Toward Comparative Community Research: A Factor Analysis of United States Counties.

The need for comparative research has been a persistent theme in the literature of community sociology for some time. Although comparative studies are being undertaken with greater frequency, a major problem associated with their design and execution stems from the ambiguity of the concept "community" and an inadequate conceptualization of the dimensions along which these social units vary. One recent approach to this problem has been through the application of factor analysis. Two studies, in particular, serve as our point of departure—Jonassen and Peres' factor analysis of eighty-two variables operating in eighty-eight Ohio counties and Hadden and Borgatta's factor analysis of sixty-five variables operating in all American cities of 25,000 or larger. Both studies contribute much to our knowledge of community structure, but as a framework for comparative analyses they have the following limitations: 1. The Jonassen and Peres study was limited to Ohio counties. Generalizing from their data to a different universe, or units thereof, would be a questionable procedure based on the shaky assumption that Ohio is "typical" or resembles closely the United States or any single state in question. 2. The Hadden and Borgatta study was limited to cities of 25,000 and larger. The use of factors identified in their study to differentiate smaller communities would involve accepting the assumption that smaller units vary along the same dimensions as larger units. 3. Although similar factors were identified in the above two studies, a number of differences were also observed. The differences may be a consequence of the different units studied (counties in one analysis and cities in the other), the different parameters involved (data from all Ohio counties in one study compared with data from all United States cities of 25,000 and larger in the other), or the different variables used in the two studies. (They have only twelve variables in common, and only fourteen others are conceptually similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]