Poor Regions and Poor Nations: Perspectives on the Problem of Appalachia

Public policy in cosmopolitan, wealthy, interdependent America is once more being focussed on problems of regional development. Regionalism had been a salient aspect of New Deal philosophy. In the 1930's and early forties, the National Resources Committee and its successors were forcefully promoting the idea of a planned national development on the basis of regions.1 Statewide planning organizations multiplied and, for the first time, planning commissions were established for multi-state regions in New England and the Pacific Northwest. The Tennessee Valley Authority was then the nation's first experiment with comprehensive river basin development. Although it found no immediate successors as an administrative device, it still remains as a reminder of those tumultuous days when a sober U. S. government publication could challenge constitutional authority by daring the question of whether regionalism might not eventually absorb political functions from both the Federal Government and the States, transforming the country into a United Regions of America. 2 The regionalism of the 1930's was strongly infused with elements of cultural idealism. As a social movement, it sought to counteract the spreading influence of central government by returning the power to decide on local issues to the communities. The true cultural vitality of the race,