You’ve seen the pictures and heard the stories. Rural America is losing the battle of survival to an increasingly urbanized America, dominated by densely populated cities and suburbs. Young adults and families are moving away to find jobs, education, and medical care that can’t be matched in their hometowns.
Yet this dark version of rural America is misleading and dated. Rural America today has never been more appealing or offered more promise. America has awakened in the time of COVID to the reality of working remotely from virtually anywhere. Many can work where they want to live, not live where they must find work. Between 14 million and 23 million Americans intend to relocate to a different city or region as a result of telework, according to a recently released study by Upwork.
The pandemic has only accelerated a trend toward rural in-migration that research has shown was already under way. Researchers at the University of Minnesota Center for Community Vitality have documented a “brain gain” in parts of Minnesota, a trend toward rural migration led by a demographic that boasts younger adults and families with relatively higher levels of education and job skills. People move for many reasons. What is evolving is the changing priorities around rural migration. Quality of life, proximity to family, less congestion, perceived safety and security, lower cost of living, and more tightly knit communities are all factors that have been shown to be more important than jobs to new residents in deciding to migrate to rural towns.
In fact, in rural America, jobs often follow people. New residents may bring them, or they may create them. In addition to the capacity to work remotely, new residents bring with them unique entrepreneurial, social, and other skills that equip them to succeed economically and to extend that success to others in the community by building and growing small businesses. These businesses are diversified and sustainable, capable of withstanding the push and pull of world markets and providing a living wage to owners and workers alike.
Well positioned to grow
Research has also shown that communities in close proximity to natural amenities are especially well positioned to maintain and grow their population and economies. A Headwaters Economics study found that between 2010 and 2016, the average “non-recreation county” lost 20 people per 1,000 residents due to out-migration, while the average “recreation county” gained more than one person per 1,000 residents. Households moving into recreation counties had, on average, significantly higher income and earnings potential than in non-recreation counties.
[image_caption]David Miller[/image_caption]
Ely, Minnesota, the home base of Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness, is among the Arrowhead communities fortunate to bear witness to these positive trends. Ely is a principal gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA), America’s most visited wilderness and home to an iconic and unmatched canoe country of lakes, rivers, and forests free of roads, structures, motors, aircraft, or other man-made intrusions on nature. Our area enjoys a “human amenity index,” as measured by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City (heath care access, innovation, recreation areas, restaurants and scenic amenities), that is higher than 90 percent of other Minnesota counties. The population of Ely and surrounding townships has held relatively steady and its diversified economy has proved resilient. Tourism and recreation are economic cornerstones, complemented by small-batch, high quality manufacturing businesses, government, health care and service industries. Arts, attractions, nonprofits, and schools thrive alongside businesses, to make Ely one of America’s most highly ranked small towns.
An unprecedented demand for real estate
The summer of 2020 brought an unprecedented demand for real estate. A survey of Arrowhead realtors conducted by the IRRRB in the fall indicated this demand to be not only local, but “out-of-region” including the Twin Cities, Rochester, Colorado, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. Buyers include a larger percentage of younger people with a strong orientation toward lakes, wilderness, hunting, and fishing. Realtors reported the region’s growing reputation for outdoor recreation, especially proximity to the BWCA, was a key driver.
The same IRRRB study found the two biggest barriers to attracting additional in-migration were lack of broadband access and the threat of copper mining to the wilderness. Both are issues we can do something about, and our government leaders should. To these two issues I would also add a third, which is the need for more affordable housing. Although oftentimes this is viewed as a problem for just the metro, it is a significant issue in rural Minnesota as well. Like the other two, this is a solvable problem.
People are economic engines we must value. Surrounded by a unique wilderness, the Superior National Forest and other natural amenities, Ely and other Arrowhead towns are well positioned to exploit positive rural in-migration trends by focusing on attracting new residents. Viable pathways exist to resident recruitment in our region. We must take them.
David Miller resides in the Ely area and is the treasurer, a director and member of the executive committee of Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness, a nonprofit dedicated to protection of public lands and wilderness, especially the BWCA, and chair of its Economic and Community Development Task Force.
Do you remember last year when the mayor of Ely endorsed Donald Trump? That tells me everything I need to know about that place and who is welcome and who isn’t welcome there.
If you like the outdoors, you really gotta visit, it’s a pretty unique place in a beautiful setting. It’s also a town filled with small, locally owned, business’ run by a lot of very interesting and diverse people. There are a lot of Trumper’s there, sure, and a lot of hippies, and a lot of everything in between.
Which makes it a wonderful place to VISIT, not LIVE.
I have been there, on the way into the Boundary Waters. But that was before the mayor declared his support for hate and bigotry. And now this city full of Trump voters wants to be subsidized even more by the metro. No thanks.
Hmm, seems the outstaters are getting ansty. Hate to break it to ya guys, but there isn’t 14 million people about to break down your doors itching to leave city living behind. There is a big difference between “intend to” and “doing”, particularly in the earlier stages of adulthood (no disrespect intended 20 somethings, MY follow through in those years left something to be desired, as it did for most everyone). Rural America IS dying, predictably, as it continues to support policies and people that accelerate it’s decline, bristles at the notion that it should be open to changing it’s mind and mores regarding a whole myriad of social and political issues, and refuses adapt to a changing world (go try your tourism speil at the next city hall meeting). Small town Minnesota (and America) hates outsiders, hates city dwellers (while simultaneously believing they are hopelessly inferior both morally and intellectually), and is mired in false nostalgia for a glorious past that they wouldn’t be willing to take the measures to maintain, even if it actually existed. While I’d love the idea of small town America moderated by the influx of more forward thinking folks, its just not gonna happen. I’ve spent enough time, in enough towns, to understand the cake is baked, it’s just a matter of time.
I’m a Minneapolis transplant to the Iron Range. I’ve lived here for almost a decade now. I can tell you are grossly overstating your case and certainly painting it with an extremely wide and generic brush. I grew up in the suburbs, I know how bland, redundant and mono-cultural they are. I’ve paid rent in Minneapolis and St. Paul and known the hypocrisy of the “weekend punks” who went to work corporate desk jobs Mon-Fri, or white urban “liberals” who lock their doors when a black guy walks in front of their house. I can honestly say, I know more actual hippies, more actual small business hustlers, more creators, living up here than I did in all my years in “The Cities”. There’s actually a lot of room for a lot of different people and ideas up here, and more to the actual point of the article, lots of opportunity for entrepreneurship and personal enterprise.
But yeah, sometimes ya run into someone who thinks a bit differently from yourself. I’m even friends with Trumper’s, and I most certainly don’t share their opinions about most anything.
Oh please stop with the entrepreneurship bit. Towns like Ely would cease to exist without being subsidized by hard-working taxpayers in the Metro. This is yet another ask for more handouts.
And oh, the people in the metro are hypocrites and secretly racist? Well, you sure don’t have that problem in Ely, where residents are open about their bigotry. Metro voters chose progressive, tolerant leadership in the voting booth. The people of Ely and its leadership chose hate and lies.
Actually I refer to the 20 years or so spent in small rural communities (including the one I grew up in). I’m sure all your “friends” are quite welcoming, a pity you don’t hear what they say when you’re not around.
I sure hope the folks who don’t want me sticking my urban nose into their sulfide mining business aren’t going to ask me for tax dollars for affordable housing. I’d hate to make them dependent on hand outs and damage their sense of self-worth.
Good article – and you summed up some major issues in this area – access to high speed internet, the need to deal with copper nickel mining, and affordable housing. As I was informed in the Minnpost article about housing shortages in Greater Minnesota (I hate that term), communities will need to start working on their own solutions rather than looking for outside financial aid. I think this is sound advice, but I do think there could be some help with policy and regulations from the legislature (more flexible building codes, etc.) that would help ease the situation. Our Planning and Zoning Committee is exploring ways to tackle the problem by allowing construction on undersized lots, smaller houses, foundation requirements, etc.. Anyway, I wish Ely success.
Building codes and lot sizes aren’t the problem. It costs more to build housing than it will ever be worth. Towns like Ely are already heavily subsidized by Metro taxpayers, and now they want more. It isn’t sustainable.