The international debate on the modification of Chinese ruralities opens new theoretical and practical dimensions for architectural design. China’s rural lands, collectively owned by the peasantry, are under pressure. A dramatic socio-economic transition, an imponent political agenda, a land-use speculation process, an awakening of cultural values, and several other forces are reframing the conceptual and operative framework of the countryside’s transformation. Drawing on a fieldwork experience conducted in the Fujian Province, the book explores the Chinese countryside’s transient condition and its future implications.
The Future is Rural challenges the conventional wisdom about the future of food in our modern, globalized world. It is a much-needed reality check that explains why certain trends we take for granted-like the decline of rural areas and the dependence of farming and the food system on fossil fuels-are historical anomalies that will reverse over the coming decades. Renewable sources of energy must replace fossil fuels, but they will not power economies at the same scale as today. Priorities will profoundly shift, and food will become a central concern. Lessons learned from resilience science and alternatives to industrial agriculture provide a foundation for people to transition to more rural and locally focused lives.Jason Bradford, a biologist and farmer, offers a deeply researched report on the future of food that reveals key blind spots in conventional wisdom on energy, technology, and demographics. The Future Is Rural presents Bradford's analysis from his career in ecology and agriculture, as well as a synthesis of the historical and scientific underpinnings of the astonishing changes that will transform the food system and society as a whole.
Some know Oklahoma's Black towns as historic communities that thrived during the Jim Crow era—this is only part of the story. In this book, Karla Slocum shows that the appeal of these towns is more than their past. Drawing on interviews and observations of town life spanning several years, Slocum reveals that people from diverse backgrounds are still attracted to the communities because of the towns' remarkable history as well as their racial identity and rurality. But that attraction cuts both ways. Tourists visit to see living examples of Black success in America, while informal predatory lenders flock to exploit the rural Black economies. In Black towns, there are developers, return migrants, rodeo spectators, and gentrifiers, too. Giving us a complex window into Black town and rural life, Slocum ultimately makes the case that these communities are places for affirming, building, and dreaming of Black community success even as they contend with the sometimes marginality of Black and rural America.
Situated between the foothills of Appalachia to the east and bluegrass country to the west, Nicholas County has been home to small tobacco farms in rural Kentucky for the past 200 years. But now, in the midst of tremendous economic changes generated by the movement of both textile jobs and tobacco production to other countries, residents of Nicholas County face an uncertain future. Based on twenty-five years of research, Kingsolvers longitudinal ethnography of Nicholas County, her home community, synthesizes geographical, historical, economic, and political processes that have shaped lifeways and worldviews. She documents the perspectives of farmers, factory workers, politicians, those pursuing new niches in the labor market, and middle school students in search of alternative futures. Countering stereotypes, Kingsolver emphasizes the skills and agency of rural residents and demonstrates how people in widely dispersed and seemingly isolated communities in the world are connected through capitalist logic and practice, thereby illuminating globalizations far-reaching effects.
The Routledge Companion to Rural Planning provides a critical account and state of the art review of rural planning in the early years of the twenty-first century. Looking across different international experiences – from Europe, North America and Australasia to the transition and emerging economies, including BRIC and former communist states – it aims to develop new conceptual propositions and theoretical insights, supported by detailed case studies and reviews of available data. The Companion gives coverage to emerging topics in the field and seeks to position rural planning in the broader context of global challenges: climate change, the loss of biodiversity, food and energy security, and low carbon futures. It also looks at old, established questions in new ways: at social and spatial justice, place shaping, economic development, and environmental and landscape management. Planning in the twenty-first century must grapple not only with the challenges presented by cities and urban concentration, but also grasp the opportunities – and understand the risks – arising from rural change and restructuring. Rural areas are diverse and dynamic. This Companion attempts to capture and analyse at least some of this diversity, fostering a dialogue on likely and possible rural futures between a global community of rural planning researchers. Primarily intended for scholars and graduate students across a range of disciplines, such as planning, rural geography, rural sociology, agricultural studies, development studies, environmental studies and countryside management, this book will prove to be an invaluable and up-to-date resource.
This book provides a unique synthesis of concepts and tools to examine natural resource, socio-economic, legal, policy and institutional issues that are important for managing urban growth into the future. The book will particularly help the reader to understand the current issues and challenges and develop strategies and practices to cope with future pressures of urbanisation and peri-urban land, water and energy use challenges. In particular, the book will help the reader to discover underlying principles for the planning of future cities and peri-urban regions in relation to: (i) Balanced urban development policies and institutions for future cities; (ii) Understanding the effects of land use change, population increase, and water demand on the liveability of cities; (iii) Long-term planning needs and transdisciplinary approaches to ensure the secured future for generations ahead; and (iv) Strategies to adapt the cities and land, water and energy uses for viable and liveable cities. There are growing concerns about water, food security and sustainability with increased urbanisation worldwide. For cities to be liveable and sustainable into the future there is a need to maintain the natural resource base and the ecosystem services in the peri-urban areas surrounding cities. This need is increasing under the looming spectre of global warming and climate change. This book will be of interest to policy makers, urban planners, researchers, post-graduate students in urban planning, environmental and water resources management, and managers in municipal councils.
A modern classic of the new agrarianism "Chris Smaje...shows that the choice is clear. Either we have a small farm future, or we face collapse and extinction."—Vandana Shiva "Every young person should read this book."—Richard Heinberg In a groundbreaking debut, farmer and social scientist Chris Smaje argues that organizing society around small-scale farming offers the soundest, sanest and most reasonable response to climate change and other crises of civilisation—and will yield humanity’s best chance at survival. Drawing on a vast range of sources from across a multitude of disciplines, A Small Farm Future analyses the complex forces that make societal change inevitable; explains how low-carbon, locally self-reliant agrarian communities can empower us to successfully confront these changes head on; and explores the pathways for delivering this vision politically. Challenging both conventional wisdom and utopian blueprints, A Small Farm Future offers rigorous original analysis of wicked problems and hidden opportunities in a way that illuminates the path toward functional local economies, effective self-provisioning, agricultural diversity and a shared earth. Perfect for readers of both Wendell Berry and Thomas Piketty, A Small Farm Future is a refreshing, new outlook on a way forward for society—and a vital resource for activists, students, policy makers, and anyone looking to enact change.
Rural areas worldwide are undergoing profound change creating considerable challenges and stress for its residents and on the ecosystems upon which they depend. Rural design brings design thinking and the problem-solving process of design to rural issues recognizing that human and natural systems are inextricably coupled and engaged in continuous cycles of mutual influence and response. This book is the first step along the path for rural design to emerge as an important new design discipline. Rural Design: A New Design Discipline establishes the theoretical base for rural design and the importance of looking at connecting issues to create synergy and optimal solutions from a global, national, state, region, and local perspective. To be effective and relevant, this new discipline must be founded on solid research, and practice must be based on data-driven evidence that will result in transformational changes. These directions and others will enable rural design to: help rural communities make land use, architectural, and aesthetic decisions that enhance their quality of life and the environment connect social, artistic, cultural, technological, and environmental issues that create rural place promote sustainable economic development for rural communities and improve human, livestock, crop, and ecosystem health and integrate research and practice across the many disciplines involved in rural issues to meet rural needs, provide new data, and provoke new research questions. Written by a world leading expert in rural design, who is director and founder of the University of Minnesota Center for Rural Design, the book is oriented toward students, academics and design professionals involved with rural design at any level.
