Local Clusters of Self-Reliance: The Key to Rural Prosperity

By Michael Shuman

At a time when daily headlines bring worse and worse news about the plight of rural economies, it's worth reminding ourselves that success is possible.

Last autumn, Marian Burros of the New York Times wrote a piece about how the 3,000-person community of Hardwick, Vermont, has prospered by creating a new "economic cluster" around local food. Cutting-edge restaurants, artisan cheese makers, and organic orchardists turning fruit into exquisite pies are just some of the new businesses that have added an estimated 75-100 jobs to the area in recent years. A new Vermont Food Venture Center hopes to accelerate this creation of enterprises.

Fifteen years ago, Güssing was a dying rural community of 4,000 in Austria. — read more