One rural Alberta region is using social media and funky billboards to encourage young people to move there.
“We want to target people with rural roots,” said Christie Dick, economic development officer with the Special Areas and Municipal District of Acadia.
With only 11,000 people living within five million acres in the east-central Alberta district, the Return to Rural project hopes to appeal to those looking for a quiet, more affordable place to raise a family.
The billboards, websites and social media tools are a way of connecting and getting people interested in returning home or moving to a rural area.
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Once they have their attention, they are connected to a Return to Rural ambassador, who in turn connects them with a local economic development or technology officer to help them explore the area’s opportunities.
With high speed internet available across the region, Dick of Oyen, Alta., said young families can use technology to set up satellite offices of their city businesses, start their own business or take over an existing small town business at a lower cost.
“We ask people to be new age pioneers and come out and create their own jobs,” she said.
By attracting youth to rural areas, the Alberta communities are hoping that they can reverse the outmigration and create a template for rural revitalization across the province.
Dick said they hope to build a bank of local success stories for their social media sites that show how people can move from the cities.
We want to say it’s OK to live in rural anywhere,” she said.
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