Christopher Merrett – författare

This volume explores new opportunities to reshape local economies in rural areas during the next decade by exploring successful efforts already underway.While reported population declines can paint a bleak picture for rural areas, a different story can be told in looking at the numbers of households, employment, and housing markets. In fact, many rural areas have had steady employment and healthy housing markets. Rural attractions often include proximity to natural recreation areas, personal safety, social interaction, less expensive housing, and high-quality education. This book shows that rural areas are in a major long-term transition and that local leaders who take advantage of these opportunities in their community and economic development strategies can create a very positive future for residents.Students and policymakers in local economic development, sociology of population change, business finance, political economy, and geography will find this a useful resource.

This volume explores new opportunities to reshape local economies in rural areas during the next decade by exploring successful efforts already underway.While reported population declines can paint a bleak picture for rural areas, a different story can be told in looking at the numbers of households, employment, and housing markets. In fact, many rural areas have had steady employment and healthy housing markets. Rural attractions often include proximity to natural recreation areas, personal safety, social interaction, less expensive housing, and high-quality education. This book shows that rural areas are in a major long-term transition and that local leaders who take advantage of these opportunities in their community and economic development strategies can create a very positive future for residents.Students and policymakers in local economic development, sociology of population change, business finance, political economy, and geography will find this a useful resource.

Nelson Mandela called the Black Sash, founded in May 1955 to contest legislation that removed coloured South Africans from the common voters'' roll in the Cape, the ''conscience of white South Africa''. Adopting a radical critique of the national condition, Sash maintained high-profile protest against iniquitous apartheid legislation through the darkest hours of recent South African history. It also ran advice offices that assisted those disempowered by racist legislation and used the information gathered to support its political campaigns. This book chronicles the history of the Natal Midlands branch based in Pietermaritzburg. What was the relevance and legacy of the Black Sash, the women''s anti-apartheid organisation, and what did this mean to its members? This book looks specifically at the Natal Midlands (Pietermaritzburg) region and the distinctiveness of its contribution. Like other regions it supported the liberation struggle through public protest and educational campaigns aimed at exposing iniquitous apartheid legislation. In a police state this required considerable determination and courage. During the darkest hours Natal Midlands Sash kept alive hope for universal civil rights in a democratic South Africa. The Pietermaritzburg Advice Office became one of the country''s busiest, specialising in old age pension and disability grant issues. Knowledge painstakingly gathered about life for black South Africans was fed back into Sash''s political and information campaigns while Natal Midlands produced several significant publications. One of the smaller branches, it punched above its weight. Whether Sash was a political pressure group of women, or a women''s organisation challenging patriarchy, it generated lively debate. Environmental issues were also accorded a high priority. Fifteen interviews show that involvement in Sash was a life-enhancing experience for many members who have looked back with pride and honour at their part in the anti-apartheid movement from 1955 to 1994.

HALF the size of New York cemetery and twice as dead: this much-quoted, wry comment is generally attributed to the satirical writer Tom Sharpe who worked in Pietermarizburg in the 1950s. Also described as 'sleepy hollow' and the 'last outpost of the British Empire', Pietermaritzburg in fact possesses a rich history that highlights many key areas of South Africa's past. This is particularly true of the apartheid period. This is the first book published on the history of the city and region as a whole in over thirty years. It contains chapters on urban geography, the regional civil war, detention without trial, the black trade union movement, and political trials; biographical contributions on Chief Mhlabunzima Maphumulo and women of the Black Sash; and organisational memoirs of the Pietermaritzburg Agency for Christian Socal Awareness, Kupugani and the Association for Rural Advancement. The object of this series is to present fresh perspectives on the city and region's apartheid history. It takes a position that South Africa was liberated by all of its people - not one particular self-regarding vanguard movement with its hegemonic, one-dimensional views.