Economic Diversity in Kentucky and Cuba.

• Author: Cordeiro, Stacey

Until recently, the island nation of Cuba and the coal fields of eastern Kentucky did not strike me as similar places. The only similarity between them was that I was fortunate enough to visit both in the past year, as a student of economic development. At that time I was unaware that I would discover remarkable similarities in their economic history and current situation.

The condition that Cuba and eastern Kentucky share with many other regions is their struggle with economic colonization and a one-commodity economy. Both areas are possessed of great natural resources and once-strategic locations. At the time of their colonization, the populations of both areas were unsuspecting of the damage their colonizers would eventually do. In the past 10 years, both places have experienced the effective withdrawal of their colonizer, and are now struggling to build what had been prevented by colonization: a diverse local economy, capable of supporting its people. The challenge is especially great with the expansion of the global economy, which encourages dependence and exploitation.

In March of 1999, I traveled to some of the most impoverished of Appalachia's counties as part of a research project on economic development. We were trying to discover why certain areas had proved resistant to the efforts of non-profit and government agencies to end the horrible poverty there. During my initial research, I came across the short answer: it's all about the coal. I came across a map of Appalachian coal fields and mining-related environmental problems, and it overlaid prettily with a map of Appalachian poverty.

British and US industrialists discovered Appalachian coal around the turn of the century. Coal was essential to industry as an ingredient for steel and for electricity. Central Appalachia's coal was both high quality (low-sulfur bituminous) and accessible, due to the flat strata typical of Appalachian geography. By 1904, railroads had snaked into the most remote valleys of eastern Kentucky and were carting out Appalachia's wealth by the thousands of tons. Foreign capitalists bought the land and mineral rights from farming and logging families who accepted small sums for the land, unaware of what it was worth to the outside world. To this day, all of the coal and most of the land is owned by outside corporations, especially energy utilities. And while US industrial development was fired by, and capitalists were enriched by Appalachian coal, the...