New approaches to rural policy focus on (1) providing information and specialized expertise to rural communities along with traditional development finance and infrastructure programs; (2) building civic capacity to mobilize public and private resources for community development goals; and (3) new approaches to governance of the rural development process. These new governance strategies are similar to those now being used in other areas of public policy. Taken together, these approaches represent the beginnings of a fresh approach to rural development, and an alternative to seeking new policies and programs that are explicitly labeled “rural.”
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
See also Ernest J. Yarnella and William C. Green, eds., The Politics of Industrial Recruitment (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990).
2.
2. See Deborah Markley with Katherine McKee, Business Finance as a Tool for Development (Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, 1992).
3.
3. DeWitt John, Sandra Batie, and Kim Norris, A Brighter Future for Rural America? Strategies for Communities and States (Washington, DC: National Governors' Association, 1988), pp. 26-50.
4.
4. For short descriptions of these organizations, see Markley with McKee, Business Finance as a Tool for Development.
5.
5. See, for example, Robert Cameron Mitchell, “Public Opinion and the Green Lobby: Poised for the 1990s?” in Environmental Policy in the 1990s, ed. Norman J. Vig and Michael E. Kraft (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1990), pp. 81-99.
6.
for the 1990s (Washington, DC: Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 1991), p. 7.
7.
William P. Browne , Form without Substance, Past over Present: The Institutional Failure of U.S. Rural Policy (Washington, DC: Rural Economic Policy Program, Aspen Institute, 1992).
8.
See also U.S., General Accounting Office, Integrating Human Services: Linking At-Risk Families with Services More Successful than System Reform Efforts, HRD-92-108 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1992).
9.
Neal Peirce , Citistates (forthcoming).
10.
10. See Stuart A. Rosenfeld, Competitive Manufacturing: New Strategies for Regional Development (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research, 1992), chap. 5.
11.
11. Beryl Radin, “Rural Development Councils: An Intergovernmental Coordination Experiment,”Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 22:111-127 (Summer 1992).
12.
12. The $1 billion figure for state programs is an estimate of the total budgets of state economic development agencies in 1987 from DeWitt John, Shifting Responsibilities: Federalism in Economic Development (Washington, DC: National Governors' Association, 1988), p. 4. I know of no more recent estimate. The $5 billion figure covers function 450 of the federal budget, which includes a variety of economic and community development programs, including Community Development Block Grants, the Economic Development Administration, and the Small Business Administration, among others. By adding other programs, such as subsidies for rural electrical cooperatives and farm price supports, the General Accounting Office recently estimated total federal spending for rural development to be as high as $30 billion.
13.
13. Bill Clinton and Al Gore, Putting People First: How We Can All Change America (New York: Times Books, 1992), p. 24.
14.
14. See John, Batie, and Norris, Brighter Future for Rural America? pp. 85-95 for a literature review, which concludes that studies that try to explain why some communities grow while others languish almost always have a large margin of unexplained variation.
