Describes an effective process for strategic planning of telecommunications in rural areas that includes a needs assessment and an action plan as well as input from businesses, public agencies, and households. Lists elements of a telecommunications needs assessment. Describes the planning processes used in Northeast Wyoming Economic Development…

Rural Development is viewed as a process of improving the quality of life of rural residents. Quality of life has a number of aspects, but the economic is viewed as a particularly strategic one for promoting overall life quality. The economic is defined as providing jobs for rural residents. Two techniques for doing this, inducing firms to locate…

Telephone penetration for rural Native Americans is only 40%. Using telecommunication technology plans, reservation communities can increase telephone penetration through tribal ownership of telecommunications companies, or by working with service providers to increase service or provide community telecommunication centers. Discusses a 1995…

Describes increases in federal aid that affect: (1) the rural telecommunications infrastructure, access to the Internet for rural schools and libraries, and distance learning and telemedicine programs; (2) nonmetropolitan airports and other transportation; and (3) water treatment and wastewater facilities in rural, American Indian, and Alaska…

This proceedings contains keynote speeches, community case studies, and small-group recommendations concerned with successful telecommunications initiatives in rural communities. The four keynote addresses are: "Electronic Highways and Byways: Converging Technologies and Rural Development" (Heather E. Hudson); "Information…

The Idaho Rural Partnership (IRP) was created within the Idaho Department of Labor to join diverse public and private resources in innovative collaborations to strengthen communities and improve life in rural Idaho. The IRP is an accessible organization that listens to local problems and collaborates to develop systemwide solutions. The board of…

A Televillage is a virtual community of people, businesses, government agencies, schools, libraries, health care providers, and others that have common goals or needs and are linked through telecommunications, information resources, and shared services. A Televillage can develop a strategic focus for community and regional development; organize,…

A discussion of the use of videotape to provide a living newsletter'' for the rural and isolated areas of Appalachia. (Author/HB)

Communications is critical to community development, especially rural communities that are poor, immobile and at a distance from a major metropolitan area. The isolation of these communities comes out of a need for cohesiveness within a system that functions for them. There is some mutual support between their economic, political, and social…

American rural communities are decaying, the underlying causes being chronic unemployment and inadequate infrastructure. The information age can cause the ultimate demise of rural America by further eroding local institutions or it can be its savior by revitalizing the sense of community. The link between community development and the information…

This report examines the perceptions of rural Washington community leaders concerning community information needs and the role of communication technology. In-depth interviews were conducted with 34 leaders in 5 selected rural eastern Washington communities that had access to telecommunications education and information systems, and with 15…

Outmigration in the rural Upper Midwest prompted a group of citizens and University of South Dakota faculty to form the Center for the Advancement of Rural Communities (ARC). ARC considers how to stimulate traditionally competitive and isolated South Dakota peoples to collaborate for economic, social, educational, political, and cultural gains. As…

This document contains a wide assortment of papers and promotional materials concerning the Big Sky Telegraph, a Montana-based telecommunications network serving rural economic development organizations. Funded by the US West Foundation and Western Montana College, Big Sky was created to stimulate grassroots innovation in rural education,…

Rural communities have long experienced an outmigration of talented people to urban areas for better employment opportunities. The traditional rural economic model, especially prevalent in Appalachia and the rural South, involves outside capital promoting industrial development separated from community needs and culture. This, at worst, is…

Applications of telecommunications technologies in rural businesses, schools, health care institutions, and government agencies can help make these institutions more efficient and effective, overcome problems of rural isolation, and diversify rural economies. This report considers some of the issues surrounding these possibilities and discusses…