Heartland author notes population drain from biggest cities, explores diverse rural culture in new podcast - Entrepreneur Generations

In news and pop culture narratives, rural America is a dismal place to live, but multiple studies show that most people in rural areas like where they live and feel hopeful about the future. And though 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas, 27% say they wish they lived in a rural area. That desire may be helping to fuel a population shift across the U.S., writes Sarah Smarsh in an op-ed for The New York Times. Smarsh is the author of rural Kansas memoir Heartland.

The nation's biggest cities, New York and Los Angeles, are losing population while other cities in the South and the West are gaining population (a prospect that should terrify the Republican Party, The Atlantic writes). Some rural areas are gaining population too, Smarsh notes, citing a study that found most rural Minnesota counties gained well-to-do early- and midcareer adults from 2000 to 2010, and only a third of them are returning to their hometowns; the rest are new to the area. That doesn't account for the fact that many rural areas still deal with significant economic problems and population drain, but it's a hopeful harbinger of things to come in other rural areas.

Many urban and suburban residents deeply miss their rural hometowns, Smarsh writes. In the year since Heartland was published, Smarsh said she has been approached by thousands of such people—a surprisingly diverse crowd—who spoke longingly of their rural roots and their desire to return. "These aren’t just white people lamenting the loss of the family wheat farm. They are black women missing their families in the rural South, Muslim women organizing workers in meatpacking towns on the plains, young gay men hoping to return to their small-town roots," Smarsh writes. "This is the rural America I know and love — a place rife with problems, yes, but containing diversity, vibrancy and cross-cultural camaraderie."

Smarsh is exploring this "shift in the zeitgeist" with a new podcast, The Homecomers, featuring rural and working class advocates from all over the country. "From where I sit, they are heroes of the American odyssey — seeing value where others see lack, returning with the elixir of hard-won social capital to help solve the troubles of home," Smarsh writes.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2M0rOSL Heartland author notes population drain from biggest cities, explores diverse rural culture in new podcast - Entrepreneur Generations

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