Abstract
In our paper we will try to connect the dynamics of community decline to individual responses. We will operate on two levels of reality. At the first level we will discuss the circumstances surrounding the recent decline of small communities in North Dakota. At the second level we will discuss how this decline affects small town residents' attitudes toward economic development. In the first level analysis we examine the thesis that the natural environment of community growth is economic exploitation; therefore, the decline of resource-based communities is natural and inevitable. We discuss the circumstances surrounding the recent decline of small communities in North Dakota. At the second level analysis, we operate at the level at which life circumstances and environments are shaped by political-economic institutions that in turn shape the behavior and mentality of communities, families, and individuals. We hypothesize that residents of declining small towns deny their powerlessness and adapt to their situation through intense dedication to economic growth. We develop a series of hypotheses to test this thesis using data from the North Dakota Rural Life Poll. In our conclusion, we discuss implications for rural development practitioners working in declining small towns where this intense dedication to economic development in prevalent.
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Additional information
Dr. Stofferahn is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and director of the Social Science Research Institute at the University of North Dakota. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in rural sociology from Iowa State University. Prior to coming to the University of North Dakota, Dr. Stofferahn was employed by the North Dakota Economic Development Commission. Mr. Fontaine received his M.S. in sociology from the University of North Dakota and is presently employed as the assistant director of the Social Science Research Institute. Douglas McDonald, Mike Spletto and Holly Jeanotte are graduate students in the Department of Sociology at the University of North Dakota. This paper originally was written as a class project in a graduate seminar in rural development.
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Stofferahn, C.W., Fontaine, C.A., McDonald, D.J. et al. Growth fundamentalism in dying rural towns:Implications for rural development practitioners. Agric Hum Values 8, 25–34 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01591840
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01591840