Rural Development Doesn’t Rank at the Top—But the Full Data Tells a Different Story

by Brandon Burley and The Redemption Project

At first glance, rural development appears to fall below the top tier of issues in this dataset.

In the initial breakdown, nearly 30% of respondents rated it as “Moderately Important.”

Compared to other issues—where “Critical” and “Very Important” responses dominate—that number suggests a lower level of urgency.

But that interpretation only holds if the rest of the data is ignored.

In the full dataset, drawn from 2,807 respondents across all 95 Tennessee counties, the distribution tells a more complete story:

• 816 respondents rated rural development as “Moderately Important.”