As their mission statement states, the Center for Rural Affairs is "committed to building communities that stand for social justice, economic opportunity, and environmental stewardship." One of the highlights of the Center's site is their monthly newsletter that offers a range of pertinent news stories dealing with national events affecting rural America. For persons in rural areas, the Rural...

Located at the University of Vermont, the Center for Rural Studies draws on the strengths of professors, researchers, and community development experts to address the "social, economic, and resource-based problems of rural people and communities." Visitors to the site are presented with a wide range of ways to access the reports, data tables, and other such information offered here. One of the...

Hosted by Northern Illinois University and part of the Farmland Information Center, this site is an excellent resource for scholars and others working on farmland protection and urban/suburban development issues. Too numerous to list in their entirety, resources at the site include state snapshots from the 1997 Census of Agriculture; case studies; annotated links to articles, white papers;...

These two sites should be useful for urban planners or anyone interested in the issues surrounding development and "sprawl." The first, a report from the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the US Department of Agriculture, covers the "forces driving development, its character and impacts on agriculture and rural communities, the means available to channel and control growth, and the pros and cons...