How rural America is turning into a digital desert

Dec 6, 2018
The geographic digital divide is wider than ever.
Jez Arnold/Flickr

The housing crisis hits America’s heartland

Oct 2, 2018
When you think of high rents and overcrowding, you probably don’t think of farmland. However, according to a new report by the Urban Institute, rural communities are facing a lack of affordable housing, just like more densely populated urban areas. One hundred fifty-two rural counties throughout California, Texas and several southeastern states, among others, were […]
 Corn grows on a farm on July 13, 2018 near Amana, Iowa.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

How the energy boom shaped a small town in rural America

Jun 12, 2018
About a decade ago, some in this country saw fracking as the solution to decades of economic decline. But others were determined to stop it.
A Consol Energy horizontal gas drilling rig explores the Marcellus Shale outside the town of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, in 2012.
MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images

Reinventing the rural health care system

Feb 2, 2018
A new report outlines the challenges the health care system in rural communities faces.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Rodeo on the rebound

Aug 24, 2017
Rodeo still rounds 'em up in rural America.
Calf roping just before the throw at Chief Joseph Days Rodeo.
Photo courtesy of Ellen Morris Bishop

When transportation barriers become economic barriers

Aug 18, 2017
The types of jobs that are open to residents of Erie City, Pennsylvania, can depend on their access to transportation.
Rhonda Glover and her youngest son Romeo, ride an Erie bus across town.
Erika Beras/Marketplace

Amid urbanization and expense, hunting declines as a hobby

Aug 1, 2017
Fewer Americans are hunting as a hobby, but those that are still hunting, are spending more money doing it.
Leith Konyndyk kneels with his son's first turkey, which they took home to clean and turn into barbecue.
Blake Farmer/for Marketplace

For public good, not for profit.

Erie worries its natural beauty — and tourism — will suffer under budget cuts

Jun 12, 2017
Federal funds help fight beach erosion, protecting an industry that draws $1 billion a year from visitors.
Matt Greene, director of operations at Presque Isle State Park, said government funds help fight beach erosion that uproots trees.
Erika Beras

3 things you may have missed about Trump's budget

May 25, 2017
A look at how the education system could be impacted and how Trump's voter base might react.
 Copies of President Trump's fiscal year 2018 budget are stacked at the Government Publishing Office in Washington, D.C.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images

How health care is healing Erie's ailing economy

May 24, 2017
The city's two biggest hospital systems employ nearly 7,000 people.
Health care “is a very, very core thing to the community,” said Marc Bryant, a former paper mill engineer who is now a nurse at UPMC Hamot.
Erika Beras