ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to assess the association between farm structure and community well-being in order to understand the varied dimensions of the Southern rural crisis. Rural development effort cannot be accomplished without considerable outside funding, but capital transfers must be accompanied by increased local participation by all segments of the local rural society—by an increase in community cooperation. A common assumption is that the twin processes of concentration, the decline of farm numbers and the increase in average farm size, will adversely affect the well-being of rural counties and communities. The prevailing hypothesis in the literature on form and community change has been that farm well-being and structural change will influence rural community well-being. Louis E. Swanson argued that as rural economies transferred their economic dependency from farming to nonfarm enterprises, the influence of farm structural changes declined.
