Cooperatives can play a big role in small towns, providing products and services to fill gaps as well as giving local people a share of ownership. Rural cooperatives go way back Rural areas have a long history with cooperatives through cooperative telephone service, electricity, and agriculture. My husband is a member of the Alva Farmers […]
An embarrassing story about community engagement and dialogue
By Paula Jensen Quite simply, community dialogue is an exchange of ideas and experiences through listening, sharing, and questioning. At its best, community dialogue is created in a safe environment where a diverse group of people gather to talk and understand each other. Community dialogue at its worst looks something like the embarrassing story I […]
Way more people prefer rural than urban, new Pew Research study finds
Pew Research released a major rural vs urban study, and the headlines missed the best bits. Pew Research’s new social trends study has shown up in a lot of news stories with widely varying headlines. Pew themselves titled it “Americans Are Less Likely Than Before COVID-19 To Want To Live in Cities, More Likely To […]
What to do with a building that’s falling down: The roofless Royal Theater in Archer City, Texas
A building that is falling down or where the roof has fallen in can still be useful. One example is the Royal Theater, in Archer City, Texas. The Royal Theater was featured in the movie “The Last Picture Show,” and production crews did the work to shore up the facade. The space behind has a […]