• Introduction -- Whose Perspective?

• The Homogeneity Myth

• The Isolation Myth

• The Agriculture Myth / Conclusion

The American image of rurality is a complex and contradictory amalgam of myth, wish, and fact woven into an idea that is simultaneously fundamental and antithetical to a national identity. Statistically, we have not been a rural people for the better part of a century. Today, the rural population of approximately 56.2 million people accounts for only one in five Americans. But rurality lingers in our national DNA. Our nation’s founders lived in and imagined a rural nation. They wrote a constitution and set up a government that reflected rural sensibilities and values. Rural America with its frontier antecedents has long been considered more than place. It is both a storehouse of our values and the point of origin for our national mythology. The countryside remains a source of essential American ideas and archetypal figures that transcend historic reality and become powerful and inspiring figures in our collective imagination.

But the rural America of our imagination is at odds with reality. The size of the rural population is shrinking dramatically in proportion to the overall U.S. population. Rural children who don’t move to the city as adults are the exception. The rural economy and its traditional occupations have been transformed by powerful forces beyond residents’ control. Suburban sprawl is obliterating the landscape and local cultures of many rural areas. Chronic poverty grips generations of residents of large rural regions. Yet the nation continues to point to rural places as a source of such values as economic independence, just rewards for hard work, community cohesion, strong families, close ties to the land, and others.

There exists a disconnection between the perception of rural life and its reality. This disconnection means the nation “can impart virtually any values we want” to rural people and places, writes scholar David Danbon. Like a complex sacred text or an abstract painting, rural America is open to interpretation. As a result, people as diverse as Jefferson, Thoreau, counter-culture commune builders, and the Aryan Nation have found inspiration there. “Whatever the reality of rural America, the idea of rural America will always be popular with major segments of the population because, in the last analysis, it is America’s field of dreams,” Danbon writes. 1

If rural America is open for interpretation, one must ask whether the people with the most at stake--rural people themselves--are represented in the debate. This is fertile ground for artists, journalists, media producers, and others who help define and interpret contemporary culture. If misperceptions about rural America are holding back a policy agenda that more accurately reflects the needs of rural people, then a case can be made that those who care about rural America must work to redefine those perceptions.

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1: David B. Dangom. "Why Americans Value Rural Life." Rural Development Perspectives. Vol. 12, No. 1. USDA Economic Research Center 17-18.