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“Perfectly Positioned†: The Blurring of Urban, Suburban, and Rural Boundaries in a Southern Community

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  • Betsie Garner

Abstract

In this article, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork and formal interviews from a community study in Rockdale County, Georgia, to illustrate the social construction of place-based identity within the rural-urban interface. Given decades of growth and expansion in metro Atlanta, Rockdale has become an object lesson of the boundary shifting and crossing typical of places located along the rural-urban fringe. A sustained pattern of demographic and ecological change in Rockdale has resulted in a lack of consensus about how to imagine the community’s location on the rural-urban continuum. I show how symbolic and social boundaries between urbanity and rurality are blurred within the community as residents draw on local resources to construct alternatively urban, suburban, and rural identities. Additionally, I illustrate how local boosters take advantage of this blurriness to portray Rockdale County as a “perfectly positioned†community and how community members disregard the official rural-urban boundaries of governments or scholars and instead invest their own imagined boundaries with significant meaning.

Suggested Citation

  • Betsie Garner, 2017. "“Perfectly Positioned†: The Blurring of Urban, Suburban, and Rural Boundaries in a Southern Community," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 672(1), pages 46-63, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:672:y:2017:i:1:p:46-63
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716217710490
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Elder Jr., Glen H. & Conger, Rand D., 2000. "Children of the Land," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226202662, June.
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