New Faces and Focus at the Western Rural Development Center
The Aging West: Regional Partners and Prospects
by Erik Kingston, PCED
The Rocky Mountain Land-Use Institute (RMLUI) is always a much-anticipated chance to connect, compare notes, and share strategies for western communities. The 2025 conference, "The Aging West," was no exception. It was also a chance for the Western Rural Development Center (WRDC) to connect with Western planners.
Executive Director Paul Lewin describes WRDC
Although WRDC programs may be familiar to Western Planner fans, the Center relocated to the University of Idaho (U of I) in 2024 and has been busy working to expand regional partnerships and broaden our scope of impact. Staff at the U of I Boise Water Center are tooling up to take on both ongoing and emerging challenges faced by western U.S. states and Pacific Basin communities alike.
WRDC Board Chair Barbara Petty—Associate Dean and Director of Extension at U of I—praised the Center’s new Executive Director, Paul Lewin, “Under Dr. Lewin’s leadership, the WRDC is well positioned to help rural western communities identify and resolve issues while strengthening the places they call home.”
Dr. Petty is also a long-term member of the Idaho Rural Partnerships Board and a supporter of the regional Western Community Assessment Network, or WeCAN. “Dr. Lewin brings fresh energy and expertise in rural issues to the WRDC in his new role. He has assembled a great team and is working with the board to establish a leadership structure to help increase efficiencies and broaden our reach in the western region.”
Roosevelt Roots
Today’s Regional Rural Development Centers (RRDCs) are a modern expression of Theodore Roosevelt's push to strengthen rural America in the early 20th Century. Up until that time, rural communities lacked any organizing framework for their collective economic, social, and cultural progress. Roosevelt convened the Country Life Commission (CLC) in 1908 and charged members and land grant partners with helping rural Americans leverage local resources and develop tools that:
Boost America’s overall agricultural productivity,
Provide Extension and education opportunities for rural populations,
Improve the prosperity and quality of life of farming families and their communities.
The CLC built a network of Extension specialists on the ground to connect rural peers and partners to learn what worked in one community and adapt it for use elsewhere. Decades of success eventually led to the Rural Development Act of 1972, creating the current network of RRDCs jointly administered by the USDA and regional land-grant institution hosts. Lessons from these early years still inform the work of rural development professionals—like WRDC—as we further Roosevelt's vision of a strong and vibrant rural America.
Dr. Lewin stresses a renewed emphasis on the Center’s broad geographic scope. “All western stakeholders—including land grant partners, local decision-makers, entrepreneurs, families, and agricultural producers—are essential to addressing issues unique to our region. Any durable progress depends on their local knowledge and active engagement.” Lewin has a long career as a rural economist, recently serving as Associate Professor and Extension Specialist and Director of the Rural Studies and Digital Economies programs at the U of I.
Lewin adds that Center staff work to break down research on rural economies for practical use. “We want to apply Research and Extension resources to rural development priorities. Our Specialists offer technical consulting for local priorities like housing or entrepreneurship. But we also support professional development opportunities that help local stakeholders build on their existing knowledge and capacity to tackle projects.”
Center staff engage with 30 land-grant institutions throughout the Western U.S. and Pacific Basin, including American Samoa, Guam, Micronesia and the Northern Marianas. The Center brings decades of experience to engage with this peer community as we explore and develop programs involving Extension, education, and research in several areas:
Housing. We understand healthy housing markets that meet the needs and incomes of all residents create community stability and keep incomes circulating locally.
Livability. WRDC follows AARP’s well-established Livable Community principles to guide the infrastructure we all rely on to age-in-place.
Digital Economy. Increases connectivity allowing the benefits of digitalization to extend to all rural Americans while supporting a stronger rural economy.
Entrepreneurship. Small businesses create over half the jobs in the U.S., and represent a vital economic engine that drives our research and extension efforts.
Poverty. Western nonmetro poverty rates were 15.6% in 2024, compared to 12.7% in metro areas. WRDC research explores causes, effects, and possible solutions.
Support for Western States and Territories
While grants have been committed for 2025, WRDC provides modest financial support for projects that address Western priorities. These grants are only available for faculty at Western land-grant institutions and fall into three categories:
Multistate Integrated Research and Extension Seed Grants. foster multistate collaboration and good integration between research and extension activities, to address critical priorities common to two or more states.
Fellows Grant Project. aims to support young professionals to drive community development initiatives addressing critical emerging issues affecting Western rural communities.
Graduate Student Program. designed to build the next generation of rural researchers and Extension professionals. By engaging and supporting young minds, the WRDC hopes to empower them to become professionals in this field and contribute to the development of rural areas in the West.
So, besides the grants mentioned, how can a modest Rural Development Center team maximize its impact across such a large region? Rural leaders and residents face many common challenges, including limited administrative capacity, narrow tax bases, and the need to accomplish more with less every year. Like many communities, their populations are aging, which impacts local volunteer pools and, in turn, civic engagement and institutions.
While we can support the work of Extension experts from Land-Grant institutions to participate in local initiatives, it’s a stretch to imagine a physical WRDC presence in thousands of rural communities with pressing needs.
Our 2025 RMLUI session, Stronger Together: Partners and Professional Development, reflected the premise that community and economic development professionals benefit from mentors and peer networks and that targeted skill-building can create lasting returns. WRDC is engaging with the Northwest Community Development Institute (NWCDI) and Western Community Assessment Network (WeCAN), two well-established regional resources for rural development.
The NWCDI has—until now—drawn participants from Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, while WeCAN engages rural practitioners from Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Our shared goal is to weave these resources, networks, and professional development opportunities together and cast a wider net to serve communities and civic leaders across the West and Pacific Basin.
WeCAN was created in 2017 by veterans of Idaho Rural Partnership’s Community Review process with our counterparts in Montana and Wyoming. Collectively, this design team had experience working alongside more than 150 rural western communities over several decades.
Together, we’ve learned a few things:
Rural residents know what they want and need to make life better for themselves, their families, and their neighbors. While communities can be divided by language, politics, beliefs, or socioeconomic status, when a kid goes missing, a neighbor is sick or injured, or a fire or flood threatens their community, rural people come together. Communities that can learn to apply this instinct for purposeful collaboration know what can be accomplished when residents ‘paddle in the same direction’ to create a stronger town.
Example: Marion, Ohio
Charles Marohn—engineer, planner, and founder of Strong Towns—recently contacted the small town of Marion, Ohio to let them know they were the winners of the ‘Strongest Town’ competition. “We always say that a Strong Town isn't a perfect place,” notes Marohn, “but it is a place that is working to get better. There is so much we can all learn from Marion.”
Some said Marion couldn’t be a Strong Town due to its opioid epidemic, but Marohn says the difference is that Marion “…has not hidden from it. In fact, it's remarkable how they have established effective community support services, with churches leading the way, backed by community donations…When Marion’s main playground needed to be replaced, a group of parents of kids with disabilities built a new, accessible playground—at no cost to taxpayers. When they were worried about local kids going hungry, two of them created the Peanut Butter Jelly Truck, a nonprofit organization that provides free meals.”
Understanding what makes communities resilient in the face of challenges is an important research question, just like understanding the distribution of poverty, housing needs and control, or how best to support entrepreneurs. WRDC fosters sustainable development by linking Western public universities’ cutting-edge scientific research and Extension programs to empower rural families to thrive and prosper.
Peer Networking. Among our new focus areas, WRDC is looking to create peer networking opportunities for Land-Grant colleges and their community partners. Current plans are to host regular peer conversations that explore practical strategies for stakeholder priorities, like livability, community access, and the most common economic and social challenge: housing.
Western Planner members know the West need housing that meets the needs and incomes of all community residents. A March 2025 WP article by Jennifer Murillo and Monica Szydlik of Lisa Wise Consulting notes, “It’s not just a moral and ethical issue, but an economic one as well.” Housing shortages cost Western states billions each year in “…excessive commute times, lost construction investment, and foregone consumption of goods and services.” This foregone spending tracks closely with housing cost burdens. As populations migrate from urban to rural settings, locals are displaced, with housing cost burdens spiking among essential workers, families, and seniors. But housing shortages aren’t limited to our mainland partners.
Governor ‘Lou’ Leon Guerrero welcomes guests to the 2025 GHURA Housing Summit
According to Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority (GHURA) Deputy Director Fernando Esteves, Guam has an urgent need for 10,000 housing units owing to in-migration, Department of Defense (DOD) expansion of military personnel and dependents, and the high cost of importing building materials to this U.S. Territory.
This on an island of 170,000 people, where U.S. military presence alone is projected to “surge to more than 35,000 in the next 12 years,” according to DOD projections.
At the 2025 GHURA Housing Summit, Esteves was among the many speakers pointing to increasing population and gentrification that have driven costs up and locals out. As with any community, housing shortages create externalized costs for the local tax base, nonprofits and social support networks. Since this story is common throughout our jurisdiction, we want to bring partners together—from islands, deserts, and mountains—to learn from and support one another.
Conclusion. Western Land Grant and Extension researchers and practitioners need rural westerners who can help identify local priorities and recommend strategies for practical, durable solutions. We welcome suggestions for successful local models and partnerships in housing, livability, civic engagement, entrepreneurship and poverty reduction that can be adapted to local needs.
Just like Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission, rural Americans still need to “leverage local resources and develop tools” that support progress towards a better life in the country. Connect with us at wrdc.uidaho.edu to lend your knowledge and networks to the cause.
About the Author
Erik Kingston, PCED Housing and Community Access Specialist
Erik brings three decades of focus on housing, community, and rural development centered on independence, opportunity, prosperity, and stability for all residents. His goal is to help individuals and communities anticipate and adapt to change. Erik serves on the Idaho Access Project and national Community Development Council boards and teaches Housing as Second Language and Accessible Communities at NWCDI.