There is a clear need to advance a more inclusive economic future for rural America, which accounts for 85% of the nation’s persistently poor counties. This imperative for inclusive rural development, however, is not limited to rural communities. The geographic divergence that divides the country between “winner-takes-most” and “left-behind” places serves to harm the nation as a whole by concentrating productivity in too few regions while leaving large swaths struggling to meet their economic potential.

The lesser-known story is that local leaders across rural America have long been implementing bottom-up economic development strategies to "grow from within" and spur inclusive rural development by investing in uniquely rural assets that leverage the diverse and innovative place-based strengths of small towns across the nation.

This practitioner-oriented report highlights insights from precisely these kinds of community-centered efforts underway across small towns nationwide. It draws from an in-depth, multiyear Brookings Institution and Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) engagement with three diverse rural communities in Indiana, as well as insights from rural economic and community development leaders across the country. Based on this in-depth engagement, the report offers practical guidance and recommendations for practitioners and policymakers to advance, scale, and sustain inclusive access to opportunity, quality of place, and quality of life across rural places nationwide.

Drawing from decades of working on the ground with local economic and community development leaders nationwide, Brookings and LISC convened leaders from three small Indiana towns—Warsaw, Michigan City, and Seymour—to help them implement a locally led “community-centered economic inclusion” (CCEI) model designed to advance economic inclusion by linking disinvested rural districts to broader regional growth strategies. The theory of change guiding the strategy is that by embedding economic inclusion for often-disinvested rural areas within larger regional investment strategies, these communities could maximize state and federal resources for broad-based benefits.

Each town identified economic inclusion districts that are home to strong economic assets, but that have been devalued or disrupted by disinvestment or discrimination. In Michigan City, this included majority-Black neighborhoods with once-in-a-generation catalytic development opportunities (such as a closing state prison and major power plant); in Seymour, a rapidly growing and predominantly Latino or Hispanic industrial district; and in Warsaw, a critical citywide corridor for minority-owned small businesses.

Read the full article about inclusive rural development by Hanna Love, Mary Elizabeth Campbell, William Taft, and Andrea Devening at Brookings.