Revival: Americans Heading Back to the Hinterlands
Smaller communities throughout the country are poised to play an outsize role in forging our future.
This is the second of a two-part series on the Great Dispersion of Americans across the country. Read the first installment here.
The famous New Yorker magazine cover showing much of civilization ending at the Hudson River, save for Chicago, D.C., and then the West Coast, had more than a grain of truth for much of the 20th century. The term “flyover country” was not just a snobbish put-down but a reality as a handful of core cities – New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco – exerted oversized influence over America’s culture, politics, and economy, with rural communities and smaller cities playing a relatively marginal role in the national drama.
The early decades of the 21st century have altered America’s geographic reality. Moribund small cities have come back to life. Two decades ago, downtown Fargo, North Dakota, was dull and somewhat derelict. Now it boasts loft apartments, a fine boutique hotel, and a panoply of cultural attractions, including art studios and dance venues. Since 2010, about 14,000 Americans have moved to its metropolitan area. That total is small, but it reflects the experiences of many other once withering communities that are attracting people from larger urban centers. The Fargo metro area added nearly double the number of net domestic migrants as the nearest large metro area, Minneapolis-St. Paul, which is 15 times larger.
Some of this can be traced to considerably lower housing prices, which allows millennials to be on their own much earlier; only 5% of millennials in the Great Plains states live at home, less than half the percentage in California, New York, and New Jersey. It’s also a result of a new wealth created by tech, manufacturing, and other industries seeking to reduce costs in less-regulated, less expensive areas where more people are willing to relocate.
Pursuit of Happiness
The Rise of Latino America
In The Rise of Latino America, Hernandez & Kotkin argue that Latinos, who are projected to become America’s largest ethnic group, are a dynamic force shaping the nation’s demographic, economic, and cultural future. Far from being a marginalized group defined by oppression, Latinos are integral to America’s story. They drive economic growth, cultural evolution, and workforce vitality. Challenges, however, including poverty, educational disparities, and restrictive policies, threaten their upward mobility. Policymakers who wish to harness Latino potential to ensure national prosperity and resilience should adopt policies that prioritize affordability, safety, and economic opportunity over ideological constraints.
“Project Hail Mary’s” Success: A Story You Can Believe In
The film features a weak, defeated man who turns from a coward to a hero, from selfishness to sacrifice, and from loneliness to friendship.
Is America Good Enough for Wendell Berry?
Genuine traditions and stories can prevent their inheritors from recklessly chasing the future simply because it’s the next thing.
Rediscovering History as the Story of Liberty
History can be a way to center ourselves today and renew the institutions and beliefs that are central to that history and its legacy.
James Q. Wilson and the Crisis of Our Time
"When we profess to believe in deterrence and to value justice, but refuse to spend the energy and money required to produce either, we are sending a clear signal that we think that safe streets, unlike all other great public goods, can be had on the cheap."
