The Foundry: New (Rural) Perspectives on an Old Idea

Abstract Joel Garreau, in his 1981 book The Nine Nations of North America, outlines nine areas of "power and influence" with distinctive values and prospects that crossed political boundaries. His conceptualization of these economic and cultural regions of the continent reflected the modern era of industrialization and the rise of large cities that began after the Civil War and lasted for over 100 years. After 10 years, James Patterson and Peter Kim (1991) wrote The Day America Told the Truth, which identified further divisions shaped by the depletion of natural resources, the loss of manufacturing jobs to developing countries, the rise of the financial and service sectors of the economy, and the exodus of families from the cities to the suburbs. More than a decade later, Thomas Friedman, in his controversial book The World is Flat, suggested that further changes are being shaped by the twin forces of information technology and economic globalization at the dawn of the 21st century. For many years, the attention of policymakers, researchers, professionals, and the public as whole has been focused on the problems and possibilities of urban areas in the United States. Rural education leaders have decried the lack of rural-friendly policies, the dearth of rural research, and the ignorance about rural issues (Beeson & Strange, 2003; Sherwood, 2001). Today, however, there is growing interest in the challenges and opportunities faced by rural America, as evidenced by the creation of a bi-partisan group of representatives from the U. S. Senate and House known as the Rural Caucus, the implementation of the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), and the new study by the U. S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Science titled Status of Education in Rural America, published in Summer 2007. As part of this topical issue on the meaning of rural and its implications for rural education in today's world, this article examines the area Garreau characterized as "the Foundry" from a rural perspective. The Foundry Then and Now The Foundry: Garreau's Urban Vision Garreau (1981) included a chapter on the "nation" he termed "the Foundry," which encompassed the states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and parts of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. Some years later, Patterson and Kim (1991) further sub-divided the Foundry into two areas: Metropolis (the chain of large cities along the east coast) and Rust Belt (the decaying small towns and rural areas in Appalachia and the Midwest). While these authors all focused on the urban industrial character of the region and ignored the many rural areas that lay scattered across it, in fact, this area in many respects embodies the intersection of metropolitan America and rural America in a complex interplay of city and country that has significant implications for rural schools and educators. The Foundry: A Rural Vision Perhaps the most highly urbanized area of the U. S. (and source of the brightest glow of light seen from space due to the high population density in the area), the Foundry is also quite rural and rural in quite distinctive ways. Although the urban zones that lie within the Foundry are more similar than not, the rural areas in this region are remarkably diverse, ranging from the mountain meadows and lakes of the Adirondacks to the pine barrens and dunes of the Atlantic shore to the hills and hollows of Appalachia to the level farmlands of the Midwest. One might think this diversity suggests that these rural communities may not have much in common; in fact, they share many of the same challenges and opportunities. The similarities are due largely to the fact that these rural areas exist in close proximity to large metropolitan areas where their land faces the danger of uncontrolled urban sprawl and their people the lure of better prospects in the urban economy. The Foundry is easily divided into two sections by using the chain of the Appalachians down its center as a dividing line of sorts. …