Is This Our Future?

I was reading an article on Newsweek.com today titled Doughnut- Hole Country and I have to tell you some of the parallels I saw in this article about brain drain in rural communities made me pretty uncomfortable. The article is based on an interview with authors of the book Hollowing Out the Middle.
The premise of the book that much of America’s rural “heartland” is shrinking in terms of population, experiencing “brain drain”, and seeing their economies spiral downward. Although they are talking about 700 counties stretching from the Dakotas to Texas some of the reasons this is happening and the outcomes look eerily familiar.
One of the reasons they feel this has happened is that the K-12 educational system is largely focused on “Achievers”, kids who are seen as “smart” and are guided towards university educations in the larger cities where they are more likely to succeed, and to stay. The students who are seen as less “accomplished” receive less focus and attention. They are also more likely to stay in the community.
Much of the “heartland” has traditionally been known for an agrarian economy. It is where much of our food is grown, but large “agri-businesses” now control much of the property and the production. Family owned farms are diminishing. Many of the remaining population doesn’t have the skill sets to work in “new” industries like computer technology, health care, sustainable energy and other emerging sectors.
These same geographies are disproportionately affected by global “outsourcing” and the relocation of jobs to other countries. This causes further disruption to their economies. The interesting effects of outsourcing include the fact that much of innovation occurs in the manufacturing process. When you outsource that process you also outsource the innovation that comes with it. Some might argue that this is a form of social and economic Darwinism, the “strong” communities survive and thrive, and it is natural selection. Unfortunately one of the ancillary effects is that people follow and you also see the resulting issues like high crime rates, homelessness, and other “benefits” of these clusters in big cities. People move to the cities to access broader and richer social service infrastructure not available in smaller communities.
Here are some of the parallels I see between what the authors describe and our own community:
· A significantly shifting economic base. Lane County was primarily built on the base of the extraction industry- aggregates and timber. As these industries have been reduced by legislation and technology we have not replaced them with a new viable economic infrastructure. Whether we want to admit it or not dollars from those industries built much of the infrastructure we all enjoy including our cultural centers and our world class university.
· Educational elitism. I remember being part of the Contact 2000 program on several occasions here in Lane County. This was an iniative where we went out and spoke with businesses about impediments to growing or even keeping their businesses in Lane County. I was told by several that a major issue was the availability of a workforce with the requisite skills. They felt that the educational system was very academically oriented. Pursuing a “trade” or craft was discouraged. They even pointed out that most of the high schools and even our local community college discontinued or reduced vocational educational programs like wood shop, automotive repair and even home economics. Better to be a “college educated” restaurant server than a trade person.
· The “left behinds”. We have several generations now in Lane County who in past generations would have pursued family wage jobs in those extraction industries that I mentioned previously. That isn’t an option for them anymore.
· Population shifts. Because of our fragmented economic base and poor affordability index we are experiencing another parallel to the “heartland”. The 4J school system is facing issues regarding funding and school closures because of the shrinking k-12 population in its boundaries. Young families have moved out of Eugene in large part because they can’t afford to purchase a home in “urban” Lane County. The combination of voter initiatives limiting property valuation and taxation and Eugene’s desirability for “retirement living” added to the lack of industrial tax base exacerbate the issue. It also puts pressure on smaller communities who in many cases don’t have the infrastructure to support the influx of population.
· Our bright young people are leaving the community. We haven’t created an economic base for them to stay. There are no major employers or industries for them to work in post graduation. So they go to Portland or Seattle or somewhere else.
If I seem like I am being critical, I am. I came to Lane County over 20 years ago. I was drawn by an excellent school system for my children, access to a world class university, and the livability of a relatively small community. I was one of the lucky ones to benefit from working for an employer who paid national scale wages. I was concerned then that the high technology base that I joined was small. I was lucky, when I lost my job I was able to transfer my skills to an entreprenurial role providing consulting to new businesses that located here.
We recruited our last major new economic player to Lane County in 1994 with Levi Strauss. Sony, Shorewood, Hynix and others have come and gone. Some see their departures as corporate manipulation; having worked in Fortune 100 corporations I saw it as a function of a world economy.
In truth we were not very hospitable in large part to these employers as well. We complain about the taxes we deferred, but refuse to recognize the millions they spent in wages, infrastructure and related investments. I for one saw the tradeoffs and being in our favor. We contributed to if not caused the decision to build the new hospital in Springfield rather than Eugene because we allowed political agendas rather than a regional economic strategy to drive our actions.
During the Clinton Administration we received an “allowance” from the Federal government for a period of six years in the form of the Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act to help us defray some of the impact of lost revenues from restrictions on our extraction industries. It was clear it was intended to be a bridge while we developed a strategy to make up for the loss. Our Congressional delegation has been able to extend some of that funding for an additional two years, but what have we done with our eight year lead time? Wasn’t that sufficient time to develop a strategy? I would defy you to find a business that gets eight years warning that their funding is drying up.
I applaud the efforts to build sustainable businesses and to foster entrepreneurialism, but I think we need a broader more cohesive strategy.
Our rural communities suffer from the impacts even more. I would suspect that more of the “left behinds” are represented in communities like Oakridge, Marcola, Elmira, and others than the South Hills of Eugene or Thurston.
The “brain drain” is being played out especially in the area of health care. We have a critical shortage in the number of trained health care professionals in the state of Oregon ranging from CNAs to nurses and physicians. We have one medical school in our state located in an urban area. Studies say that a significant portion of health care professionals stay where they complete their training; this even further impacts our rural communities. Their best and brightest that go to Portland to attend medical or nursing school are not likely to return “home” to practice their craft.
I don’t want to be a “carpetbagger”, someone who enjoys the fruits of what this community offers, but plies my trade elsewhere. One of the “haves” rather than “have nots”. I don’t want to avoid the downtown because of empty buildings and the homeless or not use the library because I don’t want to risk punching out an obnoxious kid panhandling me for change. And the next time I read an article about “Doughnut-Hole Country” I don’t want it to be about the community I live in. The time for rhetoric is done. We need to step up and create and implement a real strategy. Now before we read about us in Newsweek.