crossposted from
unbossed
Part I of this series may be found here.
Yes, Kansas is withering - no typo in the title.
Remember the neutron bomb? It was supposed to kill people but leave buildings and other infrastructure intact. Well, lots of Kansas (and Nebraska) might as well have been hit by a neutron bomb. People gone. Houses empty.
The part of Kansas I will discuss here lies along US 36 in Kansas.
I am going to give the statistics for the Kansas counties west to east along the Nebraska border to mid-Kansas. You can skip the statistics to the discussion below. The story they tell is that the population in these counties has declined steeply . . . from what it was in 1900, twenty years after this part of the state was settled. After I give the statistics and the links, I'll talk about the reasons for this decline and try to affix some blame.
County Statistics
First, three background stats for Kansas population. Kansas in 2003 had about 2,723,507 population. Its population change from April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2003 was +1.3%. Its population change for 1990 to 200 was +8.5%. I wasn't able to find this for all counties.
In other words, the State of Kansas as a whole has grown in each of these periods. But these counties have withered. It is as if a neutron bomb hit them and disappeared the people, leaving the buildings intact.
Cheyenne County
Founded: 1886
Population:
3,165 (2000) = 120% of 1900 population
3,678 (1990)
2,640 (1900) - 14 years after founding
Area: 1021 Square Miles
Population change
4-1-00 to 7-1-03 -6.6%
1990 to 2000 -2.4%
--
Rawlins County
Founded: 1881
Population:4105 - 56% of 1900 population
2,966 (2000)
3,404 (1990)
5,241 (1900) 19 years after founding
Area: 1069 Square Miles
Atwood, the county seat, is offering free land. More Rawlins County data.
--
Decatur County
Founded: 1880
Population:
3,472 (2000) - 38% of 1900 population
4,021 (1990)
9,234 (1900) - 20 years after founding
Area: 894 Square Miles
Population change
4-1-00 to 7-1-03 -5.1%
1990 to 2000 -13.7%
--
Norton County
Founded: 1872
Population:
5,953 (2000) - 52% of 1900 population
5,947 (1990)
11,325 (1900) - 28 years after founding
Area: 873 Square Miles
--
Phillips County
Founded: 1872
Population:
6,001 (2000) - 42% of 1900 population
6,590 (1990)
14,442 (1900) - 28 years after founding
Area: 887 Square Miles
Population change
4-1-00 to 7-1-03 -5.7%
1990 to 2000 -8.9%
--
Smith County
Founded: 1872
Population:
4,536 (2000)- 28% of 1900 population
5,078 (1990)
16,384 (1900) - 28 years after founding
Area: 897 Square Miles
population change
4-1-00 to 7-1-03: -7.8%
change 1990 to 2000 -10.7%
--
Jewell County
Founded: 1870
Population:
3,791 (2000) - 20% of 1900 population
4,251 (1990)
19,420 (1900) - 30 years after founding
Area: 910 Square Miles
Note the lists of "vanished towns."
population change
4-1-00 to 7-1-03 -9.4%
1990 to 2000 - 10.8%
--
Republic County
Founded: 1868
Population:
5,835 (2000) - 32% of 1900 population
6,482 (1990)
18,248 (1900) - 32 years after founding
Area: 719 Square Miles
population change
4-1-00 to 7-1-03 -9%
1990 to 2000 -10%
--
Washington County
Founded: 1860
Population:
6,483 (2000) - 30 % of 1900 population
7,073 (1990)
21,963 (1900) - 40 years after founding
Area: 900 Square Miles
population change
4-1-00 to 7-1-03 -5.4%
1990-2000 -8.3%
Observations from the population figures
I think the neutron bomb analogy is apt. At best, these counties are holding at best 50% of their population, with the exception of Cheyenne at over 100%, but it started from a small baseline. Cheyenne's population numbers were low 100 years ago and today are still very low.
Why is this happening, and is this trend a good thing?
I will tackle most of this discussion in the next parts of this series. But, here, I first want to get to the - or a - bottom line for a liberal blog: politics. How will this affect the next elections? We need to think seriously about this, because (1) so many of the Red States are rural and (2) even in Blue States, so many of the red counties are rural. See here for visual depictions of the 2004 vote county by county.
We need to see that the population decline in northern Kansas is not something that can be blamed on any one time period or linked to the policies of any one party or administration. The figures above show declines under Bush II and also under Clinton. I haven't looked at earlier periods, but we would find them there as well.
The declines are also not unique to Kansas. They are being repeated in rural counties across the US. Kansas' neighbors, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri -- all have similar problems, as do all our agricultural states - and areas of states.
There is no question that what we see in Kansas will matter in the next elections. All senate seats include large rural areas, and even urban congressional districts include rural areas. An example is Colorado District 4 (now represented by Musgrave) where State Representative Angie Paccione (D) has announced her candidacy. This district covers huge rural areas along the eastern Colorado border, bordering Kansas. Paccione (and many other Democratic candidates) must take on the problems of our rural areas - both to win and to do the right thing by these constituents and therefore deserve to win.
It is important also not to write off rural voters as inextricably in the Republican tent. A new study by the Kellogg Foundation of rural voters in three states (including Kansas) found the following to be true of rural voters:
Discontent in the Heartland
Voters in (as a whole) Iowa and Minnesota, and to a lesser degree, Kansas, betray a decidedly downcast mood in assessing the direction of the country. Cuts that would affect the economic well-being of the farm community face strong, bi-partisan, resistance. Large differences emerge in how Republicans and Democrats view the direction of the country as only 27 percent of Republicans believe things are off on the wrong track, compared to 82 percent among Democrats. Other key constituencies in these three states share the Democrats' point of view: 61 percent wrong track among Independents, 44 percent among farm income voters, 58 percent among rural voters, 58 percent among seniors.
The survey's other findings point to alliances that can be made with environmental groups and rural citizens against agribusiness. For example, while most support farm supports, most also want them capped so they benefit small farmers rather than agribusiness. Many also want support for rural development other than just agriculture.
The results of this survey need to be read against another recent Kellogg Foundation report: Federal Investment in Rural America Falls Behind
* Approximately 80 percent of the landmass in the United States is classified as rural. 55 million Americans live in rural areas, some 22 percent of the total U.S. population.
- In rural areas, median family income is 25 percent lower, and the poverty rate 28 percent higher than in metro areas. Rural counties make up 95 percent of the persistent poverty counties in the United States.
- Congress, in its funding of the one federal department with responsibility for rural development - the United States Department of Agriculture - has given priority to farming support programs over rural development. Funds earmarked for rural development consistently remained at about 2 to 5 percent of that department's total actual budget outlays between 1996 and 2002.
- USDA acknowledges that farm payments are not a substitute for rural economic development policy. (USDA's Agricultural Outlook/October 2000 article, "How Important Are Farm Payments to the Rural Economy")
- Roughly one out of every three dollars of federal rural development funding came from other federal departments and agencies. But in terms of overall federal spending, community development in rural counties accounted for only one-tenth of one percent of total per capita funding from 1994 to 2001, significantly less than the population figures might warrant.
- From 1994 through 2001 the federal government spent more than two times (and sometimes up to five times) as much per capita on metropolitan community development as it did on rural community development.
Elections are not the only issue here, and neither is agricultural policy. What I saw in Kansas is a complex story with no easy answers. The story continues as part of my Kansas reflections in the next parts of this series.