In a new five-part series, Hanna Love and Michael Powe present on-the-ground analysis from three rural U.S. communities with insights from residents, small business owners, and local leaders about the place-based economic development strategies that are bringing opportunity to their communities. As COVID-19 tests rural economic resilience in real time, the authors argue that it is more imperative than ever to understand, value, and invest in these hyperlocal strategies:
Why Main Streets are a key driver of equitable economic recovery in rural America presents a framework for evaluating growth, equity, and resilience capabilities to increasingly diverse and dynamic rural areas.
Rural small businesses need local solutions to survive interrogates the role downtown revitalization—and the place governance structures that advance these efforts—can play in supporting the survival, growth, and development of rural small businesses.
The necessary foundations for rural resilience: A flexible, accessible, and healthy built environment investigates how downtown revitalization can promote the built environment and quality-of-life amenities needed to support rural health and resilience.
Rural Main Streets can’t achieve true economic revival without bridging social divides examines place-based strategies to foster cohesive social environments that bridge social divides and enhance rural residents’ attachments to place.
Creating a shared vision of rural resilience through community-led civic structures explores how place-based entities can support the development and capacity of other community organizations to build resilience in the years to come.
