Crossroads: Change in Rural America Workshop Thinking “Bigger” About Smaller Places: Rural America, Crossroads, and Rural Cultural Wealth Presented to the Crossroads: Change in Rural America Workshop Indiana Humanities/Museum on Main Street January 24, 2019 Indianapolis, IN Charles W. Fluharty Founder & President Emeritus Rural Policy Research Institute

Creative Placemaking Concept Fluharty/RUPRI Policy and Rural Cred Celebrating and Enhancing Rural Community Identity/Vitality Next Generation Rural Creative Placemaking RUPRI’s Rural Cultural Wealth Lab

So, What is Rural, Anyway?

Rural and Urban Definitions No definition is perfect at capturing rural and urban population dynamics Official Census Bureau definition of urban includes places from 2,500 to several million OMB Core Based Statistical Areas include some very rural counties in metro areas, because of commuting patters No categorical definition can properly capture the continuum.

Is all urban the same, though? New York-Newark Population 18 million Bellevue, IA Population 2,543

So, if metropolitan is urban, then… Usually, metropolitan is equated with urban and nonmetropolitan is equated with rural. So, if metropolitan is urban, then…

This is urban: Los Angeles - Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA Metro Area Population 12.8 million

And so is this: Armstrong County, Texas Population 1,901 Part of the Amarillo Texas Metropolitan Area

And if nonmetropolitan is rural, then…

This is rural: Loving County, Texas Population 82

And so is this: Paducah, Kentucky Population 48,791

Most Counties are Urban and Rural! Coconino County, Arizona Population 134,421 Flagstaff Metro Area

In fact… Over half of all rural people live in metropolitan counties! Most metropolitan areas contain rural territory and rural people. In fact… Over half of all rural people live in metropolitan counties!

Rural Wealth Framework Change in Rural America, Role and Quality of Place Rural Cultural Wealth, The Rural-Urban “Divide” and National Perceptions of Rural America Potential State & National Partners

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/world/asia/chinas-great-uprooting-moving-250-million-into-cities.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Systems Thinking Re: Rural Advantage

So, who wins: the World Bank or the OECD? 7/14/2019 12:04:07 PM So, who wins: the World Bank or the OECD? Iowa 8/22/2013

Contributions to aggregate growth depend on few hub regions… …the fat tail is equally important - if not more - to aggregate growth…

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.” --George Bernard Shaw

Systems Thinking Re: Rural Advantage

The Framework for Regional Rural Innovation New Narratives & Networks Quality of Place Collaborative Leadership Knowledge Networks & Workforce E-ship & Innovation Critical Internal Considerations Wealth Creation, Intergenerational Wealth Retention, and Appropriate Wealth Distribution Youth Engagement, Retention, and Leadership Development Social Inclusion and Social Equity Considerations Specific Attention to Social Mobility and Inequality

Three Questions: Innovating What? Diversifying How? Transitioning Where?

Innovating What? How “We” Consider “Us” How We “See” Our Region How We “Consider” Our Options How We Support The “Connectors”

Diversifying How? In Our Vision of the Future In Our Sense of Possibility In Our Actions and Alignments In Our New Collaborations

Transitioning Where?

Five Conditions for Collective Impact Success Common Agenda Shared vision for change Mutually Reinforcing Activities Differentiated, but still coordinated Backbone Organization Serves entire initiative, coordinating participating organizations, firms and agencies

Five Conditions for Collective Impact Success (cont’d) Continuous Communication Consistent, open, unmediated Rigorous and Shared Measurement Collecting predictive indicators, regional data: then measuring ongoing results consistently

• Regional Networks • Rural Creative Placemaking Summit • Digital Learning Commons

NEWS: 2017-18 Delta Creative Placemaking Initiative Grants Awarded - October 11, 2017  The Delta Regional Authority, in partnership with leading national arts and government organizations, is pleased to announce $309,000 in seed investments for 16 community projects across eight states through the Delta Creative Placemaking Initiative (DCPI)

Time to leave GDP behind Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success. Countries should act now to embrace new metrics, urge Robert Costanza and colleagues 1 6 JA N UA RY 2 0 1 4 | VO L 5 0 5 | N AT U R E | 2 8 3

GDP measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile. - Robert F. Kennedy

Problems with GDP G = Gross: It ignores the consumption of capital and natural resources 01 D = Domestic: It measures production in the nation, state, or region without regard to ownership or distribution 02 P = Product: It includes only those outputs valued in formal markets; ignores informal and voluntary activities, and externalities 03

Recent focus on wealth

Especially Rural Wealth

Are We Valuing What We Measure, or Measuring What We Value? Why this matters and what we can do about it

Eight Forms of Comprehensive Rural Wealth/Distribution Physical Financial Natural Human Intellectual Social Cultural Political

Characteristics of Comprehensive Wealth Comprehensive wealth and multiple forms of capital 1. Financial capital Cash, deposits, stocks, bonds, futures contracts Claims on assets held by others 2. Built capital Buildings, machines, roads, bridges, parks, dams, transmission lines

Characteristics of Comprehensive Wealth Comprehensive wealth and multiple forms of capital 3. Natural capital Air, water, soil, forests, animals, minerals, etc. 4. Human capital Education, health, skills, experience, etc. 5. Social capital Social organization, networks, trust, markets, etc.

Characteristics of Comprehensive Wealth Comprehensive wealth and multiple forms of capital 6. Intellectual capital Knowledge, books, patents, music, etc. 7. Political capital Political networks, and trust and access in these networks, etc. 8. Cultural capital Art, architecture, music, literature, sense of history and place, etc.

Characteristics of Comprehensive Wealth Flows versus stocks (wellbeing versus wealth) Individual wellbeing is fundamentally a flow measure GDP is our most common measure of income flow But well being is dependent on wealth Wealth is a stock—the net accumulation of assets and liabilities

Characteristics of Comprehensive Wealth Place-based versus people-based wealth The bridge between place and people wealth is spatial distribution of asset ownership, liabilities and incidence of external benefits and costs People-based wealth: Place-based wealth: cumulative value of peoples’ multiple capitals less liabilities combined private, public and communal assets of a region regardless of ownership

Characteristics of Comprehensive Wealth Role of the public sector in wealth creation Taxation and spending Local taxes are appropriations of local wealth National and state taxes are expropriations of local wealth Redistributes income Infrastructure Produces place-based assets through investments in infrastructure Regulation Strengthens or weakens property rights Redistributes property rights

Policy Implications A superior basis for assessing economic performance Considers benefits and costs of non-market effects Considers the returns to investment in the environment, education, health, intellectual property and social capital Clarifies the concept of sustainability Sustainability is growth in comprehensive wealth Recognizes the complementarity among types of capital Environment and health, natural capital and intellectual capital, for example

Policy Implications Importance of policies to encourage Education and good health Research Saving Investment Development strategies based on local assets Place-based wealth Attention to the distribution of income and wealth Across groups and places Attention to the returns to investment in public assets Relationship between public investment and private wealth creation

Policy Implications A superior basis for assessing economic performance Considers benefits and costs of non-market effects Considers the returns to investment in the environment, education, health, intellectual property and social capital Clarifies the concept of sustainability Sustainability is growth in comprehensive wealth Recognizes the complementarity among types of capital Environment and health, natural capital and intellectual capital, for example

Key Findings There is a dearth of rural arts and culture research. Most research is urban focused or assumes either there are no rural-urban differences or dismisses rural cultural assets, out of hand. The research that has been done with a rural lens indicates that rural areas have a unique combination of particularized, place- based assets, often related to natural resources heritage. These must be measured in different ways, to fully account for their contributions to arts, artists and cultural assets, and comprehensive rural cultural wealth. The best rural arts and culture research has occurred in other nations. Likewise, much of the US urban research, too often based on unproven theories of change, lacks sufficient rigor to drive policy action. Finally, urban strategies for creative economy development may be counter-productive in rural contexts.

Rural Crossroads Thoughts: Framing A Narrative and Defining an Ethos

It is not happiness that makes us grateful It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy. - The Buddha