Building a national rural policy: One town at a time.

• Author: Fluharty, Charles
• Position: Brief Article

Those of us who love, care about, and appreciate the fabric that is rural America and what it means for this grand experiment in democracy have got to get our story straight. We need a new paradigm for rural policy in this nation and it needs to focus not only on people, but on place.

We are significantly late in this political culture of building an appreciation of place and regions. We are about the last political culture in the developed world to do so. So let's get started by answering two questions: Where is the constituency for action on a national rural policy? And how are we going to build a common vision given the fact that once you've seen one rural community, you've seen just one rural community? The challenge we have nationally is in dealing with our tremendous diversity of place and circumstance.

Increasingly, we live in a suburban political culture, not an urban political culture. In the 1992 election, the majority of votes cast for president were suburban votes. In 1995, we re-districted all of America, and that is going to have huge implications for public policy in all of our states. Because whether crafted by a Republican or a Democratic leadership, the national political parties are going into the 'burbs for their power base, and it's going to significantly expand our challenge in creating a rural differential.

Now the congressional reality is so ugly, we don't need to go over it. Congressional Quarterly keeps track of what percentage of the U.S. Congress is rural. They're down to 13 percent right now and that's heading south even as we speak. So we have a huge challenge in thinking through the rural perspective in a decidedly suburban hegemony.

There are three basic reasons why we don't have a rural policy in this country. First, rural is synonymous with agriculture. Secondly, most importantly, there is no active constituency for rural America. There are a bunch of sector-level constituencies. What I tend to find on the national scale is that in every sector there's a wonderful group of rural constituents working very hard for an ever-declining pot and in the end eviscerating one another for their share. But we not only need child-care, we need transportation and entrepreneurship and good welfare reform--and that connection never gets made. This is reflected in federal programs. We have about 900 programs in rural policy today, across multiple agencies. The average community is eligible for 30 or 40 programs.

But let me tell you the other reason why I don't think we have a rural policy. Those of us who are involved in public affairs know there are five things you have to do to change a national framework on policy. You need a believable problem articulation. And...