Roundup: January 13, 2022
Welcome to 2022! As we catch up on rural research and related happenings, we also want to remind you that our series on rural infrastructure—past, present, and future—continues this spring, with Greg Shill (Iowa Law) kicking us off with a provocative discussion of changing transportation landscapes on January 27 at noon CT - register here. We also look forward to February’s broadband talk by Chris Ali (Virginia Media Studies) and a water panel in March hosted by Priya Baskaran (American University Law). We’ll keep all the details updated here. Hope to see you!
Recent Publications
Richard C. Schragger (University of Virginia Law) published Localism All the Way Up: Federalism, State-City Conflict, and the Urban-Rural Divide in the Wisconsin Law Review. This is part of a fabulous symposium on “Public Law in the States.” Schragger’s article, in particular, explores the rural/urban divide and argues "that the problem of the city in the state has become the problem of the city in the nation."
J. Tom Mueller (Geography and Environmental Sustainability, University of Oklahoma), Alexis Merdjanoff (School of Global Public Health, NYU), Kathryn McConnel, Justin Farrell (both School of the Environment, Yale), and Paul Burrow (Anthropology, Yale) published Elevated Serious Psychological Distress, Economic Disruption, and the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Nonmetropolitan American West in Preventive Medicine. The research finds serious psychological stress associated with the economic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic in the rural American West.
Michael R. Coughlan, Heidi Huber-Stearns, Amelia Rhode (all of the Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon), Mark D.O. Adams (USDA-Forest Service),and Gabriel Kohler (Forest Stewards Guild) published Socioeconomic Trajectories of 10 Rural Federal Forest-Based Communities in the American Pacific Northwest in Society & Natural Resources.
News & Commentary
NPR’s All Things Considered ran a piece on high school students filling in as EMTs in a rural New York town.
April Simpson for the Center for Public Integrity has a new investigative report, How Lack of Medicaid Expansion Fuels Rural Poverty in the Deep South.
The Reverend Allen Stanton also has an interesting commentary in The Daily Yonder that explores the rule of faith communities in rural places.
Events & Recordings
The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, along with the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School, hosted this webinar and panel discussion on The Law, Policy, and Politics of Debt Cancellation on December 3, 2021. The panel focuses on responses to Black farmer land loss and patterns of USDA discrimination in farm lending—including initiatives like the Justice for Black Farmers Act.