Newcomers to Old Towns

Although the death of the small town has been predicted for decades, during the 1990s the population of rural America actuallyincreasedby more than three million people. In this book, Sonya Salamon considers these rural newcomers and the impact they have on the social relationships, public spaces, and community resources of small-town America. Through detailed ethnographic studies of six small towns in central Illinois, Salamon explains how these population changes often cause a suburbanization that erodes the close-knit small-town community, with especially severe consequences for small town youth. To successfully combat the homogenization of the heartland, Salamon argues, newcomers must work with the original residents to together sustain the vital aspects of community life and identity that first drew them to small towns. An illustration of the rising significance of the small town, Salamon's work, of interest to social scientists, sociologists, policymakers, and urban planners, is an important contribution to the ongoing discussion of social capital and the study of the transformation and definition of communities. "Salamon has written an engaging story that puts a human face on the macro-level shifts affecting the once agrarian rural communities of the American Midwest. Through her stories of six Central Illinois 'postagrarian' towns, she deftly illuminates much of the micro-foundation of these shifts in the daily decisions of people."Ralph B. Brown,Rural History

Sonya Salamon is  professor emeritus at the University of Illinois and research professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is the author of Prairie Patrimony: Family, Farming, and Community in the Midwest.

Preface Part I Changes in the Heartland 1. Community Connections, Resources, and People 2. Dynamics of Small-Town Change Part II Newcomers, Old Towns 3. A Persistent Agrarian Town: Smallville 4. Upscale Suburbanization: Prairieview 5. Boosterism Breeds Suburbanization: Bunkerton 6. Blue-Collar Ethnic Accommodation: Corntown 7. Ethnic Succession in Process: Arbordale 8. A Shabby, Dying Town: Splitville Part III The Postagrarian Countryside 9. Whither the Rural Heartland? Appendix A The Regional Suburbanization Neighborhood Hypothesis (with Matteo B. Marini) Appendix B Community Sample Characteristics and Study Methods References Index