America's rural areas have always held a disproportionate share of the nation's poorest populations. Rural Poverty in the United States examines why. What is it about the geography, demography, and history of rural communities that keeps them poor? In a comprehensive analysis that extends from the Civil War to the present, Rural Poverty in the United States looks at access to human and social capital; food security; healthcare and the environment; homelessness; gender roles and relations; racial inequalities; and immigration trends to isolate the underlying causes of persistent rural poverty.
Contributors to this volume incorporate approaches from multiple disciplines, including sociology, economics, demography, race and gender studies, public health, education, criminal justice, social welfare, and other social science fields. They take a hard look at current and past programs to alleviate rural poverty and use their failures to suggest alternatives that could improve the well-being of rural Americans for years to come. These essays work hard to define rural poverty's specific metrics and markers, a critical step for building better policy and practice. Considering gender, race, and immigration, the book appreciates the overlooked structural and institutional dimensions of ongoing rural poverty and its larger social consequences.
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I. Geography and Demography of Rural America
- 1. Where Is Rural America and Who Lives There?, by Kenneth M. Johnson
- 2. Poverty in Rural America Then and Now, by Bruce Weber and Kathleen Miller
- Part II. Key Concepts and Issues for Understanding Rural Poverty
- 3. Measures of Poverty and Implications for Portraits of Rural Hardship, by Leif Jensen and Danielle Ely
- 4. How to Explain Poverty?, by Ann R. Tickamyer and Emily J. Wornell
- Part III. Vulnerable Populations in Rural Places
- 5. Changing Gender Roles and Rural Poverty, by Kristin Smith
- Case Study: In re Bow, Nevada Supreme Court (1997), by Lisa R. Pruitt
- 6. Racial Inequalities and Poverty in Rural America, by Mark H. Harvey
- Case Study: Engaging Black Geographies—How Racism Continues to Produce Poverty within the Black Belt South, by Rosalind P. Harris
- 7. Immigration Trends and Immigrant Poverty in Rural America, by Shannon M. Monnat and Raeven Faye Chandler
- Case Study: Immigration and New Rural Residents, by J. Celeste Lay
- Part IV. Community and Societal Institutions
- 8. Rural Poverty and Symbolic Capital: A Tale of Two Valleys, by Jennifer Sherman
- Case Study: Symbolic Capital and Sources of Division in “Golden Valley,” California, and “Paradise Valley,” Washington, by Jennifer Sherman
- 9. The Old Versus the New Economies and Their Impacts, by Brian Thiede and Tim Slack
- Case Study: Buoyancy on the Bayou—Louisiana Shrimpers Face the Rising Tide of Globalization, by Jill Ann Harrison
- 10. Food Insecurity and Housing Insecurity, by Alisha Coleman-Jensen and Barry Steffen
- Case Study: Food Insecurity and Hunger in the Rural West, by Sarah Whitley
- 11. The Environment and Health, by Danielle Christine Rhubart and Elyzabeth W. Engle
- Case Study: The Environment and Health, by Michael Hendryx
- 12. Education and Information, by Catharine Biddle and Ian Mette
- Case Study: Education, Economic Disadvantage, and Homeless Students in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Gas Region, by Kai A. Schafft
- 13. Crime, Punishment, and Spatial Inequality, by John M. Eason, L. Ash Smith, Jason Greenberg, Richard D. Abel, and Corey Sparks
- Case Study: Violence Against Women in America’s Heartland, by Walter S. DeKeseredy and Amanda Hall-Sanchez
- Part V. Programs, Policy, and Politics
- 14. The Safety Net in Rural America, by Jennifer Warlick
- 15. The Opportunities and Limits of Economic Growth, by Gary Paul Green
- 16. Politics and Policy: Barriers and Opportunities for Rural Peoples, by Ann R. Tickamyer, Jennifer Sherman, and Jennifer Warlick
- Contributors
- Index
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