Family Life Cycle Disruption in Rural Communities: The Case of the Lake Shelbyville Reservoir

摘要

This project selected impacts upon families and individuals due to the land acquisition program associated with the construction of the Shelbyville Reservoir in east-central Illinois begun in 1962. Research focused on Okaw Township, which borders Lake Shelbyville to the west in Shelby County. The in-depth, individual and family case studies indicated that farm family businesses are not the products of a single generation, or a single family. They are intimately tied to the intergenerational land transfer process which occurs among interconnected families living in close proximity. Thus, the time perspective in examining changes brought about by land acquisition and relocation must be extended on the generational level if the full range of impacts on the local cultural ecology is to be represented. Areawide changes in the availability and price of land made the difficult task of reestablishing a family farm even harder for selected families.