Rural America at the Crossroads


Book Description

This study explores the role that communications technologies can play in securing rural America's future. It develops several policy strategies and options to encourage economic development. The study was requested by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and Senators Charles E. Grassley and Orrin G. Hatch. Chapter 1 provides a summary and policy conclusions. Chapter 2, "The Challenge for Rural America," describes unemployment, poverty, and out-migration and advocates upgrading the labor force. Chapter 3, "Rural America and the Changing Communication Infrastructure," proposes Rural Area Networks to deliver communication services to rural areas. Chapter 4, "Rural Development," explains a holistical approach to rural development that accompanies economic development by improving education, health care, and public administration capacities. Chapter 5, "Regulation and Rural Development," recommends that regulators must develop new regulatory approaches for rural areas. Finally, Chapter 6, "The Role of the Federal Government: Orchestrating Cooperation and Change," suggests that the Federal Government make rural development and the use of communications technologies a national priority. The appendix is a field journal that gives narrative impressions of the four states visited during the study: Kentucky, New Mexico, Washington, and Maine. The document contains a list of contributors, a glossary, and an index, as well as numerous figures, charts, tables, and photographs. (KS)







At a Crossroads


Book Description

"Higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean has expanded dramatically in the past 15 years, as the average gross enrollment rate has more than doubled, and many new institutions and programs have been opened. Although higher education access has become more equitable, and higher education supply has become more varied, many of the 'new' students in the system are, on average, less academically ready than are their more advantaged counterparts. Furthermore, only half of higher education students, on average, complete their degree, and labor market returns to higher education vary greatly across institutions and programs. Thus, higher education is at a crossroads today. Given the region's urgency to raise productivity in a low-growth, fiscally constrained environment, going past this crossroads requires the formation of skilled human capital fast and efficiently. 'At a Crossroads: Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean' contributes to the discussion by studying quality, variety, and equity of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean. The book presents comprehensive evidence on the recent higher education expansion and evolution of higher education labor market returns. Using novel data and state-of-the-art methods, it studies demand and supply drivers of the recent expansion. It investigates the behavior of institutions and students and explores the unintended consequences of large-scale higher education policies. Framing the analysis are the singular characteristics of the higher education market and the market segmentation induced by the variety of students and institutions in the system. At this crossroads, a role emerges for incentives, information, accountability, and choice."




Kansas City, America's Crossroads


Book Description

The fourteen articles in this anthology, previously published in the Missouri Historical Review, examine multiple facets of Kansas City's history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beginning with events prior to the settlement of the area, the essays describe important episodes in the social, economic, racial, and political life of Kansas City. Boss Tom Pendergast, conflict between incoming Mormons and earlier settlers, and a young female teacher's experience in the 1840s all figure into this rich history of the Kansas City area.




Building Community Food Webs


Book Description

Our current food system has decimated rural communities and confined the choices of urban consumers. Even while America continues to ramp up farm production to astounding levels, net farm income is now lower than at the onset of the Great Depression, and one out of every eight Americans faces hunger. But a healthier and more equitable food system is possible. In Building Community Food Webs, Ken Meter shows how grassroots food and farming leaders across the U.S. are tackling these challenges by constructing civic networks. Overturning extractive economic structures, these inspired leaders are engaging low-income residents, farmers, and local organizations in their quest to build stronger communities. Community food webs strive to build health, wealth, capacity, and connection. Their essential element is building greater respect and mutual trust, so community members can more effectively empower themselves and address local challenges. Farmers and researchers may convene to improve farming practices collaboratively. Health clinics help clients grow food for themselves and attain better health. Food banks engage their customers to challenge the root causes of poverty. Municipalities invest large sums to protect farmland from development. Developers forge links among local businesses to strengthen economic trade. Leaders in communities marginalized by our current food system are charting a new path forward. Building Community Food Webs captures the essence of these efforts, underway in diverse places including Montana, Hawai‘i, Vermont, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, and Minnesota. Addressing challenges as well as opportunities, Meter offers pragmatic insights for community food leaders and other grassroots activists alike.




Burma


Book Description

UPDATED For more than 50 years, Burma has been ruled by a succession of military regimes which rank among the most oppressive dictatorships in the world. Accused of crimes against humanity, they have brutally mistreated their people. Yet, in the last few years, the pace of change has been breathtaking. Much is now hoped for. However, Burma is one of the most ethnically diverse nations in Southeast Asia: there are roughly seven major ethnic groups living along its borders. They have a long history of conflict with the government and have been cruelly treated by the current regime. Their future affects the country as a whole, as Benedict Rogers explains. Drawing heavily on his many fact-finding visits both inside Burma and along its frontiers, he gives a unique appraisal of the current ethnic situation and its implications for the nation as a whole. Wide-ranging, expertly researched, and full of brand new accounts of the courage and determination of the Burmese people, Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads explains the country's conflicted history, as well as its contemporary struggle for justice. Burma stands poised for freedom, or for further repression. No one can be sure. This fascinating and accessible book describes what is really happening inside this beautiful, secretive, and potentially prosperous country.




Down to the Crossroads


Book Description

In 1962, James Meredith became a civil rights hero when he enrolled as the first African American student at the University of Mississippi. Four years later, he would make the news again when he reentered Mississippi, on foot. His plan was to walk from Memphis to Jackson, leading a "March Against Fear" that would promote black voter registration and defy the entrenched racism of the region. But on the march's second day, he was shot by a mysterious gunman, a moment captured in a harrowing and now iconic photograph. What followed was one of the central dramas of the civil rights era. With Meredith in the hospital, the leading figures of the civil rights movement flew to Mississippi to carry on his effort. They quickly found themselves confronting southern law enforcement officials, local activists, and one another. In the span of only three weeks, Martin Luther King, Jr., narrowly escaped a vicious mob attack; protesters were teargassed by state police; Lyndon Johnson refused to intervene; and the charismatic young activist Stokely Carmichael first led the chant that would define a new kind of civil rights movement: Black Power. Aram Goudsouzian's Down to the Crossroads is the story of the last great march of the King era, and the first great showdown of the turbulent years that followed. Depicting rural demonstrators' courage and the impassioned debates among movement leaders, Goudsouzian reveals the legacy of an event that would both integrate African Americans into the political system and inspire even bolder protests against it. Full of drama and contemporary resonances, this book is civil rights history at its best.




River Basin Development and Human Rights in Eastern Africa — A Policy Crossroads


Book Description

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book offers a devastating look at deeply flawed development processes driven by international finance, African governments and the global consulting industry. It examines major river basin development underway in the semi-arid borderlands of Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan and its disastrous human rights consequences for a half-million indigenous people. The volume traces the historical origins of Gibe III megadam construction along the Omo River in Ethiopia—in turn, enabling irrigation for commercial-scale agricultural development and causing radical reduction of downstream Omo and (Kenya's) Lake Turkana waters. Presenting case studies of indigenous Dasanech and northernmost Turkana livelihood systems and Gibe III linked impacts on them, the author predicts agropastoral and fishing economic collapse, region-wide hunger with exposure to disease epidemics, irreversible natural resource destruction and cross-border interethnic armed conflict spilling into South Sudan. The book identifies fundamental failings of government and development bank impact assessments, including their distortion or omission of mandated transboundary assessment, cumulative effects of the Gibe III dam and its linked Ethiopia-Kenya energy transmission 'highway' project, key hydrologic and human ecological characteristics, major earthquake threat in the dam region and widespread expropriation and political repression. Violations of internationally recognized human rights, especially by the Ethiopian government but also the Kenyan government, are extensive and on the increase—with collaboration by the development banks, in breach of their own internal operational procedures. A policy crossroads has now emerged. The author presents the alternative to the present looming catastrophe—consideration of development suspension in order to undertake genuinely independent transboundary assessment and a plan for continued development action within a human rights framework—forging a sustainable future for the indigenous peoples now directly threatened and for their respective eastern Africa states. Claudia Carr’s book is a treasure of detailed information gathered over many years concerning river basin development of the Omo River in Ethiopia and its impact on the peoples of the lower Omo Basin and the Lake Turkana region in Kenya. It contains numerous maps, charts, and photographs not previously available to the public. The book is highly critical of the environmental and human rights implications of the Omo River hydropower projects on both the local ethnic communities in Ethiopia and on the downstream Turkana in Kenya. David Shinn Former Ambassador to Ethiopia and to Burkina Faso Adjust Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington D.C.




One Times Square


Book Description

Explores the story of this intersection, from when Broadway was a mere dirt path known as Bloomingdale Road, through the district's decades of postwar decay, to its renewal as a tourist-friendly mecca.




Sustainable Food System Assessment


Book Description

Sustainable Food System Assessment provides both practical and theoretical insights about the growing interest in and response to measuring food system sustainability. Bringing together research from the Global North and South, this book shares lessons learned, explores intended and actual project outcomes, and highlights points of conceptual and methodological convergence. Interest in assessing food system sustainability is growing, as evidenced by the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact and the importance food systems initiatives have taken in serving as a lever for attaining the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This book opens by looking at the conceptual considerations of food systems indicators, including the place-based dimensions of food systems indicators and how measurements are implicated in sense-making and visioning processes. Chapters in the second part cover operationalizing metrics, including the development of food systems indicator frameworks, degrees of indicator complexities, and practical constraints to assessment. The final part focuses on the outcomes of assessment projects, including impacts on food policy and communities involved, highlighting the importance of building connections between sustainable food systems initiatives. The global coverage and multi-scalar perspectives, including both conceptual and practical aspects, make this a key resource for academics and practitioners across planning, geography, urban studies, food studies, and research methods. It will also be of interest to government officials and those working within NGOs. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/Sustainable-Food-System-Assessment-Lessons-from-Global-Practice/Blay-Palmer-Conare-Meter-Battista-Johnston/p/book/9781032083933, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.