How Seeing Rural America as a Commons Can (Re)Build Mutual Respect Across the Rural-Urban Divide

Authors

Lisa R. Pruitt, University of California, Davis

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This Essay, written for a symposium that honors and amplifies Ann Eisenberg’s 2024 book, Reviving Rural America: Toward Policies for Resilience, contemplates benefits that could flow from taking seriously Eisenberg’s conceptualization of rural America as a commons. In particular, I argue that the mutual respect and collaboration necessary for a successful commons could help heal the rural-urban rift, which has widened dramatically in the last few decades. Recent studies suggest that rural residents have what scholars call a rural consciousnesses, which means that living in a rural place is a key aspect of their identity. One feature of this identity is a desire to be seen and valued in relation to their rurality, something prominent urban and elite voices increasingly fail to do. Indeed, those voices often depict rural America as a sort of “taker” territory, dependent on urban tax dollars. The analysis that supports this thinking, often framed in terms of “rural subsidies,” focuses on fiscal transfers from the federal government to each state. These calculations can be misleading about the degree of rural reliance, and the metrics are also manipulable, depending on what sorts of transfers, e.g., safety net payments, rural development investments, are taken into account. Conceptualizing rural America as a commons provides an alternative to thinking about the relationship between rural and urban in strictly monetary terms. Focusing on rural America as the source of resources and products vital to our commonwealth—resources and products that urban places are not able to produce themselves—should lead us to see and value rural communities and their denizens. While rural scholars often speak in terms of the food, fuel and fiber rural America supplies, I focus on two other illustrations of what urban gets from rural: water and outdoor recreation. This reframing of the relationship between rural and urban shows it to be a symbiotic one. Further, this valuing of rural America and its residents for what they steward and supply provides a justification of federal investments in rural infrastructure and services. Those investments, in turn, would respond to rural residents’ belief that they are not getting their fair share of government resources. Viewing rural America as a commons, then, should ameliorate the tension between rural and urban interests and provide a mutually respectful path forward.

Recommended Citation

Lisa R. Pruitt, How Seeing Rural America as a Commons Can (Re)Build Mutual Respect Across the Rural-Urban Divide, 127 W. Va. L. Rev. 679 (2025).
Available at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvlr/vol127/iss3/5