Former Senator John Edwards rolled out his rural renewal plan today. I have some questions about the very idea of rural renewal, not specifically the proposals from the Edwards campaign. Broadly, I wonder how much of this discussion of "renewal" of rural America is really productive, and how much of it is just bad policy. I'm not going to get into the debate of if "rural America" is just code for "Southern Whites" as Edwards adviser "Mudcat" Saunders has admitted, in which case the question of "rural renewal" is more about geographic priorities (South vs. West, etc.). Rather, I'm going to take Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's endorsement of John Edwards at face value and discuss the idea of "rural renewal" broadly.
I'm going to accept the proposition that rural communities are on the decline and are in need of help. One proposal that has been around a while to help rural communities on the decline is the New Homestead Act, which focuses on rural communities with net declines in population of 10% or more in the last twenty years. They note that the majority of these 698 counties are in Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and North Dakota. It seems to me that the majority of rural communities on the decline are in the Great Plains, not in the South or Midwest (although I'll admit that the area of the Great Plains probably overlaps with both regions). This map helps support this observation, although rural decline is found all across America.
Now part of the decline of rural communities is tied to the rise of suburbia. The oil addicted economy of the Post-War World II America has fueled a massive migration of people from relatively isolated small towns and communities into suburbia. Rural communities just couldn't compete in this economy, although John Edwards and others believe that with new technology they can be competitive in the economy of tomorrow. Given the role the United States government played in funding the rise of suburbia through a car biased transportation polices and tax credits for mortgages, I can concede that by helping rural communities the government would just be trying to right a wrong. This assumes that people don't mind living in rural communities, they just couldn't find jobs to support themselves as everything was reorienting itself toward the suburbs due to government policies. However, has anyone considered the idea that most people just don't want to live in rural communities because of isolation or lack of amenities? If so, why bother with "renewal?"
Secondly, I want to turn specifically to the Great Plains. The Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and parts of Texas, Colorado, Montana, and others are not "natural" settlements in my mind. These were not areas that supported significant populations prior to the arrival of the Europeans. They were settled due to deliberate government policies. Free land through the Homestead Act. Subsidized transportation networks. And forced removal of the nomadic tribes that were already occupying the land. The frontier closed in 1890s and the Great Plains barely lasted two generations before the sustainability of farming produced the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Ever since this region has been on life support from both the government and oil-based fertilizers and pesticides. At what point do we accept that maybe this region cannot sustain a viable population and find something new, say the Buffalo Commons?
These are some questions I've been working out in my head for a while and the release of "rural renewal" proposals from John Edwards encouraged me to diary about it. I'd like to hear what other people thing, both those that perhaps agree that "rural renewal" is barking up the wrong tree or those that believe it's a necessity. For those that are in the latter, I'd appreciate some reasons why we should care about rural communities. I'm including a poll to see how people feel.