KAI RYSSDAL: The Great Plains used to be in the news mostly for their economic troubles. Decades of farm crises, and a brain drain to the big cities. Businessmen jetting to meetings in New York or L.A. just made things worse. Flyover country, they called it. Not much going on down there, right? But closer to the ground the economic reality of the Plains today might give both coasts a case of envy. At the Marketplace Entrepreneurship Desk, Steve Tripoli has the story...

Today there's a lot more to the reviving Plains states than heavy equipment. Joel Kotkin of the nonpartisan New America Foundation has been studying the region's comeback.

JOEL KOTKIN: The revival is concentrated in a series of, you can almost call an archipelago, of small cities and towns that are doing quite well. Des Moines, Sioux Falls, Fargo are three very good examples.

Kotkin says the stars are aligning for about a dozen Plains cities. Unemployment in these places is negligible. Wage gains are outpacing most of America. And they boast well-educated populations, growing tech and energy sectors, plus lots of cooperation between entrepreneurs, government and nearby universities...

KOTKIN: This is another option for America in the 21st century, another strength that we can play on, something that we have forgotten. We haven't looked at this huge part of the country that is essentially underdeveloped, and that has enormous potential that we haven't even begun to tap...

For the complete transcript, please visit the Marketplace website.