Episode 6: Jane Leonard provides insight into Minnesota’s rural and urban communities connections and disconnections
Oh, ain't got a barrel of money. Maybe we're ragged and funny, but we'll travel along singing a song side by side.
Jane Leonard:We are interdependent. That's such an important word to understand and know about, particularly for the rural urban dynamic. If we recognize that interdependency, we are so much more helpful to one another and stronger for and with one another because of it.
Ellen Wolter:That's Jane Leonard. She's talking about how rural and urban spaces are interdependent. Jane, who is now retired, had a remarkable career supporting rural communities in Minnesota. Jane studied agriculture and journalism, and her first job was in Ada, Minnesota, in Norman County. During her 30 plus career, she worked for, among many others, the Bush Foundation and was president of Growth and Justice, which advocated for effective public policy in rural areas.
Ellen Wolter:Just before she retired in 2022, Jane was part of the Thriving by Design Network, which created the Minnesota Equity Blueprint, a comprehensive long term plan developed with stakeholders across Minnesota to examine how Minnesota's rural and urban communities can work together to leverage their interconnectedness. Jane joined me to talk about this report and how her upbringing and career living and working across rural and urban spaces helped her to see the many ways that these spaces are interconnected. And she talked about some of the recent events that have changed how we talk about and and value this interconnectedness.
Music (Jim Griswold):When they've all had their quarrels and parted, we'll be the same as we started just to travel along singing a song side by side.
Ellen Wolter:This is Ellen Wilcher with the University of Minnesota Extension, and this is the Side by Side podcast.
Ellen Wolter:So we got to know each other when I was working with Wilder Research on efforts in Greater Minnesota. And every time I connect with you, I learn something new. And I think I think I probably don't know really the full breadth of experience you have across Greater Minnesota and Minnesota in general. So to start us off, could you tell us just in what capacity and ways you've worked across Minnesota, during your career?
Jane Leonard:Well, my career goes all the way back to 1979. My first job was as a journalist. I, I studied, agriculture and journalism, for my undergrad and got a job with the Norman county index in Ada, Minnesota, which at that time was celebrating its 100th anniversary. If you can believe it, that they'd been in operation, since the 1880s. I drove into town, got the job site unseen because in those days, you know, we didn't have the internet or zoom or anything, but I'd also spent a ton of time on my grandparents' farm in central Minnesota growing up, but also lived in Bethesda, Maryland as a child and all the way through college.
Jane Leonard:So my life experience up until my first actual job out of college had always been rural urban mix. And so I sort of took that perspective wherever I went. And so moving more into community and economic and rural development, I started working as a student worker paraprofessional for the state planning agency with the Minnesota community improvement program, which took me all over the state, working with small towns, everywhere. And, we also ran the governor's design team and Minnesota Beautiful and Minnesota Main Street. And I became eventually the assistant director of that office.
Jane Leonard:And we moved from state planning to the department of energy and economic development, then became department of trade and economic development, which is now back to deed. It's the department of employment and economic development. So that got me working across the state, doing workshops with people, helping them understand what the internet was and what we could do with it at that time. And that was the mid nineties and people were very curious about it. It was kind of like when electricity came to urban areas and rural areas, but particularly rural areas.
Jane Leonard:And that got me into being on the board of the Minnesota Rural Partners, which was the state's rural development council. And it was part of a 40 plus state of national rural partnership that had been started in both democratic and Republican administrations at the federal level. And believe it or not, federal agencies actually volunteered money to states to help coordinate rural development in each of those states. And we had probably one of the best rural development councils in Minnesota Rural Partners. And I eventually became executive director of that and eventually ended up helping to start Minnesota Office of Technology, which continued to bring even more advanced technologies like electronic commerce to the state.
Jane Leonard:And so all of these jobs really kept me knowing and being in greater Minnesota and in urban areas of, of the state and seeing the, the connections and the disconnections.
Ellen Wolter:It's really helpful. I think to hear the breadth of experience you have in rural and urban places.
Jane Leonard:Yeah.
Ellen Wolter:And then also, I think historically, you know, some of the ways in which you've seen systems and policies change over time in terms of how rural and urban areas are connected or less connected. Can you talk a little bit more about what those are, some of our connections and disconnections?
Jane Leonard:Going into the early years of the 2000 was the executive director of the menis sesquicentennial, which was our 100 and fiftieth anniversary of statehood, which really showed me how quite disconnected we were in terms of greater Minnesota and let's call it more urban minutes, particularly as compared to when I first started out in the late seventies, early eighties, when there still was, I thought a pretty strong tie between rural and urban people in places, just because a lot of people had grown up in small towns and, you know, migrated maybe to the bigger cities, but still had ties and roots, agricultural and small town areas. One of the things that was very seminal for me was experiencing in the mid eighties, the, the farm crisis and the recessions of that time. The state at that time decided the legislature under leadership of, Rudy Perpich, who was governor at the time and legislative leaders and foundation leaders too, to create the rural development act, which created the initiative foundations and other organizations that recognized that we needed to invest in our rural areas as much as our urban areas. And at the time there was also the urban initiative act, which was part of that rural development act to show that there was that connection.
Jane Leonard:And I think what jumps to most people's mind is, you know, food, fiber, water, energy. Those are things that, that we depend on rural areas for. We're so used to, particularly in urban areas, you know, turning on a light switch or turning on our water faucet and there's clean water, there's energy, but that's coming from somewhere. We need to remember the places where that comes from. It's mostly in our rural areas and here in Minnesota in particular, you know, where the Mississippi river starts and where it drains into the Gulf of Mexico.
Jane Leonard:You know, you just see those connections so vividly. I think if you just step back a bit, we are connected here in Minnesota, not only to ourselves as Minnesotans, but as stewards for a core of this continent that we live
Ellen Wolter:on. That's so true, Jane. And I think, you know, oftentimes it's sort of rural and urban as separate entities, and there's there's not as much of a conversation around all of these important ways in which we are connected. So I Yeah. Appreciate those examples.
Ellen Wolter:And then, of course, there are disconnects across rural and urban spaces too. So what what have you seen in terms of the disconnects?
Jane Leonard:I think the disconnects come in how we sort of see one another as urban and rural people. Rural people, you know, may be fearful sometimes of coming into an urban area. And I remember when we did the thriving by design conference to, pull the Minnesota equity blueprint together, we did that in Granite Falls and really worked hard to get urban people out to Granite Falls. So I think the disconnect is just having this perception in some ways that we are different people because of the places that we live in. And yet if we think about the core aspects of our lives, the importance of family and friends and neighborhoods, whether it's a small town neighborhood or an urban neighborhood, there's so much that is similar for anybody who's lived in a small town or, or rural area on a farm or place that's, you know, surrounded by 5 acres of, of land.
Jane Leonard:That isolation is certainly a difference. But you can also be isolated in an urban area because there's so many people and so much, so many strangers and in an urban area, there's more of an opportunity to be disconnected if you will. And if you want to be disconnected, that's great. But if you don't want to be disconnected, it can be very lonely as well as being in a, an, a rural area that that may be far from other populations.
Ellen Wolter:Yeah, I think that's right. And, and I think also the converse would be when I lived in Minneapolis, for example, my neighborhood started to feel like a small town.
Jane Leonard:Exactly.
Ellen Wolter:You know, so there's also that experience too
Jane Leonard:Right.
Ellen Wolter:Where you you see the same people at the grocery store, and I am from a rural area. And so for me, I thought, oh, well, that's I hadn't I didn't expect that.
Jane Leonard:That is great. And that really, I think tells you that it's important wherever you live to try to, get along with your neighbors and to, you know, be a part of that, spirit of a neighborhood, if you will, because we, we do depend on each other, whether we know it or not.
Ellen Wolter:Jane, do you feel like we are in new territory in terms of how folks are feeling less connected across rural and urban spaces, or is this something that you feel like has kind of always been there and is maybe just exacerbated?
Jane Leonard:You know, when I started out my career, the internet didn't exist. People were often from a small town and they migrated to Minneapolis or wherever. So there were, I think there were stronger connections and understanding of small town life versus big city, if you will. And it's interesting because, you know, the promise of the internet was that we would all be connected somehow and we all be more understanding and that geography wouldn't quite so much. And I think what's happened is that people have found their own little niche and they kind of stick with it.
Jane Leonard:So in some ways we're less connected, even though we have more, electronic connections. So we have to work a bit harder to, to connect on geographic human level, I guess, and get out and see, see the countryside if you can. And also encourage people who live in smaller towns or rural areas to, you know, come into the city once in a while and see how how that life is like.
Music (Jim Griswold):Well, if we could move on to talk a
Ellen Wolter:little bit about the thriving by design work, Jamie.
Jane Leonard:Yeah. Yeah.
Ellen Wolter:You know, because that is really work that, as I understand, aim to bring rural and urban people and ideas together.
Jane Leonard:Yeah. I I will. And that that work took place when I was at Growth and Justice, which was the first, which was the last job that I had really before I retired. It was an effort because we, many of us there at Growth and Justice and also 1 Minnesota dot org and others, you know, real coalition of some of the initiative foundations and others across the state, you know, recognized that intersection between, rural and urban people. And some of us who had been active with Minnesota Rural Partners, which was the state's rural development organization, starting back in the mid nineties had also been seen, you know, some of the similarities and differences and challenges and opportunities across that sphere.
Jane Leonard:And we recognize that maybe it was time to put together, what we call the Minnesota equity blueprint to show that we definitely had challenges, but we could face those together and we had opportunities that we could all and should all share in. And so we put together this network called the thriving by design network because we can be intentional about thriving and we wanted to focus on that real urban interdependence. And so it was kind of building on maybe 20 years understanding that there were relationships that were important between rural and urban places and people and challenges and opportunities. And what, thriving by design, rural and urban together did was organize all that over a period of time in a couple of different key areas. We finally got down to human capital, economic development, infrastructure and environmental resilience, and really dug into both community conversations and also pretty heavy duty research from, experts in the fields that related to those areas.
Jane Leonard:And so put together a blueprint, literally what we're facing as a state, thanks to the McKnight foundation and Blandon foundation and others. That report is, is still available online, some places, and, you know, really dug into that idea of rural urban interdependence and that we do depend on each other for good. As I mentioned before, you know, food, energy, human capital, I mean, human capital is so important. People coming from all these different places and then mixing their ideas and perspectives, and how important a place we have here geographically in terms of the, the watersheds, not just for Minnesota, but the continent, literally we are stewards here and we have to take up that responsibility. We're lucky that we here in Minnesota, I think appreciate the challenges and opportunities that we have now and ahead of us.
Ellen Wolter:No, it really is a wonderful report and listeners will be sure to share a link to it so you all can take a look at it as well, because it really is a fantastic, body of research and, voices heard from our own state. And I'm just gonna read, a little something from that report .
Jane Leonard:Sure.
Ellen Wolter:So we can kinda just give folks an idea of of how solutions are talked
Jane Leonard:about.
Music (Jim Griswold):Mhmm.
Ellen Wolter:So the report, it says interdependency and interrelatedness are everywhere. None of the policy goals or solutions identified in the report and and elsewhere would, if enacted alone and in isolation, result in stable permanent improvements. Could you talk a little bit, Jane, about the idea around that statement and and what that means?
Jane Leonard:Right. Right. You know, we're we're so kind of a just in time sort of country and place and thinking sometimes, and it can be very difficult for us to, as a people sort of step back and realize that we're part of a ebb and flow of time and place and era, and resources. And so I think what, you know, what the report and the work did was just remind us again of our interdependence and to understand the interrelatedness of things and people and places and how, even though we sometimes don't want to depend on other people or other places, we almost have to. And I think in a state like Minnesota, I like to remind people that, you know, many people who live in the twin cities have a cabin up north or, go to the lake for 2 weeks or during the summer.
Jane Leonard:And when you do that, think about some of the differences in those places, but also some of the similarities. So yes, have fun eating at your favorite restaurant in Alexandria or someplace, But also remember that people live there and work there and go to school there just like you do, no matter where you live there, we, we are so much more alike than we are different. We are stronger when we recognize our dependence on one another. We are interdependent. That's such an important word to understand and know about.
Jane Leonard:And particularly for the rural urban dynamic here in Minnesota, because we are such an agricultural state still, and we still have a number of agribusinesses that are mostly located in the twin cities, and yet they too depend on the work and the food and fiber, that, and the energy, you know, that's created in rural places, and vice versa. You know, my whole career really, has been built on this idea of interdependence and maybe it is from being a twin myself that we can survive maybe without each other, but we thrive when we recognize that interconnectedness. And that's why we call this thriving by design. The report and the, and the whole process is because, by design, if we recognize that interdependency, we are so much more helpful to one another and stronger for and with one another because of it.
Ellen Wolter:Yeah. And you mentioned earlier, Jane, you know, in addition to our interdependence, we also have so many similar challenge of the challenges that are similar. Right? Yeah. Childcare, transportation, you know, housing costs.
Jane Leonard:Exactly.
Ellen Wolter:So in addition to our interdependence, it's it's finding ways to solve those challenges together. Right. Yeah.
Jane Leonard:Yeah. You know, that was one of the wonderful things about the Thriving by Design process is helping people recognize that interconnectedness, some of the similarities and some of the differences, but the ideas and the solutions that we can share from one place and all the different ideas that come from across the state could be applied in other parts of the state as well, instead of sort of separating ourselves into rural, urban, suburban, or exurban, or, you know, whatever. We're so much stronger together than, than we are apart. Yeah. You know, I've been lucky enough to, you know, be a part of families and neighborhoods and places where people do care for each other and understand that people come from different backgrounds and, you know, how can we, how can we come together as, as people, you know, right now where we are, You know, I think we do forget sometimes that history tends to repeat itself.
Jane Leonard:You and I were talking before we started about some things that I've been reading over, over my many years of, of work and life that tell me that even what we're experiencing now, sometimes that rural urban disconnect has been happening throughout time as well. I wanted to read something for your listeners. So this is a report from the University of Minnesota. And it concludes with on the whole, the village people have a surprising number of comforts in their homes and live in attractive houses. The cost of living is decidedly low as compared with city life, and people with moderate means enjoy certain comforts that would be impossible with the same incomes in larger cities.
Jane Leonard:This is one of the principal conveniences of small town life. Although on the other hand, the small town offers but little employment for the young people, thus forcing them to move to larger cities to gain a livelihood. There is much more noticeable movement of young people from the village to the city, than from the farm to the city. And I'll just, you know, see if your listeners might want to guess as to when that was written. And while they're considering that another part of this report, was that they had noticed two changes in the development of social life in the village since the early days.
Jane Leonard:These are first, whereas formerly the village people, I love how they call it the village people.
Music (Jim Griswold):I keep thinking of the band, right?
Jane Leonard:The, the village people in the farming population makes freely in the social activities of the village. Today, there is very little social intercourse between the village and the country. And second, while the village, while the people of the village formally got together for general good times, Today, they are split up into groups or clicks, each group having its own social activities. And, you know, you could read that and think, oh, it's, you know, maybe they're talking about the internet. Everybody's got their own, you know, little corner of the internet.
Jane Leonard:But actually this was written as a report, from the University of Minnesota in January of 1915 of the social and economic survey of a community in the Red River Valley.
Ellen Wolter:Oh, wow. That's amazing.
Jane Leonard:It's kind of reassuring sometimes to read those things because even though we feel like we're going through such turmoil, our ancestors went through similar similar times and challenges, I think.
Ellen Wolter:Jane, I think you're right. That historical perspective is so helpful. Are there ways in which, you know, you saw in your work, years ago that, that there were systems and policies that helped to better promote connectedness. I'm just curious your perspective on that.
Jane Leonard:Yeah. You know, one of my first wonderful jobs was, you know, just getting people out into rural places from urban areas and getting people from rural areas into urban places, you know, having that exchange, I guess. I think when I was working on the Minnesota Community Improvement Program back in my early days, there did seem to be more excitement, I guess, for people in small towns and neighborhoods to work together to improve things. And then we had an award program for it. A state, a statewide award program.
Jane Leonard:Had people come to a conference every year to mix with, you know, people from the suburbs and from urban areas and from rural areas and learn from each other about the different community improvements that they were making. And I think that still happens, but maybe more on a community by community level and not so much on a statewide, everybody coming together sort of level. I think we think that since we're connected through the internet, if you will, and we can learn about so many things that coming together physically face to face with each other, maybe isn't as, useful, but I think it really is. I think we're, you know, to a point where it might be time again for, you know, the community improvement program to, meet and mix. And, you know, we did those programs with the Minnesota extension service.
Jane Leonard:Those were, you know, conferences where, you know, we go up to Brainerd or, you know, go down to Winona or Marshall or whatever, you know, get people kind of moving around the state to, to go see where other people lived and how they lived and what their challenges were. You know, when we did the Minnesota Equity Blueprint, you know, we, we talked about that a little bit ago, the thriving by design rural and urban together. That was one of the points we were trying to make was to get people actually meeting together again, from different perspectives, from different geographies. We really worked hard to get a mix of people at those first meetings. And we had about 200 people and we literally asked people to sign up as delegates, kind of representing their geography, whether it was a urban city kind of setting or a very small town or somebody, you know, out of farm in the countryside, not in any town at all.
Jane Leonard:And, you know, some of the comments back, if you if you read the report, you can see that people understood that they had many similarities with people, even if they lived in, you know, downtown Minneapolis. And they were talking with somebody from Brainerd or even smaller towns, towns of 200. And so I think it's really incumbent upon us to continue to be intentional about meeting with people, not just driving through these places, but, you know, sitting down and having a cup of coffee, getting to know each other a little bit more, so that we can navigate, you know, the differences that we perceive we have, but then, you know, continue to understand that interdependence that is, is so critical to our survival, but then, you know, why we called it thriving by design is that we thrive together. We have to work on that intentionally.
Ellen Wolter:Yeah. No. Absolutely, Jane. I was just thinking about, you know, some of the challenges that you raised, right, about how we are so connected, on the Internet. Right?
Ellen Wolter:And, you know, there are ways it seems like like to me that, you know, there are there are fewer offices out of state out state, for example, for different state agencies. There are fewer newspapers across the state. You know, there are fewer reporting offices out state than there ever. So I just think too about have we disconnected in ways systemically in ways we should think about.
Jane Leonard:Yeah. Really good point. Because I think as as the, as we were building the internet, I can, I can safely say I was a part of that? I think the promise of it was that we would break down some of the geographic barriers. And yet I think, you know, 20 years later or however long it's it's been 25 years later, it's almost the opposite that people have cocooned if you will, where they are because they can connect electronically, but they don't make as much of an effort.
Jane Leonard:I think to, travel physically, maybe to be in different geographic places, if they're able to, you know, financially and physically and all that. Also, we have so many channels and, you know, passageways into just what you like to learn about, or you like to hear about and less ways that we mix more just serendipitously. And so as a country, as a state, as a community, I think it's really important that we make sure that we mix with one another.
Ellen Wolter:Yeah. It's you're so right, Jane. And there are just so many ways I think in which, when you connect with people eye to eye, you can really build that relationship as you're saying. And then also check your assumptions. You know, so many perceptions we have about rural and urban and many other aspects of, of people are often wrong.
Ellen Wolter:Right. And so when you're kind of just sitting behind your computer, you can't do that. And so there is a way in which we all need to come together more intentionally. Are there other examples or ways that folks are doing that that you've seen across the state?
Jane Leonard:I've been, you know, a part of rural urban, exchange, which is patterned after a program that started on the east coast that, works intentionally to bring people from rural and urban places together for weekends and, you know, learning about one another, both as people, but also, you know, places where we come from. LEAD for Minnesota, which I've also been a part of, you know, helps people who started out in small towns, you know, maybe get back to their small towns with 2 years of service, you know, kind of built on the AmeriCorps model. You know, that's another way that I think rural and urban young people and people of all ages. I mean, AmeriCorps is for people of all ages that rural and urban people mix and serve in rural and urban places. If they're an urban person to start with, they might, you know, have a rural assignment or want to have a rural assignment and vice versa.
Jane Leonard:So, you know, these kinds of programs, even though they're not widespread enough are ways that we can continue to help people mix. Because you just don't know what you're missing out on. If you let's say you grew up in a small town or grew up in an urban neighborhood and you never step foot in a small town or you never step foot in the city, it's just really important that we mix people and experiences places so that, that we do thrive, going forward and that we get past some of, you know, more, I'll just be frank, you know, some of the hateful rhetoric can arise when we really don't know the people that we're talking about. So helping people get to places, and experiencing people as people as, as friends, if you will, I think can go a long way to cutting down on that, that rural urban divide that people like to bring up and that gets perpetuated in the media. When, if you're lucky enough to be somebody who's been a part of a rural urban exchange or, you know, spent time with your grandparents or who, you know, wherever you might have a rural experience, if you're an urban kid or a urban experience, if you're a rural kid, just really important to do that so that you can see that, you know, we are all human beings and really enjoy deep down being with one another, no matter where we come from.
Ellen Wolter:So Jane, thank you so much for for sharing your experience and expertise today. And, you know, as I said, when we started, I could I could talk to you for hours. So I just wanna thank you so much, for coming on today.
Jane Leonard:Well, thank you, Ellen. It's been a pleasure. And yeah. Thank you.
Ellen Wolter:Thank you for listening to Side by Side. We welcome your emails at sidebysideumn.edu. Side by Side is a production of the University of Minnesota Extension and is written and hosted by me, Ellen Wolter. Nancy Rosenbaum is our senior producer. Special thanks to Jan Jekyllah, who designed our wonderful logo, and Jim Griswold, who sings and plays guitar in our opening and closing credits.
Music (Jim Griswold):It really doesn't matter at all.
Ellen Wolter:You can find episodes of Side by Side wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back next week with another episode. I'm Ellen Walter, and this is Side by Side.
