rural decline
Farms losing people
Rural decline is the gradual deterioration of countryside communities—shrinking populations, closing businesses, disappearing services.
Young people leave for cities, farms consolidate or fail, schools and hospitals shut down: Rural decline has hollowed out many small towns across the Midwest.
The phrase appears often in policy discussions about agricultural regions losing economic vitality and political influence.
- aging populationIncreasing proportion of elderly
- unemploymentBeing without paid work
- brain drainEmigration of skilled workers
- economic stagnationPersistent lack of growth
- isolationComplete separation from others
young people leaving · digital divide · income inequality · school closures · one-room schoolhouse · deforestation · Dust Bowl · desertification · biodiversity loss · labor shortages · family farm · fallow fields · ghost towns · dying towns · emptiness · hollow · boarded up · water scarcity
- Great PlainsGreat Plains, high plains, High Plains, grassland, grasslands
- Heisei Japanbubble burst, deflation, economic stagnation, Fukushima, Shinzo Abe
- regional issueswater scarcity, water shortage, crime rates, traffic congestion, housing crisis
- depopulationpopulation loss, emptying, hollowing out, mass exodus, emigration
- Saskatchewan HistorySaskatoon, NDP, grain elevators, homesteading, prairie settlement
- Montana Hi-LineMalta, Glasgow, Shelby, Chester, Conrad
rural declineurban growth
Expansion of cities
urban expansion · urbanization · suburban sprawl · city growth · urban development