From hometown to nontown: Rural community effects of suburbanization

Regional suburbanization processes are transforming rural America socially and physically, threatening the uniqueness of small towns whose diversity is a national resource. This article reviews existing holistic descriptions of American rural communities since post-World War 11 by rural sociologists and anthropologists. Three new community case studies are briefly sketched-one "agrarian" in slow decline, another "postagrarian" where suburbanization is overwhelming agrarian traits, and a third that combines elements of both. With suburbanization, transformation into a generic nontown with the loss of place attachment and community identity is argued to have particularly negative effects for youth, whose socialization becomes privatized as parental civic engagement and general adult watchfulness decline. These changes constitute a community effect for rural youth analogous to the neighborhood effect richly documented by urban sociologists for inner-city youth. The suburbanization challenge is for small towns to resist homogenization of the vital aspects of agrarian community life they most cherish.