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Abstract:
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"The economic model of globalization has propelled rural communities in the United States and much of the world toward specialized, low-value, extractive economies for much of the twentieth century. This has been particularly true in the central Appalachian region of the U.S., where relatively diverse and self-reliant communities have gradually given way to increased dependence on external resources and greater extremes of poverty, wealth concentration, economic vulnerability, and ecological decline. In the Appalachian region of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Ohio, the problems with this model have included a historic focus on the production and export of cheap commodities, particularly energy, wood products, and tobacco. The result has been economic uncertainty and generally declining opportunities in each of these core sectors, as farmers and rural businesses become price-takers and forest, farms and other natural resources are overused and undervalued. We have also witnessed low levels of community wealth, limited local ownership, and a broad decline in self-reliance."
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