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Rural spaces: General resources

Recommended resources on rural spaces and related topics, providing location info for print resources and links for digital resources.

Recommended books

Recommended image resources

Search “rural landscape,” “pastoral landscape,” "bucolic," “idyllic” or “eclogue” in ARTSTOR 

Other resources

American Planning Association, Small Town & Rural Planning division

Rewilding Europe (Advocating the planned de-civilization of large tracts of Europe)

Rural Transportation (website of Rural Planning Organizations of America, part of  the National Association of Development Organizations)

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Development programs

University of Guelph, Rural Planning & Development program

Recommended for all architectural research

Specialized resources on related topics

Aitchison, Mathew, “The Boyd Ultimatum,” AA Files, 2013, #66, p.59-67 (on urban blight, ugliness) (via JSTOR)

Bellamy, Edward, Looking Backward, 1888 (via Project Gutenberg)

Morris, William, News from nowhere, 1890 (via Project Gutenberg)

Slater, T., “Anti-urbanism,” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Elsevier, 2009

Williams, Raymond, The country and the city, Oxford University Press, PR409.C5 W5 1973

 

Flynn, Katherine, “Sea change: three coastal national parks face the uncertainty of a shifting climate,” Preservation, Summer 2016, p.24-31

Richards, William, “The paradox of water,” Architect, October 2017, p.87

Volner, Ian, “Come high water: new strategies in an age of extreme storms and rising sea levels,” Metropolis, February 2013, p.51-53, 83

Wodon, Quentin, et al (editors), Climate change and migration: evidence from the Middle East and North Africa, The World Bank, 2014 (via Ebook Central)

Aggregate (editor), Architecture in development : systems and the emergence of the global South, Routledge, NA2543.S6 A63125 2022

Ferranti, David de, et al, Beyond the city: the rural contribution to development, World Bank, 2005 (via Ebook Central)

Halseth, Greg, et al, The next rural economies: constructing rural place in global economies, CABI North American Office, 2010 (via Ebook Central)

Brown, Dona, Back to the land: the enduring dream of self-sufficiency in modern America, University of Wisconsin Press, 2011 (via Ebook Central)

Carr, Patrick J & Maria I. Kefalas, Hollowing out the middle: the rural brain drain and what it means for America, Beacon Press, 2009 (via Ebook Central)

Phillips, Jared M., “Hipbillies and Hillbillies: back-to-the-landers in the Arkansas Ozarks during the 1970s,” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Summer 2016, p.89-110 (via JSTOR)

Salamon, Sonya, et al, Newcomers to old towns: suburbanization of the heartland, University of Chicago Press, 2007 (via Ebook Central)

 

Hiltner, Ken, What Else Is Pastoral? Renaissance Literature and the Environment, Cornell University Press, 2011 (via Ebook Central)

Nelson, Stephanie A. & David Grene, God and the land; the metaphysics of farming in Hesiod and Virgil, Oxford University Press, 1998

Van Sickle, John, Virgil’s book of bucolics, the ten eclogues translated into English verse, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011 (via Ebook Central)

Virgil, Georgics: a new verse translation, Janet Lembke (translator), Yale University Press, 2005 (via Ebook Central)

Williams, Raymond, The country and the city, Oxford University Press, PR409.C5 W5 1973

Halseth, Greg, et al (editors), The Next Rural Economies : Constructing Rural Place in Global Economies, CABI, 2009 (via Ebook Central)

Kale, Sunila S., Electrifying India: regional political economies of development, Stanford University Press, 2014 (via Ebook Central)

Salamon, Sonya, et al, Newcomers to old towns: suburbanization of the heartland, University of Chicago Press, 2007 (via Ebook Central)

 

Clark, Kenneth, Landscape Into Art, Beacon Press, ND1340.C55

Country Life (The UK weekly "voice of the countryside" published since 1897)

Country Living (The US monthly published since 1978)

Delillo, Don, "The Most Photographed Barn in America," from White Noise (1985), reprinted in Storming the Reality Studio, Larry McCaffery (editor), Duke University Press, PS374.S35S76 1991

Grit (“Celebrating rural America since 1882”)

Hagenstein, Edwin C., et al (editors), American Georgics: Writings on Farming, Culture, and the Land, 2011 (via Ebook Central)

King, Richard H., Southern Renaissance: The Cultural Awakening of the American South, 1930-1955, Oxford University Press, 1980 (via Ebook Central) (about the Southern Agrarian movement)

Lee, Sherman E., Chinese Landscape Painting, Harper & Row, ND1366.L43 1971

Ruskin, John, "Of the Novelty of Landscape" in Modern Painters, ND1135.R8 vol. 3

Scheese, Don, Nature writing: the pastoral impulse in America, Routledge, PS163 .S34 2002 (via Ebook Central)

Stringer, Ben (editor), Rurality re-imagined: villagers, farmers, wandered and wild things, Applied Research + Design Publishing, NX180.A77 R87 2018

Williams, Raymond, The country and the city, Oxford University Press, PR409.C5 W5 1973

Bigman, David, Globalization and the developing countries: emerging strategies for rural development and poverty alleviation, CABI Publishing, 2002 (via Ebook Central)

Ho, Peter (editor), Developmental dilemmas: land reform and institutional change in China, Routledge, 2005 (via Ebook Central)

Kendig. Lane, A guide to planning for community character, Island Press, 2011 (via Ebook Central)

Mastran, Shelley Smith (editor), Your town: Mississippi Delta, Princeton Architectural Press, HT393. M7 Y68 2002

Murray, Michael, Participatory rural planning: exploring evidence from Ireland, Ashgate, 2010 (via Ebook Central)

Najle, Ciro & Lluis Ortega, Suprarural architecture. Atlas of rural protocols in the American Midwest and the Argentine Pampas, ActarD Inc., 2015

“The New Pastoralism,” Architectural Design, May/June 2013 (Theme issue)

Pandey, Devendra Prasad, Rural project management, New Age International, 2008 (via Ebook Central)

Selman, Paul H., Planning at the landscape scale, Routledge, HT391 .S445 2006

Scott, James C. & Nina Bhatt (editors), Agrarian studies: synthetic work at the cutting edge, Yale University Press, 2001 (via Ebook Central)

World Bank Staff, The next ascent: an evaluation of the Aga Khan Rural Support Program, Pakistan, World Bank Publications, 2002 (via Ebook Central)

Brown, Frances & Derek Hall (editors), Tourism in peripheral areas: case studies, Channel View Publications, 2000 (via Ebook Central)

Hall, Derek, et al (editors), New directions in rural tourism, Routledge, 2016 (via Ebook Central)

George, E. Wanda, et al (editors), Rural Tourism Development : Localism and Cultural Change, Channel View Publications, 2009 (via Ebook Central)

Alternative keywords

Agriculture and state, Agritourism, Climate change migration, Climatic changes, Coastal zone management, Depopulation – Rural regions, Ecotourism, Environmental geology, Land management, Land reform, Land use, Landscape protection, Mammals—Reintroduction, Reforestation, Regional economics, Regional planning, Restoration ecology, Rural conditions, Rural development, Rural industries, Rural laborers, Rural tourism, Rural-urban relations, Urban-rural migration, Wildlife-urban interface

Please note

  • These guides are intended to provide initial orientation, and suggest a variety of different lines of investigation—not take the place of individual research.
  • All the resources cited here--print and digital--are available through the Kappe Library at SCI-Arc.Items not available at SCI-Arc are not included.
  • Surveys covering multiple projects are preferred over monographic studies focusing on specific works or individuals.
  • Resources on Los Angeles and Southern California are stressed.
  • Proprietary digital resources (Avery Index, Oxford Art Online, ArtStor, etc) can be accessed on-campus at SCI-ARC via any SCI-Arc internet provider. Off-campus they can be accessed 24/7 via the Kappe Library proxy server, and a valid SCI-Arc Network username and password.

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