Rural America outgrows label
By Haya El Nasser
USA TODAY
In New Hampshire's northernmost county, the wood pulp extracted from the rich forests to produce paper has long been the lifeblood of the local economy. As paper production increasingly moved overseas, the mill that helped boost the population of Berlin to 30,000 went into bankruptcy. Now, a new owner is keeping it going with 400 workers, down from a high of 2,400. Coos County's biggest town has lost two-thirds of its population.
"Once you peel the mill away, you have a city of 30,000 (housing) units but 10,000 people," says Cathy McDowell, executive director of the Family Resource Center in nearby Gorham. "There's blighted housing."
Locals tried to get federal funding to tear down some of the homes. They couldn't because there was a shortage of housing at the time in most of "urban" America.
In a nation whose urban needs influence federal policy and whose rural policy is dominated by agriculture, rural areas that have urban-style woes can fall through the cracks. "There is no rural policy for the kind of rural we are," McDowell says.
A study last year found that the 260 largest farm operations in 13 Midwest and Great Plains states received more federal money than Agriculture Department rural development programs for nearly 3 million people in more than 1,400 communities. The study covered the three most recent years for which data were available, says the Center for Rural Affairs, a non-profit rural and family-farm advocacy group based in Lyons, Neb.
"One policy doesn't fit all," says Mil Duncan, director of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.
The institute just issued a report based on surveys of 8,000 people in 19 rural counties. Its findings emphasize that 21st-century rural America is not just about farming.
Home to 17% of the nation's population, rural areas consist of at least four distinct regions that face contrasting problems. According to the report, the four rural Americas are:
•Amenity-rich. They're places such as Aspen, Colo., or the Appalachian region around Asheville, N.C., where mountains, lakes, coastlines or forests draw vacationers, retirees and second-home owners. Challenges: affordable housing for longtime residents and workers and controlling sprawl to protect the environment.
•Declining resource-dependent. They once thrived on agriculture, timber, mining and manufacturing — industries that have declined because of globalization and depleted resources. The middle class is disappearing, and the population is aging and shrinking. The Great Plains is a prime example.
•Chronically poor. These are regions such as the Mississippi Delta where residents and the land have seen decades of dwindling resources.
•In transition. Traditional resource-based economies are in decline, but these areas have natural beauty that offers potential for growth in service economies and niche industries. These areas include parts of New England and the Pacific Northwest.
"Those historically have relied on natural abundance to support livelihood," says John Berdes, president of ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia, a non-profit community development financial institution based in Astoria, Ore. "You didn't have to do that much to feel financially secure. In those communities today, that is no longer the case. … The challenge is learning new ways to do more with less." For example, he says, there are market opportunities for fisheries that can scientifically prove that their albacore tuna have low mercury levels.
Russ Karpisek owns Karpisek Meat Market in Wilber, Neb., 40 miles outside Lincoln. He's also a state senator. He says Americans have a distorted view of rural America. "Even in Nebraska, rural and urban senators see things much differently," he says. "You can get the Internet here (in rural places). You can run your home-based business."
Programs that help rural areas diversify are lacking, he says.
In its most recent farm bill, Congress set aside $4 million a year for a new rural development program, says Chuck Hassebrook, executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs. "That's less than half of 1% of what's spent on farm programs annually."
Only 4% of rural residents make their living farming, says Karl Stauber, president of the Danville Regional Foundation in Virginia. He works in a region that once was a prime tobacco-growing area. It has evolved into a growing high-tech area.
The last time most Americans lived on farms was in 1880 and the last time the majority lived in rural communities was in 1920, he says. As rural populations continue to shrink, their needs may get even less attention once seats in Congress and most state legislatures are reapportioned after the 2010 Census, Stauber says.
"If policy is based on this assumption that rural is really about agriculture, then the vast majority of rural America is left out," he says.
