Participants called out many different aspects of access that create different experiences for urban and rural communities: access to groceries, health care, childcare, work force training, educational opportunities, and other necessities like getting a full tank of gas. Participants expressed the most concern for individuals and families – particularly single parents - struggling to make ends meet and those that are houselessness or in need of mental health care support. Participants in smaller communities don't consistently have shelters, after-school programs, and the Head Start programs that larger cities have.
In Lincoln County, the 31 year-old single mother working for minimum wage doesn't really have a lot of potential in any way, shape, or form. Her situation comes with potential for burglary, drug issues, despair, and all the kinds of things. The difference between here and Portland is the access to resources so someone can work their way out of poverty….Here those resources are thin, distant, or not existent. (Lincoln City Dialogues)
There are challenges in securing good, affordable childcare in urban communities too, but the low density of childcare providers is really tricky. With limited childcare, two working parents could make a go of it. But if that single mom has a low wage or is trying to get education, it’s hard. The tyranny of geography is kicking their butts. (Lincoln City)
It’s driven by population density and access to services. If you're in an urban area, it's a walk out your door and it's there. If you have to drive two and a half hours to go to daycare, kindergarten or a doctor's appointment, that is a very, very different way of life. (Medford Dialogues)
For urban rural differences, the first thing is access, right? (Medford Dialogues)
The biggest issue is social services. Rural areas do not have the resources to provide the same level of social services that urban areas do. We have people with the same demands, but we can't meet those demands. So it becomes an economic issue. (Baker City Dialogues)
PUBLIC FUNDING
State and federal funding formulas for some of these programs are based on population. As one Medford Participant also said, “It seems to me that's the fundamental tension. It's all about funding formulas. That tension has always there.” A Warm Springs Participant said that the dollars amounts that they are given for something like a drug court coordinator does not come close to funding one person.
Baker Participants discussed the disparity between population per square mile in frontier, rural and urban areas and how this impacts public safety. State trooper, police officers, and emergency medical practitioners have huge grounds to cover. Harney County alone for example is over 10,000 square miles and takes over two hours to travel from Burns, the county seat, to Fields, a community near the Oregon and Nevada border. The mindset, per a Baker Participant, is if you have less people, you need less law enforcement. Another added that shrinking community budgets lead to cuts in officers. A Participant affiliated with rural law enforcement shared the challenge and resulting stress of not being able to adequately respond to people in need. Not being able to help in emergency situations is not a position most medical and law officers would want to ever be in.
OTHER FUNDING
It’s not just public funds. Rural Participants shared that they see that foundations consider that number of people that they will be serving. The more people that an organization is, the bigger impact a foundation's grant award can have. Larger cities have a bigger pool of experienced leaders and often connections with funders and leaders. Still, Participants recognized that Portland and other cities are in need. A Participant contributed that there’s not enough in either setting, “There's never enough.”
LOCAL ECONOMIES
While many towns and cities have a town center consisting grocery stores, shops, services, a post office, and the like, connection to services is still hard. Small populations challenge the businesses to stay afloat. Doctors, lawyers, pharmacies and, per one Participant, even pizza parlors – don’t always exist. People go online shopping and more small stores close. Grocery stores have to buy at certain quantities so that suppliers find it profitable enough to make the trip to rural Oregon. Grocery stores in turn cannot sell the fresh produce quickly enough and winds up discarded, possibly adding to the expense of the store and as opposed to covering expenses. Suppliers after all have to cover the cost to pay for the fuel, labor of someone driving refrigerated truck, and all those miles on the vehicle, while still generating a profit. Participants living in Oregon’s small and larger cities acknowledged how it is find gas stations and other services in rural and frontier Oregon.
These challenges are impacting such communities that they are dying. Shared by a Warm Springs Participant, “I'd like to talk about the urgency at some of these issues... These population declines are dramatic. If we talk as though we'll work this decade to solve it, the communities won't be there to benefit from whatever we come up with. People will say: I'm over it, I'm going to Portland."
What is the result of these resources going to Portland and the other larger Oregon cities? According to a Lincoln City Participant, “It feels like Portland is describing the water while rural Oregon drowns.”
COMMUNITY RESPONSE
Conversations within the Dialogues talked about how their communities responded. In Medford, a Participant shared, “Jackson County is organized… For some reason here, we form a nonprofit when we see a need, then go get funding.” Warm Springs talked about small businesses supporting schools and school kids. A Baker Participant shared, “Two-thirds of our kids are on free and reduced lunch. We have a lot of poverty here. We don't have a lot of living wage jobs so community organizations collaborate.”
Lincoln also talked about the relationships that they have. People know each other and Participants felt like in smaller communities, there is more opportunity for people to interact and build trust. Participants also gave a few examples in Hood River and Josephine communities coming together to save their libraries when they were entirely defunded, eliminating all of the services that their local library provides. Partnerships now exist with Deschutes and Crook County libraries to share all of their online materials between the counties.
Some Lincoln City Participants in particular talked about taxes as a part of the solution, recognizing the incredible need and lack of public funding to address so many issues. With one saying that tax is a four letter word, they also recognize how unpopular the idea is to stomach for many. Sales tax and reducing limitations on passing new taxes were both brought up, with some sharing the need for the American public to invest in itself. “By that I mean,” one shared, “this anti-tax notion that somehow someone else is going to pay for our streets, our police, our schools. We celebrate in our taxes are lowered, but we have not had a conversation about what does that really means.”