‘Too many old people’: A rural Pa. town reckons with population loss - eviltoast

There is a deepening sense of fear as population loss accelerates in rural America. The decline of small-town life is expected to be a looming topic in the presidential election.

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America’s rural population began contracting about a decade ago, according to statistics drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau.

A whopping 81 percent of rural counties had more deaths than births between 2019 and 2023, according to an analysis by a University of New Hampshire demographer. Experts who study the phenomena say the shrinking baby boomer population and younger residents having smaller families and moving elsewhere for jobs are fueling the trend.

According to a recent Agriculture Department estimate, the rural population did rebound by 0.25 percent from 2020 to 2022 as some families decamped from urban areas during the pandemic.

But demographers say they are still evaluating whether that trend will continue, and if so, where. Pennsylvania has been particularly afflicted. Job losses in the manufacturing and energy industries that began in the 1980s prompted many younger families to relocate to Sun Belt states. The relocations helped fuel population surges in places like Texas and Georgia. But here, two-thirds of the state’s 67 counties have experienced a drop in population in recent years.

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  • SeattleRain@lemmy.worldEnglish
    202·
    5 months ago

    They say neither Pennsylvania nor the nation can afford to lose small towns and the institutions that power them.

    Lol, why?

    Not only are they a touchstone of American life,

    Very often a hard and poverty stricken life.

    but they are also key to driving certain sectors of the economy, like agriculture.

    What’s stopping farms from being built next to suburbs or even within cities with the tech we have now.

    These boomers are why over romanticizing how “good” small town life was. What they’re really sad about is disproportionate political power our anti democratic electoral college gave them and the unchecked tin pot dictatorships they often held over small towns. Being able to get away with literal murder sometimes because they personally knew the cops and judges.

    They couldn’t care less about the poor quality of life that most citizens of these small towns had. If they did they would have made the necessary investments to attract people (like a handful of small towns have).

    • Moneo@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 months ago

      Possible tin hat explanation: Suburbs/small towns lean conservative so preserving them is essential for conservatives to retain power.