According to the Michigan Roadmap to Rural Prosperity, a 71-page report that details challenges that rural communities across Michigan face, the biggest challenges facing the rural community over the next 10 years are: increasing housing opportunities, attracting a larger working-age population, changes to the cost of living, managing population growth and development, and retaining workforce. 

Watershed Voice columnist Charles Thomas writes, “While a cure for depression and anxiety remains stubbornly out of reach, becoming an agnostic thinker and questioning the assumptions we make about the world is most certainly good behavioral medicine. While an apple a day is said to keep the doctor away, doubting our negative assumptions each day can be an effective way to keep the therapist away as well.”