Rural Iowa dwindling

By MARK NEWMAN Courier staff writer

March 27, 2008 11:40 pm

— 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.
“We’ve got room to grow,” Ryan said.
A positive attitude doesn’t hurt, concluded Gradeless.
“An economic downturn is not going to stop festivals and events,” Gradeless said. “People care. Just look at our historic square. It’s preserved, and you can see how clean everything is.”
Wapello County was down by about one-tenth of a percent, losing 41 residents for a total of 36,010 residents.
Ottumwa Mayor Dale Uehling credits local economic development the ability to stay fairly constant while other counties drop.
“We’ve had some job growth with some of our companies: Cargill both at Eddyville and Cargill Meat Solutions, John Deere, Winbco and Al-jon,” he said. “American Bottling has remained strong, we have new companies like Frog Legs — unless something unforeseen happens, I look for us to remain in fairly strong economic condition.”
In fact, with the coming of a Job Corps site to the area around the Ottumwa Industrial Airport, he said the outlook is even brighter.
“I certainly would have liked to see us with some growth. And when we have the 2010 count, I think we may see some growth,” Uehling said. “But the fact that we are holding our own is positive.”
Mahaska County also saw only a small change, losing 38 people. And while Appanoose, Jefferson and Keokuk all lost residents between 2000-06, the local news isn’t all bad. Both Van Buren and Davis Counties grew slightly over the last few years.
“We think we’re a really good place to live because of numerous [benefits] here,” said Davis County Supervisor Max Proctor.
He cited the lakes, the history and other amenities that are attractive to Davis County residents. But there are other counties that have such things, and they lost ground.
“Anything I tell you would be conjecture. Certainly, our Amish population is helping; they’re pretty steady. And our young people are coming back in a few instances, and people are coming back here to retire. It’s a fairly economical place to live. We’ve had people move here from Ottumwa,” Proctor said.
County officials have seen the declining numbers around them, and Proctor said he’s glad for even a small increase. The more people in a municipality, the more spread out the tax burden is.
“To hold your own is a good thing. We don’t seem like we’ve got an abundance of money, but it’s certainly better than going the other way.”
Every new house is a new source of property tax to support the community, he said. But are they building in Davis County?
“We have new houses going up. My son is a contractor, and he’s been busy all the time. [He has] a waiting list and he’s turning down work,” Proctor said.
Mark Newman can be reached at 683-5358 or by e-mail at mgnewman@mchsi.com.

Area census numbers
County 2000 2006

Appanoose 13,721 13,422
Davis 8,541 8,602
Jefferson 16,181 15,945
Keokuk 11,400 11,081
Mahaska 22,335 22,298
Monroe 8,016 7,725
Van Buren 7,809 7,836
Wapello 36,051 36,010
— Source: U.S. Census Bureau