Growth and Locational Impacts for Housing in Small Communities

Abstract Many Americans believe that small rural communities are ideal places to live. They assume that small rural communities offer a safe environment, a supportive community, and affordable housing. In contrast, research indicates that rural households are more likely to live in unsuitable or inadequate housing and have lower incomes, making affordable housing difficult to obtain. Although there are data highlighting regional or urban-rural differences, very little research has been conducted on the housing situation among small rural communities. The research presented here explores housing availability and affordability in 589 Midwestern communities. Findings indicate that, based on the community's growth and location, there are significant quantitative housing affordability and availability differences among small communities. However, these differences were contradicted by focus group discussions that indicated key similarities of housing concerns across small communities. The findings have potential impacts for public policy implementation in small communities.     

Intimate Violence against Rural Women: The Current and Future State of Feminist Empirical and Theoretical Contributions

Rural crime in general ranks among the least studied social problems in the social sciences; however, a growing body of research shows that rural woman abuse is a major problem. The current state of progressive critical feminist social scientific knowledge enhances an empirical and theoretical understanding of intimate violence against rural women. Revealing the complexities of rural women's experiences and struggles with violent relationships reconstitutes violence against women as a public crisis that requires continued serious attention with regard research, theory, and policy. Three primary objectives of this article are as follows: (i) briefly review recent feminist social scientific literature on research, methodology, and theoretical contributions on violence against women in rural areas, (ii) suggest new directions in researching and theorizing rural women's experiences with intimate violence, and (iii) offer creative practical and policy solutions towards a broad vision of social change.     

Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Kenya

This article describes research linking micro‐level outcomes to macro‐level strategies with respect to rural poverty reduction in Kenya. It is set against a background in which a new government, elected at the end of 2002, is wrestling with how to break away decisively from previously unfavourable norms in the conduct of public life. The research undertaken in ten villages in Suba and Bomet districts in 2001 and 2002 confirms governance problems as having a broadly debilitating effect on rural livelihoods. Rolling back this pattern of public service behaviour needs to be made a priority; otherwise national goals to improve education, health and the transport infrastructure will reap significantly lower gains than are potentially possible.     

Access to Land,Rural Development and Public Action: The When and the How

After being marginalised in the 1980s, land‐reform policies came back to national and international development agendas during the 1990s, resulting in a revival of academic research on the subject. This article reviews the empirical literature on access to land, rural development and public action for evidence on when and how the state should intervene in the allocation of rural land. The review suggests that positive impacts are obtained if, and only if, public actions on the allocation of land are carried out under certain conditions and in a certain way. The article ends by highlighting the need to elaborate empirical models that take into consideration opportunity costs and interactions, and that integrate individual responses with aggregate effects.     

Understanding Sexual Minority Health Disparities in Rural Areas

This article reviews research from several disciplines including sociology, psychology, and public health to examine recent inconsistencies in findings of rural/urban health disparities among sexual minority populations. Previous work has found that sexual minorities (lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals) report worse health than their heterosexual counterparts on many physical and mental health measures. To understand this occurrence, scholars have situated these findings most often within either minority stress or fundamental cause frameworks. These theories attribute health differences to unique stressors and stigmatization experienced by sexual minorities within a heteronormative social climate. This review provides an overview of specific health disparities by gender and sexual orientation, critically examines research on rural/urban health differences among sexual minorities, and offers three avenues for future research to help remedy the inconsistent results of previous rural/urban sexual minority health disparities research. Discussions of the ‘rural effect,’ rural social support resources, and the importance of geographic region for health are included as opportunities to further social scientific research on sexual minority health disparities.     

The Enduring Price of Place: Revisiting the Rural Cost of Living☆

Even as the 2016 elections brought increased public attention to rural life, stereotypes and misconceptions abound. One of these misperceptions is the generalization that prices are lower in rural areas. This article is a restudy of Zimmerman, Ham, and Frank (2008) research on geographic differences in the costs of living. Asking the same fundamental question—if someone bought the same thing in a rural and urban area, would they pay the same price?—and using the same methodology, the results 10 years later indicate that, contrary to popular perception, there was again no consistent pattern of lower prices in rural counties and no consistent pattern of a lower rural cost of living in all of the rural areas. While prices are only one piece of the larger picture of how rural households meet their needs, in addition to price differences, the results highlight how differences in rural life create additional costs that extend beyond prices.     

Trust,the Democratic Process,and Involvement in a Rural Community*

Abstract A number of dimensions of the democratic political process are important for understanding civic communities and civic engagement. While many of these aspects have been examined at the federal level, less is known about how these dynamics operate at the local level, especially in rural communities, and that, moreover, involve a specific issue. In this study, we explore the relationships between trust in public officials, views of the decision‐making process, and issue‐related involvement in a rural community in Utah. In particular, we examine the factors underpinning citizens' expressed levels of general trust in public officials, support for the decision‐making process in their community related to a specific issue, the factors influencing individuals to participate in the issue, and how citizens view various groups involved in defining the public good related to the specific issue. We find 1) that perceptions of the political process influence all three aspects of the democratic process, 2) that neither lack of trust nor dissatisfaction appears to be detrimental to the democratic process at the local level, and 3) that differences in opinion regarding definitions of the public good intersect with other aspects of the political process. This research sheds light on factors influencing rural community functioning and citizen responses to proposed changes. In discussing the results, we reflect in particular on their implications for rural communities.     

The Struggle for Housing in Rural Venezuela: Ideology,Practice, and Power1

Abstract Little is known about the struggle for housing in rural areas or whether rural housing standards and aspirations resemble those of urban areas. This article, based on field research in Venezuela, analyzes housing ideology as expressed in public policy and housing programs, and in interviews with and actions of rural leaders, employers, government officials, and citizens. Competing housing ideologies co-exist but one—the cement-block house—dominates; although international and urban in origin, the cement-block model is diffused through rural housing agencies and political agendas. Housing practices are neither consistent with nor weaken the dominant ideology; and some aspects of rural housing conflicts are similar to those in urban settings. These findings support the need for further research to better understand the conditions under which rural and urban housing issues differ.     

The restructuring of local government in rural regions: A rural development perspective

Rural development is a multidimensional phenomenon. The political dimension, relating as it does to power, resources, accountability, priorities and choice, is a pivotal aspect of rural development. Local government is often the centrepiece of rural political systems. Interventions to reconfigure local government are therefore quintessentially rural development initiatives. They serve to supplement, neutralize or detract from other development initiatives. One way to critically examine local government restructuring policies and programmes is to determine the extent to which they accord with commonly held principles of rural development, both in terms of outcomes and process. This research critically examines a particular public policy intervention in rural Ontario, Canada. Through the application of rural development principles and criteria, it concludes that the process was antithetical to rural development, and in terms of outcomes, of dubious value. It poses several questions and challenges for rural development theory, including governance, and practice.     

Whither the lender of last resort?: The rise and fall of public farm credit in Australia and New Zealand

Public farm financial institutions were established in 20th Century Australia and New Zealand to facilitate agricultural and rural economic development. This arrangement reflected agriculture's economic importance, and rural society's political importance to both countries until the early 1980s. With both countries’ adoption of monetarist principles (including financial deregulation and the drive for smaller government) from the mid-1980s these public farm credit providers were seen to distort the allocation of farm credit and to be an inefficient use of public resources. Deregulation would, according to its many proponents, remove these distortions and create a free market for farm credit which would deliver the most appropriate loan packages for both countries’ farm sectors. The extensive literature on the New Zealand experience of farm sector restructuring and primary research into the South Australian farm crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s show that the commercialisation and/or abolition of public farm credit providers in both countries has fundamentally restructured the farm credit market but failed to address many farm families’ demand for concessional, long-term finance. The research also demonstrates the continuing need for local and regional case studies of the impacts of and responses to major institutional restructuring that are both theoretically informed and scale sensitive as a means to building a genuinely international literature on contemporary rural and agrarian change.     

Drinking places: Young people and cultures of alcohol consumption in rural environments

This paper focuses on the contemporary British moral panic about young people and the consumption of alcohol in public space. Most of this public debate has focused on binge drinking in urban areas as a social problem. Here, we consider instead the role of alcohol in rural communities, and in particular alcohol consumption in domestic and informal spaces, as well as the formal drinking landscape of pubs and bars. Drawing on empirical work (including a survey, interviews and participant observation) in rural Cumbria, UK we explore the specific socio-spatial nature of local attitudes to alcohol consumption and its regulation. In doing so, we reflect on the nature of rural lifestyles, community spaces and intergenerational relations. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the implications for health promotion professionals of the generally positive attitude towards young people's drinking in the rural area where the research was conducted. It also draws attention to the need for academics to pay closer attention to the ways that moral panics about binge drinking are implicitly producing a monolithic image of alcohol consumption in urban areas that fails to acknowledge the socio-spatially differentiated nature of practices of alcohol consumption and regulation.     

Rural public transportation and the mobility of older persons: paradigms for policy

Federal policy regarding public transportation in rural areas is examined through a comprehensive literature review. Then, three alternative approaches to future policy are suggested. The current fragmented panoply of rural transit programs that serve a minority of the rural population is the result of cycles of federal regulation and deregulation and chronic underfunding of rural transit compared to urban areas. The public purposes of transit, distinctions of need and demand, and funding comparisons with automobile usage are some contexts which set the framework for the social, and economic, and sustainability paradigms. Specific recommendations within each paradigm are suggested.     

Are Rural Schools Inferior to Urban Schools? A Multilevel Analysis of School Accountability Trends in Kentucky*

Abstract Recent research does not provide clear evidence that rural schools are inferior to urban schools. For example, one prominent study finds that students in rural schools perform less well than their urban counterparts, but other studies using the same national data set have reached divergent conclusions. The present study reassesses the issue using a time series approach to school performance. We investigate the effects of location on school‐level performance and improvement indicators between 1999 and 2003 using a sample of 1,111 Kentucky public schools nested in 170 school districts. Repeated‐observations HLM analysis reveals that rural schools achieve mean annual gains in performance that equal or better their urban counterparts. Furthermore, schools in some nonmetro locations perform on par with metro schools in between‐school baseline score comparisons. A simple answer to the question “Are rural schools inferior?” is not feasible, however, since standards for assessing school quality are changing as a consequence of education reform initiatives at the state and national levels.     

Interest distribution in the process of coordination of urban and rural construction land in China

Since the onset of rapid economic development and urbanization, China’s land resources—rather than capital, technology and human resources—have become the lead limiting factor in constraining economic growth. Coordination of urban and rural construction land (CURCL) can be a very effective means for reducing conflicts between economic development and land protection. This research examines the roles of stakeholders involved in the CURCL process. The reasons why the interests of legitimated stakeholders were encroached upon are analyzed and countermeasures to protect the interests of legitimated stakeholders are proposed. Ambiguously defined property rights for owners of rural construction land, unclear conceptions of the public interest, and overlap of power and interest among multiple levels of authority are the reasons why legitimated stakeholders’ interests were encroached upon. Legitimizing construction land ownership clearly, better defining the multiple conceptions of public interest, opening up express channels for expression of the public interest, and clarifying governments’ functions in land interest adjustment are the countermeasures to protect the interests of legitimated stakeholders.     

Rural Public Transportation and the Mobility of Older Persons

ABSTRACT

Federal policy regarding public transportation in rural areas is examined through a comprehensive literature review. Then, three alternative approaches to future policy are suggested. The current fragmented panoply of rural transit programs that serve a minority of the rural population is the result of cycles of federal regulation and deregulation and chronic underfunding of rural transit compared to urban areas. The public purposes of transit, distinctions of need and demand, and funding comparisons with automobile usage are some contexts which set the framework for the social, and economic, and sustainability paradigms. Specific recommendations within each paradigm are suggested.     

Traits of Leaders of Rural Non-governmental Organisations as Predictors of Collaboration Between NGOs and Rural Gmina Offices: Voices from Central Poland

Collaboration between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and public institutions, in accordance with the new public governance model, may contribute to actions by such organisations on behalf of both the co-production and co-construction of social services. The aim of this article is to assess the role of selected traits of NGO leaders in determining the chances of collaboration between NGOs and rural gmina offices in central, post-socialist Poland. The authors present the results of studies on selected subjective determinants of such collaboration, in which 104 leaders of NGOs from 29 rural gminas participated. Five independent research tools were implemented. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the role of selected traits of NGO leaders in determining the potential for collaboration between NGOs and rural gmina offices. The final model indicates that the potential for collaboration between an NGO and a rural gmina office increases alongside higher levels of education, social competences and locus of control and decreased control ideology among NGO leaders. On this basis, the authors formulate practical conclusions concerning the education of leaders of rural NGOs in post-socialist Poland.

     

上海城乡统筹发展的路径和突破口研究

上海城乡二元结构的深层次问题突出表现为:城乡居民收入差距仍然明显,促进农民增收的难度加大;郊区人口持续导入,对公共服务和社会管理的要求提高;农村土地和产权制度改革滞后,深化改革的条件尚不成熟;郊区城市化进程加速,管理体制和管理模式亟待转变;新城和小城镇等城乡统筹载体建设有待加强。上海城乡统筹发展要牢牢把握公共服务均等化、发展成果共享化、发展权利平等化内涵,坚持以城带乡、城乡一体、互动发展,以推进新型城市化战略为主攻方向,以加强城乡规划一体化为前提,以加快新城开发建设为突破口,以土地管理、集体产权、社会管理制度改革为支撑,以基本公共服务均等化为着力点,大力推进工业向园区集中、居住向社区集中、农业向规模经营集中,努力实现优化农村土地资源配置方式、优化城乡资源要素流动方式、优化城乡统筹发展方式,推进城乡一体化发展。     

Changes in service provision in rural areas. Part 1: The use of GIS in analysing accessibility to services in rural deprivation research

Previous work has highlighted the importance of public service provision in rural areas particularly for potentially vulnerable groups such as the elderly, unemployed and single parents especially where this coincides with a lack of access to either private or public transport. Disadvantage can often be compounded by limited access to services for such groups with the superior resources of more affluent social groups enabling them to respond and adapt to the increasing centralisation and reduction of services. This paper reviews previous investigations of the implications of changing accessibility to services in rural areas and draws attention to the need for a new research agenda which uses spatial analytical techniques to gauge the current levels of (in)accessibility to key services at the community level. These techniques are illustrated in Part 2 of the paper with reference to changes in post office provision in mid Wales, and the policy significance of incorporating geographical information systems-based measures of provision into traditional area-based indicators of disadvantage is discussed.     

Going Public: Networking Globally and Locally*

Abstract Rural sociologists figure prominently in the move towards public sociology. The paper takes up Michael Burawoy's call for public sociology and discusses what rural sociologists have to offer to publics and how we stand to gain as a discipline in working with publics. The paper argues that rural sociologists' ability to adopt a cosmopolitan view while negotiating the complexities of global/local processes provides a useful theoretical stance for doing public sociology. Methodologically, both feminist methods and various approaches to networks can guide us as we do public sociology. Then, the paper provides two examples of recent efforts to do public sociology with a women's community group in Sri Lanka in response to the tsunami and with the Pennsylvania Women's Agricultural Network to illustrate the possibilities and limitations of working with networks. In conclusion, the paper addresses opportunities for doing public sociology, the challenges we face as we go public, and future work that is needed to develop theoretically and methodologically strong public rural sociology.