Hollowing out the Middle in Minnesota

December 21st, 2009 by Mike Knutson

As hoped, Hollowing out the Middle is drawing some much needed attention to the issue of “brain drain” in the Heartland of Rural America. (read my past posts about the book here.)

Recently, Kate Smith of Minnesota Public Radio interviewed Hollowing out the Middle’s co-author, Patrick Carr. At the same time, fellow MPR employee, Mike Caputo, hosted a virtual forum with people from around Minnesota offering their ideas.

Carr issued his usual excellent performance in his interview with Smith. He provides insights into why young people leave and what he thinks rural communities should be doing to change it. You can listen to the interview by following this link .

You can also review the entire transcript from the virtual forum by following this link. What you will find is lively conversation between individuals with firsthand experience from living in rural communities.

Unfortunately, following a conversation in a virtual forum can be a bit difficult to follow. For that reason, I’ve attempted to lift a few key points from the transcript and organized them around three main points.

Conversation Starters

First, it’s important that young people have a good experience in their community while growing up. Carr and Kefalas talk at length about how many of the young people they interviewed for Hollowing out the Middle felt a deep connection to their community. But this connection is not universal across individuals and communities, and it often dissipates over time. It’s something that needs constant cultivation. The following quotes from the virtual forum offer a sampling of ideas on how this can be done.

Ben Winchester (10:11): Calls on community leaders to engage kids in community decision making. Doing so, should help connect them to their community, making it a place they want to return.
Dan Erkkila (10:19):Raises a good point by questioning how the law enforcement professionals interact with kids? Do kids fear them or turn to them for support?
Susanne (10:21): Has learned from experience that giving youth a “positive voice in a community” helps both the community and the young person, whether they stay or go.

I like that the conversation is about connecting with young people before they move away. Too often, people think the retention of young people only starts after they’ve finished high school. If that’s your community, you’re waiting too long.

Second, make sure you are building a community that young people want to return to. Many individuals on the virtual forum spoke of the importance of employment opportunities. We definitely can never lose sight that. But I was impressed with an insight provided by Dan Erkkila (10:10) who noted that being able to offer young people jobs is only one aspect of what makes community life fulfilling. A community can offer all the jobs in the world, but if people don’t want to live in the community they won’t.

Some additional comments on this subject include:

Dan Erkkila (10:29): Suggests we should learn from news stories, such as those titled “Best Cites in the US.” Here Dan sees young people looking for such features as “green space, safety, clean environment, good schools, etc.”
Robin in Ely (10:30): Believes it is “strong family ties and access to the wilderness” that attract young people to her community.
Jamie: (10:30): Besides good employment, Jamie identified a sense of belonging and entertainment options.

And this leads me to the last point that I want to lift out of the forum: Young people need to feel a sense of belonging to the community if we expect them to choose our rural communities. Personally, I liked Neil Linscheid’s comment (10:30) on this subject best; “Good friends and relationships = quality of life for me.” When making this comment, Neil was speaking more to a definition of quality of life, but he also highlights how important relationships are to a sense of belonging. Later (10:35) he mentioned having to personally seek out community groups to get involved with because it can be tough for people who don’t frequent the bars to build relationships otherwise.

I appreciated that other individuals recognized the importance of intentionally building friendships through community involvement as well:

Jamie (10:32) spoke from personal experience in saying her sense of community belonging was heightened when people “feel welcomed to get involved.”
James Hansen (10:33): recommended community members take involvement a step further by asking new residents to participate in leadership roles.
Jamie (10:34): offered an example of a high school service-learning program that was helping build relationships.

There’s really something to this notion that getting people involved in the community is important to attracting and retaining young people in the community. But as the Soul of the Community study notes, it’s also important to the overall economic wellbeing of the community.

There are a lot of other great insights offered throughout the virtual forum. It’s a great place to start for any community seeking to address the issue of youth outmigration.

Photo Credit: Mulad - Flickr

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