TOP 10 WAYS TO REINVENT RURAL REGIONS

Throughout the nation, rural regions are on a quickening quest to reinvent their economies. For the Center for the Study of Rural America at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, this recent wave of regional development offers some lessons that can help regions be successful in the new economic race.

In the November edition of The Main Street Economist, Mark Drabenstott, vice president and director of the Center for the Study of Rural America, provides a “top ten list” of answers to the question more and more regions are asking: “How do we reinvent our economy?”

Drabenstott writes that a sense of region is the essential starting point for any region looking to reinvent its economy. Regional thinking, he writes, is driven by the realization that competing successfully in global markets requires critical mass that single cities or counties can no longer muster on their own.

“Thinking regionally is, in fact, the transcending answer to the question of how regions reinvent their economies,” he writes.

Regional thinking, he notes, does not come naturally when regions are divided by city, county or even state boundaries that may determine governmental jurisdictions, but do not define economic opportunities.

“Reinventing regional economies in a global marketplace is the new frontier for economic development in the 21st century,” he writes. “More and more rural regions are beginning to understand that building new competitive advantage is their new imperative.”

This article, including the top ten list, and past issues of The Main Street Economist are available on the Bank’s Web site at www.kansascityfed.org.

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