are defined as communities in close proximity to public lands, serve as an entry point to public lands, and have an economic influence of public lands. For example, gateway communities include towns within the proximity of national and state forests, monuments, refuges, grasslands, wild and scenic river corridors, lakeshores, and parks. Tourists and visitors use these communities as gateways to such parks. Kurtz (2010) mentioned that gateway communities have characteristically relied on “relatively few or even a single source to drive the local economy”. Resource extraction industries or service and recreational industries utilizing public lands are the primary source to stimulate the economy for the gateway communities
Relatively, inequality in rural areas has been less understood. Ross (2007) argued that “little is known” about the relationship between natural amenities and inequality, suggesting that an important research agenda regarding income distribution not only in the rural area, but also in communities surrounding public lands. Particularly, empirical studies are strongly needed to focus on gateway communities because economic restructuring has substantially increased in these areas. Although there is no directly relevant studies that explore the relationship between income inequality and economic restructuring in the gateway communities, we may obtain valuable information from relevant previous studies that focus on other
First, this is because the labor market in rural areas does not consist of a variety of sectors, but is led by one or two primary sectors. Therefore, major industries’ failure, caused by economic recession or unexpected changes in economic trends, negatively affect entire local economies. Second, it is because recent economic restructuring in nonmetro areas is much different from in metro areas. For example, a movement of large plants to rural areas are likely to create ripple effects throughout the rest of the local economy. For example, growth of personal services and retail trade sector will occur. However, the service-sector jobs created in rural areas may be low-paying jobs. High-end service jobs or health and business service sectors tends to be located in urban