Thomas Jefferson once envisioned the United States as a 'nation of yeomen farmers'. Looking around today, however, illustrates that nothing could be further from the truth. In a globalised world and techno-centred society, urban sprawl is overtaking rural America. For over a century, farming was the backbone of the American economy, and though it is still critical to American productivity, many rural areas are plagued by poverty and job reduction. Agricultural issues have a hold over national politics (as in the debates over farm subsidies), but they cannot change several significant trends in America today: the movement toward fewer and larger farms, environmental pressures from urban and suburban interests, and changing food consumption patterns. In order to assist the remaining 'yeomen farmers', a comprehensive and integrated agricultural policy must be initiated to sustain the nation's farming communities. This book analyses the status of the farm industry in rural America, providing a historical context for agriculture and assessing its future for the nation. and the information provided in this book is necessary to understanding the nature of what has historically been a key component of American industry and life.

How rural areas have become uneven proving grounds for the American Dream Late-stage capitalism is trying to remake rural America in its own image, and the resistance is telling. Small-town economies that have traditionally been based on logging, mining, farming, and ranching now increasingly rely on tourism, second-home ownership, and retirement migration. In Dividing Paradise, Jennifer Sherman tells the story of Paradise Valley, Washington, a rural community where amenity-driven economic growth has resulted in a new social landscape of inequality and privilege, with deep fault lines between old-timers and newcomers. In this complicated cultural reality, "class blindness" allows privileged newcomers to ignore or justify their impact on these towns, papering over the sentiments of anger, loss, and disempowerment of longtime locals. Based on in-depth interviews with individuals on both sides of the divide, this book explores the causes and repercussions of the stark inequity that has become commonplace across the United States. It exposes the mechanisms by which inequality flourishes and by which Americans have come to believe that disparity is acceptable and deserved. Sherman, who is known for her work on rural America, presents here a powerful case study of the ever-growing tensions between those who can and those who cannot achieve their visions of the American dream.

The twentieth century was one of profound transformation in rural America. Demographic shifts and economic restructuring have conspired to alter dramatically the lives of rural people and their communities. Challenges for Rural America in the Twenty-First Century defines these changes and interprets their implications for the future of rural America. The volume follows in the tradition of "decennial volumes" co-edited by presidents of the Rural Sociological Society and published in the Society's Rural Studies Series. Essays have been specially commissioned to examine key aspects of public policy relevant to rural America in the new century. Contributors include:Lionel Beaulieu, Alessandro Bonnano, David Brown, Ralph Brown, Frederick Buttel, Ted Bradshaw, Douglas Constance, Steve Daniels, Lynn England, William Falk, Cornelia Flora, Jan Flora, Glenn Fuguitt, Nina Glasgow, Leland Glenna, Angela Gonzales, Gary Green, Rosalind Harris, Tom Hirschl, Douglas Jackson-Smith, Leif Jensen, Ken Johnson, Richard Krannich, Daniel Lichter, Linda Lobao, Al Luloff, Tom Lyson, Kate MacTavish, David McGranahan, Diane McLaughlin, Philip McMichael, Lois Wright Morton, Domenico Parisi, Peggy Petrzelka, Kenneth Pigg, Rogelio Saenz, Sonya Salamon, Jeff Sharp, Curtis Stofferahn, Louis Swanson, Ann Tickameyer, Leanne Tigges, Cruz Torres, Mildred Warner, Ronald Wimberley, Dreamal Worthen, and Julie Zimmerman.

For America’s rural and suburban areas, new challenges demand new solutions. Author Randall Arendt meets them in an entirely new edition of Rural by Design. When this planning classic first appeared 20 years ago, it showed how creative, practical land-use planning can preserve open space and keep community character intact. The second edition shifts the focus toward infilling neighborhoods, strengthening town centers, and moving development closer to schools, shops, and jobs. New chapters cover form-based codes, visioning, sustainability, low-impact development, green infrastructure, and more, while 70 case studies show how these ideas play out in the real world. Readers —rural or not—will find practical advice about planning for the way we live now.

For America's suburbs, small cities, and rural areas, new challenges demand new solutions. Author Randall Arendt meets them in an entirely new edition of Rural by Design. With 80 percent new material, the second edition of this planning classic shifts the focus to infilling neighborhoods, strengthening town centers, and

Beyond the Urban Fringe was first published in 1983. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. The non-metropolitan hinterland of the United States is no longer the placid and bucolic countryside celebrated by Currier and Ives. As urban America imposes ever-increasing demands upon the nation's resources, energy, water, food, recreation and scenery, peace and quiet are all sought in the land beyond the urban fringe. Certain dramatic changes in non-metropolitan America are already apparent. Census figures from 1980 documented that the population of rural areas and small towns was increasing more rapidly than that of metropolitan areas or the nation as a whole. The interstate highway network affords unprecedented access to small cities and towns, broadening commuting patterns and enabling industries to relocate outside of cities. During the 1960s and 1970s millions of acres were carved yo for second homes and recreational developments, a practice which often inflated the price of rural land. Beyond the Urban Fringe deals with problems arising from this transformation of nonmetropolitan America. It is based on reports given at a 1980 conference sponsored by the Association of American Geographers and funded by the National Science Foundation, with the participation of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Office of Water Research and Technology. The authors represent a wide range of disciplines--geography, resource economics, rural sociology, planning, law, and physics--and deal with topics not often found in a single volume: the character of land-use change in non-metropolitan areas, rural economic growth and decline, the rural land market, the growth and decline of small towns, farmland policy, remote sensing in rural areas, the impact of energy development on land use, hazardous waste disposal, and nuclear plant siting in nonurban areas. Geographers, planners, resource economists, and others concerned with environmental and resource management will find Beyond the Urban Fringe a valuable source of current research on a subject of central importance at all levels of government.