Year: 2019

EXCERPT: “Recent job growth has led to a surge in demand for housing in Windom. Now, The Windom City Council is addressing housing needs. Right now, local companies in the city are hiring hundreds of positions, but the issue has been around for a few years. City officials say that a housing study conducted back ...

EXCERPT: “A recent study from the the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence has ranked Minnesota at 48th in the nation for fire department funding. The average state spends $420 per household, Minnesota spends less than half. Rice Lake Fire chief Mark Niemi says this isn’t a surprise. ‘Disappointed, very disheartened. It hasn’t been a secret for the ...

EXCERPT: “Thousands of years ago, the vast majority of Minnesota was covered in ice. Glaciers from the north had crept down during the last ice age. When those glaciers melted about 10,000 years ago, they left behind a valuable resource that is used nearly every day in the modern age. ‘Where there is meltwater from ...

EXCERPT: “Ann Burns owns a Chevy Bolt, an electric vehicle that can get more than 200 miles on a charge. She can easily run errands in the St. Cloud area without needing to charge up. ‘The problem for us and many others is that when we go up north to our cabin, which is at ...

EXCERPT: “One of the MnDOT snowplow blades that were signed during the Minnesota State Fair is now being used to clear roads along the North Shore of Lake Superior. There were five plow blades that were signed by thousands of people at the fair last summer. Two were kept in the Twin Cities area and three ...

EXCERPT: “When it comes to feeding her family of five, Stephanie Pocklington leans heavily on Island Market in Pine Island. ‘Cereals, pizzas, beverages, snacks,’ Pocklington said. ‘Generally things we’ll cook for dinner, like pastas and sauces’ are purchased at the lone full-service grocer in the town of roughly 3,400 people. Not that Island Market is ...

EXCERPT: “Mayo Clinic on Wednesday announced it will close facilities in Springfield and Lamberton in southwestern Minnesota early next year, continuing a trend of closures and service cuts in rural areas. Mayo Clinic has closed or consolidated at least 16 facilities in southern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa since 2009, reflecting what Mayo says are mounting ...

EXCERPT:“Residents of rural areas are more likely to be hospitalized and to die than those who live in cities primarily because they lack access to specialists, recent research has found. The study, led by Dr. Kenton Johnston, assistant professor of health management and policy at Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice, ...

EXCERPT: “It’s time to write our own rural narrative, according to Neil Linscheid, a University of Minnesota Extension educator and 2017 Bush Fellow. While people in the media and academics love to write about rural decline and sleepy towns, the facts don’t support that narrative, according to Linscheid. He told members of the Yellowstone Trail Alliance ...

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations (Note: The links in this post are not affiliate links. No one at the Center makes any money if you click on them.) When I saw it was my turn to write the blog post this week and that the assignment was “Why do I live here?” ...