“Name a force or impulse that threatens the stability of the American political system – distrust in the fairness of elections, conspiracy theorizing, the embrace of authoritarianism – and it is always more prevalent among rural Whites than among those living elsewhere."
~ Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy (New York: Random House, 2024), p. 5
"Even as they are in some ways the greatest beneficiaries of democracy’s distribution of influence, rural Whites are the least committed to our system."
“Rural voters – especially the White rural voters on whom Donald Trump heaps praise, and upon whom he built his Make America Great Again movement – pose a growing threat to the world’s oldest constitutional democracy."
Is the solution to the rural housing crisis to convince land owners to sell land at discounted prices for affordable housing?
One mechanism would be to fix the price of rural 'exception' sites & then getting owners to accept that price as being outside the 'normal' planning (and pricing) process.
Round here (the Lune Valley) my guess there are some concerned land owners who would take a lower price if affordable housing for locals was the result!
City folks rarely pay attention to #rural communities, even in their own state, but they ought to. They may be horrified by what’s happening with crops and livestock and how these things affect their diets. But there’s another reason for concern: the economic impact on small towns. Mega-factory farms don’t borrow from local banks, buy seed from small-town suppliers or purchase tractors from local dealerships. And it’s killing small-town economies. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24079424/factory-farming-facts-meat-usda-agriculture-census#econdev
#CotesdArmor : Les associations #vélo demandent au département un budget clair pour la réalisation de voies cyclables en milieu #rural. Ils estiment les besoins à 36 millions d'euros pour 2024.
Le vote du budget aura lieu à la fin du mois.
May the image take you to a hillside filled with wildflowers, on a perfect sunny day in late spring -- and may you connect with that wild child within you who runs and jumps and dreams and plays.
Kuni A Japanese Vision and Practice for Urban-Rural Reconnection by Tsuyoshi Sekihara & Richard McCarthy
A guide to reviving and revitalizing forgotten places and communities through the Japanese principles of kuni
Kuni offers a unique model for the revitalization of rural and deindustrialized lands and communities—and shares lessons in citizen-led regeneration for all of us, regardless of where we live.
Our local Secondary school, threatened with closure, is in the middle of this picture, which was taken from the top of a nearby hill.
It is a Scottish country secondary (or high) school with a primary school attached, teaching kids from the age of 3 at nursery, through to 15/16 in the secondary end. Children have always moved onto to another school if they want to do 5th and 6th year. The secondary used to be one of the top performing schools in Scotland. #rural#education#photography