
Competition among neighboring rural communities, whether based on past actions, a zero-sum mentality, high school sports team rivalries, or other factors, rarely make sense when it comes to improving economic prospects for more people. No one rural community can typically meet all of its needs and achieve prosperity or advance equity on its own.
Intentionally and consistently analyzing, planning, and working together across the regional footprint that shares a challenge or opportunity breaks down barriers, builds trust, and ultimately maximizes the use and strengthening of assets that exist in each community as well as the region. This ensures that both investments and returns can happen at a scale that increases dynamism and meets the equitable prosperity aspirations of the region.
Building Block Evidence
Evidence suggests that regional collaboration across geographies, jurisdictions, and functions can be effective in improving social and economic opportunity.1,2 Some researchers have seen regional collaboration as a response to urban-rural divide narratives3,4 and as an institutional response to the realities of rural-urban interdependence.5,6 Principles for effective regional collaboration include: building and sustaining trusted regionally-focused institutions with deep roots, contextual understanding, and strong analytical capacity; recognizing that everyone, urban and rural alike, contributes to regional well-being; addressing inequities of geography, race and ethnicity, gender, income, and class to improve social and economic opportunity and health for all people and places; connecting the many elements that create and sustain healthy economies and communities into regional ecosystems; and investing for the long-term.7
See also, 10: Regional Analysis and Action for an overview of regional studies.
- Dabson 2019
- Dabson & McFarland 2021
- Dabson 2007
- McFarland 2018
- Lichter & Ziliak 2017
- Gebre & Gebremedhin 2019
- Dabson, Okagaki, Markley, Green, Ferguson, Danis, & Lampkin 2020
Curated ReSources

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Field Items
We see the framework as a living document, which necessarily must evolve over time, and we seek to expand the collective ownership of the Thrive Rural Framework among rural equity, opportunity, health, and prosperity ecosystem actors. Please share your insights with us about things the framework is missing or ways it should change.