Rural Gentrification and Networks of Capital Accumulation—A Case Study

Economy and Space Article Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space Rural gentrification and 2018, Vol. 50(7) 1473–1495 ! The Author(s) 2018 networks of capital Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0308518X18778595 accumulation—A case study journals.sagepub.com/home/epn of Jackson, Wyoming Peter B Nelson Middlebury College, USA J Dwight Hines Point Park University, USA Abstract A spatial reorganization of agriculture has been underway throughout the 20th century, and this reorganization has accelerated in the context of neoliberal trade arrangements such as NAFTA and the European Union. Global production networks now characterize today’s agricultural industry resulting in devalorized rural production spaces in specific locales. At the same time, surplus capital accumulated in contemporary global cities and regional urban centers continuously seeks out new spaces for investment in potentially profitable rent gaps. These parallel forces stimulate the re-purposing of rural industrial spaces from agricultural to residential uses in much the same way as occurred in former manufacturing neighborhoods in many urban centers. Using Jackson, Wyoming as a case study, this paper illustrates these processes through a framework based largely on theorizations of gentrification in urban contexts. In doing so, the case study brings supply side explanations of gentrification more explicitly into the United States’ rural gentrification literature and further highlights how contemporary processes of rural gentrification represent new geographies of capital accumulation. The Jackson case study further demonstrates the ways in which these flows of capital produce rural space in a relational sense by linking the local rural to the national and global through complex networks of capital investment operating at multiple scales. Keywords Relational rurality, rent gap, rural gentrification Corresponding author: Peter B Nelson, Department of Geography, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA. Email: [email protected] 1474 Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 50(7) Introduction Significant demographic and economic changes have transformed rural regions of the global north over the last 40 years including farm consolidation, suburban/exurban sprawl, decen- tralization of manufacturing, and widespread population loss. Since the 1970s, however, certain rural regions, particularly in the United States, have experienced a renaissance of sorts as population loss slowed (or even reversed in many areas), and new economic activ- ities became more common in rural areas (Champion, 1988; Dillman, 1979; Fuguitt, 1985; Fuguitt and Beale, 1996; McGranahan, 1998). New patterns of domestic migration have been widely documented in the academic literature beginning in the 1970s and accelerating in particular rural places since the 1990s (Beale, 1977; Johnson and Cromartie, 2006). These new migration streams are focused on specific rural destinations characterized by natural amenities (scenic vistas, waterfront, mountains, etc.) or recreational opportunities (skiing, hiking, fishing, golf, etc.), and in-migrants are drawn as much to rural places as they are to rural experiences (Hines, 2012). These “counter-urbanizing” amenity migration streams have been studied extensively in the rural geography and sociology literatures, and scholars exploring these processes have begun to use gentrification as a framework for their analyses (Chi and Marcouiller, 2012; Ghose, 2004; Gosnell and Abrams, 2010; Hines, 2010; Lekies et al., 2015; Nelson, 2006; Nelson et al., 2010). Rural gentrification as a concept can trace its roots back at least 30 years to the mid- 1980s when scholars in the United Kingdom first borrowed gentrification as a conceptual framework to examine changes taking place in the British countryside (Little, 1987; Phillips, 1993). Given its longer history, it is no surprise that the concept of rural gentrification is more theoretically developed in the UK context (see, e.g., Phillips, 2004, 2010). Beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, scholars examining the “rural rebound” in the United States extended the gentrification framework to add understanding to changes taking place in what some have described as the post-productivist countryside (Darling, 2005; Ghose, 2004). The US-based literature, to date, however, has emphasized demand-side explanations of the phenomenon. Footloose individuals/households seek out specific rural destinations precisely for the quality of life attributes perceived to be more available in rural settings including access to nature, tranquility, slower pace of life, and recreational opportunities. These demand-side understandings of rural gentrification are quite similar to those of urban scholars following David Ley’s cultural explanations of urban gentrification: individuals seek out urban residences in order to consume particular place-based attributes commonly found in urban neighborhoods (restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc.) enhancing their quality of life (Ley, 1994). As Hamnett (1991) so aptly illustrates, however, there are both supply-side and demand-side explanations for urban gentrification, and both contribute in important ways to our understanding of these complex processes and the ways they reshape cities. The tendency for the existing rural gentrification literature to emphasize demand-side explanations, particularly work based in the United States, presents a significant research gap, yet it is clear that global circuits of capital have tremendous potential to increase the supply of potentially gentrifiable spaces in rural regions. In this paper, we respond to this gap in the rural gentrification literature by more explicitly mapping supply-side explanations of gentrification onto rural spaces in the American West. Through a detailed case study of recent development in Jackson, Wyoming, we illustrate how restructuring in agriculture operating on national and international scales creates a sizeable (and increasing) rent-gap between the return from using rural lands for one purpose (agriculture) and the potential return after converting these lands to alternative purposes (residential). As this gap widened over time between capitalized ground rent under Nelson and Hines 1475 agriculture and potential ground rent after residential development, the logical outcome was a redeployment of agricultural capital (ranch lands) to residential uses, resulting in a dra- matically transformed rural landscape characterized by “new build” gentrification (Shucksmith and Watkins, 1991; Smith and Phillips, 2001; Phillips, 2002). By extending these supply-side explanations of gentrification onto rural spaces, this paper makes three significant contributions to existing geographic literature. First, we broaden our theoretical understanding of rural gentrification as a phenomenon in ways that align more closely with the urban gentrification literature. Second, we bring the US-based rural gentrification literature more explicitly into the theorizations of rural gentrification developed by scholars in the United Kingdom. And third, the emphasis on supply-side explanations of rural gentrification brings to light new geographies of accumulation characteristic within contemporary capitalism. In this way, the paper shows quite clearly that although rural regions may be remote in the strict sense of Euclidean distance, rural spaces are intricately tied in a relational sense to the webs of global capitalism (Heley and Jones, 2012; Woods, 2012). The remainder of this paper is divided into five sections. The literature review (Rural gentrification, amenity migration, and the demand for rural living and Origins of the rent gap sections) provides a summary of the existing rural gentrification literature highlighting the key lines of inquiry and its primary focus on demand side understandings of the phenomenon. In addition, the literature draws from the urban gentrification literature to illustrate key components of the rent gap and different ways in which rent gaps can emerge over time. Case study: Methods and context section describes the data sources and case study method- ology used in the analysis before Agricultural restructuring and the creation of gentrifiable rural space section traces agricultural restructuring from the middle of the 20th century through the present paying particular attention to the cattle industry (the primary form of agriculture in the case study region), land prices, and global forces contributing to its changing structure. The agricultural restructuring serves as a backdrop for a case study (Capitalizing on the ranching-residential rent gap – A case study of 3 Creek Ranch section) describing the history of a large luxury residential development in the region. We situate this development within supply-side understandings of gentrification by demonstrating how devalued ranchlands were repurposed to alternative uses allowing for greater levels of capital accumulation and producing a gentrified rural landscape through national and global networks of capital investment. The final concluding section offers an epilogue of sorts illustrating the ways in which rural space has now become yet another locus for cycles of capital investment, accumulation, crisis, and subsequent reinvestment continuously producing rural space in a relational sense (Woods, 2009, 2012). Rural gentrification, amenity migration, and the demand for rural living Scholars working in the United Kingdom were

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