Trying to reconcile a few of tweets. One is on how distributed attention to rural is across the federal apparatus, https://twitter.com/mhildreth/status/1336454096090525704?s=20, and the other is one equating rural with ag on how Vilsack is a bad appointee. https://twitter.com/anthony_schutz/status/1336511957093011458?s=20, /1

All of this culminates in calls for a "central rural strategy" or an office of rural prosperity, either because USDA is too ag centric for rural or because attention to all rural issues is distributed too broadly. /2

While appealing, the contrarian in me wants to push back and say "look, we don't have a department of law-school professor prosperity, so why ought we have a department of rural prosperity?" /3

Or, maybe a little closer to the vocabulary in play, we don't have a department of urban prosperity, so why have one for rural prosperity? Of course, we have HUD, but it operates on rural housing too. It is more housing that urban, I think. /4

But, very often, problems that are common to urban and rural areas need somewhat different solutions because of the attributes of rural areas. /5

Of course, that is a well-worn trope. The fact is, rural Nebraska and rural Arkansas and rural New Hampshire are much different places, much like urban Pheonix, urban Detroit, and urban Charleston. /6

So I don't think coalescing policy around "rural" is likely to yield the magic potion that people think it will. /7

One effort that I don't like is an effort to limit attention to problems by drawing attention to the rural incarnation. That sort of selection, and its distribution of help to only rural interests can result in failing to deal with the same problem in not rural areas. /8

And given some of the demographic differences and popular perceptions of what is rural and urban, I worry that focusing on rural is to favor white problems over black and brown ones. /9

I know it is not that simple. But attention to policy with USDA (our bastion of rural) has, of course, not been a big boon to minorities (for a number of reasons as well). /10

In my thinking, I try to from time to time dispense with rural adjectives and adverbs, and see if it matters (and why). I think it helps deepen one's understanding about the lines we draw. /11

But I do like the idea of getting more attention to the problems facing us, and how those solutions can be achieved where we find people. An office of rural is part of doing that, so it would be good. /12

Resource disaggregation is another area of similar line drawing problems (water, air, land use, etc.). But this thread is too long as it is.