Midday; A look at the differences between rural and urban Minnesota

Volume was the slowest arrive the second slowest on Wall Street this year as of the 11:30 Central time the DA industrials have slipped below Twenty seven hundred twenty six ninety nine point ten that's down eight and a half points from yesterday's close the transportation averages up a point eighty nine and the utilities are down point all for a quick reminder that support for Minnesota Public Radio's coverage of social issues is provided by the McKnight foundation. And you're listening to midday or Minnesota Public Radio this is a member supported broadcast service. This is Can o w Minneapolis St. Paul mostly sunny skies Forty six degrees now in the Twin Cities and expecting a high today around 50. Minnesota Public Radio's programming is made possible in part with assistance from Cisco Boulder Colorado developers of Gnus pro software for broadcast newsrooms. Just a few minutes rather few seconds past twelve o'clock. We're going to be spending some time talking about the differences between life in

urban and rural Minnesota today. We have to begin with a report by Main Street Radio's John B-1 and then after that we'll be visiting with studio guests Paul Grupo and rule sociologist George Donahue. People in public life in particular have to deal regularly with questions of what to call different groups of people. In Minnesota there's been a movement over the past several years to change the term for that area outside Minneapolis St. Paul from outstate Minnesota to greater Minnesota. Well as Main Street Radio's Jon B-1 found out greater seems to be winning. But there are some strong pockets of resistance. My efforts to track down the origin of greater Minnesota ran into dead ends. Nobody seems willing to take credit or blame for having coined the term. What's clear is that somewhere around 1985 or 86 some state legislators and officials in the purpose administration started saying that out state was out and a

vast area of Minnesota beyond the metro area would henceforth be referred to as greater Minnesota. Steve Ronald is deputy managing editor at The Star Tribune newspaper. We used it for a while and as Ace said it crops up constantly and references often from politicians from outside the metro area who some of whom seem to like the term. It doesn't appeal much to me because I think it's who he is pompous and kind of silly. Ronald says the Star-Tribune doesn't use greater Minnesota except when quoting those who say it because it's ungrammatical and has he puts it not felicitous. But it's hard to find a politician or a state bureaucrat who hasn't adopted greater Minnesota and a statewide poll in the fall of 87 by the Minnesota Center for survey research found that a strong majority of Minnesotans more than two to one prefer greater Minnesota to out state.

I think it's great. There's a lot of things out here that I think are light greater than fighting traffic every day. That's Freeborn County Sheriff Don no lender of Albert Lee. He doesn't like being called out state and neither does Patton who is city clerk in the southern Minnesota town of Elysian first few times I heard out state and nearly made me think of out the state of Minnesota and I was always hearing this. I thought why are we discussing things out of the state. It's kind of like. The place to be is in the metropolitan area. But the state makes me think of the outback of Australia. It's the outback. It's kind of a lesser degree. Not quite isn't important or is needed but some people in so-called greater Minnesota are dismayed by the new term like Alza Don managing editor of the Hibbing Tribune. Well I think it's a darn shame. I guess some of us out in the state area have been duped into believing that this is the way we should go as a

Don has written editorials in opposition to greater Minnesota. First of all he says it's a misuse of the word greater if you think of the Greater Chicago. You know what do you mean by that you mean Chicago and you mean all the suburbs and little cities that are around it. Following that logic what is greater Minnesota I mean does that mean Minnesota plus Iowa. The Dakotas in Wisconsin and Ontario and Manitoba is that what greater Minnesota is I mean that following that normal logic the normal usage of greater That's what it should mean. Obviously that's not what they mean here. Furthermore says the Don greater Minnesota is an obvious euphemism designed to make people in what he proudly calls out state Minnesota. Feel good. Many observers agree that non-metro Minnesotans have been feeling increasingly alienated from Twin Cities people in recent years. Which may explain why after decades of use the term outstay began to sound like a putdown to some. If you ask a small town a

rural Minnesotan what they want their part of the state to be called their answer often becomes an explanation of why they don't live in the Twin Cities. Lauren Kaylor is a dairy farmer near New York Mills in west central Minnesota. I love the outdoors I guess mostly and I like to be kind of on my own or. Alone most of the time and and that's why I like the country life and. I really don't know what they call a sewer. They really don't even answer that. So you're not you don't spend a lot of time thinking about worrying about what they call Twin Cities people. You know I really don't care I just hope I never have to move. Welcome to a living and still have it. Most people I've talked with agree there's no easy answer to the question of what to call Minnesota outside the Twin Cities. In fact Steve Ronald of the Star Tribune says even though it's cumbersome he prefers to say just that the area outside the Twin Cities. There are problems with greater Minnesota and without state

and rural and non metro don't work for places like Duluth Fargo Morehead St. Cloud and Rochester. But ALS a don of Hibbing says the problem is more fundamental than just finding the best term. You just can't revert refer to this you know diverse kind of amazing area that that is beyond the Twin Cities area. In just one term I don't think I think if you're going to talk about northern Minnesota you should say northern Minnesota. Another minute so I have to say that there are really different areas. If you're if you want to define it more closely you can call it the Iron Range called the Red River Valley. There's all kinds of neat places in Minnesota and generalize them under one term I think is where you're getting into trouble as Don says he'll continue his battle against the use of greater Minnesota. But he says especially since the phrase has been made official in the title of the greater Minnesota corporation we're probably stuck with it at least for a while. So Don wonders though if the rest of the state is greater Minnesota How would Twin City

ins feel about being called lesser. Minnesota. This is John B when we're going to continue our conversation on the topic of the differences between rural and urban Minnesota. Two guests who joined me in the studio George Donahue is a rural sociologist from the University of Minnesota George welcome nice to have you with us today. Thank you. And Mr. Pawle Drew Cole who was editor and co owner of the Worthington globe for almost a decade author of a couple of books Journal of the prairie year and the necessity of open places. Paul is now chair of the Minnesota humanities commission and teaches English at Saint of college in Northfield Paul nice to have you back. It's good to be here. Well what do you guys make of the dispute over outstate Minnesota or greater Minnesota law. Well I never liked the term greater Minnesota I have to confess I'm with those people. Yeah you know I think the thing that's true that I became keenly aware of a few years ago when I made a modest proposal in this regard was that the reason we grapple with this term and all I think

is that the word rural has become in some ways pejorative. We were at an Associated Press meeting and them and the Associated Press is all organizations do has contests and there was a category for outstate Minnesota and one for Metro Minnesota. And some of the world folks felt that they didn't like the outstate designation and so I hesitantly tentatively suggested that we ought to call the divisions Metro Minnesota and rural Minnesota and. The room fell upon me. It was just taken as outrageous suggested nobody wanted to be known as rural for heaven's sakes in there. But I really do think that that's at the basis of the question but greater but it sort of seems to me patronize ing wealth toward metropolitan people and toward rural people so I don't much like it but on the other hand I suppose they don't

care on what I what they call it. George W. What do you think. Well we're in the age of image building and I think that's where the GMC was related to an attempt to sort of bolster a development program for the quote out state unquote area and give it an image that it did not have but perhaps it being new it was not very well understood and still isn't very well and good as to what is included or not including greater Minnesota except among people who have come into contact with the name and asked where it was. Do you think it's a trivial dispute when it boils right down to it. Well I think so. There are certain realities to the differences between the metropolitan areas of this country not only of Minnesota but of the country as a whole and the non metropolitan areas which statisticians are now prone to use rather than rural

because the non-metropolitan is perhaps a more functional definition because it includes the socio economic interdependencies of the Metro and non metro areas there. The old division of rural and urban. No longer really exists in terms of the functional reality of the relationships between rural and the urban areas. Even Metro non metro gets to be blurred because I guess you have this whole area that stretches from the Twin Cities to St. Cloud down to Rochester that's kind of becoming a sort of a semi urban area isn't it. Well it is but I would say that there are St. Cloud and Duluth and Rochester act as sort of the channels to the Twin Cities there's such a unity there between those large cities in the Twin Cities in terms of the socio economic

transactions but also there's the same type of relationship between St. Cloud and the communities surrounding it as there is between St. Cloud in the Twin Cities. They're not sort of independent islands they're all part of a functional whole at the present time. Cole perhaps the the real distinction that you could make is the distinction between that central core. Which does include parts of northeastern Minnesota too. And the urban stretch from Rochester to north of St. Cloud. That part of Minnesota which in general is still gaining population. And the fringes of Minnesota which are still in general either holding their own in population or losing population modestly. I suspect that there's a somewhat different frame of mind at least in those two communities in Minnesota. And then the real sense those fringe

communities that are outside the state's population growth really are state communities in fact that's a quite precise definition for a relationship. I think talking about urban and rural differences today Paul Grupo and George Donohue are with us we'll open the phone lines for your questions on the subject in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area the numbers 6:58 six thousand two to seven 6000 outside Minneapolis St. Paul toll free 1 800 6 5 2 9 7 0 0 1 800 6 5 2 9 7 0 0 that number by the way is good in the surrounding states as well. What about the political and economic power of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area compared to the rest of the state. What is how do you define that and how do you see it changing as time goes on Paul. You know I think if you're talking about the very rural fringes of Minnesota that you're are really talking about A and economic situation that in some ways I think of as colonial.

What's happened in those parts of Minnesota in Worthington where I've lived for 15 years for example is that the economic base of those communities has become a manufacturing base in some significant ways a very large proportion of the jobs in a place like that are jobs and in low paying industrial settings. And whereas a retail base of those communities and some of their basic institutions newspapers they're a good example of that. Are you our own elsewhere. And where there's a where there's an outflow of profits to urban centers that really leaves those communities depressed both economically and in terms of leadership and I think that leadership aggression has that is the biggest problem that communities like that face.

So there very definitely are I think two worlds in some parts of Minnesota. How do you get how do you get young people George to stay in their hometowns rather than flock to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area or other large population centers in other cities. Well historically we've had the rural to urban migration because the rural typically overproduce not only in the fields but also in the families. And they had to find places for the young people and as long as the cities were expanding growing they were happy to receive that flow. It was very essential to the development of the country. How do you keep them down on the farm. You don't keep them down on the farm you don't keep them down in the small town. If you have a surplus of population if you keep them there the only thing you do is you. Developed greater pressure on the available jobs and available resources for involvement on the part of young people and the

general level is depressed by the fact that there is really not much for them to do so and this bothers a lot of parents because that 17 or 18 typically the rural family is broken up more than the urban family because in the urban area the person can find jobs within a reasonable distance. The extended family which was once a rural phenomenon is now a metropolitan phenomenon. Your kids may live in the south part of the cities and you may live in the north or vice versa and there's a lot of interaction in the family whereas in the rural areas now quite often even with modern means of transportation and communication the big days are the holidays. You know it's about a quarter past the hour let's get to some folks on the telephones with questions for our two guests George Donahue and Paul Google. Thank you you're on the air now go ahead please. You know what if we should be discussing this in terms of the country most of the city most of you have a question or is that it. Oh I see the

whole thing. Intertwined with all kinds of cuts of several morality and the fast city life we have a governor who is a political scientist I see him as the greatest political animal I've ever seen and in a lot of legislators too and they sort of have a reparations concept to the rural area and they set up things like the greater Minnesota corporation they fund money losing ski areas and taconite villages interpretive centers and little boondoggles and hornswoggled and pork barrels and they set them up all over the state as kind of a as a say a concept of almost reparations in abeyance to you know excuse us for a fast money making ways in the city but we we still love you and here's a little money to prove it here and then again we turn around we know we tax the hell out of everything in the state and it seems to me like a real kind of a lurching from event. That kind of approach and like I say I think it's the part because I see the governor as the greatest political animal reverse

animal I've ever seen as a political scientist. Ok I wonder if George or Paul wants to comment on the thrust of these remarks. George I don't think this is new with our current governor. These types of activities are going on historically various so-called equity payments have been made to the rural areas whether they're in the form of farm programs or in area redevelopment programs. So I think historically he's correct this. It's not necessarily a reparations as much as it is an equity payment saying that after all you have historically put a lot of resources in the young people they have fueled the expansion of the city and so forth and you did not get any return out of that public investment. And in a sense the rural areas are saying we wish some type of equity we produce basic food and fiber and we produce it in quantities as requested by the government during war and other periods. And yet we don't have the same type of price mechanism at General

Motors as somebody else has. That's in a position to dictate price quite frequently even though we think it's a competitive situation and it's certainly not logical. Well I certainly agree with that I certainly agree with you. The sense of the question how much of this effort is or is futile doesn't isn't very helpful I think for one long term thing that one could do in terms of development and in rural Minnesota as I doggedly call it is to is to think carefully about the way in which we farm and. And I think there's there's a trend toward a kind of agriculture that might in fact involve some repopulation of the countryside in a very modest way and it would be a development that had good environmental replications as well as good social represents for our communities but that's a very long term stuff and it's a very difficult and I do the one general thing I'd say beyond that is

that I'm always puzzled by the use of the term political as a pejorative it's like saying of doctor that he's medical or a farmer that he's agricultural or something of course governors or political Why shouldn't they be back to the phones. The other question here for our guests as we talk about urban rural differences Hello you're on the air. I'm calling from Minneapolis. Thought a thought and kind of just carrying on with the same theme sort of the old game of the INS and the outs who is in who is out you end up with a term that becomes exclusive and to me it's your guess that kind of talked around the heart of the matter which is that the gap between the rich and the poor the richest and the poorest fifth of the country is wider than it has ever been and kind of touching on what you said earlier about reparations it's sort of a guilt thing that you know we want to kind of

help them out and all that but we don't want to recognize the fact that our higher living and that in the cities here really contributes to the problems in the rural outstate whatever you want to call it part of Minnesota. I am not a native minister. I've only been living here a couple years. I would be interested George if you've seen any figures on that I have a strong impression that. That one of the things that is happened since the farm crisis of the 1980s is that the gap between rich and poor in the rural parts of Minnesota has in fact widened. Perhaps even more significantly than it has in the in the society in general that they are one of the consequences of how we've lived is that well the stratification of income in rural areas has never been as great as it is in metropolitan areas and while it's increased slightly it's not because of the

diversification which is occurring in that area but a lot as you point out in Worthington a lot more occupations that are non farm occupations at minimum wages where they're farming out let's say. The practice is to the rural areas simply because there's a cheaper labor advantage that in that area. But the real inequality in the country exist in the urban areas the stratification whether it's in the United States or South America or England or any place. The real stratification a difference between the big and the low the high and the low is the biggest in the cities of the country as a whole and it's growing at the present time. CLARK The British economist Nelson the U.S. sociologist and others have documented the spread that's occurring in the system as a whole so really the difference between rural and urban continues to exist but it exists more or not not necessarily in

terms of income but in terms of services available if you look at the number of services available vailable whether they're religious economic educational and so forth that the rural areas suffer relatively speaking in terms of the per capita services they have at the present time and people would argue they not only suffer in terms of the per capita but they also suffer in terms of the quality of those services back to the telephones in another question hello where are you calling from today going from one to one. OK I will. Well I was on my way home I better not get a payphone to talk to you. I am originally from. Buddha Tykerb and not die but you're a minute 30 miles west of us and I owe my life right as I was growing up and I could you know I never had the trouble with the rule area but an area first of all there's a core door that runs from San Antonio maybe farther than even you have Dallas and I think

35 go through Barrett. They met here and. Growing up there was never a big thing about you know the rule that there would be a life and I find it so hard to hear everybody talking about let me label you label your back when all you have to do is meant that no name anybody who'd lived in and then to go to lie on your behalf would know where it's at where they're at central area the northern that you know where they went to the most interesting point and maybe we'll get our guest to comment how big a rift is there do you think between urban and rural Minnesota. HALL Well I think there's always and perhaps Texas is different from Minnesota and I can I don't know Texas well but. I can't think of a time in the century when there hasn't been certainly a keen sense of a consciousness about the differences that at least in a general way between urban and rural life.

There's been a big change I think we started the century assuming that the great yeoman myth was true that to live on a farm somewhere in the countryside was to live a clean and pure and wonderful life and then we had the great revolt at least in literature in the 1920s. And following the Sinclair Lewis is of the world arrived with the news that it wasn't all purity and in the countryside either. And I think we probably moved toward a sense of that. That the garden pier life tends to be lived in urban areas now really. And I just reflects where the majority of people have lived I certainly I think there's always been and at least in my mind that sense of that division historically that liberally hide Bally's and others in the country life movement have always thought of the country as being sort of defining the

ordained area and the city is like being artificial man made in a den of iniquity. And the literature is full of the disputes between people about which would be the best place to rear children or which has the best cultural values. And what the whole idea was that the country life with the independent entrepreneur on the farm and on Main Street was really sort of a cornerstone of our socio economic philosophy of capitalism also. And whereas a city with its large corporate structures was a departure from the historical notion that Adam Smith and others had about a free enterprise economy of that order. Paul I'm surprised to hear you say that you think now the good life is being led in in the cities as opposed to the rural areas of the cities where there's problems of crime and drugs and things of that sort in some of the small towns people at least one hears still leave their doors open at night or when they go to work during the day. You don't do that in the

cities. I probably shouldn't say this on the air but I do. You don't go there absolutely. But that's different from our perception this is generally about where people who are knowing inspired and and aggressive and civilized like what's happened in the world and I saw that you know is that in the course of the century we're in Minnesota ceased to be a community of entrepreneurs and it's really entrepreneurship that we have. We have worshiped in effect in the yeoman math was a was an ideal that expressed a country made up of entrepreneurs and in fact that entrepreneurship has become his career and we're all meant to so that as it as it is in urban settings and so the ground has shifted. I think I think that's. She is me you have brought up the usual stereotype of the city that I still have.

Yeah I know about the crime and the drugs and so on and so forth. Well depends on where you are in the city or whether you have crimes and drugs that you confront all the time. Most of the city doesn't have that there are core areas in the city where the drugs are a tremendous problem. But you find that in the city the ways in which you can learn to cope and deal with these situations is such that they're not nearly as great as they would be for let's say a crime to occur in a rural area and upset this rather docile setting and be the topic of conversation for weeks on end in the city you learn to live with certain deviant behaviors whether they are religious or criminal behaviors or whatever they happen to be and you develop structures to deal with this that are perhaps more effective than we have had historically. Of course I would say that you brought up the other stereotype stereotyping out of your eye which is that

small towns are docile places I've never seen any evidence for. I said my own experiences both times. The adjective sleepy which is just habitually applied to a small town since they have their crimes and their drugs in there and excitements just as people do anywhere. The group works both ways still wearing down you know exactly half past the hour here talking with Paul Grupo who is a writer and teacher of English and so you know his college Northfield Minnesota now and George Donahue Earl sociologist at the University of Minnesota your question please thanks for waiting Go ahead no calling from uptown but not upscale Minneapolis up in Greater New York and I've actually been to Texas. Oh good heavens I still hear it. I've spent a lot of time I was driving. Highways and backroads to do my work as a photographer. I just down in the Carolinas but I see the same thing everywhere and that's the phenomena of

the hollow Main Street and some towns that seem to all appearances because now they're ringed by those enterprises that once were in the middle of their their or their home the city center is a town centers on the main streets you see empty places mostly in and small businesses that have nothing to do with anything that I would consider vital to the life of the community and that seems to be endemic around this society and I surmise some of the reasons why but I just would like to get a more informed analysis of of why the money has shifted. Well as you know the towns haven't grown that much in many cases the towns don't look like they've lost much of their income. Paul or rod the generalization probably an interesting comment on this but I think the generalization that is true is that at least small towns of a certain size say twenty five hundred or three thousand three

somewhere in that range and above. In fact I haven't lost a lot of population that was a recent study that I saw by John Fraser Hart at the University of Minnesota which looked at Minnesota towns carefully in terms of population trends and reached a conclusion that seems evident to me as I look at Minnesota but what has happened of course is that the that the economic base of many of those small towns has changed radically. The people still exist and then some sense is the jobs still exist but the tend to be manufacturing jobs not retail and service jobs in a sense this grand generalization we have about becoming a service industry isn't working and we're all Minnesota and the result I think is. It is serious and I'm in a social sense. I do think that we've lost a lot of the foundation for good communities even as we've kept the. The populations themselves and even the jobs that and but the

sacrifice we've made is that sacrificing the quality of those communities hollow hollow streets phenomena throughout rural America and have been for a long while if you were in Idaho Montana in the mountain towns and so forth you would find where mining fell out and went to South America and other areas earlier than it did in Minnesota that you had these hollow main streets hollow main streets in Minnesota more frequent in areas that are monolithically structured in terms of agriculture being a base because I recall chair is consolidating and will continue to consolidate its consolidated at a slower rate in Minnesota than it has in either the Dakotas or Montana or Nebraska because all the farms were farmland the fertile farmland was pretty much occupied and that the old homestead but the further west you went the less that was true. So the phenomenon Minnesota is coming to Minnesota a little later than it has come to other areas. But there hasn't been a

disappearance of. Towns they persist until the last thing is the bar on the corner that even the church goes before the ubiquitous tavern leaves and Four Corners Minnesota is still there and it's enlisted in the census data. John Fraser Hart another we're dealing with but it simply is not a community any longer. It's very incomplete at the present time. When you were in the list the post office this the post office is consolidating very rapidly as you know. That's a that's one of the big recent changes is matter of fact. OK let's go back to the phones here and it's more questions Paul group. George Donahue listen you're on the air with the M.O.. I thank you very much. Good afternoon gentlemen. I really want a rural part of the metropolitan area every variation here downtown St.. What is your question today in a way I find the whole concept. I realize some of the problems that you're discussing are rather serious

but I do tend to find the problem with what hollers to be at times an exercise in absurdity. One would think that the brain power could find a better use for its own. However I have come up with a potential name that we could take it on ourselves to the whole state. I don't love the object less propositional phrase. I'm tempted to take out a post office box just out of embarrassment when I'm corresponding with friends and relatives that get some of this on the wire services pick up some of this silliness. Read an interesting comment. I'm not sure that demands a response gentlemen if you care to. Fine I think let's go out to let I know Vonn find out what is on the minds of another caller here. You're on the air from where today when I'm in a sort of from when I go ahead please. Well I guess the first question is should the Twin Cities area be able to issue

any more building permits until they clean up their sewage effluent and if they weren't Wouldn't this tend to disperse the population. Another problem I see with the Twin Cities area is the road building or maybe even in the Twin Cities outstrip the rest of the state and of course they have more population. But the other. Problem I see is that there are so many more stated roads even in the smaller areas of the metropolitan area. I think this is caused by and I would like to comment on it caused by the fact that the political districts have been made pie shaped and I am behind a small section of the Twin Cities. Consequently we get our legislator from the Twin Cities. He's being voted on by people down as far as Red Wing. I'm to the north I imagine it's the same problem and that's the upstate areas out of the immediate Twin Cities. I'm not really being reset represented.

Well we have at least a part partly an infrastructure question here sewers and roads. George what's your view on that. They are indeed problems but I think he's looking down the road to whether or not the environmental read impacts of large urban areas are such that they're not sustainable in the long run. And I would say that most people tend to take a sort of a technologic view of that somehow or another will develop procedures and technology that will deal with the effluent that we have to the feeling is the idea of a redistribution of population by declaring a moratorium on building permits or migration as never squared very well in this country as a whole. And then he hit the nail on the head of why that's true and that's because the political power is in the city. And if we have to we will ship by whatever effluent we have or environmental waste down to Illinois or Missouri or maybe ship it around

on barges forever or shoot it out into space. The feeling is that the political power that he spoke of we do gerrymandered districts and historically we've always gerrymandered districts in this country. And that political power struggle will go on forever and it's one of the reasons why rural areas will continue to lose out because they don't have a political base that they once a blogger. Well I have one observation to make on this I think is that it represents Kerry's characteristic pattern of sinking and one challenge for us is to is to decide in the long run whether we can change that pattern of thinking in a pattern of thinking is to say that the tech technological solutions will override social and political priorities. That is to say with respect to the question of the caller from NOAA asks we might on the one

hand ask is it good public policy to have most of the Minnesota congregated in one in one place. Most of Minnesotans congregated in one place these are good public policy would we like that in the long run would their citizens be best served and would the state be best served and what our lives would be happiest if that's the way we organize things. And we allow ourselves to do it because we're confident that the technical problems like waste we can solve technologically so that we don't have to think about the public policy implications of what we do it's a way of drifting in my act of letting the world take an unplanned course is a question for the sociologist is not whether or not I would like another type of social situation or a different type of social policy. It's a question of why certain social policies have persisted. What are the forces political economic and otherwise that bring us to this state.

If I begin to think in terms of setting a goal and saying this is what I'd like to see and this is how I would like to achieve it I can do that as an individual but as an analyst it becomes very difficult because and I'm super imposing whatever values I have on you Paul or anybody else. And I'm not suggesting you shouldn't analyst but that we might do it as a community. Oh indeed indeed we are doing that. Except that Bush isn't going along with us. Discussion continues here with George Donahue rural sociologist from University of Minnesota and Paul group co-chair than a sort of humanities Commission and was featured sealift college in Northfield. Next question go ahead you're on the air. Thanks for waiting. Oh yeah. I'm calling for live TV. Yeah. The area this is one of KBR and he wanted to bring up the state of Minnesota as an alternative to a naming problem. I just called in when he said that that's what he's been using

to refer to it to politicians and to people he talks to and it worked for him upstate as opposed to out state or greater or something will they do that New York they call upstate New York State New York which is a pseudonym for Rural right. Yeah. All right well that's another. Another possibility for us to talk about I don't think I don't think Worthing Tony and would want to be called upstate and so would you want a graphical problem there. But you know the state down the state that's Illinois. Yeah you know I'd say Well that's right. I don't know I don't think we're going to get this language thing. Talking about urban rural differences in onto your question hello there. A common question. All right. That's true. That's.

The question. Paul that's an area you're interested in I know where I think the answer is that at least in terms of federal policy in fact there are disincentives this is one of the things we've got to work on the National Academy of Sciences recently issued a report that in many ways is quite excellent on sustainable agriculture in this country and one of the findings of the National Academy was exactly that that our that our our federal policies particularly as they relate to compensation for commodities. Tend to lock us into a particular way of farming. They had the basically the big scale

industrial style of farming that we have come to and that we continue to practice in that we continue develop. If we wanted to have a different kind of farming we would need some changes in federal policy in particular to help achieve it. Well we've had sort of a version of sustainable farming in the form of part time farming around the country as a whole. And it was a very great down in Worthington and more recently in the last 10 to 15 years it used to be back in the 50s about 10 percent in that area. It's up around 20 some percent now I guess but in the areas where you have a lot of off farm employment it becomes very important and it's not really a resource intensive usage of the land. All of 40 percent of our farmers are part time farmers in the nation as a whole and they sell about 2 percent of the product and in a sense if you want to talk about sustainable agriculture that is having people out in the country on the land living in an alternative lifestyle

that's probably the alternative that is going to grow the most in the next period say let's say a quarter of a century. But I don't think you should forget the fact that rural areas aren't disappearing. Rural areas if you take the number of people who are in rural areas there are more people right now in rural areas than there happened to be in the whole country at the turn of the century. There's been a relative decline because of the great increase in the metropolitan areas but we have about 70 some million people in rural areas right now and that is in the most rural of rural that's 20 500 or under. Now if you talk about non metropolitan areas many of which are quote rural in terms of their functions you would have perhaps 100 million people or more living in what traditionally have been known as rural areas. So they are alive but they're changing and some areas are losing out just as some cities are losing out at the present time because of certain shifts in the economy as a whole.

What are what will be the characteristics of those which survive do you think can survive and thrive well into the new century. Well I think that what has happened is the setting has been there when the motor car makers consolidated say one for seven. It used to have a car dealership in every community and then they decided to consolidate about seven to one and then the banks are consolidating in the medical facilities of. And so if you look for the areas where they're consolidating they're going to growing around those will grow some bedroom or dormitory suburbs as happening in Worthington and he can in other areas county seat towns but counties towns that develop economically will survive. The others will survive in so far as they provide. That's a dormitory basis. Now the big question is in the western reaches of the state where we are having real problems in Madison and other areas. Maybe

they'll have to have boarding schools they have boarding schools in Montana and parts of the Dakotas and I don't know in other areas where they have a sparsity of population and the churches are facing a tremendous problem now with you know congregations of something around 100 150 in many of these communities. Paul do you think we should we as a society should let this take its course or should society intervene in some way to preserve those towns and those ways of life that might otherwise survive. Well I it seems to me that the the one factor that might realistically change have alluded to this earlier in sort of one of our callers is that we might well decide for a variety of reasons most of which don't have anything per se to do with World America but we might well have to well decide that we wanted to farm in a different way. And if we decided that it is possible that the what seemed like a

viable trans at the moment would change. There's reason for people to want the way we farm to change I think so one could hope for that I think. And we're talking about it. In particular breaking the fossil fuel and petro chemical dependency farming and. They began the National Academy report that I've alluded to suggests that had at the technical level this is quite practical that it can be done if we want to. And if we have social policies in place which allow it. So that's that's one optimistic sign I think on the horizon for all places. All right let's go back to the phones here gets more questions Paul Grupo was with us chair of the Minnesota humanities commission an English teacher at sale of college and also George

Donahue world sociologist from the University of Minnesota. Thanks for waiting where you calling from today rather live from southern Minnesota Go ahead please or would you don't care to discuss the impact of the large influx of larger cities or the rural areas. George W Well I think that Minnesota has one of the largest communities in the US. Apparently the Mung are adjusting reasonably well according to all the information I receive. Perhaps better than our forefathers did when they first came to this country given the difference in complexity that exists now in our system compared to then. I would say that perhaps the contribution of the Asian population generally is

to perhaps emphasize the traditional entrepreneurial aspects of our economy they are highly individualistic they are highly motivated individuals who are showing a great deal of energy and devotion to the traditional capitalism that as existed in this country. And so I would say that if people want this country to return to the individual entrepreneurial model these people are excellent advocates of that position. I think that's very much true there's a wonderful thing that's happened and I think a very sad thing that's happened as a result of this influx and world places at least Worthington Minnesota is an example of a place that now supports an Asian grocery store for example. The new diversity that's come to the countryside as a result of this you have this influx of people has really been quite wonderful. On the other hand and I think in my own mind this is the most

serious social problem that we face and we're all going to sell it I think there has been a can comments an increase in open expression at least of racism and many were all communities and I think that's a very serious issue that that industrial towns in rural Minnesota are facing is very nasty. It's a very open and it's and it's an issue that we are going to have to address one day soon. It's very present not only in rural America but urban America as well and at the university. Prejudice towards the Asian graduate students who are more numerous than they have been in the past is that their levels of performance are so high that they represent unfair competition at the present time so I would say that. Typically prejudice occurs when there is some sort of a competitive relationship between a

group or an individual and another group an individual and I think you are right on target with the idea that the yellow pearl of a lot of starter to another is that was true in the twenties and so forth is rearing its head once again in our system. We have about ten minutes left as we talk about urban rural differences here with George and Paul and your next thank you for winning Go ahead please Who are you calling from. Oh this is the South and the corner of a diner and the differentiation between small town and suburb. Hopkins I think of all the city I ever lived when I lived there. You walk where they shop. They did everything. They didn't have to jump in a car to get their goods and services and all of that kind of stuff. And I discovered that it really wasn't a suburb it was a small

time that happened to get surrounded by the suburbs. But I think the attitude and the fact that if it is closely centered small community people know you're coming and going and many people in my observation have left this small town because they wanted the anonymity of the big city. And I think that now those things have changed for Hopkins as well as others because there are not big enough employers to employ the labor that. Right I think they're right. But I'm rounding up. I'm still wondering how much of your field. All right Paul you live in north feel what you think about that. Well I live in North Korea but I've lived there for three months

so I only know he has actually there claim to be an expert on that. The this question about small towns in that sense is interesting to me because I say to people and it's true that the best small town I ever lived in was the neighborhood that I lived in in St. Paul in the classic sense that we talk about the virtues of small towns having neighbors and having an organization that they walked to a level and and having people looking out for each other and so on. I think family courage probably airsoft it maybe more often in many urban settings as it does in in rural communities. So the distinction is one that. Seems to me to entirely depend upon the characteristics of the neighborhood you live in not the setting rural or urban.

I think it's the escape that the metropolitan area permits you. For instance in any community you live in your immediate neighborhood will know something about you who you are and what your comings and goings are and the sort of look out for one another. More so in some areas than in other areas. But once you move beyond the residence to your workplace and say to a recreational place those are all sort of segregated in a large metropolitan area where is there not a segregated in the small town. And so I think that the escape that gives you the anonymity that he spoke of. Give you this degree of freedom from the social pressures that you would find in a small community everybody you meet in the city may be in this mall in your neighborhood may know you but the people you meet let stay in downtown St. Paul don't know. Yeah I think that's true and I think the compensation the small town compensation on the other side of that equation is that I'm convinced that for him not lived in a

suburb but I have lived in big cities and I've lived in small towns and the the thing about small towns that I particularly liked simply as a resident is that the diversity of our social acquaintances it seems to me has been very much broader in small communities out of necessity than it has been in urban places. I can spend a life on the fringe of the Twin Cities now dealing with other academics and writers and so on and get pretty isolated in a way that I simply couldn't when I was living in more than if you're in a more affluent bracket and I'm assuming you are Paul that. The weather you live in the country a small town or the city really doesn't make that much difference because you even the small town if you want accessibility to the Guthrie you go to the got trucks you know you often talk to bankers and others who can afford it. But the lower incomes in the small towns are far more

restricted and perhaps have less and the opportunity structure available to them. You're labeled in a small town more so than a large town you're someone SO's son and if so-and-so did this that and the other thing you're expected to behave in that fashion as well and you're really pushed into that channel of behavior. Let me we have less than five minutes left I want to get a couple callers on too but one thing I'd like to have you both respond to before run out of time. We've talked about the differences between Earl urban and rural Minnesota we've talked about the split between them and so on some of the stereotypes that each have of the other. What do we have in common as Minnesotans do you think. Well I think we have almost everything in common. We have we have more similarities than differences though I think there's no doubt about that and I think the similarities have grown stronger with the decades. We read the same newspapers. We have the same allegiances to sports teams we buy the same commercial

products we see the same television programmes. I think the culture gets more homogenized all the time. That one can be happy about that or sad about it but I think it's just a fact that we are so interconnected now that. At the cultural level at least those distinctions don't survive the exception that George was talking about earlier I think is very much true there is. For seriously economically disadvantaged people living in small towns deprivation. That sets that group of people quite apart from the rest of Minnesota. But but it's a circumstance of economics not a place Georgia quick. I think there are certain things that transcend such as the sports teams and so forth but I still think that while I don't think the modernization is great if we look at the data on differentiation because the characteristic thing of a

city is huge and as the diversity occurs you get this differentiation of people the degree of specialization you're forced to deal with writers an artist and so forth. In the large city. And as the country becomes that way I think where we're getting together is the interdependencies between the small town and the large town. We have to get along at particularly a small town is forced to get along if it's going to survive it has to develop these into the infrastructure the linkages with the larger system in order to exist but all of this said and done I think the real thing we haven't even touched upon and perhaps we should have. We don't have time to is the global system we're going in at the present time and what consequences it has for the small town as well as for our metropolitan areas when it comes to farming I don't think we're going to be a first class farming nation much beyond 2025. I think really we're going to what we're going to do it is export all these environmental problems to other systems around the world whether it's

in or we're already doing it. I know but we're going to ask a well we're not going to be an agricultural producer the way we are at the present. You know I think you just hit upon the topic for another hour another time. Thank you both very much for coming in. Most interesting. It's great to be here. Enjoyed it. Paul group call who is a writer lives in Northfield now teaches English at Seattle is college chair of the Minnesota humanities commission. And George Donohue worl sociologist from the University of Minnesota as we talked about rural urban differences in the state of Minnesota. All right briefly the weather outlook for Minnesota partly to mostly sunny and warmer this afternoon highs ranging from the upper 30s in the northeast to the mid 50s in the south and partly to partly cloudy in the north both tonight and tomorrow cloudy in the south lows tonight in the teens and 20s and highs tomorrow in the mid 30s 40s and there's a chance of showers in the south tomorrow. A reminder that today's broadcast of midday was made possible with financial assistance from the James

R. Thorpe foundation. Stay with us many more interesting things ahead this afternoon on Minnesota Public Radio this is Bob Potter. This is Canada w Minneapolis St. Paul in the Twin Cities Forty six degrees under sunny skies looking for a high of 52 day right now a south wind at 15.