Each presidential election brings heightened attention to America’s rural places—sometimes, unwanted press that misconstrues what characterizes these communities and undermines positive economic and community development initiatives already underway to help these places become more resilient. In December 2020, Brookings Institute released a report series, Building resilient rural places: Strategies from local leaders to strengthen rural assets, diversity, and dynamism, to refocus our attention on better understanding rural America and the “hyperlocal strategies” taking place to increase their growth and diversity. For its research, Brookings studied three rural areas (i.e., Wheeling, WV; Laramie, WY; and Emporia, KS) to uncover place-based strategies, policies, and capacity-building supports for rural places sustainability through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond (Love and Powe 2020).

In fall 2020, coronavirus cases surged in rural America—disproportionately impacting communities of color and leading to uncertainty about whether or not these places had the necessary health care infrastructure and resilient industries and small businesses to withstand the economic impacts of a global pandemic. While communities’ sustainability concerns are not new to rural Ohio, COVID-19 has exacerbated challenges and prompted a call for action at the local, state, and federal levels. Brookings said it also demanded “we look deeply at—and invest in—homegrown rural economic development strategies that were showing promise prior to the pandemic;” embracing a bottom-up approach and supporting the systems already working to foster inclusive, vibrant, connected rural places is critical for our country’s equitable recovery (Love and Powe 2020).

Brookings’ research took a deep dive into one such strategy deployed in rural places across the United States, downtown revitalization, which can be a critical solution for increasing resiliency and addressing geographic inequities that limit opportunity because of where a person lives. Brookings found—when local governments and organizations focus on equitable recovery, take a holistic approach, and involve residents in their decision-making processes—downtown revitalization can foster vibrant rural places able to withstand the economic impacts of a global pandemic. All three of Brookings’ focus areas supported downtown revitalization efforts before the pandemic, which proved to lay the groundwork for them better weathering the COVID-19 storm (Love and Powe 2020). So, how did the communities do it? What does Brookings’ research suggest can contribute to equitable recovery?

Ensuring the survival of small businesses, the “life-blood” of communities, by:

• Identifying non-traditional capital investment sources, like crowdsourcing for entrepreneurs who were not eligible for enough capital through a traditional bank, which in return means residents become more invested in the small businesses’ success and creates a culture of supporting local.

• Providing training for local financial institutions and filling in capital gaps, like education for local banks on historic tax credits, loan programs, and other tactics that mitigate the risks of investing in small businesses and creating revolving loan funds supported by intentional outreach to underserved entrepreneurs to increase downtown businesses diversity.

• Providing skills training and tailored capacity-building support for small businesses, like counseling on business plans, loan opportunities, and business transitions and making valuable connections to help entrepreneurs adapt to COVID-19 businesses operations, preventing their decline.  

• Offering low-cost, low barrier-to-entry incubator spaces and mitigating rent costs for small businesses that cannot yet afford their own commercial space, alleviating a new business’ risk of going under, and working with landlords to identify potential solutions for those unable to pay rent through the crisis—preventing additional downtown vacancy.

• Serving as a liaison between the small businesses, city, state, and regional entities, like building partnerships, providing education on various resources, identifying matching funds, developing economic development plans, serving as a small business advocate with government officials, improving connections with regional institutions (e.g., universities and major employers), and assisting small businesses with their applications for state and federal resources.

Championing built environment and quality-of-life improvements that benefit underserved residents and businesses by:

• Leveraging historic building stock downtown for small businesses and housing by advocating for improvements to downtown infrastructure and commercial facades, serving as a connector between vacant downtown spaces and tenants, offering free internet access, creating historic districts, providing tax credits to incentivize investment, and encouraging not only market-rate housing but units to serve all income levels.

• Enhancing downtown walkability and multimodal transportation options, including increasing the number of businesses accessible by foot; creating an attractive, pedestrian-friendly environment; and investing in residents’ mobility options when local transit has poor connectivity and limited hours.

• Increasing healthy food access by utilizing downtowns’ centralized locations for co-ops and year-round farmers markets and conducting intentional outreach to low-income residents.

Nurturing new civic structures to advance community priorities by:

Investing in tactics that increase bridging social capital when societal divides are present and exacerbate socioeconomic disparities that limit rural residents’ upward economic mobility; these tactics need to be equity-focused to ensure they do not inadvertently “breed localism, elitism, and mistrust of outsiders” (Love and Powe 2020).

• Fostering communities where people want to live and stay by increasing their attachment to place with tactics like concentrating arts, culture, and entertainment downtown; offering inclusive programming and events when COVID-19 is not a threat; and encouraging a shop local culture.

• Involving residents to improve inclusivity, especially when economic disparities exist between downtowns and adjacent neighborhoods, like conducting public engagement to ensure residents have ownership of and benefit from recovery and making concerted efforts to ensure downtowns are welcoming to all (e.g., hosting free events and increasing public spaces).

• Supporting organizations that advance community priorities by creating formal partnerships with community groups representing underserved populations and encouraging collaboration between local organizations.

Brookings’ research suggests now is not the time for Ohio’s local governments to backway from their downtown revitalization strategies that were already working to improve their communities’ resilience. Instead, they should lean in, and state and federal governments should take action to support them because, when looking at the three focus communities, these efforts are what has prevented the decline of small businesses and residents’ quality of life thus far.

The full report from Brookings Institute can be found here, Building resilient rural places: Strategies from local leaders to strengthen rural assets, diversity, and dynamism

Cover photo courtesy of the Brookings Institute.