Rural Communities

As young people increasingly move to cities, what happens to the people and places they leave behind?

"In the vast majority of communities across the country, the seeds are simply not being planted for an entire generation of new industries and good paying jobs."

The place that Oprah Winfrey dubbed "America’s most unusual town" is more than just quirky.

In the long run, he says, urban-based philanthropies need rural constituencies to make a difference at the national level.

While we have made important progress in increasing incomes and reducing the rural child poverty rate, it remains unacceptable that 1.5 million children in rural America – 23.7 percent of all rural youth – live in poverty.

She’s always lived here among the "eye rolling monocultures of flyover country." But as we learn from Julianne, seemingly microscopic sized communities in her five states offer more than condescending city attitudes might easily admit.

Drugs aren’t the only health risk to rural county residents. They also have higher rates of smoking, obesity, child poverty, and teen births as well as struggle with access to jobs, health care, and physical activity.

Thanks to organizations like the Montana Cooperative Development Center and the USDA’s Rural-Business Cooperative Service, low-access communities like Turner are getting assistance in starting cooperatives in food and housing.

Here are some rural issues I would encourage you to keep your eye on.

This is the first time in the four year history of the event that it has been held in Montana. The general discussion centered on the larger topic of how the relationship between people and place defines the rural American West and its communities.