Tag: community development

By Kelly Asche, Senior Research Associate The Center for Rural Policy and Development is currently working on a research project exploring migration trends of Southwest Minnesota high school graduates. This report will be released in early 2023, but as we explore the data, we would like to showcase a few interesting nuggets. The severity of ...

Starting with the 2020 Decennial Census, the U.S. Census Bureau is implementing a new framework to ensure privacy of the census takers – essentially, making sure that a nefarious actor can’t identify an individual from published census tables. Although the U.S. Census Bureau has been employing various strategies for decades, this new framework is very ...

In this episode, Marnie Werner, VP of Research and Operations, interviews Amy Baldwin who works as the Community Development Director for Otter Tail County. Probably one of the top three issues facing most rural community and economic developers is solving the housing shortage. In this conversation, Marnie and Amy talk about Otter Tail’s new initiative ...

The number of residential housing builders still isn’t at peak levels of 2006. October 2022 By: Kelly Asche, Senior Research Associate Now more than ever we are seeing the linkages between economic development, workforce development, and housing. No matter where you turn, it seems that small communities are trying to crack the code on how ...

In September, the Center for Rural Policy and Development released the results of an environmental scan of child care initiatives taking place across rural Minnesota. In this episode, Vice President of Research, Marnie Werner, interviews Don Hickman, the Vice President for Community and Workforce Development at the Initiative Foundation in Little Falls, MN. As an ...

by Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research Earlier this week I spoke to a group of business owners and childcare professionals in St. Cloud, where it’s not breaking news to them—or anyone else for that matter—that childcare’s 20-year downward spiral is now a major factor exacerbating the growing worker shortage.  As the pandemic upended all aspects ...

We know there’s a child care shortage, especially in rural areas. The question now is, “What do we do about it?” In our September 2022 webinar, we review the results of a survey conducted by the Center for Rural Policy & Development looking at a sample of the initiatives going on around Minnesota to address ...

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations Click here to read the main article, “Rural Child Care Solutions: From the Ground Up.” While communities have been learning how to get together and figure out solutions for their local child care needs, at the state level, the MN Department of Human Services has also been ...

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations Click here to read the main article, “Rural Child Care Solutions: From the Ground Up.” One factor that has been helpful in the rural childcare arena is the involvement of organizations with a regional perspective, operating in a wider area than a county but more focused—with greater ...