Watch 7:11
With emphasis on arts, rural communities challenge national narrative of decline
Americans have been drawn to rural areas in recent years partly due to the appeal of a higher quality of life. These regions have not traditionally been known as art hubs, but some residents say that trend is changing. Jeffrey…
Watch 5:33
How Wyoming manages to keep its rural schools open
The one-room schoolhouse may seem like a distant memory from U.S. history, but about 200 of them still exist today, including Wyoming’s tiny Valley Elementary School. It has only six students, but in Wyoming, education funding is redistributed so that…
Questions over coverage plague rural broadband expansion
Across rural America, a bandwidth gap separates communities like Weston from an increasingly digital world where high-speed internet has become a fundamental component of modern life, putting them at a disadvantage.
When small colleges close, their hometowns feel the pain
The financial problems — and wholesale shutdowns — affecting an escalating number of colleges and universities touch not only students, faculty and staff but also local economies, often in rural places where they are among the most important employers and…
Photographers Fred Baldwin and Wendy Watriss traveled and worked abroad for years before meeting in the late 1960s. As a couple, they decided to shift their professional focus to the U.S., and specifically to the rural south. Their imagery documents…
Although this year’s midterms sent several new women to Congress, two prominent female senators--Heidi Heitkamp and Claire McCaskill--are preparing to leave Washington after losing bruising reelection battles. Judy Woodruff sits down with both to discuss voters who feel forgotten, the…
A food and arts festival in central Wisconsin has grand ambitions. “Fermentation Fest” celebrates art, farming and all things fermented. But in addition to serving up sauerkraut and kombucha, festival organizers from The Wormfarm Institute also hope it provides…
After Congress failed to pass a farm bill ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, a Department of Agriculture program that helps veterans transition into farming faces an uncertain future. For soldiers returning from war, farming can offer a new occupation,…
For decades, students and faculty from Auburn University's Rural Studio have been working, studying and living in Hale County, Alabama, and using architecture to serve the greater good. There, more than two dozen different homes that cost only $20,000 have…
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