Rural America’s Revival Begins on Campus
Strong research universities can transform the economies of entire regions.
Better universities will make for better university towns.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
All across America, university towns are thriving. Their skilled workforces and research activities draw in business investment, while their medical facilities and high quality of life attract residents from smaller rural towns.
As a result, there are a lot of ideas for how public policy can help turn small and decaying rural towns into slightly bigger and more prosperous college towns. One way is simply to start new universities and put them there, and in fact I once suggested that the federal government create a system of elite universities, much like the one that exists in India. (The idea is slowly becoming more popular.)