Advice for transforming the economy of the rural Midwest
GRAND FORKS, N.D. — If you follow policies that affect small-town America, you get to know the economists, sociologists and others whose writing seems especially useful and illuminating.
GRAND FORKS, N.D. — If you follow policies that affect small-town America, you get to know the economists, sociologists and others whose writing seems especially useful and illuminating.
Mark Drabenstott is one. For years, Drabenstott served as vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo., the branch of the Fed that takes the most interest in rural affairs. Drabenstott also directed the Center for the Study of Rural America while at the Kansas Fed.
Drabenstott now directs the Center for Regional Competitiveness at the University of Missouri and has written a new report on rural development. In the report, titled “Past Silos and Smokestacks: Transforming the Rural Economy in the Midwest,” Drabenstott sums up his decades of experience and reaches the following conclusion:
“The path to stronger economies in the rural Midwest is plain.
“Partnering regionally to compete globally is what’s needed. . . . Only by combining their forces to create new businesses and good jobs at home will the towns and counties of the rural Midwest compete and thrive in a global economy where this sort of collaboration is fast becoming the norm.”
For while most Red River Valley towns already sense the importance of competing in the global economy as a region, it’s good to be reminded of the need to look regionally for solutions to problems of economic growth.
Success
North Dakota already has some success stories that point the way. The Research Corridor promoted by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., may be the best known. Dorgan’s effort has a clear and achievable goal: Win more research grants for valley universities from the billions of dollars distributed by the federal government.
This effort is responsible for some fair share of the recent programs at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks and North Dakota State University in Fargo. Dorgan’s position in Senate leadership helped, but the universities also stepped up to the plate, developing nationally respected programs in such areas as unmanned aerial vehicles, rural medicine and nanotechnology.
Speaking of UAVs, that’s another regionwide success story that’s under way. While it’s centered at Grand Forks Air Force Base and UND, there’s still plenty of growth to go around: Fargo’s Air National Guard wing now has transitioned to flying UAVs; and as the Air Force’s UAV presence in Grand Forks ramps up, the aircraft’s pilots will work in Fargo.
As Drabenstott notes in his report, the key is not for each community to become “jacks-of-all-trades” where industry, manufacturing and other good jobs are concerned. The key is for communities to identify “distinct economic strengths” and use them to build world-class expertise, a selling point that corporations just can’t pass up.
That’s exactly what’s happening in the UAV area to the benefit of the whole region. Mayors, economic development professionals and other civic leaders should study Drabenstott’s report with an eye to duplicating that success.
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