SOCIOECONOMIC TRENDS CHANGING RURAL AMERICA



Three broad historical trends have been and are now molding rural
America. One is the demise of traditional rural society and the at-
tendant increase in “social cost of space;” The second is development
of what political economists call “world systems” or the “global econ-
omy.” The third is a change in the relationship between territory and
commιmity.

Rural areas lag behind urban areas in social well-being. Myths
aside, the social cost of space has been high and growing in all of the
history of the American community (Kraenzel; Richards). In tradi-
tional rural society, the fundamental features of rural settlement-
small numbers, low density and high distance from other
settlements—had their advantages in community solidarity. And if
the settlement had good natural resources, it could survive as a self-
sufficient community.

The demise of traditional society, however, was well advanced by
the beginning of the colonial period. Rural American settlements
have always depended upon ties to urban centers, first to those back
in Europe, then to the new ones along the East Coast and now to
those spread across the nation. Settlements far from major centers
and lacking in density have suffered the social cost of space.

Carl Kraenzel first labeled the social cost of space and counted its
features—dependency, economic depression, internal conflict and ex-
treme individualism. The economic cost of space, i.e., transport cost,
which increases the cost of rural services, adds to it and no doubt
contributes to high incidences of rural poverty and unemployment.
But the social cost of space is more than an economic cost. It is a cost
to the social fabric. Careful observation of social relationships in
small remote settlements (Bly) shows the painful human experience
of this cost in contrast to the romantic images of rural life that con-
tinue to influence national policy.

The social cost of space has increased over the years as society has
become increasingly urbanized and, being a social phenomenon
depending on the quality of person-to-person relationships on site,
this cost continues to increase even in the face of astounding techno-
logical breakthroughs in the movement of information and other
resources from site to site (Dillman).

The second background factor for understanding contemporary
changes is the development of world systems and a global economy.
This began during the period of colonization of rural areas by urban-
based imperialists. However, the phenomenon of a truly global econ-
omy dates to the twentieth century, particularly to the period since
World War II when the United States has become a major actor in
economic and political networks linking all, or nearly all, nations.

Critical appraisals of the effects of this development on rural Amer-
ica point to two of its important consequences. It shifts the locus of
decision-making on many basic matters affecting local life away from



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