Rural infrastructure in the south: Trends and challenges: Discussion

Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Aug 2003 by Tootle, Deborah M

Elton Mykerezi, Bradford Mills, and Sonya Gomes. "Education and Socioeconomic Well-Being in Racially Diverse Rural Counties"

Mark S. Henry, David L. Barkley, and Haizhen Li. "Fiscal Trends: Implications for the Rural South"

Eileen S. Stommes. "Rural Roads and Bridges, 1994-2000: How Did the South Fare?"

At first glance, the three papers in this session appear to be diverse and unrelated. In fact, the only paper in the session that seems to fit our traditional concept of infrastructure, is the Stommes (S) paper. The Mykerezi, Mills, and Gomes (MMG) paper focuses on education and social well-being, whereas the Henry, Barkley, and Li (HBL) paper is concerned with fiscal trends, demographic conditions, and their combined effects on public expenditures in rural counties. However, these papers are all concerned with local infrastructures, and they are linked together in ways that provide a more comprehensive understanding of some of the structures that (a) link rural and urban places and (b) enable those who live in rural jurisdictions access to the same types of goods and services available to those who live in urban areas.

As a group, these papers expand on the traditional concept of infrastructure. In a briefing on infrastructure and rural development policy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) defines infrastructure as consisting "primarily of transportation, electric and telecommunications, and water and sewer facilities that provide services to the public through a network of roads, rails, ports, airports, pipes and lines" (Reeder). The briefing goes on to say that we are more dependent on effective infrastructure today than at any point before. Infrastructure-physical, fiscal, and social-is absolutely critical for rural community vitality.

This session takes us beyond the physical infrastructure we are accustomed to discussing because two of the papers (MMG, HBL) in this session focus on social infrastructure, a concept not unlike social capital. In fact, social capital is frequently conceptualized as a form of social infrastructure. In today's session, the MMG and HBL papers have operationalized social infrastructure as public services. Although the conceptual shift from physical and fiscal to social structures is not exactly a paradigm shift, it does reflect a growing awareness of the importance of how social relationships and organizational structures shape economic activity.

Social Infrastructure-Education and Social Well-Being

The MMG paper conceptualizes education as a form of public infrastructure. MMG use data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census of Population and Housing to analyze the effects of recent trends in economic and social well-being on public expenditures in racially diverse rural counties (RDRC), where Black residents constitute at least 30% of the population. They (1) compare socioeconomic conditions and trends in the RDRCs with those in other rural counties throughout the United States, (2) examine county level measures of public expenditures and their relationships to socioeconomic well-being, and (3) examine the relationship of historically Black colleges and universities to postsecondary educational attainment.

MMG find that residents in RDRCs have lower levels of social and economic well-being. These findings are consistent with previous literature and not unexpected. The authors of this paper argue that the chronically high levels of poverty in these areas create barriers to making consistent progress in socioeconomic improvement. Low income levels limit the tax base and subsequently the level and quality of public services that can be provided in these communities. Although we have long recognized that rural areas have limited tax bases, the specific linkage of public expenditures with rural development are not always made.

In Worlds Apart: Why Poverty Persists in Rural Areas, Cynthia Duncan tells us that an education is the first step out of rural poverty. Findings from the MMG paper also suggest that local investments in K-12 education and postsecondary educational infrastructure are linked to local educational attainment. This is a very important finding, fraught with policy implications. However, as MMG point out, given the current fiscal crisis of Federal and state governments, the capacity to strengthen the local educational infrastructure is, at best, limited. With devolution, and as Federal and state resources become increasingly scarce, local governments must be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of infrastructure investments to compete successfully for funding.

In addition to expanding the conceptual framework on infrastructure, this paper makes two very important contributions to the research literature. The first is recognition of the linkage between income and rural development with public infrastructure. "Low education levels in RDRCs and poor performance on other measures of social well-being could stem in part from scarce local public infrastructure in education, health, and police protection" (MMG, p. 256).