Looking for the area’s story of the decade? A few stories were longer-lasting than others: Ethanol has appeared on every top 10 list since 2001, the Comstock music festivals appeared in five years, school bonds appeared in four years, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan appeared in three years.

The Platte Institute for Economic Research, a conservative Omaha thinktank, commissioned a study (very large PDF) by two UNK professors released this week proposing that Nebraska consolidate its 93 counties into 28. The Omaha World-Herald has an interesting story on the plan, along with a map of what county would go where. The study doesn’t analyze [...]

Caleb Pollard, the executive director of Valley County Economic Development in Ord, wrote a post on his Ord Sunshine Pumpers blog last week about a fascinating Newsweek interview with Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas, the authors of the new book “Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America.” It’s [...]

In a presentation to the Grand Island Rotary Club on Tuesday, John Jordison of the rural-focused group Nebraska Renaissance outlined a strategy to boost Nebraska’s population to 2 million by 2020. (It’s at about 1.78 million right now.) The strategy, from a study (PDF) commissioned by the group last month, is remarkably thorough, with 47 [...]