ALBIA — While Iowa as a whole is growing, rural Iowa is disappearing — answers as to why are elusive.

According to numbers released recently by the U.S. Census Bureau, 76 Iowa counties lost people. The majority of those counties are considered rural.

Counties with major cities, like Des Moines in Polk County, grew in nearly every case. Polk went from 374,582 residents to 408,888. The area around the Quad Cities grew, as did Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, Iowa City and Council Bluffs. Overall, Iowa has grown by more than 55,000 residents to 2.98 million people.

The story is different in farm country.

Locally, Monroe County was hardest hit, losing 291 residents — about 3.5 percent of its population — between 2000 and 2006. It’s hard for officials to know why.

“There may be a lot of different reasons for it,” said Monroe County Supervisor Denny Ryan. “A lot of our residents who are older and well-to-do are living in another state six months out of the year ... as their residence. We used to have families with 10, 11 kids; now, families are getting smaller.”

Denice Gradeless, director of the Albia Area Chamber of Commerce, said loss of citizens can lead to a dangerous cycle.

“It depends on who is in the family that leaves. If there’s kids, you lose numbers in the schools; if you lose numbers in the schools, you lose teachers,” she said. “And [laid-off] teachers may have their own kids in the schools.”

Not only that, but those residents also shop at area businesses. If those shops lose enough business, those owners may close up and move.

“People may not think of that; it affects the whole community,” Gradeless said.

But that doesn’t mean it gets the community down. In Albia, they’ve continued to support and add amenities that make the town attractive to residents and potential incoming business, she said.

And the decrease in population hasn’t hurt county government operations too badly, Ryan said. Part of their job is getting those numbers back up.

“We’ve been working real hard, like a lot of counties, to get business and things to get people to move back. [Wapello County] has Bridge View Center, we’ve got the new destination park — there’s a lot of good opportunities in this part of our state,” Ryan said.

“All of our rural communities need to work together. You can branch out and find out as a group of communities: Can you bring bigger businesses to the area? It’s a matter of getting the word out,” Gradeless said.

Gradeless added it’s important to support homegrown business as well.