Boomtown Impact Model

Kathy Brasier: So the Boomtown effect is an idea that came out of the 1970s, by a researcher in Gillette Wyoming who is observing what was happening in families in an area where there was rapid development of natural resources. And the idea is that a small community, an isolated rural community, in which the extraction is happening, has a large influx of population that needs to work in that industry, whether they're there because of the specialized technical skills they bring or because they're looking for work in that industry. Population mushrooms, the community doesn't have the capacity to respond to that population growth immediately, there's growing pains. And as a result, families break down, there's domestic violence, there's depression and other mental health issues, substance abuse, crime, sort of all the social ills that are associated with that kind of development was documented in early development. That boomtown model is what we have started with when it came to shale development. So just trying to understand what happens when you have rapid growth in a community, particularly rural communities, we're here in the Marcellus, we've seen more of that kind of development. And trying to understand how communities adapt, are affected, and how families in particular, and individuals, are affected by that development.