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<br />1527 <br /> <br />SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACTS AND ISSUES <br /> <br />I. <br /> <br />DEFINITION <br /> <br />. Socioeconomic Impact: "A change that occurs to people, their communities, and their overall <br />quality of life as the result of a project." <br /> <br />DATA <br /> <br />. Field visits and observations <br />. Analysis of county-level Census data <br />. Unstructured interviews with key informants (in person, telephone) <br />. Group meetings with permitting agency personnel <br />. Group Processing/Brainstorming technique <br /> <br />SOCIAL CONTEXT: HISTORICAL SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS <br /> <br />. Counties in Study Area: <br />Lake, Park, Chaffee, Fremont, Pueblo, Otero, Crowley, Bent, Kiowa, and Prowers <br />. Two, maybe becoming three, distinct social groupings in the basin: <br />Colorado Springs and EI Paso County perhaps have more similarities to northern <br />Colorado than to other southern Colorado areas (highly urbanized, rapid population and <br />economic growth) <br />. Differences between upper and lower Arkansas River communities <br /> <br />SOCIOECONOMIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN UPPER AND LOWER ARKANSAS <br /> <br />. Economic Base <br />. Mountain counties, as well as EI Paso, historically linked to mining, railroading, and <br />tourism, have begun to rely upon and exploit tourism increasingly in recent years <br />. Plains counties more tied to manufacturing and agriculture and "in increasingly <br />weakening income position" (Weber, 1991) <br />. By national standards and definitions of poverty, the lower Arkansas valley is among the <br />poorest in the nation <br />. Patterns of Growth <br />. Mountain counties have experienced severe ups and downs in population due to <br />substantial fluctuations in mining and railroading activity <br />. Front Range counties have seen mainly steady growth <br />. Population in the Lower Arkansas counties has been declining for sixty years and is <br />aging as youth migrate out of area. <br />. Ethnicity and Social Diversity <br />. Upper Arkansas counties, with, mining, smelting and railroading history, attracted an <br />ethnically diverse population of Anglos, Germans, Italians and Slavs_ <br />. The lower Arkansas area has a significant Hispanic minority, approximately twice the <br />proportion of the state average. Like most of southern Colorado, the lower valley is a rich <br />mixture of "Anglo" (i.e., northern and western European) and Hispanic roots. Except for <br />Pueblo, where the CF&I attracted large populations of Italians and Slavs, very few other <br />ethnic and racial minorities are represented in the agricultural lower valley. <br /> <br />Page 1 of 10 <br />