This chapter seeks to debunk the myth that rural disadvantage does not exist, or is unworthy of investigation, because rural populations hold disproportionate political power. Noting other scholars’ efforts to challenge common assumptions regarding rural voters’ inordinate power in legislatures and the Electoral College, the chapter takes an alternate approach by exploring widespread challenges rural local governments have encountered in the face of economic transformation over the past several decades, which, for some regions, has come with regional depopulation, high rates of property vacancy, broad socioeconomic distress, and strains on municipal and county budgets. Officials in distressed local governments often struggle to provide even the basic services needed to keep a community afloat, such as enforcement of the building code. Rural local governments’ struggles challenge the stereotype of the overly empowered, enraged, conservative rural voter holding the rest of the country hostage to his political whims. The story this chapter tells is one of a shrinking public sphere, the limits of law’s efficacy in places with few resources, the role property plays in regional prosperity, local efforts to work with little to achieve what they can, and the national abandonment of places no longer deemed useful for extractive purposes.

Inquiries into rural conditions are sometimes viewed as not worth pursuing in the first place. This chapter takes on “foundational myths,” or assumptions that make “rural” seem uncompelling as an investigative lens. The myth of rural hyper-simplicity suggests that rural challenges can be solved with easy, one-size-fits-all interventions, such as rural residents relocating. Conversely, the myth of rural hyper-complexity suggests that the rural United States is so vast and diverse that to pursue analyses beyond specific regions is an exercise in futility. Finally, the myth of rural immateriality suggests that “rural” is not an interesting or relevant lens, as other analytical frames (such as a population’s race or national origin) are more explanatory. The chapter addresses these myths by offering a definition of “rural” that incorporates intersectionality theory, highlights common challenges associated with population sparseness and remoteness from urban centers, and reveals rurality’s salience to law. This chapter introduces the concept of “urbanormativity,” or the treatment of rural conditions as deviant or incomprehensible. The chapter summarizes scholarly explorations of urbanormitivity in rural sociology and law and rurality. It seeks to establish that rural conditions are complex, but they have common themes that are capable and worthy of being understood and addressed.