"Chuck Fluharty parachutes into busted rural economies and tries to figure out how to get them out of the ditch. His latest challenge: Appalachia.

Fluharty's Rural Policy Research Institute is focused on eastern Kentucky, whose coal fields have bled thousands of jobs since 2012 and unemployment rates reached double digits in the hardest-hit counties.

The institute got involved at the request of Kentucky politicians in 2013, putting the region on what's likely to be a long, difficult journey to diversify its economy and address what Fluharty deems the "resource curse" -- when a region's mineral wealth becomes more economic burden than buoy."

Manuel Quiñones reports for Greenwire March 17, 2015. [2]