Side by Side

Ellen talks with SUNY Oneonta sociologist Dr. Greg Fulkerson whose work explores how rural and urban places are not distinct places, but actually a complex adaptive system. He describes how trade has connected rural producers and urban consumers for thousands of years, fueling urban growth while often placing unequal demands on rural communities over tie. He challenges the idea that cities can thrive independently of rural areas and makes the case for stronger, more resilient regional systems that recognize our rural–urban interdependence.

Episode Highlights
07:02 Trade Before Cities

13:15 Agrarian vs Urban

24:01 Globalization and Value

25:33 Defining Urban Rural Systems

28:56 Urban Normativity

36:58 Rural-Urban Academia in Silos

40:36 Future Hope and Risks

More Information:
Dr. Gregory Fulkerson is Professor and Chair at SUNY Oneonta. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from
North Carolina State University In 2006. He currently teaches courses in sociology, statistics, community
development, and environmental sustainability. His scholarly interests include globalization, rurality,
community, agriculture, and the environment. His current research examines rural housing vacancy,
health, and community disengagement. He has given several conference presentations and authored
several journal articles. Since 2019, he has authored or co-authored books on urban-rural systems,
including, most recently, Inequality at the Urban-Rural Nexus, Community in Urban-Rural Systems,
following key works in City and Country, Urban Dependency, and Urbanormativity.

Books authored/co-authored by Dr. Gregory Fulkerson:

• City and Country
• Community in Urban–Rural Systems
• Critical Rural Theory
• Inequality at the Urban–Rural Nexus
• Urban Dependency
• Urbanormativity

Questions, comments, want to get in touch?  Email us at [email protected]. 

Ellen talks with Freya Thurmer, Extension Educator and Zeke Berg, owner of Fresh Acres Farm about agritourism. They discuss agritourism's role in building agricultural literacy and respect for healthy farmland, soil, and water, while also providing family farms with supplemental income. Zeke shares how Fresh Acres Farm's contributions to the local community and Freya shares about Extension's resources for current and future agritourism farms.

Episode Highlights:

02:53 What Is Agritourism

04:38 Fresh Acres Origin Story

06:36 Agritourism Then and Now

14:35 Learning on the Farm

17:53 Extension Support Toolkit

24:57 Community Impact

30:59 Fresh Acres Fall Preview

Additional Information:
https://www.freshacresmn.com/
Fresh Acres Farm 2026 Fall Corn Maze
z.umn.edu/agtourismexchange

https://z.umn.edu/Agritourism
https://minnesotagrown.com/products/farm-experiences/

Questions, comments, want to get in touch?  Email us at [email protected]. 

While Ellen takes a mid-season break this week, revisit one of our favorite conversations from Season 2 with john a. powell, author of The Power of Bridging. In this episode, john explains the harmful practices of breaking and othering and explores the bridging necessary for rural, urban, and suburban communities. john also shares ways individuals and leaders can foster a bridging mindset. This episode originally released on September 10, 2025.

More Information:
john a. powell Bio, https://belonging.berkeley.edu/john-powell
Othering and Belonging Institute, https://belonging.berkeley.edu/
Belonging Without Othering: How We Save Ourselves and the World, https://belonging.berkeley.edu/belonging-without-othering
Belonging Without Othering Podcast with john a. powell and Stephen Menendian, https://belonging.berkeley.edu/podcast-belonging-without-othering

Episode Highlights:
04:20 The Reality of Interconnectedness

11:59 Defining Othering and Breaking

18:41 The Consequences of Othering

35:32 Bridging and Belonging: A Path Forward

44:40 Challenges and Misconceptions of Bridging
54:05 The Role of Leaders in Bridging

Questions, comments, want to get in touch?  Email us at [email protected]. 

Ellen talks with Savannah Barrett, co-founder of the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange (RUX), which brings together people from rural and urban communities to build relationships, deepen understanding, and strengthen civic life. Through storytelling, shared experiences, and immersive gatherings, RUX creates space for participants to explore differences, hold complexity, and imagine shared futures. Savannah reflects on RUX's origin and growth over the past decade as well as what she's learned along the way about the value and challenges of building place-based relationships.

Episode Highlights:
02:14 Savannah’s Rural Urban Roots

06:19 Kentucky’s Urban Centers

07:19 Founding the RUX Exchange

15:38 Water as Connector

23:14 RUX Rewards, Challenges and Complexity

27:07 Beyond Partisan Bridging

35:21 Media Narratives of Bridging Programs & Rural Places

More Information:
Savannah Barrett is Exchange Director for Art of the Rural, a national organization that works to resource rural and Native artists and culture bearers to build the field, change narratives, and bridge divides. She co-founded the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange in 2014, and leads this work alongside hundreds of Kentuckians to combine grantmaking, leadership and network development, narrative change, and institutional bridging to strengthen Kentucky’s communities across racial, economic, and geographic divides. https://www.kyrux.org/leadership

http://kyrux.org/

www.artoftherural.org 

www.graysonspringsinn.com

Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange

https://www.philanthropy.com/opinion/a-second-chance-to-get-rural-america-right/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/16/us/politics/national-divisions.html?unlocked_article_code=1.DFE.Df0z.9bfFCQp7nUcr&smid=url-share 

Questions, comments, want to get in touch?  Email us at [email protected]. 

In the second part of Ellen’s conversation with Hiroshima University professors Simona Zolett and Meng “Mo” Qu, they explore Japan’s Local Revitalization Cooperator Program, an initiative that brings urban residents to live and work in Japan’s depopulating rural communities.

Episode Highlights:

04:05 How The Program Works

10:08 Mismatches And Pitfalls

17:57 Entrepreneur Funding And Risks

22:23 Staying Long Term 

28:55 Advice For Other Countries

More Information:
Professor Simona Zollet is an Assistant Professor at Hiroshima University's Department of Integrated Global Studies and her work focuses on creating more sustainable farming landscapes through organic agriculture and agroecology, as well as developing new ways to connect producers (farmers) and consumers (eaters) and rural and urban areas within local food systems. She also researches the socioeconomic and environmental sustainability of rural communities and peripheral areas (such as islands) in Japan and Europe (mainly Italy). This includes examining rural in-migration (people moving from urban to rural areas), small business creation and social entrepreneurship, the use or creation of local food and farming heritage in innovative ways, and policies related to rural revitalization.  https://www.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/en/igs/zollet
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simona-Zollet-2 

Meng Qu, Ph.D. (Integrated Arts and Sciences), is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University. He serves as Associate Editor for Tourism Geographies and Folk, Knowledge, Place. His research focuses on regional revitalization through cultural tourism, creative tourism, and regenerative tourism, examining international art festivals, regional cultural creation, socially engaged art, creative in-migrants/entrepreneurs, and sustainability as key analytical perspectives. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches from creative and tourism geography and rural studies, he currently leads a comparative project on community-embedded art and rural revitalization across the Asia-Pacific and the EU, while also contributing to research on social change in island communities in the UK, Canada, and Japan. https://www.qu-meng.com/

Island Revitalization Documentary Series: https://www.sicri.net/islandrevitalization 

Featured Publications

•  Qu, M., & Zollet, S. (2023). Rural Art Festivals and Creative Social Entrepreneurship. Event Management. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599523X16830662072107
•  Qu, M., & Zollet, S. (2023). The Power of Small: Creative In-Migrant Micro-Entrepreneurs in Peripheral Japanese Islands during COVID-19. In Adventures in Small Tourism: Studies and Stories. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.7682663.13
•  Qu, M., & Zollet, S. (2023). Neo-endogenous revitalisation: Enhancing community resilience through art tourism and rural entrepreneurship. Journal of Rural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.11.016
• Zollet, S., & Qu, M. (2024). Creative newcomers and local food culture: Revitalization, sustainability, and place-making between rural and urban. Food, Culture & Society, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2024.2443331
  Zollet, S., & Qu, M. (2024). Revitalising rural areas through counterurbanisation: Community-oriented policies for the settlement of urban newcomers. Habitat International, 145, 103022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2024.103022
• Zollet, S., Makino, E., & Qu, M. (2025). Urban-to-rural migrants and lifestyle entrepreneurs: Opening spaces of possibility for sustainable and resilient rural communities. In K. Tanaka (Ed.), Japan sustainability. Lexington Books.

Questions, comments, want to get in touch?  Email us at [email protected]. 

In the first part of their conversation, Ellen talks with Hiroshima University professors Simona Zollet and Meng "Mo" Qu about community revitalization in rural Japan amid rapid aging, depopulation, and urbanization, and the relational dynamics between Japan's rural and urban areas. Simona and Mo describe Japan’s rural depopulation, strict immigration policy, and demographic imbalance in which nearly 30% of the national population is 65+, while in some rural communities, older adults exceed 60% of the population. 

Stay tuned for the second half of the conversation in next week's episode, where Simona and Mo describe Japan's Local Revitalization Cooperator Program, an initiative that funds urban residents to live and work in Japan's depopulating rural communities. 

Episode Highlights:
03:03 Meet Simona and Mo

09:04 Tokyo’s Magnetic Draw

11:34 Japanese Rural Communities at Risk

17:05 Tourism as a Lifeline

20:59 Revitalization vs Development

More Information:
Professor Simona Zollet is an Assistant Professor at Hiroshima University's Department of Integrated Global Studies and her work focuses on creating more sustainable farming landscapes through organic agriculture and agroecology, as well as developing new ways to connect producers (farmers) and consumers (eaters) and rural and urban areas within local food systems. She also researches the socioeconomic and environmental sustainability of rural communities and peripheral areas (such as islands) in Japan and Europe (mainly Italy). This includes examining rural in-migration (people moving from urban to rural areas), small business creation and social entrepreneurship, the use or creation of local food and farming heritage in innovative ways, and policies related to rural revitalization. https://www.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/en/igs/zollet
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simona-Zollet-2 

Meng Qu, Ph.D. (Integrated Arts and Sciences), is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University. He serves as Associate Editor for Tourism Geographies and Folk, Knowledge, Place. His research focuses on regional revitalization through cultural tourism, creative tourism, and regenerative tourism, examining international art festivals, regional cultural creation, socially engaged art, creative in-migrants/entrepreneurs, and sustainability as key analytical perspectives. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches from creative and tourism geography and rural studies, he currently leads a comparative project on community-embedded art and rural revitalization across the Asia-Pacific and the EU, while also contributing to research on social change in island communities in the UK, Canada, and Japan. https://www.qu-meng.com/

Island Revitalization Documentary Series: https://www.sicri.net/islandrevitalization 

Featured Publications

•  Qu, M., & Zollet, S. (2023). Rural Art Festivals and Creative Social Entrepreneurship. Event Management. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599523X16830662072107
•  Qu, M., & Zollet, S. (2023). The Power of Small: Creative In-Migrant Micro-Entrepreneurs in Peripheral Japanese Islands during COVID-19. In Adventures in Small Tourism: Studies and Stories. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.7682663.13
•  Qu, M., & Zollet, S. (2023). Neo-endogenous revitalisation: Enhancing community resilience through art tourism and rural entrepreneurship. Journal of Rural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.11.016
• Zollet, S., & Qu, M. (2024). Creative newcomers and local food culture: Revitalization, sustainability, and place-making between rural and urban. Food, Culture & Society, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2024.2443331
  Zollet, S., & Qu, M. (2024). Revitalising rural areas through counterurbanisation: Community-oriented policies for the settlement of urban newcomers. Habitat International, 145, 103022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2024.103022
• Zollet, S., Makino, E., & Qu, M. (2025). Urban-to-rural migrants and lifestyle entrepreneurs: Opening spaces of possibility for sustainable and resilient rural communities. In K. Tanaka (Ed.), Japan sustainability. Lexington Books.

Questions, comments, want to get in touch?  Email us at [email protected]. 

Ellen talks with Minneapolis-based documentary photographer Drew Arrieta and Springboard for the Arts rural director Michele Anderson about the Art of Rural-Urban Solidarity project which used arts-based approaches to hold space for complexity and to foster dialogue, curiosity, and relationships across geographic and cultural differences. 

Episode Highlights:

03:28 Rural and Urban Identities

08:07 Creative Change Coalition

11:53 Crossing Lines Phone Booth

19:04 Joy and Social Infrastructure

26:18 Other Projects and Examples

32:49 Why Rural-Urban Solidarity Matters

More Information:
The Art of Rural Urban Solidarity

Go Home to Your "Dying" Hometown

Heartland, Heartwork: A Field Guide to Place and Possibility
drew.works

https://springboardforthearts.org/

Drew Arrieta is a documentary photographer and interdisciplinary visual artist based in Minneapolis, MN. Working across photography, textiles, installation, and collage, their practice explores themes of resilience, solidarity, and cultural memory. Drew creates work that is grounded in care and deep relationship, often shaped through collaboration and long-term community engagement. Their work has been featured in Vogue, NBC News, and at the Walker Art Center, and they have received support from the Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, and Magnum Foundation. 

Michele Anderson is Senior Director of Rural Strategy & Partnerships at Springboard for the Arts, where she leads the organization's rural strategy and stewards programs that support artists, creative community development, and thriving rural communities. Based in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, she leads Springboard's Rural Team and advances partnerships and advocacy that highlight the essential role artists and culture bearers play in shaping rural futures. Her work includes leadership of initiatives such as the Rural Regenerator Fellowship, the Rural Futures Summit, and the Falls Community Arts Exchange.

Questions, comments, want to get in touch?  Email us at [email protected]. 

Ellen talks with Ann Eisenberg, a law professor at West Virginia University, about her book Reviving Rural America. Ann examines how urban places depend on often invisible rural resource extraction. Drawing on her experiences studying land use and energy in Appalachia, Ann challenges myths about rural decline, political power, and unsustainability. She offers ideas on the stewarding of rural resources as a shared commons that benefits both rural and urban people and places.

Episode Highlights:

02:10 Ann's Move to West Virginia

03:48 Energy and Injustice

08:44 Writing "Reviving Rural America"

11:10 Myth of Rural Decline

14:57 Myth of Rural Unsustainability

20:13 Myth of Rural Whiteness

23:31 Rural Political Power?

27:14 NYC Supply Chains

30:35 Rural as a Commons + Pros and Cons

More Information:
https://www.anneisenberg.com/
https://www.law.wvu.edu/people/ann-eisenberg/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/reviving-rural-america/E4BEF197D38D1340C3792C635ADF2FE8
https://www.amazon.com/Reviving-Rural-America-Policies-Resilience/dp/1108834019

Questions, comments, want to get in touch?  Email us at [email protected]. 

Ellen talks with Houston White, founder of Houston White Ventures based in North Minneapolis; Pablo Obregon, Director of Community Growth for the City of Willmar; and Glen and Emily Swanson, owners of The Oldenburg House in Carlton County. Together, they share how their community development efforts in North Minneapolis, Willmar, and Carlton County are rooted in local culture, relationships, and a deep understanding of place.

A central theme throughout the conversation is the role of music in building connection, fostering belonging, and strengthening communities. Be sure to check out the guest-curated Spotify playlist below to hear the songs that have inspired and influenced each guest. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1IvuM2wSLCCW8R58fOraLX

Episode Highlights:
03:31 Houston White Intro

05:47 Pablo Obregon Intro

08:19 Emily and Glen Swanson + Oldenburg House Intro

11:33 Jazz as Community Connector

14:06 Willmar Growth and Inclusion

16:57 North Minneapolis Culture Economy

19:16 Rural Culture and Local Assets

21:10 Placemaking and Philanthropy Gaps

27:50 Flattened Narratives and Pride

33:51 Rural Urban Divide Reframed

More Information:
Glenn and Emily Swanson
https://oldenburghouse.com

https://oacc.us, Oldeburg Arts and Cultural Community

COOKIN' AT THE O: Jazz at Oldenburg House, https://oacc.us/cookin-at-the-o-2025/

Carlton County Anthem 

Houston White Jr
https://houstonwhite.co/
https://houstonwhite.co/themixtapestrategy

Pablo Obregon
https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-pablo-obregon-805281102/ 

While we’re working on new episodes for Season 3, revisit one of our favorite conversations, originally released on June 18, 2025. 

Ellen talks with Camden Blatchley, a data analyst with the Center on Rural Innovation (CORI). Camden discusses the complexities of defining rural and urban areas in the United States, and describes the differences between the two most commonly used definitions: one developed by the Census Bureau and the other by the Office of Management and Budget. Camden explains how these differing definitions can paint different images of rural America and reinforce narratives about rural and urban areas as a binary, when in reality they are a complex, diverse, interconnected continuum of geographies, people, and economic conditions. Camden also highlights his work on the Rural Aperture Project and the necessity for more accurate storytelling and policymaking that reflect the true state of interdependence of rural and urban areas.

Episode Highlights:

03:51 The Many Definitions of Rural

10:25 Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Rural America

15:42 Economic Realities and Misconceptions of Rural America

18:09 Rural-Urban Connections

More Information:

Center on Rural Innovation, https://ruralinnovation.us/

The Rural Aperture Project, https://ruralinnovation.us/resources/mapping-and-data-analytics/the-rural-aperture-project/

Defining Rural America, The Consequenes of How We Count, https://ruralinnovation.us/blog/defining-rural-america/

Who lives in rural America? How data shapes (and misshapes) conceptions of diversity in rural America, https://ruralinnovation.us/blog/who-lives-in-rural-america-part-i/

Who lives in rural America? The geography of rural race and ethnicity, https://ruralinnovation.us/blog/who-lives-in-rural-america-part-2/

The reclassification of rural counties and what it means for rural America, https://ruralinnovation.us/blog/the-reclassification-of-rural-counties-and-what-it-means-for-rural-america/ 

Questions, comments, want to get in touch?  Email us at [email protected]. We share your feedback with funders and stakeholders about the value of this podcast and how you engage with the insights and information.