Year: 2016

  Part 2 of our conversation with income Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka on the upcoming state legislative session.  

Incoming Senate Majority leader, Paul Gazelka, talks about rural MN priorities.

Communities in South Central and Southwest Minnesota have embraced means and modes of the present in hopes of positioning their humble abodes towards a chic and tech-forward future. In Wilmar, the MinnWest Technology Campus has spawned an epicenter of industry with 31 businesses grounded in bioscience, agriculture and technology that employ 550 rural Minnesotans. Among ...

Dawn Espe, development planner for the Region 5 Development Commission in Staples, talks about a grant they have just received for an ambitious community-building project centered in Little Falls.

Jessica Looman, deputy commissioner of the MN Dept. of Labor and Industry, tells us about apprenticeships as a (paid) path to careers for young people. Part 1. 

Each year, the Center assembles the latest demographic and economic data to create the State of Rural Minnesota report. Most of the data used for the presentation can also be found at our Atlas of Minnesota Online. Click here to see the State of Rural Minnesota presentation. — Updated November 2016

Part 2 of the two-part series with Center for Rural Policy & Development President, Brad Finstad, on the outcome and potential challenges of the recent election.

While coal was once the dominant source of fuel for Minnesota’s electrical grid, renewable energy in Minnesota is leading the way for a fossil-fuel-free future.  A new study by the University of Minnesota’s Energy Transition Lab highlights that the clean energy economy in Minnesota is expanding, that jobs, ratepayer savings and economic benefits are being ...

  Center for Rural Policy & Development President Brad Finstad reviews the results of the election and what it means for rural Minnesota.