Technology and Robust Economies Drive Rural Town Revival

"All across Minnesota, cities and towns like Osakis, once assumed to be riding a slow train to nowhere, are proving surprisingly robust," reports David Peterson. "Recoveries in agriculture and rural manufacturing are combining with rapidly spreading high-speed wireless access and other factors to yield numbers that few predicted."

“It is surprising a lot of people just how much life remains in towns once declared dead — or heading that way,” said University of Minnesota demographer Will Craig.

"Studying trends in retail, Craig and a colleague uncovered what they called 'astounding' growth in consumer sales in regional centers such as Mankato and Brainerd, and 'remarkable' increases in economic activity in many smaller communities — stiff reproofs to the 'myth of rural decline and ghost towns.'”