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Posts Tagged ‘rural living’
Rural Roots
August 19th, 2009
A friend of mine sent me this well-known illustration of many prairie grasses, including the roots we usually don’t see. I love the powerful comparison to the bluegrass on the left–this is the stuff most of us have in our lawns. (You know, the stuff we water and fertilize so we can mow it more often.)
At the Midwest Rural Assembly earlier this week, I heard more than one speaker talk about needing to find a powerful answer to the question many in urban areas ask about rural: “But there’s nothing out there, is there?” Mary Ellen Connelly, the friend who sent me this image (she’s also an accomplished garden author and nursery owner) shared a wonderful insight as we were discussing the connection between the roots of prairie grasses and the love of living here on the prairie. She said, “Well, you have to look deep on the prairie You have to see the roots. And looking deep leads to enlightenment.”
Let’s help people–the people who’s support we need–to see the roots of life in rural places. Learning how to tell that story just might open our own eyes to the full beauty we sometimes forget about.
Photo Credit: US Environmental Protection Agency
Editor’s Note: Regular readers will remember Joe Bartmann from his days as a Rural Learning Center staff member. Joe is currently leading the Sioux Falls Green Project, but we’ve never closed his “authorship” privileges and welcome future posts.
Tags: ReImagine Rural, Roots, Rural, rural communities, rural living
Posted in Rural, Rural Life | Comments (0)
Learning to live in Rural Places
January 9th, 2009
Is it possible that many people who move to rural communities don’t know how to live in rural communities?
That question began to gnaw at me following my introduction to a book titled Get Urban! The Complete Guide to City Living. Kyle Ezell, the book’s author, is an urban enthusiast who advances the idea that many people who move to downtown, urban centers don’t understand how to live there. He argues that basic tenants of urban living — like riding the bus, carrying groceries as you walk home from work, and developing friendship among the hustle and bustle of urban streets - are all foreign activities to new urbanites, schooled in the car culture of suburbia.
Thought Ezell’s thesis may be hard for rural enthusiasts to accept, it has grown on me over time, and I began to wonder if new residents in rural communities were facing the same challenges. Ever since, I’ve been on a quest to answer that question. I’ve yet to reach a definitive answer, but I’ve identified several conclusions listed below.
- Rural communities need to do a better job of welcoming visitors and new residents. Don’t be a community like that in the video in this post.
- Rural communities need to understand Gen X and Gen Y better if they hope to transform their communities into places where younger generations want to live.
- Becoming actively engaged in community activities and decision-making is vital to new residents developing a “sense of community belonging.” Sometimes an invitation to join a community group can go a long way towards accomplishing this.
- Informal meetings where disparate groups of rural people come together in places– called “third places” by sociologist Ray Oldenburg – are vital to the growth of a sense of community belonging in new residents. Unfortunately, these places have large disappeared from the social fabric of rural life.
This last point is particularly important, and over the next few weeks I intend to share a great deal more on the subject. Not only has Oldenburg identified third places as the “anchors of community life,” but he also believes they form a starting point for introducing new residents into a community. And like their urban counterparts, new rural residents could use a little help learning to live in their rural communities. I hope third places are a part of the answer.
Tags: Kyle Ezell, Ray Oldenburg, rural living, sense of place, third places
Posted in Community Development, Rural, Rural Life | Comments (1)