Rural America and a tale of two columnists

Americans have a couple of ways they tend to think about rural America. On one side of the coin, we see it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland of dysfunction, intolerance, and economic ruin.On the other, we see a pastoral cornucopia of small-town charm, neighbor helping neighbor, and home-grown tomatoes.In other words, it’s all bad or all good.Last week the New York Times published columns by Paul Krugman and David Brooks that fit these all-or-nothing patterns to a T. Krugman wrote about the economic dysfunction of rural America, saying unstoppable forces prevent widespread rural economic recovery. “There are powerful forces behind the … economic decline of rural America – and the truth is that nobody knows how to reverse those forces.”Brooks, on the other hand, wrote about the positive aspects rural civic life he has observed first-hand in visits to small towns in Nebraska. “I keep going to places with more moral coherence and social commitment than we have in booming urban areas.”