ABSTRACT
Among many other changes in the internal American economic structure, the last few decades have witnessed the emergence of a number of forms of decentralization of industry. Although much of our attention has been on the shift from frostbelt or rustbelt to sunbelt, there are associated shifts that operate on a subregional level. This chapter focuses on one of these, the increased industrialization of rural areas, those smaller communities that have been largely rural villages or hamlets, or towns closer to rural than to major urban centers. In contrast to the attentiveness of many sociologists to the sunbelt transformation, though, rural industrialization has been a topic of primary interest only to rural sociologists. Corporate expectations about the regulatory climate in smaller rural communities have some firm basis in recent history. Agribusiness has combined costly machinery and migrant labor for cropping and processing in many areas. The recent dominance of rural development cultures has favored corporate elites in the investors' market.
