Natural Resource

We are seeing the growth of urban and suburban areas at their fastest pace. At the same urban areas are encroaching on rural communities at expense of agriculture and other segments of rural economies. The environments upon which both urban and rural areas rely for vibrant economies are also under stress.

Parts of the country such as the American West are under many stresses. Certain businesses perceive the vast deserts as wastelands where nuclear waste disposal sites coal-fired power plants are placed. Rural communities often perceive these projects as economic saviors but at the same time they pollute the air soils and waters surrounding them, and cause a wide variety of health problems for the citizenry.

This tension between the need for energy and the need for a healthy citizenry is one of the greatest challenges facing us. Layered on this is the increasing scarcity of fresh, clean water not only in the drier West, but even in wet communities in the American Southeast such as Georgia and Florida.

The idea of growth itself is a challenge. Maintaining a way of life for a small community, or a particular neighborhood in an urban community, has value for its citizens. Whether or not expanded development benefits or depreciates communities and their natural resources needs exploration. Understanding whether a project is a benefit or threat to your community requires bringing together people and expertise to tell the whole story.

It is not enough for goverment and busines to "listen" to community concerns during elaborate "community input" sessions. The input is only valuable to the community when it is integrated into planning and projects and not when it is Adendum Item #27 in the final documents.

Terry Marasco

Jane Jacobs wrote Life and Death of Great American Cities yet recognized the contribution of local economies.

By dissecting how cities and their economies emerge and grow, Jacobs cast new light on the nature of local economies. She contested the assumptions that cities are a product of agricultural advancement; that specialized, highly efficient economies fuel long-term growth; and that large, stable businesses are the best sources of innovation. Instead, she developed a model of local economic development based on adding new types of work to old, promoting small businesses, and supporting the creative impulses of urban entrepreneurs.

Historian David Danbom points out that America’s reverence for rural life developed slowly and changed substantially over time. The early colonists viewed rurality as dangerous, unsophisticated, and even wicked, instead revering the city like their European cousins. That view changed with the American Revolution. The new Nation’s rural areas, populated largely by independent, land-owning farmers, stood in contrast to Britain’s stratified society and provided a strong foundation for the development of America’s democratic institutions. As the Nation became increasingly urban, rural America’s cultural stock continued to climb precisely because it was not urban.