Over the next two years, INseparable will address the ways we’re the same, and the ways we’re different; how we benefit from working together, and when we’re fine on our own; the barriers we build, and the ways we look beyond our differences; the progress we’ve made and our persistence to endure.

We’ll explore how Hoosiers and Americans have thought about urban, suburban and rural differences over time, and what we think today. We hope to spark conversations about the ways the futures of urban, rural and suburban Hoosiers are linked, and what might be preventing us from working together.

As a proven convener and conversation starter, Indiana Humanities will push Hoosiers to look beyond the demographics of the urban-suburban-rural divides to consider the people behind the data. With programming that facilitates discussion, self-examination and fresh perspectives, Indiana Humanities will seek to help residents from all settings cross boundaries and gather to see the opportunities and challenges we share. 

We believe the humanities can help individuals and communities make sense of the real and perceived differences between urban, suburban and rural Hoosiers. They can provide context and lenses for analysis, as well as create space for critical inquiry, open-ended consideration and reflection.

To that end, we’ll use these animating ideas to guide our work:

• How can the humanities help Hoosiers frame and understand the real and perceived differences across urban, suburban and rural lines?

• What’s the particular history of how Hoosiers have related to each other across lines of urban/suburban/rural difference? How have these tensions or differences played out politically, socially, culturally, economically or environmentally?

• How has Indiana responded to larger national and transnational movements (civil rights, Great Migration, industrialization, urbanization, immigration, etc.) that have shaped urban, suburban and rural communities?

• What are the factors that lead some communities to embrace change and others to resist it? What lessons can we draw from the past or from across Indiana and the U.S. today?

• How can the humanities help Hoosiers frame and understand the complex challenges facing communities, such as, outmigration, changing job markets, the opioid crisis, talent attraction and retention and quality of life?

We are not alone in asking these questions. For instance, a 2017 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of rural Americans, found that 7 out of 10 rural residents said their values differ from those of city-dwellers. Conversely, 48 percent of urban Americans said their values differ from people in rural areas or small towns.

Several significant anniversaries and commemorations that tie to our theme, as well as the next presidential election, come during 2019-2020. These include:

• the Indianapolis bicentennial
• the 50^th anniversary of Unigov
• the 50^th anniversary of the administration of one of the nation’s first black mayors, Gary’s Richard Hatcher
• the 60^th anniversary of legislation that led to the major wave of rural school consolidation in Indiana in the late 1960s
• the centennial of the 1920 census, which was the first to show that a majority of Americans lived in cities and towns.