Rural development

The Inflation Reduction Act provides funds for clean energy, transportation, electrification and more for rural communities, but small towns with few resources and staff may have trouble accessing those programs.

The child care gap across the country is more than 30%, meaning the need for quality child care far outweighs the supply — and it's worse in rural areas.

Gov. Mike Parson proposed a $69 million investment to convert 78 additional miles of the Rock Island corridor into trail, but his plan got cut by the Senate. Still, communities along the trail are forging ahead despite the absence of legislative support.

Attorneys in rural Kansas are getting older and have larger workloads. A statewide task force will try to find solutions.

Four years after fighting off a controversial chicken processing plant, the growing Leavenworth County community approved a deal with little fuss to bring in Topeka-based Hill’s Pet Nutrition with a 10-year, 100% tax abatement.

For small towns with dwindling populations and shrinking tax bases, luring travelers to stop and spend a few dollars is a matter of community survival. Some turn to quirky roadside tourist attractions. And the community pride these offbeat sites generate can be just as valuable as the money they bring in.

For Kansans living in Liberal, Dodge City and Hays, there’s only one airline that flies to and from the local airport. So when that airline filed paperwork this spring to terminate services, it sent shockwaves through these remote towns.

Installing fiber-optic internet in sparsely populated places like western Kansas is extremely expensive, even with government subsidies. But some smaller, local broadband providers are finding ways to make it work where the big national companies have not.

The work done by a dedicated group in the small town in southeast Kansas caught the attention of The New York Times.

Small towns far from big cities rely upon federal grants to help them, but numerous definitions of what the government considers rural make that complicated.

La pandemia causada por el COVID-19 ha disparado los precios de la vivienda en todo el país en lugares que durante mucho tiempo se mantuvieron estables. Los pueblos rurales que están muy remotos, donde los precios de los bienes raíces se mantuvieron bajos durante décadas, están viendo ahora aumentos desmesurados de precios sin precedentes, que están agravando los problemas de la gente pobre rural.

Ranchers in Nebraska are rebelling against the “Big Four” meat companies by planning their own beef processing plant. They’re seeking a transformation for themselves, the industry and western Nebraska.