Let's Talk About Your Rural Development Question, Even If You Are In Denial 

Last Updated: June 20, 2024

Is there one rural development question that gets people the most riled up where you live? That's the one we want you to ask here. This space is for small towns too.

To be more serious, we're not in the business of stirring up contention where there is none.  But our experience is that the rural communities   and small towns sometimes avoid talking about the elephant in the room, and when someone finally mentions the obvious, it's like uncorking a really powerful bubbly libation.

Everyone wants to chime in with his or her own anecdote about a personal experience or a friend's relative's experience.

It's an intriguing rural tendency to be conformists when it comes to public policy and to be very libertarian when it comes to their personal life.  We'd like to help communities facing serious dangers, from natural hazards to economic irrelevance, come to grips with those problems.

Below is a form that you can complete to send us a rural development question. We answer on the site, if we have an answer for you.  At that point, you can comment back, and our other visitors can take issue with the way we answered also. Below the form you will see links to what already has been asked.

We're hoping this leads to some lively debate about a few topics.  Whether in the U.S., Europe, Asia, or elsewhere in the Americas, many rural areas are struggling in the wake of nation-wide or regional recessions. Since cities exist largely because of being able to take advantage of their geography or of technical innovation at some point in the past, they have an inherent advantage over rural areas as economic recovery takes hold.  This has proven true in the U.S., where rural areas still lag urban economic recovery from this latest recession  in terms of job availability and income progression.

All over the world, urbanization is a dominant process.  With fewer people all demanding a higher standard of living in rural areas, the talent pool is becoming diluted just at the time when futuristic thinking is needed.

So what's that rural development question that would cause a long conversation to break out over a potluck among friends?  How do you achieve and maintain a population that can support a healthy range of goods and services you want? Reaching critical mass on a variety of indicators is so important to community development and revitalization everywhere regardless of population, and of course it is a frequent problem in the countryside.

Read Some More Articles of Particular Rural Interest

Rural Housing

Rural Economic Development

Organizing a Rural Neighborhood

Rural Community Development

1. Making and Keeping a Good Community
 >
2. Community Development Question
 > Rural Development Question

ShareFacebookXPinterestRedditWhatsApp