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When my family and I moved from big city to small town a year and a half ago, we called it a grand adventure, an experiment. No promises. No commitments.
We would give it a whirl and see.
For a writer focused on rural issues, it seemed the thing to do. True, living and working in Washington,
DC had always made sense. It was where I got my start, spending nearly a decade at the Department of Agriculture.
And it gave me easy access to meetings, hearings on Capitol Hill and the occasional lunch with Washington insiders.
But, I reasoned, reality must surely lie outside the beltway, out where all those policies and programs I
followed affected real people, real communities. Where better, then, to be?
On the family front, my wife and I (especially I) had begun to question our fit in the hurry and worry
that epitomizes so much of life in and around the nation’s capital. It’s a great city; but two young sons,
one precarious freelance income and skyrocketing real estate prices prompted thoughts about cashing out, slowing
down and living the Norman Rockwell life. “What if,” became my standard opening line.
Well now we know what if…and we like it.
Life in Fredericksburg, Texas, is good. So good, in fact, that my DC-native wife was the
first to say, “let’s stay.” This from the woman I was sure would turn into Ava Gabor and pine for the
city: “Darling, I love you but give me Pennsylvania Avenue.”
There are, of course, trade-offs. But for a town of some 10,000, our new home has an impressive
array of amenities made possible to a large extent by tourist dollars, but also by progressive thinking in
government, education, health care and the arts. And, my neighbors are quick to remind me, by the work ethic
of the German immigrants who founded Fredericksburg.
What it does lack in museums, theaters and parts for an old but reliable Subaru station wagon, the
town more than makes up for in life’s simple pleasures. Chief among those, I’ve come to understand and
appreciate, is what some refer to as community, but I think of more as sense of connection. Human beings are
communal. We’re hardwired to connect.
That connection comes in many forms. With respect to people, it comes in the feeling of knowing
and being known by so many, so quickly. With respect to the larger good, it comes in the knowledge that what
we do here actually makes a difference--that in smaller settings—whether school, church, little league
or local government—individual contributions are all the more important. Finally, we are reminded more
often here than in the city of our intimate connection to nature. We hear it every morning in the rooster’s
crow, see it on our evening walks by the pasture a few blocks away and, yes, smell it when the occasional skunk
lets loose in the backyard.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that connections don’t happen in the city.
Of course, they do. We enjoyed terrific connections, great community there. But for many of us, those connections
come more easily in small towns. I was reminded of that last week on a trip back to DC. It seems I’ve already
lost my tolerance for the pace and the anonymity that prevail there, not to mention the traffic—all of
which left me feeling disconnected. I was also reminded why I, my colleagues at the Rural Policy Research Institute
and so many others in this country and around the world work to protect and enhance rural life. Cities are great,
but they aren’t the end all and be all. We need them; but we need small towns, villages and open countryside
too.
And so, sappy as it sounds, tomorrow as we sit down with friends and family to give thanks for
all our many blessings, I’m going to add life in this little burg we now call home and the opportunity
to work to preserve it. Happy Thanksgiving.
This and other columns can be found at www.rupri.org/editorial
The phrase “rural wealth” sounds like an oxymoron. Rural incomes
are lower than urban. Rural poverty rates are higher—by 25 percent. And
nine out of ten of the nation’s 500 poorest counties are rural.
Adding insult to injury, federal policies make things worse. According to the
2001 Consolidated Federal Funds Report (the latest available), $6,131 in per
capita federal spending goes to urban areas; $6,020 goes to rural. That totals
nearly $6 billion a year of rural disadvantage.
Rural America also gets the short end of the stick in the types of funding
received. Of federal funds going to rural areas, 71 percent are transfer payments--things
like Medicare, Social Security and farm subsidies—rather than money that
builds infrastructure, improves capacity and helps communities grow stronger.
By contrast, only 48 percent of funds to urban areas are transfer payments.
As a result of these and other policy choices, the federal government spent,
from 1994 to 2001, two to five times more per capita on community development
in urban areas than in rural.
And it doesn’t end there. Not only does the federal government shortchange
rural America, so do the nation’s philanthropies.
According to a May 2004 report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy,
foundations in the United States give out some $30 billion a year. Of that,
a paltry $100.5 million was committed to rural development. Indeed, only 184
of 65,000 active grant-making foundations in the country gave to rural development.
(Just two of those 184—the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Ford Foundation--together
were responsible for 42 percent of the money to rural.)
Rural wealth? You must be kidding!
Not really.
Recent research by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank’s Center for
the Study of Rural America shows that there is indeed wealth in rural America.
In fact, in terms of residential real estate, agricultural real estate and
financial and rental real estate investments, which together account for three-fourths
of a typical U.S. household’s wealth, “some rural regions are remarkably
rich.”
How rich?
In 2001, the Nebraska Community Foundation estimated that $258 billion ($5.2
billion per year) will be passed from one generation of Cornhuskers to the
next over the next 50 years--$94 billion in rural Nebraska.
Ironically, says the Kansas City Fed, rural wealth is often concentrated—as
in Nebraska—in struggling regions. In other words, “many rural
areas may not be aware of their hidden financial wealth—or, if they are,
they are not capitalizing on it.”
Perhaps not, but yet another report (yes, I read a lot this week) suggests
that they are at least beginning to.
The Power of Rural Philanthropy, just released by the Forum of Regional
Associations of Grantmakers, cites numbers from a survey by The Aspen Institute
showing homegrown rural philanthropy is surging. Over the past six years,
the number of local philanthropic funds created by and for specific communities
has increased 132 percent, to some 2,000. Three-quarters of these funds—with
combined endowments estimated at $1.5 billion—serve rural areas.
Why the surge?
Three reasons.
First, communities are beginning to discover assets to build upon whereas in
the past they saw only deficits to suffer under. The wealth in real estate
and investments and the resulting intergenerational transfer are just a few
of those assets. Others include the ability of more and more people to live
and work in rural areas thanks to high-speed telecommunications and the Internet.
Put all that together, says Nebraska Community Foundation President Jeff
Yost, and you’ve got a new optimism. Given reasons to hope, people see reasons
to give. “Psychology plays a big part,” says Yost.
Second, people are beginning to think inclusively. Ol’ boy networks are
going the way of the dinosaur. In the words of the grantmakers’ report, “everyone
is a prospective donor and everyone is a beneficiary.”
Third, rural folks know the cavalry ain’t coming. As the nation becomes
more urban/suburban, as rural political power fades even further, and as governmental
purse strings tighten, the odds of outside money dwindle from slim to none.
Rural citizens across the nation realize more than ever that the vitality of
our communities depends on us. Thankfully, we have some resources with which
to work. Now we have to do it.
