Rural towns banking on more than just farming to survive

Like many rural towns, Brookfield’s top moneymakers in decades past were agriculture, transportation and manufacturing. While those businesses still exist today, each of those industries has taken a hit. The town lost an auto plant. The railroad is less vibrant. And farming just isn’t bringing as much to the town as it used to. “We in rural areas have had to try to reinvent ourselves to stay viable and sustainable,” Cleveland says. Brookfield’s story is a familiar one for thousands of towns across rural America where farmers were once an economic force. It mostly comes down to technology.