Deep change the only path to real, lasting reform in Appalachia
I have spent a lifetime living in or learning about the Appalachian region. I am now old enough not only to have studied the history of development in the mountains but to have lived though much of it.
In that time I have seen at least three major economic transformations as a result of government and private policies to remake the region's economy. I have learned that neither market strategies nor government programs alone have been able to correct the structural inequalities that plague the region and stifle lasting progress.
Like the good intentions of other public efforts before it, the SOAR initiative has already opened the door to new investments, much-needed job-training programs and a degree of cooperation among political leaders and institutions.
It is probably too early to predict whether these latest efforts will produce sustainable change, but history suggests that failure to encourage deep change in economic and political relationships in the region will only perpetuate the inequalities of the past.
For example, land ownership and use has always been at the center of the Appalachian story.
Acquisition of the region's timber and mineral resources at the turn of the 20th century set the pattern for periods of industrial boom and job creation but also for absentee ownership, decades of ecological destruction, economic insecurity, and social inequality.
Controversies like the broad form deed, mountaintop removal, water quality and environmental health reflect deep insecurities about access to and control of the land. Along with the loss of the land and family connections to it has come a kind of economic and spiritual malaise that has sapped traditional values.
Today most of the mineral rights and much of the surface land in some Central Appalachian counties is owned by absentee corporate interests. Other areas of Appalachia also suffered from absentee land ownership, but they have been more successful in building an alternative economy around national forests and parks.
Once owned by corporate interests, large cutover areas of Appalachia were transferred to public control and multiple use in the 1920s and '30s. In the West, the Homestead Act of the mid-19th century opened millions of acres of public land to ownership and lease by individuals, and much of the agricultural and industrial expansion of the Pacific Coast was made possible by federal land policies. Certainly the expansion of public lands in Central Appalachia, including abandoned and reclaimed surface mines, would provide short-term jobs in reforestation and water quality recovery, as well as long-term opportunities in tourism, alternative local energy production and timber management.
Long-term leasing of land in a rehabilitated Appalachian Commons could provide opportunity and hope for another generation of local entrepreneurs and give new meaning to the term "homesteader."
Democratic policies that put land reform back on the public agenda might also help to revitalize local governments and generate a more collaborative atmosphere for community planning.
Multi-county area development districts might be reduced in size or restructured as community development districts and opened to greater citizen participation. With SOAR's support, broader regional strategies for economic improvements could better integrate urban growth with small town and rural enterprise expansion.
Development strategies that characterized past investment policies might give way to a more integrated rural/urban economy that values diversity and interdependence. A balanced regional economic development strategy might actually fuel the democratic spirit of hope, and generate new initiatives from the current crop of young, emergent leaders eager to experiment and to create a different vision for the region's future.
Land reform and the democratization of planning could also help revitalize a culture of mutual responsibility and respect — responsibility for our neighbors, the land and future generations, and respect for diversity, hard work and creativity.
For too long, economic dependency and inequality have undermined community values in the mountains and encouraged us to define success in terms of individual achievement and material accumulation.
Responsibility to the land, to family and to the larger community has declined, along with our stake in the society around us. We are divided by self-interest and competition to survive in ways that our ancestors would not have understood. Economic development strategies that build communities rather than just businesses, that encourage creativity rather than just jobs, and that grow public assets rather than just private wealth demand a rethinking of our popular culture and a recommitment to deeper values.
Reviving the moral relationships that guide economic decisions ought to be a central task of the region's churches and religious leaders.
SOAR has an opportunity to be different from past initiatives to remake the mountain economy. But transformation will come only if those managing SOAR are willing to take the bold steps necessary to launch deep economic and political change.
The same old leaders and the same old ideas will produce the same old results. The transformation of deeply rooted institutions and ideas is difficult, but the arc of history teaches us that inequality and injustice (whether from racism, greed or self-righteousness) can be overcome by committed leadership and democratic processes.
It remains to be seen whether those behind the SOAR initiative can lay the foundations for long-term change as well as short-term recovery.
This story was originally published February 15, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Deep change the only path to real, lasting reform in Appalachia."