Rural

Cities, it seems, are inevitable. Economies of scale make it difficult to maintain the essentials of living in rural places. For most of human history, transportation and information exchange have been arduous, time-consuming and expensive; even the Pony Express operated at a loss. The idea that everything is more efficient, and therefore cheaper, when done in bulk has helped encourage cities’ growth, said Geoffrey West, a theoretical physicist with the Santa Fe Institute. West is researching the relationship between economies of scale, growth and long-term sustainability. [node:read-more:link]

Tens of thousands of wilting South Floridians stood hours in the sweltering, soggy heat Sunday at Tropical Park, waiting to apply for special food stamps available only to victims Hurricane Irma, stunning state officials who were expecting just a fraction of that response. “We’ve been dealing with about 10,000 people a day,” said Ofelia Martinez, the Miami site manager for the state Department of Children and Families (DCF). “But when we opened the doors this morning, the police told us there were already 50,000 people waiting outside.” [node:read-more:link]

Across the rural-urban divide the average five-year survival rate across all birth year cohorts for urban (metro) counties was less than for rural (non-metro) counties, 67% and 70%, respectively.  This is consistent with the findings of others (Buss and Lin, 1990; Renski, 2009; Yu, Orazem, and Jolly, 2011).  If the definitions of rural and urban are refined along a broader spectrum from large urban to remote sparsely populated rural, the relatively high survival rates in rural areas becomes even more pronounced (Figure 2). [node:read-more:link]

Immigration as a top line issue for dairy farmers would have been unthinkable just a generation ago when Wisconsin’s agricultural landscape was dominated by small and medium-sized dairy farms run by the families that owned them.Now, the nation’s No. 2 milk producing state is home to a growing number of large concentrated animal feeding operations. [node:read-more:link]

The absurd way in which Washington pays to put out wildfires throughout the West is making a dangerous situation even more so. It’s a rare point of bipartisan agreement in Congress that a fix is urgently needed, particularly as fires grow in duration and intensity. The root problem: the U.S. Forest Service is strapped for cash. Its firefighting budget amounts to a fraction of what it actually costs to fight fires. Not sending firefighters is hardly an option. [node:read-more:link]

Hurricane Maria has exposed and intensified the island’s ecological crisis and its human consequences. Can it build a sustainable future? We’d followed the path that Hurricane Maria’s eye had taken along the highway to the west of San Juan. Three weeks after the storm, the tropical green was just starting to come back, sprouting over the brown wounds of mud and giant trees pulled up from their roots. Here in Arecibo, a small municipality about 40 minutes from San Juan on a good day, high-water marks from the flood stood out on building walls, seven or eight feet high. [node:read-more:link]

President Donald Trump's decision to end a provision of the Affordable Care Act that was benefiting roughly 6 million Americans helps fulfill a campaign promise, but it also risks harming some of the very people who helped him win the presidency.Nearly 70 percent of those benefiting from the so-called cost-sharing subsidies live in states Trump won last November, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. [node:read-more:link]

A rash of store closings is a sign that the ground has shifted under bricks-and-mortar merchants, with consequences for the retail sector and district communities. The death notice typically goes out several months before the sad event. In a terse press release, the retailer explains why it must close the store and dozens of others across the country in order to position the company for future growth and enhance shareholder value. A liquidation sale follows, and over the next few weeks, shoppers and resellers hunting for bargains strip the store down to its fixtures. [node:read-more:link]

 six-county area of southwest Minnesota has all the makings for a classic tale of economic hardship. The area—Lincoln, Lyon, Murray, Pipestone, Redwood and Yellow Medicine counties—is dominated by a farm sector struggling with another year of low commodity prices. The region also has gradually lost population as larger cities have lured away young workers and families. But in farm country, every year is a new growing season bringing new shoots of optimism, literally and figuratively. [node:read-more:link]

Lawmakers have begun diving into the issue of land conservation programs, which supporters say benefit surrounding communities and Republican Gov. Paul LePage has often derided as a tax giveaway for wealthy interests. LePage has, for years, criticized lawmakers for catering to wealthy groups and individuals whom he claims enjoy scenic views on tax-exempt land that increase property taxes for seniors and poor Mainers. [node:read-more:link]