To the Editor:
Re “Abandoned America,” by Eduardo Porter (Sunday Review, Dec. 16):
Both my husband and I are Midwesterners by birth. I appreciate this thoughtful analysis of the difficulties facing rural America. However, I suggest that more attention be given to one of the basic problems facing rural regions: access. It is difficult to provide goods and services in these isolated areas. Attracting companies and new businesses is much more difficult because of their remoteness.
We have not lived in the Midwest for several years but have family members there. Visiting them from our home on the West Coast involves flying to Denver or Minneapolis, transferring to a regional carrier to take us to Sioux Falls, then renting a car to drive the remaining 150-plus miles to a small rural community in South Dakota. It takes the whole day to make this trip.
A century ago small rural towns were connected to the rest of the country by railroads. The loss of these connections has exacerbated the isolation. The access problem is not easily solved.
Dorothy Monroe
Edmonds, Wash.
To the Editor:
Let’s not gloss over the role that rural voters have played in their own demise. By being in blind thrall to backward-thinking right-wing Republican politics, rural communities have for years rejected the conditions that attract the high-tech new economy. Highly educated, highly skilled workers typically value cultural diversity over insularism; they value well-funded schools and libraries over mindless tax cuts; they value the rights and contributions of women and immigrants; they believe that science is not a liberal conspiracy.
The new economy includes the wide-open green energy industry, which rural-state politicians have demonized. And rural voters have largely hurt their pocketbooks by buying into the vilification of unions.
Rather than complaining about being left behind by the “elites,” rural residents might want to look at why it is that new-economy companies flock to big cities and progressive states, and bring their values in line with what will be needed to compete in the global economy.
Shel Khipple
Wilmette, Ill.
To the Editor:
Discussing the state of rural America, Eduardo Porter uses the word “farm” or “farming” just twice — and one of those times merely to tell us that he has never lived on one. It is therefore no surprise that in canvassing possible cures to rural poverty, he never attends to the difficulties of family-run farms.
But here in rural New York State, we are well aware that while federal farm legislation is splendid for giant industrial-style farm operations, it offers little to the small farms characteristic of our area and essential to its economic health. Clearly, this complex legislation needs to be revisited. “No Farms, No Food” says a bumper sticker you can see around here. Take it seriously.
Donald Mintz
Trumansburg, N.Y.
To the Editor:
My wife and I are resettling from our blue-collar suburban house to a farmhouse in rural central Kansas. As an urban liberal, I have witnessed small-town rural Americans get lumped together as “racists” and “deplorables” by my progressive peers for their support of Donald Trump.
I have witnessed jokes on TV shows directed at the tradespeople who are an essential spine of the economy where we are resettling. Party platforms call for “free college education,” excluding training in the trades. Editorials write off small-town workers as necessary casualties of progress.
While I believe that rural Americans’ support for Donald Trump is misguided, I also believe that the derogatory labels applied to them are equally misguided. Every social justice movement over the past 50 years has begun with pride. Can our platforms and remedies not hold the same respect for rural Americans that we hold for every other group in our country?
Forest A. Ormes
Lyons, Ill.
To the Editor:
The solutions offered by the experts cited by Eduardo Porter rely largely on supplying incentives to large employers to create jobs in rural areas. There is a different path to consider. Much of what rural places offer matches well with one demographic — older citizens. Housing is affordable, air quality is generally good.
We could organize underpopulated areas as locations that would provide health care, shopping, dining and meal delivery for the elderly. Hospitals would need to be built, providing jobs. Plumbers and electricians would have work.
Amazon isn’t going to build a facility in Perry County, Kentucky. But reorienting who lives there and what services they would need could transform the landscape.
Nancy Hughes
San Francisco
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | How to Revive Small-Town America
Opinion | How to Revive Small-Town America
To the Editor:
Re “Abandoned America,” by Eduardo Porter (Sunday Review, Dec. 16):
Both my husband and I are Midwesterners by birth. I appreciate this thoughtful analysis of the difficulties facing rural America. However, I suggest that more attention be given to one of the basic problems facing rural regions: access. It is difficult to provide goods and services in these isolated areas. Attracting companies and new businesses is much more difficult because of their remoteness.
We have not lived in the Midwest for several years but have family members there. Visiting them from our home on the West Coast involves flying to Denver or Minneapolis, transferring to a regional carrier to take us to Sioux Falls, then renting a car to drive the remaining 150-plus miles to a small rural community in South Dakota. It takes the whole day to make this trip.
A century ago small rural towns were connected to the rest of the country by railroads. The loss of these connections has exacerbated the isolation. The access problem is not easily solved.
Dorothy Monroe
Edmonds, Wash.
To the Editor:
Let’s not gloss over the role that rural voters have played in their own demise. By being in blind thrall to backward-thinking right-wing Republican politics, rural communities have for years rejected the conditions that attract the high-tech new economy. Highly educated, highly skilled workers typically value cultural diversity over insularism; they value well-funded schools and libraries over mindless tax cuts; they value the rights and contributions of women and immigrants; they believe that science is not a liberal conspiracy.
The new economy includes the wide-open green energy industry, which rural-state politicians have demonized. And rural voters have largely hurt their pocketbooks by buying into the vilification of unions.
Rather than complaining about being left behind by the “elites,” rural residents might want to look at why it is that new-economy companies flock to big cities and progressive states, and bring their values in line with what will be needed to compete in the global economy.
Shel Khipple
Wilmette, Ill.
To the Editor:
Discussing the state of rural America, Eduardo Porter uses the word “farm” or “farming” just twice — and one of those times merely to tell us that he has never lived on one. It is therefore no surprise that in canvassing possible cures to rural poverty, he never attends to the difficulties of family-run farms.
But here in rural New York State, we are well aware that while federal farm legislation is splendid for giant industrial-style farm operations, it offers little to the small farms characteristic of our area and essential to its economic health. Clearly, this complex legislation needs to be revisited. “No Farms, No Food” says a bumper sticker you can see around here. Take it seriously.
Donald Mintz
Trumansburg, N.Y.
To the Editor:
My wife and I are resettling from our blue-collar suburban house to a farmhouse in rural central Kansas. As an urban liberal, I have witnessed small-town rural Americans get lumped together as “racists” and “deplorables” by my progressive peers for their support of Donald Trump.
I have witnessed jokes on TV shows directed at the tradespeople who are an essential spine of the economy where we are resettling. Party platforms call for “free college education,” excluding training in the trades. Editorials write off small-town workers as necessary casualties of progress.
While I believe that rural Americans’ support for Donald Trump is misguided, I also believe that the derogatory labels applied to them are equally misguided. Every social justice movement over the past 50 years has begun with pride. Can our platforms and remedies not hold the same respect for rural Americans that we hold for every other group in our country?
Forest A. Ormes
Lyons, Ill.
To the Editor:
The solutions offered by the experts cited by Eduardo Porter rely largely on supplying incentives to large employers to create jobs in rural areas. There is a different path to consider. Much of what rural places offer matches well with one demographic — older citizens. Housing is affordable, air quality is generally good.
We could organize underpopulated areas as locations that would provide health care, shopping, dining and meal delivery for the elderly. Hospitals would need to be built, providing jobs. Plumbers and electricians would have work.
Amazon isn’t going to build a facility in Perry County, Kentucky. But reorienting who lives there and what services they would need could transform the landscape.
Nancy Hughes
San Francisco
Source: Read Full Article