tgebhart

Sep 22, 2009

'Hollowing Out' Rural America
Posted by: Tim Gebhart - 09/22/2009 8:59 AM (Economy, Education, State Issues)

Two sociologists say the meltdown of rural America has reached a tipping point, one which is "transforming rural communities throughout the nation into impoverished ghost towns."

In an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, husband and wife Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas say a brain drain has led to a "hollowing out" of rural America -- losing the most talented young people at the same time changes in farming and industry have changed the landscape for those who stay. Although the couple moved to Ellis, Iowa, about 80 miles north of Des Moines, to do their research, pictures of Arlington, S.D., and Humboldt, S.D. accompany the article on the publication's web site.

The loss of jobs and family farms in rural areas has been caused by a variety of factors, they say, including such things as the rise of agribusiness and big-box retail stores and the decline of unions and blue-collar wages. "Civic and business leaders in the places most affected by hollowing out will tell anyone willing to listen how it is their young people, not hogs, steel, beef, corn, or soybeans, that have become their most valuable export commodity," they write.

They broke the youth into four categories: 40 percent were working-class "stayers;" 20 percent were collegebound "achievers" and they often left for good; 10 were "seekers" joining the military to see the world; and the rest were "returners," those who eventually came back home but only a small number of whom were "high fliers," i.e., professionals. The local high school guidance counselor put it more bluntly, saying "the best kids go while the ones with the biggest problems stay, and then we have to deal with their kids in the schools in the next generation."

Not only is the lack of job opportunities a problem, so is what is available in the workforce. Today's economy demands more than just a high school education for economic viability, meaning "the choices stayers make doom them to downward mobility and poverty." If the best and the brightest leave and the downwardly mobile stay, it's not hard to tell where a community will end up. While some have advocated abandoning the plains (the so-called "Buffalo Commons"), Carr and Kefalas say it would be a mistake to give up on rural America. They suggest a variety of approaches, several at the local level having to do with education and several at the national level dealing with economic stimulus and education.

But rural states like South Dakota do face a Catch-22. While South Dakota works hard to provide smaller schools with Advanced Placement courses and similar opportunities through such things as the South Dakota Virtual School, it probably increases the likelihood the best and the brightest become exports. Even if we do entice them to stay or come back, what are the odds they will return to rural communities as opposed to towns along the I-29 corridor? It's a difficult problem and one I fear may ultimately be insoluble.

(Crossposted at A Progressive on the Prairie.)

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