Rural Planning and Economic Development

On the Origins of Ruralism

From Antiquity to Appalachia

September 2, 2026 | Tyler Hinkle, AICP

DISCUSSION

Start with your homework

What do you define as being rural, urban, or Appalachia? Where do these terms come from, how do they interface/compare, and what future do you see for these spaces and their places?

Course syllabus and lecture synthesis

WEEK 02

Ruralism

Rural settings include many kinds of open territory and working landscapes.

The lecture's question is how these spaces relate to settlements and shared life.

Avoid reducing rural to farming or open land alone.

Origins StoryMap

WEEK 02

Suburbanism

Suburbanism is the futon of development.

Separated uses and longer trips shape daily travel.

Roads, cul-de-sacs and surface parking dominate many of these landscapes.

Origins StoryMap

WEEK 02

Urbanism

Urbanism is not confined to large cities.

Small towns can support dense, connected public life.

We will examine what gathering together makes possible.

Origins StoryMap

WEEK 02

To Have Ruralism We Must Have Urbanism

To Have Urbanism We Must Have Ruralism

Suburbanism Is A Threat To Both

“the town only exists as a town in relation to a form of life lower than its own.” – Spiro Kostof

Origins StoryMap

WEEK 02

Appalachia

Appalachia has physical, administrative and lived cultural boundaries.

Those boundaries need not coincide.

Which definition helps answer the question you are asking?

Origins StoryMap

WEEK 02

Why Appalachia?

Terrain, waterways and transport routes concentrate settlement.

Resource economies connect local places to larger systems.

These relationships make Appalachia a useful starting point for our work.

Origins StoryMap

WEEK 02

Is it rural if everything is rural?

Rural and urban are relational terms.

The earliest human settlements connected shelter, movement, resources, and shared life.

When does gathering begin to change the character of a place?

Origins StoryMap

WEEK 02

Early permanent settlement

Göbekli Tepe invites questions about gathering and monumental construction. Çatalhöyük invites questions about close settlement, shared edges, and movement across roofs.

Origins StoryMap

WEEK 02

Enclosure and collective life

Derinkuyu offers a later example of extensive underground refuge and shared facilities. Use it to examine enclosure, access, and collective safety.

Origins StoryMap

WEEK 02

Early city formation

Accretion builds places through successive additions and adjustments. Civic life changes; the physical city responds. A coherent place need not come from one master vision.

Origins StoryMap