Brookings Institute launches "Reimagine Rural" podcast

Anthony Pipa, a Senior Fellow at Brookings, is the host of the new Reimagine Rural podcast.  The series is introduced thusly: 

While the dominant narrative regarding rural America is one of decline and division, Reimagine Rural is a new podcast that visits rural towns across the United States that are experiencing positive change and explores how public investment in rural people and places can lead to increased and equitable prosperity.

Hosted by Tony Pipa, a scholar in the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution and a product of rural America, each episode features local voices telling the story of progress in their community and considering the intersection with policy and public resources.

The first episode (published Nov. 22) is out of Shamokin, Pennsylvania, population 6,942, where Tony Pipa grew up, in the central/east central part of the state, the Susquehanna region.   Here's an excerpt that intrigued me because of its focus on a place's identity--in this case the need to shift from a work-focused identity (in their case, coal mining) to one based in tourism.  

So, think about taking a coal-region town who’s very much brought up in that hard work mentality. And we need our mills and we need our coal and we need to just work hard and transitioning that into a tourism destination. And that’s what we’re doing here. So, it’s been a struggle for a lot of the individuals who have grown up and have been bred in this hard work mentality to really be that destination.

So, about a year and a half ago, the city passed an ordinance to allow a portal so that the AOAA riders could ride right into our town. We were the first city in the country to do that. Many other villages and communities have, but we’re told we were the first city to allow that. Now we have ATVs driving up and down our streets. I personally love it because that’s bringing revenue. That again, changing to that tourism mentality is difficult. But let’s embrace that because that is our future.

Don't miss this inaugural episode.  It has me looking forward to more episodes in this series focused on rural economic development and what it means to invest not only in rural individuals, but in rural places and regions.  And on that note, here's a November 29 tweet from Tony Pipa: 

I'm focused on the bit that says "for both Ds and Rs, the policies are generally focused on individuals.  But places, esp. rural places, need investment, too."  The first part of the tweet quotes an NPR report on the rural vote, by Ximena Bustillo, "But rural advocates say that the party often fails to communicate policies to rural voters."