Introduction
Introduction
Across the country there are huge pockets of fast-emptying countryside. Some analyses of economic and social distress in those areas suggest America's own “third world” is in the making. Although the label “rural” applies to such a variety of geographic and economic settings that no sweeping characterization or prophecy fits them all, for the most part the nation's rural areas are older and poorer than urbanized America. And they are getting more so.