Rural America’s long history of boom and bust economies associated with dependence on natural resource extraction has left many rural areas in economic turmoil with high rates of out-migration. An oft-mentioned form of economic revitalization is job creation through various forms of natural resource use – whether that be extractive or non-extractive. Many of these proposed increases in natural resource use and development have occurred through top-down initiatives inspired by politicians or academics. While it is important to design effective policies to help rural economies, those policies require community buy-in and support to be effective. When research has been performed to assess rural resident support for, and opposition to, natural resource related development, it has almost always used a narrow scope – focusing on only one type of natural resource use. Usually the focus is the type of natural resource use that has already been proposed. In the rare exception where multiple forms of development are considered, it has still most often only been limited to a few forms of development (e.g. wind energy vs. natural gas). Given this, it is no surprise that results often indicate some level of support for the type of resource use in question. People living in economically depressed areas may be likely to support almost any form of development as long as it has some chance of helping their community. A current and in-depth comparative analysis of how rural residents feel about a wide variety of natural resource related development, ranging from non-extractive uses like tourism and outdoor recreation to extractive uses like mining and logging, has not been performed.
This presentation will articulate the results of a survey administered to an online stratified quota sample (n = 800) of Pennsylvania residents living in counties outside of core base statistical areas. The analysis will compare and contrast respondent support for, and opposition to, seven different types of natural resource-related development - mining, natural gas, logging, wind energy, tourism, outdoor recreation, and private land conversion. Support will be assessed in a multiple-item standardized format for each form of development. Additionally, participants will be asked to rank their preference among the presented types of development. Beyond comparing and contrasting the relative support, and stated preference for, various forms of development, this study will also describe the predictors for various forms of support, and how that varies by relevant demographic variables. It is expected that some level of support will be present for all forms of development, but that the relative levels of support will help provide a more comprehensive image of rural resident support for various forms of natural resource related economic development.
