Toward One Oregon: Rural-Urban Interdependence and the Evolution of a State

Chapter 9. Reframing Our Common Cause in an Interdependent World

159 Chapter 9 Reframing Our Common Cause in an Interdependent World Ethan Seltzer Michael Hibbard Bruce Weber The reality of interdependence between rural and urban Oregon is not difficult to grasp. Rural Oregonians travel to urban areas to shop and get specialized medical, educational, and legal/financial services, and they commute or move to cities for jobs. Urban Oregonians depend on rural places for food, water, energy, open space, and recreation. It is not obvious, however, that there is a strong case for rural and urban areas working together for a better common future. There is indeed a long history of urban-rural competition and conflict (Chapters 3 and 4). There is evidence of a weakening of economic ties between Portland-Vancouver and the surrounding economic region (Chapter 5) and of increasing transfers of public funds from the Portland metropolitan area to the rest of the state (Chapter 6). And one important economic cluster that appeared to have promise for both rural and urban Oregon—the wood-products sector (Chapter 8) —has seen precipitous declines in the past several decades. Furthermore, most of the current intellectual excitement about economic growth focuses on the vitality of urban centers and the beneficial effects of urban growth on the surrounding regional economy. Much of this excitement draws on modern economic insights from “new growth theory” and “new economic geography” about the central and critical roles of new knowledge and technology, knowledge spillovers, and increasing returns in economic growth. Simply put, it is argued that cities create the conditions for 160 TOWARD ONE OREGON people and ideas to interact, and it is this interaction that lies at the heart of economic innovation and progress. However, this literature often acknowledges the importance of larger forces that affect the economic fortunes of both cities and rural places: economic restructuring, globalization, and policy decisions made far from the borders of any particular city region. The dominant thrust of this literature is that the drivers of economic progress are the ideas generated in the urban knowledge hubs to which the creative class is drawn and where increasing returns make implementation of these ideas profitable. Because of their remoteness from urban hubs, rural areas cannot as easily participate in the exchanges and dynamics underlying this new global economy. Even though cities are the engines of growth, it is not just cities that benefit from urban vitality. Workers in the surrounding countryside commute to the cities and bring their earnings back home, and businesses set up operations in the surrounding countryside (where land, labor, and housing costs are often lower) to produce goods and services to sell to businesses in the nearby cities. These “spillovers” of urban growth can extend far into the hinterland but are generally stronger in places closest to the cities because of greater ease of access. Proximity to urban shopping and recreational and cultural amenities make rural areas near cities more attractive than remote rural areas to many workers and their families. Many scholars have shown that rural areas benefit from proximity to a healthy urban core. In a study of U.S. counties, Wu and Gopinath (2008) found that “remoteness is a primary cause of spatial disparities in economic development ” (392). Henry et al. (1997) found in a study of the southeastern United States that urban growth spreads to rural and exurban areas, generating new transactions and economic forces. Partridge et al. (2007), in their study of income and population growth in Canada, concluded that growth spreads up to about one hundred miles into rural areas. In a study of rural job growth in the United States, Partridge et al. (2008) found that proximity to urban areas was one of the strongest predictors of rural job growth. Partridge and Clark (2008) conclude from this literature that, far outside the cities, income earned from urban jobs helps support other jobs in rural and exurban communities, such as those in local retail establishments or rural businesses. Urban-based jobs help maintain a viable rural and exurban population base that facilitates community vitality (20). Feser and Isserman (2006), in their examination of urban spatial spillovers in the United States, found “evidence of net positive REFRAMING OUR COMMON CAUSE IN AN INTERDEPENDENT WORLD 161 spread of employment growth spillovers from proximate urban counties (‘spread effects’)” (26). However, the city-centric new economic geography and the extensive urban-spillover literature tend not to focus on either the extent...