Report on Rural Communities

Posted by Catherine Stifter

June 13, 2007

While the Rural Blog (from the University of Kentucky) has a national focus, a recent report on rural communities caught my eye as relevant to the situation of our Sierra communities. You'll be able to pick out your town in the 3 rural Americas description below:

"Rural America is undergoing sweeping demographic, economic, and environmental changes. Whether they are harnessed effectively will depend on federal and state policies and community actions over the next decade." So begins Rural America in the 21st Century: Perspectives from the Field, a report prepared by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire for a national meeting of rural advocates this month. It concludes, "Rural America in the twenty-first century must develop new relationships and new ways of doing things to ensure an economically prosperous, socially just, and environmentally healthy future. Tapping into the resourcefulness and creativity of rural people will be essential in addressing this challenge. However, they cannot do it alone. Rural communities need critical infrastructure, investment, capital, and services."

The report identifies "three rural Americas, sometimes distinct and sometimes overlapping:
• Amenity-rich areas, which are growing as Baby Boomers retire, as more people buy second homes, and as “footloose professionals” choose to settle in small towns with rich natural amenities or proximity to large cities." These areas "must work to ensure the successful integration of newcomers and long-time residents, avoid a two-tier system of wealthy residents and those who serve them, and protect the natural environment that attracted the amenity migrants," the report says.
• "Declining resource-dependent areas, which can no longer rely on agriculture, timber, mining, or related manufacturing industries to support a solid blue-collar middle class." Such areas "must develop programs to ameliorate the impact of economic decline and innovate to stem future population and job loss."
• "Chronically poor communities, where decades of resource extraction and underinvestment have left a legacy of poverty, low education, and broken civic institutions." They "must expand their human and social capital to break the chain of persistent poverty," the report says.

The report says it is based largely on "a series of interviews and policy roundtables in March and April 2007 with more than 80 Ford Foundation rural program grantees and other stakeholders."