Something else that would stimulate rural economies

I note that T. Boone Pickens, in his advocacy of renewable energy sources that will wean us from our dependence on oil, is also touting how this would benefit rural economies. I suppose he is thinking about the locations of wind farms and such.

I saw another rural perspective on how we should respond to our energy crisis the other day on Fox News (it was blaring in the Toyota dealer's waiting room where I was captive while my 2001 Prius (!!!) was being serviced). Many folks (at the least the ones Fox interviewed) living in remote parts of Alaska--near ANWAR-- advocate drilling there. Learning the circumstances of their lives was sobering (milk at $6 gallon, for example), and I can imagine their economic desperation, but I'm with Pickens on this one. We need a medium-to-long-term solution to our energy crisis, and wouldn't it be great if that solution served rural America in ways other than lower prices at the pump.

Preserving a Western lifestyle, while stimulating rural economies

A story this morning on NPR's Day to Day program featured a strategy for rural development being used in New Mexico: providing funds to enhance the tradition of rodeos there, including in small towns, because of the boost it brings to their economies. One person interviewed calls rodeo a Western way of life for youth, akin to soccer in other parts of the country.

Hear the full story here. This is the lede from the website:

Three years ago New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson formed the New Mexico Rodeo Council in an attempt to boost his state's economy. The effort is beginning to pay off. This week, the state hosts the National High school rodeo finals, billed the "world's largest rodeo."

That "world's largest rodeo" is being held this week in Farmington, N.M., in the Four Corners region. Farmington is micropolitan, with a population of about 38,000.

"Where Research and Tourism Collide" -- in Rural Colorado and elsewhere

See the NYT story under that headline, which is about Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado here. The sub-head is "Tourism Creates a Speed Bump for Remote Laboratories' Field Sites."

Gothic isn't even a Census Designated Place on the Census Bureau website, and nearby Crested Butte is a rural resort with a population of just 1,529. Author Michelle Nijhuis describes the latter has having evolved from a place where you couldn't buy a T-shirt or a coffee mug in the 1960s, "reborn as a skiing and mountain-biking mecca today [with] rows of boutique shops and easy mountain access."

Here's a quote from the story that summarizes the rub not only between science and tourism, but also between wildlife and entertainment, between old and new and -- in a sense-- between rural and urban.

Founded in 1928 on the site of an abandoned silver-mining town, the independent lab attracts students and scientists from around the world. Working beside a 12,625-foot peak reminiscent of a Gothic cathedral, researchers have gathered decades of data on stream insects, salamanders, marmots and the flowering schedules of alpine plants.

“The whole lab works in one way or another on essentially long-term experiments,” said Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, who has studied butterfly populations in and around the laboratory since 1960. Global warming has sharpened scientific interest in these unusually long data sets, which reveal climate-induced changes that cannot be seen in shorter studies.

But the tourism in Crested Butte, which can bring as many as 750 vehicles a day through the laboratory, creates problems for the researchers and that which they are studying. Birds are more likely to abandon their nests; unleashed dogs trounce field experiments, and road dust is so thick it impedes wildlife observation. Long-studied creatures are sometimes killed by speeding vehicles.

The story also gives other examples of where such interests collide: Mt. Palmer in Antarctica and the Desert Laboratory near Tuscon. In the latter, it is another urban interest, suburban and exurban growth, that is decimating the natural laboratory.

I've written some about whether rural resorts, more common in the West than elsewhere, are truly rural or not. I've also lamented some consequences of this urban use of the rural, but this story presents a new twist. In spite of my suggestion above about research interests being synonymous with the rural, I realize that it's not quite as simple as that. In this instance, though, rural interests seem more closely aligned with those of the laboratory than with wealthy urban folks seeking a faux-rural playground.

This just doesn't seem natural, but I guess that depends on how you define "natural"

So, we've been reading and hearing a lot lately about eating locally, and some of the newest concepts and business models associated with the phenomenon were the topic of a New York Times story today. The story is by Kim Severson, and it reports on manifestations of the locavore trend such as having a vegetable garden planted and tended in one's own yard -- by someone else; owning a share in a cow; and ordering from a caterer's "100-mile-menu." It's the most emailed story on the NYT website right now, more than 24 hours after it was first posted.

Here's how the story ends:

The author Barbara Kingsolver, whose book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” was a best seller last year, did not have the lazy locavore in mind when she wrote about the implications of making her family spend a year eating local. But she celebrates the trend.

“As a person of rural origin who has lived much of my life in rural places,” she said, “I can’t tell you how joyful it makes me to hear that it’s trendy for people in Manhattan to own a part of a cow.”

I'm a big fan of Kingsolver's and I'm all for good food and for being environmentally conscious, but I don't know that I can say news of these endeavors brings me joy. I guess I'm inherently suspect of -- and at least a little put off by --anything that strikes me as faux rural, which these as-long-as-you-don't-get-your-hands-dirty food trends surely do. Does it make you a farmer if you pay someone to grow a plot of vegetables on your land? I don't think so. Does it permit you to claim virtue by association with agrarian myths? Perhaps. Is it a good thing IF it reduces your carbon foot-print? Absolutely.

Regulating "the general slovenliness of rural America"

While the satirical Obama cartoon got all the attention in this week's New Yorker, author Elizabeth Kolbert explored of the history lawns in America in the issue, as well as the accompanying regulation that enabled what was apparently a rapid shift in ornamental horticulture. While in the neighborhood in which I grew up the HOA was the reliable enforcer of all things lawn, the article discusses widely adopted "weed laws": municipal ordinances regulating the type and care required for front yards. Instead of being vaguely-worded upkeep laws, these ordinances are often fairly specific.

A recent case in Sacramento illustrates how: Anne Hartridge, apparently a fairly crunchy East Sacramentan, let her lawn die to do her part in the regional water shortage. She got a citation in the mail shortly after. Sacramento's municpal code requires front yards be landscaped and irrigated (and during which hours they may be irrigated). While Hartridge avoided a fine, it seems unclear whether her mulching compromise will suffice long-term. Others have been less fortunate: Kolbert noted that a seventy-year old woman in Utah was briefly incarcerated for her brown lawn.

The connection to the rural might have escaped me without Kolbert's discussion of the origin of the lawn phenomena. Apparently much of it went back to some mid-nineteenth century writings of Andrew Jackson Downing, a widely published horticulturalist. He was apparently quite concerned by "the general slovenliness of rural America, where pigs and poultry were allowed to roam free, 'bare and bald' houses were thrown up, and trees were planted haphazardly, if at all." (quoted by Kolbert). As Kolbert charted the evolution of the perception of the lawn from a luxurious distinction to everyman communitarian project, I found myself wondering to what degree the lawn has been about people's impressions, thoughts, and feelings about rural places and people.

A no-tuition, no-frills college -- and best of all, it is serving Appalachia

Tamar Lewin has a story about Berea College, in Berea, Kentucky, in today's NYT. The school charges no tuition, relying largely on its huge endowment to do so. Partly as a consequence, admission is highly competitive. Only 1 in 22 applicants is admitted, and its yield among those admitted exceeds that of Harvard. Some quotes from Lewin's story follow:

Actually, what buys that education is Berea’s $1.1 billion endowment, which puts the college among the nation’s wealthiest. But unlike most well-endowed colleges, Berea has no football team, coed dorms, hot tubs or climbing walls. Instead, it has a no-frills budget, with food from the college farm, handmade furniture from the college crafts workshops, and 10-hour-a-week campus jobs for every student.

Berea’s approach provides an unusual perspective on the growing debate over whether the wealthiest universities are doing enough for the public good to warrant their tax exemption, or simply hoarding money to serve an elite few. As many elite universities scramble to recruit more low-income students, Berea’s no-tuition model has attracted increasing attention.

Lewin calls the college a "haven" for lower-income students who don't have the clothes and consumer goods to fit in elsewhere. More than 75% of Berea students receive Pell grants.

Lewin's story also discusses at some length why other prestigious private schools (such as Amherst College) have rejected the Berea model in favor of continuing to grow their endowments, even as they have modestly increased the number of students from needy families and as some have moved from a loan-based financial aid model to a grant-based one. Berea's operating budget is less than half that of Amherst, while Berea has about 100 more students than the elite New England college.

The college is located in Berea, Kentucky, which, with a population of 9,851, is not rural by Census Bureau standards but is non-metro by the OMB definition. The college's website touts its diversity and features many faces of color. Here's some info from the institution's website, which indicates a self-consciously Appalachian focus:

Berea College is distinctive among institutions of higher learning. Founded in 1855 as the first interracial and coeducational college in the South, Berea charges no tuition and admits only academically promising students, primarily from Appalachia, who have limited economic resources.

***

Berea's primary service region is the Southern Appalachian region, but students come from all states in the U.S. and in a typical year, from more than 60 other countries representing a rich diversity of colors, cultures, and faiths. About one in three students represents an ethnic minority.

Berea continues to build upon a distinctive history of 150 years of learning, labor and service, and find new ways to apply our mission (the Great Commitments) to contemporary times by promoting kinship among all people, serving communities in Appalachia and beyond and living sustainably to conserve limited natural resources.

One of the website's revolving slogans: "You're worth more than the tuition you can afford." Another is, "Grow your potential, not your debt." (Photo also from college website's homepage). How refreshing! A genuine effort to spread the wealth to a population so often overlooked by both public and private decisionmakers in this country.

Comment: As of4:30 EST on the day of publication, this was the most emailed story on the NYT website. I wonder if it is making the movers and shakers of the world, who tend not be from or in Appalachia, think critically about how prestigious universities are using their endowments.

Two more stories suggesting the (possible) rural character of Central Park

I've scoffed before at the idea of Manhattan's Central Park as rural, but two recent stories in the NYT have called attention to the park's "wilderness" and "wildlife," if not necessarily its rurality.

One is headlined, "In an Urban Wilderness: Tracking the Hoots of Night," and it is accompanied by a photo of folks looking for moths at night in Central Park.

The other, "Behind the dam, one fierce holdout," is about the relocation of a snapping turtle and other wildlife by Central Park Conservancy workers earlier this week. Here's an excerpt:

The mission was billed as a “fish rescue,” but it was a big old snapping turtle that stole the show on Wednesday — as 24-inch, 30-pound reptiles tend to do, especially if they look more like inhabitants of “Jurassic Park” than Central Park.

The rescue was necessary because the Central Park Conservancy is undertaking an ambitious restoration of the lake, the largest of the park’s naturalistic water bodies (leaving aside the reservoir).

The goal is to renew the lake “in a manner that recalls its picturesque origins while recognizing its increasing significance as wildlife habitat,” the conservancy said.

Wildlife habitat, huh? Well, that is certainly one aspect of rurality.

More changes in the food chain, and to rural economies, thanks in part to ethanol

A story with a dateline of Leland, Mississippi, population 5,502, appeared in today's New York Times. Journalist David Streitfeld reports that catfish farming has become unprofitable due to the high cost of the fish food, which is part corn, part soybean, and the low cost of imported catfish. John Dillard, who helped pioneer catfish farming in the 1960s, declares the business "dead."

See a slide show here. A caption on one photo in the series states that raising catfish has been an economic mainstay on the Mississippi Delta. The land previously used for artificial, shallow ponds for raising catfish will be used to grow corn, which is now much more profitable. The story further discusses the economic impact of catfish farming -- and its demise -- in the rural South, which Streitfeld characterizes as a "hard-luck, poverty-plagued region."

One of the most playful aspects of the piece touches briefly on catfish as culture. I like this quote:

Catfish started out as a local delicacy, widely celebrated in the lore of the Deep South. Mark Twain saluted it in “Life on the Mississippi.” A character in Eudora Welty’s story “The Wide Net” says after stuffing himself, “There ain’t a thing better.”

N.B. This has been one of the most emailed stories on the NYT website for most of the day; I wonder what about it attracts the attention of NYT readers, who are currently emailing the story about southern New England escapes, see the post below, at an even higher rate.

N.B. Another 24 hours on, it is 10:15 pm PST, and this story is no longer on the top-10 emailed list. The story about "134 miles of Yankee charm" is, however. Nevertheless, that piece is two steps below another travel story: "Seizing the day in Tel Aviv." Perhaps the popularity of these stories has more to do with the demographic of NYTimes readers. Many live in New York and might get to travel to the lovely spots featured in the Escapes section; the economy of rural Mississippi is of human interest, but not of any direct, short-term utility.

Travel writing to fuel the myth of the rural idyll

This, about rural southern New England, is from today's NYT "Escapes" section. The story, by Maura J. Casey, is headlined "134 miles of Yankee Charm" and purports to identify largely undiscovered rural gems of the region, in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and southern Massachusetts. She writes:

When you’re primed for a taste of today’s countryside, leave Sturbridge on Route 131, veer right onto Route 169, and drive out where fast-food restaurants are nonexistent but horse farms and general stores are commonplace.

It all sounds so genteel, so civilized, doesn't it -- quite different to most of our associations with rural places in Appalachia and the mountain West, for example. As with those places, though, experiencing a rural locale merely as a tourist provides a uni-dimensional perspective on rural living, and that perspective is very often an idealized one. Certainly, the rural New England experience suggested by Casey's story and the accompanying photos do and are.

Here's a link to the article's accompanying multi-media feature.

Ag without rural?

See this image of what may be the future of the rural-urban interface? Is it possible that about the only way in which rural America matters now -- for food production-- might be eliminated?

The New York Times headline is "County, the City Version: Farms in the Sky Gain New Interest," and the story is by Bina Venkataraman. The image you'll find there is titled "The Living Tower" and is by SOA Architects. Don't miss the multi-media link here.

Timothy Egan on Obama and the fly-over (a/k/a rural) states

This, by guest columnist Timothy Egan, is one of the most-emailed items in the New York Times right now. The dateline is Missoula, Montana, and Egan begins by conveying a conversation he had there with a member of Sportsmen for Obama. Here's an excerpt from the column:

Why are there sportsmen for Obama? Or for that matter, nearly a dozen paid Obama staffers in Montana, a state that Democrats have won only twice in the last 50 years? Surely, its three electoral votes are not the draw.

Recent polls show Obama ahead or nearly tied in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, the northern tier of the Democratic presidential desert. Talking to people under the Big Sky, you get the sense that three things are in play in the landscape of altered political expectations.

Read the entire column to find out what's on Egan's list of three factors that are making a difference for Obama in places like Montana.