Boomtowns

Until the mid-1970s, the literature on rural industrialization generally drew on classic economic logic and emphasized the positive implications of economic and industrial development for local communities. After the 1973–1974 oil embargo, however, a series of massive energy development projects in sparsely populated regions brought extremely rapid growth to communities that came to be known as “energy boomtowns,” several of which doubled in population within a period of three to four years. The rapid growth also led to a new focus on the potential drawbacks of such rapid growth. Particularly in the late 1970s, this literature tended to draw from classical sociologists such as Émile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies, emphasizing the disruptive implications of rapid social change. Some of the literature was produced by human service providers whose primary focus was on helping communities and individuals cope with problems, rather than on carefully documenting those problems' occurrence.

This initial emphasis on boomtown disruptions led to reactions of its own, particularly in the influential 1982 critique by noted rural sociologist Kenneth Wilkinson and his colleagues, who questioned the validity of much of the work on this topic. Still, just as the literature on the boomtown disruption hypothesis had been too ready to accept assertions about negative consequences of rapid community growth, some literature appearing in the wake of Wilkinson's critique seemed to reflect an overreaction, with several studies apparently bent on proving that disruptive outcomes were entirely absent. From approximately the 1990s [Page 100]onward, the literature has shown balance, in at least two ways.

The boomtown of Goldfield, Nevada, in 1902. The town grew rapidly after gold was discovered in the area and then declined after the mines played out.

Bettmann/Corbis, used with permission.

First, closer examination has led to more nuanced understandings of the immediate boom experience. Although a sudden influx of new people into a previously stable community can indeed lead to a decline in a community's density of acquaintanceship (the proportion of people in the community who know one another), that social change was not found to lead to the kind of psychological disruption predicted by Durkheim and Tönnies. Instead, it appears to have affected mainly those social functions that depend on high levels of interpersonal acquaintanceship, such as control of deviance and socialization of the young. More broadly, researchers increasingly emphasized that rapid growth creates complex combinations of impacts—positive and negative—and that some groups adjust to disruptions far better than others.

Second, researchers have examined more than just the immediate boom period. This process may have begun when the rediscovery of a genuinely pre-boom data set in the 1980s showed that some of the most significant social impacts may have taken place during the pre-development phase, before large numbers of construction workers began moving into an area. Importantly, there has also been greater examination of longer-term impacts in the bust, or post-completion, phase. In economic terms, this research suggests that communities may find it difficult to return to pre-project conditions, not because of a failure to adapt to the boom, but because overadaptation leaves both individuals and institutions poorly prepared for the transition that occurs when resource-based industries begin to wane. In social terms, by contrast, longitudinal studies show that boom-period disruptions in social well-being, evidenced by such changes as increased fear of crime, declining levels of interpersonal trust, lower levels of social integration, and reduced community satisfaction, are followed by a rebound to essentially pre-boom conditions once the rapid growth phase has ended and more stable economic and demographic conditions prevail.

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