Journal of Rural and Community Development Journal of Rural and Community Development The Unconventional Boomtown: Updating the Impact Model to Fit New Spatial and Temporal Scales Author: Jeffrey B. Jacquet & David L. Kay Citation: Jacquet, J. B., & Kay, D. L., (2014). The unconventional boomtown: Updating the impact model to fit new spatial and temporal scales. Journal of Rural and Community Development, 9(1), 1-23. Publisher: Rural Development Institute, Brandon University. Editor: Dr. Doug Ramsey Open Access Policy: This journal provides open access to all of its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Such access is associated with increased readership and increased citation of an author's work. ISSN: 1712-8277 © Journal of Rural and Community Development www.jrcd.ca Journal of Rural and Community Development The Unconventional Boomtown: Updating the Impact Model to Fit New Spatial and Temporal Scales Jeffrey B. Jacquet South Dakota State University
[email protected] David L. Kay Cornell University
[email protected] Abstract The boomtown impact model, developed by researchers in the 1970s, implicitly assumes a spatially concentrated, finite resource will be extracted during a near- singular event (i.e., the “boom”), followed by a one-time “bust”. This model has been criticized for its lack of realistic longitudinal or macro-level perspective beyond the boom-and-bust, and seems unlikely to transfer successfully to the context of modern hydrocarbon exploitation. Technological innovations have unlocked massive reservoirs of natural gas in many parts of the world that challenge the notion of a geographically concentrated supply that can be quickly exploited.