Cambridge Forum; WGBH Forum Network; Hollowing Out the Middle: Rural Brain Drain

So welcome to Cambridge forum discussing the Rural Brain Drain. I'm Patsy sarky director of Cambridge for thousands of small communities in the heartland of America are being depopulated as the brightest and most ambitious of their young people. Abandoned farms and small towns where the challenges and rewards of cities in 2001 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation are speaker Patrick car and his wife Maria Kefalas moved to Iowa to investigate the phenomenon they call hollowing out what happens to communities left behind when the next generation leaves for college and careers. What does this de population mean for the rest of the United States and for our national identity. Patrick Carr is associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University. Among his earlier books is clean streets a study of grass roots activism in a Chicago community. His latest book co-authored with his wife

also a sociologist from the follow us is hollowing out the Middle The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America. His book serves as the basis for our discussion. Welcome to Cambridge forum. Patrick Carr. Thank you Pat and thank you to the Cambridge forum for inviting me here tonight. It's a pleasure to be here at an event that's been going on for 43 years and hopefully I know that I won't kill it. So that's my my goal. One of my goals. I also want to thank the people from Beacon Press who believed in this book when few others did. And several of them are here in the house tonight Gayatri our editor Pam our wonderful publicist and Joanna who has also helped us enormously. So tonight I want to talk about what's going on in small town America specifically what my wife and I call the hollowing out of many small towns across the American

heartland which we believe has severe repercussions for the country as a whole. The most dramatic evidence of this rural meltdown has been the latest manifestation of the brain drain that is losing the most talented young people at precisely the same time. The changes in farming and industry have transformed the landscape for those who stay. The brain drain isn't a new phenomenon and we certainly didn't discover it. But but the 21st century. The shortage of young people in small towns is reached. We believe a tipping point and its consequences are more severe now than they have been before. Simply put many small towns are years away from extinction while others limp along in a weakened and debilitated state. To give you an idea of the scale of this issue consider the following. In just over two decades more than 700 rural counties from the plains to the Texas Panhandle through Appalachia last 10 percent or more of their population. Nationally there are more deaths than births in one out of two rural counties

until the hollowing out process feeds off the current recession. The problem predates And indeed we think pre-staged many of the nation's current economic woes. The symbolic significance of small towns is very powerful and very resonant. Yet the very real rural crisis that assuages the heartland is barely visible. Moreover we think this crisis perennially takes a backseat to the more visible big city woes. And while there is a veritable academic industry devoted to chronicling urban decline the small town struggles have been largely off the grid and yet upon close inspection the rural and urban downturns have much in common. Even though our conventional wisdom comes a small town as the embodiment of all that is right with America and the inner city is all that is wrong with it. The noted Harvard sociologist and the best boss that I ever had. William Julius Wilson famously describes how deindustrialization joblessness middle class

flight the population and global markets Schiff's gave rise to the urban hyper ghettos of the 1970s and these same forces in their most recent manifestation are now afflicting the nation's countryside. The differences are just in the details in urban centers. Young man with NBA replica jerseys selling dime bags from vacant buildings while in small towns drug dealers wearing NASCAR T-shirts and living in trailer parks and use meth. Young girls in the countryside who become mothers before finishing high school share stories of lost adolescence and despair that differ little from the ones their urban sisters might tell in both settings there was no shortage of guns. Although in North Philadelphia badlands of Chicago's south set. Those guns are more likely illegal. Well in small towns guns hang on display in polished oak cabinets. But despite the seriousness of the hollowing out process we believe that with a plan and a vision many small towns can arrest a spiral of decline and play a key

role in the nation's recovery why does holloing it matter. Surely there have always been regional winners and losers. Richard Florida is Florida's very influential book The Rise of the Creative Class celebrates how modern day boom towns prospered when the young and the educated flocked to cities like Austin Chicago San Francisco in search of good jobs culture diversity and tolerance. During the 1990s but the incipient decline of the roast and corn belts illustrates the darker side of the Creative Class story. The fates of the people in the places that are left behind. But if this is just the latest version of the boom and bust cycle of frontier towns Why not just let it take its course. There's one set of commentators have said why not let the planes revert to a buffalo commons. We believe that it would be a mistake to abandon the region because hollowing out has repercussions far beyond the boundaries of the small towns it affects. The health of the heartland is vital to the country as a whole because we believe this is a place where most

of our food comes from. It can be ground zero for the green economy and for sustainable agriculture. It is also the place that helps elect our presidents who are dead the central city of the win in Iowa for Barack Obama's election and it sends more than its fair share of young men and women to fight and die for the country this country. So we came to uncover this slow boring crisis. During our research in Iowa we learned that hollowing out results from a combination of macro forces reshaping non-metropolitan America such as the unfettered rise of agribusiness and big bucks retailing which has suffocated local ownership. The decline of unions and blue collar wages employers increased reliance on exploited undocumented workers and the systematic under-investment in younger workers entering the new economy's labor force without college degrees. For instance the rise of agribusiness has meant that there are hardly any farmers left in America's agricultural regions. Just 2 percent of Americans operate farm farms now

and over 42 percent of Midwestern farmers are less than $20000 a year. For generations the corn belts biggest employers were factories were building Deere tractors and Maytag washers sustain the region and made it possible for workers in the line to become middle class. But in an old familiar story automation and outsourcing has dried up the demand for labor and diminished wages deindustrialization came later to the countryside than it did to the city but it has caused just as much harm. These larger economic trends are just part of the story though and it was not until we spent time living in a typical small town in Iowa and interviewed young adults who came of age there and we came to understand how small towns collude in their own demise. As was stated in the intro in 2001 with support of the MacArthur Foundation's network on transitions to adulthood and multidisciplinary research collaborative we moved to the pseudonymous Alice in Iowa town population of 2000. Pretty typical farm and factory town in the

northeastern corner of the state just as husband and wife sociologists Robert and Helen Lind had traveled to Muncie Indiana to chronicle how the 20th century industrial era was transforming the lives of small town America and their middle town series. We took our family then to Ellis to document how 21st century Iowans were trying to survive in a post industrialized global era. A year and a half spent interviewing the more than 200 people who attended the attends high school in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That is to characterize our young Iowans according to the defining traits of where their lives are taken them by their twenties and thirties. We found quite early on that young people in a small town are faced with two major life defining questions when they come of age. Do you stay or do you go. And if you go do you ever come back. We found that the largest group approximately 40 percent consisted of what we call the working class stayers those who never leave who were struggling in the region's dying agro

industrial economy. About one in five became the college bound achievers who often left for good. Just 10 percent of those we talked to include the seekers who were not on the college track and who joined the military to see what the world beyond their small town offers and the rest were what we call the returner is people that were eventually circled back to their hometowns only a very small number of whom were professionals we call high flyers. What surprised us most was that the adults in the community were playing a pivotal part. Excuse me and the tens declined by overinvesting cultivating and pushing the best and brightest young people to leave. And by under-investing and those who stay even though it is the latter who are the town's best chance for a future. The paradox was summed up first very early on in our time analysis by a local high school guidance counselor who informed us that quote the best kids go well the ones with the biggest problem stay. And then we have to deal with their kids in the schools in the next generation. These quote best kids are the high achieving most likely to succeed

students destined for college. As I said what we call the achievers while the ones with the biggest problems the stairs get trapped in the region's fading economy. So as achievers are pushed prodded and cultivated to leave and credit their teachers have been integral to their success. The stairs View Schools an alienating experience and zoom in to the labor force the first chance they get. Mainly because few people are invested in keeping them on a post-secondary track. And the lure of a regular paycheck is hard to resist seekers like to stay or is received few of the resources and cultivation that achievers do and they satisfy the desire to leave by joining the military for some this means that they'll never come back while others do but usually without the skills and credentials that would make their lives appreciably better. Most turners are similar and profiles to the stairs. The main difference being that they spend some time away although it is always usually meant to be a temporary arrangement. These returns are most often community college graduates who end up in pink color occupations

and who marry stayers when they settle back home. Highflyer is a small group of return's who are professionals and entrepreneurs are achievers who come back and while they are the group most sought after by small towns and the objects of state and local programs from Maine to Louisiana they are few far between and more likely to be motivated to move by personal reasons than by any incentives that are dreamed up in attempts to lure them. At first glance teachers parents and kids stares at Cheevers seekers and return's seem comfortable with this arrangement. Schools devote their energies to the most serious and committed students and young people who are adrift get focus and maturity not to mention money from joining the workforce. It is that compromise which makes so much sense during the high school years that ultimately comes back to betray the community and its young people in a post-industrial economy that places such a high premium on contract and credentials and as ever less demand for workers with just a high school diploma the choices these stairs

make doomed them to downward mobility and poverty seekers mistakenly believe that the service can equip them with the skills and education that will benefit them when they are discharged. But many find that they are woefully underprepared when they do so and most turners are like the stairs except for their brief sojourn away. It is when you combine what happens at the level of a small town with the wider forces that are fundamentally transform the economy in rural America. That the depth and severity of hollowing out is apparent. So given that these communities are hemorrhaging young people investing most of their energy in developing those will end up elsewhere it makes little sense. And under-investing and those who stay and many who return is also self-defeating because we do live in a time when sustaining blue collar jobs are practically non-existent and the need for skills that are price and opposed to an economy has never been greater. So what can be done to plug this brain drain. The problem is

daunting we believe that is not intractable but that any set of solutions must combine changes at micro and macro levels first. Small towns need to equalize their investments across different groups of young people. While it would be impractical and downright wrong to abort students ambitions there must be a radical rethinking of the goals of a high school education. The single minded focus in pushing the most motivated students into four year colleges must be balanced by efforts to match young people not headed for bachelor's degrees with training vocational and assorted associate's degree programs. Those programs fill the needs of a postal service for an economy but acknowledge that not every student wants to or will pursue a more traditional college path. Also school officials parents educators and students must resist the temptation to take the non-college bound will just get a job. If a degree is not in the cards. Gone are the days of plentiful well-paying blue collar factory jobs that provided a 19 year old with a living wage and

thinking that working the line of John Deere or Winnebago will vault you into the middle class mates. Makes about as much sense as buying 8 track tapes in the iPod age. All the planning and investments have been geared to college bound students. Well the reality is that students not earning a college degree degrees Scuse me need as much if not more intensive preparation for today's labor market. The next step is to build better links between high school and post-secondary education and to map existing opportunities on to regional economic goals. Most of the job growth for example within Iowa is expected to come from computer biotech wind energy and healthcare matching high school students not headed for university with vocational or community college programs nurturing their interests while in high school through internships and training will prepare them for the new economic growth areas such partnerships require close collaboration among business and civic leaders elected officials and secondary and community college administrators who are not accustomed to working outside of their own

bureaucracies. Moreover the growing distance learning technology should not cater only to older returning students. If students are interested in when technology or nursing rather than making them take social studies in their senior year of high school how about connecting them with a distance learning class at Iowa Lakes community college an introduction to computers. Third small towns should seek to embrace immigration wherever possible. A difficult sell at the best of times. The phenomenon of Hispanic boom towns a common occurrence in the Midwest has the potential to transform moribund local economies such transformations will only be possible after careful planning to ensure that immigrants are integrated into the community in such a way as to increase contact between natives and immigrants and with attendant labor law reform that curbs abuses and ensure sufficient wages and benefits for workers in agribusiness and manufacturing. Ph.D. is from India or China or Central and South America should be

encouraged along with less skilled immigrants to be recruited in an effort to make the heartland an immigrant enterprise zone. The region is in critical need a professional class workers especially medical workers and bringing in Hispanic workers just for the food industry will not be sufficient for areas that are losing population can help remain vibrant by enticing much needed high flyers to come back home. There are free land programs in Kansas Minnesota North Dakota a statewide campaign in Iowa to bring back professionals and student loan forgiveness programs in Maine in West Virginia for college graduates committing to stay in the state. Well the jury is out on whether any of these programs work. We believe that towns can help themselves by identifying future professionals prospectively and offering them tuition relief for graduate school. It is contingent upon a 10 year commitment to practice in the area. Many rural areas in fact over half of all rural counties have one or more medically underserved areas. And this is one way to tackle that very basic problem

at a more macro level. There is much that can be done and ironically the current economic crisis perhaps in and right provides perhaps an unrivalled opportunity to do it. First the economic stimulus provides much needed investment and that can help kickstart efforts to rebuild regional economies. But it must be accompanied by changes that will provide a more fundamental make over. Specifically there is ample scope for developing so-called green economy initiatives in wind and solar power already for exist for it. For instance the shuttered Maytag plant in Newton Iowa has been refitted to produce wind turbines. Workers will need to be retrained to staff these nascent industries and again community colleges can be pivotal in fulfilling that role alongside the green economy. We should rethink how we produce food in America. Michael Pollan for example has argued persuasively that now is the time to produce incentives for poly cultural farming that will diversify the food produced in the corn belt reduce the use of artificial fertilizers and increased the availability of organic and locally grown meat and produce.

There was a daunting prospect to try and loosen the agribusiness stranglehold reinventing the food industry offers the chance to bring people back onto the land alongside those efforts should be reformed allowing agricultural workers to organize and curbing the all too prevalent labor abuses that contribute to the long term fragility of rural economies. To that end national immigration policy should also be reformed away from the costly and often counterproductive interdiction efforts towards ones that offer long time undocumented workers a pathway to citizenship and encourages a more complete participation of immigrants in their home communities. A third area for national action is in the reshaping of post-secondary education to better meet the challenges of globalisation in the post-industrial economy based on the experiences of the stairs and many of the returns we spoke with. We see a need to provide training in fields and specialties. Most sought after and community colleges will again be key in that regard. Already President Obama has recognized the crucial role community colleges can play when in July

he introduced the American graduation initiative which will commit over 12 billion dollars in funding to provide scholarships for students modernize colleges and build links with other schools and businesses. Ultimately with a plan a vision the undoing of middle America is not preordained. The rural crisis has been ignored for far too long. But we believe it isn't too late to start paying attention. The residents of rural America must embrace the fact that to survive the world a new and cherished must change and that on a national level. Rural Development must be more closely linked to national economic growth priorities and policies must be created to help these communities prepare for a future that is already here. You talked a lot about what the brain drain means for the middle of small towns in the middle of the country in the heartland. What does it mean for the rest of America. For the cities that are gaining population booming south and the West.

Well its good for them. Its funny when we were writing this book we were asked this question you know so we know why does this matter. And because were social scientists you know said Well we are going to have to pull a few people so we can you know start to call on people and when people we knew and said you know people at baken want to know why this matters. And you know people were apoplectic about how can you even have one. Of course it matters. And you know so the responses ranged from well you know a country or is like a body and that it can only function when all of its organs are working and that to have an America where your heartland is and isn't working you know is is counterproductive you know to allow it to occur and to atrophy even further would be tantamount one person said to you know can the side succeed. You know during the Civil War and then other people spoke about the very real things that the sort of hyperlinking could contribute. And again focusing on the fact that

you know most of the food that we eat is produced there and that it can be ground zero for you know changes in how we produce food and for purely cultural farming and for green economy initiatives which by their very nature really can be. And you know most often work better when theyre decentralized so theres a lot that can happen and to sort of simply let small towns die probably isn't an option. We believe and we agree with our Iowa poll that you know it's worth keeping. When you listed some of the possible solutions for this problem it struck me that there seems to be almost a paradoxical contradiction the kinds of changes that you're proposing. Immigration investment in community colleges seem to be almost unthinkable

for the people who are staying in these small towns. And how do you bridge that gap. I think I'd bracket those out. I'm going to take them one at a time so let's take immigration first. Immigration is the one issue that provokes perhaps the most heated response from people you know when we say you know you need to embrace immigration and immigrants in all of its forms not just you know the sort of you know low wage agricultural Hispanic migratory labor force but also in terms of professionals and so on. And some places have done this very successfully and have integrated well when you know. But I've done so because they planned it. It is it is it is a difficult sell but our goal in sort of setting that out is one of the things we would like small towns to think about is is fairly simple. You know the economic transformative power of you know an influx of immigrants is without a doubt just it you know it's

one of the things that is you can take it to the bank that will transform your local economy. But it's what happens afterwards that you know creates problems in terms of it often is a company by ghettoisation of the immigrant population it's often accompanied by other social problems and then you have situations like you have in Hazleton Pennsylvania where the mayor unilaterally declares that you know nobody can employ illegal immigrants that the stores that serve illegal immigrants can be you know kind of their licenses revoked and so on so you have this kind of reactionary backlash which is you know one of the sort of extremes that can happen. But our point in doing this is to open up the conversation that this is one way you can very quickly build your local economy. But again we peg it to changes that we believe will benefit everybody so a lot of the resentment for stares towards immigrants accrues from the fact that when Hispanic immigrants came into the meatpacking industry and came into agribusiness wages

pretty much became a third of what they were 10 15 years ago. And that was because agribusiness knew that they could exploit undocumented labor force and they could then pay them six 20 an hour whereas natives were getting paid $18 an hour in 1990. And and so you know you associate the movement of these workers with the wall there. That's when my job became a crappy job. And that's true. So one of the things we were very careful to as I said to peg to immigration is fundamental changes in labor law that allow workers in agribusiness to to organize and to advocate for better wages. And you know the counterargument frankly business of what will just move away will they won't because the fact of the matter is their raw materials are there and they need to be in the Midwest and they need to be in these small towns in Storm Lake and so on Postville. So they're not going to move. And I think you know national reforms allow workers to advocate for not only just better wages better working

conditions. I mean one of the plants in Postville Iowa had 157 labor safety violations in an 18 month period which to me is staggering and that's you know on the more extreme end of things. But it is these are some of the things so you have these workers who have been paid nothing who are working in very very dangerous conditions. And if you change that I think that would help change that perception because again you wouldn't be associating immigrant populations with your declining paycheck and you know and so on. The second point which is also very good point but what about the community colleges the Steelers and many of the returns spoke very eloquently to us. And remember these are guys who came of age in the late 80s and early 90s and we heard this refrain there was one guy you know put it I think most succinctly when he said look I wish I'd had a course in high school where I learned about computers for example because this is where this economy is going. Emanuel is sort of an unskilled manual worker. He'd work in construction work you know in

agribusiness. And you know we get laid off periodic said look I need those skills. If I'd had access to those kinds of things or if I could retrain or you know there were ways in which I could get those kinds of abilities and credentials and even just basic skills then I'd be much. More able to sort of diversify myself in that in the modern economy. So we heard that from people so I think you know again it's not just a matter of reform with the community colleges do but linking that into what is done at the high school level because I think there's a huge disconnect. The only programs that high school seniors can take in Iowa and also in Minnesota for credit are courses that will sort of allow them to accrue enough community college credits to transfer into a university for a four year degree. And that's great for those who want to do that. But there's there has to be other ways of it for those who not don't want to go on and no interest and maybe not the

abilities to go onto a four year college program. You have to provide other sort of linkages and I think they are not there and they could be there quite easily. So are these communities on their own to figure this out. Right now they are and that's the sense we get from people. I mean one of the things that's been very striking has been the response that the book in various sort of little pieces that we've written. You know we get emails from the Chamber of Commerce in Newton Ohio or you know a group in North Carolina or somebody in South Dakota said well you know we're trying to figure this out ourselves and very early on in our research. One of the things that can help us sort of figure out the larger issue here that we wrote about the rotary in the town of Alice said you know we'd like you to come to our Wednesday meeting and talk about your research. We said oh yeah we love to do that just because we're really we're trying to figure out how we can get you know doctors and lawyers and people with you know professional degrees to come back and we were like wow you know that's going to be very difficult

because you know you do such a good job in greasing the rails for them to leave that you know pull them back. It's very very difficult so you know I think turn's do feel that they're on their own. But I think again one of the things that we would see as a way forward is again using the sort of regional economies and again sort of thinking in regional terms not just in sort of small town or even county terms that you know something that's going to develop a region and something that's a coordinated plan and Dick Longworth who's written an awesome book that came out before us called caught in the middle about globalization in the Midwest you know talks about that talks about developing regional economies in the Midwest as one of the ways to to offset the damage that globalization has done. My wife and I live in Cambridge and we've done a wonderful job describing the pieces of the puzzle and I'm involved in research. Why squatters move to the central cities. I work for Boston which benefits Richard Florida's

creative class but we also have a place in Maine and one part that has fascinated me is how in these communities first I guess first U.P.S. the fax email a lot of changes going on that are equalisers you know reverse the tilt. But for example the people who are not able to be here tonight could be sitting in Iowa and getting this if someone points them in the right direction. If I miss an important column in The New York Times or something on PBS I'm able to go and get it directly off the Internet. And I have a feeling that years ago first the railroads came on the roads and people were not on the roads. But there are equalizers that could be used everywhere. For example artists tend to move almost where life is less expensive and interesting. The games in Boston go to the poorer areas. The rough areas.

And so there are quite a few opportunities which if integrated with some of the new incentives you're talking about can change things. Oh I agree it's a formidable task. Absolutely. That's a great point and one of the things we talk about in the book that I didn't touch on tonight but I wanted to now because I think you've brought it up very nicely. Is that a lot of what states have done individually. I'm talking about Michigan Iowa Maine West Virginia. That's the extent Louisiana is is to focus on you know Michigan in particular really sort of has bought in wholesale to the Creative Class idea for a very simple reason that the state of Michigan has you know two two massive state universities and several smaller ones that produce tens of thousands of qualified graduates a year and less than 7

percent of the technology graduate. So those who are coming out in computer sciences and engineering and so on stay in the state. So they they hemorrhage 93 percent of their technology graduates and so their thinking was kind of along the lines here is that we have these equalisers to the Internet and so on and if we sort of create what they called Cool cities and was called the cool city initiative. You know again a lot of the Creative Class idea if every city becomes a cool city then people will stay right. So if they have the Wi-Fi and the latte and the you know open mike night for singer songwriters and so on write that it'll be the magical silver bullet that will make everybody say well actually hasn't worked out that way. And part of it is very simply that you can only go so far with that stuff. So you know the fact is there are sort of Wi-Fi bald patches and you know you know half an hour east of Des

Moines for example really frustrates the people in Iowa because it's like how can we get these people to come back when they can't get their wife or their trigona or whatever it is you know so it's fine. And so it's really the sort of field of dreams idea if you build it they're going to come but they kind of don't. What we found was the high fliers those professionals who come back as I said in the talk they come back for very personal reasons and not always because let's be honest if you have a choice between a tomar and Aspen you're going to move to Aspen you know because it's just you can have a bike trail in Ottumwa and you can hike all until you're blue in the face but you're not in the Rocky Mountains. You know beautiful Aspen backdrop and so on. Right so I see what you're saying and I think it's very important you absolutely have to have a baseline of amenities to make it livable. But if you put all of your development eggs in that basket it's a mistake because as I said Michigan

bought hook line and sinker into creative class and it just hasn't worked out. So an example of your brain drain from rural areas. I grew up in a small town in Illinois and I was a salutatorian in my high school class. But after I graduate from college I left there I never went back and lived on the East Coast here for quite a number of years. But I was really quite surprised. In your list of suggestions that were mostly what I would call supply side suggestions you know education training you know accommodations to immigration things like that. And I know for myself in other of my contemporaries the biggest reason why we left is there was no good jobs. Right. So I mean I would think that there are many states and cities have tried but you know attracting the right kinds of jobs that were sent people to stay seems like you know if you don't do that then all that supply side kinds of things that you if you train the people with the with the junior colleges or the

high school courses they're going to go where the jobs are that they've just now become able to achieve able to get to. So I'm curious about your thoughts. I know you're absolutely right. No I mean that's not something we're very keenly aware of. Let me respond to that in two ways. One is. There are there are jobs and that's one of the the good jobs. I mean there are good jobs there are labor shortages in key areas in Iowa. You know I talked about the labor shortages in health and nursing and biotech. There are increasing numbers of jobs in the so-called green economy. And again part of you know part of What's what's what's wrong right now is that the people who are out there aren't ready for those jobs. And part of it is you know getting them the skills that when those jobs are available and they are. That's one of the reasons that the state of Iowa and other states are trying desperately to attract people to come back is that we need people you know who are nurses we need

people who are doctors. We have you know in the state of Iowa a hundred and sixty seven medically underserved areas and again concentrated very much in the non-metropolitan counties and so on. So you know you have seniors who are in their 70s who are driving two hours to see a doctor or a dentist. You know that's an area that you know not just for the doctor or dentist but for the hygienist and the assistant and so on. Right. That there are lots of ways to sort of again map the opportunities and connect them with the people who don't have the skills but giving them skills and so on. So you're absolutely right. But I wouldn't say that there are no jobs. I think part of what has to happen is you do need to develop opportunities but you also need to be able to avail of the opportunities that are already there. And so there are some that are there you need to develop additional ones. And as I said I do believe that some of the changes that we've we've advocated for are ones that that if they're not as labor intensive as say you know partly cultural farming isn't as labor intensive as firming was 50 or 60 years ago but

it is something that can bring people back onto the land. And I think increasingly as we get honest with ourselves we're all going to want to eat grass fed beef and you know getting you know local microbrew beers and so on. I mean you know I mean does it these are not bad things. These are probably good for our health in the long run. I think we're moving very slowly towards that in the success of you know some of the larger you know organic dairy operations for example show that there is a you can actually make money from this stuff. So you know we think that the only way to produce food is a hog hotel. It's really not. I mean I think you know if the incentives are there and the willingness to make those changes you can bring a lot of people back you know onto the land. You can you can also again develop those green economy initiatives that talked about that again. They're not there. They need labor they need people with skills and no point having a town full of people who don't have the skills and sort of you know put an ad out and having people come from California who have those skills. When you have people right there who could easily take those jobs so you're absolutely right. But I

think you know it's one thing we do. We talk more about it in the book than I did tonight so. Hi my name is Carolyn Nalbandian and I am a supporter of the form. I'd like to ask does this same situation exist in Europe. And if so how are the Europeans dealing with that. That's a great question. Yes and they're dealing with a better than we are. And speaking as European I can say yeah way for Europe. I'm yeah I'm a I'm off the boat. MC So. I'm from a town called Shradha which is a dirty industrial town between all the above. So I'm part of the draw to brain drain I drain myself. So draw has been debilitated ever since but there's always been migration away from towns and there's always been a brain drain. And again we didn't

discover this. What's different in Europe there. There are several things that are different in Europe. Small towns are more of I think viable particularly in mainland Europe than they are here mainly because of how they produce food and mainly because of how people shop they buy stuff differently than we do and they produce food differently than we do. So for example you couldn't be in a small little town in Provost's and the cheese that you're going to buy is made by Michelle down the road. Right. And the cars that you're going to you know make into a soup. You know our John Henry's or whatever. I mean so I mean there is this kind of immediacy of the food production. It's much more decentralized there isn't. It's certainly in large part and most of mainland Europe the agribusiness isn't as hegemonic as it is here in America. And then people just they buy food different they buy food every day.

So you buy it fresh you cook it fresh and so on. So that's part of you know even when you have this brand and you also have this kind of very labor intensive very immediate food production cycle that you know has both sort of bolstered these local economies and made them much more vibrant in you know as these kind of little ink spots you know that they're not dependent on you know having a manufacturing plant. And that's the other thing that you know one of the reasons that the hollowing out is so debilitating here is because in a lot of our Midwestern towns alongside sort of Agriculture and the changes in agriculture you have the changes in industry and they are disproportionately affected in these small towns because of your fortunes are pegged to one plant and that one plant closes or you know decides to eliminate a shift or whatever it is or depresses wages because they say listen guys you know globalization can't pay $15 an hour any more are going to pay a 0 and your benefits are gone too.

That's a you know that's a massive body blow. And you know but on the plus side of it you know Newton was an example of what can happen. I mean they lost Maytag and when they lost Maytag people said they're done right there. Just stick a fork in that town that's finished because Maytag was that time. But you know they really they said OK well we've got to fix this. So they refitted the place retrain the workforce and they don't employ as many producing the wind turbines as they did making the Maytag washers. But still they've managed to sort of you know keep the town sort of afloat. So so those are some of the differences. It's a great question though between Europe and here. You mentioned a lot about economics. And you also mentioned about this idea of a cool city to try to track people in your research did you get deeper into the fundamental reason that people live in these towns and embracing you know what their real reason for being there for so long. And if some of those towns tried to describe that and make it an

attractive reason why they would why people would come more people would say no absolutely not. One of the first questions in the research was you know why do you live where you live and you know what is it about the place that you live that you like. Right. And for the stairs there really it was amazing the people who left have this very ambivalent and I don't know if you feel the same way still you know that you know I loved growing up there that we were here and it's a great place to raise kids. And you know it's a wonderful You know I can leave my bike and my door is always open and so on. But there just something drawing me away. And I wanted to be somewhere that was more diverse and I wanted to experience a lot of things I wanted opportunities but there's just you know deep seated ambivalence about the decision to leave for the stairs. The stairs were very succinct. It was a very strange question for

them when we asked them the same question. You know so what is it about Ellis that you know you like and were like well you know it's it's where I was born it's where I'm going to die. Like the John Mellencamp sunrise that I was born in a small town I want to die in a small town and so on. And that really was the extent of. Their abilities sort of to think about that. But you know when we went a little deeper in some of the narratives from people sort of you know sort of to explain a little bit more about what that meant. And it really was just this fierce attachment to this. You know I mean it's a dot on the landscape right. A small town with no stoplights it's got just you know the one sort of gas station and so on and it's just sort of out there on the plains. But there is this kind of fear sort of loyalty to it. So to answer the second part of your question the state of Iowa is sort of bring back the professional or what Tom Vilsack who is now the secretary of agriculture called to come back to Iowa please campaign

focuses on exactly those things that you're talking about. Look hey we're at the six safest state in the nation. Whatever that means right. We're what we're told there was a couple of taglines that were the six nation state in a nation where the eight's cheapest place to buy land or something like that you know that you know basically you can come back here and raise a family on a farmstead and so on. And they had these advertisements for they had these you know high flyers who would come back and there was one guy who was really. Had worked in real estate in California. And so now there's you know he's talked about it in this way. Here's a man who knows about where to live. You know because of his profession and he's chosen Iowa and he talks and the little sort of blurb about him says you know he he gave up his eleven hundred square feet for like a four and a half acre place that cost him half as much you know. And this you know this idea that you can sort of have

your piece of America raise your family in safety. And it's good. Right. But the issue then becomes if that's the only thing you're offering you're really sort of you're chancing your arm in a way that you know if it's just like well hey there's lots of land hey you won't get killed in your bed. Oh there's no traffic us right. Yeah. Commutes can be measured in. That's the other tagline I couldn't think of where commutes can be measured in minutes instead of hours and that's very true for the whole time I was there and the time since that I've driven around that state I never been in a traffic jam which is freaky. It is very freaky and also living there. You know one of the things that I've always lived in the city or you know big town or city. The first couple of nights just living out in the plains. I couldn't sleep because it was so quiet. It was just freaking me out. I just like that it was a promise a promise that it's nothing. There's just nothing there's no noise no sirens

nothing you know so. But you know it's a very good point. You have a question. Did you look into the zoning laws are absolutely fundamentally different. The Europeans can keep a town together in ways that we cannot. Our zoning laws basically come from the Northwest Ordinance. The towns are too small to do a damn thing to protect themselves. You want a zoning permit. In France in England there's only one place you can go. Here you go across the town line and pull up Wal-Mart across the town line and suck everything out. They don't allow it. And it involves the role of government and government is we'd rather destroy the country then take a look and see what we can do by looking at what other countries are doing. No you're absolutely right that this is not a comparative peace so you know I'm just speaking extemporaneously but Europe you know because I have any passport. But I will say one counterexample that is and my friend and

compatriot here Jim will back me up on this. The zoning laws in Ireland are practically nonexistent if you have enough money you can put up houses and or you know shopping centers or anywhere you want and they've pretty much ruined the countryside because of that. So Ireland's mimmick to America and in lots of ways. But I think you're right. I think we've got three states that allows zoning by counties. We've got some counties that look just exactly like Europe. They're in those areas because you have a much bigger zoning area and you can't do the same thing right now. That's right you mentioned the high flyers and that being a very small percentage of total population I'm interested in just a question as a subset of those high flyers did you find many people who were from small towns left but then came back not to the same towns but went back to rural America just

other places whether for some affinity or that small town life or something. I've a friend who is from rural Kansas and just recently graduated college and is now in small town rural Colorado because she felt drawn to him about life and so it's personal reasons or personal beliefs there also but it's not the same as just going back to the time where you grew up. No absolutely. And we did. The short answer is yes we did. And again the strange thing is the one thing that's most striking about that is it is purely for those very personal reasons and that all of the incentives and all of the sort of state programs kind of believe the while forgive you a tax write off your student loans or if we build a bike path you know you'll move back. But really it's you know it's almost something that you can't legislate for because it is something that's entirely personal and that it's something that can happen to you at different stages of your life you know in your 20s you could think well you know I want to be living in the city and then just suddenly suddenly say you know

I think I need to move back you know to the kind of place maybe not the place. But we did find that yes. I live in a very small town but probably not one you would think of studying actually live in Kuwait. And the whole island is tiny. It's only about 60000 people it's very rural farming. And I'm considering draining myself out of there. I'm just actually visiting here now the place. I think I may move to because I and I was very glad that you mentioned this of the situation with farming that I can't get good food there. And you would think that being you know where I live where there is year round growing season our vegetables are pathetic and horrible and we just don't have the people there who can make money in farming. And I think until that problem can be addressed I can't see how

you're really going to solve the problem in the rest of rural America. No I think you're right. I mean I think we have to be committed to it. And we also have to I think believe that it is possible to make money from smaller units. I mean we've been I think duped by agribusiness and while you know it has to be a mega farm or mega farms is the only things that can make money. And you know economists have sort of argued with this sort of oh you know our culture is doing fine. You know cultures turn a profit. Well no I will not turn a profit. You know big agriculture has turned a profit. And you know they're also sort of forcing others to compete with them on an even playing field because you know how many you know pounds of pig can you produce. You know how many bushels of corn can you produce you know per acre and so on. And this kind of move towards sort of like you know this single crop farming is monocultural farming that you know is bad for the land and is bad for the food and is relying completely on artificial fertilizers and you know so all of those things that

when you move away from that it is possible you know to have good food that taste good and good beer that taste good and you know wine I mean why not. And then where you could grow grapes in Iowa why not. You know it's kind of ironic and I think frankly pathetic at this point that in our country if you want good food you you can't get it from where we have the best soil really in the middle of the country. You have to go to places like San Francisco or New York City or Boston. And when I say good food I mean and the true food snob sense. You know I'm totally in line with Michael Pollan where I believe if you want to eat well you have to have something that's grass fed or produced by a person not I don't think agribusiness really produces food. I'm not sure you should call it that. Right. OK thank you. Thank you. It's kind of funny that now it seems to be OK that it's just companies doing the collectivizing rather than the government anyway. And what part of I was kind of interested in is

we you know you sort of hear things and as somebody who is you know we all have our prejudices and you know maybe I grew up with a certain prejudice against people you know from the more rural areas sort of having the sense that people are kind of complicit in their own being pushed down. I mean you saw some of the areas you're talking about that kind of would need the most of an attitude shift. Our next line was very well are the ones who seem to be at least from our stereotype of it to be sort of you know the kind of people who watch let's say a certain television network which shall be nameless and sort of buying into that is that sort of a stereotype maybe of the of these areas from like say the point of view of like an effete urban person like me. So just so we're clear. Our unspoken coastal elitism

here. We're talking about Fox News Channel. Isn't that what we're talking about. Yeah I mean I think the stereotype is just you know it is just that. And Pat and I had this conversation beforehand and she asked me very good question that because something somebody else was questioning brought about. So what are the implications in terms of political extremism you know because you know Tom Frank has written What's the matter with Kansas and it is I mean is crazy why are these people voting completely against their own self-interest right. Because right that's. And it's fairly easy to document. I will say this. We didn't find that level of conservatism as a as a sort of a coherent movement that was present in this town. Did we encounter it. Sure we did. I mean it was you know there were a couple of very awkward moments for us in the field. There was one.

I remember we were at Mass in the Catholic Church and I am what Richard Russo calls a collapsed Catholic but you know it was kind of part of the whole thing was immerse yourself and go to the various things so we're there on our two year old daughter at the time. It's just been like a two year old. And she was like you know she had hands in her pants. And so we came to. For those who are not Catholic towards the end of the mass before we received the Holy Ghost we shake hands with each other in the sign of peace. You know and it's kind of a way to share germs and build and build fellowship and so on the people around us didn't shake your. And it was I mean it's it's there we're closer than we are. So wasn't that we were too far away. And I was like well it just goes to show you I can't we're been recorded so I can say what I felt or expressive in the language that would normally use. And you know that there was an extreme example but again sort of redolent of what a

small town can be like. And you know so this is one of those things that's going well you're an outsider and you're not conforming to the mores of this place and I'm not going to shake your hand. You know so. So I think I do think that's extremely One of the counterexamples when we were chatting beforehand which I think is a good one is that you know I would vote for Barack Obama. And I don't think he'd be president if that didn't happen. I mean I think that was just such a crucial. I mean I don't think I've ever played such a crucial development because some people say hey this guy can get elected in Iowa. And there must be something to him right. You know so. So I think we have to be aware that you know desperation can sometimes breed extremism but I think we also need to be aware that that's not the inevitable outcome. And you know that there are other outcomes and ones that are much more for the want of a better term Catholic with a small c.

Thanks. Hi. As a native Iowan I would be remiss to not say some day. And I guess the first thing that I want to say and maybe you'll have a response to this call into question though is growing up in Iowa. I don't think anyone whether they're a stay or a high flyer or whatever takes pride in the state itself being from the state. And I was noting this a few days ago while watching a McDonald's commercial about what makes New England or New England. And there's this egotism. That that people from bigger cities or near metropolitan areas are able to have because you feel like you're at the center of something maybe the center of the world growing up in Iowa. You never ever have the sense that the world revolves around you.

That's just a point or an aside. And I wouldn't be also remiss to say that you can get really good food in Iowa there are some wonderful essays dropping out and all of that agriculture just like agriculture or anywhere else in the United States is outside of the mainstream and it's supported by college communities or other metropolitan areas. But it exists. And that brings me to my kind of question which is have you investigated how the reformation of the U.S. farm bill would actually preserve or reinvigorate Southhampton. Thank you. That's a great question. Whereabouts and I where you're from. Yeah I interviewed somebody somebody who had moved to and married actually. So

I've been there been there and many other places. You're absolutely right in terms of the CSA. And actually you know in the college towns in Iowa City in Ames to a lesser extent in Des Moines there are many more restaurants now than when we started doing this in 2001 that advertise the fact that you know all of our projects comes from local growers. All of our beef is grass fed and so on so that is different. That is certainly different. And you know this is hopeful right. It's a hopeful thing. The farm bill the bad news about the farm bill and the thing that worries me about Tom Vilsack in particular is Tom Vilsack for all of his you know some of the things that is going to make Iowa the Ellis Island of the Midwest. You know and people said Oh Tom we don't like that. Oh you know what. What I said was I was going to make sure that lots of professionals come from overseas never you know. I'm going to have game over we're not gay marriage. No. And so he's a flip flopper of the highest order.

The one thing he doesn't flip flop on which worries me greatly is his support unstinting support for agribusiness. He has a record of being not just in bed with these guys I mean trodes to these guys so that worries me. The farm bill is completely lacking in any real substance with respect to you know there's lip service paid to shall we call it alternative agriculture Republic cultural farming or whatever you want to call it. But there's no real substance to it and I'm afraid that with him as secretary of agriculture that's not going to change despite you know there is a groundswell I mean because hey Michael Pollan is now a household name and for a good reason I mean he's really advance this agenda for us in ways that make a lot of sense. You know I mean it's not just this part of the sky stuff but it's you know this can work. And here's how it can work. So. So I think the

change will probably come if the president decides that this is something he wants to pursue. There's been no indication of that. This is again one of the reasons for writing this book for starting this conversation is to try and push this as an issue because it's really not right now. And I hope that you know Vilsack you know is has his road to Damascus and get struck by lightning or something and then just. But only in a beneficial way. Or he'd see the error of his ways and change what he thinks but maybe maybe not. Dan likely and I grew up in a small farm community in Iowa and Michigan which is still doing well. Could it happen by geographical circumstances it's close to the university which means it's a boom place rather than a ghost town. Well having driven back and forth across the country several times in the last couple of years and you know to get to Omaha and you can

get 600 more miles of farms or turn right 600 miles through the Dakotas going up and there's just a vast array of farms cornfields as far as the eye can see. And there's that small town every 10 miles. And historically why was when those farms were started the 8300. That's as far as you could go in a day with your wagon to pick up your supplies and bring it back. So you need half the people in the country lived on farms so we needed all those villages and small towns like I grew up on to support the farm community. That's all it was. I grew up. But now with so few people living there maybe you don't need all those small towns. There are so many of them and they just may become ghost towns are obsolete and they aren't just going to the coast. When I was out there I noticed that Fargo and Sioux Falls are two of the

fastest growing cities in America. Now the Sunbelt has slowed down so that people in South Dakota and in North Dakota. Are moving and not all the way to the coast they're going to the cities they're abandoning their small villages and farms because they want to be more concentrated. So how have you looked at that. Why not sure. I gave a call here. No no no. So if I understand correctly you're sort of saying well you know there's an inevitability about the decline and demise of some of these places and that's probably true because you know again you do have boom and bust cycles in some places just kind of cease to exist. Put on the scale that we're talking about I mean we're not just talking about some regional losers. You know we're talking about literally you know hundreds and thousands of small town thousands of town right.

I think it's a mistake because you know again I do think that there is more to the tale particularly with respect to sort of opportunities. And I also think it's a mistake because of the the. Let me just share with you I mean since this book has come out and we've been receiving e-mails on bid from all over the country from people in these very places who are you know oh I'm so glad that you know you wrote this and you know I might disagree with some of the things that we say or whatever else and that's fine. It's healthy. But you know they want their places to survive. They believe in the future of their places. And I think for us to sort of say well well it's just you know wash your hands to say well you know what just let nature how about it I think is a mistake. You know because I think I do believe that we do need these places. I think part of what can be a vibrant aging graying of people there are getting older and more the key item that's when they lose their school.

And you have the basic tools right then. Yeah. It's the beginning of the end. I don't know how you stop that. Yeah. You know that the time we were in the town of Alice they amalgamated their school with a nearby town while we were there. So you know that was they didn't have enough kids to keep the high school so so that you know that's one of the dead Nel's is like you know if you can get your high school going then you're in trouble. So you're absolutely right. But I do believe that there's there's a way to turn it off. I do yeah. I mean I wouldn't be here. Well I hope you're right. I do too. You are also vague on my face. I'm wondering if you can speak about any gender differences that you found. Oh a simple question. Yes there were. In terms of who left the achievers the college bound kids felt equally distributed maybe slightly more young

women than young men but fairly equally distributed to seekers who joined the military mostly men but quite a few young women again I would say in the region of 20 percent of the stairs. The stairs are mostly male and the sort of Turners who end up marrying them are women. So the the the story we heard quite frequently was from the young women. We call them boomerangs because they kind of go away for a short period and they boomerang right back. Right. Well you know I was always going to come back. I just wanted to be away for a while or I went and I got my associates and I came back and I married my high school sweetheart or whatever else or the guy from the town that I knew and so on. And there were those returns would continue to date these stay or men while they were away and they'd sometimes be in suitcase schools where they'd be you know not quite commuter's but they'd be back you know

for weekends and whatnot. So there were gender differences in terms of the high flyers that we had again mostly women. Now I'm not sure that that's going to be typical of every small town. It was of of ours at that time. So professional women doctors dentists. Come on back to you know to work in these small towns so. There were yet there were gender differences. I want to ask you about an issue that you mentioned at the macro level that one of our questioners was bringing it up recently. And that was that's the whole issue of isolation that seems to me being from a small town and having left it and always knowing I wanted to leave it swinging on the gate. I want to get out the gate from the time I could walk to the gate. The Internet is fine but people want to go to Fargo they want.

They seem to want to. Be with other people. And as these towns depopulate you said they become even more isolated you have to drive two hours to get to the doctor. Could you say a little bit more about the impact of isolation on this whole population cycle. Oh it has a huge impact. I mean you know one of the you know there are two ways to kind of come back to that issue. Let me just talk about the response to the question and then I think the other response that sort of builds on that one so. So first of all if isolation is one of the things that drives people away and not so much isolation as we talked before but the lack of opportunities but also one of the things that the achievers and to a lesser extent the seekers talked about you know as being a motivating force in their lives for wanting to go was this what we call a hankering for diversity. Like I want to experience you know one of the kids actually put it in you know he was an

achiever and he says you know I went to college at Iowa and I had black roommates and I didn't know that they had all these things to do with their hair and I experience all this that you know this was just just blew his mind. He was delighted and he says that he says at the end he says you know I realize that not everybody is Lutheran. You know and it was just one of those you know kind of pithy sort of you know it sort of really you know sort of underscored this like you know back to the white world just blew this kid's mind you know. And that he wanted this and he it sort of met his expectations because you know he wanted to embrace this difference and that was you know very much a sort of a common theme in these narratives that they you know they talked about and then and then the flip side of it is that the stairs don't talk about that and they don't seem to mind the isolation. It's it's it's fine it's actually nice because for many of the stairs when they talked about going to you know maybe not even so much Iowa City but maybe Waterloo which is a city that's

you know a couple of hours away but is sort of the nearest large city to them. And how troubling that was to them sometimes because it was just so noisy and dirty and you know what I really wanted is not a dirty city at all. I mean you know I live in Philadelphia and you know that's a stack that up any time. But you know it's just it was just so very different and very you know very much outside of what they wanted. You know this kind of quiet pastoral existence. Now in terms of the sort of the flip flipside of that is that if you reduce isolation does it flip over the brain drain. And I think it can't hurt. And I think you know the Internet is part of that. You know in the sense that yes you can be connected in you know wife I capability you know and so on. These are all good things. But I think that you can sort of recreate the experiences that this young man with

you know pseudonym as Jerry talked about you know the sort of the non Lutheran World. So sort of you can't really sort of recreate that very easily. So I think a lot of the sort of responses to hollowing out are like you know we need more meetings. And so we have these meetings and people will stay because we'll have those meetings right so we'll have the bike trail and we'll have you know the cafe that you know has organic coffee and whatever else. And yes and no. So I think it's important to have those things. It's important to have different sort of things that will attract people and also benefit people who do stay. I mean I don't think you know we're going to coffee is not going to kill you. A grass fed steak is not going to kill you know might actually be good. An organic beer you know certainly. I was back in the US in August a friend of mine was retiring and invited me to his retirement party. I said oh sure I'll come back. And so when the Irishman of course I was designated to be barman for the day because you know

let's just be you know Iowans love their way. You've got your stereotype going to put you right in your little box. But no I was delighted to be. I was at the bound for the day but you know I knew this was going to happen so I said you know and I'm stopping off in Iowa City before I go up and I'm making sure that I bring in some decent beer this place because I was going to end up going to have a couple of cases of Bush light in a big vat of ice and that's going to be it. I said I'm not going to drink that stuff you know. So you know I showed up with my back seat full of you know Fat Tire and you know Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or whatever else fancy liberal east coast elitist beer and West Coast leaders beer. And I was right because there were four cases of Bush light. And then my six packs which were drunk before the bush like I will. So I think I sort of I I built up people's beer palates for them. But you know so it's possible to do. Probably not the answer you were looking for but maybe more entertaining.

Well liberal beer is not isolating I guess that's the lesson to take away. But I also wanted to ask you about scale and a number of questions have alluded to the issue of scale and the scale of Egor about business versus small family farming. The scale of money to be made from the business whether it's a big industry or agribusiness and that kind of smaller factories that small towns can support and the sense of well-being that people have when they're not at the very top of the economic ladder. And how does that play into the brain drain. That's a great question. Let me answer it up I've given you an example from the small town that I think in part answers it. But I think it opens up. So it is possible this is

this. This town is dependent on not really dependent on the land that many people work in agriculture. There are two factories that basically employ most of the town. And one of these factories builds emergency vehicles which is very labor intensive. But you know also quite profitable because you know there were other claims to fame was when Dale Earnhardt was morally injured at the Daytona Raceway he was taken away one of their ambulances which you know everybody was that way. Is Oh Dale Earnhardt you know NASCAR fans here obviously. Cosel elitists but no. So the story of this emergency vehicle plant is very interesting. They opened in Alice 18 years ago

and about nine or so years ago a company wanted to buy them out and move the plant to Mexico. And the owner who is not from else but is from a similar town in South Dakota turned down the offer. And for much less money sold it to the workers. So we actually lost money on it. And we talked to him and said Well you know how crazy are you mad man. You know sort of you know turn your back on filthy Luker and sell it to the workers. And he said well you know it was the right thing to do. And I knew if I sold it to this company it would be gone and the town might not recover from that. Now as it is you know he also was very interesting to talk to because we spoke with him you know he said Well so what do

you think about the future. Well I worry you know I worry because you know it just takes one downturn for us to you know not be able to keep going or to eliminate a shift or whatever. And you know we're surviving right now. But what we need to do is grow. And I thought that was again a very good way of encapsulating you know the the difficulties of these small towns have particularly when you had your star two to one or two employers which is the case in this town the other employer is an interesting one too because it's a it's a subsidiary of a larger conglomerate which is much more at the whim of globalization and they really really worry that you know the day will come when this larger company will say you know what we can move this thing to Singapore and you know either you take a 50 percent pay cut and you know lose your benefits or we're gone you know so. So you know that that's partly a response to that. I think there's an interesting story of you know that not taking the money but doing the right thing.

Is it a little shaky. I mean it may be shaky to be depending on the conglomerate and the whims of globalization but isn't it also a little shaky to be depending on the the rectitude of an individual. And we had a man like that in Massachusetts who paid his workers after the Polartec fleece factory burned out. He paid them while they rebuilt. And that was a tremendous gesture. And you know I think there are people like that. But to depend on them seen them being there when you need them seems as risky as depending on the whims of globalization. Absolutely you're right. I mean and what it does is it underscores the precarious nature of many of these places that are you know don't turn away from you know what could be a devastating loss. And I think but again

some of the things we talk about in terms of how do you rebuild. How do you retool your spreading your risk more widely by sort of introducing new types of industry and so on. So let's end on an upbeat note. Can you give us an example of a small town or community that has really turned turned it around and preserved its charm and its lifestyle and is making it you know the good news is there are many places that have managed to do that. And let me give you two examples. One is that when I talked about a little bit earlier on Newton Iowa Newton is a larger town the town that we did our research in. But you know one that was you know Kaon really was really knocked down when Maytag which employed 50 something percent could work for it was just a staggering amount of

people were dependent on the plant when they closed. I mean it really looked like this place was you know people going to have to leave and they lose population and their tax base and so on. But they've really managed to it's not completely turned around yet but they're they're surviving better and close to thriving. That's that's one example. The other example I want to give is a town called Marchette in Kansas and western Kansas and Marquette was one of the towns one of the first times to do this free land program and they had lost about 25 percent of the population in the city of previous 10 years before they sort of. And they offered these free free land lots which you know for us live in sort of land starved areas. You know it's like for forty five hundred square feet you know that you would build a 40 500 square foot house basically and then you'd have a homestead that would be like an acre and a half as long as you program within 18 months

and committed to the town for at least five years. And so they gave you the free land they offered to water and sewer hookups. I think Marquette was a term that also threw in through your membership at the Country Club which may sweet little cherry on top there. They should only arrest their population decline that actually grew by 200 people which for a town of 7 some 700 something people was massive right that's a massive influx. So you know will this work long term question mark. I don't know but there are two places I could give you dozens of others that I don't want to you know go on ad nauseum. You know there is hope and it can happen. Patrick Carr thank you