Author : Richard E. Wood
Publisher :
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 15,17 MB
Release : 2008
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN :
Shows how small farming communities--the heart and soul of America--are both besieged and determined to survive, and reveals, through vivid storytelling, how the future of America is being played out on the high plains of Kansas.
Author : Richard E. Wood
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 14,42 MB
Release : 2008-03-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0700617256
On the high plains of Kansas, the future of rural America is at stake. Small farming communities are the heart and soul of America, but it's no secret that they're under siege. Family farms are disappearing and manufacturing is outsourced. Schools close, jobs vanish, and local stores can't survive. Some communities resort to giving away land just to get people to move there. Richard Wood knows that rural communities need more than jobs or money to survive: they need to become valued again as desirable places to live. He takes a closer look at what has happened in several Kansas farming towns and shows that there is much more depth and diversity to rural life than meets the eye. Wood traveled the back roads to gather stories of people in some of the most vulnerable communities that are trying to stave off depopulation. These are not just accounts of people scrambling to survive in incipient ghost towns like Ada, but gritty success stories like Plainville, where an upscale design business ignited a revival, or Atwood, which shifted from industrial recruitment to home-grown entrepreneurship. Unlike Thomas Frank, whose What's the Matter with Kansas? used the state as a political yardstick, Wood sees it reflecting major economic and population trends throughout the world. Looking at projects as small as community medical clinics or plans for vast buffalo grassland parks, he also sees a robust future for small-town pioneers, folks who are betting their-and rural America's-future on such things as alternative energy (think "ethanol"), sustainable natural agriculture, tourism, and the enduring appeal of rural life to outsiders. With dozens of photos that bring rural America to life, Wood provides an inside look at what really makes this country tick-and at some of the developments that may turn the tide against what seemed an inevitable decline. Although the odds are stacked against rural recovery, the small victories that Wood shows us hold the promise that transformation and revival may yet stave off the final bitter harvest.
Author : Janet M. Fitchen
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 43,54 MB
Release : 2019-04-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0429719051
Rural America as a place and a way of life is undergoing major transformation. The farm crisis and the decline of manufacturing dealt a double blow to the rural economy in the 1980s. Rural communities continue to lose farms, factories, and young people. Rural lands are increasingly being sought as places for vacation homes, state prisons, and waste dumps. Rural people are ambivalent about new residents and activities that are coming in and unsure of their own rural identity. Old assumptions about rural life and rural community are now open to question. Based on years of field observations and hundreds of interviews in fifteen rural counties in upstate New York, Fitchen's book explores these interconnected changes. It describes the financial stress in dairy farming and the efforts families made to hold onto their farms. It records the stunned disbelief and difficult adjustment of rural factory workers and small communities as local plants shut down. The author chronicles the struggles of communities plagued by toxic chemicals in their drinking water and of young families slipping farther into poverty. She reports on some communities that are campaigning to "win" a state prison and others that are protesting against a proposed radioactive waste dump. The book illustrates the persistence of rural ingenuity and determination but argues that these alone cannot solve the problems of rural America. A well-informed federal and state commitment is necessary. With policies and programs appropriate for rural situations, most communities could adapt creatively to the changes, integrate around a new rural identity, and survive into the twenty-first century as enduring social settings for their residents.
Author : Kristin E. Smith
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 20,47 MB
Release : 2011
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0271048611
"A compilation of policy-relevant research by a multidisciplinary group of scholars on the state of families in rural America in the twenty-first century. Examines the impact of economic restructuring on rural Americans and provides policy recommendations for addressing the challenges they face"--Provided by publisher.
Author : Bonnie Jo Campbell
Publisher : Wayne State University Press
Page : 184 pages
File Size : 24,1 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780814334126
New from award-winning Michigan writer Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage is rich with local color and peopled with rural characters who love and hate extravagantly. They know how to fix cars and washing machines, how to shoot and clean game, and how to cook up methamphetamine, but they have not figured out how to prosper in the twenty-first century. Through the complex inner lives of working-class characters, Campbell illustrates the desperation of post-industrial America, where wildlife, jobs, and whole ways of life go extinct and the people have no choice but to live off what is left behind. The harsh Michigan winter is the backdrop for many of the tales, which are at turns sad, brutal, and oddly funny. One man prepares for the end of the world--scheduled for midnight December 31, 1999--in a pole barn with chickens and survival manuals. An excruciating burn causes a man to transcend his racist and sexist worldview. Another must decide what to do about his meth-addicted wife, who is shooting up on the other side of the bathroom door. A teenaged sharpshooter must devise a revenge that will make her feel whole again. Though her characters are vulnerable, confused, and sometimes angry, they are also resolute. Campbell follows them as they rebuild their lives, continue to hope and dream, and love in the face of loneliness. Fellow Michiganders, fans of short fiction, and general readers will enjoy this poignant and affecting collection of tales.
Author : Elizabeth Catte
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 130 pages
File Size : 37,38 MB
Release : 2019-03-12
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1946511439
An examination of the emerging rural left, from environmentalists blocking pipeline construction to teachers on strike. In Left Elsewhere, volume editor and lead essayist Elizabeth Catte turns a skeptical eye toward “purple” politicians, such as West Virginia Democrat Richard Ojeda, who are hailed by many as the best hope for U.S. progressives outside the urban coasts. By offering a survey of what the left actually looks like outside major urban centers, Catte shows how an emerging rural left is developing new strategies that do not easily fit into typical ideas of liberals, leftists, and Democratic politics. From environmentalists who successfully block pipeline construction to advocates for “radical” health care solutions such as needle exchanges to school teachers who go on strike, these newly energized activists may offer a better path forward for both policy and candidates to represent the needs of poor and working Americans. By engaging activists and scholars outside the coastal bubbles, this collection offers insights into several overlooked areas, including working-class women's activism, victories in new labor struggle (especially in staunchly right-to-work states) and new organizing principles in Jackson, Mississippi—"America's most radical city"—that are bringing about meaningful racial and economic change on the ground. Taken together, the essays in Left Elsewhere show that today's political language is insufficient to convey what's happening in these areas and examine what, if any, coherent set of politics can be assigned to them. Contributors William J. Barber II, Thomas Baxter, Lesly-Marie Buer, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Nancy Isenberg, Elaine C. Kamarck, Michael Kazin, Toussaint Losier, Robin McDowell, Bob Moser, Hugh Ryan, Matt Stoller, Ruy Teixeira, Makani Themba, Jessica Wilkerson
Author : Robert Wuthnow
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 203 pages
File Size : 36,2 MB
Release : 2019-04-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0691195153
How a fraying social fabric is fueling the outrage of rural Americans What is fueling rural America’s outrage toward the federal government? Why did rural Americans vote overwhelmingly for Donald Trump? And is there a more nuanced explanation for the growing rural-urban divide? Drawing on more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, Robert Wuthnow brings us into America’s small towns, farms, and rural communities to paint a rich portrait of the moral order—the interactions, loyalties, obligations, and identities—underpinning this critical segment of the nation. Wuthnow demonstrates that to truly understand rural Americans’ anger, their culture must be explored more fully, and he shows that rural America’s fury stems less from economic concerns than from the perception that Washington is distant from and yet threatening to the social fabric of small towns. Moving beyond simplistic depictions of America’s heartland, The Left Behind offers a clearer picture of how this important population will influence the nation’s political future.
Author : William H. Durham
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 16,72 MB
Release : 1979-06-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0804765669
Looking at both population and land tenure dynamics in their historical context, this study challenges the view that the 1969 conflict between El Salvador and Honduras was primarily a response to population pressure. The author demonstrates that land scarcity, a principal cause of the war, was largely a product of the concentration of landholdings. The analysis focuses on the emigration of 300,000 Salvadoreans to Honduras in the years before the war, inquiring into the reasons for the emigration, its impact on local agricultural economies, and its relation to the conflict. Answers to these questions are based on a new interpretation of national statistics and on original survey research in peasant communities. The author has used an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on the perspectives of anthropology, ecology, history, demography, and geography. In addition to its value as a case study in human ecology, this book gives a clear account of the nature and origins of ecological pressures in rural Central America. The book is illustrated with 21 photographs and 7 maps.
Author : Ann R. Tickamyer
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 31,11 MB
Release : 2017-08-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0231544715
America's rural areas have always held a disproportionate share of the nation's poorest populations. Rural Poverty in the United States examines why. What is it about the geography, demography, and history of rural communities that keeps them poor? In a comprehensive analysis that extends from the Civil War to the present, Rural Poverty in the United States looks at access to human and social capital; food security; healthcare and the environment; homelessness; gender roles and relations; racial inequalities; and immigration trends to isolate the underlying causes of persistent rural poverty. Contributors to this volume incorporate approaches from multiple disciplines, including sociology, economics, demography, race and gender studies, public health, education, criminal justice, social welfare, and other social science fields. They take a hard look at current and past programs to alleviate rural poverty and use their failures to suggest alternatives that could improve the well-being of rural Americans for years to come. These essays work hard to define rural poverty's specific metrics and markers, a critical step for building better policy and practice. Considering gender, race, and immigration, the book appreciates the overlooked structural and institutional dimensions of ongoing rural poverty and its larger social consequences.
Author : Edmund Jefferson Danziger, Jr.
Publisher : Wayne State University Press
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 23,8 MB
Release : 2017-12-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0814343333
Survival and Regeneration captures the heritage of Detroit's colorful Indian community through printed sources and the personal life stories of many Native Americans. Survival and Regeneration captures the heritage of Detroit's colorful Indian community through printed sources and the personal life stories of many Native Americans. During a ten-year period, Edmund Jefferson Danziger, Jr. interviewed hundreds of Indians about their past and their needs and aspirations for the future. This history is essentially their success story. In search of new opportunities, a growing number of rural Indians journeyed to Detroit after World War II. Destitute reservations had sapped their physical and cultural strength; paternalistic bureaucrats undermined their self-respect and confidence; and despairing tribal members too often sound solace in mind-numbing alcohol. Cut off from the Bureau of Indian Affairs services, many newcomers had difficulty establishing themselves successfully in the city and experienced feelings of insecurity and powerlessness. By 1970, they were one of the Motor City's most "invisible" minority groups, so mobile and dispersed throughout the metropolitan area that not even the Indian organizations knew where they all lived. To grasp the nature of their remarkable regeneration, this inspiring volume examines the historic challenges that Native American migrants to Detroit faced - adjusting to urban life, finding a good job and a decent place to live, securing quality medical care, educating their children, and maintaining their unique cultural heritage. Danziger scrutinizes the leadership that emerged within the Indian community and the formal native organizations through which the Indian community's wide-ranging needs have been met. He also highlights the significant progress enjoyed by Detroit Indians - improved housing, higher educational achievement, less unemployment, and greater average family incomes - that has resulted from their persistence and self-determination. Historically, the Motor City has provided an environment where lives could be refashioned amid abundant opportunities. Indians have not been totally assimilated, nor have they forsaken Detroit en masse for their former homelands. Instead, they have forged vibrant lives for themselves as Indian-Detroiters. They are not as numerous or politically powerful as their black neighbors, but the story of these native peoples leaves no doubt about their importance to Detroit and of the city's effect on them.
