ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the role of social scientists in constructing the future and examines various current theoretical perspectives on rural-urban relationships. It analyzes a variety of rural problems as they relate to rural-urban relations and an outline of a new, explicit image of the future. There are arguably three major schools of thought on the relationship between rural and urban areas: Human Ecology, Dependency, and Central Place Theory. The human ecology school is ambivalent about the degree to which the metropolis dominates its hinterland. The United States, and much of the world, is today suffering from a spatial overdivision of labor, combined with a dangerous overcentralization of political and economic power. The concept of participation has a long history in rural America. Rural Americans have traditionally banded together for a variety of reasons. Federal, state, and local government are spending millions of dollars through myriad agencies to attract industry to rural communities.
