Editorial: New journal invites ‘thinking rural’
01/24/2006
It’s a must read for rural Minnesota’s future decisionmakers.
Editorial: Star Tribune
Last update: January 24, 2006 – 12:56 AM
Things we learned by reading the inaugural issue of the Rural Minnesota Journal:
• The state economist, Tom Stinson, and the state demographer, Tom Gillaspy, see Minnesota as containing six economic regions—a “metroplex” and five distinct “ruralplexes,” Up North, Southeast River Valley, Southwest Corn Belt, Northwest Valley, and Central Lakes.
• The state’s fastest rate of employment growth from 1970 to 2000 was in the Central Lakes ruralplex, not the metro area. That region is projected to outstrip the metro area in workforce growth from 2005 to 2015.
• If today’s average Minnesota farm were the same size as the average farm in the 1950s, it would generate only $16,429 in annual income. No wonder farm size has grown.
• The 50 Minnesota high schools whose graduates are least likely to require remedial classes when they enroll in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system are all from rural Minnesota. Forty-five of the schools were small, graduating fewer than 1,000 students between 2000 and 2003.
Those and many other provocative nuggets of information are packed into the new semiannual publication that is the latest project of the Center for Rural Policy and Development. If its first issue is a telling prologue, the Rural Minnesota Journal will make a positive contribution to the policymaking that will shape the future for the nonmetro portion of this state.
Jack Geller, president of the St. Peter-based center, promises summer and winter issues, with the summer journal themes tied to his organization’s annual policy forums. This summer’s edition, for example, will focus on education in rural Minnesota. The first issue casts a larger net, with authoritative, often surprising essays on the latest trends in rural economics, education, health care and government. For anyone who cares about Minnesota—no matter where they live—the new Rural Minnesota Journal is a good read.
NOTE: Here is a link to the online copy of the Journal
http://www.mnsu.edu/ruralmn/pages/Publications/rmj/rmjmain.html