Rural Communities

Summary

Most Americans live in urban places, and, as a result, rural America is often misunderstood, misrepresented, and even maligned. Associated with idyllic notions of the past or modern social ills, rural places are often viewed in exaggerated ways that overemphasize either their strengths or their struggles. However, the reality of rural America is more complicated. Due in part to policies that favor urbanity and globalization, rural areas have increasingly experienced problems unique to place. Since the turn of the 21st century, economic decline, poverty, population loss, and political extremism have become more prolific in the least populous parts of the country. These challenges are compounded by rural-specific legacies of rigid gender understandings, colonization, and structural racism, as well as a unique vulnerability to new challenges, including climate change. Many rural communities also face numerous structural deficiencies, such as underdeveloped and underfunded infrastructure for health, transportation, and social services. Despite all these concerns and struggles, rural communities persist, albeit with fewer resources and services than most urban and suburban places. Numerous rural areas have adapted their economies to new industries and forms of development, pivoting to make up for the loss of opportunity and population. Many have also grown more racially and ethnically diverse, countering the stereotype that all rural places are White spaces, which was never true and erased large, historically rural minority populations. In a society that frequently elevates the urban, even while appropriating rural values and ways of life, rural America and rurality itself have proven to be dynamic, complex, and worth understanding.