Economic Development and Community Social Change

There is growing recognition that economic development in advanced industrial societies involves massive capital migration from one industrial sector to another, from one community to another, and even from one nation to another. Economic development is a continual process of opening new areas, spatially and sectorally, while closing others. Development projects in rural communities provide a timely and valuable laboratory in which to learn how the restructuring of advanced industrial societies affects local social structures. This chapter extracts and reviews what has been learned from studies of communities coping with rural industrialization and natural resource development, especially large-scale projects. Particular attention is given to changes in employment patterns, income, population, agriculture, local businesses, and public sector costs and revenues. The findings reveal an underlying tension between the free movement of capital, on the one hand, and community stability and worker welfare, on the other hand. The authors conclude that local social changes are integral elements of external processes of economic development. They may be understood by directing attention to the spatial patterns of social, economic, and political inequality and to the mechanisms that generate and sustain unevenness.