GRAND FORKS — Collaboration was a key point of a panel discussion during the final day of the Economic Development Association of North Dakota’s spring conference.

The panel focused on building communities, especially rural ones, and outlined the struggles of those areas to grow. Dawn Mandt, executive director of the Red River Regional Council, mentioned the housing study being performed by the Red River Community Housing Development Organization and a comment from Executive Director Lisa Rotvold.

“The entire housing system is broken around rural housing,” she said.

The EDND spring conference, held in Grand Forks for the first time in 10 years, brought together local and state leaders, businesses and other community organizations for discussions about economic development . The panels held during the third and final day of the conference took place in the Olive Ann Hotel’s Cloud 9 Suite. One of those panels, “Reviving Main Street-Small City, Big Ideas,” was moderated by Mandt and featured Rebecca Undem, founder of Growing Small Towns, an organization in Oakes focused on community development; JoLynn Disckson, president of the Gilby City Council; and Laura Weber, the business growth coordinator for North Dakota Small Business Development Centers (ND SBDC).