Small Towns in the Mass Society: Changes in Social Stratification

摘要

Social impact analysis of energy development in the western United States largely has ignored how such developments change power structures and stratification systems in local communities. Yet there exists a rich body of literature on community structure and community power that suggests types of effects that should be investigated. Of specific interest to this study is the proposition that an increase in vertical linkages between a small town and the larger society can result in an increase in competition for local power that may be accompanied by a loss in local autonomy. This paper examines a case in which external decisions made by a federal agency accelerated changes in the distribution of political power in a rural community. The focus is on the relationship between federal decisions regarding disposition of federal land and competition between members of local power structures in rural communities. The decision by the federal government to sell federal land to a local community served the best interests of some groups in the community over the interest of at least one group. The decision by the government released a supply of inexpensive developable land to the town, thus loosening constraints on development and breaking the near monopoly a few landowners had over developable land. The inability of this small group of landowners to continue to control development led to further erosion of their power. (ERA citation 10:036916)