Hollowing out the Middle

Hollowing out the Middle: Causes and Consequences

Supper Club

Mike Dargan

April 20, 2010

The rural areas of the Midwest are losing population. Between 2000 and 2008, Iowa's rural counties declined by 4.2% while urban counties rose 8.5%. The state as a whole grew to just over 3 million for the first time, but our size and consequence relative the other United States continues to plummet. In 1930 Iowa boasted 11 seats in the U.S. Congress. We now have five. It appears that we will be down to 4 in 2012.

A disproportionate portion of this decline is occurring among young adults. The best and the brightest are packing up their childbearing potential and heading for the big cities, either in or out of the state. This phenomenon began with the transition from an agricultural to manufacturing society, and has been accelerating as we move from the industrial age to the information age.

Iowa is growing slowly, getting older, and losing political, economic, and social influence.

Frank and Debra Popper argued in their 1987 article, The Buffalo Commons as Regional Metaphor and Geographic Method, that rather than persisting in attempts to civilize the Great Plains--the primary result of which has been predictable boom and bust cycles, it would be wiser to restore the plaines to their natural state; in other words, let nature take its course. The Popper's metaphor was scorned by the plaines men and praised by environmentalists.

Twenty-three years later, the Poppers' figurative language is well on its way to becoming a literal reality: Nature is taking its course; the rural population of the Midwest and Great Plains continues to dwindle despite attempts to slow the trend. It appears that that the depopulation will continue. Adequate rainfall for crops on the Great Plaines is unreliable and the cost of irrigation is growing. In the Midwest, manufacturing jobs are rapidly evaporating. Communication is difficult in rural areas and the remaining population becomes ever more hostile to change as each generation grows older.

Sociologists Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas examine this issue in last year's non-fiction best seller, Hollowing out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What it Means for America. The assertions, conclusions, and solutions of Carr and Kefalas provide the basis for this evening's talk.

Carr and Kefalas's study of Ellis (er, Sumner), Iowa was part of a larger research project: The Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood, conceived by Frank Furstenburg and funded by the MacArthur Foundation. The initial project design called for interviews of young adults from metropolitan areas in the vicinity of New York, San Diego, Detroit, and Minneapolis/St. Paul, in an attempt to discover how they make decisions on education and occupations as well as where they're going to live, work, and raise families. Late in the design of the project, Furstenburg felt that young adults from non-metropolitan areas should also be examined; after all, they do account for about 20% of the population.

They decided that they wanted to study a town somewhere, out there, in the "middle." Not near to a big city, or ocean, but maybe in a "red" state; with lots of bible beaters! At first they were stumped. Their normal interaction with such states was limited to glimpses of itsy bitsy square patches under the clouds from 35,000 feet at 600 miles per hour. Luckily, they didn't have to break out the darts: One of the researchers, Carr, recalled meeting a small town Iowa native who was a fellow exchange student in Dublin, Ireland back in the 1980s. They decided that her town, Ellis, (Sumner) 15 miles from the nearest MacDonald's, 40 miles from WalMart, and 80 miles from Starbucks, would do just fine.

With their location settled, Carr and Kefalas set forth on their adventure to gather data about the natives that they would then subject to "qualitative" analysis. While they felt the need to be close to the townies, these gownies were not about to "go native." Carr and Kefalas, being associate professors armed with grant money, rented a house and got down to doing interviews.

After a series of interviews with local political leaders, educators, and the young people who had recently graduated, or should have graduated from Sumner High School, they divided the young adults into four categories:

The Achievers--those who are driven to succeed and are also praised for their talent and achievements. They get high ACT scores, earn prestigious college degrees, and must live elsewhere because Ellis doesn't have the infrastructure necessary to provide them with meaningful employment. They rarely return, except for visits. The city is very proud of its achievers and allocates substantial resources to support them. The very best go to the "Crown Jewels" of Iowa's Regents' Institutions: the University of Iowa or Iowa State University.

The less accomplished Achievers may attend one of many private colleges or a second tier university, such as the University of Northern Iowa or Upper Iowa University. In any case, only about 1 in 7 of Ellis's residents holds a bachelor's degree or better. Most likely they are school teachers or health care professionals. And, we all know that declining enrollment begets consolidation which provides even fewer opportunities for degreed professionals.

The result? A town with dwindling opportunities for college graduates pushes its best and brightest off to college and subsequent employment elsewhere.

Carr and Kefalas also identify the Stayers: those who think that Ellis is "good enough," and don't want to leave their homes and families. They see Ellis as a great place to raise children, but self limit their own economic and social potential by not acquiring the education necessary to be employable beyond factory and service sector jobs. Their narrow skill set leaves them one plant closure from economic and social disaster.

The Stayers are identified early on as less worthy of support by the larger community. They tend to have less access to the four-year schools. When they do attend colleges or universities, they are less likely to succeed. Often, they take advantage of the nearby community colleges where they may earn associate degrees that lead to careers as CNAs, dental hygienists, welders, or other trade-like occupations. Carr and Kefalas note the irony: Substantial community resources are devoted to supporting people who will go away and never come back. On the other hand, at best, the Stayers get meager educational support, and at worst, indifference from the community.

Yet another self-defeating aspect of the Stayer class is their tendency to pursue work while in school so that they might acquire symbols of adulthood: cars, motorcycles, guns, clothing, etc. The Stayers are often admired for their hard work and diligence, while the opportunity cost is ignored: Hours spent working in the convenience store, or at the feed mill, are hours not devoted to classwork and extra-curricular activities that could lead the Stayers to higher paying careers. The hard working Stayers may be first out of the gate, but the Achievers catch them at the turn and run away on the back stretch. The Achievers are clearly better able to defer immediate, superficial, gratification in anticipation of greater long term rewards. Stayers, on the other hand, are admired for self-limiting behavior.

When the Ellis school board and administrators were confronted with this assertion, rather than disagree, the high school principal replied that "that this is what we set out to do."

Next, are the Seekers--As Carr and Kefalas put it, "What the Seekers know, with the utmost certainty, is that they do not want to stay in the countryside all of their lives." Like achievers, the Seekers know that they want to get the hell out of Ellis. However, like the Stayers, Seekers have missed out on the educational opportunities that would make life on the outside viable.

As a result, the Seekers are easy prey for military recruiters. An 18 year-old high school senior, contemplating life as a waitress or a gut puller at the local slaughterhouse, is extremely vulnerable to trim, articulate, and well-dressed recruiters armed with videos and pamphlets promising excitement, travel, employment, money, and something that the community of Ellis has denied them: educational opportunites both during and after their hitch.

Next in the Carr/Kefalas taxonomy are the Returners: The Returners may be either Achievers or Seekers, but in either case, they are willing to forgo greater career opportunities elsewhere in exchange for the familiar comfort of living in their home town.

Examples of returners may include a few health care professionals, but there's a reason why 60% of Iowa's counties are short of doctors: It's hard to pay off a half million in student loans treating diabetic geezers on Medicare. Other returners might be people who can telecommute, but broadband Internet access is spotty in the hinterlands. Air travel opportunities are sparse. (On the other hand, Iowa's farm-to-market blacktops are a bicyclist's paradise!)

In any case, Achievers who choose to return typically forgo a higher standard of living, as well as urban amenities, for the familiarity of rural Iowa.

Some returners are female Seekers, wanting to marry high school sweethearts and raise families in their home town. However, those sweethearts are likely to be poorly skilled blue collar workers whose economic prospects grow dimmer with each passing year.

The primary purpose of the Carr and Kefalas's project was to describe the decision making processes of Sumner's youngsters. However, as Carr and Kefalas observed what was happening in Ellis, and realized that the town was emblematic of rural decline across rural America, they became horrified by the enormity of the implications of the demographic shift to an older, poorer, less well-educated, and less fertile population and were thus moved to write Hollowing out the Middle.

What difference does the rural brain-drain make? Why should we care? According to Carr and Kefalas's interviews with rural Iowans concerned about the decline of rural America, and seeking solutions, we should care because much of the nation's natural resources and the world's food comes from this region and this alone should be reason to devote resources to reversing the trend towards depopulation.

In fact, if we've learned anything from the past 100 years or so of agricultural progress, fewer people can grow more as mechanization and science supplant physical labor. For most individuals, moving to town means moving up in life.

Carr and Kefalas's research also yields claims by locals that alternative forms of energy and food production are waves of the future and that Midwestern farms are "ground zero" for rolling out the green economy and sustainable agriculture. Once again, a non-sequitur. Alternative forms of energy, especially biomass based, are not now, nor will they be in the future, economically viable solutions to either national energy needs or to rural depopulation. And, even if they were viable, neither solution will be based on masses of human labor. The economics of gathering biomass and transforming it into usable energy are problematic.

[mention the futility of bio-diesel and wind energy without huge subsidies]

Carr and Kefalas's subjects note that rural America has a "historical centrality" that is essential to the health of the nation, and that manufacturing might come back and if it does, "thousands of small towns could, with the right policies in place, once again thrum with success."

I don't think so.

During the industrial age, location and physical communications, like seaports, trains, canals, highways, mattered a lot. In the information age, adding value to data and moving it rapidly from place to place is what counts. High speed electronic communication allows us to effectively transcend time and space. Iowa, with its antique telecommunications infrastructure is lagging behind the nation in Internet access and future looks bleak. Don't believe me? Pull out your iPhone and look for your 3G access. Good luck!

Carr and Kefalas also claim that losing the Midwest would be as problematic as losing the South to rebellion in the mid 19th Century. As we approach the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, counter factual historians are not certain that the war was worth fighting. Before we sink vast treasure into saving those who will not help themselves, let's think it over.

Not satisfied with the arguments of the locals, Carr and Kefalas take a stab at explaining why national policy should be applied to save rural America. "[rural depopulation should be prevented] because we (Carr and Kefalas) believe that there are more than quaint postcard images of sepia-toned Main Streets at stake. We should care because the Heartland is the place that helps elect our Presidents--who would doubt the centrality of winning in Iowa for Barack Obama's campaign?--and it is the place that sends more than it's fair share of young men and women to fight for this country. The future of many towns that give the Heartland its shape and its sinews is of vital importance, and we believe that ignoring their hollowing out will be detrimental in the short and long terms."

I'm no better at counter factual history than I am at sociology, but who is to say that President Hillary Clinton wouldn't have been as good, or even better, than President Obama? Can we be certain that farm boys from Iowa make better cannon fodder than the boys from the ghettos or barrios? Maybe. Maybe not.

Carr and Kefalas do not share my indifference towards the end of the rural American culture. What they perceive as an oncoming disaster, I see as evolution. However, they see a problem and they want to fix it. Their solution? Small towns should take steps to foster the return of the creative class: Engineers, business owners, scientists, designers, artists, and, no doubt, sociologists. Making the Ellis's of the Midwest attractive to the creative class is easier said that done. Bike trails, fancy libraries, parks, latte bars, and DSL (seriously? Why not 4G?) are a start, but hardly enough to attract the critical mass of creative people necessary to sustain Ellis or any other small town.

Carr and Kefalas note that rural America is suffering from the effects of globalization. In order to survive, small towns must take steps to compete on a global scale. Obvious steps include getting rural America high speed Internet access and changing educational practices to exploit the possibilities of moving information long distances at high speed. In other words, human capital investment into the Stayers and Returners, namely bio-tech and digital, is the best bet for long term viability.

Maybe so, but recall that Ellis's high school principal was quite candid about where the resources were going: to the best and the brightest who would leave town at the earliest opportunity. Left unsaid was the huge disparity in resource allocation to different generations. Keeping a young person in a typical Iowa public school costs about $7-10,000 / year. When the elderly go on Social Security and Medicare, their actuarial burden on the government is estimated at around $25,000/year for the 17 or so years of remaining life. Any attempt to throttle growth in entitlement spending risks contact with the "third rail."

Meanwhile, we resent high property taxes to support schools and services to young people, who might actually derive some benefit for themselves and society.

If you drive down the main drag of Ellis you'll see a fabulous hospital, lovely, $6,000/month nursing homes, and schools that are starved of resources. What would Ellis look like if at birth, society were to allocate $25,000 a year toward that child's development through age 17? Would Ellis become a more attractive place for young parents?

We're getting what we're paying for: Vast numbers of elderly people consuming huge allocations of public treasure. Richard Lamm's suggestion that the elderly have "a duty to die" went too far and I'm not suggesting that we start bumping off geezers who seem to be circling the drain. However, if we pay people to grow old and dependent, why should we be amazed when that's what we do?

By the same token, if we ignore children in their developing years, why should we be amazed when they turn out badly?

If we do want to save Ellis from demographic oblivion, wouldn't it make some sense to expend the same effort on behalf of the dependent young as we do on the elderly?

I've said my piece, and I've asked asked my question. Now, it's your turn.