New Year, New Look at Positive Youth Development
Master Planning for Youth in Rural Communities
Youth master planning isn’t just for cities and towns. It can work in rural places, too. But rural planners must take into account the unique challenges and opportunities that go along with life in the country.
While rural areas confront many of the same problems as urban centers, they also face some that are distinct, including the variable nature of the rural economy, the relative isolation of rural areas, and the lack of easy-to-get-to support services. At the same time, people who live and work in rural places say, these areas boast a strong sense of community and neighbors willing to work together to make things better.
Prepare for hard times
In many rural areas, people live in economic realities that are simply out of their control. In agricultural communities, self-sufficiency can hinge on something as unpredictable as the weather. An early frost that ruins the crops, for example, can devastate a farming community.
And in areas outside resort towns, where people support tourism, working in hotels and restaurants, the national economy can have a profound effect. When the national economy goes south, tourism slows, and people lose jobs.
Similarly, mining communities tend to be “boom or bust,” says Bob Coulson, who administers the Colorado Department of Human Services’ programs for adolescents. Young people flock there because they hear they can earn a lot of money. But the work is usually short-term, and when it dries up, youth can become homeless.
In all of these places, then, planners need to prepare for the hard times, even in prosperous periods.
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