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Rural-urban Interdependence
If metropolitan areas are indeed the drivers of national prosperity as many suggest, they need a healthy and sustainable rural economy and culture to be successful.
In turn, rural America to be healthy and sustainable, needs vibrant, well-functioning cities and suburbs to thrive and flourish.
Yet, the prevailing national narrative pits urban versus rural for investments and public resources, while official statistical definitions often create hard lines between urban and rural, and metropolitan and non-metropolitan.
For most families and businesses, there are no clear distinctions between urban and rural places. Flows of people, capital, goods, and information continually blur political and geographic boundaries. People commute to work, make family visits, or take trips and vacations. Businesses source materials and labor across regions largely ignoring rural-urban boundaries, and sell their goods and materials to customers irrespective of their locations.
Rural economies supply food, energy, workers, and ecosystem services while urban economies provide markets, capital, jobs, and specialized services, reinforcing a productive and deepening interdependence. Both rural and urban communities offer to each other a wealth of recreation and cultural opportunities.
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Brian Dabson & Erin Meyers (2014) Creating Opportunity and Prosperity Through Strengthening Rural-Urban Connections. NADO Research Foundation Issue Brief. Brian Dabson, Jennifer Jensen, Alan Okagaki, Adam Blair, & Megan Carroll (2012). Case Studies of Wealth Creation and Rural-Urban Linkages. RUPRI Rural Futures Lab. Brian Dabson (2011) Rural Regional Innovation: A Response to Metropolitan-Framed Placed-Based Thinking in the United States. Australasian Journal of Regional Studies. Vol. 17, No. 1. Anne C. Kubisch, Janet Topolsky, Jason Gray, Peter Pennekamp, & Mario Guitierrez (2008) Our Shared Fate: Bridging the Rural-Urban Divide Creates New Opportunties for Prosperity and Equity. The Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change. Brian Dabson (2007) Rural-Urban Interdependence: Why Metropolitan and Rural America Need Each Other. Brookings Background Paper.
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