The Overlooked Americans
The Resilience of Our Rural Towns and What It Means for Our Country
-
- 16,99 €
-
- 16,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
How small-town America’s surprising success reshapes our understanding of the nation’s urban-rural divide, offering “the most balanced and broadest-ranging look at the topic” (Tyler Cowen, George Mason University).
The Next Big Idea Club 2023 Must Read Book
We are frequently told rural America is in crisis. According to many journalists, academics, and politicians, our small towns have been hollowed out by lost jobs, and residents have turned to opioids and right-wing extremism to cope with their pain and resentment. In fact, many rural towns are thriving. Commentators have fixated on the steep decline of one region—Appalachia—and overlooked the millions of rural Americans who are succeeding in the heartland.
In The Overlooked Americans, public policy expert Elizabeth Currid-Halkett reveals that rural America has not been left behind the rest of the nation but instead is surprisingly successful. Drawing on deep research, including data and in-depth interviews, she traces how small towns are doing as well as, or better than, cities by many measures, including homeownership, income, and employment. She also shows how rural and urban Americans share core values, from opposing racism and upholding environmentalism to believing in democracy. Looking everywhere from Missouri to Minnesota to her hometown of Danville, Pennsylvania, Currid-Halkett ultimately reveals that the nation is less fractured by geography than many believe.
This is an urgent appeal for Americans to reconnect across a rural-urban divide that isn’t so wide after all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this astute survey, Currid-Halkett (The Sum of Small Things), a professor of urban planning and public policy at the University of Southern California, challenges the "myth" of an America split apart by geography. Drawing on statistical data and interviews with people from across the country, she debunks the prevailing view of small-town America as poorer, less educated, and more illiberal than the nation's metropolitan areas. This skewed perspective, she claims, is based partly on ignorance, but mostly on media outlets that traffic in fear, anger, and anxiety and politicians who find value in sowing discord. While distinctions do exist (rural Americans talk more about religion, have a greater sense of community, and are less invested in meritocracy; urbanites are more outspoken about progressive issues like abortion rights and gay marriages and more accepting of the government), on objective measures such as income and voting behavior and subjective measures such as happiness and empathy, Currid-Halkett's research reveals more similarities than differences. Though she highlights numerous issues facing America, including vaccine skepticism, climate denialism, and educational inequality, Currid-Halkett is a strong believer in "our shared sense of humanity our belief in each other." Idealistic yet well-grounded, this is a refreshing antidote to doom and gloom prognostications of where America is headed.
