{"id":241,"date":"2026-05-18T10:02:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradorelocationreport.com\/?p=241"},"modified":"2026-05-18T10:02:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:02:56","slug":"northeastern-colorado-has-a-lot-to-brag-about-but-also-big-socioeconomic-challenges-that-will-take-many-hands-to-solve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradorelocationreport.com\/?p=241","title":{"rendered":"Northeastern Colorado has a lot to brag about, but also big socioeconomic challenges that will take many hands to solve"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The northeastern corner of Colorado is a great place to live unless you\u2019re old, infirm or poor, and there are a lot of old, infirm and poor people living there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Town of Campo under mandatory evacuation after Oklahoma wildfire moves into southeastern Colorado<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the gist of \u201c2026 Northeast Colorado Intersections,\u201d research commissioned by the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado and compiled in partnership with Colorado State University.<\/p>\n

A 40-page report drawn from the work is intended to be a blueprint for making life better in the six-county region \u2014 Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington and Yuma counties \u2014 dubbed NeCo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether it works that way will depend on how well people can work across county lines.<\/p>\n

That was a theme that emerged from a two-hour meeting held April 30 in Sterling to discuss the report, which concludes what most of the area\u2019s residents already knew: There are health care deserts, and poverty rates, food insecurity and SNAP enrollment all exceed the state level. Housing is old and inadequate and not much more affordable than elsewhere in Colorado.<\/p>\n

On the plus side, NeCo, is an agricultural giant in Colorado, producing more ag revenue than the colossal Weld County next door, but with far fewer people. Beef cattle, dairy, pork and cash crops place the region among the top producers in the nation and five of Colorado\u2019s top 10 ag counties are huddled there.<\/p>\n

Where crops won\u2019t grow and livestock can\u2019t graze, there is a burgeoning alternative energy industry, as wind and solar farms have sprouted in almost all of the six counties.<\/p>\n

Those bright spots were emphasized during a panel discussion by six community leaders from across the region: Akron Town Manager Gillian Laycock; Margot Eversall of the Rural Communities Resource Center; Tricia Hermann, manager of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority for eastern Colorado; Yuma farmer and rancher and former Colorado Agriculture Commissioner Don Brown; Logan County rancher Josh Sonnenberg; and Jim Yahn, Logan County Commissioner and manager of the Prewitt and North Sterling irrigation companies.<\/p>\n

Collaboration is already an ethos in northeastern Colorado<\/h2>\n

It was Brown who first talked about erasing county lines to solve common regionwide problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe (county) lines were all drawn by someone in Denver a long time ago,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThey\u2019re mostly straight lines, but life isn\u2019t lived in a straight line. We need to get better at thinking and working across those lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Colorado nonprofit offers to buy water for fish, a deal that could help farms weather record drought<\/a><\/p>\n

Eversall mostly agreed with Brown, but specifically mentioned ongoing collaboration, drawing nods of agreement from the other panel members.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our area of the state is unique in how much we do collaborate already,\u201d she said. \u201cI know a lot of people in the room here and many of us know who to call on or connect with when things come up. And I think there\u2019s a lot of room to grow, but I think our collaboration is already a shiny spot in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Yahn pointed out that, while working within the region does produce results, there are even larger pressures facing the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I stepped in, as Logan County Commissioner, we had emergency medical services issues, and so we fired up an old committee, the EMS Advisory Council, and we got the hospital involved, we got the city involved,\u201d he said. \u201cWe got rural fire districts involved, and I think we\u2019re coming along really well on how we are going to make sure that our community is covered with emergency medical services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside influences, however, may pose even larger challenges, especially while protecting the water that is essential to the agricultural economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really too small to go it alone. We\u2019re (up) against 5 million people in Colorado that have maybe some differing views than us,\u201d Yahn said. \u201cSo we need to be outspoken. We need to hang together, and we need to really keep pressing forward in northeast Colorado, to make our voices heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the report is stuffed with data and eye-catching graphics, it offers no real suggestions on how to capitalize on the area\u2019s strengths and shore up its weaknesses. That, said Haxtun resident John Chapdelaine, who leads the eastern Colorado office of the NoCo Foundation, is up to the 85 people who attended the Thursday event.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re here to convene conversations and connect partners and bring research and resources to the table, but the real work is going to happen in our communities,\u201d Chapdelaine said. \u201cAnd it happens with all of us here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more If this is sad, we don\u2019t want to be happy: An ice cream story<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community gathered to talk through new research on the 6-county region and concluded fixing the problems demands reaching across county lines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-northeastern-colorado"],"yoast_head":"\nNortheastern Colorado has a lot to brag about, but also big socioeconomic challenges that will take many hands to solve - Colorado Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/coloradorelocationreport.com\/?p=241\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Northeastern Colorado has a lot to brag about, but also big socioeconomic challenges that will take many hands to solve - 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