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These two communities are quite different from each other. Where Elk Creek is in a steep hollow only about ten miles from Buffalo Creek, St. John is surrounded by miles of soft white wheat fields and rolling hills thousands of miles away. In all three of these places, the author uses the voices and observations of a variety of their residents to illustrate how their neighboring activities influence their sense of well-being in their daily lives. This technique provides us with the language, context, and description of the locales that are essential for us to appreciate the dynamics of community life. By bringing in these other communities, the author enables us to examine issues related to community integration, well-being, and neighboring. Through this, we are able to see that all three communities have some surprising similarities in the social behaviors and attitudes of their residents.
After spending over twenty years studying how rural communities organize themselves to meet their short- and long-term needs, I am continually amazed at how resilient human beings are when it comes to finding ways to create meaningful social communities, despite very long odds against them. Fortunately, this is what has happened at Buffalo Creek for more than a few of the surviving victims of the flash flood of 1972, and for some of their successors, as well. Without this book, we would know considerably less than we do now about Buffalo Creek, about some other rural communities in the United States, about neighboring, about disasters and their consequences, and about human resilience.
John C. Allen, PhD Professor of Sociology and Director of the Western Rural Development Center Utah State University