A paper examining recent changes in the social and economic development of rural America--with comments by a different author--and a paper discussing rural policy comprise this workshop collection. Placing the changes of the 1970s in a broader historical perspective and developing a general framework within which to consider the influence of natural resource-related activities on development, the paper by Kenneth Deavers and David Brown describes population distributions, economic structures, rural classifications, classification comparisons, population changes, economic base factors, income levels, and other factors. Conclusions suggest that the connection between rural poverty and natural resource dependence is weak overall. Comments by Ronald Powers describe several natural resource variables not mentioned, disagree with some of the paper's conclusions, and suggest an additional hypothesis on the matter of assisting low-income counties. Suggesting major policy shifts, the final paper, by Edward Blakely, describes five principles: promotion of balanced rural settlements; a more versatile rural development model based on human rather than natural resources; increasing the social and economic opportunities for the disadvantaged in rural areas; integrating physical, social, and human resource development into a new, more integrated rural community development approach; and increasing the capacity of small local governments. (PM)