Our POLITICS + POLICY category provides users with an extensive list of articles dealing with past, present, and future issues relating to politics and policy throughout the UP.
Recently Published
Paper examines challenges faced by veterans in rural America
Rural Insights contributor Jesse Sherman examined some of the challenges faced by veterans in rural America, in a recently-published paper.
Can the UP economy overcome COVID-19?
Former Marquette City Manager Bill Vajda weighs in on a question occupying many people’s minds these days: can Upper Peninsula communities overcome the economic challenges wrought by COVID-19?
Becoming a rural veteran
“Nothing was the same. The friends I had known two decades ago were gone, or exactly as they had been 22 years earlier; my family were older, many had passed, and the number of people crowded all around me was a difficult situation to adjust to.” Army Veteran Michael Rutledge, who served two decades in the service, provides insight into the challenges returning home and how the rural lifestyle of Marquette and the Upper Peninsula helped him readjust.
What is rural? My experience in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
“My experiences growing up in a small rural town have given me a unique understanding of and appreciation for rural communities–so much so that I, like many others, have happily chosen to return to a rural area to work and raise my family.” Dr. Greg Ghiardi of Marquette gives an insightful personal account of what “rural” means to him in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Study finds child care costs, barriers more difficult for U.P. families
A recent Rural Insights paper that examined the child care costs found that, though child care costs present a challenge in the State of Michigan as a whole, they are especially difficult for families in the Upper Peninsula when compared to the urban counties downstate.
