Migration and place attachment are often coupled within the migration decision-making literature with the underlying assumption that individuals with strong place attachments are less likely to migrate than individuals with weaker ties to place. As communication technologies have improved, however, new forms of place attachment and connections between individuals and places are evolving. We introduce the concept of place elasticity as a new conceptualization of place attachment made possible by innovations in communication and transportation technologies. Place elasticity allows individuals to live in distant locales while maintaining close interaction with a particular place. We explore this concept with questionnaires and interviews from a sample of individuals from rural Appalachian counties in eastern Kentucky. Rural residents of this region have been noted for their strong place attachments and connections to their home county. Based on our questionnaires and interviews from family reunions we propose that place elasticity has three distinct characteristics: portability, strong place bonds, and permanence and that these traits allow individuals to remain connected to home counties and family, thereby allowing migration and settlement in distant locations with minimal loss of connectedness.Mobility and migration histories are inextricably bound with evolving place attachment.

Questions of cost and time distance have long been of interest to geographers and have become a more central concern as globalization advances. We analyze the global air travel system by examining the differences in the costs, distances, and times of one aspect of globalization. We review the extant literature on airline transportation by geographers and others, noting especially the near-century-long interest in unraveling cost, time, and distance issues and designing innovative ways to map these interrelated variables. We expand on this base to bring recent scholarship on power and positionality of cities to our understanding of air travel. Our analysis expands on previous work on airline transport geographies in four distinct ways. First, we developed an international database for a large number of cities worldwide that includes measures of distance, cost, frequency and flight duration of airline connections. Second, this database is examined statistically through ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions to measure variations in airline volume with selected socioeconomic variables. Third, these global airline data are mapped using conventional mapping techniques, and finally, we prepare a set of ''position-grams'' or intersecting spheres of regional variation that measure and map regional patterns and variations in airline connectedness.

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