It’s so easy to buy into the popular narrative that rural and small town America is shrinking, maybe even dying. But what if the popular narrative is wrong?
Ben Winchester, a senior research fellow at the University of Minnesota Extension, has studied rural communities extensively. Ben uses a great term to describe the phenomena of mistaking a popular narrative for fact; he calls it Anecdata. Anecdata would have us believe that individual stories indicate fact-supported trends. For example, “The Smith kids left the Flathead for Boston and Seattle, therefore, lots of young people must be moving from small towns to big cities.” You get the drift. But, Anecdata can be so erroneous that it becomes dangerous.
We’ve all read the headlines: “Does Rural America Still Matter?” or my personal favorite “The Slow Agonizing Death of the U.S. Small Town.” But let’s review some facts. In 1970, one in four Americans lived in a rural area. By 2010, about one in five of us lived in a rural area. Rural areas had a growth rate of 11 percent during that time while urban communities had a substantially higher growth rate. In other words, people continued to move into rural areas, but more people moved into urban centers.
Notably, too, some of these rural areas had grown so much that they were reclassified as urban! In Montana alone over 120,000 residents have been reclassified from rural to urban by the U.S. Census since 1974 – simply because some of our towns grew so robustly.
So why does any of this matter? Ponder this. High school and college graduation rates have grown in both non-metro and metro areas in recent years, but post-high school graduation rates have grown more vigorously in metro areas. There could be lots of reasons for this. One possibility is that high-income gains in metro areas (that wealth inequality thing, which is particularly prevalent in certain urban centers) have made college more affordable for metro residents. Another possibility is that there are more good jobs available in non-metro areas for those without college degrees. But if we buy into the notion that we’re actually just dying a slow agonizing death, why bother to figure it out at all?
We all know why. First because, despite the morose headlines, rural and small communities aren’t dying and yes, we still matter. Second, because it’s important to our futures and our children’s futures.
We are awash in Anecdata; the current presidential race is so chock full of it that my head hurts. That’s a pretty big problem for those of us living off the beaten path. So, let’s roll up our sleeves and come up with fact-based, workable proposals that enhance opportunities in our backyards. It’s what small town Americans have done for centuries. Because smart solutions usually require more than a catchy headline.
Learn more about Diane by following her column here or visit American Rural at AmericanRural.org.