Rural

The Department of Natural Resources will be doing heavy surveillance of deer and other animals in an attempt to stop the spread of chronic wasting disease in southwest Michigan. The Michigan Natural Resources Commission approved new deer hunting regulations Thursday aimed at halting the spread of the fatal neurological disease among deer that threatens the $2.3 billion hunting industry.Chronic wasting disease affects white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose. [node:read-more:link]

As the chain opens stores at the rate of three a day across the US, often in the heart of ‘food deserts’, some see Dollar General as an admission that a town is failing. When Dollar General came to Haven, Kansas, it arrived making demands. The fastest-growing retailer in America wanted the taxpayers of the small, struggling Kansas town to pick up part of the tab for building one of its squat, barebones stores that more often resemble a warehouse than a neighbourhood shop. [node:read-more:link]

Economists say this phenomenon of "aging in place" is one of the main factors driving a shortage in housing nationwide. According to one analysis, people are living in their homes twice as long as they did before the Great Recession. Small towns like Ogallala are no exception to this trend. Ogallala's residents tend to skew older. [node:read-more:link]

Marietta should aspire to grow its own downtown instead of pretending that Atlanta is its downtown. Assuming that the pattern found in Johns Creek and Gwinnett County extends throughout the rest of the first ring of suburbs, it’s extremely likely that Cobb County imports as many commuters as it exports on any given workday. There’s no reason that they should not be able to retain their wealth and create more complete neighborhoods in the process. [node:read-more:link]

Chuck Marohn's Strong Towns article entitled "Most Public Engagement is Worthless" grabbed my attention. The article is fantastic, and the comments are getting richer and richer as I write this. But I would like to go a bit further. I think most public engagement is beyond worthless. I think it actually corrodes the relationships we need in order to build a strong town. [node:read-more:link]

Two states left nearly 200,000 people off voter rolls earlier this year, leading to confusion and anger when those people tried to cast a ballot in the primaries. Election security experts fear it could happen again in November. [node:read-more:link]

Florida, which hosts a dozen of the nation's 17 surviving tracks, is set to vote in November whether to ban greyhound racing. Those in favor of a ban see racing as animal cruelty akin to cockfighting, contending that dogs are caged for most of the day and risk life-threatening injuries for the sake of gambling.Groups including the Humane Society of the United States and celebrities such as Doris Day, a longtime animal rights activist, have raised $2.5 million to pass the ban. Greyhound racing supporters have raised a miserly $24,000 to defend it. [node:read-more:link]

Health officials are investigating whether a pig at the California Mid-State Fair was responsible for an outbreak of influenza in San Luis Obispo County. The county public health department has learned of several people who have tested positive for the influenza virus after having “extended contact with pigs at the Mid-State Fair,” according to a county statement. [node:read-more:link]

Business turnover—the rate at which new firms enter and old firms exit the economy—has been declining for at least 40 years in the United States. Declining business turnover is potentially problematic, as it may signal a drop in innovation and productivity growth as well as a lower share of economic activity at new businesses. As a result, the economic fortunes of metropolitan areas are likely to be intertwined with the rate of business turnover they experience. As the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Instead of trying to eliminate hunger, we continue to talk about personal responsibility. A whopping 15.6 million American households experienced at least some food insecurity in 2016, meaning that more than 12 percent of the population did not always know when or how they would get their next meal. Despite this, Congress is debating making it even harder for the hungry to access government assistance. [node:read-more:link]