The Changing South: National Incorporation of a Region

The South is herein viewed as a subsystem of a larger, American social system. The paper attempts to demonstrate, using a variety of socioeconomic and demographic indicators, the rapidity with which the South is becoming an integral part of American Society. The analysis is based upon a set of two-way comparisons: the South with itself over time; the non-South with itself over time; and the South with the non-South at specified points in time. The measures used are grouped into five areas: urbanization, industrialization, occupational redisTtribution, income, and education. The evidence indicates that in these sectors the South has been changing more rapidly than the rest of the nation for the past forty years and moreover is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from the rest of American society.