The Survey of Rural Challenges 2017 identified bright spots as well as concerns from small town people
SmallBizSurvival.com and SaveYour.Town joined forces to conduct an international rural survey of 250 rural people during 2017. Some of the results don’t match up with the usual stories we hear about rural.
A few surprising results:
- More people mentioned a lack of workers than mentioned a lack of jobs
- More people were interested in maker trends than manufacturing trends
- More people focused on downtown issues than on recruiting outside businesses
Media stories about rural and small towns tend to focus on some well-worn themes that don’t match up to our survey results:
- Media often descend on a town when it suffers the loss of a major employer or other serious blow, but this was the least commonly-chosen rural challenge
- Crisis-driven stories focus on the loss of manufacturing jobs and portray a desire for the return of factories to rural areas, but people in our survey didn’t mention it and focused instead on local entrepreneurs
- Stories about the lack of small business lending say it’s holding back local business, but more rural people cited the lack of usable buildings than the lack of loans
While the survey was designed to identify rural challenges, people also answered with opportunities or solutions. Some included:
- Tourism trends to take advantage of
- Opportunity to provide accommodations to visitors or housing to residents
- Opportunity to provide family-friendly activities
Go to the Survey Results page for the full report, and while you’re there you can also sign up for action steps you can take based on the survey results.
- 3 Major factors in rural remote work: incentives, flexible workspaces, and a sense of community - June 6, 2022
- How to recruit new residents, remote workers, or remote entrepreneurs - June 2, 2022
- How cooperatives improve small town economies - May 8, 2022
- Metaverse business idea: virtual world tour guide - April 15, 2022
- Make extra money from extra workspace: co-working and 3rd workplaces in small towns - March 28, 2022
- Trade show booth design trend: hand drawn visuals - March 21, 2022
- New business sign design? Don’t use cursive script - February 14, 2022
- Way more people prefer rural than urban, new Pew Research study finds - February 1, 2022
- Top 5 Rural and small town trends 2022 - January 3, 2022
- How to start a real small small business - December 17, 2021
