| Abstrakt: |
In little more than a century the modern zoological garden has diffused across the United States to become a conspicuous element of metropolitan cultural landscapes. Although those zoos founded in the past two decades demonstrate both infilling and sunbelt migration, national gravity centers for both zoos and population are quite similar. Zoo modernization on existing sites combined with infrequent suburban migration will account for most of the future changes in the zoo landscape; new zoos will be rare because most of the metropolitan centers without them do not yet demonstrate a sufficient threshold population. One-hundred-and-six American zoos have annual attendance in excess of 100,000 visitors. Forty-eight of these major zoos, located in the 50 largest metropolitan areas, are analyzed in this study. Attendance and budget statistics, ranked and compared to metropolitan statistical area populations, verify the urban nature of zoos. Examination of zoos where the actual and anticipated rankings deviate shows that management status is important. Underfunded as well as undervisited zoos are, with few exceptions, municipal zoos where small increases in zoo budgets have not kept pace with increasing costs. Society and special-district based zoos are often more successful. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] |
