What's Happening in Illinois?

 

Illinois State Capitol, Springfield
"Just outside Chicago, there's a place called Illinois"
(70s tourism slogan)

My native state of Illinois lost another chunk of population this year, according to Vintage 2022 estimates released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau. Illinois's population losses stand out, even by the standards of the Midwest, which has lost 0.3 percent of its population since the 2020 Census. , Illinois has declined 1.8 percent in the last two years; the next-sharpest declines, in Michigan and Ohio, were only 0.4 percent each. In the middle of those states, Indiana has gained 0.7 percent. Even Iowa looks comparatively good, at plus 0.3 percent. Nationwide, only New York and the District of Columbia (both -.2.6 percent) lost more of their population over the last two years than Illinois. [On the other hand, in 2022 Illinois ranked second in the Midwest (3.1 percent) behind South Dakota (3.5 percent) in percentage increase in employment. There's more than one metric around, and population may not be the best indicator of a state's well-being.]

From 2010 to 2022, the U.S. as a whole has gained not quite 8 percent in population. In that time, Illinois has lost 0.17 percent, ranking ahead of only Mississippi (-0.24 percent) and West Virginia (-3.84 percent) (World Population Review 2022). The clearest story to explain this has come from the right; Pete Saunders (2022a) characterizes their version as centering on Chicago as the 21st century American Urban Dystopia--staggering crime and violence, frighteningly bad public schools, and high taxes that do more to support rampant political corruption than quality public services. It follows the only effective remedy would be a sort of militarized neoliberalism: cut taxes and services, privatize education, stomp on the criminals, can the racial justice stuff, and vote Republican. This is supposedly how they get it done in sunnier areas and wealthy suburbs (cf. Voegli 2022).

Illinois is losing population in non-metropolitan areas.

When we examine data at the county level, though, Illinois' story gets considerably more complicated. Its 102 counties can be divided among census-defined metropolitan areas (40 counties in 13 metros), micropolitan areas (23 counties in 19 micros), and purely rural areas (the remaining 39 counties). Only one county, Kendall at the edge of the Chicago/Naperville/Elgin MSA, grew faster than the U.S. as a whole; two others, Monroe south of St. Louis, and Johnson near Carbondale in southern Illinois, came close.

Illinois and its 102 counties
(Creative Commons)

In all, 15 counties in Illinois gained at least some population from 2010 to 2022. These include eight of the nine counties in the Chicago MSA, Champaign County (home of the University of Illinois), McLean County (home of Illinois State University), two of the three counties in the Carbondale/Marion MSA (home of Southern Illinois University), Monroe County in the St. Louis MSA, and rural Carroll County in rural western Illinois. Each surely has its own story to tell, but here are some observable patterns, few of which are unique to Illinois:

• Successful urban areas, around Chicago and the largest universities, are propping up the rest of the state, though not growing as fast as successful metros elsewhere in the country 
• The state is hemorrhaging outside the metros, with 60 of 62 micropolitan and rural counties losing population, 16 by more than 10.0 percent
• Sangamon County (Springfield) is holding almost steady with a 0.68 percent population loss since 2010, though Springfield hasn't been able to capitalize--ha ha!--on the headquarters of state government as have Des Moines, St. Paul, Madison, Indianapolis, and Columbus
• Some urban areas are not doing well at all, possibly because of commitments to outdated industries (Decatur, Kankakee, Peoria, Rockford, St. Louis); the same might be said of the Quad Cities, although Scott County, Iowa (Davenport) is growing
• The two biggest drops among micropolitan counties are McDonough (-19.77 percent) and Coles (-15.61 percent), home to regional state universities that have suffered precipitous enrollment losses... a sort of Rust Belt of the mind as higher education evolves

Malpass Library, Western Illinois University, McDonough County,
where your humble blogger started his teaching career
(from wiu.edu)

Illinois' loss of population is obviously not a single problem, but a confluence of several phenomena which are probably best addressed separately:

1. Why has there been so much population loss in rural places? Can something be done in some of these areas (tourism, local industry, organic food) to revive some of these places?
2. What can be done with struggling industrial (or small university) cities?
3. Why isn't Chicago (or Champaign-Urbana, Carbondale, and/or Bloomington-Normal) growing faster than it is?

Of course, realizing this doesn't explain why their combined effects is so strong in Illinois; Wisconsin and Michigan, for two, have a lot of the same characteristics.

Cairo, Illinois, seat of Alexander County (372 miles from Chicago),
largest proportionate population loss among Illinois counties

But, what about Chicago?

Despite the evidence, for whatever reason(s), when discussing Illinois' problems a lot of talk turns to Chicago.  As we've seen, Chicago and environs are growing, not shrinking, but perhaps they could be growing faster? 

A good place to start is "Tottering Chicago," a series of insightful blog posts by Chicago-based writer Pete Saunders. 

Pete Saunders
(from businessinsider.com)

It's worth reading in toto, but a key point Saunders makes is that Rust Belt "legacy" cities like Chicago are in a different situation than New York ("knowledge economy-based city" that now must deal with the consequences of its success) or Dallas (looking good due to a recent air conditioning- and Interstate highway- and low wage- and annexation-fueled growth spurt). "There are signs that Chicago is making very real progress in its transformation," Sanders suggests, "yet there are deeply rooted challenges that root Chicago down, and that gets discussed more than its positives." 

Saunders notes that since 2010, Chicago has added 97,000 households city-wide, the core of the city has grown faster since 1980 than any other American city, and has been successfully attracting recent college graduates. [Saunders also notes the limitations of using population growth/decline as a surrogate for a place's success (Saunders 2022b).] Poverty persists, but the principal crisis--and biggest threat to sustained prosperity--has been an increase during the pandemic of "frightening" crime: homicide, carjacking, and overall gun-involved violent crime. The bottom line:

Chicago has a thriving, dense core; some prosperous communities on the outskirts; and a vast, mostly poor, less-populated hinterland in between. Bridging that gap may not be impossible, but there's much work to be done. (Saunders 2022a)

Loft apartments by the Bloomingdale ("606") Trail, Chicago

Chicago's reality is far from a perfect, but also far from the doomsday fantasies of, say, recent Trump-style gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey. Saunders concludes (Saunders 2022e) with some recommendations for Chicago and other Rust Belt cities similarly situated, which might have some lessons for Rockford and Peoria as well:

1. "Be who you are." Acknowledge and build on strengths, and avoid radical solutions that try to replicate 1980s Dallas. Avoid all ideologues, rightists and leftists, selling pet formulae for success.
2. "Lean in on immigration." Unfortunately, this requires more coherence and less hostility in national policy, but do whatever can be done. 
3. "Promote affordable urbanism and authenticity." Chicago offers urban life at a much lower cost than New York or Seattle; done right, this could work in smaller metros as well.
4. "Boutique manufacturing," by which he means more artisanal workshops, leaving the big plants to chase lower labor costs in the South and across the border.
5. "Water security." Shore up environmental infrastructure, and prepare for climate refugees.

What is to be done?

Addressing Illinois begins by acknowledging its complexity: Illinois is more than Chicago, and Illinois's problems are more than Chicago's. The biggest population losses are occurring in rural areas where small towns are no longer needed to service family farms, and that indicates a different set of policy approaches--although immigration is going to be a start here, too (cf. Frey 2023 and Pipa 2022). Don't wait on the federal government to act, either. 

Each region of the state, moreover, consists of a complex set of people, all of whom have something to bring to the conversation that deserves to be heard--heard without ascribing irrationality or corruption. Voegli figures the only reason people of means still live in Chicago is that they are cultural snobs who would rather be assaulted by urban criminals than live around conservatives. Don't be like him.

Jackson Boulevard, downtown Chicago,
Illinois' most economically productive district

We can't do everything everybody wants, and we shouldn't do everything anybody wants, but we need to hear everybody and take account of them all. Who knows where complementary interests might be found? Besides this...

• Look for ways, the less radical the better, to improve the lived experience of current residents. Small steps can be simply expanded or rescinded; radical moves and "game-changers" cannot be. (cribbed from Strong Towns)
• Illinois's reputation for high taxes and urban crime, however exaggerated, aren't helping its image or the mood of its people. (Do taxes explain why Rock Island, Rockford and Cairo are shrinking while towns across the border are growing?) Addressing these needs to be part of whatever gets done.
• Agreeing in part with Voegli, look for every opportunity to improve the quality and quantity of education in the state (cf. Gilmartin and Hurley 2018, Frey 2019)--as long as we strive to include everyone, because...
• Every policy proposal needs to take into account the role of racial discrimination in creating the world in which we live. 
• Every policy proposal needs to take into account all the ways we have sought to accommodate motor vehicles, at the cost of our community, our environment, and our bodies.

Quincy L stop, Chicago Loop

Iowa legislative session 2022

 

Iowa presidential votes by county, 2020

Iowa's state legislative session ended late in May after hanging fire on a number of Gornor Kim Reynolds' priorities. While previous years in this era of Republican dominance have mostly been about owning the libs, this year saw a number of constituency-oriented economic initiatives. Whether these benefits will trickle down to ordinary Iowans in small towns remains arguable.

According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette (cited below), these were the principal accomplishments of the Iowa legislature in 2022:

• lowering income tax rates to a flat 3.9 percent, while completely eliminating taxation of retirement income
• requiring gas stations to sell E15 blended gas year-round, with exceptions for smaller stations
• reducing the time people can receive unemployment compensation
• prohibiting transgender girls from participating in interscholastic sports
• repealing the deadline for public school families to declare their intent to open enroll
• allowing grocery stores to opt out of the bottle bill
• outlawing the use of private donations by local election agencies

Legislators also approved the use of semi-automatic rifles to hunt deer ("Iowa Lawmakers Approve" 2022).

What didn't pass, mostly because Republicans were divided over approaches to the issue:

• tuition support for private school families [it'll be back... three Republican 'no' votes just lost primaries to Reynolds- and Americans for Prosperity-endorsed proponents of this measure]
  
• requiring wider publicity of public school classroom and library materials, with potential jail time for educators who traffic in "obscene" material
• prohibiting employers from mandating vaccination
• eminent domain for pipeline projects

My typical end-of-session argument is that the majority has been so focused on sticking it to Planned Parenthood, public schools, and transgender people that they have failed to do anything to improve the future prospects of their own aging and shrinking districts. When four counties, none of which voted for either Governor Reynolds or President Trump, account for 77.6 percent of the state's population growth over the last decade, and 40.1 percent of its gross domestic product, you'd think we would be more worried about improving the performance of the other 95 counties than about trans basketball players.

This year the legislature managed to address economic issues as well as the culture wars: eliminating income tax for the well-off elderly residents and mandating purchase of agribusiness products will be economic boons in Republican counties. Putting limits on unemployment compensation, on the other hand, will most hurt people where jobs remain scarce. The remainder will have no discernible economic effect, but might make us feel better and the "libs" feel worse. 

Will communities at large benefit from these favors? And can they use the influx of money to devise long-term plans to thrive? Or at least create jobs for the hard-to-employ? Maybe. In a global economy, of course, the rich don't have to spend their money in their own community. The environment, meanwhile, can go screw itself.

Source: Deviant Art. Used without permission

Republicans currently hold a 60-40 majority in the state House and a 32-18 majority in the state Senate. Over time, Democrats may benefit as urban counties grow and rural counties shrink, but there seems to be little prospect of any Democratic inroads this year, particularly with the national party on the defensive over inflation, COVID restrictions, congressional inaction, and so forth. So it looks like I'll be writing some version of this post for a few more years!

SOURCES

Erin Murphy, "Differences on Display in Legislative Session," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 26 May 2022, 1A, 5A

Erin Murphy and James Q. Lynch, "Private School Vouchers, School 'Transparency' Fail," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 26 May 2022, 1A, 5A

Iowa and the coronavirus: 22 counties, 77 counties

Iowa map showing counties under separate COVID order (swiped from wgem.com)

Iowa like other states is trying to figure out how to manage the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Governor Kim Reynolds has issued a series of proclamations, while stopping short of an all-encompassing shutdown as experienced in neighboring states like Illinois and Minnesota. Most business restrictions will expire at the end of this week, with remaining exceptions bars, casinos, and public gatherings of more than ten people (Hadish 2020b).

Prior to this, most restrictions had been lifted in most counties, but retained in 22 counties, colored orange in the map above (Roberts 2020)--which I must say, before we go any further, looks a lot like this...

...which relates either to I Thessalonians 4:16-17, or to a geometric figure with finite volume and infinite surface area. But I digress, don't I?

There is certainly room to question the timing of reopening (Abutaleb et al. 2020, Berch 2020), and even whether more counties should have been covered by the stricter rules (Iowa Fiscal Partnership 2020).The governor herself is on "modified quarantine" after interacting with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence last week (Hadish 2020a).

("I shouldn't punish half of the state when we've got a significant spike in eight areas," Reynolds said at the time (Henderson 2020). This seems to me the most bizarre formulation in a series of bizarre official communications. Protecting the public health and safety is not punishment. Unless it is?)

However, we are not going to go there. On the assumption that there is or was some qualitative distinction in virus severity between the 77 counties mostly-opened on May 1 and the 22 counties mostly-opened on May 15, we are going to soak and poke in some data to see what that distinction might be.

We begin by noting that growth in Iowa has been concentrated in a relative few of our 99 counties, mostly clustered around the cities of Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Des Moines, Dubuque and Iowa City. Updating the data from my 2018 post on the subject, the ten largest urban-suburban counties have added 142,659 residents since the 2010 census, which means the other 89 counties combined are at minus 35,000 over that same period. Linn County is up 15,463, more than the Cedar Rapids metropolitan statistical area as a whole, while the Des Moines metro area's growth has included fast-growing Dallas County to the west and Warren County to the south as well as Polk County. 

The ten urban-suburban counties now account for 52.5 percent of the state's population, but have added 84 percent of the state's new jobs in this decade, attracted 312 percent of people moving into the state, and account for well over half (56.6 percent) of people aged 25-44. [The other 89 counties have a combined net out-migration, so the number of migrants into the core 10 more than triples that of the whole state.] Polk and Johnson Counties, famously contrasted by the Governor with "the real Iowa" in 2018, while comprising 20 percent of Iowa's population, have together added 80,000 residents since 2010, along with 42.5 percent of the state's job growth, 31 percent of the state's economic output, 202 percent of people moving into the state, 26.9 percent of college graduates, and 29.3 percent of those with graduate or professional degrees. Not sure what "the real Iowa" would do without them. 

For the record, since we've been talking about density of late in relation to the pandemic, the density of the ten largest counties is 254 people per square mile, ranging from 750.5 (Polk) to 98 (Pottawattamie). Density is 54.5 for the state as a whole, 30.4 for the "other 89."

The 22 counties whose COVID situation merited a two week delay in lifting restrictions include eight of the ten largest counties, excepting Pottawattamie (Council Bluffs) and Story (Ames); three that are part of MSAs (Benton, Bremer, and Washington); and eleven that are in neither category. 

Are the 22 counties different from the 77 in some characteristic(s) that would lead us to expect the pandemic would be more severe there?

The density hypothesis (Rosenthal 2020) posits that places with greater population density will see greater community transmission of the virus, with New York City and its environs the example that springs immediately to mind. The 11 in MSAs include the state's five densest counties, as well as Dubuque, Woodbury, and Dallas at #7-8-9. Benton and Bremer, though, are at about the statewide average, and Washington County (38.2/sqmi) is quite a bit below. The 11 non-MSA counties include two in southeast Iowa with near-MSA-level density, Des Moines (96.9) and Muscatine (97.7). [NOTE FOR NON-IOWANS: Des Moines County does not contain the City of Des Moines. In fact, they are nowhere near each other.] However, five of the counties are below average for non-MSA Iowa counties, including Allamakee (22.3/sqmi); the median case, Poweshiek County, is at 32.3/sqmi almost exactly the statewide average for non-MSA counties. So, if your county is densely-populated it was slightly more likely to land on this list, but being sparsely-populated was no insurance against inclusion.

Sure is dense in here! (Reopened bar in West Allis, Wisconsin, swiped from WDJT)

The connectedness hypothesis posits that as the virus spreads, it will spread first to places that are most connected (economically, socially) to the rest of the world, and only eventually will get to more outlying areas. Iowa does not have any global cities, but there are definite variations in local economies, as shown by variations in job growth, in-migration, and percentage of graduate and professional degrees. Successful cities tend to be distinct from the rest of the state on these factors, but not all cities are successful. Weirdly, the two largest counties among the 77 display nearly opposite experiences: Story County, home to Iowa State University, is second only to Johnson in graduate and professional degree holders at 2.5 times the statewide average; it is 6th in in-migration and 7th in GDP. And it's right by Des Moines (the city). Pottawattamie is comparable to Story in GDP, but for advanced degrees has only 2/3 the statewide average, and has had substantial out-migration (though less than Black Hawk and Woodbury Counties, which are among the 22). It's also right by the big city of Omaha, Nebraska. Among the 11 non-MSA counties, only Jasper (+38) had net in-migration in the 2010s; the relatively-dense Des Moines and Muscatine Counties also had substantially larger GDP; and all are at or below the statewide average for advanced degree holders except for Powesheik, which is home to Grinnell College. These data are no more conclusive than the density measure! and there's a lot of coincidence between the two.

Besides the lack of conclusiveness on these two dimensions, there are just too many confounding factors to draw a solid conclusion on what areas are most at risk for spreading the coronavirus. A lot has to do with local incidence of things like meatpacking plants and nursing homes, how people behave in specific areas, and maybe even good or bad luck. The situation in late April when the Governor made her decision was a single snapshot in an evolving event; whatever data she and her advisers were using, they might have produced a different set of counties two weeks earlier or later. And there's the further confounding factor that the data on coronavirus incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths are shaky and likely to be understated (see Kristof 2020).

In the two weeks after the Governor's proclamation in question, 22 Iowa counties attained High COVID-19 Prevalence as defined by William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution i.e. 100 cases per 100,000 population. From April 27 to May 3: Crawford, Dubuque, Fayette, Greene, Grundy, Guthrie, Howard, Jones, Lyon, Monona, Shelby, and Wapello. From May 4 to May 10: Audubon, Boone, Buchanan, Buena Vista, Clayton, Davis, Des Moines, O'Brien, Plymouth, and Sioux. Only Dubuque and Des Moines counties were on the Governor's list of 22. (Five other counties not on the list--Cedar, Clinton, Harrison, Osceola, and Van Buren--had attained High COVID-19 Prevalence before April 27.) Frey sees the virus moving into "Trump counties;" 20 of the 22 new counties were carried by Reynolds in 2018.

Perhaps the most reasonable conclusion from all this is that the coronavirus does not have opinions about partisan politics, or walkable urbanism, or the state of the economy, and it should be treated as a live problem wherever you are. Ask not where the coronavirus is coming... it's coming at you.

EARLIER POSTS

"Election 2018 and What Happens Next," 20 November 2018
"What is the Future of Iowa's Small Towns?" 3 July 2018

Small towns, rural areas and state legislatures

2018 votes for Iowa Governor, by county
Source: CNN. Used without permission.

The divide between successful and unsuccessful places--often oversimplified as "urban vs. rural"--has emerged as a major fault line in contemporary American politics, along with the ever-present racial divide. Where the economic outlook of a place is less than positive, voters--at least white voters--have turned to the Republican Party's anti-government and traditional values ethos, recently overlain with restraints on trade and immigration. (Whether the Republicans, led by the ever-improvisational President Donald J. Trump, will overplay their hand, remains to be seen. For now they are speaking to voters in these places as Democrats and internationally-minded urban elites seem unable to.)

This is reflected in Iowa's political ride this decade, from purple to red. It's a predominantly white state, where most voters live in economically stalled-to-struggling areas, and Republicans have dominated recent state elections.

Iowa has 99 counties, reflecting its past where most labor occurred on farms, and small towns across the state served as market centers for those farms. In this decade, and for the last several decades, most of those counties have lost population. (In the absence of easily-obtainable economic performance data, I use population change as an indicator of strength, assuming that successful places need more workers, and workers are attracted to successful places where they can find a better choice of jobs. Economic success often funds cultural vitality, which is also attractive to people, particularly younger workers.)

According to the U.S. Census Bureau [with Governor Kim Reynolds's percentage of the two-party vote]:

• 70 of Iowa's 99 counties have lost population between 2010 and 2018 [60.1% of 426,605 votes]
• 11 counties gained marginally, less than 1 percent (Black Hawk, Boone, Cedar, Crawford, Jasper, Jones, Marion, Muscatine, Plymouth, Pottawattamie, Woodbury) [54.3% of 209,142 votes]
• 6 counties gained at least 1 percent, but less than 2.9 percent, half the national growth rate (Bremer, Buchanan, Clarke, Davis, Lyon, Washington) [60.9% of 40,246 votes]
• 5 counties gained at least 2.9 percent, but less than the U.S. growth rate of 5.8 percent (Dickinson, Dubuque, Madison, Scott, Sioux): one near Des Moines, two housing the central cities of Davenport and Dubuque, and two predominantly rural counties in northwest Iowa [54.4% of 140,523 votes]
• only 7 counties gained population faster than the nation as a whole (Dallas, Jefferson, Johnson, Linn, Polk, Story, Warren): four around Des Moines and Ames, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, and Fairfield... Fairfield?? [40.8% of 482,145 votes]

Republicans had a tough year nationally in 2018, and lost seats in the Iowa House, but actually increased their already-large majority in the Senate. So, this year, we once again have a legislature and a governor whose support came predominantly from less successful places. One might assume, then, the state would be pursuing policies to help those economies.

One would be wrong. Here is what the Iowa legislature achieved in the 2019 session, which ran from January to April (Gottburg 2019, Rodriguez and Opsahl 2019):

• legalizing betting on sports events at casinos
• legalizing growing hemp and loosening restrictions on medical marijuana
• adding the right of individual gun ownership to the Iowa constitutions, and subjecting any restrictions to "strict scrutiny"
• city or county property tax increases above 2 percent will require a 2/3 vote
• prohibiting use of Medicaid funding for sex-reassignment surgery
• barring Planned Parenthood from receiving federal sex education funding
• requiring public college and university campuses to adopt "free speech" policies
• giving the Governor greater influence on judicial selection
• trespassing penalties for undercover investigations of farms
• creation of children's mental health system
• $15 million for flood recovery in western Iowa

Only the last two conceivably could help distressed people in small towns and rural areas, and one of those is a response to a short-term emergency. The rest is nutrition-free candy, mostly for their ideological allies, many of whom admittedly live in small towns and rural areas. I understand a lot of people love guns, and hate transgender people, Planned Parenthood, college faculty and administration, and "liberal" judges, but shouldn't they and their elected representatives also be pursuing constructive solutions to actual problems?

Nationally, a study by FiveThirtyEight found similar outcomes in other states with unified Republican governments (Bacon 2019). Those 22 state legislatures pushed looser gun laws, restrictions on "sanctuary" cities, restrictions on lower governments' abilities to divest from Israel, restrictions on abortion, "right-to-work" laws weakening labor unions, and work requirements for Medicaid recipients. All crowd-pleasing candy, nothing nutritious to help places grow.

No legislature, however well-intentioned, can bring back the 1950s, or whatever form of paradise white Iowans want to think the 1950s were. The future of the American economy is going to be predominantly metropolitan, although we can argue whether the locus of the action will continue the move back to central cities begun in the middle of the last decade (Frey 2019, Florida 2019, Hurley 2018). For example, the State of Arizona, which is growing faster than the U.S. as a whole, is seeing most of that growth near Phoenix and Tucson, and shrinkage elsewhere.

We also know our economic future is going to be primarily service-driven, not centered on farm work or manufacturing or resource extraction. Employment will be less stable, and whatever we do will have to accommodate the realities of diversity and climate change.

Successful places are those that have adapted to the post-industrial economy, but the cost of living, and the cost of doing business, in places like Seattle, San Francisco and Boston--and Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York--are becoming prohibitive, despite their attractions. Smaller places and their environs can position themselves to take advantage of this, and to be significant players in the economic future. BUT! this requires recognizing the realities of the 21st century, and enhancing the assets that are already in place, not playing to anti-elite resentments and culture wars nostalgia.


SOURCES
Perry Bacon, "What Republicans and Democrats are Doing in the States Where They Have Total Power," FiveThirtyEight, 28 May 2019
Woody Gottburg, "Iowa Legislature Wraps Up 2019 Session," KSCJ, 29 April 2019
Barbara Rodriguez and Robin Opsahl, "Iowa Lawmakers Have Adjourned for the Year. Here's What You Need to Know About the 2019 Session," Des Moines Register, 27 April 2019

SEE ALSO:
"Iowa Losing Millennials, Needs Workers," 14 February 2019
"What is the Future of Iowa's Small Towns?" 3 July 2018

Three questions for places in the New Year

Cedar Rapids winter overflow shelter
(swiped from cbs2iowa.com)

1. Can we do better by our mentally ill and addicted citizens? People living on the streets are a constant of urban places, even in smaller cities like Cedar Rapids. Of the cities where I spent time, Seattle seems to have the most aggressive street people, including one fellow downtown known for periodically shouting at no one in particular, "Excuse me, sir? SIR? SIR? FUUUCK!" There have been reports of urinating in front of stores, and following other people for blocks. No wonder Seattle's mayor called homelessness "an emergency" a few years ago (Treatment Advocacy Center 2016). But variations of these phenomena are found everywhere. In New York City last month, a police officer was attacked by three homeless men.

One plausible if somewhat-dated estimate had the homeless population with severe mental illness at 325,000 (Treatment Advocacy Center 2016).  Homelessness comes in many forms, and much of it is driven by issues of supply and affordability. People living on the streets are often mentally ill or addicted to substances (which are not mutually exclusive categories). Nationally, estimates range around a third of homeless who are severely mentally ill, though local studies have found higher proportions (Baldwin 2016). (People who are homeless for economic reasons tend to be less visible to the general public, and probably to researchers, too.) Their situation has been exacerbated for decades by deinstitutionalization and closing of psychiatric hospitals, driven by state budgets as well as idealism.

While institutionalization is not the solution for everyone, neither is it compassionate to allow people to drift and struggle, facing perils of crime, weather and eating food from dumpsters. Can we improve access to addiction treatment and antipsychotic drugs? Provide better transitional living situations? Support more research into causes and cures? Meanwhile, we rely on short-term heroic solutions like shelters, or try to law the problem away by making sleeping on the streets a crime.

Downtown Washington, Iowa

2. Is there potential for economic development in small towns and rural areas? This is a question we've visited before, but with the imminent reconvening of Iowa's office of rural affairs (a.k.a. the state legislature) it's worth looking at what might be done for underperforming areas besides tickling their feelings of resentment with culture wars bills.

A recent Brookings study argued that small towns and rural areas might do best by cooperating with nearby small cities (Arnosti and Liu 2018). If our economic future is going to be anchored by digital and knowledge-based skills, policies to revive extractive industries like mining should be recognized for the false promises they are; instead, "rural America's best bet might be to support economic growth in urban centers, including micropolitan areas, and strengthen linkages between urban and rural communities." Successful metros can and do subsidize projects elsewhere in the state; successful metros near rural areas improve access to jobs and capital for rural residents while retaining social connections; and some of those taking advantage of nearby opportunities will return to their hometowns (the "boomerang" effect). Richard Florida (2018) notes that not all rural counties are suffering population and job loss, though the examples he cites--a Tesla factory in Storey County, Nevada; an expanded casino in Love County, Oklahoma; and an expanded retirement community in Sumter County, Florida--smack of smokestack-chasing and so may be limited in their instructive utility.

Arnosti and Liu approvingly quote Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith, who argues, "In order to compete with the big cities, rural America needs fewer factory towns of 5,000 people and more small university cities of 50,000." They argue states should (1)  empower communities' and regions' capacity to chart their futures; (2) prioritize local job creation over recruitment of firms like Tesla or OCI NV; (3) strengthen post-secondary education; and (4) seek to close regional disparities. There's a lot there to choose from; we'll see if Governor Reynolds or the Iowa legislature pursues any of it, or sticks to the ever-popular culture wars.

(Photo by Tela Chhe, from flicker.com via minneapolis2040.com)

3. Can Minneapolis 2040 [a] work? [b] serve as a model for other cities? In December 2018, the Minneapolis City Council passed a new comprehensive plan. Most notable among its many topics, the plan calls for policy changes that could conceivably have an earth-shaking impact on housing supply and affordability by allowing duplexes, triplexes and apartments in a vast area of the city where they are not currently permitted (Schuetz 2018, Sisson 2018). If it plays out as hoped, the increased density will produce substantial improvement in the city's environmental footprint, better community connections, an opportunity for all those people who say they want to live in walkable communities actually to do that, and more fiscally-sustainable infrastructure. As Strong Towns Tweeted: Minneapolis 2040 will undoubtedly have a huge impact on economic justice and the affordable housing landscape. But allowing neighborhoods to adapt and grow incrementally will have an even bigger impact on something more fundamental: pure finance. 

Other cities, starting next door with St. Paul, are looking at what Minneapolis has done and are preparing to ask their doctors if Density might be right for them. But there remains much work to be done to turn this legislative miracle into on-the-ground reality.


Anyone who follows politics knows that the fight doesn't stop with enactment; it just rolls across the street to a new bar. The zoning code will need to be changed to incorporate the new goals i.e. to make them legal. As in any place facing housing issues, landowners and developers will need to be assured there's profit to be made in these kinds of projects. And specific projects are sure to be protested by affected neighbors (Schuetz 2018). On the other hand, new Mayor Jacob Frey chose to spend his political capital on passing this, and it did pass, and that alone represents an intriguing new page in this story.

What is the future of Iowa's small towns?

Former Audubon County courthouse, Exira (Source: Wikimedia): county population has fallen from 8559 (1980) to 5578 (2017)

A recent column in the Cedar Rapids Gazette highlighted the angst small town residents have about their future. Bill Menner, executive director of the Iowa Rural Development Council, argued that statewide candidates of both parties should put forth "meaningful rural-specific policy initiatives" as they campaign in the state; by "meaningful" he means "targeted policies and investments" addressing "issues that limit [rural Iowa's] ability to grow."

Iowa developed as a predominantly agricultural economy. In 1890 it was the tenth-largest state in the Union, even without any large cities. (Des Moines' population that year was 50,093; Cedar Rapids had only 18,020.) Our two million residents were spread evenly across the state, with hundreds of small towns serving the surrounding farms with necessities, schools and gathering places. Changes in agriculture, transportation and commerce put that model away long ago: farms are now corporate or similarly huge operations, and use machinery rather than hired labor. (For more on contemporary farm life, see Fox 2018). Some small towns have reinvented themselves as bedroom communities, college towns or tourism/recreation centers, but the majority that lack that option have seen population and economic prospects decline. Both the industrial and post-industrial phases of American economic development took place elsewhere.

Downtown Decorah (pop. 7918, down 217 since 2010) is supported by Luther College

Iowa has grown slowly since the 2010 census, adding just under 100,000 residents by the Census Bureau's 2017 estimates. Ten urban and suburban counties added 127,943, which means the other 89 counties lost more than 25,000 residents. Growth is concentrated even within the Census Bureau's metropolitan statistical areas: in the Cedar Rapids MSA, Linn County has gained 13,000 residents so far this decade, while Benton and Jones Counties have seen marginal declines. The ten urban-suburban counties now account for 58.8 percent of the state's population, but have added 74.5 percent of the state's new jobs in this decade, attracted 228 percent of people moving into the state, and account for over half of people aged 25-44.

[NOTE: That "228" is not a misprint. The other 89 counties have a combined net out-migration, so the number of migrants into the core 10 more than doubles that of the whole state.] 

Some degree of resentment at these disparate outcomes is understandable, and has received attention as Iowa has shifted politically from purple to red in the 2010s. Donald Trump won easily here in 2016, and Republicans dominate both federal and state offices. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds refers to small towns as "the real Iowa," while lambasting "far-left liberals in Des Moines and Iowa City." (By the way, Governor, Johnson and Polk Counties, which contain Iowa City and Des Moines respectively, together comprise 20 percent of Iowa's population. They have added 70,000 residents since 2010, along with 35.3 percent of the state's job growth, 32.3 percent of the state's GDP, 147.1 percent of people moving into the state, 26.9 percent of college graduates, and 29.3 percent of those with graduate or professional degrees. Without them Iowa is truly in a world of hurt.)

Washington (pop. 7424, up 154 since 2010) has restored its historic downtown square

Menner's column plays to this resentment: Federal and state funding flows easily to urban areas, where elected officials and staff know how to maximize their success. Rural places don't have that same capacity and are often left behind. He calls for the state to [m]easure the disparities in project funding between rural and urban places and put in place remedies to address them. 

But data to confirm or refute federal/state unfairness to small town Iowa don't exist. According to the American Community Survey census of governments, transfers from the federal and state governments amount to 26 percent of county government revenue, 17 percent for cities, 21.6 percent for special districts, and 51.4 percent for school districts. But those numbers are not broken out by county, town, &c.  What we can say for sure: The biggest items in the federal budget are Social Security, Medicare and defense. The former goes to individuals, predominantly elderly people who predominate in small towns and rural areas, so it's not surprising that the 52.1 percent of the state's population that lives in the ten urban-suburban counties receives only 46.9 percent of federal benefits to individuals, and 46.9 percent of federal awards. The biggest item in the state budget is education, which is going to follow the population as well. The state has not undertaken county consolidation, which has been batted about since I've lived in Iowa, so we have counties with less than 10,000 population which nevertheless receive government spending that accrues to (and maybe props up) county seats. Still, it must be hard to see the state allocate a paltry $1.3 million to expand broadband access while a single interchange on I-380 north of Cedar Rapids is going to run upwards of $20 million.

Cities have succeeded in this century--well, they're not all succeeding, but those that are succeeding are building on three factors: the advantages to firms of clusters of knowledge workers, social and cultural amenities that come with dense population, and broad attitudes of tolerance and inclusion. To those we should add better access in cities to mobile broadband as well as venture capital, as firms in those fields see a greater likelihood of returns on their investments where population is denser. That's why urban areas are growing and small towns and rural areas mostly are not. It's nothing sinister, and there's no point in being resentful. The young and hip will always command an outsize share of media attention, but we shouldn't let that affect a cold-eyed assessment of what's working for successful places.

Em's Coffee Co., downtown Independence (pop. 6018, up 52 since 2010)

Small towns and rural areas have advantages, too--strong community identity, easy access to natural places, and often compact walkable business districts--though probably not enough entirely to ensure "the survival of Iowa's 900-plus small towns," as Menner advocates. One of my sons lives and works in Seattle; if he could find a similar job in Decorah, or Clear Lake, or Red Oak, he'd move in a minute. Menner's column suggests some state policies that could build on those advantages: expand the broadband grant program, create a state rural housing initiative, better funding for existing agencies.

But there's the rub, you see: all of that costs money. So do education, health care, and public institutions. The state of Iowa is not building fiscal capacity to make these sorts of public investments possible--quite the opposite, in fact, as the legislature annually delivers substantial tax cuts, and the governor dips into contingency funds to pay the bills. Menner would like to see someone at the state level designated as rural liaison-advocate, but in a state government run by Republicans elected on the strength of rural and small town votes, there already is that someone: the Governor, an acknowledged fan of "the real Iowa." Republicans at the state level, however, have decided to play culture war instead, producing bills to defund Planned Parenthood, bar "sanctuary cities" (of which the state has zero), and ban abortions after six weeks one year after banning abortions after twenty weeks (for laws taking effect this year, see Murphy 2018). None of that helps rural counties out of the doldrums; nor does it help the cities that are the state's economic engines compete for talent.

Rural and small town Iowans, stop voting for policies that help you feel good, and start voting for policies that help you live well.

Some ideas (see also Benfield and Epstein 2012, Brown 2018, Gilmartin and Hurley 2018):

1. Support Menner's group's advocacy for more state investment in your community, while recognizing that investment is not going to happen without tax revenue. Don't wait for the 1 percent, or urban residents, or the magic of supply-side economics, to produce a windfall, but be willing to pay for the services your community needs. 
2. While you're waiting for the state to act, improve your own capacity and attractiveness: Invest in human capital, specifically education and small business development, including the library and adult education opportunities. 
3. Buy local, and avoid national big-box chains, whenever you possibly can; your money will stay in your community and help it grow. 
4. Take advantage of your assets, be they natural, existing institutions or fortuitous location; as Aaron Brown notes, recreation is a bigger industry now than agriculture or mining. And...
5. Do whatever it takes to earn a reputation for openness. The next great idea might come from a Lesbian, or a Mexican immigrant, or a Muslim. If rural Iowa continues to be perceived as the last bastion of grumpy old white people, it will be irrelevant to the 21st century. 

Even a well-funded state government can't afford to buy everyone a pony, but towns can position themselves to use whatever they can get to best advantage.

SEE ALSO:
"Small Business and the Ideological Divide," 2 February 2018
"Condition of the State 2018," 10 January 2018
"Adam Smith and the Road to Correctionville," 8 March 2015 [by the way, I just found out the highway featured in this post was named to this list of top highway boondoggles of that year!]

SOURCES: I owe particular thanks to 

• Dr. Liesl Eathington at Iowa State University's Iowa Community Indicators Program. She advised and guided me through the thicket of numbers on this subject. She is, of course, not liable for what I've done with them.
• Martin Smith, faithful reader and concerned citizen, who pointed out some errors in the original version of the statistical data.

 Kaid Benfield and Lee Epstein, "The Death--and Life--of Small Town America," City Lab, 7 September 2012 [LINK IS DEAD AS OF 2023]
Paul Brennan, "Gov.Reynolds Signs So-Called 'Sanctuary Cities' Bill, Which She Says Was Aimed at 'Far-Left Liberals in Des Moines and Iowa City," Little Village, 10 April 2018
Aaron Brown, "Rise of the Rural Recreation Economy," Minnesota Brown, 25 May 2018
Russell Arben Fox, "What Do Farmers Want?" In Media Res, 6 July 2018
Dan Gilmartin and Daniel J. Hurley, "Column: Invest in Talent That Drives Economic Growth," Detroit Free Press, 25 January 2018
Phil McCausland, "Rural Communities See Big Returns with Broadband Access, But Roadblocks Persist," NBC News, 11 June 2018
Bill Menner, "Rural Matters: Small Town Voters are Looking for Big Ideas in 2018," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 24 June 2018
Erin Murphy, "New Laws Affect Drunken Driving, Opioid Abuse," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 1 July 2018, 1A, 11A

SOME DATA (I have wads more if anyone would like to see it):

	IOWA	10 COUNTIES (PCTG)	REST OF STATE
Population 2017 (1)	3,145,711	1,637,905 (52.1)	1,507,806
Pop Growth 10-17 (1)	98,842	124,192 (125.6)	(25,350)
Jobs 2016 (2)	2,076,231	1,171,595 (56.4)	904,636
Job Growth 10-16 (2)	124,298	92,644 (74.5)	31,654
Migration 10-17 (1)	24,342	55,513 (228.1)	(31,171)
Age 25-44 2017 (3)	761,908 (24.2)	431,533 (56.6)	330,375
% Bachelor’s Degree or Higher 2016 (3)	25.7	33.1	18.8
% Grad/Prof Degree 2016 (3)	8.0	10.9	5.2
Federal Personal Benefits 2016 (4)	$25,206,000	$11,813,000 (46.9)	$13,393,000
Federal Awards (5)	$22,500,000	$10,551,000 (46.9)	$11,949,000

NOTE: The "ten counties " in the table include the eight that contain the central cities of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (Black Hawk, Dubuque, Johnson, Linn, Polk, Scott, Story, Woodbury); Pottawattamie County (Council Bluffs) in the Omaha MSA; and largely-suburban Dallas County. "Rest of State" is comprised of the remaining 89 counties.

(1) U.S. Bureau of the Census, “American Factfinder: Iowa (P1, S0701),” Dubuque County, Iowa - Census Bureau Profile

(2) U.S. Bureau of Economic Affairs, "Total Full-Time and Part-Time Employment by Industry (CAEMP25N)," BEA : Regional Data Table Availability
(3) Iowa Community Indicators Program, Iowa State University

·         “Educational Attainment of the Adult Population,” https://www.icip.iastate.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/tables/education/educational-attainment.xls

·         “Population in Selected Age Groups,” https://www.icip.iastate.edu/tables/population/age-groups

(4) “Personal Current Transfer Receipts (CAINC35),” BEA : Regional Data Table Availability
(5) USASpending.gov, “Iowa,” https://www.usaspending.gov/#/state/19

Ely (pop. 2150, up 369 since 2010) works with its proximity to Cedar Rapids and Iowa City