How has rural America changed over the past several decades?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Is there even such a thing as "rural America"?

For example, the rural South is quite different from rural New England/Northeast, and both overlap with their respective edges of rural Appalachia. Meanwhile, the rural Midwest is different from the Great Plains. And just look at the West; California has several different types of rural areas-each with its own distinctive culture, geography, and history.

I am curious, though, about how particular rural areas have changed in America. I know we have a number of rural posters here (though a definite minority ), so I am especially interested in their thoughts in this thread.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The most important would be the continued decline in the number of people working on the land. Then there's the deindustrialisation of most of the various rural-industrial districts (mines or textiles, makes no difference). Then there's the further encroach of urban life in rural areas closer - or, to be more accurate in many cases, more accessible to - the larger metropolitan regions (this is more immediately obvious in the U.S.A. than other industrialised countries because of criminally lax planning regulations). Then there's the tendency for services to centralise around larger and larger towns (and so to decline precipitously in smaller ones). And, of course, the tendency for an increasing share of agricultural labour to be performed by migrants of one type or another. That kind of thing. At that essentially abstract level it's the same in every industrialised country.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The most important would be the continued decline in the number of people working on the land. Then there's the deindustrialisation of most of the various rural-industrial districts (mines or textiles, makes no difference). Then there's the further encroach of urban life in rural areas closer - or, to be more accurate in many cases, more accessible to - the larger metropolitan regions (this is more immediately obvious in the U.S.A. than other industrialised countries because of criminally lax planning regulations). Then there's the tendency for services to centralise around larger and larger towns (and so to decline precipitously in smaller ones). And, of course, the tendency for an increasing share of agricultural labour to be performed by migrants of one type or another. That kind of thing. At that essentially abstract level it's the same in every industrialised country.

Good analysis, thanks.

A friend of mine from Michigan told me recently that so many formerly prosperous towns and districts throughout the state have been absolutely hollowed out by de-industrialization and population decline. At the same time, there has been an explosion in the growth of sprawling subdivisions all over-and not just in the metropolitan areas, but in areas further and further out in the countryside (or what was once the countryside, anyway).

What do you make of the phenomenon of rural districts turning into extensions of suburban/exurban sprawl? (And I'm not just referring to areas lying directly outside the cities, but even further out)....

One more side note: A lot of the community functions and services of smaller towns have disappeared entirely. For example, many Catholic churches in the rural Midwest have closed down. That's just one example; there are plenty more.

[Badger]

Has anything NOT changed over the past several decades?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Has anything NOT changed over the past several decades?

More things stay the same than change, actually. And the most important change often happens at a pace that's difficult to clearly observe.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A friend of mine from Michigan told me recently that so many formerly prosperous towns and districts throughout the state have been absolutely hollowed out by de-industrialization and population decline. At the same time, there has been an explosion in the growth of sprawling subdivisions all over-and not just in the metropolitan areas, but in areas further and further out in the countryside (or what was once the countryside, anyway).

Yes, this is an international trend.

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I dislike it intensely (shocking, I know). Of course it isn't just bad for the countryside (however defined), it's also bad for the city.

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Yes; you see this everywhere as well. Any service - including churches, voluntary organisations and so on - has a minimum number of participants (or consumers, or customers, or members, or whatever: depends on the type of organisation) that it can't survive falling below. In the area I grew up in there are now too many pubs for the number of potential/actual customers, so they are never all operating at the same time (exactly which are closed tends to change, of course).