09/01/2026
Front Porch Tuesday - The Infrastructure We Don’t Always See
Last week, I wrote about what happens when a rural school closes and the economic impact that reaches far beyond the classroom. Schools employ people, attract families, create identity and influence whether employers believe a community can support its future workforce.
In other words, a school is infrastructure. Just not the kind we traditionally think about when we use that word.
When most of us hear “infrastructure,” we think about roads, bridges, water, sewer, electricity, broadband and industrial parks. Those things are essential. But they are only part of what it takes to grow a rural community.
There is another layer of infrastructure that may not show up on an engineering map: housing, childcare, healthcare, schools, small businesses and entrepreneurs, workforce development, parks and recreation, libraries, downtowns, public safety, civic organizations, community leadership, arts and culture, and perhaps most importantly, a sense of belonging. These things are the systems that allow people to build a life in a community.
That matters because rural America is at an interesting point demographically. About 46.2 million people, 13.6 percent of the U.S. population, live in rural America. After years of stagnation and decline, rural populations have actually grown each year since 2020. But that growth has largely come from people moving into rural areas, not from births. Between 2020 and 2024, migration added nearly 974,000 people to rural counties, while deaths exceeded births by more than 563,000.
That tells us something important. Rural communities have an opportunity to attract people, but we have to give them a reason, and the ability to stay.
For years, rural economic development focused heavily on one question: How do we create jobs? That is still important, but today we also have to ask what someone needs in order to build a life here. An employer may choose a community because of available land, incentives or utility capacity, but sooner or later they are going to ask where their employees will live, whether childcare is available, whether there are good schools, how far the nearest hospital is, whether broadband is reliable and whether their employees will actually want to stay.
Housing may be one of the clearest examples. A community can create 100 jobs, but if there are no homes available, many employees will simply live somewhere else. When they do, their grocery dollars, property taxes, restaurant spending, school enrollment and volunteer hours often go somewhere else, too. Housing is not simply a real estate issue. It is workforce and economic development infrastructure.
Childcare is another. USDA research found rural areas had about 3.8 private childcare establishments for every 1,000 children under age five during 2018–2022, slightly below urban areas. Even more concerning, the actual number of rural childcare establishments declined during that period. If a parent cannot find childcare, that parent may not be able to go to work. That makes childcare a family issue, a workforce issue and an economic development issue.
Healthcare is equally important. Between 2010 and 2025, 152 rural hospitals closed across the United States. A rural hospital or clinic is not simply where we go when we are sick. It is often a major employer, a tool for attracting professionals and an important factor in whether families believe they can safely build a life in a community.
Small businesses are infrastructure, too. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses account for more than 56 percent of employment outside metropolitan areas, compared with about 48 percent in metropolitan areas. The grocery store, mechanic, restaurant, contractor, daycare, coffee shop and small manufacturer are not simply amenities. They provide jobs and services, keep dollars circulating locally and help create the identity of a place.
Then there is quality of life. Parks, libraries, trails, ballfields, festivals, downtowns, arts and cultural opportunities may not create 100 jobs, but they create connection and belonging. They help answer one of the most important questions facing rural communities today: Why would someone choose to live here?
And perhaps the most overlooked infrastructure of all is leadership. Strong communities require people willing to serve on boards, run for office, volunteer, start businesses, organize events, have difficult conversations and occasionally challenge the phrase, “We’ve always done it this way.” Physical infrastructure can be built with concrete and steel, but community infrastructure is built with people.
The demographic reality makes all of this increasingly important. Rural areas have experienced more deaths than births every year since 2017, and from 2023 to 2024, 76 percent of nonmetropolitan counties experienced natural population decline. Attracting and retaining working-age adults and young families is no longer simply a nice economic development goal. For many communities, it is essential to maintain schools, businesses, healthcare, tax bases and civic organizations.
Over the next several weeks, I want to explore these less traditional pieces of rural infrastructure individually, housing, childcare, healthcare, entrepreneurship, quality of life, leadership and belonging, and what they mean for the future of rural communities. Because economic development is ultimately about people.
We can build the industrial park, extend the water line, pave the road and install the fiber. And we should. But if we do not build the rest of the community around those investments, we may find ourselves with excellent infrastructure and fewer people left to use it.
Maybe the view from the front porch this week is that infrastructure is not simply what runs underneath a community. It is everything we build around people that gives them a reason, and an opportunity to stay.
