Ecology of Denominational Fundamentalism in a Metropolis.

This research examines the spatial distribution of mainline, evangelical, and fundamentalist churches in a mid-western metropolis. Ecological theory holds that people minimize their travel costs by patronizing organizations closest to their residence. While this has been verified for economic organizations, it has not been tested for organizations that place more emphasis on non-economic values, such as churches. We find that except for niche churches and denominations with few churches, the spatial-church fundamentalism link varies systematically by ecological areas of a community. Downtown and land-locked suburbs have the highest concentration of mainline churches, while the inner-city is stratified by the fundamentalism level of its churches into two white and two African-American sub-areas. As ecological theory predicts, the level of church fundamentalism declines for city neighborhoods with distance from downtown, but rises in exurban areas, which exhibit high resident socioeconomic heterogeneity. Confirming ecological theory, church location responds quickly to the residential location of its members. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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