Rural–Urban Continuum

The concept of the rural–urban continuum references a diverse continuous landscape that is found across the world. This rural-to-urban transitional landscape, distinctive in the United States, is characterized by large farms abutting encroaching suburbanization, followed by a gradual transition into a deteriorating urban residential zone and central business district (CBD). Key shaping influences were a host of post– World War II elements—the construction of the interstate highway system, the presence of low-cost automobile fuels, and the presence of low-cost agricultural land available for residential conversion. Inner cities typically have been the most deteriorated sector; critical to this have been the push forces of white flight from the racially integrating cities, underfunded and inadequate schools, increasing urban taxation, and urban crime. Working against inner cities, at the same time, has been the allure of suburban lifestyles associated with perceived desirable places to raise families among other upper-class families of similar attitudes, races, and incomes. In contrast, inner cities in the rest of the world are highly desired residential areas. In the less developed countries, it is the wealthy who live near the city centers, with the poor relegated to and segregated in the suburbs. It is beyond the suburbs where squatter settlements encroach on agricultural land.

Today, more than 60% of U.S. residents live in suburbia on landscapes dotted with shopping malls, big-box retail stores, fast-food restaurants, gasoline stations, dry cleaners, tanning salons, and barber shops. The basic source of income for the suburbs typically has derived from daily commuters who could reach inner-city CBDs quickly and efficiently on the extensive high-speed interstate freeways. More recently, growing numbers of employment nodes have gravitated to the suburbs, and this trend has continued unabated.

The rural landscape is made up of large commercial farms specializing in one to three crops. These farms are mixed with an array of hobby farmers who enjoy working with the land but gain their income from other sources and may make long commutes to the city two or three times per week. Small towns service this rural community but also offer an inviting environment for these periodic commuters.

Except in the Amish community, the days of commercial mixed farming—where farmers raise many crops along with an array of livestock—are gone. Profitable farming is ruled by economies of scale, where extensive areas of the same crop can be planted and harvested efficiently with heavy inputs of chemicals and immense machinery. Here the demands on[Page 418] the farmer's time are intense only a few times during the year, and this frees the farmer to engage in other activities during most of the year. Cropland no longer is fenced to keep animals out. Some farmers engage in small confined livestock production, such as poultry and swine, and operate amid large grain farmers. Large dairy farms capitalize on the availability of food from neighboring grain farmers as well. Profitable beef cattle feed lots have become extremely specialized and relegated to a few areas in the United States where immense economies of scale locate between the feed grain suppliers and the source of calves weaned from the arid ranching lands of the western states. Greeley, Colorado, has become a typical location for beef cattle feed lots.

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