BOOK REVIEW
The Overlooked Americans: The Resilience of Our Rural Towns and What It Means for Our Country
by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett 2023
About the Author
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett is the James Irvine Chair in Urban and Regional Planning and professor of public policy at the University of Southern California.The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she holds the Kluge Chair in Modern Culture at the Library of Congress. Her research has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, and New Yorker. The author of three previous books. Her website can be found here. http://www.elizabethcurridhalkett.com
About the Book
“Currid-Halkett has long been a formidable observer of cultural trends, but with The Overlooked Americans, she deftly combines qualitative and quantitative research to create a riveting, clear-eyed, and often-surprising portrait of small-town America.”―Sloane Crosley, author of Cult Classic
“The Overlooked Americans is a much-needed reassessment of small-town life in rural America. Based on detailed research, the book reveals life in rural America to be complex and varied—and in many cases better off than conventional wisdom would have us believe. This timely book belies the narrative of a nation sharply polarized across an urban-rural divide. Instead, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett shows that Americans aren’t nearly as divided by geography as the punditry and media would have us believe. Urban, suburban, and rural Americans have more in common than we think. A modern-day version of Michael Harrington’s classic, The Other America, this moving book is essential reading for all who care about the future of our country and its people.”―Richard Florida, author of The New Urban Crisis
How small-town America’s surprising success reshapes our understanding of the nation’s urban-rural divide, offering “the most balanced and broadest-ranging look at the topic” (Tyler Cowen, George Mason University).
The Next Big Idea Club 2023 Must Read Book
We are frequently told rural America is in crisis. According to many journalists, academics, and politicians, our small towns have been hollowed out by lost jobs, and residents have turned to opioids and right-wing extremism to cope with their pain and resentment. In fact, many rural towns are thriving. Commentators have fixated on the steep decline of one region—Appalachia—and overlooked the millions of rural Americans who are succeeding in the heartland.
In The Overlooked Americans, public policy expert Elizabeth Currid-Halkett reveals that rural America has not been left behind the rest of the nation but instead is surprisingly successful. Drawing on deep research, including data and in-depth interviews, she traces how small towns are doing as well as, or better than, cities by many measures, including homeownership, income, and employment. She also shows how rural and urban Americans share core values, from opposing racism and upholding environmentalism to believing in democracy. Looking everywhere from Missouri to Minnesota to her hometown of Danville, Pennsylvania, Currid-Halkett ultimately reveals that the nation is less fractured by geography than many believe.
This is an urgent appeal for Americans to reconnect across a rural-urban divide that isn’t so wide after all.
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