EXCERPT: “Some 900 homes on the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation will soon gain something that 80 percent of U.S. residents already take for granted—home access to high-speed Internet service. Thanks to two $3 million U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grants, plus an additional $2.2 million investment from the tribe, some 160 miles of ...

Last year the Center released the report “A Quiet Crisis: Minnesota’s child care shortage,” which shed light on a dire family and economic development problem affecting the entire state. A year later, we revisit the issue.

EXCERPT: “Rural hospitals in the U.S. face big challenges staffing their obstetric units with well-trained nurses due to tight budgets, employment competition with urban hospitals, and low birth volumes. A new study from the School of Public Health shows that many rural hospitals are solving the problem through creative staffing approaches that take advantage of ...

EXCERPT: “For the roughly five million young Americans who find themselves both unemployed and not in school, those living in rural communities face a unique set of challenges. Transportation is a huge issue for those who live hours away from the nearest resources, and jobs remain scarce in local economies that have seen unemployment persist for ...

We meet up again with DEED labor analyst Luke Greiner to talk about jobs in Southwest Minnesota, where there are more jobs available than people to fill them. As Luke points out, not all the well-paying jobs are in the metro.

EXCERPT: “The Rural Minnesota Concentrated Employment Program has a new strategy in delivering workforce services: bringing the program to the people. Over the past year, the nonprofit has implemented a mobile workforce program to offer services to job seekers in Beltrami, Cass, Clearwater, Hubbard and Lake of the Woods counties. The mobile office concept includes ...

EXCERPT: “Our state’s demographic center published a report that helps clarify the complex relationships among Greater Minnesota counties, cities and towns of all sizes. Remarkably innovative, they studied not just where people live but the relationships among cities and towns — how people live and work across city and county boundaries. They group us as living ...

EXCERPT: “(Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Ed) Ehlinger spoke with members of the Southwest Health and Human Services board on Wednesday morning, before meeting with a group of community members in the park. Ehlinger said Minnesota is the fourth healthiest state in the nation, and it has had some positive traits — like a willingness to invest ...

Crow Wing County Administrator and CRPD board chair Tim Houle joins us one more time to talk about the impact of slowly but surely deteriorating roads and the need for long-term, sustainable funding strategies.

EXCERPT: “Rural America continues to be a topic of political conversation. For many journalists and pundits, this focus comes out of a belief that rural America is the primary driver behind President Donald Trump’s political base. ‘Rural Resentment,’ for example, is the title of an article last week at Slate that, in its own words, ‘discussed ...