Local governments in rural North Carolina play a central role in community well-being, shaping everything from emergency response to long-term economic opportunity. Yet rural leaders often face a distinct set of constraints: small staffs, tight budgets, aging infrastructure, and geographic separation from neighboring governments as well as peer or professional networks. These challenges are well known. What is less clear is why these capacity gaps persist and what steps communities can take to overcome them.
Recent research on rural public administration offers several insights that resonate strongly with the challenges and opportunities facing North Carolina’s rural towns and counties (Jensen, 2025). This emerging research makes one point clear: rural capacity is not merely about money or staff size. Rather, capacity reflects how people, knowledge, infrastructure, resources, processes, and authority come together to support public goals, and how effectively local governments can develop, direct, and deploy those elements to carry out their responsibilities (Donahue et al., 2000, p. 384; Ansell et al. 2021, p. 26).
When viewed this way, rural capacity is shaped not only by fiscal resources, but also by geography, governance arrangements, and relationships that influence how governments learn, collaborate, and respond. Understanding capacity as a broader system, rather than a line item, helps explain why some rural communities struggle despite sound financial management, while others succeed by leveraging networks, partnerships, and local assets.
Below are five key takeaways for North Carolina community development professionals seeking to strengthen rural capacity and improve long-term outcomes.
1. Rural Capacity Is About More Than Money and Staffing
It is easy to assume that capacity gaps in rural communities’ stem primarily from funding shortages or low staffing levels. While revenue constraints are very real, new findings show that capacity challenges extend well beyond financial inputs.
Rural towns often lack not only fiscal resources but also access to the broader networks that help governments innovate, share information, attract talent, and solve problems collaboratively. Even rural governments with sound financial management may experience lower capacity because they operate in environments that limit connection and exchange.
This means the traditional indicators, budget and staff sizes, tell only part of the story. To understand capacity more fully, practitioners must also assess:
- Who rural leaders are connected to
- What information they can readily access
- How easily they can collaborate across jurisdictions
- What infrastructure exists to support regional coordination or assistance
Practice takeaway:
Communities cannot always directly control revenues, but they can cultivate networks, partnerships, and shared-service arrangements that act as “capacity multipliers.” In many cases, regional collaborations can be as important as budget growth.
2. Geographic Isolation Shapes How Fast Local Governments Can Respond
Across multiple studies (e.g., Lobao & Kelly, 2019; Jensen, 2025), one finding stands out: geographic isolation is a strong predictor of reduced response capacity.
Response capacity refers to a local government’s ability to act quickly and effectively in urgent situations—whether that is answering 911 calls, responding to flooding, coordinating after a tornado, or combating misinformation during a crisis event.
Two kinds of isolation matter:
- Distance from centers of innovation
On average, rural governments located far from major population or research (e.g., medical, economic, or infrastructure) investment hubs and often have fewer built-in opportunities to acquire new information, observe innovations, or participate in regional response networks. - Distance from major transportation routes
Physical separation from primary highways or transit corridors can increase travel time for emergency services, slows mutual aid deployment, and raises the cost of collaboration.
These challenges are familiar to rural North Carolina, where mountainous terrain, sparsely populated barrier islands, and low-density regions can complicate response coordination. The research confirms that even when staffing levels and financial resources are similar, isolated jurisdictions still face structural barriers that limit rapid action.
Practice takeaway:
Local governments can mitigate isolation by investing in formal regional agreements:
- Automatic aid or mutual aid compacts
- Shared specialty personnel (fire marshals, planners, building inspectors)
- Regional emergency communications or data-sharing platforms
Such agreements reduce the friction that distance creates and help ensure that critical services are not delayed by geography.
3. Local Government Density Matters More Than We Realize
One of the most overlooked drivers of rural capacity is local government density, the number of neighboring counties or municipalities within close proximity.
Why does this matter? Because governments learn from, collaborate with, and rely on each other. When a community has only a small number of nearby peers, it encounters fewer opportunities to share information, benchmark performance, or coordinate on cross-jurisdictional issues. This can limit what researchers call anticipatory capacity, the ability to plan ahead, forecast needs, develop capital strategies, and identify risks before they escalate.
For example, local governments embedded in dense regional networks often:
- Hear about new grant opportunities sooner
- Gain early exposure to policy innovations
- Have more informal access to peers with specialized expertise
- Face lower transaction costs for coordinating shared services
In contrast, governments operating in sparse regions often shoulder these tasks alone, making long-term planning significantly harder.
Practice takeaway:
If geography limits density, intentional network-building becomes essential infrastructure. Consider:
- Regular cross-county roundtables
- Joint planning retreats
- Shared or rotating staff positions across jurisdictions
- Structured involvement in COGs, regional councils, and statewide associations
These connections enable rural leaders to access the same informational benefits that naturally occur in more metropolitan regions.
4. Rural Governance Is Not One-Size-Fits-All
A major finding from the recent research that rural communities are extraordinarily varied (Nelson et al., 2021). They differ in history, culture, economic structure, political identity, and social norms. Some rural regions face acute demographic decline; others are growing rapidly. Some struggle with broadband and health access; others excel in tourism, agriculture, or outdoor recreation.
This means that “rural challenges” cannot be addressed through a single template, and rural strengths should not be underestimated. Many rural communities outperform urban ones in areas such as:
- Civic engagement
- Volunteerism
- Social cohesion or social capital
- Community identity
These attributes can be powerful tools for community and economic development.
Practice takeaway:
Diagnostic assessments should not simply apply federal rural categories (RUCC, RUCA, population thresholds) but instead:
- Identify unique local assets
- Recognize local history and identity
- Distinguish between types of rurality (mountain, coastal, agricultural, manufacturing-transition, etc.)
Understanding rural variation allows leaders to craft place-specific strategies rather than relying on deficit-based narratives.
5. Rural Assets Are Undervalued, and Often Underleveraged
Despite the structural challenges rural communities face, research consistently shows rural places frequently possess distinctive assets that can be mobilized to strengthen both governance capacity and economic development. These include:
- Natural amenities and scenic environments
- Deeply rooted civic identity
- Strong informal networks and trust within these communities
- Cultural and historical heritage
- A sense of place that strengthens community engagement
Communities that build on these assets, rather than treating them merely a challenge to be overcome, tend to achieve more sustainable development outcomes.
Examples include heritage tourism strategies, outdoor recreation economies, arts and cultural programming, and community-led planning initiatives that tap into local pride and commitment.
Practice takeaway:
Instead of beginning with deficits, begin with what is strong, not just what is wrong. Align rural capacity-building efforts with the assets that residents already value and are willing to support.
Conclusion Rural North Carolina communities face complex, interconnected challenges in governance, service delivery, and economic development. But the story of rural capacity is not just one of limitations, it is one of structure, geography, networks, and opportunity.
Colt Jensen is a School of Government faculty member focusing on city and county management, rural governance, and intergovernmental relations.