Tuesday, May 21, 2013
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Growth and Development

Arts and Culture | Growth and Development | Main Street Economics | Politics and Government
Speak Your Piece: A Fraction of Justice in Indian Trust Case
08/12/2008
allotment marker thumbAfter twelve-years in court, Indian plaintiffs were awarded only 1% of what they have sought from the U.S. government. The largest class-action suit ever may also become the longest.
Growth and Development | Main Street Economics
Marks, Mississippi: Young People Look To a Future in Memphis
08/09/2008
The only factory in Marks, Mississippi, closed, so the only jobs left are at Wal-Mart or fast food joints. To get a job, young people in Quitman County think about Memphis.
Growth and Development | Main Street Economics
Speak Your Piece: More Than A New Coat of Paint
08/06/2008
Despite the high prices for coal, oil and corn, the gap between rural Illinois and booming Chicagoland is growing.
BioFuels and Energy | Growth and Development
Gas Prices Will Stymie Exurban Development
08/05/2008
The days of building large houses in what once were soybean fields is over, according to one North Carolina developer. What once were lifestyle assets — the SUV, a big lawn, a huge house — are liabilities in the age of much higher energy costs.

The Washington Post weighs in this morning with its analysis of how higher gas prices will cut short exurban development. More than half of all Americans live in the suburbs and growth rates there have exceeded 90 percent in the last decade. That trend is slowing. "When people bought homes, they punched the numbers and said can we afford the mortgage payment and taxes," said Bruce Katz, with the Brookings Institution. "This new paradigm is going to have families being more deliberate about the cost of transportation spending and energy costs. That's a new phenomenon in the United States. That will be the change that will change development patterns."

So, more people will want to live closer in to the city. But what happens to those who live and work in rural America -- producing the stuff urban Americans need to maintain their city lifestyles? The story doesn't go that far.
Education | Growth and Development | Health | Main Street Economics
It's NOT the Economy, Stupid
07/30/2008
human development thumbA new report looks at the U.S. with the eyes of an international human developer. Look who's falling behind...
Broadband and Tech | Growth and Development | Main Street Economics | Media
The Backroad Librarian: Survival of Rural America
07/29/2008

Wood survival thumbCan local initiative keep tiny towns of the Plains from withering away? Marcel LaFlamme sees an array of structural forces at work and concludes that gumption isn't enough.

Growth and Development
SW Virginia Roots for Skilled Workers
07/27/2008
return to roots thumb
"Return to Roots" is attracting software developers and other skilled workers to Southwest Virginia by danging strong incentives: family ties, the glories of its natural environment, and -- critically -- jobs that pay.

Sue Lindsay reports for AP that such development efforts are underway in South Dakota, Iowa, and Vermont, also. All use web-based recruitment. The Virginia program lists job openings primarily in "information technology, engineering, education and health care." Kansas has a similar program geared toward attracting bioscience professionals.

A major enticement is bringing well educated people back home, to be closer to their families. "Under southwest Virginia's program, some 30,000 postcards promoting the Web site have been mailed to high school and college graduates from the area, said Carl Mitchell, head of the nonprofit Virginia Economic Bridge."

Growth and Development
Carsey Survey Finds Wide Variety In Rural Communities
07/23/2008
Our friends at the Carsey Institute have conducted an incredibly large poll within four groups of rural counties. Carsey interviewed those living in the Eastern Kentucky coalfields; the Kansas Great Plains; the ski resort area of Colorado; and the Mississippi Delta and "Black Belt" of Alabama. The purpose of the survey was to describe the variety of economies, attitudes and realities of rural life.

The survey found that the one thing people in these regions shared was a worry about jobs. Home values varied. So did educational attainment. But concern about a lack of job opportunities in these rural communities was a constant.

The role of religion varied across the regions. More Republicans lived in the Great Plains counties while the poorer counties in the Delta and Appalachia were more Democratic. A majority of those polled in all the regions knew someone serving in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Growth and Development
Philanthropic Divide Continues to Grow
07/22/2008
The states with the most philanthropic assets are largely urban. Those with the least foundation giving are small and rural. The divide is growing larger.
Growth and Development
Kellogg Adds 26 Groups to Rural Policy Network
07/03/2008
RPRP logo

Land recovery strategists, cultural centers, farmworkers organizations, and health centers are among 26 organizations newly added to the W.W. Kellogg Foundation's Rural People, Rural Policy (RPRP) initiative.

The initiative unites groups working in small communities and concentrates their efforts on policy. The RPRP goal is to bring about structural change with lasting benefits across the rural U.S. Each member group receives $100,000 over five years for participating.

"Rather than focusing on alleviating symptoms, such as inadequate school funding, economic decline, and thin infrastructure," Kellogg's RPRP site explains, "the systems-change approach seeks to address the underlying behavior, interactions, and decisions that cause the symptoms or keep the symptoms from being addressed."

RPRP funds groups in seven networks, four of them regional. Among the regional groups newly added to the effort are Southwest Center for Economic Integrity, Tucson, AZ; Mississippi Action for Community Education, Inc., Greenville, MS; Partnership of African American Churches, Institute, WV; and Miner County Community Revitalization, Howard, SD. Here are all 26 groups.

Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural
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