Overview

2004 winner of the Robert E. Park Book Award from the Community and Urban Sociology Section (CUSS) of the American Sociological Association Although the death of the small town has been predicted for decades, during the 1990s the population of rural America actually increased by more than three million people. In this book, Sonya Salamon explores these rural newcomers and the impact they have on the social relationships, public spaces, and community resources of small town America. Salamon draws on richly detailed ethnographic studies of six small towns in central Illinois, including a town with upscale subdivisions that lured wealthy professionals as well as towns whose agribusinesses drew working-class Mexicano migrants and immigrants. She finds that regardless of the class or ethnicity of the newcomers, if their social status differs relative to that of oldtimers, their effect on a town has been the same: suburbanization that erodes the close-knit small town community, with especially severe consequences for small town youth. To successfully combat the homogenization of the heartland, Salamon argues, newcomers must work with oldtimers so that together they sustain the vital aspects of community life and identity that first drew them to small towns. An illustration of the recent revitalization of interest in the small town, Salamon's work provides a significant addition to the growing literature on the subject. Social scientists, sociologists, policymakers, and urban planners will appreciate this important contribution to the ongoing discussion of social capital and the transformation in the study and definition of communities.

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9780226734132

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Reviews

"""Salamon has written an engaging story that puts a human face on the macro-level shifts affecting the once agrarian rural communities of the American Midwest. Through her stories of six central Illinois 'postagrarian' towns, she deftly illuminates much of the micro-foundation of these shifts in the daily decisions of people."" - Ralph B. Brown, Rural History ""If you are one of the many millions of Americans who is thinking about 'moving out to the country,' you should read this book first."" - William R. Freudenburg, Contexts"""

Salamon has written an engaging story that puts a human face on the macro-level shifts affecting the once agrarian rural communities of the American Midwest. Through her stories of six central Illinois 'postagrarian' towns, she deftly illuminates much of the micro-foundation of these shifts in the daily decisions of people. - Ralph B. Brown, Rural History If you are one of the many millions of Americans who is thinking about 'moving out to the country,' you should read this book first. - William R. Freudenburg, Contexts

""Salamon has written an engaging story that puts a human face on the macro-level shifts affecting the once agrarian rural communities of the American Midwest. Through her stories of six central Illinois 'postagrarian' towns, she deftly illuminates much of the micro-foundation of these shifts in the daily decisions of people."" - Ralph B. Brown, Rural History ""If you are one of the many millions of Americans who is thinking about 'moving out to the country,' you should read this book first."" - William R. Freudenburg, Contexts""

Author Information

Sonya Salamon is professor emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and research professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is the author of Prairie Patrimony: Family, Farming, and Community in the Midwest.

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