Rural roller coaster: Economic gains are uneven in farm country.

AuthorDrabenstott, Mark
PositionRoller Coaster

Editor's note: The articles in this issue of the Montana Business Quarterly are adapted from speeches given at a Symposium on National Policy for Addressing Population Loss in the Great Plains held last fall in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Were he to visit rural America at the start of the 21st century, Charles Dickens could indeed proclaim that these are "the best of times and the worst of times." The transcending challenge in rural America today is our highly uneven economy-- "the best" one day, "the worst" the next.

Some rural places are doing extraordinarily well; they number roughly four out of 10. What that means, though, is that six of 10 rural places in the United States--and probably even more in the Great Plains--are looking for a new economic engine.

But what is it? Where is it? And how do we find it? The map in Figure 1 sums up the problem. Eighty percent of Americans live in metropolitan areas. Now look at the red patches: the rural counties that had above average economic growth in the 1990s; and now the white splotches: the rural counties that had below average growth.

It is striking where the red constellations are; the largest, of course, is the Intermountain West. It's a place where people are going in droves because they can no longer find the lifestyle they want in California. They love the mountains, they love the freedom, they like a lifestyle that provides all the amenities they're looking for.

Those same scenic amenities are found elsewhere on this map as well. Take a look at upper Minnesota; Lake Wobegon is doing quite well. The women are still strong, the men are still good-looking, and all the children are indeed above-average. And those lakes matter. All those folks in the Twin Cities need a place to go on the weekend. Where do they go? To those lakes, including those in upper Michigan. You can see the Ozarks standing out as well. Country music is an awfully good economic engine. Too bad we didn't discover it sooner.

Then we come to the white on the map. Notice all that white in the Great Plains. When you look at the heart of America, you tend to find one of three things. You find rural counties next to cities doing quite well. You find rural counties that are emerging as retail and financial hubs doing very well. And you find counties that have a transportation advantage doing very well. Thus the thin red line you see running across Nebraska.

The second and companion trend is the decline or very slow increase in population across much of rural America. While the numbers are important, the way they get expressed often puts a strain on leadership capacity. My organization the Center for [the Study of Rural America] held a series of roundtables with 120 rural stakeholder groups last year and we heard over and over again there are too few heads to wear all the hats that have to be worn. The population decline exacerbates this trend; it also puts an enormous strain on the public service delivery system, much of which was created in the 19th century for a 19th century settlement pattern and a 19th century economy.

So what are we going to do? Well, here is what's been happening in terms of population. There is a very high degree of correlation between the map in Figure 2 and the previous one. In this case, the red counties are rural areas that showed rapid gains in population during the past 10 years. Where are they? Not surprisingly, where there are lots of scenic amenities. The counties that had moderate increases are shown in white, and the dark gray areas are those counties that declined in population. A lot of dark gray spreads throughout the Great Plains, throughout the heartland. I would point out, however, it's not just the heartland. Western Illinois suffers from population declines as well. The same is true wherever rural economies are still tied to commodity...

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