Posts Tagged ‘University of Minnesota’

What’s going on in Minnesota?

June 2nd, 2010

I need your help.  Back in January I marked June 9 & 10 on my calendar as the dates for the Center for Small Towns “2010 Symposium on Small Towns and Rural-Urban Gathering.”  Unfortunately, my niece’s high school graduation in Tacoma, WA will prevent my attendance.  That’s where you come in.  I’m looking for people who are attending and are willing to share their insights from the conference.

I’m particularly interested in the pre-symposium event titled the “Rural and Urban Gathering Agenda.”  The gathering stems from the work of the Rural Urban Connections Project (i.e. - Rurb.MN), which has developed under the leadership of Minnesota Rural Partners.   As I described back in February, the project’s primary goal is to identify and better understand the economic and social connections that connect rural and urban communities. 

I’m sure the project’s leaders will share key elements of what they have learned in the last 6-7 months, but the focus of the pre-symposium event is the formation of a Rural-Urban Partnering Council. The council will seek to leverage what’s been learned to increase innovation and wealth creation across Minnesota.    Rural and urban communities working together more effectively: that’s a very intriguing idea to me.

As I think about the value of people from rural and urban communities working together, I’m struck by the need for people in Minnesota and South Dakota to work together.  There’s a political boundary that divides our states, but connections exist that traverse this boundary.  Wouldn’t Minnesota and South Dakota benefit froma better understanding of these relationships?   Couldn’t both states  benefit from collaboration across state lines?

And that leads me back to my request for assistance.  If you haven’t already registered for the symposium, get it done.  It’s  an inexpensive conference($65),  and registration can be done online. 

And once you are there, I hope you will consider sharing your insights via social media.  I’d love to read some Tweets while I’m sitting in the Minneapolis airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Tacoma.  If you don’t use Twitter or have your own blog, perhaps we can work out a guest posts on ReImagine Rural.  It could be our first step in establishing stronger collaborative relationships.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Community Development, Rural | Comments (0)

Rural “Brain Gain”! It’s true

January 6th, 2010

A few weeks ago, Jennifer Gumbel, a Gen Y lawyer from Le Roy, MN commented on a Minnesota Public Radio forum that she thought her rural communities was experiencing “brain gain” rather than “brain drain.”  In other words, young people are staying and moving into her community at a higher rate than those moving out. (see more on this here) 

Well, it looks like her intuition was right.  The University of Minnesota’s Extension Center for Community Vitality has produced a report titled “Rural Migration:  The Brain Gain of Newcomers,” which support’s Gumbel’s claims.

Using a “simple cohort technique” to analyze population growth and decline, the study found that many rural Minnesota communities are experiencing an in-migration of adults in age cohorts of 35-49.  Definitely a positive trend.  And when these new residents move in, they often bring children, causing an increase over time in the class sizes in rural schools.  This trend points out the importance for rural communities to develop “people attraction strategies” targeting young adults in their child rearing years. 

The report doesn’t analyze why residents were attracted to these rural Minnesota counties, but it does offer analysis conducted by the University of Nebraska. This research of why people age 30-44 have moved to the Panhandle region suggests they do so because they want:

I’m definitely over simplifying the analysis of the “Rural Migration:  The Brain Gain of Newcomers” report, so I hope readers will dig in deeper.  (BTW, I found it to be a very readable report.) I hope that someone will eventually study the specifics of why people are moving to these rural Minnesota communities and why they are not moving to others.  I suspect employment plays a key role, but I doubt that it the only factor.  The report has also left me hoping to discover current trends in rural South Dakota.  Could we have a “brain gain” and not know it?

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Rural | Comments (2)