Rural Texas

Experts at the gathering at the downtown campus of the University of Texas at San Antonio said the state legislature must act to ensure communities do not become ghost towns.

Local leaders and rural revitalization experts say Texas’ smallest towns can survive — despite a shift to urban and suburban counties — but it will take investments.

Search warrants show that Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson is under scrutiny by state investigators, accused of illegally confiscating cash and a pickup truck from immigrants stopped by his deputies.

American Public Media Research Lab data shows that 24 rural hospitals have closed in Texas since 2005 — the most of any state in the U.S.

Texas’s primary care doctor shortage has taken a sharp turn for the worse during the pandemic, and one rural family doctor is pleading with state lawmakers to do something about it.

While Texas's booming metros will have more people representing them, that’s not the case in more rural parts of the state.

A pipeline helped secure water for San Antonio for decades to come — at a potentially high cost to some rural residents who are losing groundwater to the big city. Is it a preview for the rest of the state as climate change brings more water scarcity and cities keep sprawling?

Throughout the pandemic, rural communities in the Panhandle have struggled to keep up in the fight against the coronavirus. At first they faced limited testing supplies and personal protective equipment. In the fall, they didn’t have enough hospital beds for patients. Now they can’t seem to get vaccines into arms fast enough.

While Texas is responsible for educating more rural students than any other state in the country — nearly 700,000 — it’s not doing as much for those…

Conversations about building strong and economically robust communities can often be focused on bigger cities. An upcoming conference seeks to cultivate,…