Stateline asks if the arts can help save rural America:

As post-recession, rural America continues to struggle, some rural leaders, using private and public funding, are experimenting with the arts as a tool to fuel economic and community development . . . .

Community leaders say the arts can foster community pride and create jobs, even on a modest scale. To be successful, they say, a rural community must figure out what makes it unique — a gorgeous natural landscape that can serve as the backdrop for a writers’ retreat, an old opera house, or a tradition of local storytelling — and capitalize on that.

The story cites examples in Montana, Texas, Kansas, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Iowa. This sort of thing is happening in Washington, too. See, for example, Mighty Tieton, “an artisan business incubator” in the Yakima Valley.

Opportunity Washington has written about the “growing divide between prosperous metro areas and left-behind rural and small town economies.” Indeed, the Puget Sound metro area has much lower unemployment than other parts of Washington.

But rural areas have their own rewards, including lower costs of living. The Stateline story notes that “young creative types are being forced out of big cities and are looking for less expensive places to live.” Perhaps some small towns can take advantage of that. (Be careful what you wish for, though: The Wenatchee Valley Business World ran a story last month about the challenges of finding affordable housing in tourist towns.)

The Mighty Tieton website gets at the fact that some small towns are better positioned than others to use the arts to draw development. It notes that in Tieton, “The mayor and city council members are dedicated to business development, making it easy for entrepreneurs to set up shop and thrive. We are situated close to major highways and Interstates, making it easy to get the goods made here out into the world.”

Ultimately, there’s not just the one right answer. But anything communities can do to provide more opportunity for their residents is a good thing­—whether it’s the arts, data centers, agriculture, or something else entirely.