Small Town Communities Research Articles

Spatial patterns of electoral support in the 2023 general election in Poland

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: This article focuses on identifying the spatial patterns of electoral support for the main political actors, and searching for adequate determinants that explain this distribution of support, based on the results of the 2023 general election in Poland. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: Is there a relationship between the basic morphological features of the voting space in Poland and the hierarchy of the settlement structure, along with the arrangement of regions associated with the country’s historical and political heritage? The methods used in the study include analysis of descriptive statistics, estimation of spatial autocorrelation, discriminant analysis, and cartographic methods. PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The research process involves a two-stage procedure: 1) identifying a general picture of spatial variation in electoral support for selected groupings, and basic clustering patterns of electoral support; and 2) estimating links between the observed patterns of support and their presumed determinants; that is, the country’s settlement hierarchy and historical-political divisions. RESEARCH RESULTS: The spatial variability of the support indicators is characterised by a distinctive territorial distribution, based on the units of the settlement system and the boundaries of former historical divisions. The nature of this linkage indicates the changing layout of the voting space, associated with the increasing polarisation of citizens’ political preferences. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The current pattern of urban-rural differentiation is related to the different preferences of metropolitan (over 20,000 inhabitants) and rural or small-town (up to 20,000 inhabitants) communities. The east-west heterogeneity of Poland’s voting space is increasing due to similarities of preferences among the inhabitants of former Austrian and Russian Poland, on the one hand, and Prussian Poland and the Recovered Territories, on the other.

Reading the Rural Queerly

In this article, we describe an interpretive framework for teachers and teacher educators to use when engaging with two areas of English language arts curriculum and research – ruralness and queerness – as they work alongside readers of young adult literature. Too often rural communities and queerness are characterized as opposed if not incompatible. This binary—i.e., urban-as-queer-affirming and rural-as-queerphobic—has become so common that queer theorists have developed the term metronormativity to name and interrogate this ideology (Halberstam, 2005; Gray, 2009; Herring, 2010). Having lived and taught in rural and small town communities, we are concerned that metronormativity can, at times, go unrecognized if not uninterrogated in educational research. By offering a framework for teaching and analyzing literature in classrooms and teacher education classrooms, we encourage readers of queer young adult literature to ask questions about how and why ideas about spaces and sexualities become naturalized ideologies that are accepted as truth. Such questions matter not only for queer youth in rural contexts. Instead, they offer productive ways to think about literature and its relationships to life for readers in urban, suburban, and other contexts regardless of their sexual identities.

Place-Based Differences in the Association Between Greenspace and Suicide-Related Outcomes Among Young People

PurposeThis study investigated place-based differences in the association between greenspace and suicide-related outcomes (SROs) among young people, guided by the following two objectives: (1) Contextualize place-based differences in the association between greenspace and SRO prevalence among young people at the community level in five different urbanities (urban, suburban, micropolitan, small towns, and rural/isolated communities) and (2) identify which greenspace metrics (quantity, quality, or accessibility) are most protective for SROs at the community level. MethodsPublicly available greenspace datasets were used to derive greenspace quantity, quality, and accessibility metrics. SRO emergency department visits for young people were identified from 2016–2019 in North Carolina, USA. Generalized linear models investigated the association between greenspace metrics and community-level drivers of SRO prevalence. Shapely additive explanations confirmed the most important greenspace variables in accurately predicting community-level SRO prevalence. ResultsThe prevalence of SROs was highest in communities with the least amount of public greenspace; this association was most pronounced in suburban communities, with SROs 27% higher in suburban communities with low quantities of greenspace (PRRUrban: 1.11, confidence interval [CI]: 1.08–1.13; PRRSuburban: 1.27, CI: 1.10–1.46; PRRSmallTowns: 1.21, CI: 1.05–1.39), and in communities with the worst greenspace accessibility (i.e., furthest distance to nearest greenspace) (PRRUrban: 1.07, CI: 1.04–1.10; PRRRural&Isolated: 1.95, CI: 1.54–2.49). DiscussionOur analysis provides place-based, community-specific findings to guide targeted greenspace interventions aimed at addressing the rising prevalence of SROs among young people. Our findings suggest that greenspace quantity interventions may be most effective in urban, suburban, and small-town communities, and greenspace accessibility interventions may be most useful in urban and rural/isolated communities.

‘Plastic stays beautiful’: Attributing temporal and moral qualities in Ghanaian Ewe funerary contexts

Plastics are as positively durable as they are easily breakable, almost impossible to mend and hard to get rid of. They promise eternal life, but their immortality may quickly turn them into the undead. This paper discusses the use and role of plastics in Ghanaian funerary contexts, specifically in a small-town community in the Ghanaian Volta Region. It investigates plastics’ agency as materials that may potentially either contain death successfully or become uncontained matter out of place, just as the dead may become contained or left wandering among the living. Different perspectives on plastics are brought into focus, highlighting how attributed qualities and meanings play into the making of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ death. The paper shows that plastics and persons jointly become subject to moral and temporal assessments in the realm between good and bad, finitude and durability. Beyond the ethnographic case study, the paper discusses the political potential of death and plastics within the larger global context of a cultural economy that reflects the ongoing effect of colonialism.

Research on the Design of Public Space for Social Interaction of Young People in Small Towns

The purpose of this paper is to study the design of public space for the social interaction of young people in small towns, so as to further understand their social needs and create a better social environment. With the disappearance of demographic dividend, the value of talents becomes increasingly prominent. The development trend of labor-intensive industries has shifted to focus on high-tech industries, and small-town youth refers to young people living in smaller towns or rural areas, who usually face limited social places and resources. Therefore, this study will focus on analyzing the social behaviors and needs of young people in small towns, and exploring the influence and acceptance of different types of public space design on them. Through case study, interview and field observation, this paper tries to provide targeted public space design ideas for small town communities and create an environment that meets the social needs of young people in small towns, so as to enhance the self-identity and sense of belonging of young talents and alleviate the psychological and social problems of "lying flat" young people.

“Almost like it was really underground”: a qualitative study of women’s experiences locating services for unintended pregnancy in a rural Australian health system

Rural women in Australia are more likely than urban women to experience unintended pregnancy, yet little is known about how this issue is managed in a rural health setting. To address this gap, we conducted in-depth interviews with 20 women from rural New South Wales (NSW) about their unintended pregnancy. Participants were asked about accessing healthcare services and what was uniquely rural about their experience. The framework method was used to conduct an inductive thematic analysis. Four themes emerged from the data: (1) fragmented and opaque healthcare pathways, (2) a limited number of willing rural practitioners, (3) small town culture and community ties and (4) interrelated challenges of distance, travel and money. Our findings highlight how pervasive structural issues related to accessibility of health services intersect with small-town culture to create compounding obstacles for rural women, especially those seeking an abortion. This study is relevant to other countries with similar geographies and models of rural healthcare. Our findings point to the necessity for comprehensive reproductive health services including abortion to be an essential – not optional – part of healthcare in rural Australia.

Mid-career graduate practice outcomes of the James Cook University medical school: key insights from the first 20 years.

Previous studies demonstrate early-career James Cook University (JCU) medical graduates are more likely to practise in regional, rural and remote areas than other Australian doctors. This study investigates whether these practice patterns continue into mid-career, identifying key demographic, selection, curriculum and postgraduate training factors associated with rural practice. The medical school's graduate tracking database identified 2019 Australian practice location data for 931 graduates across postgraduate years (PGY) 5-14, which were categorised into Modified Monash Model (MMM) rurality classifications. Multinominal logistic regression was undertaken to identify specific demographic, selection process, undergraduate training and postgraduate career variables associated with practice in a regional city (MMM2), large to small rural town (MMM3-5) or remote community (MMM6-7). One-third of mid-career (PGY5-14) graduates were working in regional cities, mostly in North Queensland, with 14% in rural towns and 3% in remote communities. These first 10 cohorts were undertaking careers in general practice (n=300, 33%), as subspecialists (n=217, 24%), rural generalists (n=96, 11%), generalist specialists (n=87, 10%) or hospital non-specialists (n=200, 22%). The findings show positive outcomes from the first 10 JCU cohorts for regional Queensland cities, with a significantly higher proportion of mid-career graduates practising regionally compared with the overall Queensland population. The proportion of JCU graduates practising in smaller rural or remote towns is similar to the overall Queensland population. The establishment of the postgraduate JCUGP Training program and the Northern Queensland Regional Training Hubs for building local specialist training pathways should further strengthen medical recruitment and retention across northern Australia.

ГУСТАТИВНІ ОБРАЗИ МИРОСЛАВА ЯРЕМАКА (НА МАТЕРІАЛАХ ПЕРФОРМАНСІВ)

The article constitutes a segment of the author's research on the representation of social practices through artistic production processes in twenty-first-century Ivano-Frankivsk. It delves into the issue of intercultural communication by examining gustatory themes within the performances of the action artist, Myroslav Yaremak. The study concentrates on actions that revolve around artistic depictions of food and beverages' growth, processing, and consumption, recontextualized within the present culture and politics of a provincial city amidst a globalized backdrop. Furthermore, the article explores the documentation aspects and the societal impact of the performances «Alma mater», «Sower», and «In vino veritas» on the small-town community. The material is organized thematically, revealing content categories such as milk, grain (seeds), and wine as significant markers. The structure of the work revolves around life experiences, meanings, and artistic images. The methodology encompasses semiotic studies by Roland Barthes, performance studies popularised by Richard Schechner, and food studies exemplified in the works of Crystal Neely. It analyses how the chosen categories' meaning and significance, as well as the artist's associated actions, evolve due to changing political or cultural circumstances. The primary empirical foundation of this study comprises self-archived performance artefacts, photo documentation sourced from Ivano-Frankivsk photographers' archives of the 1990s and 2010s, self-descriptions, performance documentation, and interviews with Myroslav Yaremak conducted between 2022 and 2023. The article reveals the process of transforming specific gestural acts into universal ones through ingrained images within daily experiences. It demonstrates how the form of performance and reperformance was shaped by cultural or political history, interpreted through the subjective experiences of the artist and his assistants. Consequently, it portrays gestural acts in the work as mediums of social interaction, wherein recipients (assistants and spectators) become active participants within the artwork.

Private Way: A Novel by Ladette Randolph

Reviewed by: Private Way: A Novel by Ladette Randolph Manish Pandey Ladette Randolph, Private Way: A Novel. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2022. 227 pp. Paper, $21.95; e-book, $10.99. “I have lost the thread of my life” (15). Vivi Marx, the protagonist of Ladette Randolph’s novel Private Way, utters this line as she decides to move to Lincoln, Nebraska. Her departure from Southern California to Nebraska does not signal a short sojourn; in fact, she is intent on staying for a year. The owner of a financially successful social media platform, Vivi has become the target of cyberbullies, whose harassment has now extended into her real life (in one scene, she finds dozens of dead rats in her pool). Anxious and frightened, Vivi decides to move to Lincoln, Nebraska, because it is “the only place where [she’d] ever really felt safe” (14). There, she hopes to live a life of seclusion, an insular life without the internet. But, in a small, rural town, can one’s life really be private? Then, even if it is, is such a solitary life fulfilling? Among other important questions, the novel is chiefly preoccupied with these two and, in answering them, offers an exciting glimpse of the social code and the dynamic of the relationships that exist in the small-town communities of Midwest America. Characterized by Vivi’s desire to become an antithetical figure to her mother, the novel thus begins with the narration of her nomadic upbringing. Vivi’s mother is unsentimental, a disposition that seeps into her parenting, as she is described as “careless.” Similarly, Vivi also finds her contradictory; despite her talks about “entanglements,” she is able to entangle herself with a new man in every new place she settles. Vivi narrates that she “blames her mother” for being an outcast everywhere she goes. Their dynamic can be summed up with their attitudes toward Nebraska: Vivi’s mother feels no affinity to the place despite it being her birthplace, whereas for Vivi, it is a place of comfort because of the summers she spent there with [End Page 440] her grandma. However, despite Vivi’s best attempts at distancing herself from her mother, we find out that they are, in fact, similar in their penchant for individuality and also condescension (although Vivi doesn’t realize it) toward small-town life. While Vivi’s search for a private life takes her into Fieldcrest Drive, it becomes apparent from the onset that, due to the presence of the neighbors, leading such a life is impossible. Though she can stay away from the internet, there is not much privacy to be had in the community. As Audra, one of her neighbors explains, in a small community like Fieldcrest Drive, “there’s no privacy” but what exists is “a code of discretion that allows everyone to pretend they have privacy” (210). Additionally, in a town where everyone knows everything about everyone, Vivi’s inclination to keep her past a secret makes her a target of suspicion. To fully be accepted into the community, she will have to become vulnerable and reveal her private life, and this conflict thrusts the plot forward. Set in the backdrop of the 2016 presidential election, the novel undermines the assumptions many have about the Midwest being conservative and parochial. Ivan, one of Vivi’s friends with Czech heritage, tells that Lincoln used to be an “immigrant reset-tlement community” (124). When he invites her to a Thanksgiving dinner, Vivi is “surprised by how many of [his relatives] are Bernie supporters” (128). By the end of the novel, Vivi reaches a nuanced conclusion in that “personal differences [have] to be set aside to live a meaningful and dignified life in close proximity” (223). This makes the novel all the more resonant in the America we live in today. Undoubtedly, Randolph’s novel deals with complex questions and provides a refreshing representation of small-town life in rural Nebraska. [End Page 441] Manish Pandey Texas Tech University Copyright © 2023 Western Literature Association ...

"That Was the Happiest Time of My Life": Understanding Childhood Eco-Connections in Appalachian Communities.

The goal of this study was to explore facets of childhood eco-connections, using retrospective qualitative data from adults. One hundred and forty-five adults from predominantly rural and small-town communities in southern Appalachia (71.7% female), average age 36.23 years (SD = 12.08) participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews on key life experiences and the places they grew up. Mentions about place-related childhood memories or interactions were grouped into four themes based on exploratory thematic content analysis: nature nostalgia (positive reminiscences about nature experiences); nature immersion (extensive contact with the natural world during childhood); formative experiences with nature (nature interactions that taught a skill or life lesson); and rhythms of nature (appreciation of seasonal or cyclical patterns). Childhood eco-connections are multifaceted and often emerge from early impactful or intense experiences. Pro-environmentalism messages to youth may benefit from more references to childhood eco-connections.

European small-town Renewable Energy Communities: Participatory design of supporting tools as a vehicle to engage and understand local communities and their energy related concerns

Renewable Energy Communities (REC) are an emerging initiative that aims to contribute to the energy transition towards a more decentralised system in Europe by encouraging local communities to come together and invest in and operate renewable energy assets together.Decision-making processes of these communities need to be supported by adequate tools, which also can be used in the formation of the community groups in the first place. In this paper a case-study of four European small-town communities in Berchidda (Italy), Ollersdorf (Austria), Ispaster (Spain), and Kökar (Finland) carried out in the context of the LocalRES project is presented, where a participatory design methodology has been applied to co-create community supporting tools. Feedback gathered during four citizen workshops is presented, showing that to optimally support RECs in their formation and operation three main topics need to be supported: (1) the technical realisation and potential upgrades of the energy system, i.e., visualising energy generation and consumption on an individual and a community level, (2) the financial and economic implications of investments, i.e., calculating costs and return on investment for the individual and for the community, as well as (3) the social dimension and communication between community members and other relevant stakeholders, i.e., helping with community building and community engagement. The participatory process presented in the case studies does not only serve to gather requirements for tool design, but it also is a useful vehicle to bring together all interested citizens and understand their needs and concerns. A summary of this detailed citizen feedback is also presented.

The Heartland: An American History

In this engaging book, Kristin L. Hoganson attempts to overturn the myth of the Midwest as drowsy and disconnected from the rest of the world. An émigré from the East Coast, the author centers her story around Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where she teaches at the University of Illinois. She bristles at descriptions of her adopted region as isolated, provincial, or “flyover country.” She draws a page from Thomas Bender's edited volume, Rethinking American History and a Global Age (2002), following her subjects wherever they go. She portrays border-crossings, commodity production, and the environment with equal enthusiasm. In other words, while she starts with a small city, she seeks to do global history.The author views Champaign as a good starting point to figure out if the rural and small-town communities at the center of the heartland myth “have always been as insular as the myth suggests” (xxv). She understands that Champaign had its own particular development and that there is no one typical place to use as a proxy for a region as enormous as the Midwest. She does not want to do local history, which she associates with antiquarianism. And while no one would call her an antiquarian, since she focuses on her adopted hometown, she runs the risk of sounding like a town booster or local critic.At the very least, the history of the Midwest is about two heartlands, the urban and the rural. William Cronon, in Nature's Metropolis (1991), showed one way of studying both by portraying Chicago as the center of a dynamic regional economy. Another way of getting at the diversity of the Midwest would be through studying people whose lived experience exemplifies the porous boundary between rural and urban. For example, the baseball star and evangelist Billy Sunday grew up on the Iowa prairie but moved to Chicago, found God, and then returned to Iowa. Jane Addams grew up in western Illinois and made her career working with immigrants in Chicago.It is hard to interrogate the categories of the Midwest and the heartland without at least a respectful nod toward cities. The region is home to a major metropolis in almost every state and includes Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and numerous smaller industrial cities. These places traded and manufactured goods. They were also centers of Black culture, and therefore our national culture.The author is not obliged to write about African Americans, and she chooses other good topics to explore. However, it would be helpful to explain their absence, or for that matter the near exclusion of the working class, from the story. The traditional story of the industrial heartland and its working-class movements may seem passé. But the tale of the heartland includes them, and has whiteness at its very core. Nikole Hannah-Jones, the founder of the New York Times's 1619 Project, has sought, with some success, to recast American history around race. That she grew up in a heartland industrial town, Waterloo, Iowa, cannot be a coincidence.This is a fun book to read. The author teaches and lives in a county dominated by the University of Illinois, which makes for the kind of quirky excitement that only a college town can provide. Her story includes interesting discussions of the highly mobile Kickapoo Indians, whose travels are occasionally by choice and more often involuntary. It also discusses the intersection of ecology and botany, Chinese hogs, wet-prairie drainage, British emigrants, exploration of the North Pole, isolationists, balloonists, weather forecasters, bird-hunting, and the borders with Mexico and Canada.The book includes a distinctive and welcome feature: so-called archival traces made up of short quotations from research notes. These additional primary sources, always interesting and often surprising, suggest new avenues of study for students and professional historians alike. The Heartland, with its varied slices of Midwestern life, combines abundant research with graceful writing. She illuminates how Champaign became part of a broader national culture with a stake in the global economy. It is a tale worth telling.

Power Struggles in a Small Town Community: The Intersection of Rural Environmental Protest, Politics, and Hyperlocal News Media

This article presents an in-depth case study of large-scale conflict in a small town, and reveals the complex ways that community groups and activism, hyperlocal news media, and political power intersect through rural environmental disputes. An important but under-recognized feature of such conflicts is the unique role performed by notions of rurality in the construction of environmental protests, discourses, and decisions; that is, the ways in which rural communities’ conservation efforts can be unfairly characterized as “backwards” and “anti-development”. Through a series of interviews and focus groups with protestors and residents, our case study examines a controversial boat ramp development that had a marked environmental impact on the isolated coastal town of Mallacoota (population 1,000) in the state of Victoria, Australia. We show that the environmental activism of protesters lifted the issue's visibility to the level of regional, state, and national news and politics. But the community consultation processes that occurred in response to protests raise significant concerns about government decision making that fails to acknowledge and negotiate the diverse understandings of place and rurality that exist within a community. The outcomes of struggles for power in this small town are lamentable and lasting, damaging the hyperlocal news environment and undermining the community newspaper's reputation among citizens.

Protocol: Mapping social networks, social influence and sexual health among youth in rural KwaZulu-Natal, the Sixhumene cohort study.

Background: Sexual behaviour and sexually transmitted infections are strongly affected by social connections, and interventions are often adapted more readily when diffused through social networks. However, evidence on how young people acquire ideas and change behaviour through the influence of important social contacts is not well understood in high-HIV-prevalence settings, with the result that past peer-led HIV-prevention interventions have had limited success. Methods: We therefore designed a cohort study (named Sixhumene or 'we are connected') to follow young people in three rural and small-town communities in uMkhanyakude district, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and the people that these youth identify as important in their lives. We will interview them five times over three years, at each visit collecting information on their socioeconomic, social and sexual health lives, and testing them for HIV and herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2). We will use this information to understand how these young people's sexual health decisions are formed. This will include evaluating how poor sexual health outcomes are correlated across social networks, how youth mimic the attitudes and behaviours of those around them, who is at greatest risk of acquiring HIV and HSV-2, and who might be most influential within communities and thus best able to promote protective interventions. Discussion: The information gathered through this study will allow us to describe social connection and influence spread through these real-world social networks, and how this leads to sexual health outcomes. Sixhumene will provide vital inputs for mathematical models of communities and spreading processes, as well as inform the development of effective interventions to protect the sexual health of community members through appropriate targeting with optimised messaging requiring fewer resources.

Assessing the Climate Resilience of Community-Managed Water Supplies in Ethiopia and Nepal

Understanding the resilience of water supplies to climate change is becoming an urgent priority to ensure health targets are met. Addressing systemic issues and building the resilience of community-managed supplies, which serve millions of people in rural LMIC settings, will be critical to improve access to safe drinking water. The How Tough is WASH (HTIW) framework to assess resilience was applied to community-managed water supplies in Ethiopia and Nepal to assess the effectiveness of this framework in field conditions. The resilience of these water supplies was measured along six domains—the environment, infrastructure, management, institutional support, community governance and supply chains—that can affect how they respond to climate change effects. We found that the HTIW framework provided an objective measure of resilience and could be used to rank water supplies in order of priority for action. We also found that systemic issues could be identified. The tools and methods used in the framework were easy to deploy by field research teams. The water supplies studied in Ethiopia and Nepal had low to moderate resilience to climate change. Service management and institutional support were weak in both countries. The data from Ethiopia and Nepal suggests that many water supplies in rural and small-town communities are unlikely to be resilient to future climate change without increased investment and support. The use of simple frameworks such as HTIW will be important in supporting decisions around such investments by identifying priority communities and actions.

Sweet Greeks: First-Generation Immigrant Confectioners in the Heartland

Before reading this book, I mistakenly believed that the author was writing a family hagiography. A self-described “independent scholar,” I assumed that Ann Flesor Beck would not be up to the task of writing a well-documented, researched, and quality study of successful Greek immigrant confectioners to small-town central Illinois during the early twentieth century. I could not have been more wrong. Clearly, Beck has done her research, as evidenced by the fifty-six pages of notes and thirty-one-page bibliography, which includes many prominent immigration historians. She effectively uses a rarely explored rural niche to broadly discuss Greek immigration. As part of the Heartland Foodways series on “midwestern food traditions and practices” (p. ii), this book encourages the reader to investigate their other seven offerings.The first five chapters present an appropriate background for the following three that cover local Illinois history. Within those beginning chapters, Beck captures the essence of Greek immigration by discussing Greek history and geography, the reasons for leaving the homeland, the importance of the Greek Orthodox Church, the negative reception endured by southern Europeans in the United States, “Americanization,” and the initial immersion in an urban environment. By reviewing only arrival in Chicago and St. Louis, the way stations en route to central Illinois, Beck successfully traces the history of many Greek immigrants that acquired capital by laboring in those respective cities to eventually begin businesses in rural areas. This introductory portion also encompasses many well-known immigrant experiences including chain and circular migration, places such as Hull House in Chicago, and “padrones” like those included in Gunther Peck's Reinventing Free Labor.The fifth chapter, “Greeks vs. Goblins,” presents a comprehensive history of the Ku Klux Klan and particularly the organization's impact in central Illinois. Beck adeptly characterizes the Klan by emphasizing the “ordinariness” of members within small-town communities. Klan believers dominated many of these small towns throughout the Midwest by capitalizing on fraternal interest as well as the “100-percent Americanism” ideology that emanated during the post–World War I era in reaction to “foreign” peoples and ideas. Resultingly, many Greeks suffered discrimination, but others were able to withstand this offensive by becoming viable economic and social members of the community.The final three chapters provide detailed information about Beck's grandfather, the originator of the family confectionery in Tuscola, Illinois, in addition to a thorough review of both small cities and towns in the central portion of the state. Although the depth of reporting through the use of personal interviews, publications, census and draft records is impressive, it is also exhausting and confusing due to the overlapping of communities and families. Beck has compiled a wealth of information, but a more focused approach on a few personalities and less speculation may have made for a more readable book. Nonetheless, Greek migration to small-town America is the most original and important aspect of Beck's study.While Beck and her sister appear to have successfully rejuvenated the family business in Tuscola after a thirty-year absence, this is not the case in most small towns across the Midwest, if not the United States. Growing up in a northern Illinois small town and working in retail management from the 1970s to the early 2000s, I have personally witnessed this demise many times over. While opening stores and malls during the 1980s and 1990s, I observed downtown businesses similar to Beck's in Tuscola pay the price of “progress.” Moreover, just as Beck is encouraged that this dynamic may be changing with the advent of more emphasis on local economies during the last two decades, I concur based on movements generated by “farm-to-table” restaurants and other local initiatives. Beck mentioned that some of this localism resulted due to fears associated with 9/11; perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic and fears of urban unrest will add to this anxiety as people return to their hometowns in rural communities.

Taking PRIDE in One's Community: How Local Rural Pride Events Nurture Queer Futurity, An Interview with Travis A. Rountree

Abstract Based on an interview with Western Carolina University faculty member and community organizer Travis A. Rountree, this piece examines the importance of Pride events in rural Appalachian communities. This note examines the steps required for hosting such events, the necessity of community support, and potential barriers to holding Pride events in small-town conservative communities.

ESL Programs in Rural High Schools: Challenges and Opportunities

Rural and small-town communities in the United States have been rapidly diversifying over the last few decades and rural schools have faced challenges in supporting changing populations. This article builds on a limited body of education research that has focused on diversity in rural areas, driven largely in the U.S. by Latinx immigrant populations. This research draws on several data sources from multi-week visits in a mixture of new and established immigrant destinations to profile the challenges educational leaders faced developing ESL programs in five rural high schools and explores challenges such as how schools struggle to recruit and retain administrators and teachers, how they often have limited knowledge and resources to support curriculum development, and how program size limits schools’ ability to place students appropriately. The article concludes with suggestions for education programs, rural administrators, and state policy makers to better support English learners in rural schools.

Mid-career graduate practice outcomes of the James Cook University medical school: key insights from the first 20 years.

Previous studies have demonstrated early-career James Cook University (JCU) medical graduates are more likely to practise in regional, rural and remote areas than other Australian medical practitioners. This study investigates whether these non-metropolitan practice location outcomes continue into mid-career, and identifies the key underlying demographic, selection process, curriculum and postgraduate training factors associated with JCU graduates choosing to currently practise in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia. This study used the JCU medical school's graduate tracking database to identify 2019 Australian practice location data for 931 JCU medical graduates across postgraduate years (PGY) 5-14. This data was sourced primarily from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, and then categorised into Modified Monash Model (MMM) rurality classifications using the Department of Health's DoctorConnect website. For these mid-career (PGY5-14) cohorts, multinominal logistic regression was undertaken to identify specific demographic, selection process, undergraduate training and postgraduate career variables found to be associated with a 2019 practice location in a regional city (MMM2), large to small rural town (MMM3-5) or remote community (MMM6-7). Additional multinominal logistic regression analysis was then used to determine the key independent predictors of mid-career JCU medical graduates working in regional cities (MMM2), rural towns (MMM3-5) and remote communities (MMM6-7) in 2019. Around one-third of mid-career (PGY5-14) JCU medical graduates were working in regional cities during 2019, mostly in North Queensland, with a further 14% in rural towns and 3% in remote communities. These first 10 cohorts were undertaking careers in general practice (n=300, 33%), as subspecialists (n=217, 24%), rural generalists (n=96, 11%), generalist specialists (n=87, 10%) or hospital non-specialists (n=200, 22%). Key statistically significant, independent predictors of JCU MBBS graduates practising in MMM3-5 and MMM6-7 locations in 2019 were, respectively, being awarded a rurally bonded Australian Government undergraduate Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship (MRBS) (p=0.004, prevalence odds ratio (POR)=3.5; p=0.017, POR=7.3); graduation from the JCU postgraduate general practice training program, JCU General Practice Training (p=0.001, POR=3.9; p<0.001, POR=20.1) and internship training in a hospital located in a regional city (p=0.003, POR=2.4; p=0.049, POR=4.3) or in a rural or remote town (p=0.033, POR=5.0; p=0.002, POR=54.6). JCU MBBS graduates practising in MMM3-5 locations was also predicted by a rural hometown at application to the medical school (p=0.021, POR=2.5) and choosing a career in general practice (p<0.010, POR=4.4) or in rural generalism (p<0.001, POR=26.4), while JCU MBBS graduates practising in MMM6-7 locations was also predicted by undertaking an extended 20- or 35-week undergraduate rural placement during year 6 (p=0.014, POR=8.9). The findings show positive outcomes from the first 10 cohorts of JCU medical graduates for regional Queensland cities, with a significantly higher proportion of mid-career graduates practising in regional areas of Queensland than the percentage of the overall Queensland population. The proportion of JCU medical graduates practising in smaller regional and remote towns is similar to the overall Queensland population. The recent establishment of the postgraduate JCU General Practice Training program for vocational generalist medicine training and the Northern Queensland Regional Training Hubs for building local specialist training pathways should further strengthen the retention and recruitment of JCU and other medical graduates across the northern Australia region.

The Development of the New Urbanism Theory and Reflections on its Application at Florida’s Seaside

This article reviews the background, preparation, development and birth stage, and the main content and framework of the new urbanism theory, then understands new urbanism from a historical perspective and then discusses how the seaside project in Florida developed a smalltown community with a strong community atmosphere and a beautiful environment, guided by the theory of New Urbanism. This is followed by an in-depth analysis of the high construction and maintenance costs of New Urbanism in practice, the impact on the privacy of residents’ lives, the relative reduction of community ties, and other problems, and finally, it gives opinions on the sustainable development of the New Urbanism theory in the future.