Free Land Programs Revisited
Free Land Programs Revisited

Author: Karl Francis Bauer

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Over the past century, the mechanization of agriculture, the rise of the automobile, youth out-migration, and a variety of other factors have led to the population and economic decline of once-booming small towns across rural America, and especially the Great Plains. As a result, schools, churches, and services have been forced to close or consolidate; in many cases, entire towns have vanished. A variety of state and federal mitigation practices have been put forward, often to no avail or limited success. This has caused some communities to take matters into their own hands, including the initiation of land giveaways -- programs in which an applicant receives a residential lot on which they are required to build a house to designated specifications and live in it for a given number of years. In Kansas alone, 27 communities have employed such a program, and in most other Great Plains states and provinces, at least one community has done the same. The programs were initially a media curiosity, and major news outlets, including USA Today, made small towns across Kansas famous by featuring them on the front page of their publications. Some of the most recent scholarly literature, published in 2007, pointed to "impressive" results in reversing a century-old trend. That was over a decade ago, however, and more recent news publications have been more pessimistic. This research is based on interviews and conversations with five program directors and local decisionmakers, four new residents, and a newspaper editor in the communities of Marquette, Ellsworth, Mankato, and Lincoln, Kansas, to determine what has changed in these communities, what makes some programs more successful than others, what challenges the programs have faced, and whether locals think the programs are a success. These programs have not reversed the 100-year-old trend of rural decline, but, in some communities, they have caused small population and construction booms bringing new money into the community and have delayed the closing or downsizing of community institutions. In short, the programs have proven to be a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

The Cost of Free Land
The Cost of Free Land

Author: Rebecca Clarren

Publisher: Footnote Press

Published: 2023-10-05

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1804440701

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

'Sharply insightful . . . A monumental piece of work' The Boston Globe Growing up, Rebecca Clarren only knew the major plot points of her immigrant family's origins. Her great-great-grandparents, the Sinykins, and their six children fled antisemitism in Russia and arrived in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, ultimately settling on a 160-acre homestead in South Dakota. Over the next few decades, despite tough years on a merciless prairie and multiple setbacks, the Sinykins became an American immigrant success story. What none of Clarren's ancestors ever mentioned was that their land, the foundation for much of their wealth, had been cruelly taken from the Lakota by the United States government. By the time the Sinykins moved to South Dakota, America had broken hundreds of treaties with hundreds of Indigenous nations across the continent, and the land that had once been reserved for the seven bands of the Lakota had been diminished, splintered, and handed for free, or practically free, to white settlers. In The Cost of Free Land, Clarren melds investigative reporting with personal family history to reveal the intertwined stories of her family and the Lakota, and the devastating cycle of loss of Indigenous land, culture and resources that continues today.

The Western Range Revisited
The Western Range Revisited

Author: Debra L. Donahue

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780806132983

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Livestock grazing is the most widespread commercial use of federal public lands. The image of a herd grazing on Bureau of Land Management or U.S. Forest Service lands is so traditional that many view this use as central to the history and culture of the West. Yet the grazing program costs far more to administer than it generates in revenues, and grazing affects all other uses of public lands, causing potentially irreversible damage to native wildlife and vegetation. The Western Range Revisited proposes a landscape-level strategy for conserving native biological diversity on federal rangelands, a strategy based chiefly on removing livestock from large tracts of arid BLM lands in ten western states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming. Drawing from range ecology, conservation biology, law, and economics, Debra L. Donahue examines the history of federal grazing policy and the current debate on federal multiple-use, sustained-yield policies and changing priorities for our public lands. Donahue, a lawyer and wildlife biologist, uses existing laws and regulations, historical documents, economic statistics, and current scientific thinking to make a strong case for a land-management strategy that has been, until now, "unthinkable." A groundbreaking interdisciplinary work, The Western Range Revisited demonstrates that conserving biodiversity by eliminating or reducing livestock grazing makes economic sense, is ecologically expedient, and can be achieved under current law.

Revisiting Rental Housing
Revisiting Rental Housing

Author: Nicolas P. Retsinas

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2008-07-01

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 0815774125

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A Brookings Institution Press and Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies publication Rental housing is increasingly recognized as a vital housing option in the United States. Government policies and programs continue to grapple with problematic issues, however, including affordability, distressed urban neighborhoods, concentrated poverty, substandard housing stock, and the unmet needs of the disabled, the elderly, and the homeless. In R evisiting Rental Housing, leading housing researchers build upon decades of experience, research, and evaluation to inform our understanding of the nation's rental housing challenges and what can be done about them. It thoughtfully addresses not only present issues affecting rental housing, but also viable solutions. The first section reviews the contributing factors and primary problems generated by the operation of rental markets. In the second section, contributors dissect how policies and programs have—or have not—dealt with the primary challenges; what improvements—if any—have been gained; and the lessons learned in the process. The final section looks to potential new directions in housing policy, including integrating best practices from past lessons into existing programs, and new innovations for large-scale, long-term market and policy solutions that get to the root of rental housing challenges. Contributors include William C. Apgar (Harvard University), Anthony Downs (Brookings), Rachel Drew (Harvard University), Ingrid Gould Ellen (New York University), George C. Galster (Wayne State University), Bruce Katz (Brookings), Jill Khadduri (Abt Associates), Shekar Narasimhan (Beekman Advisors), Rolf Pendall (Cornell University), John M. Quigley (University of California–Berkeley), James A. Riccio (MDRC), Stuart S. Rosenthal (Syracuse University), Margery Austin Turner (Urban Institute), and Charles Wilkins (Compass Group).

Main Street Revisited
Main Street Revisited

Author: Richard V. Francaviglia

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 1996-06-01

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1587290715

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As an archetype for an entire class of places, Main Street has become one of America's most popular and idealized images. In Main Street Revisited, the first book to place the design of small downtowns in spatial and chronological context, Richard Francaviglia finds the sources of romanticized images of this archetype, including Walt Disney's Main Street USA, in towns as diverse as Marceline, Missouri, and Fort Collins, Colorado. Francaviglia interprets Main Street both as a real place and as an expression of collective assumptions, designs, and myths; his Main Streets are treasure troves of historic patterns. Using many historical and contemporary photographs and maps for his extensive fieldwork and research, he reveals a rich regional pattern of small-town development that serves as the basis for American community design. He underscores the significance of time in the development of Main Street's distinctive personality, focuses on the importance of space in the creation of place, and concentrates on popular images that have enshrined Main Street in the collective American consciousness.

Revisiting the Twentieth Century
Revisiting the Twentieth Century

Author: Fred Metcalfe

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2001-03-22

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 0595156630

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Revisiting the Twentieth Century, as the title suggests, is a collection of the author's experiences from his childhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, to those of him and his family before their move to New Jersey from North Carolina in 1955. The story covers amusing anecdotes he experienced in his student years, in a variety of summer laboring jobs, his early days with 3M in St. Paul, his bachelor life in New York, the courtship of his wife, their life in the High Point, NC and his job as salesman and sales manager. These anecdotes illustrate what life was like during this period which was marked by two shooting world wars, a depression and the threat of nuclear destruction. Against this background of international tumult, a great transformation in lifestyle occurred in the United States. At the beginning of the story, no one in his neighborhood has a car or a radio. Even the telephone and the record player were of recent origin. Families or churches took care of relatives and the poor went to the poorhouse . The work week was sixty hours and payment for over-time was unheard of. Unions were fighting to improve the working man's lot in life, but were in their infancy. Neighborhood interdependency disappeared as the automobile shrunk distances and people achieved greater mobility. The change in lifestyle that occurred in this brief period seem somewhat unique in our history.

The Culture Industry Revisited
The Culture Industry Revisited

Author: Deborah Cook

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 1996-05-01

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0742576086

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As the culture wars continue to dominate newspaper headlines and conference panels, much of the debate revolves around the value of and values in popular culture. Many opponents of popular culture have cited Theodor W. Adorno, one of the leading figures of the Frankfurt School of critical theorists. Adorno is understood to have viewed mass culture as completely commodified—that is, produced only to be sold on the market and without aesthetic value. In this compelling book, Deborah Cook critically examines this view and argues persuasively that even Adorno's 'pessimistic' theory leaves room for resistance to the culture industry. Beginning with an exploration of the theoretical background for Adorno's work, Cook then examines Adorno's conception and criticism of mass culture and its consumption, and his views about art and its relation to mass culture. The first book-length treatment in English of Adorno's work on popular culture, The Culture Industry Revisited provides new readers of Adorno with an understanding of his theory and an overview of his more important critics. Those more familiar with Adorno will find important discussion of some of the more controversial ideas in his work. The book will be of interest to scholars and upper-level students of philosophy, sociology, literature, communications, and cultural studies.

Homesteading the Plains
Homesteading the Plains

Author: Richard Edwards

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1496202295

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Homesteading the Plains offers a bold new look at the history of homesteading, overturning what for decades has been the orthodox scholarly view. The authors begin by noting the striking disparity between the public's perception of homesteading as a cherished part of our national narrative and most scholars' harshly negative and dismissive treatment. Homesteading the Plains reexamines old data and draws from newly available digitized records to reassess the current interpretation's four principal tenets: homesteading was a minor factor in farm formation, with most Western farmers purchasing their land; most homesteaders failed to prove up their claims; the homesteading process was rife with corruption and fraud; and homesteading caused Indian land dispossession. Using data instead of anecdotes and focusing mainly on the nineteenth century, Homesteading the Plainsdemonstrates that the first three tenets are wrong and the fourth only partially true. In short, the public's perception of homesteading is perhaps more accurate than the one scholars have constructed. Homesteading the Plainsprovides the basis for an understanding of homesteading that is startlingly different from current scholarly orthodoxy. "--