Hello,
Thanks to all who replied to my previous message. Here's the reason
I was confused:
I had generated the boundary lines from TIGER files with v.in.tig.basic,
about which the tutorial states that "each line is designated an area
boundary in the attribute so that v.support can build areas..."
Well, I ran v.support automatically, so I thought it would know that
the area in question was in fact an area.
I just didn't realize that I had to use v.digit to label the areas; once
I did that I got just what I wanted.
Again, thanks
Eric