Tag: greater minnesota

By Kelly Asche, Research Associate Look around your community or even your nearby economic center where you do your shopping, and you may conclude that the retail sector is tanking. And yes, brick-and-mortar retail firms have been declining. But that doesn’t necessarily mean shoppers are spending less money at our physical retailers. In fact, we are spending more. And that has meant that the surviving retailers are performing rather well.  In our recent research report, “The ...

November 2021 Kelly Asche, Research Associate (CRPD) Neil Linscheid, Educator – Community Economics (U of MN Extension) Ryan Pesch, Educator – Community Economics (U of MN Extension) For a printable version of this report, click here. Online sales have permeated everyday life and their impacts stretch beyond convenience of shopping. Local leaders see the evidence ...

By Whitney Oachs, Research Associate This week the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (PCA) announced its 2022 draft list of new proposed impaired waters. Among the 305 new waterways added to that list is the St. Croix River, which is included due to having concerning levels of PFOS, a “forever chemical” used in manufacturing Scotchgard, firefighting ...

Grocery stores have been on Julie’s mind lately. As a member of the Waseca EDA, she finds herself thinking about ways and alternatives to attract a new grocery store business to the community to help fill a need that is currently only occupied by Walmart. On this episode, she discusses one alternative – cooperatives. She’s ...

By Kelly Asche Every year the Center publishes the “State of Rural” report – a brief overview of the demographic and economic trends from a rural perspective. This year’s report will be published in December 2021. Over the next few months, we will be writing about some of the trends in the report here on our blog allowing ...

After taking a break over the summer we are happy to be back and discuss some of the future research we have coming out this Fall. On this episode we discuss why our upcoming research will be focused around a general topic – taxes. What we thought, at first, was just coincidence that our topics ...

By Kelly Asche  Every year the Center publishes the “State of Rural” report – a brief overview of the demographic and economic trends from a rural perspective. This year’s report will be published in December 2021. Over the next few months, we will be writing about some of the trends in the report here on our blog allowing ...

How are rural communities building relationships with diverse neighbors and embracing differences? The Center for Rural Policy and Development partnered with students from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs to publish a report to help answer these questions. The video above is from our webinar that took place on Wednesday, July 21st where two students ...

  The year 2020 was a stress test on all our systems, especially childcare. The childcare crisis in rural Minnesota was already serious before the pandemic. During the pandemic, it was no longer possible to ignore how important access to childcare is for the average family and how stressed our childcare system is—especially in rural ...