W3001: The Great Recession, Its Aftermath, and Patterns of Rural and Small Town Demographic Change
Statement of Issues and Justification
The Great Recession brought the collapse of the stock market, high foreclosure rates, falling housing prices, and rising unemployment. Scholarly research investigating the specific impacts of the recession on rural communities is just emerging. Reports from various agencies give some insight into these issues and provide some direction for future research (Berendt and James, 2009; Kusmin, 2011; McBride and Kemper, 2009). We propose to provide a comprehensive picture of recent demographic processes in U.S. rural areas, at several levels of geography, in the years before, during, and after the Great Recession. Specific research questions will be determined, in part, by focus-group discussions with stakeholders proposed as a Year One activity. However, two closely-linked objectives have already been identified as critical to understanding national and regional patterns of rural population change during this time period: 1) better understanding the linkages between job loss and demographic change in rural contexts; and 2) examining dynamics in rural housing markets in light of shifting rural population composition and new economic realities.Need as indicated by stakeholders
This committee is dedicated to addressing rural population issues that matter to policy makers, communities, and local residents. The objectives identified for this proposal come, in part, from information gathered from stakeholders during meetings, workshops, briefings, and field studies held during the past five years. Given the dramatic shifts in rural population patterns and trends associated with the Great Recession, such as the unexpected downturns in migration and fertility rates (Sutton et al 2011), we anticipate the emergence of new concerns on the part of stakeholders throughout the country. For this reason, we propose to take a community-engaged approach to finalizing our specific research questions and to integrate extension educators, policy makers, and community groups into our broader research team.
The Carnegie Foundation defines community engagement as the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity. Following this paradigm, we propose to spend the first year of this project working with multiple stakeholders, sharing our research objectives and identifying specific questions within that agenda. We will work through regional centers, policy makers, and placed-based organizations to build knowledge that increases community capacity to respond to challenges they face (Stoecker 2005, Bridger and Alter 2006, Weerts and Sandmann 2008).
The committee proposes two specific processes. First, the current committee (W2001) is hosting a policy conference around the topic of rural aging in September 2012 in Washington, DC. At this event, we will ask participants to respond to a brief survey asking what specific demographic issues pose the most important opportunities and challenges for rural communities in the context of the recession and its aftermath. In addition, we will hold a session where we engage participants in discussions aimed at understanding (from the community stakeholder point of view) important demographic issues facing rural communities. Survey and discussion results will be summarized and distributed to committee members following this event. They will be discussed electronically and specifically addressed at the annual committee meeting in 2013.
Second, in order to address more regional and place-based concerns, we propose to work with Regional Rural Development Centers to set up focus-group discussions of issues linking rural development, demographic change, and the Great Recession. Committee members who attend these discussions during Year One will share summaries of their findings with other committee members electronically. Again, the committee's annual meeting in 2013 will be devoted to discussing these findings in an effort to finalize research questions.
Importance of the work, and what the consequences are if it is not done
Demographic change in rural America is an obvious but understudied response to the economic dislocations ushered in by the Great Recession. Our research will document the realignment of population growth and decline during the periods before, during, and after the Great Recession in the vast expanse of rural America that includes 75 percent of the nation's land area and 51 million of its residents. In so doing, we will contribute to the development of more informed policy to address the needs of rural people, places and institutions, especially as they have been affected by the recession.
Rural residents populate every region of the country, from counties bordering suburbs to remote and isolated areas. Rural areas encompass agricultural regions as well as areas where workers depend mostly on manufacturing or tourism. They include prosperous areas with rapidly growing populations as well as chronically depressed locales experiencing population decline. Accordingly, our research plan is national in scope but employs a comparative perspective, and relies on a multidisciplinary research team located throughout the U.S. to ensure familiarity with diverse rural demographic, social, and economic settings.
Local, regional, state and federal government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) depend on up-to-date interpretations of population trends. Information from the proposed research will allow for faster understanding and anticipation of present and future public needs. This extends to informing decisions and judgments of direct service providers, including educational administrators, cooperative extension personnel, law enforcement personnel, medical and welfare workers, journalists, clergy, and others influential in community affairs. For example, a school administrator will benefit from understanding the degree to which lower immigration rates mean fewer school-age children. Members of business and public utility sectors can use knowledge of demographic shifts to conduct needs assessments for their organizations and enterprises.
New demographic trends sometimes require shifts in policy recommendations for stakeholders. For instance, decreases in in-migration in response to economic recessions will lower demand for schools, hospitals, or family-oriented social services, depending on the changing composition of migration flows. Insights from the research proposed here will contribute to better understanding and anticipation of present and future public needs as they are influenced by changes in population size, geographic location, and socioeconomic composition. Failure to address these issues could diminish the response capabilities of local government officials, regional economic development officers, extension personnel, and other stakeholders. It could hinder public policy efforts at the Federal and State level as well, due to the decrease in systematic knowledge of just how rural people and communities are evolving as a result of demographic change. Without knowledge of regional differences, for instance in how differential migration rates affect housing prices, policy formation may be critically misdirected.
Technical feasibility of the research
Recent W-2001 accomplishments (two book publications, policy briefs, numerous journal articles, presentations, successful grant proposals, and the planned policy conference in Washington DC) demonstrate our ability to collaborate effectively. The group does not envision any new technical issues that would hinder the accomplishment of the proposed research objectives. Over the past five years, we have taken advantage of new communication technologies to expand our disciplinary range and more effectively interact with public and private stakeholders across the country.
Most members have extensive experience compiling and analyzing large databases, bringing together demographic and economic data from several sources and geographic scales of inquiry. Many have skills in spatial analysis of demographic data and using geographic information systems (GIS) to map and analyze population patterns. We plan to incorporate new data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, available with full county-level, nonmetro coverage for the first time in 2011. Additionally, several members will be taking advantage of qualitative skills to conduct field studies or more informally interview rural community leaders and residents.
Advantages of the multi-state approach
The multi-state framework provides a unique venue for interdisciplinary research that is both national in scope and committed to understanding the regional and local context of demographic change during the Great Recession. A national perspective is essential for analyzing rural population issues from a policy perspective because demographic change occurs within the framework of the nation's entire settlement system. Moreover, the national perspective permits comparative analysis of the nation's diverse regions thereby providing information useful for modifying policies for varying social, economic, and environmental contexts.
Specific areas cannot be studied outside of their larger contexts. Regions are interrelated as are rural, suburban and urban areas. Our committee's expanded membership has widened the geographic scope of our research beyond the traditional focus we have had on the rural West. Our national-level research activities are now informed by in-depth knowledge of regions as diverse as the northern Great Plains, the upper Great Lakes, the Mississippi Delta, and New England.
The multi-state approach allows each researcher to take advantage of the unique and diverse skills of all committee members and their affiliated institutions, including departments and population centers at Cornell, Idaho, Hawaii, Kansas State, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota State, Tennessee, Texas-San Antonio, Texas A&M, Utah State, Washington State, Wisconsin, and Middlebury College. Geographers with USDA's Economic Research Service and elsewhere provide the research committee with excellent geographic information systems capabilities. Committee members from Cornell, North Dakota State, Utah State, and Wisconsin, among others, have formal Extension responsibilities, and their expertise provides the group with a solid understanding of stakeholder issues and the planning requirements of state, county and regional agencies. Finally, the group enjoys excellent relations with professionals at the U.S. Census Bureau and other federal data centers.
The likely impacts from completion of the work
The demographic analysis undertaken by this committee provides information about the social and economic context within which public policy operates in our changing rural society. For example, the committee's recently completed book, Rural Aging in 21st Century America (Glasgow and Berry, forthcoming), and the proposed policy forum on aging, focuses attention on changing service needs as rural populations age in place and retirement destinations evolve. Mapping and explaining regional differences in population processes during the Great Recession will draw attention to the ways in which demographic impacts play out unevenly and how economic decline and recovery have been experienced differently across various segments of the nonmetro population, hitting historically disadvantaged groups hardest.
The project's primary goal continues to be the production of this type of policy-relevant research that informs users about current demographic trends and their implications for rural policy. We aim for broad readership among policy makers and plan to continue our strong record of outreach, that recently has included briefings to the White House Council of Economic Advisors, several Congressional offices, Governors' staff and task forces, the National Academies of Science, the Federal Reserve Bank, AARP, the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium, several USDA agencies, the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, and many state and local organizations. Our work does not evaluate the operation of particular public policies or practices, but it does provide essential contextual information that helps policymakers decide where public intervention is most needed, and the alternative forms such actions might take.
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