The global rural: Gentrification and linked migration in the rural USA

Abstract

This article explores the possibility that US rural amenity destinations are affected by ‘linked migration’ streams similar to ones connecting the fate of high-wage professionals and low-wage immigrants in global cities. To date, the possibility of such a linkage has not been considered in the vast literature on migration and social transformation in rural America, a literature that has treated the arrival of these two groups (high-wage professionals and low-wage immigrants) in rural spaces as separate processes. We explore the possibility that these two groups, in a particular set of US rural amenity communities, are structurally linked. We focus on the theoretical implications of documenting such linkages, arguing that the presence of linked migration dynamics in rural areas would transform scholarly debates on: (1) Latino immigrants in the rural USA; (2) amenity migration and rural gentrification, not only in the USA but in a range of postindustrial economies; and (3) theories of globalization and mobility, as well as the place of the rural in globalization dynamics.