Season 2: Recent Episodes
Center for Rural Policy and Development
This week on the Center of Everywhere hear research associate Whitney Oachs interview Zoe Martins and Ulises Linares about their Capstone thesis for the Humphrey School of Public Affairs regarding childcare access for first-generation Latino migrants in Worthington, MN.
This week on the Center of Everywhere hear researchers Phil Jensen and Kelly Asche discuss the topic of Phil's newest report, "Why Grandma May Stay at Home: Property taxes and home ownership in rural Minnesota."
Attracting workers to more rural parts of the state is a complex problem, but housing plays a major role. Encouraging workers to relocate to Greater Minnesota depends on the availability of housing. That availability is a product of turnover, or “churn,” where residents transition through different types of housing at different points in their lives. The rate of housing churn can be different in rural communities than in metropolitan areas. Previous work from CRPD has shown that rural housing stock is more likely to be occupied by older residents who are less likely to move. The result is slower churn, which leaves fewer single-family homes for new workers and their families.
Here we identify factors that may contribute to rural areas’ slower housing churn. These factors vary significantly across the rural-urban spectrum in Minnesota and may influence residents’ economic incentives regarding housing:
- Property taxes
- Non-tax ownership costs
- Higher rates of outright home ownership
On this episode, Julie Tesch is joined by Reed Anfinson - owner and publisher of three rural newspapers in Minnesota - the Swift County Monitor News in Benson, the Stevens County Times in Morris, and the Grant County Herald in Elbow Lake. Also joining the conversation is Lisa Hills, the Executive Director of the MN Newspaper Association which is a voluntary trade association of weekly and daily newspapers in Minnesota.
Their conversation touches on the importance of the community newspaper for a functioning democracy, how the concentration of businesses in larger economic centers has hurt the local newspaper business model, and the future of community newspapers.
Now that we are beginning to exit the pandemic (hopefully), the data from the previous year and a half are being released. In this episode, Marnie Werner and Kelly Asche discuss what they've been seeing in the data. And although the illness and deaths associated with COVID-19 hit hard in our rural areas, some of the data related to jobs, wages, local economies and child care provide a lot of reasons for optimism. Through it all, our leaders and our state as a whole have done quite well.
On this episode, Marnie Werner and Kelly Asche speak with the Minnesota State Demographer Susan Brower. The conversation covers how the process of drawing new district and approval differ on paper vs. the reality, how much of rural Minnesota isn't growing in population, but isn't really declining either, and ideas on how rural areas might have access to more accurate data if the Census surveys turn out below standards.
This week hear Kelly Asche discuss the rise in working from home, and what telecommuting can mean for rural Minnesota. Features special guests Xinyi Qian and Neil Linscheid of the University of Minnesota - Extension.
On this episode, Marnie Werner discusses her newest research report coming out in February on the rising values of agriculture lands and the rising property taxes associated with these values. We discuss the disconnect between the value of ag land and farm profitability, the increasing role investors and non-farmers are having on the issue, and whether we should be worried about rural counties who have a disproportionate amount of their revenue coming from these lands.
In this episode, CRDP researcher Whitney Oachs discusses her new research examining the issues, barriers and opportunities facing rural energy providers in shifting their infrastructure to renewable sources. She is joined by Tim Velde, who sits on the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Valley Cooperative Light & Power Association as well as on the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Rural Electric Association. She is also joined by Jennifer Cady who is the Manager of Regulatory Strategy & Policy for Minnesota Power.
Each year, the Center for Rural Policy and Development provides a brief update on various economic and demographic data pertaining to rural Minnesota. As policy discussions concerning rural Minnesota unfold, it is important to understand the past, present, and potential futures of rural regions. This report provides historical data points that illustrate how rural conditions have changed and where they are at now, making for healthy discussions about the current demographic and economic vitality of these areas. In this episode, hear from Kelly Asche and Ben Winchester as they discuss the narrative myths surrounding rural Minnesota, from population statistics, to workforce and housing.
Rural Atlas Online To supplement and support the annual State of Rural Minnesota report, we also maintain and regularly update an online, interactive collection of maps and charts that show readers this data broken down in different ways. In addition to this report with its high-level analysis, our Atlas of Minnesota Online provides more interactive maps and charts showing a variety of data on demographics, the economy, and more at the state, county, planning region, and economic development region levels. Visit www.ruralmn.org/rural-atlas to view the site.
In our third episode of the Center of Everywhere Podcast, researcher Kelly Asche explores the topic of the amazon effect on retail and local tax revenue with UMN Extension community economics educators Neil Linscheid and Ryan Pesch.
Online sales have permeated everyday life and their impacts stretch beyond convenience of shopping. Local leaders see the evidence every day in their communities: more and more delivery trucks going down their roads, stopping at their neighbors’ or their own houses, dropping off products that were once maybe purchased in their own or a nearby community.
They’re also seeing the closure of retail storefronts. They hear about their local landfills reaching capacity earlier than predicted due to the higher amounts of waste from household deliveries. And after decades of watching businesses move away from their communities to concentrate in economic centers, rural leaders are left wondering if this is the “next shoe to drop” in their community’s economic demise. And at the same time, leaders in the economic centers that have benefited from decades of shopping behaviors shifting in their favor now worry that online sales are a threat to the revenue they’ve been relying on themselves.
This episode touches on many of the topics explored the Center's report, The Amazon Effect and Rural Tax Revenues, including the shifting retail landscape in rural communities, the rise of online shopping, and the actions taken by the state of Minnesota to ensure tax revenue from online sales are distributed to the proper county or municipality.