Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part XIII): Another crime-free week in Newton County

All the news on the front page of the November 27, 2008, issue of the Newton County Times is basically good news. Reading it caused me to reflect on some of the really terrific things about how rural places work.

The top story is "Educational focus set by extension office in 2009." The lede is:

Forages, food and nutrition head the list of subjects the Newton County Cooperative Extension Service will focus on next year, according to a report delivered by office staff to members of a community council Thursday, Nov. 20.

Although I grew up hearing about the extension agent and being a member of 4-H for a time, I never knew what extension agents did until I got involved in rural studies. Now I read reports like this with great interest -- and a greater appreciation for the role of this agency.

Other front-page stories include:

• "Food drive filing county's pantry." The story reports that the Newton County Christian Food Room expects to distribute over 6,000 pounds of food over the holidays. Most of that food will come from individual donations. This is accompanied by two photos, one of volunteers at the food room and the other of Ritter Communications employees. Ritter is offering an incentive for customers to participate in the food drive by giving them a discount commensurate with the amount of the donation. This is an especially heartening story in my eyes because the county had no such institution when I was growing up there.
• The other story is about the opening of a new bank building. What was formerly the Newton County Bank and is now the Bank of the Ozarks will have some competition from the Jasper branch of the First National Bank of Green Forest. A new 4,080 square foot building sits overlooking the Little Buffalo River to house the branch, which opened in a temporary facility two years ago. Green Forest, population 2,717, is in neighboring Carroll County.
• Photos from the annual meeting of the Jasper Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber has 170 members.
  

North Dakota flourishing in spite of national recession

Read Monica Davey's report in the New York Times here. An excerpt follows:

As the rest of the nation sinks into a 12th grim month of recession, this state, at least up until now, has been quietly reveling in a picture so different that it might well be on another planet.

The number of new cars sold statewide was 27 percent higher this year than last, state records through November showed. North Dakota’s foreclosure rate was minuscule, among the lowest in the country. Many homes have still been gaining modestly in value, and, here in Fargo, construction workers can be found on any given day hammering away on a new downtown condominium complex, complete with a $540,000 penthouse (still unsold, but with a steady stream of lookers).

Davey reports on many other indicators, including the state's 3.4% unemployment rate. Indeed, the state currently has about 13,000 job openings. With that many unfilled jobs, North Dakota's population (642,200 in the 2000 census) may soon be on the rise.

Davey attributes North Dakota's "cheery circumstances" to an array of factors including a rise in the state's oil production and a good year for farmers, as well as a "conservative, steady, never-fancy culture that has nurtured fewer" booms and slumps.

Read another post here, from December 2007, about the state's boom.

There's a rural angle in this story about rising higher education costs. . .

But as with so many reports in the national media, that angle is not expressed. The headline is attention grabbing: "College May Become Unaffordable for Most in the U.S.," and it appeared in the New York Times on December 3. It has been one of the most emailed stories on the Times website since it appeared two days ago. Tamar Lewin's story reports on the biennial report of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. It shows college tuition and fees rose 439% between 1982 and 2007. Meanwhile, the median family income during that period rose only 147%. This means student borrowing is up sharply

“If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the center, a nonpartisan organization that promotes access to higher education.

* * *

“The middle class has been financing it through debt,” he said. “The scenario has been that families that have a history of sending kids to college will do whatever if takes, even if that means a huge amount of debt.”

The story also discusses the consequences for families whose incomes are in the bottom fifth in the nation. For them, a year at a public university costs 55% of median income. Community colleges are hardly more affordable for these families, consuming 49% of the poorest families' median income.

A couple of things are striking about this information in relation to rural youth. First, of course, poverty rates are higher and more enduring in rural communities than in urban ones. This means rural youth seeking a college degree are more likely to be affected by rising tuition costs, and that those costs are more likely to represent a higher proportion of a rural family's income.

Second, rural families may be less likely to embrace an ethos that children should go to college, whatever the cost. Again, this is related to the current education gap between metro and non-metro populations. While one in five urban residents over the age of 25 has a college degree, only one in eight rural adults in that age group does.

Lewin also notes another report released this week from the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. It said that public higher education remains affordable, with tuition around $6,000/year for a public research university, about $3,200 for community college. But that group expressed concern that these schools will not remain affordable unless states adequately support them. It also called for public universities to "explore a variety of approaches to lower costs — distance learning, better use of senior year in high school, perhaps even shortening college from four years."

More bad news for non-metropolitan economies as car dealerships fail

The tough times facing automobile dealerships -- particularly those dealing in American made vehicles-- have been highlighted in news coverage the past few days. The New York Times reported earlier this week on the topic in a story by Clifford Kauss. NPR stories in the past few days have echoed the theme, also discussing the impact that falling car sales are having on local government revenues.

Clifford Krauss's NYT piece highlights the difficulties facing two dealerships owned by Bruce Thomas, one for G.M., the other Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep, in Quincy, Florida, population 6,982. Here are some excerpts :

In this small town outside Tallahassee, Mr. Thomas had 50 employees only two years ago when his two dealerships sold an average of 24 new vehicles a month. But now Mr. Thomas is lucky if he sells three new vehicles a week, and he has had to dismiss 10 of his remaining 40 employees in recent days.

Thomas says he expects the situation to worsen.

Krauss explains that rising unemployment and falling home and stock values have brought down dealers like Thomas, even as gasoline prices have come down. The credit crunch is hurting dealers, too, as they rely on credit to keep their lots stocked.

An NPR story on December 1 featured the dateline Monroeville, Pennsylvania, population 29,349. There tax revenues associated with car sales are down 15-20%, which has forced cuts in local government spending.

Another NPR story yesterday focused on the mid-Atlantic states. Frank Langfitt's report features, among others, Chevy dealer Barry Williams in Elkton, Maryland, population 11,893. He says he is confident he will survive, though he realizes many dealers will not:

Williams' experience is typical of dealers across the country. He says the recession and credit crisis have knocked out 40 percent of his business.

"I've used the analogy of Katrina," says Williams, sitting in his near-empty showroom in Elkton, Md. "I'm in New Orleans right now, and the storm is coming and I didn't get out."

Implicit in these stories is that many of the 900 new-car dealerships (among almost 21,000) that are expected to close this year are in micropolitan places, places where these businesses have often represented a disproportionate chunk of the local economy in terms of jobs and taxes. And, as Clifford Krauss recognized in his story, these dealerships often represent still more than money and jobs in non-metropolitan places: "Most of them are deeply rooted in their communities, and each is a slice of Americana — their big flags flying, their radio advertisements compelling attention and their Little League sponsorships and other charity helping to improve the lives of local people."

For an earlier report on the trouble facing car dealerships, listen to this Nov. 4 story.

Middlebury College students take a realistic look at challenges facing a small Vermont town

Read Abby Goodnough's story about Starksboro, Vermont's consultation with Middlebury College students here. Here is an excerpt:

Like other New England towns rich in history and tradition, Starksboro, 20 miles south of Burlington and population 1,900, is eager to preserve its uniqueness in the face of growth. But hoping to head off the conflict that often stymies planning, this fall it tried a new approach.

Starksboro asked students from nearby Middlebury College to spend the semester interviewing its residents to document what they value most about the place. It intends to use their thoughts to influence decisions about its future.

Here's a telling quote from one student involved in the project:

“I’m guilty, like most of us, of really romanticizing Vermont life and Vermont towns,” said Max Kanter, a junior from Phoenix. “Now I have a sense of the challenge they have to stay afloat.”

The story touches on many rural and New England themes and is well worth a read.

Will China be destabilized as "floating population" returns to rural areas?

Shai Oster reports in the Wall Street Journal today about a new wave of migration in China. In many cases, this migration is taking workers from construction and manufacturing jobs in cities -- work that is drying up in the slumping economy--back to the rural provinces from which they initially came. The headline is "China Fears Restive Migrants as Jobs Disappear in Cities," and here is an excerpt.

China's roaring industrial economy has been abruptly quieted by the effects of the global financial crisis. Rural provinces that supplied much of China's factory manpower are watching the beginnings of a wave of reverse migration that has the potential to shake the stability of the world's most populous nation.

Fast-rising unemployment has led to an unusual series of strikes and protests. Normally cautious government officials have offered quick concessions and talk openly of their worries about social unrest.

* * *

As the government tries to calm tensions in the cities, it also fears that newly unemployed migrants returning home could upend the already-strained social system in the countryside.

* * *

For workers accustomed to a decade of double-digit growth, China's sudden downturn has come as a shock to the system. Migrant workers -- estimated to make up a tenth of the country's population -- have powered China's economic success in the three decades since free-market reforms began.

Oster reports that while the percentage of farmable land in China is about what is in the United States, 730 million Chinese residents--more than twice the entire U.S. population--live in rural parts of the country. According to Joshua Muldavin, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, many migrant workers left their villages over the years because some 80-100 milion rural residents have no land or only enough land for subsistence farming. The "large-scale return of peasants could add tens of millions to that," Muldavin estimates, suggesting that the significance of the reverse migration "can't be exaggerated."

Montana Supreme Court decrees public access to stream

Jim Robbins reports in the New York Times on 1 December. Here is the lede:

The Montana Supreme Court ruled here recently that the 16-mile-long stream, Mitchell Slough, is open to the public and that the landowners are not entitled to fence it off as part of their private sanctuaries.

Among the wealthy landowners who will be affected are Charles Schwab and Huey Lewis. Read the rest here.

The latest on broadband for all--including rural places--under an Obama administration

NPR's Day-to-Day program today featured a story speculating about what the Obama administration's Federal Communications Commission might do about the digital divide. Here's an excerpt that addresses the issues facing rural communities:

About 10 percent of Americans still have no access to broadband at all. Many of those people live in rural areas. Wally Bowen, who runs a small Internet company in Asheville, N.C., says the reason is money.

"The cable companies don't find it cost effective. Phone companies have to reconfigure their landlines with additional technology," Bowen says. "There's been some of that, but it's pretty limited."

* * *

"There are parts of the country where it'll still be uneconomic for a phone company, a cable provider, a wireless provider to offer service. The smart use of government funds — to the extent we care to put them into broadband infrastructure — would be to bring broadband where it isn't."

Listen here to the entire story, which debates the merits of a public-private partnership to achieve greater broadband access in rural places.

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part XII): No crime to report this week

The stories on the front page of the Nov. 20, 2008, issue of the paper do not implicate any criminal justice issues. Indeed, the only marginally law-related story is about a problem with the regional landfill, which has prompted the solid waste district to hire a Little Rock lawyer to deal with state officials on this regulatory matter.

In other news:

• Early voting in the runoff election for County Judge ends
• A community Thanksgiving worship service is announced
• A holiday toy drive and the 18th Annual Newton County Christmas Parade are set
• A live music finale will be held at the Ozark Cafe
• The Jasper School Homecoming royalty is announced
  

Even the Sheriff's report features little news--property checks, a few motor vehicle accidents, and one response to a "breaking and entering in progress." The County Sheriff, elected to his second term, ran a quarter page ad thanking the voters.

In other signs of the season, the back page is full of photos of youthful deer hunters with their prey.

Now this is what country living is supposed to be like.

Rural resorts out West take it on the chin as economy slumps, but locals suffer more

Kirk Johnson reports in Sunday's New York Times that the Yellowstone Club, a very exclusive resort outside Big Sky, Montana, population 1,221, has filed for bankruptcy. Johnson characterizes the place as "a cloistered and cosseted mountain retreat for the super-rich." The filing came after the dis-harmonic convergence of the Club founders' divorce and the freezing of credit markets, making it impossible to restructure $399 million in debt.

Johnson explains that the Yellowstone Club, which opened in 1999, is hardly alone among mountain resorts in the West. He notes financial problems at the Tamarack Resort in Idaho and the Promontory Club in Utah. I wrote about another struggling Big Sky resort here, and Johnson mentions it in his story.

Johnson also provides some historic context for the financial woes of the Yellowstone Club, citing what he calls Montana's "history as a sometimes brutal exurb of capitalism, with tensions between rich and poor and labor and capital a theme since the 1800s." He explains that as the wealthy bought "vast swaths of land, spurring the leisure economy," wage stagnation hit the middle and working classes as "Montana sank to 39th in the nation in median family income."

According to 2000 Census, the median family income in Montana was $40, 487; the median household income was $33,024; the per capita income was $17,151 ; and 10.5% of families were living in poverty.

Johnson interviewed residents in Bozeman, an hour north of Big Sky, who "said they were not particularly upset about the club’s plight, given its excesses and presumptions."

But most people also know someone whose fortunes are tied to the financial engines that made this corner of Montana’s economy go in recent years — wealth, vacation housing and tourism.

“It’s kind of like a double-edged sword for a lot of people around here,” said Greg Thomas, a 31-year-old construction worker from Bozeman. “It’s pretty grotesque and ridiculous, but at the same time, a lot of people depend on going up there for jobs.”

Folks interviewed for the story suggest that the sort of "scrambling and getting by" are typical in a seasonal economy, and that residents are accustomed to it. Indeed, while some interviewed have played a part in rural gentrification in Montana have been working hard and not exactly living the high life (except in terms of altitude, I suppose), Montana also has a true underclass that has been suffering for years, indeed, for generations. While the individual poverty rate in the state is a relatively meager 14.6% (meager, that is, in comparison to New Mexico's at 18.4% or Mississippi's at 19.9%), Montana is home to numerous pockets of persistent poverty, including 3 counties in which more than 20% of the population have been living below the poverty line for more than 40 years. (See an earlier post about these counties, which have large American Indian populations). A map here (page 2, Figure 1) shows the pockets of persistent poverty at the block level, revealing that a big chunk of Montana's territory (little of it in the most scenic and therefore most gentrified part of the state) is home to plagued by this inter-generational poverty. The picture of Montana that emerges is one featuring grossly uneven development and vast spatial inequalities.

So, while Johnson reports that some of the Yellowstone Club's 340 members are up in arms about what became of their annual dues, along with the $250K each paid to join, I'm rather less concerned about their fortunes than about those farther down Montana's wealth continuum. By this I refer not only to the working and middle class Montanans who have come to rely on the super-rich for their own livelihoods, but also to those who lack food and basic shelter.

Rurality Then and Now, Here and There (Part V): Women's contributions to food production

Women's agricultural contributions are a common theme of two items that caught my attention this week. The first is the banner image below used to publicize the first International Day of Rural Women, which was just last month. The United Nations explains that the new day, first observed on 15 October 2008, was "established by the General Assembly in its resolution 62/136 of 18 December 2007." The designation recognizes“the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.”

The idea of honouring rural women with a special day was put forward by international NGOs at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. It was suggested that 15 October be celebrated as “World Rural Women’s Day,” the eve of World Food Day, in order to highlight the role played by rural women in food production and food security. “World Rural Women’s Day” has been celebrated, primarily by civil society, across the world for over a decade.

And here is another UN excerpt about the contributions of rural women, many of which are agriculture-oriented:

The International Day of Rural Women directs attention to both the contribution that women make in rural areas, and the many challenges that they face. Women play a critical role in the rural economies of both developed and developing countries. In most parts of the developing world they participate in crop production and livestock care, provide food, water and fuel for their families, and engage in off-farm activities to diversify the family income. In addition, they carry out vital functions in caring for children, older persons and the sick. Women make an important contribution to food production. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 428 million women work in the agricultural sector around the world, compared to 608 million men. In many parts of the world, agriculture is the first sector of employment for women, for instance in Sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia, where respectively 68 per cent and 61 per cent of working women are employed in agriculture.

While I am sure there is no relationship between the actions of the UN and those of the U.S. Mint, it nevertheless struck me as quite a coincidence today to see this image of an indigenous woman engaging in food production. Its similarities to the UN image were striking. This image of an American Indian woman growing corn, squash and beans will appear on a soon-to-be-released $1 coin. The U.S. Mint explains the image in a story by Matthew Healey:

Corn, beans and squash — the “three sisters” of Native American agricultural tradition — will appear on the nation’s one-dollar coins next year, in a design to be announced Friday by the United States Mint.

By the dictates of an act that Congress passed last year, the reverse side of the gold-colored Sacagawea dollars will bear a new design each year starting in 2009, as part of a thematic series showing Native American contributions to the history and development of the United States.

* * *

Adopting Indian farming methods proved crucial to European settlers’ surviving their early years in America.

So, just as the UN celebrates rural women--including indigenous women--and draws attention to their plight, the U.S. commemorates, in a small way, the contributions of American Indian women to food production in North America.