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Rural News

Beyond Urban Versus Rural

University of New Hampshire, Carsey School | Posted on June 29, 2017

In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, commentators focused on the political polarization separating residents of urban and rural America. Certainly rural–urban differences are only one of several factors that contributed to the surprising 2016 outcome, but rural voters are rightly acknowledged as one key factor in Donald Trump’s electoral success. Yet, defining 2016 as the tale of two Americas—one urban, one rural—hinders a nuanced understanding of the country’s political geography. Many political commentators mistakenly caricature rural America as a single entity, but our research summarized here shows that complex variations in voting patterns persist among both urban and rural places.1 Rural America is a remarkably diverse collection of places including more than 70 percent of the land area of the United States and 46 million people.2Both demographic and voting trends in this vast area are far from monolithic. Here we examine voting patterns over the last five presidential elections, treating rural–urban differences as a continuum, not a dichotomy. 


A pair of decades old policies may change the way rural America gets local news

Daily Yonder | Posted on June 29, 2017

Two decades-old rules – called by policymakers the “main studio rule” and the “UHF discount” – come from different eras of broadcasting, one when the only electronic media was radio and the other from the days before the dominance of cable television. They also come from a different era of government, when policymakers promoted the principle of localism – the belief that local broadcasters should serve their communities.  By 1987, it was clear that people didn’t often visit stations, but rather called or sent letters. As a result, the FCC allowed stations to locate their studios anywhere the station’s signal could be clearly received.At the same time, the FCC also removed the rule requiring stations to produce local programming – though they remained able to do so, because they were still required to maintain production and transmission equipment in their studios. In 1998, the FCC let stations move even farther away from their audiences.In April 2017, the FCC proposed doing away with the rule altogether. In its proposal, the FCC noted telephones, email and social media mean listeners don’t need to be physically nearby to communicate with station management.As a result, the FCC said, it was unnecessarily burdensome to force broadcasting companies to maintain local studios even somewhat near the communities they serve. This continues the ongoing policy shift from a focus on connections to the local community, and toward benefiting broadcasters’ business operations and profit margins.That can cause problems, and not just because small communities that used to have local newsrooms may become afterthoughts for reporters and editors in centralized regional hubs. A deadly example happened in January 2002: One person died and a thousand were injured when a freight train derailed, releasing clouds of poisonous gas over Minot, the fourth-largest city in North Dakota. The residents weren’t warned of the danger for hours. Local authorities had technical problems with an automated emergency alert system, and there was no one at the designated radio station to simply cut into the broadcast on a studio microphone and tell listeners what was happening. The second decades-old rule the FCC wants to repeal would complicate matters further by allowing media companies to own even more TV stations across the country.

 


How The Next Generation Of West Virginians Are Building A Way Out Of The State’s Coal Economy

Fast Company | Posted on June 29, 2017

Called the Coalfield Development Corporation, Dennison’s organization trains and employs young people and former mine workers across five social enterprises, which focus on construction (especially affordable housing), minefield remediation, arts and culture projects, sustainable agriculture, and solar energy initiatives. Through a 33-6-3 model—33 hours of paid work per week, six hours of classroom time toward an associates’ degree, three hours of life skills—Coalfield Development has trained around 50 West Virginians in new careers, launched five new businesses, and redeveloped over 150,000 square feet of dilapidated property.If there’s hope for West Virginia to move beyond coal and toward renewable energy, it will come from people like Conant, who in 2015 teamed up with Dennison and Coalfield Development to grow his team of solar installers across the state. Solar Holler, whose goal it is to bring solar energy to local nonprofits, is up to six full-time installers and another eight part-time, who have passed the training and certification course offered through Coalfield Development’s program. Conant oversees around one or two solar installs per week and receives around a dozen from West Virginia nonprofits interested in the model.


Montana Governor Visits Rural Critical Access Hospital to Announce Facility Upgrades

Montana.gov | Posted on June 29, 2017

Governor Steve Bullock Friday visited the Missouri River Medical Center in Fort Benton and announced that the Critical Access Hospital will receive $800,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds for mechanical system upgrades to its aging facility.As a Critical Access Hospital, the Missouri River Medical Center must have emergency staff on hand at any given time. In a rural area, that could mean the difference between life and death for residents where the next closest medical center is a 45-minute drive to Great Falls.The grant will help fund the replacement of failing or outdated mechanical equipment, including emergency generators, a new fire alarm system, and a new heating and cooling plant. Additionally, funding to the Missouri River Medical Center will allow the hospital to retain 65 full-time, good paying jobs.


Rural Communities Must Empower Youth

Daily Yonder | Posted on June 28, 2017

The future of rural America depends on attracting younger generations to make a life in smaller communities. That means listening to young people, responding to their interests, and sharing power.  Community leaders need strategies to keep its youth. First and foremost, is to understand their value as leaders. As Seemiller states, the youth wish to be engaged and make a difference in their communities.Leaders can set up opportunities for the youth to become active in the community and not just as token youth appointees. Mentoring and leadership programs are a good start. Youth appointments to boards and commissions will benefit communities. The digital skills of the youth can be utilized to tell the community’s story and expand local businesses via enhanced business websites and more effective social media marketing. Their creative thinking and problem solving can advance communities when given the opportunity.


WI:Walker signs fish farm bill

Minneapolis Star Tribune | Posted on June 28, 2017

Gov. Scott Walker has signed a bill that loosens fish farm regulations. Under the Republican bill, fish farms no longer need permits to discharge material into a wetland if the wetland was created for fish farming. Natural water bodies can serve as fish farms and farms wouldn't need permits to construct or enlarge artificial water bodies connected to a navigable waterway. New permit conditions will be prohibited unless needed to meet water quality standards.


GA: Senator Lucas to lead rural work group committee

Macon Telegraph | Posted on June 28, 2017

State Sen. David Lucas has been named chairman of a committee tasked with improving rural Georgia. The political veteran will guide the meetings for the Senate Rural Georgia Study Committee that begin this summer. The committee deals with similar issues as a House Rural Development Council that will create policy ideas on issues such as health care and education in rural communities.


Rural and Urban Differences in Air Quality, 2008–2012, and Community Drinking Water Quality, 2010–2015

Center for Disease Control | Posted on June 28, 2017

Patterns for all three air-quality measures suggest that air quality improves as areas become more rural (or less urban). The mean total number of ozone days decreased from 47.54 days in large central metropolitan counties to 3.81 days in noncore counties, whereas the mean total number of PM2.5 days decreased from 11.21 in large central metropolitan counties to 0.95 in noncore counties. The mean average annual PM2.5 concentration decreased from 11.15 μg/m3 in large central metropolitan counties to 8.87 μg/m3 in noncore counties. Patterns for the water-quality measure suggest that water quality improves as areas become more urban (or less rural). Overall, 7% of CWSs reported at least one annual mean concentration greater than the MCL for all 10 contaminants combined. The percentage increased from 5.4% in large central metropolitan counties to 10% in noncore counties, a difference that was significant, adjusting for U.S. region, CWS size, water source, and potential spatial correlation. Similar results were found for two disinfection by-products, HAA5 and TTHM. Arsenic was the only other contaminant with a significant result. Medium metropolitan counties had 3.1% of CWSs reporting at least one annual mean greater than the MCL, compared with 2.4% in large central counties.


Republicans' Proposed Medicaid Cuts Would Hit Rural Patients Hard

NPR | Posted on June 26, 2017

For the hundreds of rural U.S. hospitals struggling to stay in business, health policy decisions made in Washington, D.C., this summer could make survival a lot tougher. Since 2010, at least 79 rural hospitals have closed across the country, and nearly 700 more are at risk of closing. These hospitals serve a largely older, poorer and sicker population than most hospitals, making them particularly vulnerable to changes made to Medicaid funding."A lot of hospitals like [ours] could get hurt," says Kerry Noble, CEO of Pemiscot Memorial Health Systems, which runs the public hospital in Pemiscot County, one of the poorest in Missouri. The GOP's American Health Care Act would cut Medicaid — the public insurance program for many low-income families, children and elderly Americans, as well as people with disabilities — by as much as $834 billion. The Congressional Budget Office has said that would result in 23 million more people being uninsured in the next 10 years. Even more could lose coverage under the budget proposed by President Trump, which suggests an additional $610 billion in cuts to the program. That is a problem for small rural hospitals like Pemiscot Memorial, which depend on Medicaid. The hospital serves an agricultural county that ranks worst in Missouri for most health indicators, including premature deaths, quality of life and even adult smoking rates. Closing the county's hospital could make those much worse.And a rural hospital closure goes beyond people losing health care. Jobs, property values and even schools can suffer. Pemiscot County already has the state's highest unemployment rate. Losing the hospital would mean losing the county's largest employer."It would be devastating economically," Noble says. "Our annual payrolls are around $20 million a year." All of that weighs on Noble's mind when he ponders the hospital's future. Pemiscot's story is a lesson in how decisions made by state and federal lawmakers have put these small hospitals on the edge of collapse.  Back in 2005, things were very different. The hospital was doing well, and Noble commissioned a $16 million plan to completely overhaul the facility, which was built in 1955."We were going to pay for the first phase of that in cash. We didn't even need to borrow any money for it," Noble says while thumbing through the old blueprints in his office at the hospital. But those renovations never happened. In 2005, the Missouri legislature passed sweeping cuts to Medicaid. More than 100,000 Missourians lost their health coverage, and this had an immediate impact on Pemiscot Memorial's bottom line. About 40 percent of their patients were enrolled in Medicaid at the time, and nearly half of them lost their insurance in the cuts.Those now-uninsured patients still needed care, though, and as a public hospital, Pemiscot Memorial had to take them in."So we're still providing care, but we're no longer being compensated," Noble says.And as the cost of treating the uninsured went up, the hospital's already slim margins shrunk. The hospital went into survival mode.


Judge reverses key ruling in $1.4 billion timber class action

Capital Press | Posted on June 23, 2017

A judge has ruled that counties can’t sue the State of Oregon for financial damages, potentially undermining a $1.4 billion class action lawsuit over state logging practices.Linn County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Murphy has reversed an earlier ruling in the case, which held that Oregon’s “sovereign immunity” doesn’t bar counties from seeking such damages.In his most recent June 20 decision, Murphy has agreed with Oregon’s attorneys that counties — as subdivisions of the state — cannot sue the state government for money.Murphy said he’s “well aware this interpretation contradicts” his earlier opinion, but he will provide the plaintiff counties with “the opportunity to re-plead their case in such a manner that is supported by the law if they can.”“Like peeling a very large onion this case contains complex layers of legal issues and theory that can take time to unravel,” he said.The judge has left open the possibility for the plaintiffs to seek an “equitable” remedy, such as an injunction or order that requires the state government to take certain actions without paying financial damages.


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