The Case for Rural America

by J. Tom Mueller

Rural America is at a either it will manage to sustain itself long-term, or—as current trends suggest—it will continue to disappear through depopulation and urbanization. There have been calls for economic redevelopment, but even with these proposals, J. Tom Mueller argues that policymakers, politicians, and academics rarely make a clear case for why rural America matters and is worth saving in the first place. In this provocative book, Mueller meets these issues head-on by presenting a critique of conventional economic development efforts while also articulating why rural America is worthy of preservation.

The Case for Rural America outlines the actions necessary to save our rural places and the people who live there. By suggesting approaches that would benefit urban populations as well as rural—such as establishing a universal basic income and implementing single-payer healthcare—Mueller offers a nuanced understanding of the complex needs of rural America while providing solutions that would benefit us all.

182 pages, Paperback

Published October 21, 2025

Reviews

[Desmond Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a few important things about rural America from this book, but not as much as I was hoping to. The author usefully discusses how rurality is defined, in both demographic and cultural terms. He shows how statistics can be misleading, as when rural counties that are doing well become "urban" in newer analyses. He lays out the two most likely outcomes for rural areas (depopulation and being incorporated into an urban area.) Although he discusses changes that have led to the decline of rural America, such as a much smaller agricultural workforce, I wished for some historical perspective on how healthy and well-off rural populations of the past were able to thrive to the extent that they did. I would be interested in his views on why rural areas are now so Republican and conservative. What we get instead is much too much Marxism. This is an academic book written for academic rural sociologists (I think), but that does not relieve the headache I get every time we read about what "capital" requires. He does make the very good point that most of what ails rural communities is the result of worldwide economic forces, including globalization and increased inequality. He identifies some very reasonable interventions such as supporting remote work, some optimistic ones such as providing universal healthcare and a universal basic income, and some implausible ones such as providing extensive reparations to Native Americans and descendants of slaves. As a rural resident interested in how rural economic development can work, I recommend this book as useful background.