The Rural Review

In Rurality and Redistricting: California’s Proposition 50, Rural Identity, and Democratic Legitimacy, Lisa R. Pruitt (University of California, Davis School of Law) explores California’s hyper-partisan redistricting, otherwise known as Proposition 50, through a ruralist critique. The article focuses on the effects in far northern California and situates the measure within a broader national redistricting trend that dilutes rural or urban representation. Pruitt argues for greater protection of rural “communities of interest,” described as a contiguous population sharing common social and economic interests within a district, and thereby providing effective and fair representation.

In Property and Prejudice, Fatma Marouf and Vanessa Casado Pérez (both Texas A&M Law) examine the newest wave of state “alien land laws,” which restrict certain noncitizens and foreign entities from owning real property in the United States.

In On the Production of Climate-related Loss: Land Dispossession, Indebtedness, and Climate Change in Northeastern Cambodia, Kelly Dorkenoo (Centre for Sustainability Studies, Lund University, Sweden) and Phasy Res (Development Studies, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University) explore how development policies reinforce social and economic inequalities that shape climate-related land loss in rural and Indigenous farming communities.

In The Rural Rescue: Tackling Arkansas’s Legal Deserts Through Proven Statutory Reform, Kathryn Totty (University of Arkansas School of Law), examines how successful frameworks for rural recruitment programs in other fields and states can be applied to reduce the rural legal desert crisis in Arkansas communities.

In America’s Empty Homes: The Overlooked Rural and Nonmetropolitan Housing Vacancy Problem, Gregory M. Fulkerson and Alex R. Thomas (both PLACES Institute, SUNY Oneonta) examine housing vacancy across rural and nonmetropolitan areas of the United States. They focus on patterns of “structural housing vacancy,” meaning vacant housing units excluding those designated for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use. The study uses various factors like socioeconomic conditions, demographic characteristics, rurality and remoteness, and regional contexts to advance a more geographically nuanced understanding of housing vacancy in the US.

In Taxation, Redistribution, and the Urban-Rural Divide, author Kirk J. Stark (UCLA School of Law) considers how population density in urban and rural areas influences subnational and nation tax policies in the United States. The author claims that the urban-rural divide promotes more redistributive tax policies at the subnational level, while pushing the national government towards less redistributive tax policies. 

In Community Lawyering in Coal Country: Empowering Those Who Power America, Gregory Robertson (West Virginia Law) examines how social institutions have failed coal miners by systematically discouraging attorneys and advocates from representing coal miners in Black Lung benefits claims, and how four attorneys have modeled success despite these challenges by drawing on the principles and strategies of community lawyering.

In Preserving Rural School Districts from the Threat of Vouchers and Charters, Preston C. Green III (Urban Education and Educational Leadership and Law, University of Connecticut), Bruce D. Backer (Teaching and Learning, University of Miami), Christopher M. Saldana and Julie F. Mead (both Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison) discuss how voucher and charter school programs are having an unintended negative impact on rural school districts and communities. The authors suggest that state legislatures take action to fulfill their constitutional obligation to ensure public access to education by creating “education preserves.”

In Empowering the Energy Transition in Rural Electric Cooperatives, Katrina Smith (Carolina Law), outlines the shortcomings of rural electric cooperatives and how they have transformed from their original design to what they are today. Smith considers various pathways for reform to empower rural communities, including how tax status can be leveraged as a new method of reform.

In Rural Legal Markets, Elizabeth Chambliss (University of South Carolina School of Law) explores the realities of the current legal market of private practice in rural South Carolina. Using a mixed-methods study of private practitioners, Chambliss examines the economic and professional structures that shape rural legal markets, identifies the ingredients of sustainable rural practice, and discusses incentives for rural practitioners to engage in pro bono and low-bono services.

In A Tale of Two Landlords, Christopher J. Ryan Jr. (Maurer School of Law) explores the use of legal eviction from the landlord’s perspective, focusing on how costs impact landlords’ behaviors in the formal legal process of eviction. Drawing on over 200,000 eviction cases in Kentucky, the study explores the “economy of eviction,” and finds clear differences between landlords based on their location (rural or urban) and scale of their operations (small or large) when attempting to recoup lost rent or go through the eviction process.

In Forgotten are the Locals: Structures of Common Differences and the Inauthentic Curation of Western Boom Town Main Streetscapes, author Matthew M. Mars (Public and Applied Humanities, University of Arizona) examines four rural Arizona “main street” streetscapes to better understand these structures function as inauthentic representations of everyday rural life.

In Protecting Access to Nursing Home Care for Family Farmers, Natalie Temple (Gonzaga Law School) explores the challenges faced by American farmers facing retirement age and the need for care in nursing home facilities. Due to the “land rich, cash poor” nature of most farmers, elderly care poses a choice for most farmers between selling off farmland or going without care.

In Rural Residency, Rural Resentment, and Attitudes Towards Public Land Management in the United States, authors B. Kal Munis and Zoe Nemerever (both Political Science, Auburn) explore attitudes regarding federal public land management along the urban-rural divide. The authors find that while both rural and non-rural Americans are broadly supportive of federal public lands, a subset of “resentful ruralities” are markedly unsupportive of public lands due to their opposition to the federal government.

In Justice on the Backroads: The TBA YLD’s Answer to the Rural Attorney Shortage, Hon. Zachary R. Walden (Criminal Court judge for Tennessee’s 8th Judicial District) and Alix Rogers (Belmont University College of Law) explore the impact of the Tennessee Bar Association Young Lawyer Division’s Rural Judicial Fellowship (RJF) on law students from schools across the state. Built in response to Tennessee’s growing “legal deserts”—areas in which the availability of legal services is diminishing—the RJF program places law students in clerkships with rural judges during the summer to introduce them to career opportunities in rural areas.