So, North Dakota matters after all?

Read Monica Davey's story in the NYT about federal assistancein the run up to (and presumably wake of) the Red River flooding over this past week. Here is a fun excerpt about how the city drew up an evacuation plan with no intention of ever using it:

The idea of abandoning those efforts [to build up dikes and earthen walls]— just as the big test was approaching — was not negotiable for many residents, who were needed to monitor and reinforce the dikes even as the river crested.

“The process for the entire United States is not the same as it is for Fargo, N.D.,” the mayor said. “You have to know Fargo.”

(Some city leaders say they have a slogan to remember this flood by, something they envision printing on T-shirts soon: Spirit of Fargo: Evacuation is not an option.)

Finally, a mention of rural areas affected by the Red River flood

This story just posted to the New York Times website discusses not only Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota, as well as Winnipeg, Manitoba, but also actually mentions rural areas affected by Red River flooding. In particular, the story is about new issues and threats raised by a snow storm now moving into the area.

Here's the lede to Kirk Johnson and Monica Davey's story:

A major snow storm that is expected to hit the Dakotas Monday night and into Tuesday is not expected to exacerbate flood worries or significantly raise water levels in the still-swollen Red River, emergency officials here said Monday. But the storm could create havoc on many other levels as Fargo and the rural areas around it struggle to find a pathway back to normal life.

And here is another brief excerpt mentioning rural places:

Paul D. Laney, the sheriff of Cass County, which includes the city of Fargo, urged residents, especially those in some rural areas where travel has already been difficult because of flooding, to think hard about whether they wanted to ride out the snow storm or evacuate Monday morning before the snow starts.

This comment highlights the challenges of physical spatial isolation for rural communities and their residents, particularly in the context of natural disasters. (Other examples of these challenges are discussed here and here).

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part XX): Sheriff's office upgrades equipment, jail still in use

The February 26, 2009 and March12, 2009, issues of the Newton County Times awaited my return from spring break, and they bring both good and bad news out for law enforcement officials there. The good news is in the February paper, which features the headline, "N.C.S.O. first to use digital radios." N.C.S.O. stands for the Newton County Sheriff's Office, and the story reports that the office is the first in the state to "cease transmitting radio signals and convert to the latest digital radio technology." The Sheriff is quoted: "Finally, Newton County is first in a positive way." The story further credits Sheriff Keith Slape with securing federal grant funds to finance purchase of the $26,000 Motorola system. The system also has a GPS feature that tracks the location of officers.

The bad news, if you will, is reported in the March 12 paper. There the headline is "Jail housed 25 inmates in February." The story notes that the jail is functioning under the watch of state Jail Standards officials. Read more about the county's jail travails here, collecting links. Other metrics for February are listed in the story:

Total inmate days: 83
Total cost: $343.50
Felony case files: 25
Total miles driven: 14,539
Total gallons of fuel used: 1,022.7
Money turned over to circuit court: $1,512.69
Money turned over to district court: $20,033.19
Citations issued: 99
Warrants served: 22
Number of outstanding warrants: 103
Amount outstanding warrants: $110,865.46

In other non-crime related stories:

• "Gardening strategies for economic problems" reports on a program of the Newton County Extension Office that encourages residents to plant vegetable gardens to lower their food costs.
• "Storm recovery recapped" is about the local electric cooperative's handling of the late January ice storm.
• "Schools adding lifetime sports to list of extracurricular activities" is about local schools' adoption of Arkansas Game and Fish Commission shooting sports programs.
• "County addressing, mapping proposed" tells of a visit from the Arkansas Geographic Information Office advocating a uniform physical addressing system for the county. Such a system would facilitate delivery of "modern services" such as parcel and mail delivery, as well as "enhanced emergency 9-1-1 telecommunications."

Rural community in the face of tragedy

News is just breaking of the deaths of 8 persons in a shooting this morning at a North Carolina nursing home. The facility is in Carthage, population 1,871. I was struck by how rurality and stereotypes of rural community are reflected in the following quotes from Carthage residents, as reported in the New York Times.

“This doesn’t happen in Carthage, this is brand new to us,” said Carol Sparks, the town manager. “Everybody right now is in a state of shock. I am too.”

* * *

“This is a tiny little town ... . Its 2,000 people. Everybody knows everybody. So we’re just running around, trying to figure out what we can do to help.”

* * *

“This is a small community built on faith and faith will get us through,” said Chris McKenzie, chief of Carthage police.

A report in the 30 March 2009 issue of the New York Times indicates that a sole police officer responded to an emergency call from the nursing home after the gunman entered and began firing. The officer, who was wounded, was the only officer on duty in Carthage that morning.

My Rural Travelogue (Part X): Central Kentucky

A few days ago, I drove Hwy 52 from Richmond, Kentucky to near Harrodsburg, passing through Paint Lick, which is not even a Census Designated Place. As I drove through this part of Central Kentucky, I was struck by the distribution of homes and farms across the landscape. There seemed to be fewer of the tiny centers of commerce, with post offices, that we had seen a day or two earlier as we traversed West Virginia. So, it was odd to come across the narrow bridge over a river that separates Madison (population 70,872) and Garrard (population 14,792) counties and find myself in the middle of Paint Lick with all of a half dozen commercial buildings. On one side of the street was the community center, so identified by some hand-made signs pointing upstairs in what appeared otherwise to be a vacant building; a tiny medical clinic; a U.S. Post Office sharing a building with a barber shop; and an auto mechanic. On the other side of the street, in a somewhat better kept building, was a bank. I didn't note the bank's name, but it was a hive of activity at about 9:15 am when we passed through. How odd, I thought, for such a tiny place to have such an active bank--indeed, to have a bank at all. I assumed it was a branch of a larger bank based, perhaps, in the county seat.

When I saw this story in yesterday's New York Times, it reminded me of the bank I'd seen in Paint Lick, and the role that bank must play in its community. Shaila Dewan writes in her story, under the headline, "A Small Town Loses a Pillar: Its Only Bank," of the federal take-over of a bank in Gibson, Georgia, population 694, 120 miles east of Atlanta. Among Dewan's observations: "Elderly people, used to cruising over in their golf carts to make a deposit, fretted about driving 14 miles to the nearest bank." Her story is worth a read also because of its description of how the bank operated for years as a strictly local, family-owned institution, making loans to folks based on their reputation, often without collateral. But that was all before an Atlanta mortgage lender bought the bank in 2000, a transaction that ultimately led to its demise, a casualty of the mortgage crisis.

In any event, reading this story made me wonder what the folks in Paint Lick would think (and do) if they lost their bank, a physical anchor--and surely also a symbolic one--in their tiny community.

Timber-based economies adjust in the face of green concerns

The story by William Yardley in today's New York Times is headlined, "Loggers Try to Adapt to Greener Economy," and the dateline is Lowell, Oregon, population 857. The lede notes the rural implications:

Booming timber towns with three-shift lumber mills are a distant memory in the densely forested Northwest. Now, with the housing market and the economy in crisis, some rural areas have never been more raw.

Mills have closed, and unemployment approaches 20% in some counties. But, as Yardley notes, there is optimism--optimism based on a shift to green opportunities.

Some people who have long fought to clear-cut the region’s verdant slopes are trying to reposition themselves for a more environmentally friendly economy, motivated by changing political interests, the federal stimulus package and sheer desperation.

Read more here, and view the accompanying slide show here.

More on the Obamas' urbanicity in the NYT

Here's an excerpt from Rachel Swarns' story, which appeared in the Thursday Style section of the New York Times.

The Obamas, after all, are city people, former community organizers who have long felt at home in the urban landscape. Mr. Obama is the first president since Richard M. Nixon to be elected while living in a city neighborhood, in his case, Chicago’s racially and economically diverse Hyde Park. And the Obamas are now eager to explore the city beyond the White House walls.

Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to Obama offered this comment: “They want their lives not to be confined solely to the White House but rather to become a part of the urban, vibrant fabric of D.C.”

I have commented previously about the media's focus on the urban-ness of Obama. See one post here, which links to older ones.

Using the internet to link consumers to farmers

The phenomenon is called Find Your Food, and you can read about it in this story by Brad Stone and Matt Richtel in today's New York Times. Here's an excerpt:

The underlying idea, broadly called traceability, is in fashion in many food circles these days. Makers of bananas, chocolates and other foods are also using the Internet to create relationships between consumers and farmers, mimicking the once-close ties that were broken long ago by industrialized food manufacturing.

* * *

Beginning this month, customers who buy [Stone-Buhr's] all-purpose whole wheat flour in some Wal-Mart, Safeway and other grocery chains can go to findthefarmer .com, enter the lot code printed on the side of the bag, and visit with the company’s farmers and even ask them questions.

This seems to be another example of how our nation's new-found interest in food and in our agrarian past might also garner interest in rural people and places.

A food revolution? If so, what will it mean for rural America?

Don't miss Andrew Martin's story in the New York Times, one of the most popular stories on nytimes.com more than 48 hours after it first appeared. The headline: "Is a food revolution now in season?"

It cites some evidence that such a revolution is about to take off--most of it in Washington, DC, in the form of the Obama's vegetable garden and the new "people's garden" outside the USDA headquarters. Those are only symbolic, of course, and the latter hardly signals a shift in USDA policy. A more meaningful move was Obama's appointment of Kathleen Merrigan, a long-time advocate of sustainable agriculture, to be Tom Vilsack's deputy.

Interestingly, the entire story includes no mention of "rural" anything. It does, however, note Michael Pollan's advoacy of "diversified, regional food networks," a phenomenon that could bring real benefits to rural places--far more than agri-business has done.

Rural schools benefit from stimulus funding, but money doesn't flow where most needed

A story in today's NY Times today compares the Rich School District in Randolph, Utah, population 483, with Uinta County District 1, just north of the Wyoming state line, in Evanston, population 11,507. The former is struggling because of a difficult state budget situation, while the neighboring oil-rich Wyoming district has a new elementary school and an Apple laptop for every student.

Sam Dillon's NYT story is prompted by the federal stimulus spending earmarked for public education. He highlights the situations of several states with significant rural populations. Here's an excerpt reflecting the gist of the story--that outdated funding formulas are being used to distribute the funds.

In pouring rivers of cash into states and school districts, Washington is using a tangle of well-worn federal formulas, some of which benefit states that spend more per pupil, while others help states with large concentrations of poor students or simply channel money based on population. Combined, the formulas seem to take little account of who needs the money most.

Under the funding formulas being used, Utah is getting about $400 less per student than Wyoming. In fact, the principal of the Wyoming district sees the money as not only a windfall, but is quoted as referring to it as a "distraction." The main reason that the funds represent a windfall in some states, including North Dakota, seems to be that these states are currently flush (some with oil and gas money) so that the federal funds become a surplus.

Other states whose schools will will receive large per pupil allocations are South Dakota, Louisiana, New York and Washington, DC. Like states that are currently flush with their own monies, these states that will use the federal monies to close significant funding gaps are favored recipients under funding formulas that give preference to states with concentrations of poor students, as well as those that invest heavily in their schools.

Maps accompanying the article may be viewed here. They show which states are getting the most money and indicate the extent to which the federal monies are helping each state close a funding gap.

Latina/os in the rural South

The headline in today's New York Times is "A Slippery Place in the U.S. Work Force," and the dateline is Morristown, Tennessee, population 24,965. Here's an excerpt:

Like many places across the United States, this factory town in eastern Tennessee has been transformed in the last decade by the arrival of Hispanic immigrants, many of whom are in this country illegally. Thousands of workers like Mr. López settled in Morristown, taking the lowest-paying elbow-grease jobs, some hazardous, in chicken plants and furniture factories.

Now, with the economy spiraling downward and a crackdown continuing on illegal immigrants, many of them are learning how uncertain their foothold is in the work force in the United States.

Morristown was the subject of "Morristown: In the Air and Sun," a marvelous documentary by Anne Lewis, which was largely about successful efforts to unionize a poultry processing plant in the town. The micropolitan area and its Latina/o newcomers were also the subject of a fall, 2006, series of articles in the Houston Chronicle. Why all the attention to Latina/o newcomers in this locale? Just look at these stats:

The 1960 census did not record a single immigrant in Hamblen County, of which Morristown is the seat. By 2007, Hispanic immigrants and their families made up almost 10 percent of the county population of 61,829, having nearly doubled their numbers since 2000, census data show.