What happens when the mines reopen?

The landscape of the rural American West is littered with boom-and-bust mining towns. When the mines close, it is not unusual for the population to leave with the jobs. If the town and its inhabitants are lucky, a new economy might fill the mines' place. But what happens if the mines reopen?

About 40 minutes outside of my hometown of Reno, the small town of Virginia City, Nevada is in the midst of just such a battle between the past and the present. Over 150 years after the discovery of the Comstock Lode gave birth to Virginia City, Comstock Mining hopes to resume major mining operations, including an open pit mine, within several miles of town. These plans face major opposition from residents who, according to the Wall Street Journal, "favor history over the real thing" and are concerned about how mining will affect tourism.

Like many boomtowns, Virginia City was once one of the largest cities in the West. In the late 1800s, tens of thousands of miners pulled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold and silver out of the ground. Today, as a designated National Historic District, the main industry is tourism. Visitors can walk along wooden sidewalks, learn about Mark Twain's stint as a journalist for the Territorial Enterprise, stay in a haunted hotel, and otherwise "Step Back in Time," as the town's advertising slogan invites them to do.

So, is the battle over the new mines rooted simply in one economy versus another, in historic preservation versus progress? Or is there a rural versus urban element at play? At first glance, the new mining plans could be viewed as a case of a big urban corporation taking advantage of a small town long enough to suck it dry of its valuable natural resources. Although Comstock Mining Inc. is a publicly held Nevada-based corporation, its largest investor is, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, "an entrepreneur from Los Angeles."

In terms of population, the Virginia City of today is very rural: it boasts just 855 residents and is the county seat of Storey County, which has just over 4,000 residents. The town has one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school that, all together, serve a few hundred students.

In other ways, Virginia City can seem like a tourist outpost of the nearby cities of Reno and Carson City. The National Historic District attracts millions of visitors each year and is a short drive (in good weather) to urban amenities and services like supermarkets, malls, medical centers, and a major university. Storey County is located within the Reno-Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area.

As described in the Wall Street Journal and local papers, opposition to the mine seems to center around protecting historical treasures as well as a way of life. Not only is the proposed mining area very small in terms of population, but Virginia City is also located up a steep grade, with views of the surrounding valleys. Modern mining could change that atmosphere. As one nearby resident put it, "[i]nstead of hearing the birds, you hear this industrial pounding."

In a recent article in the Nevada Appeal, one resident, Tom Cleaves, also hit upon the issues of local autonomy and the controversial role of the extraction industry:

At the last meeting there were people from back east testifying about what a nice guy the mining company's CEO is...An out-of-town investor scolded resident for being non-supportive, and a technical expert/investor from Arizona expounded at length on the virtues of mining, while local people had to stand and wait outside for hours to talk about the issues.

After the county planning commission recently recommended to grant Comstock Mining a permit for exploration drilling, a group of citizens appealed the decision. According to one resident, David Toll,

More than 400 residents, well over half the voters in Gold Hill and Virginia City, have petitioned the county to refuse the permit, yet our concerns have scarcely been acknowledged...[F]or this history-making decision the people are being marginalized.

Despite Virginia City's strong tourism economy, some argue that the mines could bring much-needed jobs. Nevada's statewide unemployment rate is 13.8%, and Storey County's is at a slightly higher 13.9%. And rather than intending to destroying the tourism economy, Comstock Mining claims wants to be "good neighbors." According to the San Jose Mercury News,

Comstock Mining officials have said they think modern mining can coexist with history and complement the tourism trade.

Although Comstock Mining owns the mining claims, it appears that the decision whether or not to allow them to proceed with mining the earth will ultimately be a local one. Only time and the local planning commission's appeals process will tell whether modern mining will be allowed to bring jobs and responsible growth to this rural, and historic, area.

The troubling impacts of prison privatization in rural America

As I anticipate our class viewing of Prison Town, USA, I am curious about whether the documentary addresses the issue of prison privatization--a topic I explored in my undergraduate thesis. Prison Town, USA explains that the United States experienced an unprecedented prison boom in the last several decades. This was especially true in rural areas where, during the 1990s, a prison opened every 15 days. It was also during this decade, that private prisons were growing at a rate four times faster than government-run prisons. After the attacks of September 11th, as concerns with homeland defense arose, prison privatization intensified, especially in association with immigration detention.

Prison privatization is a "buy now, pay later" phenomenon. A private prison is one managed by a non-government entity on behalf of the state. Companies, some publicly traded, have the opportunity to bid for the license to construct and sometimes operate the prison. Most often, the state reimburses the company over a period of several decades while also paying the company a per diem price for each prisoner housed.

In 1995, California had the greatest number of private prisons with 49 facilities, and Texas was second with 42 such prisons. The states with the largest proportions of their prisons privatized were Montana (62.5%), Wyoming (55.5%), California (53%), and Colorodo (52%). In Alaska, Arizona, and Louisiana, over 40% of the prisons are privatized. New Mexico, was housing over 40% of its prisoners in private facilities by 2000.

In my study on prison privatization, I tried to determine why privatized prisons are growing popular in some states and not others. I tested a number of factors (race, political ideology, tax effort, incarceration rates, etc.) and ran various statistical tests. The results I found were not those I expected.

Among all of the multiple regressions I ran, urbanization was by far the strongest indicator of whether a state had privatized prisons. I used the U.S. Office of Management and Budget definition of urbanization, which assesses Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA). An MSA is defined as an area with a core urban population of 50,000 or more people.

Prison privatization was most likely in states with the least proportion of their population living in urban areas. My study suggests that prison privatization is pursued by state governments, however bad an idea it may be, as a means of stimulating local economies and creating jobs. Private prisons in rural areas house inmates from other parts of the state and often from out of state. This makes it a lot harder for inmates to stay in touch with their families. This isolation contributes to the probability of recidivism--evidence indicates that staying connected to family reduces the chances a prisoner will offend again.

In addition to the negative impacts on prisoners due to isolation, rural residents who have job opportunities at these sites also may be adversely impacted. Studies show that private prison employees, as opposed to public employees, are not unionized and receive worthless benefits packages. Thus, the economic benefits that do accrue to rural communities are short-term only.

Other negative impacts stemming from prison privatization include the effect on criminal policy. As prison privatization is viewed and pursued by rural areas as a way of replacing lost manufacturing jobs, prison construction may increase regardless of an actual necessity to house criminals. This, in turn, may give rise to punitive legislation and a surge in incarceration. Crime, ironically, becomes profitable for the state, and specifically for rural areas. States with extensive rural areas--without criminal populations large enough to support the growing industry of private prisons--may implement policies that lead to increases in incarceration rates. These include three strikes laws or mandatory minimum sentencing policies. Penal policy that is driven by economic gain, rather than the pursuit of justice, has troubling implications for the justice system.

Rural realities echoed in story of small-town Sicily

The New York Times reported on Thursday from Comitini, Italy, in southern Sicily, under the headline, "Austere Italy? Check the Traffic." The gist of the story is that part of Italy's budget woes are due to arguably excessive public spending, and a recently passed "austerity" budget won't necessarily end that because of an entrenched political patronage system. Comitini, with a population just under 1000 but with a full-time traffic officer and eight part-time "auxiliaries," is held out as an example of the problem. Here's an excerpt:

“Jobs like these have kept this city alive,” said Caterina Valenti, 41, an auxiliary in a neat blue uniform as she sat recently with two colleagues, all on duty, drinking coffee in the town’s bar on a hot afternoon. “You see, here we are at the bar, we support the economy this way.”

But what may be saving Comitini’s economy is precisely what is strangling Italy’s and other ailing economies throughout Europe.

The story notes that many of those on the public sector payroll have been rewarded with jobs in exchange for supporting local politicians, which is seen as a particular problem in the southern part of the country. But Comitini's mayor remains unapologetic, stating:

I know that 60 people in a town of 1,000 is a good number, it’s a lot. ... But if I didn’t let them work, these people would have to go work in America. That’s 60 people with 60 families looking for work elsewhere. ...Besides, the city doesn’t pay them. The state and the region do.

Of course, public-sector jobs are also critical in many rural economies in the United States, as illustrated by this USDA-ERS map, which shows in blue the nonmetro counties in which an annual average of at least 15% of total county earnings are "derived from federal and state government." USDA-ERS characterizes these as "Federal/State Government Dependent Counties 1998-2000." I'd be interested in seeing how recent public spending cuts in the U.S. have altered this map. You can read related commentary here and here.

But this Italian also echoed another rural theme: lack of anonymity. It ends with this quote from the same traffic officer, explaining why she and her colleagues, still in the bar drinking coffee, don't ticket the cars outside, parked beneath a “no parking” sign.

“We try to avoid giving fines,” she said. “It’s a small town, we all know one another.”

Multi-ethnic marriages in the South: a racy matter?

While catching up with an old friend recently over coffee, the conversation eventually turned to the topic of her sudden break up with her boyfriend. She would have been dating him for five years now, had the relationship continued. The end of the relationship, she admitted, was rather expected, seeing as they "could never have gotten married anyway, with the whole interracial thing and all."

She is of English and Dutch descent, and grew up on a farm in Tennessee before moving to California for college. His family is originally from Bolivia, and he was born and raised in Massachusetts. They met in college, began dating, and the rest was history.

That is, until after a visit home one Thanksgiving, when her parents revealed misgivings about the relationship on account of his ethnicity. It wasn't so much that they didn't approve of his ethnicity, she explained, as they were concerned about the hostile treatment directed towards them should the two of them get married. As the story goes, the relationship ultimately ended over these racism issues.

In this day and age, where we pride ourselves on the advanced progress of our society and it's forward thinking, this might be surprising. In fact, it wasn't until 1967, after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia , that anti-miscegenation laws were finally held unconstitutional. It is an unsettling notion, but a quiet reminder that erasing the laws from the books does not mean that with it, all racism would also disappear.

In a New York Times article written as part of a series exploring mixed-raced Americans, the message was more optimistic. It reported an increasing number of interracial couples in the deep South and a shift away from the notion that such relationships were taboo. Specifically, a 2010 census, reports a trend of increasing mixed-race populations in the South and in parts of the Midwest, exceeding demographer estimations.

One sociologist and demographer, William H. Frey, considers any mixed-race population increases were impressive when it comprises over 50 percent of the total population:

The fact that even states like Mississippi were able to see a large explosion of residents identifying as both black and white tells us something that people would not have predicted 10 or 20 years ago.

Additionally, the increases are not simply due to increased travel or immigration. Mississippi, for example, has not witnessed much of an increase in overall population over the decade, growing by only 3.8 percent since 2000. According to the American Community Survey, however, in the last decade Mississippi has had the highest growth of mixed marriages. What this suggests, demographers predict, is that the increase in interracial marriages are real, and not simply due to newcomers into the state.

But are the numbers in fact accurate? Some demographers and sociologists attribute the increasing number of interracial marriages in the South to "shifting images" and changing attitudes towards diversity. Professor Matthew Snip brings up an additional explanation of the dramatic increase in numbers -- reporting accuracy:

People have had an entire decade to think about this since it was first a choice in 2000. Some of these figures are not so much changes as corrections. In a sense, they’re rendering a more accurate portrait of their racial heritage that in the past would have been suppressed.

Yet another reason attributed to the change is the location of areas increasing in interracial couples. In Mississippi, for example, the increases are highest in port towns, usually along coast lines, which is considered more liberal than the rural areas. Additionally, the "most common mix is black and white -- historically and today the two groups least likely to intermarry" due to social and economic distance between them.

In states like California, there was not as high of an increase in interracial population reported, but this is because a significant amount of the total population is already comprised of mixed race people. Similarly, Hawaii has the highest mixed-race population at 23 percent, predominantly a mix of Asian and white and native Hawaiian. To many interracial couples, whether a diverse population exists is determinative of where they choose to settle down and raise their families. In Mississippi, many of these couples complain of "enduring racial inequities."

Part of the difficulty in assessing the numbers is the lack of statistics. It wasn't until 2000 that the first comprehensive accounting of interracial demographic data were reported and made public. In the meantime, however, what has been reported indicates a surprising leap in interracial couples in the South. If indeed this reflects a shifting perception away from historical racism, it takes us one step closer to the world Richard and Mildred Loving sought -- a world where one can love freely.

Nimbyism on the water front

Last month, news agencies flooded the Internet with stories about Hurricane Irene's devastating impacts. California has been relatively dry this summer, but the San Francisco Chronicle managed to find several inundated towns to write about: Trinity Center, Minersville and Springtown.

The reason these communities haven't gained as much publicity as rural Vermont is because they were flooded in 1961 when the federal Bureau of Reclamation built Trinity Dam, creating Trinity Lake. But Trinity Center native Mary Hamilton talks like the flooding took place yesterday. And the the flooding has lead members of the community to take on a Not In My Backyard mentality.

It was terrible. Just awful. So much pioneer work went into building that town, it was like losing a part of yourself.

Trinity County is one of the least populated counties in California, with 13,786 residents spread over about 2 million acres. It's located between Interstate 5 and U.S. Highway 101, at the south end of the Cascade Range.

The area's heyday came during the mining boom, but when those jobs dried up, the federal government decided to dam the Trinity River to provide water for the Central Valley. The economy has become dependent on tourism, which struggles when the lake level is lowered to meet the valley's water needs.

As Elisa pointed out in "Glimpses of water justice in California" rural communities have a great need for water, particularly drinking water, in our state. The Chronicle's story demonstrates why meeting that need is becoming more challenging: communities don't want to join Trinity Center at the bottom of a lake.

The bureau of reclamation's history of the Trinity dam construction describes just one public hearing taking place in Weaverville in 1952. Congress and President Eisenhower gave their approval to the project in 1955. The history makes no mention of what the citizens of Weaverville thought of the project.

Keith Groves, who was the last baby born in Springtown, another city flooded by the Trinity dam, says one thing local people want is more control.

There's a lot of frustration because these policies are still out of our hands. But this all happened in 1955. People back then didn't really argue with the federal government.

Today, the area's residents would probably turn to the Sierra Club (and their lawyers) for help, said Howard May of Weaverville.

The irony in this situation is that rural California comprises communities that need water and have water. But unlike in the 1950s, the communities with water see legal options to keep out water projects out of their backyard, making it harder for waterless counties to see relief. Maybe having a little more summer rain wouldn't be such a bad thing. Just not a hurricane.

Fish farming

It seems that fresh, local, and organic food just tastes better. Stop by any local farmers market and you'll see busy booths where people are buying fresh local vegetables and fruits. The booths usually share similar produce depending on the season, fresh strawberries or blackberries, jalapenos, squash, or honey. But if you're looking for a non vegetarian entree you're better off heading to the nearest grocery store. Or are you?

If you happen to be shopping at the Sacramento Farmers Market, you may be able to choose among fresh black bass, silver carp, catfish, or sturgeon. These fish are so fresh they're still swimming in their portable tank when you arrive. You pick your fish and are sent home with the freshest seafood available Sacramento. The booth is run by Michael Passmore, owner of Passmore Ranch, an ex-Marine turned fish farmer. Passmore also visits the Florin Road Farmers Market in Stockton and has been a big hit at both locations.

Passmore Ranch had humble beginning in 2005 with a single pond filled with fingerlings (young fish). It has grown substantially over the years by adding ponds and increasing the types of fish. Passmore Ranch is harvesting more than 100,000 pounds of fish each year, with hopes of tripling that number in the next few years.

Fish farming isn't anything new. Rice farmers in Asia have been raising carp in their rice beds for hundreds of years with great success. It allowed those farmers with less land and livestock to diversify their "crop". Fish farming has increased as the world's population grows and as the number of wild fish decreases due to over fishing. The demand for fish has also increased as some consumers seek out healthy food choices, especially those containing omega-3 fatty acids. The consumer demand has made fish farming a requirement to meet the demands of the ever growing market for fish. It has been estimated that half of the fish consumed annually now comes from fish farms.

Despite the large amount of food produced by these fish farms they face some criticism. Fish farms that raise primarily carnivorous fish require the use of lesser or "trash" fish caught in the wild as food to maximize growth and to enhance the flavor of the farmed fish. These lesser fish called fish-meal, usually sardines and anchovies, are used as food for the growing carnivorous fish, usually farmed salmon. It can take up to 5 pounds of fish-meal to harvest just 1 pound of salmon. Many argue that the use of fish-meal does little to actually help the world fish population as fish farmers are using more pounds of wild fish than the return from farmed fish.

So, if you're in the mood for fresh fish but don't feel like making the drive to the beach, stop by the Sacramento Farmer's Market and check out the fish from Passmore Ranch. Just remember you buy the whole fish. Laws prohibit Passmore from fileting the fish for you, but they'll be more than willing to give you a quick lesson. And get there early if you want first choice. Local restaurants, as well as a few from San Francisco have discovered the fresh fish too.

Virtually left in the dust

I grew up in Llano, California. A small town on the northeastern edge of Los Angeles County. As of today, its population is just under 1200. Until my last year of high school, we did have access to cable or satellite television. Our internet was dial-up. 56K. Remember that? Talk about frustrating. Frankly, you're just happy to get your e-mail, but doing internet research? Forget about. In this new "paperless age," information is the currency, and rural areas don't have it.

A recent NY Times article, Downloads are Slow in Idaho, shows that I’m not alone in my internet frustrations. The article starts out by explaining how bears single-pawedly took down a town's internet. Obviously these aren't problems in urban communities, but bears (and other exclusively rural features) aside, the article hints at some important factors about information access.

While a rural Idaho town has the slowest internet speeds, Idaho also has the highest disparity between speeds. Meaning, you can have fast internet if you're willing to pay for it. So where does that leave the rural poor?

But the internet isn't the only place to get information. Right? Surely other resources exist. Well, they do, but not in rural communities. When the urban person has a question for an agency like the DMV or wants to apply for Food Stamps, they can call, go to the office, or go online. For the rural person a trip into town isn't so easy. That call might be long distance. And their internet? Forget about it.

Large urban centers have more options for information gathering--be they large libraries, community centers, or the agency itself. In the rural town, the information on job postings, grant applications, and access to government programs is fragmented and incomplete. You might think that the internet would fix that. And it can, but, as the article points out, only if you're willing to pay.

The disparity between rural and metro speeds in Idaho is symbolic of the disparity between access to information for the two groups. When we combine that fact with the poverty rates in these areas it is of no surprise that most of the 28% of homes without internet access are mostly rural--these people are virtually left in the dust.

Revitalizing our rural communities

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced the recipients for the $28 million Rural Innovation Fund (RIF), a new initiative to help rural communities tackle their unique housing and poverty challenges. The RIF addresses the need for a holistic approach to tackling concentrated housing distress and community poverty by helping communities use federal dollars to meet multiple needs.

Ed Jennings Jr., a regional administrator for HUD in Atlanta said:

Despite our agency's name, HUD's work has reached across almost every neighborhood in our country - including rural neighborhoods. As President Obama has made clear, America will win the future by out-innovating our global competitors - and unlocking that innovation depends on revitalizing our rural communities.

The Notice of Funding Availability on HUD's website, which sets out the criteria for receiving funds, states that projects with a substantial positive impact on the housing needs and community poverty would be awarded funding. Additionally, HUD looked for projects that would demonstrate a measurable improvement in the quality of life within the project area.

Project applicants are required to use an online rural mapping tool, called the Atlas of Rural and Small-Town America. The Atlas allows applicants, and other interested communities, to more accurately measure housing distress and poverty by pulling data from several federal sources (including employment data from BLS and agricultural statistics from the USDA) and overlaying it with the first release of county-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. This joins socioeconomic indicators with Economic Research Service county data, giving communities a better view of the opportunities and challenges in their county.

The RIF received over 300 applications from 48 states, with over half of the applicants being tribes or tribal affiliates. One grant, awarded to the Chippewa Cree Tribe in Box Elder, Montana (population 713), will fund construction of a water storage and delivery system that will provide potable water for a justice center, health clinic, and about 200 homes. In Lake County, California (population 64,756), Habitat for Humanity will hire local workers to repair and renovate 30 homes for low-income homeowners as part of its Jobs-for-Home Project.

Now that RIF has selected which rural communities will receive funds, the question is: what is the criteria for monitoring use of funds to ensure the projects achieve the intended outcomes? How will HUD follow-up with award recipients? According to the Notice of Funding Availability, the selection committee awarded projects additional points for a rating factor called "Achieving Results and Program Evaluation." Projects that defined program outcomes and performance indicators received more points and were subsequently more likely to receive funding (awards were based purely on which projects received the most points overall).

Although RIF encouraged projects to develop metrics for measuring project success through point allocations, I am not convinced these metrics are enough. Defining success metrics was not required to receive funding; it is possible that projects were approved that have no measures in place to ensure the funds are actually helping revitalize rural communities.

After projects receive the funding, however, RIF does require they follow a success measurement model. The model includes both quantifiable measures (e.g. number of new businesses created) and benefits (e.g. percentage change in earnings as result of new employment opportunities). This appears to be the only method of ensuring the projects have a beneficial impact on the communities where these projects are located. Even with this required model, it is not clear from the application or other available materials who will be auditing the projects to ensure the model is being used and at what frequency.

Umrana Mumtaz Healthcare Trust Hospital brings hope for women in rural Pakistan

Outside a hospital in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province in the northwestern region of Pakistan, women are lining up, despite the sweltering heat, to receive healthcare they otherwise could not afford. The saving grace? A dying wife's wish to bring medical facilities to the impoverished Pakistani made a reality by her husband.

Mumtaz Ali, honoring his wife's dying wish, built the Umrana Mumtaz Healthcare Trust Hospital near the city of Mardan. The two-story hospital, designed by Ali's son, has treated more than 120,000 patients, of which mostly were women and children. Reporting for NPR, Julie McCarthy hails the Umrana Mumtaz Healthcare Trust Hospital as a "beacon of hope," particularly in an area where medical facilities are scarce. Women from villages several miles away arrived at the doorsteps of the hospital seeking the free basic health care offered there.

For many women in Pakistan, a trip to a medical facility involves far more challenge than scrounging up bus fare. Finding a decent medical facility presents an obstacle on its own, and paying for the expensive medical treatment presents another. On average, the distance to hospitals from most of the villages is more than thirty kilometers. The distance for women in rural areas is even greater. Upon arriving at a medical facility, these women cannot receive proper treatment because of the conservative culture. Seeing a male doctor, for instance, is considered shameful, let alone undressing for one.

The culture in the northwestern region is quite conservative. Female patients, in accordance with the strict social code, refuse to expose themselves to male doctors. At Umrana Mumtaz, where the only female doctor has stepped down, the female patients have no choice but to see the male doctor. As a result, examinations are made over the fully-clothed patients. For pregnant patients, this also means refusing to receive a gynecological exam, which could reveal the health of her unborn baby.

Rural areas such as Mardan need more trained female healthcare professions. This could possibly account for the unusually high mortality rates that are related to childbirth. On average, one in every thirty-eight women dies from pregnancy-related causes. Only 20 percent of deliveries are made by trained professionals. Another possible reason for the high mortality rate could be malnourishment. Due to the patriarchal structure in the rural areas, men's needs come before women's needs. Males, for instance, eat first and females eat what little is left. One doctor at Umrana Mumtaz Hospital, Dr. Qasim Nasruddin, sees thousands of cases where mothers are malnourished:

This is quite common. About 50 to 60 percent of young mothers that we see with children or young babies are undernourished ... or they have iron deficiency or they have malnutrition.

The Umrana Mumtaz Hospital is not alone in its endeavor to bring medical resources to impoverished rural areas. A New York Times article published in January evaluated a government program that trained "lady health workers" to treat the poor in rural areas, including Pakistan. The program aimed to educate pregnant women. In addition to offering medical advice and treatment, these trained lady health workers also instruct professional midwives on resuscitation procedures and hand out "birth kits." Researchers followed 50,000 households over two years and found 21 percent fewer stillborns and 15 percent fewer newborns.

While the numbers are encouraging, they confirm the need for more education in impoverished areas. Hospitals such as Umrana Mumtaz Healthcare Trust Hospital are indeed a "beacon of hope," but they are limited in what they can do. Educating the impoverished would provide many with the ability to care for basic health needs or even with childbirth mortality rates, as the study above indicates.

Moreover, medical facilities need more female doctors or female trained professionals. If women are unwilling to fully expose themselves for medical treatment due to strict social codes, it hinders the efforts of hospitals such as Umrana Mumtaz.

In the meantime, however, the Umrana Mumtaz Healthcare Trust Hospital, armed with two staff doctors and the determination to help the impoverished, proves that a little bit of hope goes a long way.

Farmers markets vs old fashioned farm stands

This story about people growing vegetables in the Appalachian foothills appeared in the New York Times a few days ago. The main point of the feel-good story, "Vegetable Gardens are Booming in a Fallow Economy," is that more folks in this region are self-provisioning by growing vegetable gardens and selling the excess, often informally. The story's dateline is West Liberty, Kentucky, population 3,363, in the Appalachian part of the state where the economy has long been depressed. Sabrina Tavernise writes:

Garden plots are dug into the green hills, laid out in fuller force than people have seen in years. People call them sturdy patches of protection in uncertain times.

Tavernise makes the point that while many farmers' markets have sprung up in Kentucky in recent years, people buying food there tend to be looking for bargains, buying in bulk to can and preserve. This is in contrast to farmers markets in urban areas, where the "words 'locally grown' conjure images of affluent shoppers" buying pricey, beautiful food. Speaking of beautiful, don't miss the slide show accompanying the story.

The casual way some of these farmers sell their overflow produce reminded me just how far some contemporary, urban farmers markets are from what I consider to be their forerunner: an old fashioned farm stand (sometimes the back of a pick up truck) where a farmer sells her/his own stuff. Indeed, sometimes the stand is right next to or on the field where the food is grown, which takes the locavore idea to a new height. I'm posting a few photos of how producers sell the fruits of their labor right from their homes, as it were. The top photo is from just north of Polson, Montana, along Flathead Lake, where a family was selling cherries from its orchard, summer 2011. The bottom photo is from near Collinsville, Oklahoma, summer 2011.

Farmers markets--at least those I frequent in greater Sacramento--are, in contrast, highly commercial. As Tavernise points out in her story, part of the draw is the array of goods they offer--not just fruit and veg, but flowers, dried herbs, wine, jams and jellies. Some even have musical performers each week. (And don't forget the fresh--make that live--fish). And the fare isn't necessarily local. Some produce, avocados, for example, may be trucked in from as far away as Southern California, which undermines any claim to being particularly environmentally friendly. I love urban farmers markets, but we should admit that, among other things, they are a form of agritourism.

Rural South Dakota needs lawyers

Attention young lawyers: rural South Dakota is begging for your services! According to the Argus Leader, 65% of lawyers work in one of four cities across the state. This number is only projected to get worse as rural practices are often composed of older lawyers who will retire soon.

Young lawyers’ unwillingness to work in rural areas is a big problem in a voluminous, open state like South Dakota because it leaves many people long distances from available legal services. To combat the problem, the South Dakota State Bar Association has begun “Project Rural Practice” to target the areas with the biggest need and to recruit and incentivize lawyers to practice in these areas.

While the project is in its beginning stages, this type of action on the part of the State Bar is extremely important. Maybe it’s different in South Dakota, but most aspiring lawyers that I know who have grown up in urban or suburban areas have given no thought to working in a rural area, and awareness of available jobs and of the need for lawyers is critical.

With the economy still in bad shape and students struggling to find jobs after school, there are a lot of good reasons to “look rural.” The ability to control one’s own business at an early age is attractive. There is also a certain sense of satisfaction to be had by realizing that one’s day-to-day job is so meaningful to people who simply wouldn’t have adequate legal services without practicing lawyers in their area.

I would expect interest among young lawyers to grow dramatically if economic incentives are provided and awareness of opportunity is raised. If the South Dakota State Bar is successful in its mission, perhaps other state bars will follow its lead.