Reforming broken rural economies in greater Minnesota

The Iron Range is just one part of greater Minnesota, and no two parts are exactly alike. But political trends clearly show greater Minnesota unifying around a set of shared frustrations with the status quo, many of them economic.

For as long as I can remember, the Iron Range has cried for “jobs, jobs, jobs,” as famously phrased by the region’s most successful politician, the late DFL Gov. Rudy Perpich.

But even Perpich acknowledged that something changed forever after the iron mining industry contracted in the 1980s. He would be nicknamed “Governor Goofy” for his efforts to try new things to fill the economic void. Later, his words became twisted into hope that new employment might be wrested by force to replace mining jobs lost forever to automation and corporate consolidation.

This mantra dominates the thinking in many rural places, including those affected by the decline of agriculture and manufacturing jobs. Thus, we risk yelling “jobs, jobs, jobs” into a wishing well. Politicians may harness rural economic grievances to get elected, but that doesn’t fix the problem. The scope of this failure cannot be measured in presidential administrations, but rather in decades that now balloon into generations.

The mines don’t employ as many people today because the trucks and production plants grew bigger and more advanced, not because of environmental regulation. The collapse of the family farm at the hands of corporate agriculture caused waning fortunes in farm country.

These gains in efficiency could have been used to improve lives in the communities responsible for the success of these industries. But they weren’t.