Rural America's future isn't written

A recent New York Times opinion piece suggested that no one knows how stop the undermining of rural America from economic forces. While these forces have driven a growing divide between urban and rural communities, we can’t allow the past or the scale of the challenge deter from incremental progress or big ideas.It is time to have a serious and thoughtful discussion about the issues that are affecting small towns across this country. In an era of fragmentation, isolation and divisiveness, it is easy to discount rural communities and the people who live in them. First, we must first understand two things: Rural America is not monolithic. Historically, people and talent have flowed between rural and urban regions.To get away from the disruptive and unproductive rhetoric about rural America, we must change our mindset, and consider that this conversation is not a case of urban vs rural.