Contents

Cover

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Part I Thinking About Rural Places in Metropolitan Society

1 Rurality in Metropolitan Societies
1. The Development of Social Scientific thought about Rurality
2. What Images and Attitudes Do People Have about Rural People and Places in Metropolitan Societies?
3. Why Rural People and Places Matter in Urbanized Society
4. Notes
5. References
2 Urbanization and Population Redistribution
1. Conceptualizing and Measuring Urbanization
2. Why Population Concentrates in Urban Places
3. Urbanization can be Reversed
4. Conclusions
5. Notes
6. References
3 Rural Politics and Governance
1. Rural Political Arenas
2. Voting and Political Participation
3. The Rural Vote in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
4. Conclusions
5. Notes
6. References

Part II Rural Communities, Institutions, and Environments

4 Understanding Community in Rural Society
1. Understanding Community
2. Has Urbanization Undermined Community?
3. Community Lost or Community Transformed?
4. Two Sociological Approaches to Understanding Community
5. Are the Social Field and Social System Approaches Antagonistic?
6. Community Power
7. The Community Challenge: Balancing Autonomy and Collective Responsibility
8. Conclusions
9. Notes
10. References
5 Community Institutions in Rural Society
1. Federalism and the Structure of Local Governance
2. Education
3. Health Care and Health Care Institutions in Rural America
4. Conclusion
5. Notes
6. References
6 Natural Resources and Social Change
1. Natural Amenities: An Engine of Growth?
2. Environmental Contexts for Community Development and Conflict
3. Resource Extraction as a Social Process
4. New forms of resource extraction: generating green and renewable energy
5. Conclusions
6. Notes
7. References

Part III Rural Populations

7 Youth, Aging, and the Life Course
1. Individual Aging Versus Population Aging
2. Individual Aging in Rural Communities
3. Challenges Facing Rural Youth and Young Adults
4. Challenges Facing Older Rural Adults
5. Population Aging in Rural Communities
6. Three Community-Level Challenges of Rural Population Aging
7. Conclusions
8. Notes
9. References
8 Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Rural Areas
1. Thinking about Race and Ethnicity
2. Race and Rurality
3. Race, Ethnicity, and Life Chances in Rural Areas
4. American Indians in Rural Areas
5. Latinos in Rural Areas and the Changing Patterns of Immigration
6. Conclusions
7. Notes
8. References

Part IV Rural Economy and Socioeconomic Wellbeing

9 Making a Living in Rural Communities
1. The Structure and Restructuring of Rural Opportunities
2. The Rural Labor Force
3. The Utilization of Rural Labor
4. Local–Global Linkages
5. Conclusions
6. Notes
7. References
10 Farms, Farmers, and Farming in Contemporary Rural Society
1. The Structure of Agriculture
2. Family Farms and Farm Families
3. The Food System
4. Conclusions
5. Notes
6. References
11 Poverty Across Rural People and Places
1. Who is Poor in the United States?
2. Poverty as a Multi-Dimensional Concept
3. Why are some Persons and Families more likely to be Poor than Others?
4. Conclusions
5. Notes
6. References

Part V Conclusions

12 A Transformed Rural Society: Challenges and Opportunities for the Future
1. Long-Term Rural Transformations – a Changed Rural Demography
2. Transformed Rural Economies
3. Global–Local Connections
4. Poverty and Inequality
5. New and Changing Trends Affecting Rural America
6. The Rural Policy Choice
7. Rural Community Capacity Reconsidered
8. Notes
9. References

Index

End User License Agreement

Figures

2.1 Three Ways of Measuring Urban Population

2.2 Map of Metropolitan, Micropolitan, and Non-core Based Counties

2.3 The Demographic Transition

2.4 Metro and Nonmetro Population Change, 1976–2016

2.5 Natural Decrease Counties

3.1 Percentage of Votes Received by Republican and Democrat Candidates in 2012 and 2016, by Rural–Urban Continuum

4.1 Bonding and Bridging Social Capital

5.1 Decline in U.S. School Districts Due to Consolidation, 1939–2013

5.2 Drug Overdose Deaths per 100,000 Deaths, 1999–2015, United States, Non-Hispanic Whites, Ohio, and Kentucky

6.1 U.S. Energy Consumption by Energy Source, 2016

6.2 Consumption of Biomass, Hydropower, Geothermal, Solar, and Wind Power as a Percentage of all Renewable Energy Consumption, 1990–2016

6.3 U.S. Wind Power Generation Capacity, 2017

7.1 Migration Selectivity and the Consequences for Sending and Receiving Areas

7.2 The Increase in Imprisoned Populations, by County Size, 1970–2014

7.3 Percentage of Population Aged 65 and Older in Metropolitan, Micropolitan, and Nonmetropolitan Areas, 2005–2016

7.4 Total Nonmetro Population Change, Net Migration, and Natural Change (Births minus Deaths), 1976–2016

7.5 Retirement Destination Counties

7.6 Population Loss Counties

8.1 Racial Composition in the United States, and Nonmetropolitan Areas Only

8.2 Nonmetro Residence by Race and Ethnicity

9.1 Industrial Restructuring, 1970–2015

9.2 The Rural–Urban Gap in Non-Farm Wages

9.3 The Labor Utilization Framework

10.1 Change in Number of Farms vs. Farm Size, 1880–2016

10.2 Farms by Value of Production, 2016

10.3 Million Dollar Farms, 1982–2015

10.4 Map of Farming-dependent Counties

11.1 Persistent Poverty Counties

11.2 Poverty Rates Across Metro and Nonmetro Areas

11.3 Metro and Nonmetro Poverty Rates Using the Standard Poverty Threshold and the Supplementary Poverty Measure, Compared, 2011–2016

12.1 Impacts of Population Change are Mediated by Social Structure

12.2 New York City’s Watershed

Tables

4.1 Typology of Community Social Capital

4.2 Pluralism vs. Power Elite

5.1 Percent Distribution of School Districts, Schools, and Students by Locale, 2013–2014

5.2 States with Highest Percentage Rural Students and States with Greatest Numbers of Rural Students, 2016

5.3 Academic Achievement Outcomes by Locality, 2015

8.1 Economic and Educational Attainment Status of U.S. Racial and Ethnic Groups by Metropolitan Status, 2015

11.1 Department of Health and Human Service Poverty Guidelines (Household Income, $), 1987–2017

11.2 Poverty Incidence by Selected Demographic Characteristics and Residential Location

11.3 Poverty Incidence by Educational Attainment and Residential Location, Age 25 and Older

Boxes

2.1 Controlling Wildfires in the Urban–Rural Interface

2.2 U.S. Federal Agencies Use More Than Two Dozen Definitions of Rural

2.3 Natural Population Decrease

3.1 The State of Jefferson as a Rural Secessionist Movement

3.2 Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon

3.3 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and Rural Despair

4.1 The Amish: Negotiating Community Boundaries in a Modernizing World

5.1 Understanding the Diversity of Rural School Contexts

5.2 Community Partnerships for Health Promotion

6.1 The Case of Marcellus Shale – Implications for Rural and Regional Development?

6.2 Green Energy: From “NIMBY” to “BANANA”

6.3 The Dakota Access Pipeline and #NoDAPL

7.1 Prisons as a Rural Development Strategy?

7.2 Drug Abuse in Rural America: Recovering from Methamphetamine Addiction

7.3 Rural–Urban Disparities in Health, Life Expectancy, and Health Care Access

8.1 Defining and Enumerating Race and Ethnicity

8.2 Rural School Segregation 50 Years After Brown v. Board of Education

8.3 Race, Identity, and Tribal Sovereignty: The Case of the Cherokee Freedmen

9.1 The Great Recession in Rural America

9.2 Is Walmart Good for Rural Communities?

9.3 Why Don’t Poor People Leave Poor Places?

10.1 Industrialized Agriculture and the Emergence of CAFOs

11.1 Poverty, Intersectionality, and Rurality

11.2 The Supplemental Poverty Measure

11.3 Poverty, Residential Mobility, and Education

11.4 Professional Development for Educators and Ruby Payne’s Framework for Understanding the “Culture of Poverty”

12.1 New York City’s Water Supply Originates in the Urban–Rural Interface

The right of David L. Brown and Kai A. Schafft to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First edition published in 2011 by Polity Press
This second edition first published in 2019 by Polity Press

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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2988-9

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brown, David L. (David Louis), 1945- author. | Schafft, Kai A., 1964 author.
Title: Rural people and communities in the 21st century : resilience and transformation / David L. Brown, Kai A. Schafft.
Description: 2 Edition. | Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2018] | Revised edition of the authors’ Rural people and communities in the 21st century, 2011. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018010025 (print) | LCCN 2018014626 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509529889 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509529858 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509529865 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: United States--Rural conditions.
Classification: LCC HN59.2 (ebook) | LCC HN59.2 .B753 2018 (print) | DDC 306.0973--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010025

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Acknowledgments

We would like to gratefully acknowledge those who assisted in various ways in the completion of this manuscript by offering technical support, advice, feedback, and critique. These colleagues include Catharine Biddle, Ian Burfoot-Rochford, Susan Faircloth, Tracey Farrigan at USDA’s Economic Research Service, Erica Frankenberg, Nina Glasgow, Azalea Hulbert, Chi Nguyen, Emelie Peine, Annyce Schafft, Jennifer Sherman, Mark Wilson, Spencer Wood, and Matt Wray. We are also deeply indebted to Jonathan Skerrett and Karina Jákupsdóttir at Polity Press for supporting the second edition of this book, as well as for their guidance, professionalism, and unflagging patience. In addition we acknowledge the support of Cornell University’s Department of Development Sociology, which graciously provided a visiting faculty status appointment to Kai Schafft for a portion of time while these revisions were being completed. The Penn State Social Science Research Institute also provided important support in aiding the completion of this manuscript. Any shortcomings are our own.

Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century

Resilience and Transformation

Acknowledgments

PART I
THINKING ABOUT RURAL PLACES IN METROPOLITAN SOCIETY