Tag: greater minnesota

Season 2 Ep 10: The importance of community newspapers

On this episode, Julie Tesch is joined by Reed Anfinson – owner and publisher of three rural newspapers in Minnesota – the Swift County Monitor News in Benson, the Stevens County Times in Morris, and the Grant County Herald in Elbow Lake. Also joining the conversation is Lisa Hills, the Executive Director of the MN ...
Someone moving a chess piece on a chess board.

Upon the second anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic

  Marnie Werner, VP, Research Two years ago last week, I sat glued to my TV watching the governor and his cabinet as they announced our first covid lockdown. I sat there wondering how this was going to play out, who would get sick, who wouldn’t make it through to the other end. Sitting in ...

Research explainer video – Amazon effect and rural tax revenues

Online sales have permeated everyday life and their impacts stretch beyond convenience of shopping. Local leaders see the evidence every day in their communities: more and more delivery trucks going down their roads, stopping at their neighbors’ or their own houses, dropping off products that were once maybe purchased in their own or a nearby ...

Season 2 Ep 9: Discussing the data trends from the pandemic

Now that we are beginning to exit the pandemic (hopefully), the data from the previous year and a half are being released. In this episode, Marnie Werner and Kelly Asche discuss what they’ve been seeing in the data. And although the illness and deaths associated with COVID-19 hit hard in our rural areas, some of ...
child with paint on hands

It’s time.

With the pandemic on the wane and people ramping up their transitions back to full-time work, childcare will be right back where it was before the pandemic—under-resourced and hard to find, especially in rural areas. And it has a real impact on our economy.     By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations Here ...

Season 2 Ep 8: State Demographer Susan Brower

On this episode, Marnie Werner and Kelly Asche speak with the Minnesota State Demographer Susan Brower. The conversation covers how the process of drawing new district and approval differ on paper vs. the reality, how much of rural Minnesota isn’t growing in population, but isn’t really declining either, and ideas on how rural areas might ...

Interconnected – Building Understanding Between Rural & Urban Communities

Welcome to season 2 of the INTERCONNECTED conversation series hosted by the Center for Rural Policy & Development and the Citizens League. Wherever you live, you have undoubtedly encountered the term “Urban/Rural Divide” that describes a divisive narrative in policy and politics based on geographic differences. In reality, we all want similar things – good ...

Hospital margins before the pandemic

  By Kelly Asche, Research Associate If the pandemic has made us realize anything, it’s the importance of hospitals and access to health care across Minnesota. They played a crucial role in deploying vaccines, taking care of our sick, and being a hub of information while the pandemic played out. And now that we are ...