Your riding along and go through this town and realize it it probably dying.

[oldbike54]

 During our bike show in beautiful downtown Cedar Vale last weekend , an older gentleman approached me with a big smile on his face and started the discussion by saying , "We appreciate what you have done here" . He continued on by telling me how when he was a young man that the downtown street of Cedar Vale would be lined with cars on busy days , and how with all of those cars , probably a hundred , the overall value would not be as much as our 34 motorcycles lined up along the street . Of course that would not truly be accurate in terms of real dollars , and I didn't mention the fact that some of us were riding low dollar bikes 

 The world is changing , more folks live in Urban areas now , even here in the middle most everyone resides in cities . Funny , despite the back-to-the-land movement in the 80's and 90's, most people find it easier to live where a pizza is only a phone call away . Probably a case of romanticism losing out to practicality .

 Dusty

[MotoChuck250]

Small towns in The USA have been dying since the 1950s.  At the time of WWII, more than 50% of Our highways were not paved.  People had to shop local because it was inconvenient to drive to the next town or city.  Every little town had department stores, mens stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, etc.  Now, in the 21st century guess what?  All our US and State highways are paved and most county roads are too.  People can and do drive 20, 30, 40 miles for shopping. 

Wal-Mart surely made it hard on small businesses in the 1980s.  However, since the late 1990s, the real "problem" has become the internet.  People can shop from home.  Wal-Mart didn't do that, and is struggling to keep up with companies like Amazon.

As an aside, there are places Wal-Mart has gone into where they employ more people than the the mom & pop stores ever did.  And despite what the media would have you believe, Wal-Mart pays more and offers more benefits than those mom & pops ever did.  Hey, I'm no Wal-Mart fanboy, but they did not single-handedly kill small town America.

Improved consumer mobility is what has killed the small towns.  If we'd never paved the highways connecting the towns, every little town would still be a little stand-alone island of commerce.  Except, now, the internet doesn't really care if your road is paved, or not.  FedEx will still deliver there.

An example of this can be found in the little town where we just had our Knot a Knational.  Cedar Vale Kansas.  At one time is was a prosperous hub of ranching and farming.  It had rail service connecting to the outside world, but the highway (US-166) connecting to Arkansas City (32 miles distant) wasn't paved until 1940.  It's been improved several times since then, and the trip now takes less than 30-minutes.  Pretty hard for local businesses in a town of 500 people to compete with bigger stores awaiting customers only a half-hour down a 65-mph US-Highway. 

Add to that, the fact that ranching and farming now require less manpower than they ever have, due to mechanization, and it's no wonder these small rural towns and cities have suffered with population decline over the last half century.

To me a lot of it has to do with the environment that these small towns offer to young people.  There is not a lot of opportunity for moving up the ladder in small towns.  Good jobs with high wages are not plentiful.  Who want's to go from working at the Ma & Pa grocery to owning a Ma & Pa grocery with a very thin profit margin. Same with the local Kwikee Mart.  Agriculture is a risky business but can be rewarding.  It can also be a big loser.

In addition to the economic picture it can be a rough place to grow up and establish your independence.  Most older folks will have known you since birth and will treat you as your parents kid or such.  This is not the place to explore who you are. Any kids that go off to college are faced with the choice of coming back to their old identity or exploring new possibilities in a wider world. 

Small school sizes are also a problem as many kids may not have the opportunity to pursue interests because there are not enough similarly minded students to build a drama department or an art department or an industrial arts department.  OTOH students may be conscripted into playing sports that they otherwise would not have any interest in.  There are a lot of stories of kids in the great plains being pressured into playing football or basketball when they didn't want to.

In the end these towns will rise and fall on where the young people and young families want to be. 

[Gliderjohn]

I grew up a rural farm kid attending a 1-8 grade school of about 60 students. Later lived in Wichita for 22 years with a population of around 350,000. I now live a mile from where I grew up in a rural area. You really have to want and like living in the country. I do not ride as much due to three miles to pavement. Insurance is substantially higher and so are my property taxes. We typically drive at least 350-400 miles a week just doing daily business and activities. Your city friends are hesitant to come out because they are uncomfortable driving or riding off pavement.
But...I can shoot firearms and pee off my deck or porch, fish within 50 yards of my house, take interesting walks, have much more interaction with nature, sleep with windows and doors open, have air dried bed sheets, don't have to walk the dog so he can do his business, don't have to have bathroom curtains pulled shut, see all of the sunrise and sunset, if I have a calamity of some sort or just need a bit of help the neighbors are ready and willing, my share crop farming does not need a written detailed lease, just maybe a bit of discussion and a handshake, much of my food is grown in our garden or obtained through local farmers.
GliderJohn

[travelingbyguzzi]

In the end, It comes down to one thing: opportunities. In other words: Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!
I would love to be back in smalltown Arkansas, but as a young man, I couldn't make a (good enough) living.
Others managed to find a way, but I couldn't.
Moved to Seattle, where I have done very well.
I had always thought that I would eventually move back, but:!
My wife had Stage  IV Ovarian cancer and we absolutely cannot leave our big city cancer hospitals.

My little town in the census of 1950: 500
                                                        1960 75
but even in the 60s, the towm hopped on Saturday. then in yte late 60s all the hiways got paved. In the mid 70s Walmart came to the county seat and the specific shops like the shoe store the music tore and the book store were gone, leavung empty store fronts.

[cloudbase]

Those Kansas figures got me wondering whether it was due to resident births or immigration.  Found a nice bit of data at http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/conferen/kepc06/Kulcsar_handout.pdf

Population is up in Wichita and the KC area, as well as the meat triangle.  Pretty much down everywhere else.  Very large immigrant population increases.

People will go where the work is.  Not everybody can sell goods.  Most of us have to sell our labor.

[boatdetective]

I'm on the other side of things. My little town as only 12 miles or so outside of Boston on the coast. Every scrap of spare land was divided up and sold by 1950.  You can stuff about 20,000 people in this tiny space and that's been the population for as long as I can remember. However, things have changed considerably in the past 50 years or so. When I was a kid, there was a solid fishing community (the town was founded in 1629 when cod was king). We also had Hood sailmakers- the inventor of Dacron sailcloth and at the time the largest sail loft in the world. The recreational marine industry provided lots of jobs for tradesmen.  Eventually, I became part of that tradition.

Over the past 30 years or so, the town changed rapidly into a bedroom community for executives in Boston. It has transformed for the most part into bland suburbia. The individuality and maritime traditions on which the town had been founded have been washed away.  The controversies in town today center around soccer fields, setting up a dog park, and how many millions of tax dollars should be spent to cap the dump.

So, although we still have a town full of people, there is still a town that has died. An entire history has been plowed under. I can go up to virtually anyone on the street and ask them to tell me what a dory is, and hardly anyone would be able to answer.  Ironically, this small boat (at one time critical to the fishing trade) is on the town seal.

[John Ulrich]

As we, ahem, get grayer, living closer to Medical facilities becomes more important. Many rural areas do not have the populations to support independent hospitals.

You betcha!  While visiting family on a road trip, one member mentions she will get a $5,000 referral bonus to get a doctor to move/join one of their rural branch offices.  Her niece just graduated and can get a full ride to medical school is she agrees to go to a rural location. 
Walmarts are in the larger county hubs. The smaller towns out a few 100 miles away are the ones really dying!

[Guzzer]

Every time they make a new 4 lane or a bypass or straighten a highway that was crooked & laced small town to small town, the small towns bypassed lose gas stations and cafes and retail stores that still offered work, brought cas to town, and a way to recirculate money. Real estate values fall since no one is driving through that town and saying, "This is a sweet town..Oh, look at that cute house for sale!"

[Sasquatch Jim]

" How ya gonna keep em down on the farm, after the've seen Parrie?"

 Line from an old WW1 song.  But still valid.

[Guzzistajohn]

That is because the town was declared a superfund site and everyone was forced to leave.
Very sad situation .

 Dusty

Pitcher is a bad deal, I used to ride dirt bikes there on the huge chat piles. I wonder if that has anything to do with that extra arm growing out of the middle of my kids back?

The availability of the comforts of home are difficult to get your hands on in those small towns. We couldn't even get cayenne pepper 🌶 in cedar vale! Uggggh!

[bacongrease]

 I heard guys on bikes would disappear down in the mine shafts ?   

[JJ]

In the early 1900's, Jerome, Arizona boasted >20,000 residents due to the "Billion-Dollar-Copper Mine" there.  Now, there is only about 400 full-time residents, mostly artists and musicians.   Still, a cool place to visit and it is the National Register of Historic Towns. :1:

[oldbike54]

 OK fellas , no politics , seriously .

 Dusty

[Lannis]

As mentioned in another thread, just rode through Littleton, WV yesterday.

Worst place I've ever seen.   Founded in the 1880s when the railroad came through, burned down in 1906 and rebuilt in nice stone and brick buildings.   

Started dying in 1960 when the trains quit coming through.   "De-incorporated" in 2004 because no one would run for mayor or be a town policeman.

Now it's the poorest town in West Virginia, and that's saying something, with an annual per-capita income of $6,000.   You wouldn't even stop there to take pictures - the town is completely captured by heroin and meth addictions; the last big news article was when three people were stabbed and left to die in a burning house over a drug deal.

And yet when we rode through yesterday, there were little kids out in the yards of the run-down houses full of junk and old cars.   Poor little things ... they haven't got a chance.   I don't even joke about drugs any more ....

Lannis

[nobleswood]

Every time they make a new 4 lane or a bypass or straighten a highway that was crooked & laced small town to small town, the small towns bypassed lose gas stations and cafes and retail stores that still offered work, brought cas to town, and a way to recirculate money. Real estate values fall since no one is driving through that town and saying, "This is a sweet town..Oh, look at that cute house for sale!"

That's the main premise of the movie 'Cars'

[wymple]

Some of the towns here in Iowa, like my hometown of Ft. Madison, and neighboring Keokuk, have expanded in size and home numbers while losing population. There were lots of large families back then, 6-12 kids being common. Now everyone quits at 2-3.  Ft. Madison was around 14k, now down to 10k.  Keokuk was at 16k, now under 10k. Yet the towns are not "smaller", just fewer people from smaller families. I'm from a family of 12, my mother from a family of 13, her father from a family of 16.

[Chet Rugg]

I'm with gliderjohn  .
we livin it.   Money is for nothing and the chicks are free

[johnr]

I'm on the other side of things. My little town as only 12 miles or so outside of Boston on the coast. Every scrap of spare land was divided up and sold by 1950.  You can stuff about 20,000 people in this tiny space and that's been the population for as long as I can remember. However, things have changed considerably in the past 50 years or so. When I was a kid, there was a solid fishing community (the town was founded in 1629 when cod was king). We also had Hood sailmakers- the inventor of Dacron sailcloth and at the time the largest sail loft in the world. The recreational marine industry provided lots of jobs for tradesmen.  Eventually, I became part of that tradition.

That was an interesting post boatdetective. The Dragon I used to sail in had Hood sails (and they were very good) Has Hood relocated or are they gone altogether now?   

Good grief! Even I know what a dory is and how it was used though they were never a 'thing' here.

We have a similar small town problem here though the causes, while similar, are slightly different.

[Two Checks]

History of Hood Sails...
http://hood-sails.com/hood-through-the-years-2/

Its been sold twice and moved.
They have lofts around the world.

[Chuck in Indiana]

My wife had Stage  IV Ovarian cancer and we absolutely cannot leave our big city cancer hospitals.

So sorry to hear this, Bill. Give her our best wishes..

[Gliderjohn]

This town's city hall is quite a step up from my first posting.
GliderJohn

[ScepticalScotty]

Works as just as well for my home town, Gosford NSW Australia, as the life is sucked out of the town centre.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9IUj1mDENg