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 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.

Why do so many rural residents oppose land and resource use projects, such as energy development?

One commonality in each of these conflicts is the type of resource at issue – land and natural resources – which, because they are accessible to large groups of people and “vulnerable to depletion,” require collective management. This commentary explores literature surrounding rural resentment, particularly as it relates to land and natural resources management. Against this backdrop, I suggest that the one legal means of engaging in collective management, “public interest” tests, exacerbate this rural resentment even where designed to meet legitimate ends.

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.

‍By Erika Allen Wolters (Oregon State University) and ‍Kevin Pirch (Eastern Washington University).‍‍ ‍

As the United States expanded its territory into the American West, the federal government’s distributive land policies helped promote settlement by incentivizing new residents with the promise of land, resources, and profit. While these policies, like the Homestead Act, helped entice settlers (and simultaneously displace Indigenous peoples), large-scale infrastructure projects such as the expansion of railways aided western settlement. However, the federal government retained a significant amount as public land, allocating it based on the Public Land Survey System (PLSS). The PLSS neatly mapped the region into 640-acre sections, resulting in a checkerboard pattern of public and private land ownership. This intermix of land ownership led to expected quarrels over natural resource use, ownership, and private property rights. Additionally, it also left about 9.52 million acres of the 640 million acres of public land total in the United States inaccessible for public use (TCRP). ‍

In Catching Nutrients in a Net: Collective Action, Institutional Impediments, and the Mississippi River Watershed, Jonathan Rosenbloom (Albany Law School) investigates the role of local governments in the regulation of pollution in the Mississippi River Watershed. In his analysis, Rosenbloom goes beyond the traditional “tragedy of the commons” explanation for local government action and instead looks to the dynamics of federal and state regulations that preempt local governments.

In Natural Resource Policy and Collaborative Processes, Crystal M. Callahan and Katherine M. Himes (both Public Policy Research, University of Idaho) advocate for introducing collaborative governance to the natural resource policy process. The authors explore several successful Idaho case studies in which collective governance was utilized to address “wicked problems” plaguing Idaho’s natural resource policy.

In The Dark Side of the Balloon: Restrictions on Foreign Investment in US Farmland, Sarah Everhart (Delaware Law) argues that legislators should shift their focus from preventing foreign ownership of US farmland to supporting domestic farmers’ access to farmland.

In Rural Politics in the United States, authors Trevor E. Brown and Suzanne Mettler (both Government, Cornell University) survey recent literature on rural politics and recommend a broader lens to better understand the impact of place on voters. They discuss the current state of rural politics literature, how to measure place and rurality, the role of public opinion, and recommend a comparative approach for future rural studies.

The Rural Reconciliation Project hosted Professor Hannah Haksgaard of the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law to discuss her new book on rural attorneys in South Dakota.

The Rural Lawyer: How to Incentivize Rural Law Practice and Help Small Communities Thrive is the culmination of a series of interviews Professor Haksgaard conducted with South Dakota’s Rural Attorney Recruitment Program participants. These interviews highlight the experiences of participating attorneys, reveal the program's impact, and deepen understandings about what practice in rural communities looks like. 

In Trading Acres, Jessica A. Shoemaker (Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and James Fallows Tierney (Law, Illinois Institute of Technology) address the growing trend of financialization of farmland.