cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16862977
‘Too many old people’: A rural Pa. town reckons with population loss
There is a deepening sense of fear as population loss accelerates in rural America. The decline of small-town life is expected to be a looming topic in the presidential election.
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America’s rural population began contracting about a decade ago, according to statistics drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau.
A whopping 81 percent of rural counties had more deaths than births between 2019 and 2023, according to an analysis by a University of New Hampshire demographer. Experts who study the phenomena say the shrinking baby boomer population and younger residents having smaller families and moving elsewhere for jobs are fueling the trend.
According to a recent Agriculture Department estimate, the rural population did rebound by 0.25 percent from 2020 to 2022 as some families decamped from urban areas during the pandemic.
But demographers say they are still evaluating whether that trend will continue, and if so, where. Pennsylvania has been particularly afflicted. Job losses in the manufacturing and energy industries that began in the 1980s prompted many younger families to relocate to Sun Belt states. The relocations helped fuel population surges in places like Texas and Georgia. But here, two-thirds of the state’s 67 counties have experienced a drop in population in recent years.
‘You can’t say that people are “hoarding” property when it’s not property that anyone wants to buy.‘
But people (and organizations) are hoarding properties that people want to buy.
…Which is not what the article you posted–with your title “Real Estate hoarders dying off like flies”–was about in the slightest.
It’s my inference. A big part of why people leave small towns now is because they can’t afford the cost of living with the average income they can realistically obtain in said small towns. I’ve lived in small towns, the relative cost of living can be higher than a city.