Arkansas Blog

I'm trying to parse out the difference between the people who want to screw students in Pulaski County by defunding the schools here and you, Max, when you get on to this screw the student who live in the country kick.

I will say this for you: You know your audience.

ARK. BLOG: You don't read very well. Or catch my irony. Realistically, nobody is going to be shutting down any small towns and forcing repatriation elsewhere. But I do think some people find it easier to talk about social experimentation on the majority black population of the Delta than they do about the decidedly different demographics of the Ozarks and West Texas. I just thought I'd add context to a discussion of whether it makes sense to ship government help to small communities that aren't likely to ever be vibrant economic centers. Sometimes, people are simply going to live where they want to live, lack of economic vibrancy and a full range of modern services notwithstanding. That doesn't disqualify them from the fruits of our system. But, I think the argument here is whether that choice does disqualify them from extra help. (Extra help is a very hard thing to define, by the way, and often quite different in the eye of the beholder. NW Ark., for example, tends to believe it is unduly burdened with providing for the downtrodden of Arkansas. As yet, however, it still doesn't contribute as much to overall revenues as Central Arkansas does.) Also, schools are a separate issue from the broad range of government help envisioned in the federal effort to attempt to jumpstart places that in the new agriculture economy simply will never be hub cities again.

But, no, I don't think it makes sense to preserve a smalltown high school simply because it's the only industry left in a small town -- not if you can provide a much better high school a few flat Delta miles up the road.

Shut down the Delta? I don't think so.

"But why focus just on the Delta?"

After a morning of listening to Republicans on the Sunday Morning show I'll bite.
Could it be because the towns in the Delta are mostly black and have no cultural or traditional or sentimental value in the eyes/minds of those who make these type of decisions?
But a town that looks like the place they grew up or their grammy lived in...now those are places with worth that should be saved.
Just guessing....

(I think that if there is money being passed around then we should be willing to save the small places. I think distance learning, educational co-ops and homeschooling along with other creative solutions can be found for educating the kids who live in the far flung areas of the state and providing that Advanced Placement Physics for the 1 or 2 kids who might want or need it. When you choose to live in a rural or remote area you give up some things, but you get some bonuses folks in Harrison or Midland don't.)

I dunno which of us is right, John A., but I'm not reading Max the same way you are.
As far as emptying out the little towns, well, go ahead. But know that there are those among us who would look at an empty Clarendon for example, and think, "Hmmmm, this looks like a nice place to squat. Wonder what happened to the folks who used to live here."
Of course, I've dealt with water wells and septic systems and I have the flexibility of not needing a job.
If the drawback were having young'uns to educate, I suspect that I could give them a better education on site than some are getting in our schools. But then unlike many of those around me now, I was inclined to glower at the homework laden if necessary and say, "Just do it. You're spending more time griping than it'll take to do the work."
No "poor baby" around this house. (Well now, wait a minute, I take that back. I have been known to use that phrase. But you really needed to hear the delivery.)
And after homework, I'd much prefer that the young'uns to run the levee rather than the streets of Little Rock. Or Pine Bluff. Or Helena. Or . . . well, you get the idea.
True, getting adequate medical care is a problem. But in lieu of doctors for every small town, how about an outlying network of nurse practitioners with, for example Internet connections to the doctor? Fact of the matter is that I think more highly of the nurse practitioner that I've seen on occasion than I do of someof the doctors I interact with. (Yes, I know the nurse has more time to talk, to tease out any underlying issues. But isn't that one of the often missing needs in medical care?)
Let's try thinking outside the box instead of saying, "We can't. It's not economically feasible."
We have to anyway, because surely few among us will tolerate razing entire small, dying towns and forcing their remaining residents into that apartment down there between the two pool halls. (See yesterday's thread about Hurricane Katrina's largely forgotten and still displaced victims.)

I think ecomomics are going to take care of this small berg problem. When gas gets over $5, and it will soon, it's going to be economically unfeasable for people to live 20-50 miles away from a town center. Esp when they are all driving Dodge Ram pickups. I prefer that way instead of some govt. official declaring your town dead.

Any*Mouse --

I often hear about the "advantages" of small town living. What, exactly, ARE those advantages? Thanks.

What has been suggested by Rex is exactly what is happening. I heard Charles Venus say many years ago that the best we could do for the dying Delta is to buy everyone a one way bus ticket. Critical Mass, Quality of Place etc. is real economic development. You must have a place that people want to live. That includes employment opportunities and amenities. It would make Forrest City and Helena better places if folks from the smaller communities would move there. But why should they? Economics and demographics will solve the problem. The issue is whether we should try to interfere in the process. Human nature is very curious. The Mexicans came to NWA to work in the chicken plants. The Delta population never considered it. I suppose it is because they didn't want to be separated from their community and fear of hostility. It may be because they didn't want to leave their comfort zone. Isolated hillbilly communities are in the same boat but most of these folks drive into a larger town to work and remain on the family manse. Their main issue is maintaining a local school and their sense of identity. Economic development on the scale of the Delta's needs seem not to be a concern.

Nothing new to see here. The process of population herding has been going on at least 2000 years if not longer.

What Nelson and his fellow Republican MISTER Brummett are saying is that now that industrialization has herded up 90% of the population into more productive arrangements let government spending finish the round up. Who needs the diversity anyway? Certainly not the schools.

Sure, as Doigotta mentions, there's a spell or two when rural life seen as escape from metropolis is appealing and will solve many problems but that rarely works out except for those financially well off.

If you think getting to see a doctor is difficult in 40 mi outside of Harrison, try finding one in Fayetteville-Springdale if you have no insurance. They won't make you an appointment even if you can deposit 3x the office call amount in advance. I imagine the same is true for every other metroplex in Arkansas.

If ASU can expand its borders to reach maybe thousands with online college courses why can't public education advanced placement courses be taught the same way?

I really think the Nelson-Brummett idea is shallow and thin as piss on a rock. We're just scratching the surface of high speed communications and the revolution it will bring to education and the practice of medicine. The global economy pulses with high speed communications 24/7.

Doigotta's APN could easily be sharing the patient's presence with an Md in a city via
televideo exam. Both the Md and APN would be looking at the same puls oxy, puls rate, temp, and condition of skin, eyes, throat, etc in real time.

None of this is going to be available with dinosaurs like Beebe, Blanche, and Berry in office unless their compatriots in the private sector can figure out ways to make millions from it.

.

I think this is a win/win situation. Depopulate all those shit little town and they become ghost towns. The ghost towns become tourist attractions like in Colorado.

Thank you for the reply, Max. I didn't catch your irony, this time or the last time, when you made the suggestion of internet-enabled school buses. Now I've got it. And I do take your point.

Seems the problem isn't limited to small towns. This story was in the PB Commercial this morning.
Click for a story out of Flint, Michigan where they either are or are contemplating razing entire sections of town and "returning the land to nature."
In addition, there are rumblings that what was being learned in Flint might be a useful strategy in other large cities. Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Baltimore and our neighbor Memphis were mentioned.

Gee, as someone that lives out in the boonies, I'm very happy to not have a bunch of neighbors. I'm thinking that if people want their children to have more of an education then they need to try to get closer to where that can be had. That being said, why can't more be done with the internet? I wouldn't think that people need to be in a literal class to learn. Virtual classes where the students can interact via IM or some other way would work just as well. If those kinds of things were invested in, a person could get an education pretty much anywhere you can get a phone line in.

I don't know, Rablib. Miss all the interpersonal social interactions, challenges, friendships, conflicts and growth from K-12 'cause you're "schooled" online yet isolated from most of the rest of the world?

That, in essence, is what you already get growing up in a small town, isn't it? Limited exposure and growth to people and information. Everything is filtered through the relentless squeeze of narrow conformity instead of welcoming diversity.

Certainly, online virtual classes are a wonderful adjunct to anybody's education.

Can they "work just as well" as "real" classrooms, as you seem to think . . . no.

I grew up in the Delta of Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas. It always bothers me when people talk about how there is no life or culture there. There is a lot of both. But life there is not always convienient. My parents live in Leachville; if they want to go to a movie, a wal-mart, or a doctor...then it is a 20-30 mile drive to either Jonesboro or Paragould. Oh, the gas prices last summer were brutal for people in that area. A trip to Jonesboro in a truck that gets 15mpg was costing....$25.00! Yet people will do that drive just so the can 'save' money at Wal-Mart on groceries, ect, and because they don't want to live in a vanilla town like Jonesboro.

Yet, I love going back home to visit my family in the Delta. The land is so rich and fertile. It boggles my mind that people in this area pay astronomical amounts of money for a lot filled with rocks and a few scraggly pine trees. Despite the hundreds of thousands of acres of neatly planted fields in Mississippi county, I always get the feeling that someday the land will win, that the land is just biding it's time until we get tired of trying to tame it and will someday return to the lush swamp land it once was.

Or......you could look at living in the Delta this way: There was this great documentary on the blues on PBS a few years ago. The spent most of their time in the Delta. There was this man from the Arkansas side they interviewed and here is what he had to say about living in the Delta: "Man, living in the Delta is hard. When you are born the in the Delta, you were born ripped-off."....or something like that. Love/Hate relationship.

Further, Rablib, there is the subliminal undercurrent of fear of "outsiders" coupled with resentment and envy and self-victimizing perceived-persecution by the "elites" -- namely outsiders and the "different," offered better opportunities, better educated, wealthier, more accomplished -- that characterizes many who've lived in small towns all their lives.

Fear, envy and resentment are less than ideal intellectual / emotional foundations for a life.

There are reasons small towns are dying worldwide.

Yet, whether or not farming and agriculture are owned today by Big Business (they are), on-site populations are essential to farms.

So are social services, schools and businesses for those communities who supply America and the world with food.

Certainly, economic factors play a huge role in people migrating to cities for better job opportunities. I question how "conscious" a conspiracy by big government is that migration to cities.

People worldwide, if they can, migrate to better economic climates, Jose.

Another poster pointed out that rural areas are increasingly becoming "vacation" or "retirement" homes for the wealthier.

That too is inevitable.

Land, as always and forever, is one of humanity's most precious commodities. As global populations continue to explode exponentially, ONLY the wealthy will be able to afford to insulate themselves inside one or two -- or hundreds -- of acres of land.

Private lawns? Not so much. Shared neighborhood parks for families and older citizens increasingly living in condos and apartments? See ya there!

Frank Popper and his wife Deborah wrote "The Great Plains: From Dust to Dust," published in Planning, (December 1987). Their "Buffalo Commons" theory is that mechanized farming is causing people to move out of the Great Plains, and that we should encourage that and give the plains back to the buffalo. This isn't a new idea, and will happen in the delta just as it has on the plains. People aren't needed there anymore.

Counting the Great Lakes cities, I think 80% of Americans live within 50 miles of the coast and that percentage is growing.

A link to Popper on clicky, I hope.

It could be that Rex Nelson has been working at the Delta Regional Authority, and that is why he is focused on the Delta. It's not anything racial or devious.