ICMA has recently released a new publication on policies and practices to guide smart growth in rural communities. “Putting Smart Growth to Work in Rural Communities,” examines challenges facing rural communities and focuses on smart growth strategies that can help guide new growth in rural areas, while protecting natural and working lands and preserving the rural character of existing communities. 

In the United States, about 75 percent of the land area is rural, and 17 percent of the population, or about 49 million people, live in rural communities. Today, many rural communities are facing changes and challenges. Some are losing population and seeing fewer family farms and farmers.  Others are becoming bedroom communities and losing land to rapid growth on metropolitan edges. Many struggle with limited accessibility, which can prevent critical goods and services from reaching these communities and make access to jobs difficult, as well as with limited planning capacity, which can make planning for change a challenge and lead to haphazard development patterns.

Strategies and supporting tools and policies are centered around  three goals: 1) supporting the rural landscape by creating an economic climate that enhances the viability of working lands and conserves natural lands; 2) helping existing places to thrive by taking care of assets and investments such as downtowns, Main Streets, existing infrastructure, and places that the community values; and 3) creating great new places by building vibrant, enduring neighborhoods and communities that people, especially young people, don’t want to leave. 

The report uses case studies from local governments, states, and nonprofit groups from across the country to highlight how the strategies, tools, and policies have successfully implemented smart growth strategies to support rural lands, revitalize existing communities, and create great new places for new and long-time residents, as well as visitors.  Case studies include building the agritourism industry in Vermont; investing in preserving rural towns and landscapes in Kentucky; and protecting rural character through compact growth in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, among others.

The full report is available at www.icma.org/ruralsmartgrowth.