1. 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

2. 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

9. So, What is Rural, Anyway?

10. 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.

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

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

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

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

15. And if nonmetropolitan is rural, then…

16. This is rural:
Loving County, Texas
Population 82

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

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

19. 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!

20. 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

23. Systems Thinking Re: Rural Advantage

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

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

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

30. Systems Thinking Re: Rural Advantage

31. 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

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

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

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

35. Transitioning Where?

37. 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

38. 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

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

46. NEWS: 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)

49. 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 JA N UA RY | VO L | N AT U R E | 2 8 3

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

51. 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

52. Recent focus on wealth

53. Especially Rural Wealth

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

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

56. 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

57. 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.

58. 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.

59. 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

61. 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

62. 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

63. 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

64. 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

65. 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

67. 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.

68. Rural Crossroads Thoughts: Framing A Narrative and Defining an Ethos

69. 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