A recently released National League of Cities (NLC) report is encouraging stronger links between urban and rural areas as a means of spurring economic growth.
Officials said “Bridging the Urban-Rural Economic Divide” challenges conventional thinking about the urban-rural divide and signals a call-to-action of the
NLC’s national Rebuild With Us campaign, which calls for federal-local partnerships to invest in interconnected infrastructure networks to support a modern economy.
“One of the best infrastructure investments we can make to bridge the urban-rural divide is to improve access low cost, high-speed internet,” Mark Stodola, NLC president and mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas, said. “Access to information is paramount to economic opportunity and prosperity, yet our nation’s broadband system fails communities across the country.”
The report noted, in all states, urban areas outpace their rural counterparts in broadband access. States with overall higher levels of broadband access also have more significant urban-rural digital divides. States with strong levels of educational attainment have less conspicuous educational divides between urban and rural areas and rural areas are often home to universities, which connect rural residents to educational opportunities and narrow the gap.
“In many states, growth is contingent not only on urban success but on the economic relationship between urban and rural areas,” Christiana McFarland, NLC’s director of research, said. “For example, many faster growing states have strong economic bases in rural communities that extend value chains and markets into urban areas and throughout the state.”