Carsey Institute Seminar May 10 focuses on challenges facing New England communities
 
The Carsey Institute Seminars will feature "Trenches: Challenges Facing New England's Rural and Urban Communities" Tuesday, May 10.

The seminar will be held in the MUB Theatre II from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. Refreshments and informal discussion follow. All are welcome to attend.

The speakers are Steve Blackmer, president, Northern Forest Center; and David Soule, associate director, The Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University.

Dynamic forces are shaping New England’s communities, whether urban or rural. Soule, former director for the Boston Metropolitan Planning Commission, will be presenting on demographics, diversity, the economy, sprawl, education, the brain drain, and the need to work together as a region, particularly as a force for federal policies that benefit or penalize us.

Blackmer, whose focus is on the Northern Forest region, finds New England’s rural communities to be struggling with loss of jobs and out-migration of youth at five times the national average while, at the same time, record land conservation activity is bringing vast new investment in the forest itself. He will discuss the implications of these contrasting trends and explore new ways to lift community, economic, and environmental well-being together.