After a year of rigorous & thoughtful work on rural issues, @willingham_zoe & I are proud to present this pioneering report “A Path to Rural Resilience in America”.

This report calls for investing in rural futures & committing to left-behind regions. https://www.americanprogress.org/?p=490411 ">https://www.americanprogress.org/...

Our report makes the call for reimagining rural development by creating the Rural Opportunity Administration (ROA). We also make the call for stronger worker protections & focus on supporting grassroots organizations.

We arrived at this conclusion by analyzing how rural communities have been neglected in federal policy and how the narrative on rural areas has been limited. Just look at the “recovery” from the Great Recession.

Zoe and I have done more detailed work on these issues. Check out this thread of work we did in 2019: https://twitter.com/gbenga_ajilore/status/1186631575561277440?s=20">https://twitter.com/gbenga_aj...

In 2020, we shined a continuous light on COVID’s impact in rural areas. Here is a thread collecting this work: https://twitter.com/gbenga_ajilore/status/1287741189354135555?s=20">https://twitter.com/gbenga_aj...

This report highlights geographic inequality, provides history of RD, & the current state of RD. differently. This figure shows how many rural areas are being left behind.