A small town weighs the economic compromises of growth in the Rocky Mountain West

A small town weighs the economic compromises of growth in the Rocky Mountain West

What happens to rural communities when their traditional economic base collapses? When new money comes in, who gets left behind? Pushed Out offers a rich portrait of Dover, Idaho, whose transformation from “thriving timber mill town” to “economically depressed small town” to “trendy second-home location” over the past four decades embodies the story and challenges of many other rural communities.

Sociologist Ryanne Pilgeram explores the structural forces driving rural gentrification and examines how social and environmental inequality are written onto these landscapes. Based on in-depth interviews and archival data, she grounds this highly readable ethnography in a long view of the region that takes account of geological history, settler colonialism, and histories of power and exploitation within capitalism. Pilgeram’s analysis reveals the processes and mechanisms that make such communities vulnerable to gentrification and points the way to a radical justice that prioritizes the economic, social, and environmental sustainability necessary to restore these communities.

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"The book...combines narrative storytelling, historical research and sociological theory to paint a complete and compelling picture."

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"In clean and engaging prose, Pilgeram describes the heartache of a disenfranchised population, while also delivering a tough scholarly analysis."

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"Through extensive interviews and archival work, this sociological study draws on the descriptive power of ethnographic writing to trace the path of rural development in an engaging and accessible book."

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"[I]t speaks to urgent changes in the contemporary West...the book's closing reminder that we can imagine, and enact, different futures is a hopeful and necessary one."

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"Pilgeram’s work constitutes an excellent intervention into the problems associated with rural gentrification."

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"Pilgeram's book is a thoroughly engaging, well researched, and important exploration of a type of gentrification often ignored and misunderstood in the broader social discussion of displacement."