Rural America is facing a national affordable housing crisis, and nearly half of rural renters are rent-burdened. With the unique characteristics and challenges of housing in rural America, but also with policy solutions that are often designed for urban and suburban communities, rural communities are pursuing innovations in collaboration, financing, and construction to meet their residents’ needs. In this episode, Tony Pipa visits Coachella Valley in Riverside County, California, to learn about an ambitious collaboration that is on track to increase affordable housing production in the region by more than twenty-five times, and also talks with a housing developer in rural Colorado who is creating new housing for the local rural workforce.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The land and resources needed for the transition to clean energy are found disproportionately in rural places. Many rural communities now find themselves faced with a potential for clean energy development that brings both economic opportunities and political tensions, especially with the implementation of the Infrastructure and Investment in Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. In this episode, Tony Pipa visits Isabella County, Michigan, to learn how a small group of farmers came together to create a community-minded revenue-sharing lease that helped overcome the controversy and resulted in the largest wind farm in the state.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In this episode of “Reimagine Rural,” host Tony Pipa visits the neighboring towns of Thomas and Davis, West Virginia, former resource-dependent economies that have reinvented themselves as destinations for art and outdoor recreation. Tony speaks with long-time residents who saw the community’s decline, and newcomers who  helped spur its revitalization. They describe the new challenges that come with economic growth and their hopes for community-focused sustainable development in the future.

We're gratified to have heard from many of you about your own town and the positive things happening there. Feel free to send a note about your rural town to GlobalMedia@Brookings.edu. We’d love to hear from you. 

Episode transcript and show notes: https://brook.gs/417Imyj 

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In this episode of “Reimagine Rural,” host Tony Pipa visits DeWitt, Arkansas, deep in the Mississippi Delta, where a failed biofuel project sparked a shift in the community’s economic identity. Entrepreneurs share the stories of how their small businesses got off the ground and what their plans are for their future and the future of DeWitt.

We're gratified to have heard from many of you about your own town and the positive things happening there. Feel free to send a note about your rural town to GlobalMedia@Brookings.edu. We’d love to hear from you. 

Episode transcript and show notes: https://brook.gs/3Dqe7rY

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In this episode of “Reimagine Rural,” Tony Pipa visits Drew and Moorhead, two towns in Sunflower County, Mississippi, once home to cotton plantations, where the country’s history of slavery and the civil rights movement set the context for these rural towns and their path to renewal today. Local leaders and homecomers describe their efforts to build communities where people want to live—and the role of beauty and leisure in achieving their visions.

Episode transcript and show notes: https://brook.gs/3iHnsVk

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In this episode of “Reimagine Rural,” Tony Pipa speaks with key officials from the executive branch serving rural America. They discuss the current state of rural policy, its origins, and a blueprint for the future. We also hear from past and future guests about their needs and their recommendations for the federal government.  

Episode transcript and show notes: https://brook.gs/3FZetY4

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In this episode of “Reimagine Rural,” Tony Pipa speaks with homecomers who returned to a boom-and-bust copper mining town to revitalize its historic district. Despite pandemic-related setbacks, Globe, Arizona’s small business renaissance is expanding into new community infrastructure and collaboration with regional neighbors. As the town works to attract tourists to its beautiful Southwestern landscapes, it is also poised to contribute to the clean energy transition. The Inflation Reduction Act’s incentivizes domestic production for electric vehicle batteries, of which copper is a major component.

Episode transcript and show notes: https://brook.gs/3XT7ozd

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Shamokin, Pennsylvania is a former coal town on its way to becoming an outdoor recreation destination after decades of decline. In this episode of Reimagine Rural, Tony Pipa returns to his roots to learn how an abandoned mine remediation project is helping spur community renewal. He speaks with local leaders and residents who are bringing their vision to life with the support of key public resources.

Episode transcript and show notes: https://brook.gs/3TZZGjD

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

While the dominant narrative regarding rural America is one of decline and division, Reimagine Rural is a new podcast that visits rural towns across the United States that are experiencing positive change and explores how public investment in rural people and places can lead to increased prosperity.

Hosted by Tony Pipa, a scholar in the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution and a product of rural America, each episode features local voices telling the story of progress in their community and consider the intersection with policy and public resources. 

Join Tony on this journey to visit a diverse set of towns across America to learn more about how rural communities are adapting to the 21st century.

Full episodes start November 22.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Intel Corporation is building two multi-billion-dollar semiconductor chip fabrication plants in Licking County, Ohio. While this industrial installation, the largest private-sector investment in Ohio’s history, promises to create thousands of jobs, it will also bring big changes to the area, affecting nearby rural places that were not part of the siting decision. In this episode, Tony Pipa talks with local leaders about how they are meeting the challenge by creating a shared vision for equitable development that seeks to protect the integrity of their towns as they face inevitable changes.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Rural America disproportionately lacks access to high-speed broadband, an essential component of modern life. Though the issue—and many attempts to address it—go back much farther, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriated $42.5 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program to close the gap once and for all. In this episode, Tony Pipa visits Macon County, Alabama, and also talks with leaders from Jal, New Mexico, and Humboldt County, California to learn how they have overcome their challenges to bring broadband to their rural communities. And the director of the new BEAD program lays out the federal government’s broadband agenda.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In late 2022, the federal government auctioned off ocean access near the coast of Humboldt County, California to develop an offshore wind installation. This major industrial project could produce 6% of the state’s current energy needs just in its initial stage. In this episode, Tony Pipa visits Humboldt County to understand the scale and ambition of the project and learn how key stakeholders, including leaders of local tribes, are coming together to ensure the benefits are shared and avoid the exploitation that occurred with past economic development.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The history of rural America includes "company towns,” where one employer controlled pretty much everything in town, from retail to housing to jobs, to get as much as possible out of their workers. The fortunes of many rural communities remain closely tied to a major employer even today, and Tony Pipa travels to Humboldt, Kansas, and New Berlin, New York, to learn what it means to rural renewal when community investment and partnership—rather than extraction—comprise the guiding ethos of a local business.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Season two of Reimagine Rural podcast debuts soon, with host Tony Pipa once again visiting small towns from coast to coast and collecting the stories of local leaders with a focus on how they're trying to take advantage of major new opportunities available in today's economy. That often means managing big public investments and dealing with outside interests, from renewable energy to new manufacturing to broadband and more.

In season two, Tony brings you a whole new set of stories from small town America on how local places are organizing themselves to ensure these investments lead to increased, good, and equitable rural prosperity.

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app or visit us at Brookings dot edu slash Reimagine Rural. www.brookings.edu/ReimagineRural

We planned only eight episodes of Reimagine Rural, but we heard from so many listeners across the country that we couldn’t help but share more. In this episode, host Tony Pipa speaks with listeners from four towns across the country to hear their stories of community revitalization: Lovington, New Mexico, on rebuilding its downtown; Brattleboro, Vermont, on embracing refugee resettlement; De Soto, Kansas, on gearing up for the clean energy transition; and Quincy, California, on connecting a region through inclusive outdoor recreation.

We're gratified to have heard from many of you about your own town and the positive things happening there. While this episode concludes season one, please continue to send notes about your rural town to GlobalMedia@Brookings.edu. We’d love to hear from you.

Episode transcript and show notes: https://bit.ly/3o2S71H 

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In this episode, Tony Pipa reflects on lessons learned throughout his journeys across rural America. He hears from new and old friends about the most important elements of effective rural policy—investing in local leadership and capacity, improving coherence at the federal level, and investing in flexible, substantial grants—but is also reminded that beauty, quality of life, and pride of place are key catalysts for community renewal.

We're gratified to have heard from many of you about your own town and the positive things happening there. Feel free to send a note about your rural town to GlobalMedia@Brookings.edu. We’d love to hear from you. 

Episode transcript and show notes: https://bit.ly/3nbTjiR 

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In this episode of Reimagine Rural, host Tony Pipa goes to Eagle Butte, South Dakota, anchor of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation and Tribe. We hear how local business owners, tribal administration, and leaders from the Four Bands Community Fund are working to build credit, foster creativity, and center local voices in future development.

We're gratified to have heard from many of you about your own town and the positive things happening there. Feel free to send a note about your rural town to GlobalMedia@Brookings.edu. We’d love to hear from you. 

Episode transcript and show notes: https://bit.ly/3L3mWNa 

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are fundamental to America’s national identity, yet they are commonly associated with big cities and areas like Silicon Valley. As we’ve encountered numerous times in past episodes, rural America is full of innovation and home to countless examples of ingenuity. In part two of our special innovators episode, rather than capture the story of a rural place, Tony Pipa hears from rural entrepreneurs who returned to revitalize their hometowns through the boundary-pushing use of agrovoltaics, a worker-owned approach to revitalizing the local textile industry, and business development fueled by narrative change, storytelling, and financing.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are fundamental to America’s national identity, yet they are commonly associated with big cities and areas like Silicon Valley. As we’ve encountered numerous times in past episodes, rural America is full of innovation and home to countless examples of ingenuity. In this episode, part one of two, rather than capture the story of a rural place, Tony Pipa hears from entrepreneurs from across the country who have created ventures to bring the digital economy, affordable housing, and childcare to rural places.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The importance of public investment, and the difficulty rural places have in accessing it, are recurring themes in the stories we gather for the podcast. Communities often lack the time and staff to navigate the maze of available resources and match them to their project plans and aspirations. Policymakers are beginning to recognize that strengthening local rural capacity is a key to unlocking the investment that these communities need to thrive. In this final episode of season two, Tony Pipa sits down with state and federal leaders to learn how they are developing new ways to support rural America and the impact it’s having.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

A single natural disaster can change a community for generations. In the span of five years, Canton, North Carolina, experienced Tropical Storm Fred, Hurricane Helene, and a significant economic shock: the closure of its paper mill. The 115-year-old institution had employed more than a thousand people and was a source of pride for workers and their families. In this episode, Tony Pipa visits Canton to understand how residents are working together to navigate this series of crises, and what it means to be a mill town without a mill.

See also Tony's interview with Matt Calabria, director of the Governor's Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, to learn more about how state leadership is coordinating recovery after the most devastating storm in state history.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Over the past several years, a set of partners in Old Fort, North Carolina, has been developing a network of elite mountain bike and hiking trails that was starting to put the town on the map. In September 2024, Hurricane Helene left the place in ruins, damaging homes, trails, and more than a dozen businesses that had opened as the outdoor recreation economy took hold. In this episode of Reimagine Rural, the first of season 3, Tony Pipa visits this small western North Carolina town to learn how it plans to keep its vision for a just and sustainable future intact as it continues to rebuild after the storm.

See also Tony's interview with Matt Calabria, director of the Governor's Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, to learn more about how state leadership is coordinating recovery after the most devastating storm in state history.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Season three of Reimagine Rural podcast launches soon with new episodes. Once again, host Tony Pipa is visiting small towns from coast to coast, talking to local people, capturing their stories of the changes unfolding in their hometowns, and exploring the implications and intersections with public policy.

From disaster recovery in North Carolina to downtown revitalization in Kentucky to cleaner and cheaper energy in Minnesota, plus healthcare, data centers, immigration, and a whole lot more across the country, Tony is telling a whole new set of stories from rural America on how local places are organizing themselves to meet challenges and find ways to help their communities thrive.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

As the Trump administration prepares to take power in Washington, Senior Fellow Tony Pipa, host of the Reimagine Rural podcast, looks at what has happened in rural policy under the Biden administration and what shifts in federal policy and emphasis might ensue under President Trump. No matter what changes come, Pipa notes, local communities will continue to solve problems locally.

This episode is a replay of an interview Tony did on The Current podcast in late December.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Morris, Minnesota, a rural place on the edge of the prairie, is at the forefront of environmental sustainability. In this episode, Tony Pipa visits Morris to discover how its residents and local leaders have set aside partisan politics to build powerful, trusted partnerships to invest in clean energy and conservation practices that improve the town’s economic viability and offer new opportunities to build lasting community wealth.

Also, see Tony's interview with Benji Backer, founder and CEO of Nature is Nonpartisan, on a nonpartisan approach to conservation and clean energy.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Hazard, Kentucky, is overcoming the decline of its coal industry and the impact of the opioid epidemic, creating a vibrant downtown business district and renewed civic spirit. In this episode, Tony Pipa visits the Queen City of the Mountains to meet the people who decided downtown was worth fighting for and understand how they brought it back to life.

Also, see Tony's interview with Ryan Eller, executive director of Appalachia Funders Network, as they explore the powerful ways that narratives—both positive and negative—can shape a community’s identity and future, and the role philanthropy and policy can play in enabling sustainability and prosperity in Central Appalachia.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Since the 1990s, Beardstown, Illinois — official population 5,800 — has experienced steady immigration due to the meatpacking industry, breathing new life into this once declining town. Now a multicultural community with residents from over 30 countries, newcomers have integrated throughout neighborhoods, revitalized storefronts, and enriched local schools. In this episode, Tony Pipa explores how this small Midwestern town has learned to embrace change and built a vibrant downtown, and how policy changes and the national narrative about immigration are affecting this rural place.

See Tony's interview with Rachel Perić of Welcoming America to explore what rapid demographic change means for small-town life.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Through community-driven investments in health care, economic development, and civic leadership, the town of Ord, Nebraska, stands as a model for rural renewal. A modern hospital with state-of-the-art features has helped to attract and retain residents, and a local sales tax fund has provided resources to finance projects that have made Ord’s business community vibrant. Exceptional among many neighboring towns across the prairie, Ord has a vibrant civic culture and economic future.

Also, see Tony's interview with Tyler Malone on the role of rural hospitals in sustaining community health and development.

Episode transcript and show notes.

Reimagine Rural is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.