ABSTRACT
Industrial resource commodity production provides an important lens through which to look at rural community change because the export of natural resources as inputs into advanced manufacturing processes has long been a key economic function of rural places. Such exports include fuels, minerals and ores, food and agricultural products, forest products, and others. In this chapter, the focus is on forest products as the illustrative example of broader and more general trends. Like other types of rural and small town places, those places focused on natural resource production are challenged to engage with community and regional change as a result of their narrow economic foundations – defined as single industry (and sometimes even single company) dependent.
