This book analyzes contemporary challenges and solutions to problems facing rural communities. The idea of reinvention is offered as a description of how rural communities adapt by changing focus to alternative economic development strategies and by focusing on improved quality of life. The image of rural given is one of dynamism and resiliency.

City and Country: The Historical Evolution of Urban-Rural Systems begins with a simple assumption: every human requires, on average, two-thousand calories per day to stay alive. Tracing the ramifications of this insight leads to the caloric well: the caloric demand at one point in the environment. As population increases, the depth of the caloric well reflects this increased demand and requires a population to go further afield for resources, a condition called urban dependency. City and Country traces the structural ramifications of these dynamics as the population increased from the...