Meat processing and Garden City, KS: Boom and bust

• Published in: Journal of rural studies Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 55 - 66
• Main Authors: Broadway, Michael J., Stull, Donald D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 2006; Elsevier
• Subjects: Agribusiness; Agricultural production; Beef; case studies; Community Development; Economic Climate; Economic fluctuations; Economic growth; Economic Impact; Economics; Employment; fires; Food; Garden City; Garden City, Kansas; Kansas; livestock and meat industry; Meat industry; meat packing plants; meat processing; Regional studies; rural economics; Rural Sociology; social impact; Social Problems; U.S.A; Kansas
• ISSN: 0743-0167; 1873-1392
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2005.06.001

In December 1980, the world's largest beef processing plant opened 10 miles west of Garden City, KS. Three years later another beef plant opened on Garden City's eastern edge. Full employment in the surrounding region meant that most of the 4000 workers needed to run these plants had to come from elsewhere—and they did. Garden City grew by one-third from 1980 to 1985, and it became a modern boomtown. Garden City suffered many of the social problems associated with the energy boomtowns of the Rocky Mountain West described by earlier researchers. But unlike the jobs created in those earlier boomtowns, meatpacking paid poorly and provided few benefits. On Christmas night in 2000, a fire destroyed one of the beef plants, putting 2300 people out of work. Four years after the fire, the plant remains closed and the town's economy is in decline. This paper describes the social and economic consequences for a boomtown when a major engine of its economy goes bust.