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RURAL DEVELOPMENT RECONSIDERED: A PERSPECTIVE FROM THE SOUTH 



Bill Clinton and Al Gore both come from njral communities. They know it's 

 time to invest in the rural economy so rural Americans will have the same 

 opportunities that other Americans enjoy... We must have a rural America 

 where young people can cany on the values and traditions taught to them by 

 their families without leaving their rural communities. Our rural communities 

 cannot afford another tour years of neglect. (From the Clinton/Gore Plan on 

 Rebuilding Rural America) 



I. INTRODUCTION 



Economic recovery on a national level will not happen until recovery happens tor poor 

 people in the poorest communities both in our inner cities and our rural areas . 



More than half of all of the nation's rural poor live in the South (5 million of the 9.1 million 

 rural poor). Yet, rural people and their problems have been neglected. 



There is a higher incidence of poverty and working poor people in rural America than in 

 any other region of our nation. Two hundred and twenty three (223) of the 242 rural 

 communities with the most "persistent poverty" are in the rural South according to USDA 

 data. And these counties have consistently reported high poverty rates for four decades. 

 The poorest group in the nation is rural Black women in the South who are single parents. 

 An incredible 78% of their children are in poverty. In addition, counties with a significant 

 Native American population are in the persistent poverty grouping. All of these trends are 

 accentuated in the rural South by the lingering history of racial divisions. 



Rural people, especially the distressed rural poor, black, white and Native Americans 

 have been forgotten and sometimes forsaken by many of our national policies. There is 

 more substandard housing, poorer access to health care, lower educational attainment; 

 deeper problems of job creation, capital development and technology transfer; greater 

 outmigration; lower family incomes; weaker infrastructure development, tougher 

 environmental threats and generally more severe societal problems in our rural 

 communities than in our nation as a whole. 



During the 1980s while most of the nation experienced a recession, there has been a 

 depression in rural America. International pressures for lower wages have led to plant 

 closings in rural communities as manufacturers exported jobs. Agriculture and tax 

 policies worked to benefit large and corporate owned farming operations, driving many 

 medium and small family-owned farms into bankruptcy. The cumulative effects of 

 thousands of farm foreclosures devastated rural towns and communities in much the 

 same way. And, an already weak tax base in rural communities was further eroded, 

 shrinking local government efforts for schools, services and infrastructure. 



There is a poor rural youth for every poor urban youth in America. This one to one 

 ratio demands that our government must give as much attention, support and resources 

 to our rural as our urban young people. If we are to fulfill the promise of "rebuilding 



