Poverty has many faces in America. One of the faces we know very little about is emerging from the economic restructuring in the Great Plains and Midwest. This face of poverty lies hidden in neighborhoods once home to middle-class America, but now home to deteriorating house stock and local infrastructure. Described as a landscape of loss, these once healthy communities face declining population and per capita income coupled with an aging population that strains community resources and support systems. Communities struggle to cope with the contracting opportunity structure that provides limited prospects for those who wish to stay.
 
Economic restructuring has wrought additional changes as new faces of poverty in the region reflect the lives of new immigrants to the area. These new residents often occupy low-wage jobs, as do many residents living within Indian reservations. In these communities, population is growing beyond the community infrastructure to support that growth. And, we see the distress caused by unemployment and underemployment throughout the region leading to food insecurity and unstable living conditions for children.
 
The North Central Regional Center for Rural Development has convened a regional research group (NC 1100) to study the impact of the New Economy on low-income workers, their families and their employers. This site contains the proceedings for the first conference, held May 25-27, 2004. We will continue to update it with more information as we go. If you are interested in our work, you can join the listserv by contacting jstewart@iastate.edu.

Links:
        * May 2004 Conference
        * Resources

North Central Regional Center for Rural Development
Iowa State University
107 Curtiss Hall
Ames, IA 50011-1050
(515) 294-8321, (515) 294-3180 fax

For questions, comments or concerns about the NCRCRD website, contact .

Last updated July 26, 2005