Multiscalar Analysis of Religious Geography in the United States

The United States has tremendous religious diversity. Although the ranks of the religious are mostly attached to one of the hundreds of different Christian denominations, there are significant numbers associated with non-Christian faiths. This complexity can be seen in the clustering of some churches in certain parts of large cities and the preponderance of one religion in certain areas of the country. I examine distinct differences in the national geography of major U.S. religions as well as local distinctions in neighborhood incomes where certain churches are located. Both the macro and micro geographies illustrate the history and socioeconomics of the adherents of different churches. I compute concentration indices of a number of churches to see how their geographies have changed since the 1950s. This large-scale differential geography is supplemented with micro-scale urban case studies of several different religious groups. The local worship place analysis includes Catholics, Southern Baptists, Jews, Latter-day Saints members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), Muslims, Lutherans and others. By comparing income characteristics of neighborhoods that surround the meeting places of these groups in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Chicago, I highlight how locational choices have some consistency among the groups in terms of surrounding neighborhood household incomes. The macro and micro analyses together illustrate the distinct geographic niches that various religions fill.