Rural trappings and urban trends

Non-functioning old cars left in front yards has come up multiple times in our discussions of the rural this semester. A few weeks ago I thought about those abandoned old vehicles when I visited Flora Grubb Gardens, a hipstery, landscape design center in San Francisco. Located off of a rather busy street, Flora Grubb is a green haven amidst the concrete of the city. The old warehouse is overflowing with air plants and ferns, mosses and succulents, not to mention rustic outdoor furniture and vertical gardens. The center (it is more of a center than a store) is also complete with a Ritual Coffee shop and high-end yard furniture. While I can't afford anything there, I enjoy the place. However, the thing that really caught my eye when I visited, was an old truck in the yard that had been transformed into a porch, complete with steps leading into the bed, where a table and chairs invited guests to read the paper and sip their coffee. I immediately thought of Law and Rural Livelihood and began to contemplate the ways that rural trappings have become adopted as urban trends.

Growing up in a family of garage-sale addicts and junk-yard junkies, I am pretty accustomed to buying used, recycling, and refurbishing. For my father, it has become an art-form (collecting) and my parents' house is almost entirely furnished and decorated with other people's old things that have been "reinvented" to some degree. As I have grown older, I have adopted his habits and embraced the art of the yard sale. Over the last few years, in my pursuits of hidden treasure, I have noticed the increased number of people at Urban Ore and used furniture shops popping up in Bay Area neighborhoods. This is not to say that people haven't been buying used and collecting things for decades, but my sense is that it's growing in popularity. I recently walked into Zonal, a furniture store in Hayes Valley, with piles of used furniture, many with weathered wood and chipped paint. I asked the owner where he got his stock and he replied that he drives a van across the country collecting pieces, most of which come from the middle of the country. By the looks of his collection, I wonder how much of it was acquired in small rural towns, likely for a small fraction of the price he was selling them for in the City.

A good friend of mine recently became engaged and is in full wedding-planing mode. Of course, wedding venues are the hot topic of discussion, and in our conversations about potential sites for the nuptials, we waded into the subject of the cost of sites. I recommended that she just find a barn and get married there, to which she responded: "Barns are expensive. Everyone is getting married in barns these day!" I guess I wasn't so surprised, but it triggered a google search and sure enough, websites on barn weddings, even a one-stop barn locater site, with barns in various states. One customer bride-to-be, commented that getting married in a barn "symbolizes a sense of peace and oneness with the land that harmonizes well with the idea of a wedding." While this might be true, and clearly she is entitled to her thoughts, it gets me thinking about the way we view the rural and symbols that we associate with the rural. As a Denver Post article put it, "popular culture can't seem to get enough of rural Americana." And as Patrick Gottsch, founder of Rural Media Group, exclaimed, "It's cool to be rural now."

The Urban farming movement is growing, but it is not without its controversy. While it is helping some urban residents have more control over their food, is it also harming traditional farmers in rural areas of the country? While I view the practice as both a sign of respect for farming communities and the farming lifestyle, I also see that in many ways it is a privilege for for only certain urban communities. Then, as we all know, there are the clothing and food trends that can arguably be traced to a fascination of rural culture (and which I take part in as well, I must admit).

My question is: Are we romanticizing the rural? Are we using the stereotypes and trappings as we wish, without recognizing the issues facing rural communities in this country?