Their Sleep Is To Be Desecrated : California\u27s Central Valley Project and the Wintu People of Northern California, 1938- 1943

The morning of July 14, 1944, was intended to be a moment of celebration for the City of Redding, California. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes had been scheduled to arrive in the booming city to dedicate Shasta Dam, a national reclamation project of great pride to local citizens and construction workers. Just days prior, however, the dedication ceremony had been canceled due to the inability of Ickes to leave Washington D.C.. Instead, a small group of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) officials, Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) officials, and local city officials quietly gathered within the dam\u27s $19,400,000 power plant. A BOR official flipped a switch to start one of the plant\u27s two massive generators, sending a surge of 120,000 watts of hydroelectricity into California\u27s transmission lines and the Pacific, Gas, and Electric (PG&E) distribution system. This energy would fuel the West\u27s war industries and the federal defense effort in World War II. Though without fanfare, the switching event signaled the official start of commercial production of power from the world\u27s second largest dam and keystone of the Central Valley Project (CVP). From Washington, D.C., the event was heralded by BOR Commissioner Harry W. Bashore as a milestone in the fulfillment of visions Californians have had for nearly 100 years.

Resource booms leave regions worse off once they fade out.

Communities that enjoy well-paid jobs and low unemployment during a natural resources boom need to plan carefully for the serious economic hardships that will follow the inevitable bust. That is the key lesson from new research by Grant Jacobsen and Dominic Parker, which looks at what happened to ‘boomtowns’ in the American West during the oil drilling boom-bust cycle of the 1970s and 1980s

Expecting a boomtown? Exploring potential housing-related impacts of large scale resource developments in Darwin

Darwin is a city in the Northern Territory of Australia expecting a ‘boomtown’ scenario due to significant natural resource developments in the Greater Darwin area. The experience of ‘booming’ has a range of impacts upon communities. Housing is a key area of impact, particularly for the most vulnerable members of a population, who may not reap the benefits of the ‘boom’. In Darwin, new resource developments will begin in the context of record high house prices, high rents and high homelessness rates. This literature review explores what is known about the housing-related impacts of boomtowns and considers the likely housing-related impacts of a boomtown scenario in Darwin. While the city’s diverse economy and population size may provide some insulation from severe boomtown impacts, housing availability and affordability is likely to be negatively impacted. The implications of this for the most vulnerable members of the greater Darwin population require careful consideration

Urbanisation and the political geographies of violent struggle for power and control : mining boomtowns in Eastern Congo

This chapter addresses rural–urban transformations in the Kivu provinces, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and more particularly focuses on the complex relationship between dynamics of violent conflict and the emergence of urban mining ‘boomtowns’. Mining towns offer fascinating sites from which to investigate the socio-economic and spatial effects of a protracted history of violence, displacement and militarisation. They are the spatial outcomes of dynamics of the transformative power of violent conflict. Moreover, this chapter demonstrates how they also offer interesting spatial as well as analytical starting points from which to study the political geographies of war dynamics in Eastern DRC. It will be argued that the reason why these mining towns evolve into strategic ‘resources’ in violent struggles for power and control is to be found in their urban character as much as in the presence of natural resources. As such, this chapter analyses the process of mining urbanisation in the Kivu provinces as part of (armed) elites’ spatial politics of power and control. As demographic concentrations and economic nodes, mining towns represent important political, economic and social resources for ‘big men’, armed groups and the Congolese state in their broader political struggles for power, legitimacy and authority. In a context of fragmented and multi-scalar governance, the urbanisation process of these towns is the outcome of a complex interaction and contestation of different forms of agency. Based on three ethnographic cases of mining towns that emerged from diverse dynamics of artisanal mining activities and forced displacement, this chapter contributes to broader academic and policy debates on the political nature of mining urbanisation in a context of conflict and fragmented governance

Rural Depopulation in a Rapidly Urbanizing America

In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson and Daniel Lichter examine demographic trends in rural America, a region often overlooked in a nation dominated by urban interests. They report that nearly 35 percent of rural counties are experiencing protracted and significant population loss. Depopulation is the result of chronic rural outmigration, mostly by young adults, which contributes to fewer births. As the sizeable older population that did not migrate ages in place, the mortality rate rises. Rural depopulation is not universal. Some rural areas have experienced significant population growth for decades. The authors’ study provides a demographic window to the future and a sober forecast of continuing rural population decline in many economically depressed regions. Future rural population growth and decline clearly are deeply rooted in evolving patterns of migration, fertility, and mortality. It is past time to refocus our attention on the rural people and places left behind

The drill down

textThe town of Millerton, Pa., has always been a small, rural farming community. Settled atop of the famed Marcellus Shale in the foothills of the Appalachians, there have always been rumors of natural gas in the hills around town. In 2008, natural gas companies arrived and began drilling. For a select few lucky enough to have property around the gas wells, their arrival means big money. But not all residents will get so lucky. For many folks in Millerton, the arrival of the gas companies means more traffic, more pollution, more crime and more inconvenience without a monthly royalty check to buffer the pain. The sheer amount of natural gas scientists predict is in the Marcellus Shale will forever change how the U.S. and the rest of the world use energy. Politicians tout it as liberation from foreign oil. Scientists see it as an alternative to “dirty” coal. For this small town, natural gas means change. The money the natural gas companies are pumping into this local economy will change the lives of the townsfolk- and the town itself- forever.Journalis

Behind at the Starting Line: Poverty Among Hispanic Infants

In this brief, authors Daniel Lichter, Scott Sanders, and Kenneth Johnson examine the economic circumstances of Hispanic infants using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey annual microdata files from 2006 through 2010. They report that a disproportionate share of Hispanic infants start life’s race behind the starting line, poor and disadvantaged—an important finding because the proportion of all U.S. births that are Hispanic is growing rapidly. The poverty risk is especially high among rural Hispanic infants and those in new destinations. Despite higher poverty risks, Hispanic infants receive less governmental assistance. High Hispanic infant poverty has immediate and long-term consequences for infants and the nation. Failing to invest in families and children now has long-term consequences because early childhood poverty tends to set into motion a series of lifecycle disadvantages (such as insufficient parenting, bad neighborhoods, underfunded schools, and poor health care) that greatly increases the likelihood of poverty in adulthood. The authors conclude that whether today’s Hispanic children will assimilate into America’s economic mainstream is an open question, but the Hispanic infants who will help reshape America’s future require public policy attention now