Pathways to Prosperity: Moving Beyond Growth to Evaluate Change in Community Well-Being

Thriving places are often recognized as those where it is desirable to live, work, start a business, or raise a family. Measuring this sort of well-being, however, has been a persistent and urgent challenge for researchers, practitioners, and elected officials. Behind this challenge is the complication of the sheer diversity of places and the people who live in those places. Distinct histories, economies, and communities make it nearly impossible to assign a nationally comparable set of the indicators of place prosperity. This is no less true for rural places, which exist as “a mosaic of different landscapes, people, and economic realities” (Kerlin et al., 2022, p. 2). Despite this limitation within the research, as noted by Lichter and Johnson (2022), there is a widely held belief that rural America is being left behind. While Lichter and Johnson, among others (Deller and Conroy 2022), challenge this perspective, empirical studies presenting an alternative picture to one of stagnation and decline in rural America are few and far between.