Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Appalachian Region
Languages : en
Pages : 692
Book Description
Land Ownership Patterns and Their Impacts on Appalachian Communities
Author: Who Owns Appalachia?
Author: Appalachian Land Ownership Task ForcePublisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813185742
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Book Description
Long viewed as a problem in other countries, the ownership of land and resources is becoming an issue of mounting concern in the United States. Nowhere has it surfaced more dramatically than in the southern Appalachians where the exploitation of timber and mineral resources has been recently aggravated by the ravages of strip-mining and flash floods. This landmark study of the mountain region documents for the first time the full scale and extent of the ownership and control of the region's land and resources and shows in a compelling, yet non-polemical fashion the relationship between this control and conditions affecting the lives of the region's people. Begun in 1978 and extending through 1980, this survey of land ownership is notable for the magnitude of its coverage. It embraces six states of the southern Appalachian region—Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama. From these states the research team selected 80 counties, and within those counties field workers documented the ownership of over 55,000 parcels of property, totaling over 20 million acres of land and mineral rights. The survey is equally significant for its systematic investigation of the relations between ownership and conditions within Appalachian communities. Researchers compiled data on 100 socioeconomic indicators and correlated these with the ownership of land and mineral rights. The findings of the survey form a generally dark picture of the region—local governments struggling to provide needed services on tax revenues that are at once inadequate and inequitable; economic development and diversification stifled; increasing loss of farmland, a traditional source of subsistence in the region. Most evident perhaps is the adverse effect upon housing resulting from corporate ownership and land speculation. Nor is the trend toward greater conglomerate ownership of energy resources, the expansion of absentee ownership into new areas, and the search for new mineral and energy sources encouraging. Who Owns Appalachia? will be an enduring resource for all those interested in this region and its problems. It is, moreover, both a model and a document for social and economic concerns likely to be of critical importance for the entire nation.
The Southern Appalachians
Author: Susan L. YarnellPublisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428953736
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
West Virginia Politics and Government
Author: Richard A. BrisbinPublisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
With one of the weakest economies in the nation and a college attendance level lowest among the states, West Virginia has recently concentrated resources on combating its isolation from eastern markets and improving the quality of its public schools. The authors explore how West Virginians cope with these problems—compounded by the state’s relatively high rates of occupational injury, teenage pregnancy, maternal health problems, heart disease, lung disease, and cancer—and how they choose to govern and be governed while seeking solutions. The authors argue that West Virginia’s political system is affected by institutional rules, roles, and processes conditioned by the availability of economic resources. They examine the state’s historical, political, judicial, and cultural practices, illuminating the policy consequences of limited institutional capacity on the economy, education, the environment, and healthcare.
Appalachian Outlook
Author: Energy Research Abstracts
Author: Resources in Education
Author: Levisa Fork Basin/Haysi Dam Project, Draft Supplement to the Section 202 General Plan for Flood Damage Reduction Buchanan County [VA], Pike County [KY]
![Levisa Fork Basin/Haysi Dam Project, Draft Supplement to the Section 202 General Plan for Flood Damage Reduction Buchanan County [VA], Pike County [KY] PDF](https://books.google.com/books/content/images/frontcover/oQMzAQAAMAAJ?fife=w80-h100)
Author: Choice
Author: A History of Appalachia
Author: Richard B. DrakePublisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813137934
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Richard Drake has skillfully woven together the various strands of the Appalachian experience into a sweeping whole. Touching upon folk traditions, health care, the environment, higher education, the role of blacks and women, and much more, Drake offers a compelling social history of a unique American region. The Appalachian region, extending from Alabama in the South up to the Allegheny highlands of Pennsylvania, has historically been characterized by its largely rural populations, rich natural resources that have fueled industry in other parts of the country, and the strong and wild, undeveloped land. The rugged geography of the region allowed Native American societies, especially the Cherokee, to flourish. Early white settlers tended to favor a self-sufficient approach to farming, contrary to the land grabbing and plantation building going on elsewhere in the South. The growth of a market economy and competition from other agricultural areas of the country sparked an economic decline of the region's rural population at least as early as 1830. The Civil War and the sometimes hostile legislation of Reconstruction made life even more difficult for rural Appalachians. Recent history of the region is marked by the corporate exploitation of resources. Regional oil, gas, and coal had attracted some industry even before the Civil War, but the postwar years saw an immense expansion of American industry, nearly all of which relied heavily on Appalachian fossil fuels, particularly coal. What was initially a boon to the region eventually brought financial disaster to many mountain people as unsafe working conditions and strip mining ravaged the land and its inhabitants. A History of Appalachia also examines pockets of urbanization in Appalachia. Chemical, textile, and other industries have encouraged the development of urban areas. At the same time, radio, television, and the internet provide residents direct links to cultures from all over the world. The author looks at the process of urbanization as it belies commonly held notions about the region's rural character.