Editing Rural flight (section)

=== Mechanization and ecology: case study of the Dust Bowl in 1930s North America ===
[[File:Dust Bowl - Dallas, South Dakota 1936.jpg|thumb|250px|The effects of the [[Dust Bowl]] in [[Dallas, South Dakota]], May 1936|left]]
The shift from mixed [[subsistence farming]] to commodity crops and livestock began in the late 19th century. New capital market systems and the railroad network began the trend towards larger farms that employed fewer people per acre. These larger farms used more efficient technologies such as steel plows, mechanical [[reaper]]s, and higher-yield seed stock, which reduced human input per unit of production.<ref name="Cronon">{{cite book | last=Cronon| first=William| title=Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West| url=https://archive.org/details/naturesmetropoli00cron_0| url-access=registration| publisher=Norton| location=New York| year=1991| isbn=9780393029215}}</ref> The other issue on the Great Plains was that people were using inappropriate farming techniques for the soil and weather conditions.  Most [[Homestead Acts|homestead]]ers had [[family farm]]s generally considered too small to survive (under 320 acres), and [[European Americans|European-American]] subsistence farming could not continue as it was then practiced.

During the [[Dust Bowl]] and the [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s, large numbers of people [[Depopulation of the Great Plains|fled rural areas of the Great Plains]] and the Midwest due to depressed commodity prices and high debt loads exacerbated by several years of drought and large [[dust storm]]s.<ref name="Cooper">{{cite book | last=Cooper| first=Michael L.| title=Dust to eat: drought and depression in the 1930s| url=https://archive.org/details/dusttoeatdrought00coop| url-access=registration| publisher=Clarion| location=New York| year=2004| isbn=9780618154494}}</ref> Rural flight from the Great Plains has been depicted in literature, as in [[John Steinbeck]]'s novel ''[[The Grapes of Wrath]]'' (1939), in which a family from the [[Great Plains]] migrates to [[California]], fleeing the Dust Bowl.