…
As young people flee for jobs elsewhere, many towns are dying or already dead. With improved technology and plant genetics, it takes fewer people to grow crops for America and the rest of the world. This is an unspoken topic that shapes the discussions rural Iowans want to have with the candidates. Because what lies ahead for rural America is county consolidation and more school mergers. Communities will lose more hospitals, hometown banks and manufacturing companies. Walmart devastated much of the retail base in the 1980s and ’90s, and Amazon is destroying what’s left. Toss in rural poverty on top of that.
A helpful federal plan would work with local and state governments to direct infrastructure improvements and the like to “opportunity zones” with growth potential. Those communities are often the ones that have a thriving hospital and an institution of higher learning.
In places with a strong manufacturing base, housing can be scarce. Here in Marion County, which is southeast of Des Moines, there is a lot of demand for housing from workers in manufacturing jobs. But developers are tough to attract: There isn’t much money in building 50 houses in Knoxville, Pleasantville or Pella, compared with constructing hundreds in the Des Moines metro. A federal plan could encourage housing in places like this.
