For 25 years I’ve been writing about economic development on the Iron Range. In fact, I could blindly type the words “Iron Range economic development” on the underside of a dark car trunk as I’m being hauled away. One day I might do just that.
Today’s column (gift link) is about Iron Range economic development, but not in the way you might expect. Yes, regions like the Range — long dependent on big industrial employers — need to diversify. They need “jobs, jobs, jobs.” That’s a phrase coined by Gov. Rudy Perpich during the 1980s regional depression that fundamentally changed this region.
But how we solve the region’s economic woes requires more than just job creation. It demands development of the people who will work those jobs. With sufficient creativity, we could develop the people who create those jobs in the first place.
How? Well, we must acknowledge the private crisis affecting families everywhere. If both parents work, they need child care. Right now, that child care is often unaffordable, and sometimes — like on the Iron Range — unavailable to begin with.
New research from the Iron Range Child Care Task Force doesn’t just diagnose the problem; it argues for a series of potential solutions. Though both the private and public sector must contribute, there is a strong argument for local solutions. And while the data relates specifically to the Range; the ideas here could bear fruit for any part of Minnesota.
Read “Up north, parents wait years for child care they can barely afford,” in the Sunday, May 10, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
