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Pushed Out: Contested Development and Rural Gentrification in the US West
What happens to rural communities when their traditional economic base collapses? When new money comes in, who gets left behind? Pushed Out offers a rich portrait of Dover, Idaho, whose transformation from "thriving timber mill town" to "economically depressed small town" to "trendy second-home location" over the past four decades embodies the story and challenges of many other rural communities.
Sociologist Ryanne Pilgeram explores the structural forces driving rural gentrification and examines how social and environmental inequality are written onto these landscapes. Based on in-depth interviews and archival data, she grounds this highly readable ethnography in a long view of the region that takes account of geological history, settler colonialism, and histories of power and exploitation within capitalism. Pilgeram's analysis reveals the processes and mechanisms that make such communities vulnerable to gentrification and points the way to a radical justice that prioritizes the economic, social, and environmental sustainability necessary to restore these communities.
Sociologist Ryanne Pilgeram explores the structural forces driving rural gentrification and examines how social and environmental inequality are written onto these landscapes. Based on in-depth interviews and archival data, she grounds this highly readable ethnography in a long view of the region that takes account of geological history, settler colonialism, and histories of power and exploitation within capitalism. Pilgeram's analysis reveals the processes and mechanisms that make such communities vulnerable to gentrification and points the way to a radical justice that prioritizes the economic, social, and environmental sustainability necessary to restore these communities.
- GenresNonfiction
210 pages, Paperback
First published May 11, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 14, 2025
I really liked this book. It was not boring, Pilgeram did a great job of keeping it interesting while still very informative. I did not like how generalizable it was, it seems like she wants to apply these sorts of phenomena to every rural town in the US West when every town has its own unique story. I also would have liked to hear a bit more about her positionality going into the research and the challenges she faced from being extremely embedded in the community while she was doing the research. Overall I do recommend this book!
January 12, 2025
A great academic, sociological, and human/personal perspective on the cultural, social, economic, and human-environment changes over time in a town in Idaho. Really interesting to me as both someone who studies infrastructure development in rural communities and a fairly new resident of the West myself.
Not being a history lover, some of the middle chapters detailing a play by play of the mill’s history lost my attention, but for me the book hit its stride with the accounting of how the housing development came to be and the socio-cultural changes that came with it. One of my favorite passages points out that to be a retiree still physically capable of skiing most likely means you did not have the kind of physical job that the “old-timers” of Dover had - and the people with those physical jobs will likely not be able to afford to retire at all, let alone ski.
I study renewable energy development, not housing or extractive industries like lumber, but I found there was so much transferable to other cases from the case of Dover. Useful read if you care (either personally or professionally) about rural Western communities; important read if you live in the West (especially if you’re from a different region or state than where you live now) and want to be conscious about your impact in the place you live.
Not being a history lover, some of the middle chapters detailing a play by play of the mill’s history lost my attention, but for me the book hit its stride with the accounting of how the housing development came to be and the socio-cultural changes that came with it. One of my favorite passages points out that to be a retiree still physically capable of skiing most likely means you did not have the kind of physical job that the “old-timers” of Dover had - and the people with those physical jobs will likely not be able to afford to retire at all, let alone ski.
I study renewable energy development, not housing or extractive industries like lumber, but I found there was so much transferable to other cases from the case of Dover. Useful read if you care (either personally or professionally) about rural Western communities; important read if you live in the West (especially if you’re from a different region or state than where you live now) and want to be conscious about your impact in the place you live.
April 15, 2025
The author talks about the town of Dover, Idaho specifically. Basically how giant corporations come in and screw up the little guys and legislators turn a blind eye to it because they finally benefit from it.
April 9, 2022
I used to think Billionaire Wilderness was the book on describing the ways rural towns are being steamrolled but Pushed Out truly takes the cake. Not only does the author provide an excellent balance of history and lived experience of Dover, but she also presents a brilliant theoretical framing of the forces at play. Where Billionaire Wilderness cozied up to the ultra-wealthy, Pushed Out, identifies exactly how those dynamics play out and erode community.
It seems a lot of the social sciences shy away from rural areas because it's harder to study them with traditional research methods. Especially in urban planning, we've essentially written off rural spaces since "only" 20% of people live there. We instead focus our time and energy where all the people are. But that ignores some important facts about rural areas. For starters, 96% of land in the U.S. is rural, so any conversations about sustainable land use, need to take that into account. There's also the difference between absolute and relative population impacts. When a new development goes up in a city, it might impact a handful of surrounding neighborhoods, but when a new development goes up in a rural town, in absolute terms it may not affect as many people, but on a relative scale, 100% of your town is affected.
Pilgeram also speaks of how the new development is designed to cater to "forever tourists." The new walking trails, bike paths, and marina are great in the eyes of newcomers who see their home as a recreation spot, not necessarily a community. The latest development may have all the best amenities, but amenities, do not a community make. This chilling passage captures the devastation wrought on a community when its public spaces are commodified and developed:
"...how can you measure the friendships that never form when there are no more spaces for children to roam free and break rules? How can you measure the relationships that never solidify because people do not come together in public spaces in the ways they used to? How can you measure the grief that remains bottled up because there are no quiet places to mourn?”
There was also an illuminating discussion around private property and the way it's been historically considered in rural towns. Using the example of Dover's mill, Pilgeram points out that while no one would consider chopping down trees for their own profit, accessing the beach or playing in the woods was always considered acceptable. For the mill, such activities didn't encroach on their profits so it wasn't a concern. However, once the natural beauty and open spaces became the commodity themself, the mill owners deemed it necessary to restrict access. The example of Dover shows exactly what can happen to rural places when they become the next hotspot for amenity migrants. This phenomenon is playing out all over the American West and was only intensified during COVID. I think the interplay of all the systems that facilitate this exploitation is well captured by this:
"The crises of capitalism that necessitate the destruction of landscapes in order to generate profit through their rebuilding are about more than literal buildings and construction. These processes also build political and economic systems that shore up the ideologies and economic interests of those with power in these communities, thereby creating and legitimizing new organizations of wealth extraction from the land and the workers.”
To anyone interested in better understanding rural towns, I can not recommend this highly enough.
It seems a lot of the social sciences shy away from rural areas because it's harder to study them with traditional research methods. Especially in urban planning, we've essentially written off rural spaces since "only" 20% of people live there. We instead focus our time and energy where all the people are. But that ignores some important facts about rural areas. For starters, 96% of land in the U.S. is rural, so any conversations about sustainable land use, need to take that into account. There's also the difference between absolute and relative population impacts. When a new development goes up in a city, it might impact a handful of surrounding neighborhoods, but when a new development goes up in a rural town, in absolute terms it may not affect as many people, but on a relative scale, 100% of your town is affected.
Pilgeram also speaks of how the new development is designed to cater to "forever tourists." The new walking trails, bike paths, and marina are great in the eyes of newcomers who see their home as a recreation spot, not necessarily a community. The latest development may have all the best amenities, but amenities, do not a community make. This chilling passage captures the devastation wrought on a community when its public spaces are commodified and developed:
"...how can you measure the friendships that never form when there are no more spaces for children to roam free and break rules? How can you measure the relationships that never solidify because people do not come together in public spaces in the ways they used to? How can you measure the grief that remains bottled up because there are no quiet places to mourn?”
There was also an illuminating discussion around private property and the way it's been historically considered in rural towns. Using the example of Dover's mill, Pilgeram points out that while no one would consider chopping down trees for their own profit, accessing the beach or playing in the woods was always considered acceptable. For the mill, such activities didn't encroach on their profits so it wasn't a concern. However, once the natural beauty and open spaces became the commodity themself, the mill owners deemed it necessary to restrict access. The example of Dover shows exactly what can happen to rural places when they become the next hotspot for amenity migrants. This phenomenon is playing out all over the American West and was only intensified during COVID. I think the interplay of all the systems that facilitate this exploitation is well captured by this:
"The crises of capitalism that necessitate the destruction of landscapes in order to generate profit through their rebuilding are about more than literal buildings and construction. These processes also build political and economic systems that shore up the ideologies and economic interests of those with power in these communities, thereby creating and legitimizing new organizations of wealth extraction from the land and the workers.”
To anyone interested in better understanding rural towns, I can not recommend this highly enough.
September 11, 2022
I've read PUSHED OUT twice, and have highlighted probably 50 percent of Ryanne Pilgeram's wonderful book. Why? Because I'm writing a novel about a community not too different from the one here — Dover, Idaho — centered on a Pacific Northwest waterfront community that had been able to delay gentrification for decades but, in the face of an especially rapacious and determined developer, seems on the brink of being remade out of existence.
And PUSHED OUT has been an invaluable resource in helping me understand how working-class , single-industry communities wither and become vulnerable to the free-market forces that drive what Pilgeram calls "amenity migration" — the concept of communities built for those who can afford what the market will bear for an abundance of natural beauty, leaving behind the middle-class families who found their identity in the dominant industries that preceded them. PUSHED OUT helped me understand how government agencies seems fair on the surface but in the face of those market forces, bend easily to the whims of the moneyed and the clever lawyers who make money from them. How promises to retain open space are often as worthless as the treaties with American Indians who preceded them, and how the prospect of one kind of improvement becomes a vastly different other than not only divides communities into "old" and "new" factions but all but ensures the painfully slow extinction of those left behind by newer waves of prosperity that passed them by when the extractive industries dried up, cashed out and moved on.
What really appealed to me is that Pilgeram, who wrote this book like the academic she is, allows herself to take a personal point of view as she studies the forces that changed much of the old-school lakefront timber town of Dover into the upscale village of Mill Lake, with tow sets of residents who are of vastly different social and cultural classes, do not mix much, and thus fail to perpetuate the much-missed sense of community revered by Dover's old-timers. Pilgeram grew up in Dover and, despite the rigor of her writing and research, can't help but let a little emotional heat into her writing: "The Mill Lake community itself is also not “natural” or a sign of progress. It was designed in a very specific way to maximize its marketability and profitability by embodying a set of class-based assumptions about how someone is supposed to interact with and appreciate the natural world. Its design was deliberate, with millions of dollars invested in the physical transformation of the community to attract the Patagonia-wearer and the recently retired" is but one example.
I could go on and on, but PUSHED OUT is a coherent, comprehensive, well-researched, well-written book written by a human being as well as an academic researcher in search of truth however and wherever it is to be found, whether in the files of government commissions, or in the heart of an 85-year-old with some perspective worth considering. It's been of immeasurable help to me as I contemplate the forces that shape the plot of my fictional Dover, and I recommend PUSHED OUT to anybody who grew up in a small town they struggle to recognize today, and wonder how to articulate just what the hell happened.
And PUSHED OUT has been an invaluable resource in helping me understand how working-class , single-industry communities wither and become vulnerable to the free-market forces that drive what Pilgeram calls "amenity migration" — the concept of communities built for those who can afford what the market will bear for an abundance of natural beauty, leaving behind the middle-class families who found their identity in the dominant industries that preceded them. PUSHED OUT helped me understand how government agencies seems fair on the surface but in the face of those market forces, bend easily to the whims of the moneyed and the clever lawyers who make money from them. How promises to retain open space are often as worthless as the treaties with American Indians who preceded them, and how the prospect of one kind of improvement becomes a vastly different other than not only divides communities into "old" and "new" factions but all but ensures the painfully slow extinction of those left behind by newer waves of prosperity that passed them by when the extractive industries dried up, cashed out and moved on.
What really appealed to me is that Pilgeram, who wrote this book like the academic she is, allows herself to take a personal point of view as she studies the forces that changed much of the old-school lakefront timber town of Dover into the upscale village of Mill Lake, with tow sets of residents who are of vastly different social and cultural classes, do not mix much, and thus fail to perpetuate the much-missed sense of community revered by Dover's old-timers. Pilgeram grew up in Dover and, despite the rigor of her writing and research, can't help but let a little emotional heat into her writing: "The Mill Lake community itself is also not “natural” or a sign of progress. It was designed in a very specific way to maximize its marketability and profitability by embodying a set of class-based assumptions about how someone is supposed to interact with and appreciate the natural world. Its design was deliberate, with millions of dollars invested in the physical transformation of the community to attract the Patagonia-wearer and the recently retired" is but one example.
I could go on and on, but PUSHED OUT is a coherent, comprehensive, well-researched, well-written book written by a human being as well as an academic researcher in search of truth however and wherever it is to be found, whether in the files of government commissions, or in the heart of an 85-year-old with some perspective worth considering. It's been of immeasurable help to me as I contemplate the forces that shape the plot of my fictional Dover, and I recommend PUSHED OUT to anybody who grew up in a small town they struggle to recognize today, and wonder how to articulate just what the hell happened.
December 10, 2021
It's a jaw-dropping and immensely engrossing work of non-fiction! Here's an interview with Ryanne Pilgeram where she covers lots of the book content: https://fb.watch/9MO1potni9/
She shows what people from Dover, Idaho cared about through the eras, and identifies the reasons why changes occurred, such as why the mill owner's refusal to provide clean water to the community allowed them to sell it at a great profit even though the mill itself had burned down. She also identifies missing minutes from meetings at a bunch of key turning points in the self-governance of Dover, and identifies other ways in which these archived peices of information must have been erased or removed.
I was totally engrossed by the historical side of the text, alone. Pilgeram goes way back to the Kalispel people who lived on and near the bluff and beach and identifies key traits about these people including how their location was central to how they lived. She further traces their philosophy and methods of sustainable living on the land and managing the wildlife. From there, she delves quickly into railroad builders and then into early mill owners before settling on one big name: A.C. White. This is the rosiest period of the story, since White's times coincided with America's post-war economic boom that also featured good times for industry workers across America. Then, she documents how everything changed and the "old timers" became upset. Then, there were newcomers and they were also upset, but by then the old timers were half-satisfied.
Hope you love this book as well as I did. I guess you might have to be from around these parts to appreciate some aspects of it, but it's really a quite universal story if you're familiar with sawmills, suburban developments built on former wetlands, and small-town dynamics.
Note: I first heard about this from Jason Welker, a newly elwcted Sandpoint city council member who ran for city council because of startling new urban developments in Sandpoint.
She shows what people from Dover, Idaho cared about through the eras, and identifies the reasons why changes occurred, such as why the mill owner's refusal to provide clean water to the community allowed them to sell it at a great profit even though the mill itself had burned down. She also identifies missing minutes from meetings at a bunch of key turning points in the self-governance of Dover, and identifies other ways in which these archived peices of information must have been erased or removed.
I was totally engrossed by the historical side of the text, alone. Pilgeram goes way back to the Kalispel people who lived on and near the bluff and beach and identifies key traits about these people including how their location was central to how they lived. She further traces their philosophy and methods of sustainable living on the land and managing the wildlife. From there, she delves quickly into railroad builders and then into early mill owners before settling on one big name: A.C. White. This is the rosiest period of the story, since White's times coincided with America's post-war economic boom that also featured good times for industry workers across America. Then, she documents how everything changed and the "old timers" became upset. Then, there were newcomers and they were also upset, but by then the old timers were half-satisfied.
Hope you love this book as well as I did. I guess you might have to be from around these parts to appreciate some aspects of it, but it's really a quite universal story if you're familiar with sawmills, suburban developments built on former wetlands, and small-town dynamics.
Note: I first heard about this from Jason Welker, a newly elwcted Sandpoint city council member who ran for city council because of startling new urban developments in Sandpoint.
April 30, 2023
I grew up in the North Idaho area. Specifically, Sandpoint, Idaho. this book rings true in so many ways, and as a young person from the area, just reinforces the fact of rural gentrifications impact on small communities. It’s nice to have someone who is local from the area articulate some of the issues that have happened over the years.
It’s interesting how quickly the pseudonyms are identified when I started talking to some family and friends about this book. Although there are many things that stuck out to me one thing that really spoke to me is the part where she mentions old Dover and new Dover had a community gathering, and , the populations from each area were separated during this gathering. I thought this was very symbolic on how most locals feel towards the new influx of population coming in, especially even since this book has been written.
I also have first-hand experience of building houses in the Dover area and can attest to the fact that I heard multiple times developers calling it “do-overbay” , hinting at the fact that you really can’t build on floodplains without issues eventually. The developers know and all these new homeowners will soon find out.
I really appreciate the work and time that the author has taken in order to write this book. I’m sure as a local it was very interesting, but also very damning to learn about some of the information and happenings. I encourage anyone from the north Idaho area to read this book.
It’s interesting how quickly the pseudonyms are identified when I started talking to some family and friends about this book. Although there are many things that stuck out to me one thing that really spoke to me is the part where she mentions old Dover and new Dover had a community gathering, and , the populations from each area were separated during this gathering. I thought this was very symbolic on how most locals feel towards the new influx of population coming in, especially even since this book has been written.
I also have first-hand experience of building houses in the Dover area and can attest to the fact that I heard multiple times developers calling it “do-overbay” , hinting at the fact that you really can’t build on floodplains without issues eventually. The developers know and all these new homeowners will soon find out.
I really appreciate the work and time that the author has taken in order to write this book. I’m sure as a local it was very interesting, but also very damning to learn about some of the information and happenings. I encourage anyone from the north Idaho area to read this book.
September 11, 2023
Extremely compelling powerful story about a small community in Idaho, where the working class was left behind by the industries they thought cared about them. How wealth seeks out wealth, using whatever pieces are available, with little regard of what's left behind. I found it waaay more compelling than Billionaire Wilderness (which goes to show that, yes, in fact, professors from Idaho can do *just* as compelling and important research as "Ivy League" ones!).
While David Harvey's spatial fix is an interesting take on capitalism, I do think the book could have punched harder if it didn't lean on it quite so heavily. At times, it gives the impression there was a group of old rich white men in a back room in New York, scheming about how to feed "capitalism" to keep themselves rich. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of rich white men scheming in back rooms in New York to keep themselves rich, but I don't think cultural clashes between settler and indigenous cultures were a direct product of that scheming. As someone with pioneer ancestors, who traveled west looking for a better future, I don't hold to the view that America's westward expansion was just a cog in capitalism's machine. Real people made real lives much better for themselves by traveling west, not just timber barons.
That said, it's an amazing and powerful read. If you care about the changes between the "old" and "new" west, read THIS book.
While David Harvey's spatial fix is an interesting take on capitalism, I do think the book could have punched harder if it didn't lean on it quite so heavily. At times, it gives the impression there was a group of old rich white men in a back room in New York, scheming about how to feed "capitalism" to keep themselves rich. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of rich white men scheming in back rooms in New York to keep themselves rich, but I don't think cultural clashes between settler and indigenous cultures were a direct product of that scheming. As someone with pioneer ancestors, who traveled west looking for a better future, I don't hold to the view that America's westward expansion was just a cog in capitalism's machine. Real people made real lives much better for themselves by traveling west, not just timber barons.
That said, it's an amazing and powerful read. If you care about the changes between the "old" and "new" west, read THIS book.
June 7, 2021
I picked out this book after hearing a strong recommendation from Anne Helen Petersen. Ryanne Pilgeram writes an anthropology of rural gentrification, using as her example the small town of Dover, Idaho - a few miles away from Sandpoint, where I spent many years as a youth.
In comparison to other critiques of gentrification, Pilgeram looks at the systems and economic forces that drive economic change, and how the people are impacted. She critiques capitalism, and particularly seeing that capitalism must expand geographically to strive, or destroy spaces and people and shift the target of profit.
Dover had been a fishing site for the Kalispel people before the American expansion. As America expanded westward, land and resources were granted to oligarchs like the railroad companies, who then used "their" land to extract profit from the timber resources in areas like Dover. Dover became a wood mill to process the timber and timber products. But as the timber industry processed all that could be processed, Dover's mill shut down, adn the people working it were unemployed. The area then shifted to a site for recreation-based tourism, and became a site for second homes and retirement homes.
I saw this happen in the area of rural Montana that I grew up in, and in Sandpoint, and in Dover. I've seen it happen in the town that I live in now. I've never read a more grounded, fascinating, or TRUE exploration of the economic processes that have changed America and Americans.
HIGHLY recommended and well worth time to read.
In comparison to other critiques of gentrification, Pilgeram looks at the systems and economic forces that drive economic change, and how the people are impacted. She critiques capitalism, and particularly seeing that capitalism must expand geographically to strive, or destroy spaces and people and shift the target of profit.
Dover had been a fishing site for the Kalispel people before the American expansion. As America expanded westward, land and resources were granted to oligarchs like the railroad companies, who then used "their" land to extract profit from the timber resources in areas like Dover. Dover became a wood mill to process the timber and timber products. But as the timber industry processed all that could be processed, Dover's mill shut down, adn the people working it were unemployed. The area then shifted to a site for recreation-based tourism, and became a site for second homes and retirement homes.
I saw this happen in the area of rural Montana that I grew up in, and in Sandpoint, and in Dover. I've seen it happen in the town that I live in now. I've never read a more grounded, fascinating, or TRUE exploration of the economic processes that have changed America and Americans.
HIGHLY recommended and well worth time to read.
January 8, 2025
“It seems ironic,” author Ryanne Pilgeram bitterly writes in “Pushed Out,” “that the larger the home, the more likely it was to be sitting empty.” The trophy homes she refers to are the ones newly-built in the little North Idaho town of Dover, where she was raised. In Pilgeram’s youth she socialized on a community beach on Lake Pend Oreille — as generations had done when Dover was home to a thrumming, well-staffed lumber mill. “Pushed Out” vividly details the sorry, destabilizing, and emblematic 21st-century Western story of a merciless extractive industry turning to ostentatious real estate. Forcing a desperate and demoralized working-class community behind veritable new “No Trespassing” signs.
November 16, 2021
Excellent ethnography on Dover, ID. I used to hike at a state park just south of here often. It is a beautiful place and learning the history made my memories of here more meaningful. As for Pilgeram’s dealing with gentrification this book is exceptional. Rather than simply taking the face value of the winners (see Stuber’s work on Aspen if you want that), this author dives into the history of the place and looks critically at the choices made around development and who was hurt by those choices. I highly recommend this read.
July 1, 2025
ryanne pilgeram is an amazing writer, she thoughtfully and with so much heart traces to history of dover (the Kalispell people who were pushed out then the working class people) in a way that is easily readable and understandable while also with incredibly intelligent nuance and care for the community she writes about. i cried reading the ending of this book, capitalism is so devastating and creates this political stratification in rural and urban places that pushes everyone farther apart and leaves Indigenous people with no connection to their homes with no care. i’m tired and im so sad
December 3, 2025
A deep dive into the gentrification of a small northern Idaho timber town that lost its timber mill and then its "identity" - which of course was only a little more than a hundred years old, and ignored the Native American history that preceded the railroads and loggers. Pilgeram explores the multiple transformations of the town over the last century, and the philosophical conflicts the residents faced as they lost control of their town's future. While it seemed that the author's own socio-political views drove parts of the reporting, she provides much food for thought and reflection on the future of rural America.
February 28, 2022
A really interesting read about how capitalism created a crisis that led to the rural gentrification that both "saved" and ruined Dover, a small town on lake Pend Oreille in North Idaho. Pilgeram (who, in the interest of full disclosure, is my colleague) also argues that environmentalism that doesn't center all people merely caters to the whims and enjoyment of the few, who tend to be either middle class or, more often, affluent.
December 30, 2021
What happened in the small community of Dover, Idaho is happening all over. Having lived in Dover briefly and in a nearby town ever since, I followed with dismay as the developer was able to get away with all he wanted for his own profit. The writing is full of facts but is very readable.
September 7, 2021
It's about Dover, and I am from Sandpoint. Well written and nice seeing things from a variety of views instead of just my own
April 6, 2022
This book read like a dissertation. There’s wasn’t a clear story line. It was choppy and disjointed and I missed the thesis. Interesting content but did not read like a book.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews