Fax From Smiley RE: Communications and Travel Within the First and Twelfth Congressional Districts

    3/2/98 

COMMUNICATIONS AND TRAVEL. WITHIN 
THE FIRST AND TWELFTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS 

by 
Alfred W. Stuart 

Professor of Geography 

UNC Charlotte 

Introduction 

Communities of interest within political districts arise in great measure from the ability of 
people to travel within the district or to share various information sources. Important sources of 
information for many people aie uewspupers und elevision, TRUE it is sigmiicant to consider the 
circulation areas of nownapnpers and primary make areus (ul Wwleyision broadens. In Addition, 
Lhe SZC OF & district an lation wile available road network is a primary determinant of the extent 
to which people can travel. One of the principal motivations for such travel is the daily journey to 
work, which, in a modern economy, often involves trips to another county or community. Penple 

van i Tad omrand SpE wi i conor, VU TULL H COMURLLY BF IREerest 
among people who live in a number of different places. The following analysis provides an 
overview of these indicators of travel and communications within the First and Twelfth 
Congressional Districts, 

Newspapers 

Table 1 summarizes the average daily circulation of the 20 largest daily newspapers 
published in North Carolina. Reflecting the broad dispersion of people, of the 10 largest, all but 
two had at least 30 percent of its circulation going to counties other than to the one in which it is 
published, Four distributed 40 percent or more outside their home counties, including the state’s 

two largest, the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News and Observer. By contrast, the smaller 
dailies generally serve only their home counties, with all of the 10 smallest having less than 20 

percent of their circnlatinne in other counties, These proportions, oopeoially the large numbers scot 

10 outside counties Uy Lie 11 guar Udiliey, 41s 4 measure of the i4tiuence that the larger cities have mn 

the state. The extensive coverage of the large dailies also is an indication of the broad area in 
which people obtain some of their news, information and advertising. The Observer is circulated 
in 36 North Carolina countics and it is the leading paper in four counties outside Mecklenburg, 

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Over 113,000 of its total circulation was outside Mecklenburg Cropty, mers than tho oombined 
ciramation of The civ emallggt dailiso in tho table. Thu News wl OLS) vor y reacn i Noth 
Caroling is even more extensive, with circulation reported in 50 of the state’s counties and it is has 
the largest circulation of any newspaper in four counties other thin Wake. 

Table 2 lists the nine daily newspapers that are published within the 20 counties that aro 
included, at 1east in part, in the First District. Only the Goldsboro News-Argus and the Greenville 
Reflector are included in the state’s 20 largest dailies. The Roanoke Rapids Herald is the only one 
that lias ay much a8 Much as 220 percent of its circulation outside its home county and that exception 
ia probably duc to the proximity nf Ravanake Rapids to Northampton County, which dues nut have 
© TOTFeuRg newopapoer. Thus, th uewspapery idl 48 18AIPEASES to the district are heavily 
oricnted to their immediate communities but jt may be telling that the majority of the district 
counties do not host a daily newspaper. 

This vacuum is to some extent is filled by one of the state’s largest newspapers, the Raleigh 
News & Observer. Table 3 shows that it is circulated in all bur three of the District’s counties and 
in mer cages it has the nocond largest circulativi, even Where there are four or tive competitors. 
All together. over 17 thousand copies of the News & (Observer, nearly 11 poroout of thal papers 
total circulation, are distributed among these far flung counties. 

The situation is rather different in the more populous seven counties that contain the 
Twelfth District. There are only seven daily newspaper published in these counties but they 
include three of North Carolina’s five largest paper (Table 4). As noted earlier, these large dailies, 
cspecially the Charlotte Observer, are read in a broad array of comuuitivs. Table § Shows that 
aubstantial quubers Uf (he cndrione, Ureensboro and Winston-Salem papers are distributed to 
adjacent counties in the District even though competing dailies are published in each one of those 
counties, 

Television Market Areas 

Television viewing aieas are know in the industry as Designated Market Areas(DMAs). 
These arc market areas that are designated by the A.C. Nielson Company according to the 
television sratione that have the higheot poroenta ge of hours of viewing Ly (he populuton. Figure | 
shows that 10 DMAs are recognized in North Carolina but only five are associated with stations, or 
groups of stations, that are located entirely in North Carolina. The other five are associated with 
broadcast centers in Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and Virginia. The Asheville DMA is 

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Figure 1. N.C. Designated Market Areas for Television, 1597 

Greensboro - \WinstowSalem - Raleigh - Norblk -Portsmouth - 
High Port, NG. Durham, N.C Ne vpart News, VA. 

     

        

    

    

    

ATS 
Asheville, Anderson, N.C./S.C = 

Sans GA. Charlotte, N.C. 

  

Grnoorville- New Baan - 
Flores - | * A =V=shington, N.2= 

Myrile Bezch, S.C. S TH 

Wilmington, KH.C. 

Saurce: A.C. Nielson Co. 

a 5 ¥) nec 
1 i] 

  

Figure 2. Congressional Districts (1997 House & Senate Pizn A} 

  

  

ara ; , NSS Sha 0 5C 100 nikes Source: NC General Assembly Legistative Services Offics. and C A 
D Xr 100 Yonmeters 

 



  

1/12/98 

shared by stations in that city with those in Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson, South 
Carolina. The most centralized DMA are the Charlotte and Wilmington ones, in that all of the 
major commercial stations in each are located within those respective cities’ vicinities. The 
Greensboro/ Winston-Salem/ High Point stations are scattered among those cities and the Raleigh- 
Durham DMA includes stations in those cities as well as in Fayetteville. The three most populous 
DMAs, which collectively cover 53 counties, are those based in the Piedmont but their reaches 
extend well into both the mountain and Coastal Plains while also completely covering the 
Piedmont. 

A comparison of the DMAs in Figure 1 with the geographies of the 12 Congressional 
Districts in Figure 2 shows the extent to which television coverage coincides with the district areas. 
The following is a summary of the respective coverages: 

* District 1 is divided among three DMAs. Gates and Hertford Counties actually lie within the 
coverage of stations emanating in the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News DMA in Virginia. The 
northwestern part of the District is covered by the Raleigh-Durham DMA and the balance falls 
within the reach of stations in New Bern and Greenville. 

* Districts 2 and 4 both fall entirely within the Raleigh-Durham DMA. 

* District 3 also is divided among three DMAs. The northern counties f all under the one centering 
on Norfolk and a few are covered out of Raleigh-Durham. The majority of the District falls within 
the Greenville-New Bern- Washington DMA. 

* District 5is dominated by stations in Greensboro-High Point and Winston-Salem but its 
westernmost county, Ashe, falls within the Charlotte market. 

* District 6 also is covered primarily by the Greensboxo/ Winston-Salem! High Point DMA but 
peripheral portions fall within the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham markets. 

* District 7 encompasses the entire Wilmington DMA, along with bits of both thc Raleigli-Duiliain 
and Florence~-Myrtle Beach, S.C. markets. 

* District 8 falls primarily in the Charlotte market, However, Scotland and part of Robeson 
Counties are in the Florence-Myrtle Beach DMA, Hoke is in the Ralei gh-Durham market and 
Montgomery County is in the Greensboro DMA. 

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= District © falls entirely within the Charlotte market. 

* District 10 is mostly in the Charlotte DMA except for Wilkes and Yadkin Counties, which fall 
under Greensboro, and Mitchell County is in the Greenville-Spartanburg- Anderson, N.C.-S.C. 
market. 

* District 11 is covered largely by the Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville- Anderson DMA but 
several peripheral counties are in the Atlanta, Chattanooga and Charlotte markets. 

* The clongated District 12 is divided almost equally between Charlotte and Greensboro/Winston- 
Salem and High Point. 

The advent of individual satellite dishes and direct television have no doubt served to 
weaken the dependence on coverage from local stations but people must still go to nearby outlets to 
get news on local events and news, including political elections. This weakening of ties to local 
stations may be offset by the often cited tendency for more people to get their news from television 
than from newspapers or other traditional outlets. The preceding analysis makes it clear that 
television, by its nature, covers broader geographies than do most newspapers, helping to forge 
communities of interest that transcend traditional community or county identities, 

Travel Times 

Access by highway is a function of both the size and shape of a district but especially of the 
nature of the highway network that coversit. To illustrate this point, points were selected within 
each district that are identifiable on a highway map and which approximate maximum distances 
across the district. In several cases (Districts 1,3 and 7) where the distance appears to be about the 
same length in several directions, several pairs of points were selected. These pairs of points were 
entered into a sophisticated computer model that contained the entire hi ghway network for North 
Carolina and also information on the nature of the road (number of lanes, etc.) and speed limits. 
The model then chose the route that represented the minimum travel time and the mileage of each 
path. These travel distances are summarized in Table 6, Maps included in the Appendix outline 
each of the routes. 

The minimum travel time and distance (1.26 hours and 64 miles) for all of the Districts was 
that calculated for the relatively compact Ninth District, the route for which follows primarily I-85 

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and some of 1J.S 74 Ty additien, Districts 2,4, 6 and 12 have uavel ties Of less than wo 
hours. In contrast, District 4, on each of two routes, has the longest paths because of, again, the 
size of the district and the nature of the road network. The routes begin on the elongated Outer 
Banks and go both either west or south. Representative of the best highways through the District 
in U.S. 17, not an Interstate. Both routes are estimated to take over four hours and are close to or 
more than 200 miles long. 

Inter-County Commuting 

The daily trip to work is a very important measure of interaction between places, what 
geographers refer 10 as spatial interaction. Historically, North Carolinians have been willing to 
travel considerable distances to a job, reflectin 8 the long-standing, dispersed character of the state. 
As noted above, this brings together people together from a variety of locations and communities 
for a significant part of the day, forming new and perhaps diverse communities of interest that are 
more dispersed than the compact community where they live the rest of the day. 

Tables 7 and 8 provide mcasures of inter-county commuting within the First and Twelfth 
Districts, respectively. These data are from the 1990 Census. Unfortunately the decennial Census 
is the only source of these statistics. In Fi gure 7 travel flows are shown in terms of commuting 
from the host of rural counties that are covered by District 1 into the several metropolitan areas in 
and around the District that serve as major job magnets for the District. Rocky Mount, right on the 
edge of the District, and Greenville, central to the District, are the leading destinations for 
commuters. Wake County is another major destination even though it is some distance from most 
of the District. Most of the commuters who travel daily into Virginia go to jobs in the Norfolk 
area. 

Within District 12 the numbers of commuters are much larger and there is a strong suburbs 
to metropolitan center component to these flows. This is especially apparent in the numbers of 
commuters who go from Iredell and Rowan into Mecklenburg or from Davidson into both Forsyth 
and Guilford. However, this are strong flows also between several pairs of suburban counties, 
particularlt the Rowan -Iredell and Rowan-Davidson pairs. Furthermore, the strongest flows of all 
are between the two core metropolitan counties in the Triad, Forsyth and Guilford. 

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Conclusions 

The statistics presented in this anal ysis indicate that even though most of the Congressional 
Districts in North Carolina are rather extensive and not always compact, people often travel 
considerable distances to work, read out-of-town newspapers and get local news from television 
stations that are some distance away. All of this tends to belie notions about self -contained 
comraunities in which residents rarely travel much or share their thoughts with anyone other than 
their immediate neighbors. Unlike their ancestors, many contemporary North Carolinians daily 
travel and receive information at a regional scale. 

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TABLE 1 

1/12/08 

CIRCULATION OF MAJOR DAILY NEWSPAPERS 

The 20 Largest Dailies 

  

1997 

Daily Percent Outside 
Newspaper Circulation Home County 

Clitluue Obseyrvey 248.216 47.5% 
Raleigh News & Observer 159,618 44.5 
Winston-Salem Journal 91,386 33.2 
Greensboro News & Record 90,331 25.7 
Fayeueville Observer-Times 73,732 36.4 

Asheville Citizen-Times 59,050 40.5 
Wilmington Morning Star 51,987 33.6 
Durham Herald-Sun 51,404 35.2 
Gaston Gazette 38,389 12.9 
High Point Enterprise 30,237 42.8 

Burlington Times-News 27,259 4.7 
Salisbury Post 25,468 12.2 
Goldsboro News-Argus 22,063 9.2 
Tacksonville Daily News 21,886 16.0 
Hendersonville Times-News 19,753 11.0 

Hickory Daily Record 19,585 14.6 
Greenville Daily Reflector 19,425 11.8 
Wilson Daily Times 16,94] 17.0 
Asheboro Courier-Tribune 16,501 15.8 
Shelby Star 16,595 6.8 

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations’ FAS-FAX Report-March 31,1997 and Audit Bureau 
Circulations/County Penetration Report, 4-15-97. 

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TABLE 2 
DAILY NEWSPAPERS IN THE FIRST DISTRICT 

Outside 
Newspaper ( County) Daily_Circulation Home County 

Wushington News 0,847 11.0% 
Rocky Mt. Telegram (Edgecombe, Nash) 14,930 ns 
Roanoke Rapids Herald(Halifax) 13,001 17.8 
New Bern Sun Journal] (Craven) 15,560 16.5 
Kinston Free Press (Lenoir) 12,273 3.7 
Greenville Reflector (Pitt) 19,425 11.8 
Henderson Daily Dispatch (Vance) 8,725 12.9 
Wilson Times (Wilson) 16,941 17.0 
Goldsboro News-Argus (Wayne) 22,063 9.2 

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations’ FAS-FAX Report-March 31,1997 and Audit Bureau 
Circulations/County Penetration Report, 4-15-97. 

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TABLE 3 

CIRCULATION OF THE RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER 

IN COUNTIES OF THE FIRST DISTRICT 

County Circulation Rank/T otal 
  

Beaufort 580 216 
Bertie 22 
Craven 2/6 
Edgecombe 2/4 
Gates 

%2 
Granville 3/4 
Greene 3/5 
Halifax 2/6 
Hertford 22 
Jones */3 
Lenoir 2/4 
Martin 

2/4 
Northampton 2/4 
Person 2 
Pitt 

2/4 
Vance 2/4 
Warren 3/3 
Washington 22 
Wayne 2.302 2/6 
Wilson 2,382 2/4 

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations/ County Penetration Report, 4-15-97. 

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TABLE 4 

DAILY NEWSPAPERS IN THE TWELFTH DISTRICT 

Outside 
Newspaper (County) Daily Circulation Home County 

Lexington Dispatch (Davidson) 13,430 2.0% 
Winston-Salem Joumal (Forsyth) 91,386 352 
Greensboro News & Record (Guilford) 90,331 25.7 
High Point Enterprise (Guilford) 30,237 42.8 
Statesville Record & Landmark (Iredell) 16,021 3.2 
Charlotte Observer (Mecklenburg) 238,216 47.5 
Salisbury Post (Rowan) 25,468 12.2 

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations’ FAS-FAX Report-March 31,1997 and Audit Bureau 
Circulations/County Penetration Report, 4-15-97. 

10 

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TABLE 5 

CIRCULATION OF OUTSIDE MAJOR DAILIES 
IN COUNTIES OF THE TWELFTH DISTRICT 

Charlotte Greensboro Winston-Salem 
County Observer News & Record Journal 

Davidson 123 2,455 5,542 
Forsyth 200 1,165 ¥ 
Guilford 273 * 64 
Iredell 8,545 0 362 
Mecklenburg * 0 0 
Rowan 3,355 0 0 

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations/ County Penetration Report, 4-15-97. 

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TABLE 6 

NORTH CAROI INA 
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS 

Estimated Maximum Travel Distances Within Districts 

District Destinations Time (hrs.) Distance (mi.) 

1 Roxboro to Sunbury 3.02 151 

I Sunbury to Goldsboro 2.72 143 

2 Johnsonville to Exit 150 
on I-95 1.90 114 

3 Holly Ridge to Corolla 4.97 233 

3 Dobbersville to Whalebone 4.12 193 

4 Carbonton to Picks 1.59 67 

5 Ashland to Leasburg 3.47 173 

6 Eli Whitney to Landis 1.78 o8 

7 Hope Mills to Southport 2.24 104 

7 Rowland to Surf City 2.46 117 

8 Harrisburg to Red Springs 2.36 106 

9 Matthews to Boiling Springs 1.26 64 

10 East Bend to Poplar 2.64 123 

11 Cliffside to Oak Park 3.58 178 

12 Greensboro to Charlotte 1.67 95 

Note: The points chosen for each district arc readily identifiable places on the NC Hi ghway map 
that approximate the greatest distances from one end of the district to the other, Several routes 
were used in districts that have broad dimensions in several directions. 

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Table 7 

Inter-County Commuting Within the First District 

        

  

  

  

        

  

  

    
  

1/12/98 

  

FROM TO 
Cumberland Nash N.Hanover Pitt Wake 

County (Fayettev.) (Rocky Mt.) (Wilm.) (Greenv.) (Raleigh) Virginia Beaufort 6 28 0 1,662 68 47 Bertie 6 3 40 16 344 Craven 25 10 13 434 51 210 Edgecombe 13 8,235 10 549 134 75 Gates 0 0 0 6 1,685 Granville 0 0 0 2 1,291 411 Greene 0 36 7 1,586 11 28 Halifax 0 1,731 0 75 117 834 Hertford 0 24 10 7 7 1,043 Jones 0 16 9 28 18 2 Lenoir 67 66 21 1,059 153 25 Martin 3 62 7 896 20 49 Northampton 0 68 0 10 28 623 Person 0 10 0 5 297 253 Pitt 56 186 46 * 214 77 Vance 0 32 0 17 482 167 Warren 9 123 0 0 339 120 Washington 0 14 0 0 3 18 Wayne 49 126 8 225 615 70 Wilson 15 2,031 10 3329 721 39 TOTAL 249 12,798 144 6,934 4591 6,120 

Source: U.S. Census, STF 3.,1990 

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Table 8 

Inter-County Commuting From Counties of the 12th District 
to Selected Other Counties 

  

  

  

FROM 

County 

TO 

Alam, David. Durham Forsyth ilf. Iredell Meck. Rowan   

Davidson 

Forsyth 
Guilford 

Iredell 

Meck. 

Rowan 

TOTAL 

Note: Commuting values are onl 

  

    

27 
359 

132 
0 496 3,146 

414 
¥ 

Spm 

36 
156 3,278 

3,396 ; 10,479 

ito or out from these counties. 

1,196 
137 

175 

1,144 
398 

3,050 

y for the counties listed. They do not represent the total commuting 

  Source: U.S. Census, STF 3, 1990. 

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APPENDIX 

MAXIMUM TRAVEL TIME/DISTANCE MAPS 

15 

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State of North Carolina 
Department of Justice 

  

  

    

  

  

  
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  

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