Rural Areas, Rural Communities Quotes
In 1927 there was a Peasant Uprising in the Hunan Province of China. Young Mau went there and wrote a report.
Both Mrs. Roosevelt and the President, wealthy sophisticated “city” people, went out of their way to learn about rural life in the country, and they both were always champions and defenders of agriculture and rural America—much more so than many politicians who came from rural states.
Immediately after the Russian Revolution, the provisional government appointed him as Ambassador to the United States. However, the provisional government was supplanted when the Bolsheviks took over. See {640094} and {640095} for more on the Communist struggle with the Russian Peasants. Not enamored of Communism, he stayed in the United States with many other Russian refugees.
Urbanization has often alarmed the power structure. Given the harsher form of urban poverty compared with rural poverty, it was hard for politicians to understand the draw of the cities. They did not then understand the value and importance of greater opportunity, greater privacy and anonymity, more choice and more de facto freedom. Bannerman and many others would have been totally surprised that in the second decade of the 21st century, more than half the people in the entire world were living in cities and suburbs.
There had been a Chinese Revolution in 1911, but although there were changes at the seat of government and in urban areas, the rural areas where most of the people lived changed little if at all. The revolution failed as a result of it became a revolution without reform.
This quotation is notable because it illustrates some of the ideas about cities that were suggested at the time. The growth of the suburbs was the largest of the changes that actually tool place.