Tag: rural

Community services availability

Mental health services in Greater Minnesota

Limited resources are putting growing pressure on rural communities May 2017 By Marnie Werner, Research Director The mobile crisis and outreach teams of the Northern Pines Mental Health Center in Brainerd are busy. In 2016, they made 1,200 calls in the counties they cover—Aitkin, Cass, Crow Wing, Morrison, Todd and Wadena—and most of those calls ...

A quiet crisis: Minnesota’s child care shortage

September 2016 By Marnie Werner, Research director A crisis has been quietly brewing throughout Minnesota and the nation for many years now. People have been getting out of the in-home family child care business at a disturbing rate, creating a severe shortage over most of the state. And while statewide data makes it appear that ...

Diversity in rural wealth: The many capitals of rural Minnesota

The uncertainty of where individual wealth will end up as baby boomers pass their assets on to the next generation has raised alarms about the future of our small towns. In this article, Ben look’s at wealth in a broader way, at the community rather than individual level. Looking at wealth this way shows that ...

Grocery Stores by the Numbers

Demographic changes in Greater Minnesota have been hard on local grocery stores. Between 2000 and 2013, Greater Minnesota lost 14% of its grocery stores. Read the fact sheet on the reasons, the implications, and some possible strategies for new models.

Job Opportunity Building Zones: Constructing the Framework for Program Evaluation (2004)

One of the first bills introduced in the 2003 Minnesota Legislative session was H.F. 3, creating what is now known as rural Job Opportunity Building Zones, or JOBZ. Announced after its passage as Gov. Tim Pawlentyʼs “marquee” rural economic development initiative, the program partitioned most of the state outside of the seven-county metropolitan area into ...