The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century (Iowa and the Midwest Experience)

The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century (Iowa and the Midwest Experience)

Julianne Couch
$35.00
Publication Date: April 15th, 2016
Publisher:
University Of Iowa Press
ISBN:
9781609384050
Pages:
230

Description

Most people in the United States live in urban areas; still, there are nearly fifty million people living in small towns of just a few thousand people or less. Some towns are within a short drive of a metropolitan area where people can work, shop, or go to school; some are an hour or more from any sort of urban hub. In this book, Julianne Couch sets out to illuminate the lives and hopes of these small-town residents.

The people featured live—by choice or circumstances—in one of nine small communities in five states in the Midwest and Great Plains: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Daily they witness people moving out, heading to more urban areas, small businesses closing down, connected infrastructure drying up, entrepreneurs becoming discouraged, and more people thinking about leaving. This is the story we hear in the news, the story told by abandoned farms, consolidated schools, and boarded-up Main Streets.

But it’s not the whole story. As Couch found in her travels throughout the Midwest, many people long to return to these towns, places where they may have deep family roots or where they can enjoy short commutes, familiar neighbors, and proximity to rural and wild places. And many of the residents of small midwestern towns are not just accepting the trend toward urbanization with a sigh. They are betting that the tide of rural population loss can’t go out forever, and they’re backing those bets with creatively repurposed schools, entrepreneurial innovation, and community commitment. From Bellevue, Iowa, to Centennial, Wyoming, the region’s small-town residents remain both hopeful and resilient. 

About the Author

Julianne Couch has lived part of her life with her back to the Rocky Mountains, another part with her back to the Mississippi River, and another part in the vast in-between. She has taught in the English department at the University of Wyoming since 1998. She moved to Bellevue, Iowa, in 2011 and in 2015 added teaching for Upper Iowa University to her distance education duties.

Praise for The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century (Iowa and the Midwest Experience)

“Julianne Couch opens the door to cafés and coffee shops, motels and newspaper offices to dramatize the workings of small midwestern towns. She highlights the hard work of town leaders and the vision of strong communities to maintain their integrity, attract jobs, and retain their young people. What a fascinating look at what it means to commit to place, to embrace cultural heritage, and to become tied to the land. This book should be on the shelf of everyone who cares about the fabric of richness of rural life.”—Mary Swander, author, Farmscape: The Changing Rural Environment

“If you’ve ever dreamed of taking a free-wheeling road trip, driving from one small town to the next and stopping?a while in each, and if you value finely crafted, insightful prose, you’ll love this vicarious tour. You’ll meet a cast of surprising, resourceful citizens along the way.”—Julene Bair, author, The Ogallala Road: A Story of Love, Family, and the Fight to Keep the Great Plains from Running Dry

"The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century by Julianne Couch lets the reader see, up close, the ins and outs, ups and downs, of rural midwestern life. Couch has a gift for connecting with people and introduces us to a cast of characters who make these towns come alive. Through its engaging format and focus on individuals, The Small-Town Midwest is a useful book for anyone who cares about the fabric of rural life in the Midwest."

— Kansas History

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