Why start a business in a rural community?

April 10th, 2009 by

What are the advantages and disadvantages of starting a business in rural communities?  Although it focuses on “small to midsized cities”, a recent article in Business Weekly offers a glimpse into the realities of starting a business in a non-urban setting. It concludes there are some real advantages that companies should consider including:

Unfortunately, the analysis only focuses on small to midsized cities — and not the rural communities with populations of under 5000 that are so common in our part of the country.  That said, I’m not sure if there’s much difference.

Back when I worked as an economic development director, we extolled those same factors to entrepreneurs looking to start-up their ventures in Howard, SD, and we used local data to support our argument.  But beyond this local data I haven’t seen any research to back up those claims. 

Wouldn’t it be helpful to read some qualitative and quantitative analysis that rural communities could use to help them make their case.  In lieu of this research, I’d be very interested in hearing what others have experienced in their rural communities. 

Photo:  This photo taken in the industrial park in Howard, SD shows what entrepreneurship can mean to a small rural community.

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Posted in Economic Development, Rural | Comments ( 1 )

One Response to “Why start a business in a rural community?”

  1. Kate Quin-Easter Says:
    April 16th, 2009 at 1:17 pm

    This is exactly the question the Young Professionals Institute 2009 in Aroostook County, Maine has been struggling to answer for 8 weeks. We’re a class of 12 young adults 20ish to 40ish who all live and work in rural northern Maine. We started with the question, “Why do you live in Aroostook County?” We’re ending our class with a mock Board presentation and introduction to the work we’ve tackled. None of us are economic developers or rural sustainability experts. Instead, we are insurance professionals, educators, hospital administrators and customer service agents.

    One of the biggest struggles we’ve had during this class is finding clear, efficient and dedicated data in relation to why Aroostook County is a good place to site a business venture. I believe that it’s a struggle that our economic developers and town managers face every working day. We are an agricultural area (diversifying from potatoes and sugar beets into potatoes, broccoli, grains (mostly for local/regional mills) and canola) with a strong history of lumbering. Wind power is gaining ground, but there’s also a strong NIMBY faction (does anyone else have this?) that’s fighting tooth and nail to prevent any new wind farm development. We are also negotiating an 50-years in the making extension of the end of I95 in Houlton, Maine to some point north.

    I look forward to seeing and hearing some answers from citizens in other rural towns.

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