An Urban's Rural View

By any definition, the unincorporated community from which I'm writing this post -- Lost River, W.V. -- qualifies as "rural." On one side of the state highway and the river that runs parallel to it, quite visibly despite its name, Lost River is mostly crop farms, cattle pasture and chicken barns. On the other side, it is forested slopes dotted with hunting cabins and weekend houses.

There's no gas station. Two of the community's handful of businesses, the Lost River Craft Cooperative and the Lost River General Store, are closed in winter, and another, the Guest House, is open only on weekends. The Grill, our restaurant, is open every day but most days it only serves dinner.

Even when the second homeowners from Washington and Baltimore are in residence, Lost River's population is three figures. The biggest nearby town, Moorefield, boasts only 2,500 souls and it is 25 miles away. Moorefield has a Walmart and a handful of restaurants.

A Lost River resident who wants a wider variety of places to shop and eat drives south an hour to Harrisonburg, Va. And since we're talking about the definition of rural, Harrisonburg is worth describing. Unlike Lost River or Moorefield, Harrisonburg has a hospital. It is home to two universities -- James Madison and Eastern Mennonite.

It has most of the big chain stories, including Lowes, Home Depot, Costco, Best Buy and Bed Bath & Beyond, and a variety of local retailers. It has a Panera and a Starbucks and just about every other chain restaurant imaginable, plus a great many local eateries. Its population is 49,000.

Is Harrisonburg "rural?"

It doesn't much resemble Lost River or even Moorefield, but according to USDA's proposed new definition, the answer would seem to be yes. Harrisonburg, Va., qualifies as rural.

You can read why in USDA's aptly titled "Report on the Definition of 'Rural'" (http://tiny.cc/…). Most of its 107 pages are taken up listing the various programs (40 rural-development programs alone) through which federal funds flow to "rural" areas. To qualify for the bucks the grant-seeking community must pass a threshold test, namely that it meets the law's definition of "rural." One problem is different laws use different definitions.

Another problem is the definition in several laws is population of 10,000 or less. Why is that a problem? The report lists several reasons, one of which is it frustrates some attempts at regional problem-solving:

"If a regional sewer project encounters a municipality of greater than 10,000 population, for example, that community cannot be part of the Rural Development financing application no matter how much sense it might make to program engineers geographically and no matter what the impact of including the larger community might have had on end user rates as fixed costs got spread over a larger number of end users."

Aware of the definitional muddle, Congress in the 2008 farm bill ordered USDA to assess its impact and recommend improvements. USDA's recommendation, contained in the report, is to standardize the definition. "We recommend that Rural Development accept as location eligible an application for any program from anywhere with a total population of less than 50,000..."

Sounds like Harrisonburg, Va., population 49,000, makes the cut.

Should it? No doubt USDA's definition will be controversial. Even as Congress cuts the money available for rural-development programs, much larger towns are encouraged to apply. Won't really rural places like Lost River have even less chance to receive funds for worthwhile projects?

USDA's response is to propose that the new legal definition include "flexibility" to serve "areas of greatest need and where the resources can make the greatest economic impact."

Something tells me that won't end the controversy. Guess I'll mosey over to the Lost River Grill and see what folks there are saying about it.

(SK)

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