Rural West

In 2009, the Bill Lane Center for the American West launched the Rural West Initiative, which seeks to research and document contemporary life in the Rural West. Our work examines life in rural western areas through scholarship, public policy, and journalism.

The Rural West Initiative explores issues of the less populated areas of the North American West – places whose natural beauty and heritage are matched only by the challenges they face. These issues, such as access to economic opportunity, health care, education, and housing, often get less attention than they deserve. This is why the Bill Lane Center has made it a priority to study rural communities in the first place. How did we initially approach the difficulties faced by rural areas? First we listened, then we presented research on the problems, and now we are finding solutions. 

The Rural West Initiative is made possible by generous support from the Spencer F. and Cleone P. Eccles Foundation.

We knew that in order to solve some of the rural West’s biggest challenges, we needed to hear directly from those impacted.  Our listening campaign has taken us through eight Western states - Idaho, Utah, California, Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, Washington and Nevada - and in each rural town we visited, we convened community members, local experts and elected officials to better understand what we were up against. We also conducted several polls in the West to gain insight into public attitudes toward land management, economic development, health services, the role the federal government should play, and more.

From listening, we moved on to developing and presenting our research, and now, we are entering a phase of exploring solutions with with local experts and stakeholders to improve the quality of life in rural Western communities. Through research and conferences, we seek to join and energize a conversation between journalists and scholars, citizens, nongovernmental groups and policymakers, about a region that still holds powerful sway over our national imagination and our future.

Each year since 2012, the project has convened the Eccles Family Rural West Conference to share knowledge and ideas about the rural West. The most recent conference, held at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, in March 2024, considered the changing rural Southwest.