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Previous models of community satisfaction and attachment have not included personal economic attitudes and behaviors as independent variables. Their inclusion is theoretically justified when residents of communities are viewed as consumers in a larger social/economic context first and residents of a particular community second. As locally‐oriented economic processes—once part of the community experience—were removed to nonlocal markets, local economic and demographic attributes became less important to rural residents' experience of community. In two rural communities with extreme scores on a service center viability index, satisfaction with employment and location of employment are important predictors.

To better understand the long-term effects of rapid boom growth, we reexamine four subjective indicators of community satisfaction and social integration in Delta, Utah, that were originally analyzed by Brown, Geertsen, and Krannich in 1989. With 24 years of longitudinal data, we find that within approximately a decade of the boom period three of the four indicators returned to or exceeded pre-boom levels. We argue that we need to modify our theories and vocabulary regarding boomtowns to account for a ''boombust-recovery cycle'' that better takes into consideration the dynamic nature of communities and their residents and how they subjectively adjust to shifts in objective conditions.

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