Minutes NE-162 meeting
April 5, 2001
Driskill Hotel, Austin TX
Attendance: Steve Cooke (Chair), Maureen Kilkenny, Dan Rossi
(Administrative Advisor), Joe Francis, Dan Rainey, Larry Leistritz, Mitch
Renkow, Tim Tyrrell, Chris Fawson, John Keith, Andy Isserman, George McDowell,
Tom Harris, Steve Hastings, Warren Kriesel, George Morse, George Goldman, Dave
Barkley, Steve Smith, Tom Johnson, Bruce Weber (Secretary), Peter Stenberg,
Judy Stallman, Doug Morris, Steve Deller, Mark Henry, Scott Loveridge
1. NE- 162 Chair Stephen Cooke called the meeting to order at 8:05 am
2. State Reports: Each state reported on one project activity during the last year with an "impact statement." An impact statement is a three sentence statement answering: What was the problem? What did you do? What was the impact/consequence? These will appear in this year’s NE-162 progress report.
3. Each State's Impact Statement was classified under one of the Objectives of Current NE-162 Project. Each state's report has more complete information about how the work of each project relates to the objectives. The following listing shows which of the project objectives was addressed by the impact statements for each state, suggesting that the project is having impacts on all of the objectives addressed by the project:
4. Collaborations—Each member was asked which other states have you worked with directly or indirectly, both the NE-162 and other researchers not NE-162 members? One idea about communicating this network is to map links on a map of the United States.
ID: WA, OR, CPAN
IA: CPAN, OH, WA, SC, VA, ERS, WY, FRB
NY: PA, NH
AR: MS, IN, SC, OK
ND: MS, TX, NV, ERS, NE, WY
NC: CPAN, VA, SC
RI: NH, DE, ERS
UT: WY, OCC, CO, BLM, FS
ERS: IL, IN, CA, TN
NH: PA, NY
VA: CPAN, IA, MO
NV: CPAN, WA, WI, CA, BLM, BUREC
DE: PA, SC, NV
GA: IN, MS
MN: CPAN, IA, ND
CA: FL, NV, OH, WY, FS
SC: CPAN, MO, WV, MS, VA, NC, KY, WA, PA, KS, WI, IA, FRB, ERS
PA: CPAN, WI, MN, OR, NY , SC, MO
MO: CPAN, IA, WI, OK, NV, OH, NH, TX, SC, NB, KS, VA,
OR: WA, OH, MN, ID, CPAN, SC, MS, PA,
TX: CPAN, WI, PA, IA
It was suggested that our report on our networks should identify specific collaboration on specific objective(s)—we could use co-authored articles from CRIS reports to establish. There is a hierarchy of collaboration where top echelon is co-authors, next is people whose works we read, and so forth.
4. Project Administrative Advisor Dan Rossi pointed out that the project is a network of collaborations, but also sharing of common methodologies, theoretical framework. As can’t set up experiments, we social sciences must achieve replication of our work by repeating comparable studies in the states participating in the NE-162 multi-state project. This observation led to some reflections on the project successes. This group has worked with IMPLAN to develop comparable databases, methodologies, etc. In turn, that led to CPAN. Lots of things happened which wouldn’t have happened without this group. New objectives have evolved out of the collaborative work of the present format of the NE-162.
5. Discussion about the future of the project identified the need to communicate to reviewers the “bigness” of the problems of economic development and its import (to rural America?). This is the only project that addresses the big issues of rural development. Kind of policies coming out of state and local policy makers disadvantage rural areas more than the market. Or they don’t consider the unintended consequences. There are significant measurement problems, It was suggested that we forget the idea of pushing the grand rural development policies or methods. Directors are interested in problem-answer focused research. However, implicit is development of principles and methods comes along with solving the problems. Reliability and validity of pronounced solutions is at issue. Understanding human capital with a sense of “place.”
At noon, the meeting was recessed until 1 pm.
6. Discussion of Question of future of project. The question was raised about whether we wanted to be a Regional Coordinating Committee or a Regional Project. The decision was to propose a regional project. The question was raised about whether the proposal needs one objective or three. Answer was not that it is better not to have subobjectives: three objectives would be fine.
7. The project needs to submit a letter of request for a new proposal to NE Directors—4000 characters—for their June meeting. The justification in the letter should address:
Issues to be addressed
The need as indicated by stakeholders—use input you have received in past years
Importance of work and consequences of it not being done
Technical feasibility of conducting the research
Advantage of a multi-state research project as opposed to working alone
The current project terminates in 2002. The next proposal should be ready by February 2002 so that the Directors can review and comment on the proposal so we can revise before the present project expires in September 2002. In order to have time for external reviews before the February 2002 Directors meeting, the proposal will need to be in draft by September 2001. Some sources of stakeholder input are: CSREES’s fifth goal; ERS lists of priorities; Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Center for Study of Rural America publications. It will be useful to cite sources other than reports from this project in the literature review of the next proposal.
8. There was a discussion of important issues that the project could address. Among these were:
Demographic changes (migration, age/sex/ethnicity structure); structure of rural governments and consequences for rural communities (home rule vs Dillon) regulation, deregulation; spatial issues, settlement patterns, fee based services provision, social capital. macrodynamics of rural development; land use, urban sprawl, smart growth, rural sprawl, gentrification of rural communities, farmland preservation and conversion; finance, capital and financial markets; public and private infrastructure, telecommunications; workforce labor market issues and inequality; restructuring in agriculture and other rural economic sectors, e.g. prisons, tourism; transitions of rural populations; characteristics of successful rural communities; quality of life
9 There was discussion of the theme of the
importance of a vital rural community to the survival of a vital agriculture
sector. The project should perhaps address what makes for successful, healthy
rural communities? Why isn’t farm
support a rural development policy? What are the principles of rural
development?
10. Members broke into subgroups to better define
the specifics of four objectives, decide who would chair the proposal writing
efforts, and to gain some indication of who would work on each of the four
broad objectives and which sub-objectives in particular. What follows is a list
of the general objectives and subgroup chair (in bold) and those who indicated
an interest in working on particular objectives:
Objective 1: How Major Forces in the Global Economy are Affecting Rural Areas (Or Death to the Tyranny of Distance)
Among the forces affecting rural economies are E-commerce, telecommunications, …
Objective 2: :Labor Markets and Migration
Mitch Renkow, Joe Francis, Tim Tyrrell, Mark Henry, Bruce Weber, [Jill Findeis, Stephan Goetz signed up by Steve Smith]
Labor Market issues in rural areas, Low income Workforce, Welfare transitions,
Demographic changes: ethnicity, age
Objective 3: Public
Policy
T. Johnson, Martin Shields, Tom Harris, George Goldman, Dan Rainey
Steve Deller, Joe Francis, Doug Morris, Peter Stenberg, Maureen Kilkenny, Steve Cooke, Judy Stallman.
Work with CPAN, and on issues such as the following: farm Bill impacts of rural economies, devolution, public sector revenues and finance, changes in federal natural resource policy, deregulation of electricity, E-governance and digital democracy, infrastructure
Objective 4: What are the characteristics of a healthy, successful rural community?
David Barkley, Steve Deller, George McDowell, George Morse, Joe Francis, Steve Smith, Scott Loveridge, Maureen Kilkenny
11. There
was discussion of next steps in proposal writing. The Secretary will write up minutes and distribute within the
week. Chairs will request input in writing their sections. A draft of the
preliminary proposal will be ready for internal review by the time of the
August AAEA meetings and the writing committee will meet at that time
12. Election
of officers
Bruce
Weber elected Chair of NE-162 committee
Martin
Shields was elected Secretary of NE-162
13. Location
of next meeting—Monterey, CA in February if this meeting is after the
Directors' February meeting; otherwise we will meet in Arlington, VA in
April. The decision will be made by
next fall and communicated to members so they can make their own decisions
about their participation in the WRSA meetings.
14. The meeting was adjourned at 3:35 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Bruce Weber, NE-162 Secretary, 2000-2001