Keith G. Debbage

Keith Debbage is a Professor of Geography at UNC-Greensboro with research interests in urban economic development. His specific research interests include airline route networks and how they shape regional economies, and the economic geography of the tourist industry. Dr. Debbage is also the author of over 40 research publications in book chapters, contracted reports and various academic journals including the Annals of Tourism Research, the Journal of Air Transport Management, the Journal of Transport Geography, Policy Studies Review, Regional Studies, Tourism Management, Transportation Quarterly, and Urban Geography. He co-edited a book titled The Economic Geography of the Tourist Industry in 1998 and was a Visiting Research Professor at the University of Surrey and the University of Northumbria in the United Kingdom in fall 2000. Since the late 1990’s, Dr. Debbage has received numerous economic development grants and contract awards. Most recently, he completed the “Renewable Energy In North Carolina: The Potential Supply Chain” Report for the Institute for Emerging Issues at North Carolina State University. Additionally, he authored the Burlington – Greensboro I-40/85 corridor study for the Greensboro Partnership and Alamance County Chamber of Commerce in fall 2007 and a co-authored study titled “The Triad Transport Logistics Inventory and Cluster Mapping Project” funded by the Greensboro Partnership. Earlier this year, he published the Greensboro State of the City Report funded by the Greensboro Partnership. In 2006, Dr. Debbage received a corporate gift from NewBridge Bank to develop a Transport Logistic Quotient Ranking and he was a subcontractor for HDR Engineering for the Heart of the Triad Land Use Transportation Study. Dr. Debbage also conducted three co-authored, funded land use corridor studies for the city of Greensboro Planning Department during the late 1990’s and a Triad biotechnology study funded by the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in spring 2005. Dr. Debbage was appointed in 2007 to the UNC Tomorrow Scholars Council by UNC President Erskine Bowles. The UNC Tomorrow initiative is a 20-year strategic plan for the UNC system. In 2008 Dr. Debbage was selected as a GlaxoSmithKline Faculty Fellow in Public Policy with the Institute of Emerging Issues at North Carolina State University. He has been quoted in BusinessWeek, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today and is an op-ed columnist for the Greensboro News and Record. Dr. Debbage received his PhD from the University of Georgia and his MA from the University of Surrey, England and the BSc from the University of Dundee, Scotland. Dr. Debbage considers his most important contribution to be the dozens of graduate students he has mentored and advised that have successfully completed their doctoral dissertations or masters theses and developed productive careers in geography and related fields.

There are 17 included publications by Keith G. Debbage :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Air Passenger Demand and Skilled Labor Markets by U.S. Metropolitan Area 2007 2202 This paper examines the relationships that exist between skilled labor markets and air transportation by US metropolitan area. The goal is to enhance the current literature by conducting a more specific investigation of the links that exist between a...
Air Transportation and Urban-Economic Restructuring: Competitive Advantage in the U.S. Carolinas 1999 2057 The theoretical agenda of this paper is to bring airports and airline operations more squarely into the mainstream of the urban and regional development literature. The paper examines the spatial and temporal patterns of air passenger flows by airpor...
Airport Runway Slots: Limits to Growth 2002 3475 The United States–European Union market accounts for approximately 25% of all international tourist arrivals worldwide, and is arguably the busiest market in the world. This paper argues that landing slot policy and the manner in which airport capaci...
The Geography of Air Freight: Connections to U.S. Metropolitan Economies 2011 4892 Despite the rapid growth of air freight shipments, much of the existing literature on the geography of air transportation has paid more attention to passenger travel than air freight. The purpose of this paper is to elevate our understanding of air f...
The Geography of Air Passenger Volume and Local Employment Patterns by U.S. Metropolitan Core Area: 1973-1996 2001 2565 The purpose of this paper is to determine if a statistically significant relationship exists between administrative and auxiliary employment levels and air passenger volume for the top 50 urban-airport complexes in the United States from 1973 to 1996...
The Geography of Logistics 2008 1814 At the end of the 19th century, the Triad's strategic location as a railroad hub helped trigger the growth of the region's textile industry. Today, as we experience another major economic transformation, our region's roads, rails and runways have onc...
Industry Knowledge Sources and the Role of Universities 1992 2136 In recent years, rapid growth has occurred in both the number and diversity of university-industry programs in the United States. While little comprehensive assessment of these programs exists to date, this paper argues that a systematic empirical an...
Leveraging the Future Foothills: Asset Mapping the North Carolina Furniture Industry Cluster 2010 5876 North Carolina features the second largest furniture industry by state in the nation, despite a decline in the state’s furniture manufacturing jobs by more than 50% from 2001to 2009 . Previous studies of the North Carolina furniture industry sugges...
Locational Determinants of Major U.S. Air Passenger Markets by Metropolitan Area 2006 2494 The paper examines the influence of metropolitan characteristics in determining the locations of major air traffic markets in the US. In general, the likelihood of a major air passenger market locating in any given metropolitan area is primarily dete...
Long Term Socio-Demographic Challenges Facing the Greater Greensboro Area: New Opportunities 2008 2000 Our community faces several socio-demographic challenges that have the potential to significantly impact the Greater Greensboro area. These social trends are especially related to broad demographic shifts in the population (e.g., age, ethnic compo...
Renewable Energy in North Carolina: The Potential Supply Chain and Connections to Existing Renewable and Energy Efficient Firms 2010 1518 Although our understanding of industry cluster dynamics is fairly well developed, it is less clear whether renewable energy firms and related potential suppliers co-locate in similar ways to other more established industries. Consequently, this ...
Spatial Behavior in a Bahamian Resort 1991 3971 The purpose of this study is to understand better the spatial behavior of tourists visiting spatially confined resort destinations. Based on a time-budget study of the intradestination travel patterns of 795 tourists visiting Paradise Island (Bahamas...
Spatial Patterns of Visitor Behavior: A Case Study of the North Carolina Zoological Park 1990 1762 This paper explains the spatial patterns of visitor behavior at the North Carolina Zoological Park (NCZP). The NCZP is one of the top ten tourist attractions in the state, but it is unclear what factors influence each individual 's decision to ...
Spatial Variation in Tourism: An Industrial View 1993 1316 This paper attempts to empirically document the spatial variations in employment and revenue for selected businesses in the tourism industries of 20 states under study. Employment and revenue figures were classified by US Census SIC codes, and ...
Study of Visitors to North Carolina Wineries 2012 1599 The wine and grape industry generates a significant economic impact in North Carolina’s rural communities. In 2009 the wine and grape industry generated 7,600 jobs and $1.2 billion in total annual economic impact in the state. Particularly notewort...
Wealth Generation in Metropolitan America: FIRE as Savior? 1998 781 The current restructuring of the American economy from goods producing industry to service providing industry has been a focus of concern for many social scientists. While some argue in favor of the rapidly expanding service sector, pointing ou...
Where are the Geographers? Newly Incorporated Municipalities (NIMs) in the South 2006 1591 The creation of new cities can have dramatic impacts on urban landscapes regarding tax rates, land use patterns, school districts, and the provision of other municipal services. Between 1990 and 2005, 193 newly incorporated municipalities (NIMs)...