Rural geography: Globalizing the countryside

James McCarthy, Pennsylvania State University

Abstract

The article discusses issues regarding rural geography, focusing on the growing phenomena of amenity migration to certain types of rural areas and the proliferation of American-style exurban and suburban development. It then explores some of the ways in which rural areas are being produced through increasingly globalized forms and relationships. In this article, the author thinks about rural geographies in explicitly relational terms, acknowledging that most rural areas are in developing countries, and that the relations that shape them are more important than snapshots of the fleeting landscapes they produce.