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Monday, July 29, 2019

Governors discuss strategies to help rural economies

At last week's annual meeting of the National Governors Association in Salt Lake City, leaders from across the nation discussed innovative ways to boost flagging economies in rural areas.

"Rural America is too vast and varied to paint with a single brush. Many rural areas are thriving. Still, it’s clear that overall, the rural economy is falling far behind major metropolitan counties," Alan Greenblatt reports for Governing. "Urban areas enjoy an outsized share of the nation’s economic growth, while 30 percent of rural ZIP codes have experienced downward mobility over the past decade. Only one in five small counties has added businesses, on net, since the Great Recession."

Rural areas also lag metropolitan areas in population growth, educational attainment, and workforce participation as well. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem noted that "We educate a lot of these students and then they leave to take jobs . . . That's probably been our biggest challenge."

Nathan Ohle of the Rural Community Assistance Partnership noted that rural jobs have historically been involved in extraction of resources, meaning harvesting crops, mining, and logging, for instance, Bethany Rodgers reports for The Salt Lake Tribune.

Many governors have championed initiatives with similar themes, including broadband expansion, building workforce housing, and expanding Medicaid, but no single approach can work because different rural economies are based on different things like tourism or agriculture. Brian Depew, executive director of the Nebraska-based Center for Rural Affairs, suggested that it's smarter to spend more money on education and health care than on broadband or housing, Greenblatt reports.

"All these factors mean that spreading prosperity to more rural areas remains a thorny challenge that will take a considerable amount of time to work through," Greenblatt reports. "Scott Hamilton, executive director of the Appalachian Regional Commission, told governors the job was like building a cathedral in Europe, with the person laying down the cornerstone perhaps not living to see the end result." Among the suggestions: let rural leaders take a larger role in developing economic development plans. Also, listen to rural residents when they say what they need and help rural leaders shoulder the burden, Greenblatt reports.

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