The small towns in rural areas have their history as majorly based and dependent on several economic activities such as fishing, ranching, mining and timber processing. Over time, as history is changing, the economic foundations of the rural regions and the small towns have had variation in their economic foundations. The root causes of the change in economic foundation include transportation and tourism.
According to the changing environment conditions, economic sustainability is thought to be affected by the sustainable development. The residents of small towns are working for the quality of their life on top of building the future of the economy of the region. They also value preservation of the history of their people including their children. They, therefore, opt to develop their place of residence rather than migrating to urban areas.
From the “New West” report, the rural development has been based on agricultural productivity including the pastoral productivity. The productivity is normally economical in rural areas because there is a large room for large scale production. This massive production is what chances economies of trade since large production would require a relatively low cost of production which would eventually make the net prices of products to be small. As a result, their demand goes up, and the volume sales would be large, bringing about a lot of profits.
In addition to large-scale production which has been associated with the economies of trade, rural areas have enough supply of labor forces. From history, the rural regions have not only been providing a large supply of labor but also at a low cost. It is, therefore, clear that the combination of the two would eventually give beneficial productivity. Further, the quality of that labor is good meaning that there would always be good quality output.
Rural regions also have enough land for manufacturing, unlike the urban regions where the land for manufacturing is scarce and expensive to acquire. These favorable conditions for production are good for economies of scale which is further enhance by the availability of natural amenities. The amenities provide sites for tourism which is a very crucial source of income to a great extent. Further, rural regions are rich in natural resources such as forestry, natural resources for farming and mining.
The kind of trade that is carried out in the rural regions aims at providing the consumer services through the retail trade. Apart from the retail trade, health, education and other customer services are also available.
From the preceding, it can be seen that all the factors of production are available in the rural and small towns. Availability of such factors (capital, land, and labor) enhances production at maximum level due to large scale production which brings about the economies of scale. Economies of scale would in turn results in economies of trade in the region since the price of products are affordable to a large number of consumers. These economic developments have contributed to the sustainability of the small towns and rural areas in Texas. People would be able to carry out economic activities from the resources analyzed above and therefore provide themselves with income generating activities. The net positive impact of the same would then contribute to the state development.
Such trends in economic development have been associated to improve ways of land used as compared to the past. From the historical research, there has been economic shifts and demography that had contributed to the trends. Historical in-migration rates obtained from the census previously conducted is recorded to have been high. The populations have consequently gone up in the regions which show that labor supply is going up and might need economic expansion to sustain the growing population. The expansion might be attained through maintaining the economic growth and incorporating the use of technology in such regions.
- Dixon, Alan and Kjell Hessérus. 2007. The Economies And Trade Of The Main English-Speaking Countries. Stockholm: Svenska bokförlaget (Bonniers).
