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 tim ber-dependent community over a 60-yr period. We hypothesize that commu nity social change is associated with changes in the production level of the local resource system and/or local historical events. Regressio n models were developed for four community social change variables: si ze (number of employees), structure (number of churches), cohesion (nu mber of marriages), and anomie (number of arrests). Indicators of timb er production and local historical events were treated as independent variables influencing community social change. Local history events we re divided into four categories: (1) nontimber related economic develo pment, (2) timber-related development, (3) natural disasters, and (4) social unrest. The arrests model has a coefficient of determination (R 2) of 0.86. This model included four independent variables: (1) mill p roduction, (2) natural disasters, (3) national forest harvest, and (4) nontimber development. The model for the number of employees in timbe r-related jobs, with an R2 of 0.58, includes both timber production an d local history independent variables. The paper concludes with a disc ussion of the implications of these findings for the development of th eory concerning timber-dependent communities.