California's rural housing market, places where you can get a home for $150K

Entering Trona from the South
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024 (February)

The Los Angeles Times published a story last week on 10 California housing markets where the median home price is $150K or less.  The one that jumped out at me was Trona, California, in the Searles Valley, which I recently passed through en route to Death Valley National Park.  

Southwest of Trona, near
Searles Valley industrial
infrastructure
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

According to wikipedia, Trona is a town of 1900 residents in San Bernardino County.  Adjacent to it is a census-designated place also called Trona, in Inyo Couty, with a population of 18 and an economy centered on marijuana cultivation.   

The affordability ratio in places like Trona is noteworthy, as journalist Terry Castleman explains: 

The ratio of median home prices to household income is less than 2 to 1, compared to nearly 10 to 1 in the rest of the state.  

Trona, California 
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

In the Searles Valley, the median household income was $54,000 in 2022, well below the statewide average of $92,000, according to census data. The poverty rate, however, was nearly 20%, far exceeding California’s 12% overall rate.

Here's what Castleman wrote about recent housing market trends there:

Sonney Berri, a real estate agent in Trona, has seen an uptick in prices since the COVID-19 pandemic, a trend he attributes to homeowners who previously lived close to city centers and sold their homes to buy properties in this unincorporated community in San Bernardino County.

Trona Senior Center
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

Castleman also writes of the town's longer-term history: 

Old Guesthouse Museum, (c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

Trona, a “desolate area that was very much thriving back in the ’50s and ’60s,” was littered with abandoned homes after plants closed decades ago, said Berri, 49. Now, “people are fixing them up and making the community better,” he said.

Trona’s heyday was in the early 1900s, when it was a company town, established in 1914 and operated by the American Trona Corp. Early on, a central building housed many workers and all the town’s businesses, including a “pool hall, a barber shop, post office, library, grocery and department store,” according to the Searles Valley Historical Society.

Former dollar store is now
the Trona Food Bank
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

The story features some rich quotes from residents, like that of 80-year-old Ann Epperly, who said she likes being able to "ride horses all over town."  

It also explains how Trona's star waned as its industrial importance lagged and as Ridgecrest, 25 miles away, grew.  

Ridgecrest is now home to the closest Walmart.  I noticed that even a dollar store had closed--and been reappropriated as the Trona Food Bank.  The former pharmacy was boarded up, as was a relatively new looking Shell station.  

On the other hand, the town boasted a spiffy new, but spartan, branch of the San Bernardino County Library.   The Senior Center looks robust; boxes of produce were stacked outside it when I passed through on a Saturday morning, when the center was closed.  San Bernardino County offices, including a court, were just a street or two off Highway 178, as was the U.S. post office.  

Here's what Castleman reports about the eight other California towns where median home values are in the $150K range:

Some of the state’s lowest median home values — as low as $114,000 —are located near the Oregon border, in the towns of Dorris, Macdoel and Tulelake. Each town is home to less than 1,000 people and set amid agricultural fields.

Herlong, located along the border with Nevada, 90 miles north of Lake Tahoe, is another town with a low median home value. It’s an army town named after a World War II-era captain and home to a military storage facility.

San Bernardino County Library, Trona Branch

In Southern California, five towns round out the group of nine: Boron, Yermo, Hinkley, Johannesburg and Trona. Surrounded by desert, most were built up around the mining industry and all have lost population in recent decades.

Sign near Mohave
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024 (February)

The town of Boron is named for the element found in borax, and Hinkley is known for a groundwater contamination lawsuit that inspired the movie “Erin Brockovich.”

California counties without nearby universities struggle to recruit teachers

Diana Lambert reported for Ed Source reported a few days ago.  Here's an excerpt: 

Nine rural California counties, most struggling with student achievement and teacher recruitment, are in teacher education deserts, according to a report released Tuesday from the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools.

Alpine, Del Norte, Imperial, Inyo, Lassen, Modoc, Mono, Sierra and Siskiyou counties do not have teacher preparation programs within 60 miles of their county offices of education, according to the report, “California’s Teacher Education Deserts: An Overlooked and Growing Equity Challenge.”

“We know that research suggests that teachers are more likely to complete their student teaching and also secure employment close to where they receive their teacher training,” said Kai Mathews, project director for the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools.

As a result, six of the nine counties have a higher percentage of underprepared teachers than the state average of 4% to 5%, according to the study. Of the nine counties, Modoc and Lassen have the highest percentage of underprepared teachers at 14% and 17% respectively.

* * * 

There could be many reasons teachers are hard to find in rural areas, including fewer nearby institutions of higher education, which leads to a lower than average percentage of residents with bachelor’s degrees and therefore a smaller pool of potential teacher candidates, according to the study.

Counties that border other states and countries also have significantly higher teacher vacancy rates compared with nonborder districts, said Hui Huang, a researcher on the project. All nine of the California counties classified as teacher education deserts are bordered by either Oregon, Nevada, Arizona or Mexico.

Here's a related post about the struggle to recruit K-12 teachers in Modoc County. 

Here's a CalMatters story about the needs rural California schools have for state assistance. 

Inside Higher Ed writes here about the economic returns of a rural education.  In it, Sara Weissman writes of a report arguing that "rural-serving institutions offer meaningful benefits to their students, including quicker times to degree and lower prices." 

Cal Poly Humboldt home to "nation's most entrenched protest"

Jonathan Wolfe reports today for the New York Times from Arcata, California, home of California Polytechnic Humboldt. Here's the lede: 

When university administrators across the nation worry about the potential fallout from campus protests, they may have Siemens Hall in mind.

The building at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, includes the campus president’s office and has been occupied for a week by pro-Palestinian protesters who barricaded themselves inside and fought off an early attempt by the police to remove them. Protesters have since tagged walls and renamed it “Intifada Hall” by ripping off most of the signage on the brick exterior.

Inside, they painted graffiti messages like “Time 2 Free Gaza,” “Pigs Not Allowed,” and “Land Back,” according to a video posted by the local news site Redheaded Blackbelt. They occupied and defaced the office of the president, Tom Jackson Jr., spraying “Blood On Your Hands” across one framed wall hanging and “I Will Live Free or Die Trying” on his door.

Here's how the New York Times described the university and region: 

To those outside Northern California, the show of force at Cal Poly Humboldt, in the college town of Arcata, has been a surprising turn in a region more typically associated with a hippie pacifism and marijuana farms. But beneath the good-vibes image, locals say, a culture of protest and resentment toward authority has percolated at the 6,000-student campus.

* * *  

The majestic redwoods in the region draw tourists from across the world; nearby, visitors can drive through a tree with a 21-foot diameter. The forests also have satisfied the thirst for lumber in the growing West as far back as the early Gold Rush days when San Francisco became a boomtown.

The natural beauty and the timber industry have long been at odds, however. The region was an early battleground in the “timber wars,” in which environmentalists fought against logging companies to prevent the destruction of old growth forests across the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps the most famous protest of that era occurred in Humboldt County, where the activist Julia Butterfly Hill lived for 738 days in a California redwood that she named Luna.

The campus has been shut down through May 10, the day before commencement.  

I blogged about what is happening at Cal Poly Humboldt last week here, and the Lost Coast Outpost continues to provide daily updates on what's been happening there since students occupied Siemens Hall a week ago.  (This link is to coverage of what happened in the early hours this morning).  The Los Angeles Times has more coverage today, too.

Here's another NYT story illustrating the point that it's not just young people who are upset about the U.S. role in the Israeli-Palestinian War:  older residents of rural areas--like their urban counterparts--are agitated about the War and pressing their members of congress to get the Biden administration to change its  position.  

Postscript:  At 9 am on April 30, the Los Angeles Times reported that 25 students had been arrested at Cal Poly Humboldt.  Here's an excerpt from the story:

Ending a weeklong siege, police on Tuesday arrested at least 25 protesters at Cal Poly Humboldt, where Gaza war demonstrators had occupied buildings and forced the campus to close.

* * *

Shortly after 2 a.m. Tuesday, police moved in and made the arrests. The university said “those arrested faced a range of different charges depending on individual circumstances, including unlawful assembly, vandalism, conspiracy, assault of police officers and others. In addition, students could face discipline for conduct violations while any university employees arrested could face disciplinary action.”

Gluesenkamp Perez invokes rural and working-class folks in relation to stance on a secure border

A. Martinez of NPR's Morning Edition interviewed Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez today regarding "centrist Democrats" stance on border security.  That is, they want the Biden administration to tighten it, partly because of the scourge of fentanyl and its consequences in districts like hers.  Twice during the interview she came across the phrase, "rural and working-class" communities.  In the latter mention she adds, "and the trades."   

This quote provides further context: 

GLUESENKAMP PEREZ:  You know, these policies like Title 42, I mean, I think it's been one of the fundamental mistakes around immigration, is to debate whether or not an immigration policy is, you know, motivated by racial animus. By the way, I think a lot of them are, but a lot of people in rural and working-class communities like mine, we come from communities that have been hollowed out by fentanyl, and so we're watching our cousins, our neighbors, our coworkers overdose and die, and we are demanding operational control of the southern border. That can't wait for a perfect immigration policy to come along.  (emphasis added)

MARTÍNEZ: Did you think that the way Donald Trump's administration used Title 42 was an effective way to stem immigration?

GLUESENKAMP PEREZ: I don't think it's a question of stemming immigration. I mean, immigration itself is not the problem. The problem is that the U.S. does not have operational control of the southern border, and so a lot of Americans, a lot of American politicians have had this real focus on the very visceral images of the humanitarian crisis of the southern border, but what they're not seeing is what it's like to live in a country that is being run by a cartel. And so Biden needs to exercise his existing authority under Remain in Mexico, and Congress needs to give him back the presidential expulsion authority under Title 42.

One of the interesting things about the first long quote is how she suggests that immigration policy is influenced by racial animus--but also that there are other considerations, like the devastation being wrought by fentanyl, which Gluesenkamp Perez suggests is coming across the Southern border.  In other words, we can hold both of these notions--perhaps both of these truths--simultaneously:  some people advocating greater control at the Southern border are acting on racial animus, but they also have legitimate concerns about what is happening at the border, including fentanyl that may be coming through that border.  

This duality is something I suggested in this recent publication regarding why many rural residents support Trump:  they may both experience economic distress and racist impulses.  It does not have to be an "either or."  Also, as I have suggested elsewhere, if we are going to use terms like "racial animus," we should define them--that is, we should develop a shared definition.  That has not happened.  In fact, I have not seen any media outlet--or any academic--take that task seriously.  (The closest would be John McWhorter, who has at least identified the challenge)

Prior posts featuring Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez are here, here, here, here, here and here.   More still are here (including those on right-to-repair).  

Meanwhile, here's a report on Americans' broad support for enforcement of the nation's immigration laws. 

Cross-posted to Working-Class Whites and the Law.   

On rurality as a double-edged sword: David McCormick, Republican Senate candidate, presents himself as "rural"

The New York Times published this story last week (before the Pennsylvania primary) under the headline, "This G.O.P. Senate Candidate Says He Grew Up on a Family Farm. Not Exactly."  Here's the lede: 

David McCormick’s origin story goes something like this: He grew up in rural Pennsylvania, southwest of Scranton. He baled hay, trimmed Christmas trees and otherwise worked on his family’s farm. And from those humble beginnings, he rose to achieve the American dream.

“I spent most of my life in Pennsylvania, growing up in Bloomsburg on my family’s farm,” Mr. McCormick, now a Republican candidate for Senate, told Pittsburgh Quarterly in 2022.

“I’ve truly lived the American dream,” he wrote in a fund-raising appeal in October. “My life’s journey — from growing up on a farm in Bloomsburg, to graduating from West Point and serving in the 82nd Airborne Division, growing a business in Pittsburgh, and serving at the highest levels of government — reflects that.”

In January, speaking at the Pennsylvania farm show, McCormick said: 

I grew up on a family farm from the time I was a kid.

The journalists reporting this story, however, who have conducted interviews, reviewed public records and news coverage, "suggest he has given a misleading impression about key aspects of his background."   

McCormick has also described his parents at school teachers. In fact, his father was president of Bloomsburg University, and he grew up mostly in the house provided by the University.  

All of the reminds me the recent assertion by Paul Waldman and Tom Schaller of what they claim is an unwritten rule that the media are hands off rural folks--that they are a group you can't criticize.  I don't agree with that (and have written lots in support of the contrary proposition).  That said, it's interesting that politicians like McCormick are (still) trying to present themselves as "regular Joe's" by saying they grew up rural and/or on a farm.  (Recall that George W. Bush was widely identified as incorporating a similar strategy).  

Farah Stockman of the New York Times on rural voters

Stockman, a member of the New York Times editorial board, has written twice recently--albeit briefly-- about rural voters.   Both entries seems to have been prompted by recent discussions of two books I've highlighted here in recent weeks, The Rural Voter and White Rural Rage.  Read prior posts here, here, here, here, and here.

Stockman's most recent entry, published yesterday, is titled, "Rural Voters are More Progressive Than Democratic Voters Think." Here are some excerpts: 

If you caught the scathing takedown of the book “White Rural Rage” in The Atlantic, then you’re aware of how intellectually dishonest it is to single out rural voters for special contempt. It’s also politically foolish, as a new poll by Rural Democracy Initiative, which will be released to the public in May, illustrates.

* * *

“It’s really clear that Democrats have a significant work to do to rebuild their brand in rural America, but that investment could pay dividends for Democrats, not just in the future but this year,” Patrick Toomey, a partner at Breakthrough Campaigns, which conducted the survey, told me.

In an election in which a few thousand votes could decide who wins the presidency or controls the Senate, it’s foolish to write off rural America.

The recent related entry is from March 1 and is titled "Rural Voters Aren't the Enemy."  Here's an excerpt that leads with a quote from Anthony Flaccavento, who ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for congress in southwest Virginia and now runs the Rural-Urban Bridge Initiative:

“That kind of the language — a book by that title — is absolutely the kiss of death for the efforts of so many of us in rural areas who have been working to rebuild trust and reverse some of the policies that have hollowed out rural America,” said Flaccavento, whose group has put out a report about what Democrats have to do to win in rural America. He also said he feared the book would serve as confirmation to liberals that it’s hopeless to invest politically in those parts of the country.

Shawn Sebastian, director of organizing at Rural Organizing, an Ohio-based group that supports progressive campaigns in rural areas nationwide, agreed that support for authoritarianism is a growing problem. He just published a survey of his group’s 75,000 members — more than 800 Democrats, most of whom live in Trump-supporting rural areas, filled it out — which found that 25 percent had experienced political violence or threats of political violence.

“That was chilling,” he told me. But he also said rural voters are part of the solution and that giving up on them will only make things worse.

Stockman concludes that entry: 

Rural people working together to save their hospitals, build a nursing home or establish a mobile food pantry are the antidote to the violent polarization that everyone is worried about.

Columbia, NYU, Berkeley--and Cal Poly Humboldt? "Rural" far northern California bursts into the spotlight amidst campus protests

When I went to bed last night, Columbia University and, to a lesser extent, NYU, were in the news in relation to student protests framed as "pro-Palestinian."  UC Berkeley has been in the news for several weeks in relation to the stances that students there have taken.   So, imagine my surprise when I awakened to news this morning that had humble and rural-ish Cal Poly Humboldt--until a few years ago even more humble Cal State Humboldt--in the news.  Here's what the California sun wrote this morning under "Developments Connected to the Israel-Hamas War":

Pro-Palestinian students began sit-ins at UC Berkeley and Cal Poly Humboldt on Monday. The Berkeley protesters pitched about 10 tents and demanded the university divest from companies linked to Israel. In Arcata, dozens of students barricaded themselves inside a building, drawing a heavy police response. Late Monday, campus leaders announced the cancellation of classes through Wednesday. Berkeleyside | Lost Coast Outpost

I have to admit I was pleased to see the Lost Coast Outpost, a little known news outlet, cited and quoted, though that is not terribly unusual with the California Sun, and it was parallel to Berkleyside, another informal news outlet.  

Later in the day, the Los Angeles Times reported under the headline, "Tensions grow at California universities as Gaza protests roil campuses from Berkeley to New York."  Though Humboldt was not mentioned in the headline, the lede was all about Cal Poly Humboldt: 

Officials shut down the campus of Cal Poly Humboldt on Monday night after masked pro-Palestinian protesters occupied an administrative building and barricaded the entrance as Gaza-related demonstrations roiled campuses across the nation.

Three students were arrested after law enforcement officers wearing helmets and riot shields descended on the public university in Arcata, in rural Northern California, and clashed with demonstrators who had set up tents inside Siemens Hall and erected a banner that said, “STOP THE GENOCIDE.”  (emphasis added)

“Free, Free Palestine,” supporters chanted outside the building. “Long Live Resistance!”

As sprawling pro-Palestinian protests and encampments escalate on university campuses across the United States, administrators are reacting with more forceful discipline as they try to balance pro-Palestinian students’ free speech rights with concerns for safety and other students’ counter claims of harassment and disruption.

Note the reference to Humboldt as "rural," while noting its location in Arcata.  That is arguably not precise given that Humboldt County, while sparsely populated, is metropolitan, with a population of 134,000.  Arcata, the city where the university is located, has a population of 18,000, but is part of the Eureka-Arcata-Fortuna micropolitan area.  That said, Humboldt County is sparsely populated, with 38 persons/per square mile, compared to about 94 per square mile in the United States. 

The story continues with more detail on what happened:  

Tensions flared quickly at Cal Poly Humboldt.

About 4:50 p.m. Monday, campus police received reports of dozens of students occupying the first and second floors of Siemens Hall, the university said in a statement. Classes in the building were canceled and students and faculty who were in the middle of classes were evacuated as protesters “began disrupting classes and vandalizing university property,” the university said.

According to the university, protesters blocked entrances and elevators with tents and in some locations shut doors using chains and zip ties, violating fire codes and “creating extreme safety hazards for those inside.”

After giving the protesters multiple warnings to exit the building voluntarily, campus spokesperson Aileen S. Yoo said the university contacted outside law enforcement agencies to assist in responding.

About 7:45 p.m., an officer told dispatchers that about 100 protesters remained near the building and police had attempted to take students into custody, but the crowd pulled them back, according to a report from Lost Coast Outpost. Another officer called for a pepper ball launcher.

Meanwhile, the New York Times mentioned Cal Poly Humboldt briefly, fairly deep in a story that featured NYU and Columbia prominently: 

At California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, students took over a campus building, and barricaded the exits with chairs and trash bins.

Here is a link to today's Washington Post coverage, which does not use word "rural" but says at the end of paragraph 3, after discussing the University of Minnesota: 

On the West Coast, California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt went into a lockdown after student protesters barricaded themselves inside a building.

Finally, here is a link to the Lost Coast Outpost news as of this morning.  

Postscript:  here is a link to the Lost Coast Outpost update from the afternoon of April 24, 2024.

This is from a New York Times update on April 24, 2024: 

• California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt in Arcata: Dozens of protesters were occupying an academic and administrative building on Wednesday morning, university officials said. The campus has remained closed since Monday after an attempt by the police to remove the protesters from the building turned violent, leading to three arrests. On Thursday, officials said that the campus would remain closed at least through Sunday.

The Lost Coast Outpost reported on April 25, 2024 that the faculty had voted no confidence in Cal Poly Humboldt's president, Tom Jackson. 

White Rural Rage authors push back; debate is a powerful illustration of Twain's "lies, damned lies, statistics"

Paul Waldman and Thomas Schaller wrote in The New Republic last week in response to recent critiques of their book, White Rural Rage.  Under the headline, "An Honest Assessment of Rural White Resentment is Long Overdue,"  they suggest that their critics, scholars like Nicholas Jacobs and Kal Munis, political scientists who have done some of the empirical work Waldman and Schaller cite, are being selective with the data they share.   What Waldman and Schaller don't acknowledge is their own cherry picking among the data from the political scientists who did the empirical investigation they reference.  Having reviewed both books and the flurry of commentary that has followed them, I'd say that Schaller and Waldman have been far more selective in their use of the data--and that they've done so in the service of supporting a sensational thesis:  white rural voters are the greatest threat to our democracy.  

Of course, that thesis is less sensational than it was even a decade ago because so many folks--at least in my coastal elite world--now believe it.  As Nicholas Jacobs wrote in one of his responses, Schaller and Waldman started with a thesis and then went looking for evidence to substantiate it.  That's where the cherry picking became necessary.   It's also where the phenomenon Mark Twain described as "lies, damned lies, statistics" came into play.  As a student with a degree in the hard sciences once told me, you can take most quantitative data sets and make them say whatever you want them to say. 

In their piece in The New Republic, Schaller and Waldman also make some interesting assertions about media protection of rural folks:   

[W]e have been surprised by the ferocity of the criticism we have received from scholars of rural politics. Their response has made clear that there are unspoken rules about criticizing certain Americans—rules that get to the heart of the very case we have tried to make about the deep geographic divisions in our politics at this fragile moment in our nation’s history.

* * * 

[I]f you dare to criticize the rural whites who are among Trump’s most devout followers, you’ll be met with an angry rebuke.

I find this assertion incredible--not least because it is so at odds with attitudes toward rural folks in my coastal elite world.   No, in my world, people are quite keen to "pile on" rural folks, seeing them as just the villains Schaller and Waldman selectively marshal data to depict.  

* * * 

Also published last weekend was this column by Eric Levitz in Vox, "Don’t sneer at white rural voters — or delude yourself about their politics."  Levitz asserts the debate between the authors of The Rural Voter and those of White Rural Rage can be boiled down to these five truths: 

1) Rural white people are more supportive of right-wing authoritarianism than are urban or suburban ones

2) Millions of rural white Americans support the Democratic Party

3) Rural white Republicans are not New Deal Democrats who got confused.

4) The economic challenges facing many rural areas are inherently difficult to solve.

5) Most people inherit the politics of their families and communities.

I agree for sure with numbers 2, 4, and 5 (though not necessarily that these are agreed upon in the two books).  As for the others, I'm not so sure given the findings of The Rural Voter and white rural people I know.  I also think that, regarding five, the politics people inherit are not necessarily the ones they stick with throughout their lives.  After all, many Obama voters migrated to Trump in 2016, and many more voters (third party or Democratic in 2016) migrated to Trump in 2020.  In other words, movement does happen.

Finally, Nick Jacobs and Daniel Shea recently published this essay in UnHerd, which got picked up in slightly amended form in the Washington Post.  Dee Davis published this in the Daily Yonder.  

On a Democratic Senate incumbent's election struggle in a purple state

NBC news reported under the headline "Tammy Baldwin fights to maintain appeal in rural Wisconsin amid Democratic slide." The subhead is "The senator has outrun other members of her party in rural areas before. This November, she'll have to manage being on a ballot with Donald Trump."  Here's the gist of the story:  

Baldwin is bracing for a tough re-election race against likely Republican nominee Eric Hovde, a multimillionaire and bank owner who loaned $8 million of his own money to his campaign in the first quarter of the year, according to FEC filings. But she has the advantage of incumbency, and has used it to often outperform other statewide Democrats in rural counties, even as the party as a whole has lost significant ground in rural America in recent decades.

Baldwin is already pouring more effort into rural campaigning this year as she prepares for the challenge of sharing the ballot with one of the forces driving GOP margins in rural areas sky-high. Unlike her first two races for the Senate, in 2012 and 2018, Donald Trump will be running this November, too.

“In Wisconsin, in rural America, I think a lot of people vote straight-ticket, either Republican or Democrat,” said Roecker, who sits on the board of directors for the National Dairy Board, Foremost Farms USA and Dairy Management Inc. “And, you know, like I said, I don’t know how many people go down through there like I do and check her separate.”

Roecker [a farmer from the Wisconsin Dells, also quoted earlier in the story] said he didn’t know much about Baldwin’s Republican opponent, but Hovde’s campaign said it plans to work across the state to tell voters that Baldwin is a “rubber stamp for the Biden administration.” A new Marquette University Law School poll out Wednesday showed Baldwin running a single point ahead of Biden among likely voters and 3 points ahead of the president among registered voters. The likely voter results showed Baldwin and Hovde tied, while she had a small lead among registered voters.

These quotes are from Wisconson GOP Chair Brian Schimming: 

“You don’t talk your way out of that,” Schimming said, speaking about the current economic situation. “I mean, you can talk till you’re blue in the face, but when people leave your talk or turn off your television ad or put down their smartphone, and then pull into a convenience store and pay, you know, a dollar and a quarter more than they’re paying for gas four years ago, they get it.”

Democrats have an uphill battle in the state’s rural areas, as their statewide victories have increasingly relied on wider margins in the state’s most densely populated metro areas.

“They have lost huge swaths of the rural/outstate vote in this state, and they are not going to get them back by running Tammy Baldwin around. They’re just not,” Schimming said. “And it’s a problem endemic for the whole party out there.”

These quotes are from Linda Wilkins, chair of the Green Lake Democratic Party: 

It’s like pulling hen’s teeth to get votes for Democrats in our areas.

Every Democratic vote makes a difference, and we get a few more each time in these extremely difficult red areas 

My Rural Travelogue (Part XXXVIII): The Great American Eclipse from the Arkansas River Valley

The Great American Eclipse, viewed from Ozark, Arkansas
(c) David Herbert 2024

I traveled to Arkansas a few weeks ago so I could experience the Great American Eclipse in my home state--near, in fact, to my hometown.  I viewed the event from a bluff high above the Arkansas River, just outside Ozark (population 3684), one of two county seats of Franklin County.  

Arkansas River, southwest of Ozark, AR
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

Ozark is one of the small cities in the zone of totality that promoted itself as an eclipse destination.  (Larger Russellville, population 30,000, less than an hour away, also promoted itself and was designated by NASA as a top-10 eclipse viewing destination). The numerous porta potties around the courthouse square were evidence of the preparation, as were signs like those in the photos I'm posting here.  (Fun fact about Ozark:  It's a colloquialism of "aux arc", which is what the French, colonial powers, called the place because of the deep bend in the Arkansas River). 

Meanwhile, my home county, Newton County, did not promote itself as an eclipse destination.  In contrast to Ozark, Newton County brought only four porta potties into the county, four in the county seat, Jasper, and two in the hamlet of Mt. Judea.   

Rearranging the porta potties (JR Handycans)
in Ozark, Arkansas on April 7, 2024
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

Here's what the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported on the turnout there:  

A couple of thousand people milled around downtown Jasper and Bradley Park on Monday as the moon began crossing the path of the sun.

Russ Todd, owner of the Ozark Cafe, said he had plenty of customers on Monday. He said Saturday was normal but business really began picking up on Sunday.

"I've got all the business I need," he said, referring not only to the day of the Great American Eclipse, but every day, in general. 

Ozark Cafe, Jasper, Arkansas, April 8, 2024

As far back as the summer of 2022, predictions were that Jasper, population 547, and Newton County, population 7,228, should prepare for an influx of at least 25,000 people for the eclipse, but crowds were nowhere near those levels on Monday.

"As far as I know we didn't run out of gas, stuff like that that they said was going to happen," said Todd. "Stores were going to be wiped clean. We even got a flyer in the mail that said stock up on everything, I think it was overkill a little bit."

The story further reports on a local conflict over whether the town wanted visitors or not.  Clearly, not everyone was on the same page.  

This excerpt from a Newton County Times story on July 18, 2023 shed light on both eclipse preparation and local attitudes; it is about an eclipse preparation meeting by the Newton County Local Emergency Planning Committee: 

Representatives from the Mt. Judea Area Alliance reported it has began publicizing the event on its Facebook page to make residents aware of the effects it may have on the community in the way of the number of visitors that may come to see the event.

"We are expecting thousands. That’s a lot of people coming whether we want it to or not. We need to be ready and to make the absolute best of it. All these people coming in to the area will want a little piece of clear sky to view the eclipse. Most will come a day or two before the eclipse to ensure a good spot and to enjoy the local area. Our roads will mostly likely be highly congested and traveling anywhere whether it’s for groceries or doctors’ appointments or anything else is projected to be near impossible to do in any timely manner. So, here’s just a touch of what you may want to do to prepare:

"Reschedule or don’t schedule any appointments from April 5th to April 10th, just to be on the safe side.

Newton County Courthouse Square
Jasper, Arkansas
April 8, 2024

Make sure you have enough groceries, water, gas, MEDICATION, or anything else you might need to hold you over during the same time frame.

"Plan to not leave home or the area during this time, if possible, as it will probably be cumbersome if not near impossible to travel our roads.

"BONUS: You may want to check on utilizing your property, rental home, etc. to allow those people coming in to stay in or camp on. This could be a big opportunity to cash in on a little extra Christmas money! There will probably not be anywhere near the motel space, camping spaces, Air B&B’s, rental cabins, etc needed to accommodate everyone coming to the area. {You may want to check on extra insurance if you decide to do this. Most insurance companies have an “event” insurance that is a one time fee to cover a specific event days. It’s as easy as making a phone call.) Or, if you don’t want them staying, you may choose to set up a table and canopy on your property (depending where you live) and sell water, t-shirts, baked goods (be sure to check cottage food laws), cups, or other memorabilia items that they might be interested in.

"There is already an eclipse committee for Newton County and they have been busy since last year planning for safety, medical services, police services, etc. There is a public Facebook page that offers access to some extra information on the eclipse, if you use Facebook. It is “Eclipse 2024 Newton County, AR”. If you have any questions, you can reach out to us and we will do our best to answer or help. We are just about 9 months away from the eclipse. What a blessing to be us and have the best seats to view it without having to travel to enjoy it."

It was noted the Alliance is joining with the American Legion in preparation of the eclipse. The groups have been able to secure four portable toilets, two at the Legion Hut and two in Mt. Judea for a week. The cost is $150 each, but does not include the cost for emptying them. Outside sources are being sought to perform this task.

The Newton County Times first reported on local eclipse preparation in May, 2022, and by Sept. 19, 2022, the headline was "Time running out to prepare for the eclipse."

Ozark, Arkansas on April 7
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

As for other parts of the state, initial reports of eclipse tourism in the southwest area suggest disappointment in the turnout there, too, as the Democrat-Gazette reported here.  An excerpt follows: 

Three small-town southwest Arkansas mayors said in phone interviews that the numbers the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism told them to prepare for for Monday's eclipse didn't bear out.

"It's pretty much a bust. Our numbers are not nearly what we were told they were going to be," said Murfreesboro Mayor Jim O'Neal. "We've got entertainment, we've got the diamond mine; we anticipated 40,000-plus visitors, and we did not even begin to come close to that."

Crater of Diamonds State Park was seeing decent patronage over the weekend and directing visitors beyond their capacity into town. Some businesses did OK, but O'Neal said the event was "a major disappointment" and expects the city government to take a financial loss. Chamber of commerce and other planned local fundraisers went for naught.

"We rented port-a-potties and empty trash dumpsters, and they're of very little use," O'Neal said. "It obviously cost us a lot of money. It cost us money we didn't recoup because of this exaggerated number."

Porta potties lined up in front of the district court
Ozark, AR on April 7
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

A Democrat-Gazette story the next day had a more optimistic cast, suggesting that 200,000 folks had visited the state's parks for the eclipse: 

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in early March that anywhere between 300,000 to a million visitors could travel to the state for the eclipse.

Despite grumblings from some merchants and restaurateurs over crowds that left them with surplus food and merchandise, state officials seemed pleased with how the state fared with the eclipse.

According to a statement from Shea Lewis, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, Arkansas Welcome Centers greeted more than 41,000 visitors from dozens of states and 14 countries.

"This years' solar eclipse introduced Arkansas to new visitors from around the country and around the world," Lewis said. "We're thrilled so many came to enjoy all our beautiful state has to offer and look forward to welcoming visitors back again and again."

Sign painted on window of a business in Ozark, Arkansas
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

Meanwhile, other media outlets reported on visitors to other rural regions in the zone of totality.  Here is some reporting by North State Public Radio in New York on the economic impact of the eclipse there: 

Monday, April 8 was the best sales day ever for the [Hotel Saranac's] restaurant. They also sold street food that day during Saranac Lake’s Solar Fest event.

“We had three food vendors and all we did was tacos- total tacos- and I think we sold almost 200 tacos that day and people came in and got to enjoy Saranac Lake," said [the hotel's director of marketing and sales]

Other hotels, motels, and short-term rentals around the Adirondacks were also booked full, some a year in advance. Using that and other economic data, the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism estimates that Essex County alone saw a $2.2 million boost in business compared to the same time last year.

One local restaurant in Saranac Lake that was busy all weekend was the Blue Moon Cafe. Owner Kenny Fontana said it was overwhelming at times. “We had three days where everybody really worked 12-13 hours."

* * * 

But the haymakers may have largely been hotels and restaurants. A few people who own a convenience shop in the area didn’t want to talk on the record, but said most people who came into their shop just wanted to use the restroom during the eclipse. They believed the region and state overhyped the event.

And here's a late March Washington Post story on anticipated spending from eclipse tourism.

Here's a mile-by-mile map of the solar eclipse, from the Washington Post. 

Here's a report on employment and wages in the path of the eclipse.   

Here's a story on AirBnB bookings in the path of totality.

Postscript:  The April 24, 2024 issue of the Newton County Times reported on an April 15, 2024 meeting of Local Emergency Planning Committee.  The headline is telling:  "Preparations wouldn't have changed for the eclipse."  In other words, local officials say they wouldn't do anything differently--either to attract more tourists or try to deter them from coming--if they had it to do over.  Oddly, the newspaper's website includes no link to the story.  

"Spotlight on rural California" (Part III): Giving rural folks a seat at the table

I want to wrap up this series about the Public Policy Institute of California's "Spotlight on Rural California" with a nod to budget priorities and how rural people and places may not rank high with policymakers having to make hard decisions about cuts.  In this regard, Chris Lopez, of Rural County Representatives of California, commented at the event, "We're going into a tough budget year and we [rural communities] want to be part of the conversation."  Another speaker noted that, in a tough budget year, a 40% cut to a given program means some counties will lose 2 of 5 staffers, but in a tiny county like Alpine, it may close an entire department.  

Ashley Swearengin, who leads the Central Valley Community Foundation, spoke of long-term investments (as in health care) that are needed in rural California, including her region's forested communities east of the Valley.  She observed, too, that the clean energy future we want in California is an industrial future--but with different industries from those associated with the past.  Several speakers observed that rural California punches well above its weight on clean energy. 

Another way to give rural ssembly member James Gallagher essentially called for "rural proofing," whereby new laws are vetted for the particular impact they will have on rural communities--sort of like an environmental impact statement, but instead a rural impact statement.  He mentioned in particular that "rural hospitals are failing" and that the situation has been made worse by the recent increase in the health care minimum wage, to $25, in California.  He also mentioned how California's gas taxes and fees penalize people for driving more--when rural folks have no choice but to drive, as to the grocery store.  

One speaker--I believe it was Swearengin--observed that the only thing keeping rural and urban from collaborating is not having dedicated time and space.  "We must require our local leaders to work together.  They msut determine where there are shared, aligned interests." 

I was reminded of the comments by Lopez and Swearengin when I saw this from a CalMatters newsletter on April 1, which provides a sense of the state's current budget crisis: 

With estimates ranging from $38 billion to $73 billion, the state budget deficit is top-of-mind for the Legislature. In March, Senate Democrats announced early budgetary action to reduce the shortfall by about $17 billion, while also agreeing with Newsom’s January budget proposal to use $12.2 billion of the state’s rainy day fund. According to Senate leaders, the plan would shrink the budget down to a “more manageable” $9 to $24 billion.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the two elected leaders in the Legislature — Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas — also announced in March that they agreed to seek $12 billion to $18 billion in initial savings ahead of passing the full state budget in June, but with scant details. All three are Democrats.