Hodges, Donald G. (author), Luloff, A.E. (author), and Luloff: Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802; Hodges: Department of Forestry, Mississippi State University, Mississippi 39762
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1992
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 91 Document Number: C06516
James F. Evans Collection, Since the late 1950s and 1960s, New Hampshire has experienced unprecedented growth. During the past two decades, this growth has begun to be felt in the state's North Country, particularly among its many small communities. As a result of developmental pressures in this region, numerous local problems related to the environment and socio-economic conditions surfaced. The responsibility for meeting the challenges of such growth and development often fell on amateur bureaucrats. Relatively little is known about how representative such officials are of their local citizenry in terms of attitudes and opinions or socio-demographics. This paper presents the results of a study comparing demographic characteristics and assesses the congruence of attitudes of citizens and local government officials in the North Country of New Hampshire. (author)
Bell, Michael M. (author / Department of Sociology and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT) and Department of Sociology and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1992
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 90 Document Number: C06477
James F. Evans Collection, Today sociologists tend to doubt the rural-urban continuum, the idea that community is more characteristic of country places than cities. Based on an ethnographic study of an English exurban village, I argue that the continuum remains an important source of identity for country residents, one from which they derive social-psychological and material benefits. They root this conception of themselves as country people in nature, making this identity a particularly secure one. These real social consequences suggest that sociology should no longer doubt the reality of the rural-urban continuum, at least at the level of the definition of the situation. It, therefore, should remain an important topic of sociological study. (original)
