This report provides case studies of successful collaboration between transportation and economic development strategies within the context of a region. By sharing resources and playing off of strengths, these two areas of community development can be planned cooperatively for maximum success. Explore this article further for some great planning techniques.
This resource provides articles on the challenges faced by seniors in rural communities when trying to find affordable housing. With a fast increasing senior population and few housing options as it is, the need for senior-specific housing is immense. These articles review some of the federal programs that exist for creating affordable senior housing, the funding that is involved, and the resources that are available for rural communities to establish such housing.
Rural and small-town communities face many challenges when attempting to fight poverty while encouraging economic capacity. This webinar provides some best practices for fostering equity in regional and community economic development. Watch the recording to see how communities can work and plan together for equality while boosting local and regional economoy.
Population pyramids show the number of males and females, by age groups, who live in a community at a given moment. These diagrams allow us to easily compare demographic differences between metropolitan areas, rural towns, and reservations. They illustrate the tendency of big cities to have many residents of working age, while rural small towns have growing populations of elderly residents, and reservations have relatively more young children and youth. Below are the pyramids for the U.S., Montana, and several towns in the region. You can also download a PDF of all pyramids here.
These maps contain data for the entire regional, some broken out into counties or census tracts. You may find more detailed information on each county at the links below the maps. You can download the Distance to Services Maps and the Regional Data Maps in PDF.
“…nearly 4 percent more rural seniors are in nursing homes than their urban counterparts;” this report identifies some of the reasons why this statistic exists, and offers some insight to the developing services for improving. One of these areas of service is telemedicine, including online consultations, home-monitoring systems, and web-based health education.
Guest speakers, David Jaber from the Oyate Omniciye regional sustainability planning effort of the Oglala Sioux Tribe (Pine Ridge Reservation) and Carrie Runser-Turner from the GroWNC regional planning project in Western North Carolina, provide examples of how their tribal and rural communities were able to advance their priorities through local, regional planning efforts. In addition, Jennie Rodgers, communications specialist with the Rural Community Assistance Corporation, discusses how our local communities can ensure that their priorities are incorporated into the regional plan for Northcentral MT. Watch the full webinar for all of the details!
This document summarizes the action items and common themes that were identified by community leaders at the June 24th, 2014, Vibrant Futures Implementation Session. Participants developed action items, which included sequences of steps, resources, potential partners, possible funding sources, and timelines for accomplishing the action item. Participants also came to several conclusions on the common elements necessary to successfully implement the plan.
These word clouds were created by the information gathered at our community roundtable discussions. Raw data about each county is located here. The word clouds are a summary of the priorities of each area. A PDF of the word clouds is also available for download.