{"id":243834,"date":"2025-10-22T15:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T15:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243834\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T15:32:11","slug":"as-rural-americas-challenges-grow-old-new-efforts-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243834\/","title":{"rendered":"As rural America’s challenges grow old, new efforts needed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opinion editor\u2019s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of commentary<\/a> online and in print each day. To contribute, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Harsh fluorescent lighting cannot fully illuminate the challenges facing rural communities<\/a>. And yet, far too often, a dim and inoffensive hotel conference center becomes the only place where political leaders hear about rural issues.<\/p>\n

Greater Minnesota leaders and journalists know far too well the milquetoast milieu of brainstorming sessions, vision boards and PowerPoint slides. I\u2019ve been to more than my fair share. Heck, urban leaders have attended similar conferences. The whole enterprise is as stale as those cinnamon rolls that have been sitting out since before anyone can remember.<\/p>\n

But rural problems are real<\/a>, so real that personal stress, political outrage and worry for the future now define the rural experience. The solution cannot be merely cosmetic but rather must directly address the burning issues.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the goal driving \u201cAmerica\u2019s Rural Future,\u201d a bipartisan initiative by the nonpartisan Brookings-AEI Commission on U.S. Rural Prosperity. On Monday, I spoke with the commission\u2019s co-chairs, former Gov. Chris Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican, and former Democratic U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve both been to the same kinds of meetings. Heitkamp recalls the century of rural-focused policy initiatives that nevertheless resulted in bigger farms and fewer active farmers along the road where she grew up outside Mantador, N.D.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you said with all this effort and all of this analysis, have we been successful, the answer would have to be no,\u201d said Heitkamp. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opinion editor\u2019s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of commentary online and in print each day. To contribute,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-243834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}