Regional Economic Development

"In the coming years, jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience," Obama said. "We will not fill those jobs — or keep those jobs on our shores — without the training offered by community colleges."

With 18 percent of the land but only three percent of the population, what’s not to like about the Great Plains? A Census demographer reviews 57 years of population change in the Plains.

The group seeks to coordinate planning and policy between states in western Canada and Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Its 19th annual meeting runs Sunday 7/12 to Thursday.

Travelers pull up your website on their smart phone while they drive through your town. Soon they’ll be using QR codes and augmented reality to interact with the physical world in your town through their phones.

Gun sales are hot now, but global warming is turning billions in research and construction toward rural power projects.

Communities must adapt continuously and at an ever-greater rate, or risk seeing cherished ways of life vanish because lack of opportunity bleeds them of the children who are their future. Today broadband offers every community the opportunity to move from the periphery to the center in economic terms.

"The importance of Canada to Idaho can’t be overestimated," said state Rep. Max Black, R-Boise, a former president of PNWER. "Canada bought $1 billion in goods from Idaho last year."

In a report released Monday, the Western Governors’ Association, which represents the governors of 19 Western states and American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, identified 54 areas with renewable energy potential across the Western U.S. and Canada.

“Western states are at the very center of our country’s energy future, and Western governors will take the lead in building the bridge to a new energy economy,” Schweitzer said.

Quenching the growing demand for water in the warming West will require a bigger push for conservation, innovative technology and a rethinking of supply and demand, Western governors and water experts said Sunday.