Center of Everywhere Podcast: Recent Episodes
Center for Rural Policy and Development
In December, researcher Sarah Harstad Ph.D, released a report titled “Rural Minnesota Business Succession and Sale: Barriers and Opportunities“. On this episode, Director Research, Marnie Werner, dives deep into the research with Sarah discussing her findings.
The post Season 5, Episode 5: Business Succession with Sarah Harstad first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
On this episode, Marnie Werner interviews Jakub Tolar who is the Dean and Vice President for Clinical Affairs for the University of Minnesota Medical School. They discuss the new commitment by the school to develop a new campus in St. Cloud with the mission to serve rural Minnesota.
The post Season 5, Episode 4: U of MN Medical School new commitment to rural Minnesota w/ Dr. Jakub Tolar first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
One of our most listened to episodes coincided with our research highlighting the suicide epidemic in rural Minnesota. On this episode, researchers and authors of the report, Marnie Werner and Tracie Rutherford Self, discuss the various elements of how we got to this point in rural areas, the factors that are playing a role, and ways in which we can move forward and decrease the number of suicides and deaths of despair.
The post Season 5, Episode 3: Suicide research with Dr. Tracie Rutherford Self (Replay) first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
On this episode, Kelly Asche interviews Joan Naymark, Executive Director of the Minnesotan's for the ACS, and Mary Jo Mitch, co-director of The Census Project. They discuss current funding for the Census Bureau and it's impacts on providing accurate data for rural Minnesota in the Decennial Census and the American Community Survey.
The post Season 5, Episode 2: Census Funding with MACS and The Census Project first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
On this episode, Julie, Marnie and Kelly discuss the new process in which they developed their research agenda, interesting research conducted by our interns over the summer, and upcoming reports being released in the next few months.
The post Season 5, Episode 1: Introducing our new research agenda first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
On this episode, Kelly Asche, Senior Researcher at the Center for Rural Policy and Development, speaks with Amy Baldwin, Community Development Director at Otter Tail County, about their housing initiative – The Big Build. Housing is one of the biggest problems when it comes to attracting people to Greater Minnesota and fill our workforce needs. A few years ago now, Otter Tail County started an initiative called the Big Build with the goal of developing 5,000 new or remodeled housing units within the county. This interview is an update on that initiative and what state and local programs have been ...
The post Season 4, Episode 8: An update from Otter Tail County’s Big Build Initiative first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
In this episode, Julie Tesch, President and CEO of the Center for Rural Policy and Development, has a discussion with our newly appointed members to our Board of Directors – Brown County Administrator Sam Hansen and Aitkin County Administrator Jessica Siebert. Sam and Jessica discuss current issues in their county, recent successes, population change, and the challenges in hiring for county positions.
The post Season 4, Episode 7: A conversation with rural County Administrators Sam Hansen and Jessica Siebert first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
On this sixth episode of the season, Marnie Werner, Vice President of Research at the Center, speaks with Teri Fritsma, the Lead Healthcare Workforce Analyst at the Office of Rural Health and Primary Care within the MN Department of Health. Healthcare workforce is a big issue these days, especially in Greater Minnesota and especially as it concerns our ability to access mental health services. For a decade now Teri has collected data on Minnesota’s licensed healthcare professionals and practitioners, giving insight into trends in our healthcare workforce, from when people are planning to retire to what specialities and fields they ...
The post Season 4, Episode 6: The mental healthcare workforce with Teri Fritsma, MN Dept. of Health first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
March 2024 On this episode, Kelly Asche, Senior Research with the Center for Rural Policy and Development, speaks with Scott McMahon, Executive Director of the Greater Minnesota Partnership about proposed legislation in the Minnesota legislature. The Greater MN Partnership has been advocating for state investment in rural housing and in 2023 they successfully advocated to bring in $39 million to the Greater Minnesota Workforce Housing Development fund. Hot on the heels of that, the legislature decided they are not finished with housing and so a number of bills are being introduced this session, and this year it’s been more regulatory ...
The post Season 4, Episode 5: Proposed housing legislation with Scott McMahon first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
Our most recent research highlighted the suicide epidemic in rural Minnesota. On this episode, researchers and authors of the report, Marnie Werner and Tracie Rutherford Self, discuss the various elements of how we got to this point in rural areas, the factors that are playing a role, and ways in which we can move forward and decrease the number of suicides and deaths of despair.
The post Season 4, Episode 4: Suicide research with Dr. Tracie Rutherford Self first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
Our most recent research highlighted the importance career and technical education played in the Southwest’s region’s labor force. On this episode, Kelly Asche (Senior Researcher) chats with Eriann Faris, the Career and Technical Education Program Coordinator for Southwest West Central Services Cooperative and leads the Launching Your Future Today (LYFT) initiative. Eriann explains how LYFT was created, the critical role it plays in expanding CTE across the region, and some of the challenges in expanding this type of education.
The post Season 4, Episode 3: Launching Your Future Today (LYFT) Initiative first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
The 2024 Legislative session is just around the corner so Julie Tesch (CEO and President) checks in with Scott McMahon, the Executive Director of the Greater Minnesota Partnership. They discuss what the session may hold for various rural issues.
The post Season 4, Episode 2: Legislative preview with Scott McMahon first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
The Center for Rural Policy recently released a report outlining the education and employment patterns of Southwest high school graduates. On this episode, Kelly Asche, Senior Researcher, discusses the report and what he found while researching this important issue.
The post Season 4, Episode 1: The journey to meaningful workforce participation among Southwest graduates first appeared on Center for Rural Policy and Development.
The Center for Rural Policy recently released a report outlining the trends of rural newspapers in Minnesota and some of the challenges and opportunities they are currently facing. On this episode, Marnie Werner, Director of Research, discusses the report and what she found while researching this important issue.
In this episode, Marnie Werner interviews Kelly Asche, Senior Researcher for the Center for Rural Policy and Development to discuss the most recent research report- "Shedding Light on the Education Formula". They touch on the reason the education formula is complex, that it distributes funds "unequally" by design, and their amazement on how much the program attempts to take into account when distributing funds.
The Center for Rural Policy and Development partnered with Minnesota State University, Mankato - Center for Rural Behavioral Health to survey and interview rural mental health providers to identify barriers in recruiting and retaining workers. Through the survey it has become apparent that the mental healthcare workforce shortage is being aggravated by a handful of quite specific and identifiable problems around graduating workers, recruiting them, and keeping them once they are hired. You can find the report here.
In this episode, Marnie Werner interviews the researchers Thad Shunkweiler, LMFT, LPCC, Associate Professor and Director, Center for Rural Behavioral Health, Minnesota State University Mankato and Tracie Rutherford Self, Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Center for Rural Behavioral Health, Minnesota State University Mankato to discuss their findings.
The 2023 Legislative session is in full swing so Julie checks in with Scott McMahon, the Executive Director of the Greater Minnesota Partnership. They discuss what the session may hold for various rural issues such as child care, housing, and broadband.
On this episode, Marnie Werner, Vice President of Research & Operations, interviews colleague Kelly Asche about this years State of Rural report. Every year the Center for Rural Policy and Development publishes the State of Rural - a report outlining the various economic and demographic trends taking place in rural Minnesota. Most years it's a simple update since trends tend to shift and move slowly over the course of a decade. Unless, that is, a significant event takes place which disrupts the trends. And that's exactly the era we are living - both the pandemic and the predicted demographic shifts have hit home and are disrupting the trend lines.
Instead of small adjustments and tweaks to the language, this years State of Rural report needed some significant reworking to represent the major shifts that are occurring. In particular, the in-migration of people to our rural counties across Minnesota and the out-migration away from the seven-county metro.
On this episode, Marnie Werner, VP of Research and Operations, interviews Julie Tesch (CEO and President of CRDP) and Kelly Asche (Senior Research Associate) about their experiences working with and in municipal governments and their attempts to find, apply, and administer grants. What are some of the challenges, and solutions that would help our small local governments receive more grant dollars?
On this episode, Julie Tesch interviews Center for Rural Policy and Development Board member Martha Castanon. Martha is an Accredited Representative for the Immigrant Law Center in Moorhead, Minnesota. Julie and her discuss how her parents met in Comstock, Minnesota, the services that the Immigrant Law Center provides to immigrant and refugee populations as well as some of the issues these populations are facing in rural Minnesota.
Starting with the 2020 Decennial Census, the U.S. Census Bureau is implementing a new framework to ensure privacy of the census takers - essentially, making sure that a nefarious actor can't identify an individual from published census tables. Although the U.S. Census Bureau has been employing various strategies for decades, this new framework is very different. And although the intent of this framework has good intentions, the tradeoff between privacy protection and data accuracy will mean rural areas will have less than accurate data.
On this episode, Kelly Asche - Senior Research Associate, interviews David Van Riper from the Minnesota Population Center who has been one of the leading researchers exploring this tradeoff between privacy and accuracy, and what it might mean for rural data.
In this episode, Marnie Werner, VP of Research and Operations, interviews Amy Baldwin who works as the Community Development Director for Otter Tail County. Probably one of the top three issues facing most rural community and economic developers is solving the housing shortage. In this conversation, Marnie and Amy talk about Otter Tail's new initiative called "The Big Build" - an intentional effort around housing growth and investment within the county.
In September, the Center for Rural Policy and Development released the results of an environmental scan of child care initiatives taking place across rural Minnesota. In this episode, Vice President of Research, Marnie Werner, interviews Don Hickman, the Vice President for Community and Workforce Development at the Initiative Foundation in Little Falls, MN. As an organization that partners with and supports communities in 14 counties across north central Minnesota, Initiative Foundation has been on the forefront of organizing and supporting initiatives to expand child care capacity in the region.
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.
Grocery stores have been on Julie's mind lately. As a member of the Waseca EDA, she finds herself thinking about ways and alternatives to attract a new grocery store business to the community to help fill a need that is currently only occupied by Walmart.
On this episode, she discusses one alternative - cooperatives. She's joined by three experts and leaders who are active in their own local food cooperatives. They discuss their own stories on how they got involved in local foods, the challenges, opportunities and resources available to build such a business, and how current food distribution infrastructure works a bit against these organizations due to their lower volume.
After taking a break over the summer we are happy to be back and discuss some of the future research we have coming out this Fall.
On this episode we discuss why our upcoming research will be focused around a general topic - taxes. What we thought, at first, was just coincidence that our topics happened to be about a specific tax policy, as we dug deeper we realized that our research was connected by a common theme - old tax policy being implemented on a quickly shifting economic environment.
Julie Tesch, our CEO and President for the CRPD, discusses this connection with the Center's researchers to learn more.
On this episode, Marnie Werner, the Vice President of research at the Center for Rural Policy & Development is joined by graduate students from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
If you’re a regular listener to the Center of Everywhere, you’ll remember Whitney Oachs, who has been our research intern here at the Center for the past year and published research for us regarding the some of the challenges facing transit for healthcare. Since January, her and a few of her colleagues from the Humphrey School of Public Policy have been working on a capstone project (a graduation requirement) with the Center for Rural Policy and Development exploring how local governments interact with the immigrants and refugees living and working in their communities. Also joining Whitney and Marnie from the capstone team is Josiah Moore.
On this episode, Kelly Asche got an opportunity to chat with the Minnesota State Demographer Susan Brower where we discussed our surprise that Minnesota kept all eight of it's congressional districts, how our high self-reporting rate likely helps the accuracy of our data, and our concerns of the U.S. Census Bureau's plan to add noise to the data.
Note: At about the 3:55 mark, Susan said "if Minnesota had counted 29 fewer people, we also would have lost that seat." Susan let us know the actual number is 26.
Back in January, President and CEO of the Center for Rural Policy and Development, Julie Tesch, had a conversation with Scott McMahon, the Executive Director of the Greater MN Partnership on the upcoming legislative session. In this episode, Julie brought Scott back on for a mid-legislative session review.
So far, this session has lived up to it's unorthodox hype. From a state budget forecast projecting a deficit to now a billion dollar surplus, the interesting legislative interactions due to Zoom meetings, and rural speakers testifying on the need for broadband literally dropping out in the middle of their testimony due to bad internet connections - this session has had it all.
This episode is a discussion with Marnie Werner who just published a new research report looking into rural child care. In this interview we speak about the current lack of availability of child care slots , the challenges center based care face in rural Minnesota, and some of the community-level solutions that has Marnie excited.
Quick note: At around the 20:00-minute mark, Marnie misspoke and said we lost "5,000" family child care spaces in 2020. The number is actually 4,000.