BLOOMFIELD —
It’s hard to keep a small town running without people. They pay taxes, buy goods and support local amenities.
“Our biggest challenge in our rural communities is declining population,” said Bill Menner, state director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Menner was at a roundtable discussion at the Davis County Courthouse, answering questions and listening to concerns and ideas.
Adults leave rural Iowa because there are no good-paying jobs. Those who do stay end up having their kids move away because the kids can’t find a job. Sewers, roads and other “infrastructure” starts failing because with fewer taxpayers, the community can’t afford maintenance.
So now potential businesses — which do have jobs — see a community with bad roads, a shrinking workforce and a lack of business “necessities” like fast Internet access.
“How do we create jobs, keep young people here and reinvest in the [structures and foundations] of the community,” Menner asked southeast Iowa business and political leaders. “Over the last 100 years, most rural counties in Iowa have lost population.”
There’s got to be some creative solutions, he and local leaders agreed. Biofuels seem to be important for independence from foreign oil, and can offer jobs to rural America. And homegrown entrepreneurs, when given support, can also hire their neighbors. Teaching people how to create community foundations can be supportive for a town, too.
“The kids are moving away, Iowa parents die and [over time] leave billions to their children who may have moved out of state,” said Menner.
How about asking parents to consider their community as a child, and leave 5 percent of their estate to their hometown?
Some other possible answers: funding rural housing assistance to draw homeowners to small towns. USDA revolving loans for startup businesses, where each community has a pot of money to loan an entrepreneur, then, when it’s paid back, they loan it to another business person. And subsidies for the things that will draw jobs to rural communities.
Menner said not every infrastructure need will make a profit when spread out widely to each rural resident. That doesn’t mean rural areas should be allowed to shrivel up and die.
“The only way it makes economic sense to put in broadband [Internet or other] infrastructure is if the federal government plays ball,” he said.
He said the FCC wants all Americans to have access to broadband Internet. Broadband business access only in urban areas puts rural communities at a disadvantage. Broadband can be 20 times faster than the wireless connection to the world used by many rural towns.
That, along with roads, schools and hospitals, is something businesses look at when deciding where to locate. And that’s how jobs are created. Those infrastructure needs must be supported.
Unfortunately, Menner said, financial support is drying up.
“A lot of our programs are on the chopping block,” he said.
So while loans may be available, rural grants may not be.
“I don’t have a problem with Bloomfield Iowa not getting that free money, but then I don’t want to see Des Moines getting it,” said Bloomfield resident Joy Evans.
“One of these days, ag is going to take a hit,” said Rodney Veatch, who is both a farmer and a loan officer, “and I just hope everyone is there to support it the way they did with business and Wall Street.”
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