Where the sidewalk starts: the effects of privatized development on local political behavior in U.S. rural communities

Abstract

This dissertation draws on fieldwork across two U.S. counties—Huntingdon County, PA and Litchfield County, Connecticut—to explore the effects of privatized development on local political behavior in rural communities. Employing in-depth, semi-structured interviews and archival research, I show how for-profit development in rural communities can have economically, politically, and socially divisive repercussions for rural residents—particularly along class lines. Throughout my research, such polarization not only dictated where residents lived geographically, but also determined who had access to local political resources and decision-making structures. I further couch these findings in a broader analysis of capitalism, detailing the manner in which capitalistic logics tend to inform rural development processes, neoliberal governance within rural communities, and rural residents’ engagements with local political institutions. Collectively, I endeavor to describe how rising socioeconomic inequality and sociopolitical polarization across rural America can be catalyzed through private development efforts—arguing that this relationship perniciously limits rural working-class residents’ local political agency.