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THE EMERGING AMERICAN PICTURE AND ITS RURAL COMPONENT

1. Regional cities. Sociologists see the emergence of a couple of dozen regional cities across the nation that will dominate smaller cities, towns and rural communities in their regions. Take, for example, Dallas-Fort Worth. Here is a hub of transportation, movement of goods, high technology, communication and various services (particularly banking). This area, like many regional cities, is becoming multinucleated--not a single downtown, but a downtown and other nuclei of information collection and transfer around the perimeters' highways, for example, out at Farmer's Branch north of Dallas (edge cities is the new term for this phenomenon). About 50 miles out in each direction from the perimeter the rural area is becoming urban. This area is a mix of traditional agriculturalist and small town people, along with people who work in the city but opt for amenities of rural living. (See map of Dallas-Fort Worth, Reading 8.)

2. The provincial or satellite cities and towns. Again, using the example of Dallas-Fort Worth, cities and towns like Waco, Oklahoma City, and Wichita Falls are, or will be, satellites of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. They will have their own sphere of influence and will provide various services and activities, but most of these will pass through and be related to the metroplex. Many of these smaller cities have been built with rural resources such as cattle, oil and grain.

3. Smaller cities and towns. These will be satellites or suburbs of the provincial or satellite cities and towns. Others may wither and die. Certainly many of them will be designated growth centers. Places like Vernon, Brakenridge, Mineral Wells, Brownwood, and Temple may fit in this category. Many of these can best be described as Wal-Mart towns. Beginning in the early 1960's, Sam Walton of the small town of Bentonville, Arkansas, has created a chain of more than 1900 discount stores. Initially, these were placed in the edges of towns (small cities) of less than 50,000 persons. Walton knew a couple of things:

a. He could sell for less than his competitors in the rural places

b. Although population might be static, there was constant income in these rural places

c. By not being "up on the square" his store would be accessible to crowds of people who could drive, not walk, to shop

d. He could pretty much draw customers from 15 to 25 miles in each direction

As the article "How Wal-Mart hits Main Street" (Facilitator's Guide) states, it worked. All across much of America about every 25 to 50 miles a town has been selected to have a Wal-Mart store. Other chains and franchises follow. Not only is this town changed, so are the others 6, 12, and 18 miles away. Community boundaries are being redrawn. The younger residents of the Green Ridges, at least, see themselves as being a part of greater Sedalia. Green Ridge, the old six-mile farm service towns, are becoming mostly residential neighborhoods in a larger 30-mile community.

Probably, this is the "end-product" of Dillmans' second era "Mass Society" or of Toffler's "Second Wave." When the full impact of the Information Age arrives in rural America, many different kinds of community configurations may attend it. For many rural clergy persons this presents a threefold challenge

• Minister to those hurt by the changes in agriculture and commerce in rural communities
• Refocus the work of the church from a 6-mile to a 30-mile field
• Provide prophetic leadership as his/her new community deals with the realities of the Information Age and its pressure upon "community" life.

(Note for example the implications of The Popcorn Report and its "cocooning" concept for how you do churches) Also read Leonard Sweet's Faithquakes.

4. Specialization. Still farther out, I can identify four or five specialized rural communities.

a. Recreation/retirement--beaches, mountains and lakes

b. Refuse dumps--places to get rid of trash and material from urban places--the I-80 corridor across Pennsylvania

c. Cottage industry--places such as the small towns in New England

d. Breaks in transportation--places where interstates cross in a rural area

e. Places used for intensive or specialized agriculture-the Central Valley of California

During the era that Dillman identifies as the era of mass society, America moved from a time when small towns and rural places had an independent identity to a time when regional cities emerged and were circled by dependent cities and small towns, which were dependent upon decisions made in the regional cities for their viability. But at least one possibility is that there will emerge a few world-class cities which will rise even above regional cities and will exercise even greater control of rural areas in years to come. Another, which seems to be suggested in Naisbett, Toffler and other futurists is a resurgence of rural places as the economy centralizes.

For different perspectives, recall your reading of the article in Unit 1 (1-4), "Identify Your Place in Rural America. There, Alex Sim has developed a very useful fourfold typology of rural communities in his recent study Land and Community. What I call Wal-Mart towns he labels as Agraville. He gives the Green Ridges the name Mighthavebeenvilles. The old towns adjacent to cities are Ribbonvilles. Towns being developed for recreation and retirement are termed Fairviews by Sim. You will explore this typology in some detail in the unit on Effecting Change. Each of these settings has different configurations of power and leadership needs. Yet another typology is one developed by Frederick Schroeder (4-8). You will have opportunity to study it in the unit on Culture and Values.