Rural Development

Abstract

Rural development could be defined simply as economic development in rural areas. However, practitioners and researchers find rural development involves more than mere economic strategies. Many rural communities struggle with changes from resource extractive to service-based economies, along with cultural impacts of globalization (Harrington 1995; Ewert 1997). Rural development in response is becoming integrative like geography, considering class structure, community values, natural resources, social capital, sustainability, and regional and global forces (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987; Straussfogel 1997; Heartland Center for Leadership Development 1998). Rural development has represented an explicit research perspective within geography since 1982. Geographers, through their ability to integrate human and physical aspects of place, can help communities assess complex change and devise strategies to meet their goals (Stoddart 1986; Turner 1989; Abler et al. 1992). Integrated descriptions of human and physical aspects of place can benefit relationships with undergraduate students (Marshall 1991), other geographers (Bowler et al. 1992), rural development researchers in other fields, and rural development practitioners (Kenzer 1989). Geographers may be especially useful in the interdisciplinary world of sustainable development (Wilbanks 1994). The Rural Development Specialty Group began in 1982 as the result of an International Geographic Union (IGU) working group meeting in Fresno, California. The group was formed “to promote sharing of ideas and information among geographers interested in the many facets of rural development.” Richard Lonsdale (University of Nebraska) and Donald Q. Innis (State University of New York at Geneseo) were co-founders. Subsequent leaders included Vincent Miller (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), John Dietz (University of Northern Colorado), Al Larson (University of Illinois at Chicago), Paul Frederic (University of Maine at Farmington), Henry Moon (University of Toledo), Brad Baltensperger (Michigan Technological University), Karen Nichols (State University of New York at Geneseo), William Forbes (University of North Texas), and Peter Nelson (Middlebury College). The group may soon merge with the Contemporary Agriculture and Rural Land Use Specialty Group, forming a larger Rural Geography Specialty Group that will continue to provide a forum for rural development research in geography.