Culture
The Bookmobile Comes Back Because the Broadband Did Not
Rural library outreach was supposed to be made obsolete by connectivity. Where the connection never arrived, the van is carrying hotspots alongside the books.
Rural
Tagged stories
National News
The Bridge Is Fine Until the Truck Is Too Heavy
Thousands of rural bridges are being downrated rather than replaced, and a load limit reroutes freight, school buses and fire apparatus onto roads that were never meant to carry them.
National News
The Volunteer Fire Department Runs Out of Volunteers
Roughly two-thirds of American firefighters are volunteers, and the model was built on a settlement pattern that no longer exists. What replaces it costs money nobody has budgeted.
Health
The Delivery Room Is the First Thing a Rural Hospital Closes
Obstetric units require staffing around the clock for a volume that cannot pay for it. Hospitals keeping the lights on elsewhere are shutting maternity first, and the distances patients travel are becoming the clinical problem.
National News
Farmland Changes Hands, and the Buyer Is Rarely a Farmer
A generation of operators is retiring off land that has appreciated beyond what a successor can finance. The capital filling the gap has a different time horizon and different intentions.
National News
The Rural Broadband Buildout Reaches the Hard Part
The easy miles are wired. What remains are the households that made the economics impossible in the first place, and the programs now confronting them.