1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910785049303321

Autore

Salamon Sonya

Titolo

Newcomers to old towns [[electronic resource] ] : suburbanization of the heartland / / Sonya Salamon ; with the collaboration of Karen Davis-Brown ... [et al.]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, 2007

ISBN

1-282-70626-8

9786612706264

0-226-73411-0

Edizione

[Pbk. ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (270 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

Davis-BrownKaren

Disciplina

307.72/0977

Soggetti

Urban-rural migration - Middle West

Urban-rural migration - Illinois

Sociology, Rural - Middle West

Sociology, Rural - Illinois

Middle West Rural conditions

Illinois Rural conditions

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [225]-236) and index.

Nota di contenuto

pt. 1. Changes in the heartland -- pt. 2. Newcomers, old towns -- pt. 3. The postagrarian countryside.

Sommario/riassunto

2004 winner of the Robert E. Park Book Award from the Community and Urban Sociology Section (CUSS) of the American Sociological Association Although the death of the small town has been predicted for decades, during the 1990's the population of rural America actually increased by more than three million people. In this book, Sonya Salamon explores these rural newcomers and the impact they have on the social relationships, public spaces, and community resources of small town America. Salamon draws on richly detailed ethnographic studies of six small towns in central Illinois, including a town with upscale subdivisions that lured wealthy professionals as well as towns whose agribusinesses drew working-class Mexicano migrants and immigrants. She finds that regardless of the class or ethnicity of the newcomers, if their social status differs relative to that of oldtimers,



their effect on a town has been the same: suburbanization that erodes the close-knit small town community, with especially severe consequences for small town youth. To successfully combat the homogenization of the heartland, Salamon argues, newcomers must work with oldtimers so that together they sustain the vital aspects of community life and identity that first drew them to small towns. An illustration of the recent revitalization of interest in the small town, Salamon's work provides a significant addition to the growing literature on the subject. Social scientists, sociologists, policymakers, and urban planners will appreciate this important contribution to the ongoing discussion of social capital and the transformation in the study and definition of communities.