Three Oregon State professors consider how rural counties can survive the cuts -- and possible elimination -- of payments that conserve federal forest. Saving rural schools and maintaining fundamental services will require changes at all levels of government.

A region's needs and its potential come, in part, from the age distribution of the people who live there. In the Great Plains and Midwest, rural regions are disproportionately elderly. Now's the time to change public policy.

Columbus, Nebraska, has a problem. The rural town has jobs, but it can't find workers to fill them. Columbus officials have gone on recruiting missions to find new residents, but they've discovered that there are reasons people can't move.

"The rural brain drain" is an insult, writes Carol Miller of New Mexico. Look around. In your community, it's probably not even true.