Category: Blog

State of Rural Highlight 3 – job vacancy rates higher than ever

Every year the Center publishes the “State of Rural” report—a brief overview of 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 here on our blog about some of the trends we’re looking at, taking a deeper dive into the data ...

A bit more on retail trends

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 ...

Polluted Waterways in MN: Even the St. Croix isn’t safe

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 ...

Welcome to our new board members

By Julie Tesch CRPD’s board members come from all over the state, representing a variety of interests. Thirteen are appointed by the Governor and two are appointed by Minnesota House and Senate leadership; all members represent different aspects of rural Minnesota. Remaining members consist of five at-large positions chosen by board members themselves.   The ...

State of Rural Highlight 2 – making a living in rural Minnesota

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 ...

State of Rural Highlight – nuance in the top employment industries

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 ...

Research Anticipation

By Julie Tesch, CEO and President Greetings from the Center for Rural Policy & Development (CRPD)!  We took a hiatus from posting on the blog over the summer to take a much-deserved rest.  We covered a lot of ground the last half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 so it was an opportune time ...

The American Rescue Plan: What it means for rural

by Whitney Oachs, Researcher On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law. This bipartisan legislation was designed to enable Americans to respond to and recover from the impacts of COVID-19. Under the American Rescue Plan, the Economic Development Administration was allocated $3 billion in supplemental funding to assist communities nationwide ...

Meatpacking Towns bring diversity to rural Minnesota

By Whitney Oachs, Research intern If you listened to our latest episode on our The Center of Everywhere podcast, you know that my classmates and I at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs completed a capstone thesis this spring on local government outreach among rural immigrant and refugee communities. In the study, we ...