Rural Communities

Rural Communities

by Cornelia Butler, Jan Flora, and Stephen Gasteyer

Here’s an example of business butting heads with government; a rancher gets fed up with Colorado elk damaging his fences, but the state wildlife authorities always say the same thing; no shooting! He organizes a conference with the authorities, local hunters, ranchers, farmers, and whether they’re invited or not, the “tree huggers.” Both sides dislike each other; the ranchers think of environmentalists as a nuisance, and the environmentalists regard the ranchers as resource-raiders. They do have something in common, in that they both want the elk to live. Without the elk, there won’t be any hunting. But at the same time, without the rancher’s cows, there won’t be any burgers, and the meat industry will lose jobs.

The conflict between the rancher and the wildlife authorities is one of many examples that the author gives in his book. Rural Communities discusses how far flung and remote communities can collectively effect change, but it requires a great deal of grass-roots effort. Unenlightened about progressive ways, the locals, whether rich or poor, can have a tough time working together to achieve goals. If a town depends on a coal mine for jobs, and the people want something done about pollution, there will be conflict.

In the chapter Culture Capital and the Family, we see how the rural working class miners, loggers, and farmers clash with the educated residents. The working classes may view the more educated ones as an adversary, but at the same time, the farmers will suffer if mine tailings pollute the water. If the forest is logged down to stumps, there won’t be any deer hunting. If the water is silted from strip mining, you can forget about fishing.

Another issue in this book with regard to economics is the conflict between industry and education. Blue collar wages are often higher than those for teachers and office workers, so why go to school? If you can make $45,000 a year in a coal mine and much less as a teacher, then why would a kid want to go to school? The author discusses how some towns invest in technical education, which benefits the industry, but labor skills can just as easily be learned on the job.

There are links here to the world economy to world economy, such as tariffs on imported produce and coal. But even tariffs can’t save a company town, because the demand for cheap furniture outpaces the need for quality. A furniture factory in the USA, with regulations on waste disposal and work hours, can’t compete with a factory in China. For all we know, a Chinese factory could be using slave labor.

There weren’t a lot of surprises here, because I’ve seen country towns with municipal conflicts between all classes. Anyone who saw the 20/20 episode titled Hidden America: Children of the Mountains can see the problems with drugs, health, pollution, and crime that rural towns can have. But I thoroughly enjoyed the case studies that the author uses. He makes clear that when a town can’t reach a consensus, everything stalls and there’s no improvement.