This is a start on resources we know are out there (and growing) regarding rural-urban connections, interdependencies, exchanges, dynamics, etc. Please send us links to resources you have and we’ll post them here.

We share them here because we are trying to help reawaken the positive reality (underlying the divisive hype) that rural and urban people and places, while different in some ways, do share many challenges and opportunities, and we matter to one another. We are all twins at heart, helping each other – rural and urban – unite, grow, and thrive together.

Ultimately we are a big Minnesota family. To weather the storms (and we do seem to work better together in a snowstorm), to survive and thrive, we need to share and steward together an incredibly sacred and special home (for example, the watersheds here that stretch to other parts of the globe — the headwaters of the Mississippi River, and 10% of the world’s fresh water, Lake Superior). Getting to know one another rural & urban and helping one another across the miles ultimately helps ourselves, too, wherever we live.

Send your links to resources to mntwintalks@gmail.org, and we’ll post them here, too.

FOR STARTERS:

Bridging the Urban Rural Divide – National League of Cities

Minnesota Rural Urban Exchange: Through exchange we actively commit to addressing the challenges affecting our most distant neighbors as if they lived next door to ourselves.

Pilot Study: Estimating Rural and Urban Minnesota’s Interdependencies

Rural-Urban Connections and Job Readiness: Education and Workforce Development

Thriving by Design Rural & Urban Together – the Minnesota Equity Blueprint