Land Cover, Tenure Characteristics, and Rural Well-Being in a Black Belt County

Landownership is an important form of wealth, especially in a natural-resource dependent region such as the Black Belt of Alabama. We examine the connection between property ownership, land cover, and the wellbeing of communities in Macon County, Alabama. This study is an exploratory application of geographic information systems to integrate information from property tax assessment records, land cover data, and a well-being index based on census data. Research questions regarding the relationships between socioeconomic well-being, land tenure, and land cover were tested on rural parcels 50 acres or larger (N=1418). Test results reveal statistically significant relationships between socioeconomic conditions and absentee ownership (both out-of-state and out-of-county) and land cover type (in particular, evergreen forestland). Analyses of research findings offer insight to the cultural-ecological connections within the Black Belt and prompts exploration of the notion of space as political.